by Lia Riley
He sat beside her. “I can explain—”
She held up a hand. “It’s fine. Good, even. I’m happy for you.” The last thing she wanted to hear trapped in this floating coffin was an awkward letdown. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Don’t I?” His voice held a husky edge.
The boat rolled again, the hull creaking. This time she barely registered the motion. A body could hold only so much emotion. The gaze locked on her face was making her want to scream.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
He made a helpless gesture and leaned forward as if to stand, then snapped his head back.
“This.” He grabbed her in his arms, and his mouth found hers right as the boat rolled on another breaker. They went flying back onto the mattress.
His lips tasted like butterscotch, and he braced his weight, holding himself over her like a shelter. She got an overwhelming feeling of safety even as his kisses were more dangerous by the second.
“I can’t be near you and not do this,” he growled into her mouth.
But she’d as soon explain quantum physics than unravel the mystery that unfolded here in this dark, tight space where the world contracted to urgent fumbling and uncertain hands entwining.
His fingers laced with hers, and as he drew them up and over her head, she arched her back. Her bathing suit was a vintage one-piece. When she’d fallen, her legs had splayed, and he was there between them. The flimsy material of her suit wasn’t doing much to mask his need.
He shifted, deepening the kiss in a way that got her responding on instinct.
“I have to stop,” he ground out. “Or in another three seconds I’m going to have you out of that suit while there are three people above deck.”
Tuesday’s stomach coiled. Her thighs clenched. Her ancient fight-or-flight response was short-circuited by an even more ancient “fuck me now” primal reaction.
She needed to manage this mad desire for Beau. She also needed to set up auto-bill pays and start going to bed at a more reasonable time.
She’d get on top of all that…tomorrow.
They had to stop. He was right. She had to stop. Otherwise they’d get caught, and neither one of them wanted to face interrogation about whatever was between them.
Because then it would be real.
But…
Right now she wanted to be nothing more than the woman in the red-and-white polka-dot bathing suit getting ravished on a boat. Every part of her body, down to a cellular level, hungered for more.
She worked his shirt from his pants. He sucked in as she explored the hard planes of muscle so different from her own soft landscape. A whorl of thick hair trailed to his navel. She dragged a finger over it, savoring the coarseness.
He broke the kiss and looked down, filling her vision, his belly trembling. She kept exploring. Good Lord. No sign of give anywhere on these abs.
“You aren’t ticklish?” Her batted eyes matched her teasing tone.
“Not there.” He toyed with the strap to her suit. Not yanking it down, just a subtle tug, a reminder that he could.
“Tuesday! Tuesday!” Flick called from the stairs. “Look! Come look! You have to see! It’s amazing!”
Beau was off of her so fast it was as if she’d hallucinated the whole thing except her palms were still warm from his heat.
She sat and reached for her glasses. They’d come off the top of her head and were lying on the bed. “Coming!”
His neck muscles corded. “I’ll need a minute.”
She returned to the deck, smoothing the muss from her hair, and did her best to ignore Pepper’s questioning stare and Rhett’s secretive smile.
“Hurry! Hurry!” Flick jumped up and down as a dolphin pod skimmed the bow wave. Their silver fins knifed the water, and she’d put her hand on a Bible and swear they were smiling.
Her gaze connected with Flick’s just as a dolphin breached and sent a spray of water directly into the girl’s face.
“Oh my gosh,” Pepper said, passing over a beach towel. “You’re soaked.”
“It’s all good.” Flick wiped her face. Most of her thick eye makeup came off, and without it she looked younger, like a regular kid.
“What did I miss?” Beau took in Flick’s drenched condition. His playful tone did a good job of not sounding forced.
The girl responded by giggling and swatting him with a towel.
“You did not just do that.” He opened a seat bench and pulled out a Super Soaker water gun. “Do you know who you are messing with?”
“Arm yourself.” Rhett tossed Flick a water gun of her own, and the two of them went at it, scampering around the boat taking potshots.
A pelican flock dipped into view, their V-line formation kissing the horizon, which Tuesday didn’t need to focus on as she no longer felt sick. Instead, with her lips swollen from kisses and the wind teasing her hair, Flick had gotten it right.
Everything was all good.
Chapter Twenty-One
Toots looked up from what appeared to be reheated biscuits and gravy in the Happily Ever After staff break room. “How’s lobbying going, Princess?”
“The Letter to the Editor booth we installed for the visitors is making an impression in the Examiner,” she said. “It’s good to open a dialogue. Conversations have the power to change the world.” At least according to the dog-eared library books she was reading.
“Talk’s cheap. Do we have a new lease? No.” Mean Gene shoved an overstuffed tuna salad sandwich into his mouth, answering his rhetorical question with a grim finality.
“Have you guys heard about the norovirus outbreak in South Carolina?” Lettie Sue held up a copy of yesterday’s paper. “It says Georgia is at risk.”
“We’re always at risk for something.” Z-Man plucked off his red rubber nose and reclined in his seat, clasped his hands over his polka-dot chest, and closed his eyes. Within five seconds his breathing changed. Seriously. Was it really possible to fall asleep like that?
“Have you had more face time with Mayor Marino?” Gil asked.
Tuesday clamped her throat to prevent a nervous giggle. Sucking-face time.
So she had a kissing problem with Beau. So what?
So she was supposed to be a professional and these people were counting on her to save not only their livelihood but also their quirky way of life. And kissing wasn’t going to get Beau to take her seriously. Nope. Kissing was a surefire way to send him running in the opposite direction. Frustration tightened her jaw. What if she was messing up everything, getting into bed with the potential enemy—literally?
These people trusted her. They needed her to be more than a princess kissing frogs, indulging in romance.
Except Beau didn’t feel like a frog. Nope. Not even remotely amphibian. Her heart thudded extra hard on the next beat. In fact, the mayor seemed to live up to his reputation as the Prince of Everland.
But this was the real world, not a fairy tale, and while she was in the business of playing make-believe, she needed to be a realist.
“You can bend his ear at the Fall Ball tonight,” Caroline said.
“The ball?” Tuesday stared around the table at their expectant expressions. “Should I be going to this ball?”
Their faces collectively fell. Mean Gene muttered something about this being amateur hour, but his mouth was too full of food to make clear sense.
“It’s an event. Scratch that. It’s the event of the season.” Toots blotted her lips with a napkin. “All the Everland movers and shakers go to the Fall Ball. It’s held every year at the Ye Olde Carriage House over on Forever Lane.”
“And I’m supposed to be moving and shaking?”
“In fairness, tickets are harder to come by than hens’ teeth,” Lettie Sue said, folding the paper.
“You can bet Discount-Mart will have a rep there.” Gil’s expression twisted with worry.
“Count on it,” Mean Gene muttered.
Tuesday ground her knees beneath her vol
uminous skirts. Gene was right; she was an amateur scouring library books in the hopes of figuring out how to be a lobbyist. She was a joke, except when she failed no one would be laughing.
It wasn’t funny that Happily Ever After counted on her.
“Well, even if I did manage to magically procure a ticket from a hat, I have nothing to wear.” She plucked at her dress with a self-deprecating laugh. “The under-ten crowd might think this look is fancy, but it’s not going to impress actual bigwigs.”
“I possess a ticket.” A quavering accent broke through the chatter. All heads turned in unison to regard Madam Magna in the doorway.
“You?” Tuesday asked. “How?”
Madam Magna flicked away the question with a twist of her gnarled hand. “I give it to you on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Tuesday asked.
“Clever girl.” Madam Magna smiled. “Never agree to anything before hearing terms.” She shuffled closer. “I give you ticket, but only if you wear this.” She reached into her robes and removed a gold chain, the emerald stone winking in the light. “Is lucky charm.” Magna set down her necklace and the ticket. “But get no ideas. You return it to me tomorrow.”
“How did you of all people finagle a ticket?” Mean Gene asked.
Madam Magna shrugged, privately amused. “I know people who know people.”
“Well, hot digging dog!” Gil slapped the table. “Our princess is off to the ball.”
“Wait. There’s still the small matter of my wardrobe deficit?” Tuesday said. “I own sundresses, not dressy gowns.”
“Why, I know just the thing.” Lettie Sue piped up. “I was a bridesmaid a few years back for my cousin in Virginia Beach, a real fancy affair. You’re taller, but we look about the same size. I’m sure the dress will fit you.”
“And I’m a whiz at hair,” Toots said.
“We’ve got ourselves a plan,” Gil said.
There was a thud and a snort as Z-Man startled awake, his front chair legs hitting the linoleum. “What did I miss?”
Mean Gene picked up his rubber nose and lobbed it square between his eyes.
And so, after a busy day at work, Tuesday ended up in Toots’s well-kept mobile home surrounded by the other park staff.
“You sure I don’t look like an eggplant?” she asked, flouncing the plum-colored skirt. She could play an amusement-park princess, but a calm, cool lobbyist was a whole new role and no fake British accent would help lend her credibility.
Her coworkers stared. If they laughed, she’d call the whole thing off.
“You look beautiful,” Gil said. “You’re going to charm the pants off everyone there.”
Tuesday resisted the urge to bite her nails. To add fuel to the fire, Beau Marino would certainly be in attendance, and the idea of him without pants made her one part excited and two parts house-on-fire panicked.
“I hope I make you guys proud,” she whispered. She didn’t feel elegant or smart or capable of witty banter. She wasn’t even sure if she’d know anyone there. Pepper and Rhett had gone on a romantic sailing getaway off the Carolina coast for the weekend. This meant it was she alone, on her own two legs, to sink or swim. Everyone counted on her, and there was no fairy godmother or friendly woodland animals waiting in the wings to help her out in a pinch. She could win the day or be an epic fail.
Her stomach muscles squeezed. Apparently responsibility was a nauseous feeling.
“The green from the necklace brings out the rosy color in your cheeks,” Lettie Sue said before two furrows appeared between her brows. “Or do you have a fever? Is there a thermometer in here, Toots?”
“I’m fine, but late. I need to go.” Tuesday reached for her purse. Waiting only increased her nerves. “Hey, and lucky me.” She pointed through the bay window to her car parked out front. “I already own a Pumpkin.”
As she exited the trailer, she squeezed Madam Magna’s necklace while offering up a small prayer that the old woman’s mumbo jumbo was grounded in some sort of reality.
In the absence of fairy dust, she’d need any luck that fate could scrape together.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beau’s shoulders flexed in his grandfather’s classic fifties-era tuxedo. Hard to derive pleasure from the simple, elegant cut tonight. Not while the top of Humph’s shiny bald head kept popping up around the venue like a damn Whac-A-Mole game. It looked like Miller had secured three Fall Ball tickets for Discount-Mart associates, and together they’d worked the room like circling sharks. There wasn’t a hand that remained unshaken.
Donna from the Tourism Commission was here, too, and the trick was keeping the two camps apart. All he needed was for Humph and his pals to discuss reneging the park lease and throwing up discount chains and bargain outlets as he tried to talk up the town’s historic commitment. He straddled the fence here, but there was no telling which way the wind would blow, and he needed to ensure Everland sailed smoothly through any choppy waters.
The noise in the room dropped a few decibels. Beau glanced around, not seeing a reason for the hush until his gaze swung to the stairs and vertigo took hold.
Tuesday.
His heart threatened to make a hasty exit from his chest. She looked…There weren’t words.
Damn. A realization crashed through him. This woman might be unsuitable, but she was it for him. He wanted to know everything about her, from her favorite color to food to song. He’d watch every romantic comedy ever made if it meant sitting beside her on the couch. He would never eat the popcorn-flavored Jelly Bellies, but he’d pick them out of the jar and feed them to her one by one, regretting nothing.
She caught his awestruck stare, and the same heat that flushed across her cheeks spread down his ribs.
“Excuse me,” he said to whoever he’d been speaking to. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting closer to Tuesday.
Which proved extraordinarily difficult because the crowd ebbed and flowed, blocking her from view. Everywhere he went people wanted to have a moment of her time. Ask a question or share a joke or suggestion. As soon as he got close to her, she was whisked someplace else.
Everyone wanted to talk to her, to compliment her dress, her hair. The women wanted to be her, and the men—shit, from the covetous look in their eyes, they wanted to be in her.
Gunner from Mad Dawgs monopolized her for a second dance. His hand crept down her back like a reverse Itsy Bitsy Spider. Beau’s fingers twitched with the urge to stride over and tie the dude’s arms into pretzel-like knots.
What the hell? He’d never been one to ’roid rage or puff up like an alpha dog and fight. He preferred to keep his unshakable cool, calm demeanor, and found it wielded a more effective power.
“Lovely, isn’t she?” A soft voice penetrated his mental fog.
Beau glanced down, and there was Donna smiling like a silver-haired elf. The top of her head barely reached his biceps.
She inclined her head toward Tuesday. “You haven’t taken your eyes off her since she entered the ballroom.”
“I…” He had nothing. She’d busted him fair and square.
“Moving on is hard,” she told him. “A man from church asked me to coffee last week, and instead I drove to the cemetery and cried for an hour. But even as I did, some part of me recognized that I won’t say no forever. We’re human, and need companionship. It’s a basic need, like air or water. You won’t be betraying your wife’s memory.”
Guilt steamrolled his lungs, made breathing a joke. This kindhearted woman intended nothing but sympathy. She thought they were equals, compatriots in grief. She didn’t know the last words Jacqueline had said to him.
Staying in this marriage would be worse than death. I hate you.
He’d never wanted her to get her wish. But he couldn’t change what happened next.
He hadn’t stopped her from leaving. He’d watched coldhearted as she’d climbed off his boat, swinging her small red suitcase. He hadn’t known she was already packing off t
o a new lover, but if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. His heart had broken long before that deceptively cheerful sunny day.
Not even Rhett knew the whole toxic tale of his marriage because the details were fucking awful and the dead shouldn’t be held accountable to the worst version of themselves. So he’d played the role of the mourning husband at her funeral, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her parents. They’d never questioned why she was with another man. He knew they knew. They knew he knew.
What more was there to say? And in those weeks and months after her death, he’d been so fucking shut down that he’d never challenged the version of events that had spread through the town like wildfire. By the time he stepped out of the fog, a sanitized version of the story had become real. Everyone wanted him to live the lie; it was easier for them that way. He hooked a hand around the back of his neck, kneading corded muscles.
But he hadn’t gotten off easy. While the world might give him sympathy, at night the parting words of his wife clanged through his skull like a malicious bell.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
He couldn’t tell that truth, and so the silence had grown and grown like a thick wall of thorns, until he’d been choked from the light. Then Tuesday had lit up his world with the megawatt intensity of the Las Vegas power grid, a fireball, a solar flare. When he closed his eyes, she remained imprinted on the back of his lids.
He knew he wanted that woman more than his next breath. But he’d tried being with someone so different before. And how did it end?
I hate you.
I. Hate. You.
But once upon a time, long, long ago, there had been love, or at least infatuation, and a fascination over their mutual differences. But the edges where they were different had never snapped together. Instead, they’d rubbed and rubbed, grating the other until they were both left cut, raw, and bloody.
A glass pressed into his hand. He glanced down at the sweet tea Donna offered.
“You’re peaked. Drink.” She used the same tone Mama did at times. The one that didn’t allow for a lick of dissent.