by V. K. Sykes
Okay, that at least made sense. Though the proposal still didn’t appeal to him, every instinct told him to help her out. “Morgan, I can do basic labor, but if you’re looking for skilled work . . .”
He didn’t finish, because Morgan flashed him a wide, sweet smile that thumped him hard. That smile, so genuine and open, had always done it for him.
“Oh, don’t be so modest,” she said. “Everybody on the island knows you’re great with tools.”
Great with an M4 or an HK416, maybe. Just okay with a hammer.
Ryan wasn’t sure if her remark contained any additional meaning but swore there was a glint of mischief in her eyes. He decided not to go there right now. “What do you need help with?”
“I think the better question would be what don’t I need help with.” She exhaled a sigh. “Right now I’ve got to deal with the immediate problem of a leaky roof on top of dozens of small jobs that need to be done. I’ve been planning on asking Brendan Porter to do some of the work, but he’s always so busy. Besides if I could get it done via a . . . a barter arrangement . . . I wouldn’t have to shell out money I can’t really afford.”
Ryan sure hadn’t planned on spending his time on the island doing handyman work. But how could he leave one of his oldest friends in the lurch? And from the anxious look on her face, he could tell it had practically killed her to ask. While she’d tried to sweeten the proposal by offering him a free room, saving money wasn’t the issue for him. What mattered was that someone he cared about needed help during a rough time.
And since help was something the resolutely independent Morgan Merrifield rarely sought, that told him how rough things must be for her.
“Okay, I should be able to handle that kind of job—if I can do it in bits and pieces and still get in my kayaking and other stuff.” Stuff like maintaining his intensive daily workouts so he didn’t get soft and slow. “But you don’t have to give me anything at all. I’ll do it to help out a pal.”
She twisted her mouth sideways and then shook her head. “No, I can’t let you do all that work for nothing. If you don’t want a room, then we’ll just have to agree on an hourly rate. I won’t have you working for free. I’m touched by your offer, but I just can’t allow it.”
Morgan’s body language and the conviction in her voice told Ryan she meant what she said. So what now? She was clearly hard up for money, while he was pretty flush. So it would make no sense for her to pay him wages for his work. That wasn’t a realistic option. Nor was working for free. He totally got what she was saying about that—it would eat away at her pride and maybe even end up damaging a friendship that he truly valued.
Would it kill him to stay for a couple of weeks at the B&B? The handyman chores shouldn’t take longer than that. And who knew if he could even find a decent rental house anyway? Until he found a place, Golden Sunset would be preferable to living in his parents’ cramped house.
Stop trying to kid yourself, you moron.
He knew the biggest reason he shouldn’t take a room at the inn was Morgan. He’d been stifling his lust for her for years, and after the slip last summer, he knew he had to be extra careful. He had to keep some space between them, and that would be pretty damn hard if they were sleeping under the same roof, wouldn’t it?
He should dig in his heels and say no to the room and no to accepting any money from her either. She’d have to accept help on his terms, or there would be none. That was the smart way to handle it.
Stupidly, Ryan found himself saying the opposite. “Okay, I guess I could stay at your place for a little while. Just long enough to get most of the work done.”
Her head jerked a bit, as if she was surprised. Then she held out her hand. “Deal, dude. And thank you.”
Morgan should be happy. She was happy. Then why did her stomach feel like it was doing cannonballs off a high dock?
The answer was obvious. Ryan Butler was a very dangerous man. Until last year, she’d firmly stashed him in a mental box labeled totally off-limits. It sounded silly, but to her, Ryan was almost a James Bond or Jason Bourne type of guy, a crazy-hot mystery man who did wild, top secret stuff he never talked about. He acted like a normal guy when he was home, except for the sky-high emotional walls he’d erected around himself. Ryan never talked about himself or his life. If that didn’t spell danger, she didn’t know what did.
And now she’d flat-out invited Mr. Sexy Mystery Man into her life. Into her home.
“For goodness’ sake, Morgan, why didn’t you put all that stuff in cargo?” Julia Butler asked after she finally relaxed the fierce squeeze she’d put on her son. They stood in the center of the dock as disembarking passengers parted like a wave and flowed around them.
Ryan grinned. “Because our girl had to do a forty-yard dash to make the boat, Mom. The boat crew got the gangway back in place real fast though. It looked to me like those guys knew they’d be in deep trouble if they didn’t.”
Morgan stuck her tongue out at him. “No, they did it because they’re nice young men. Oh, and because I always slip them a good tip when they cut me a break.”
Julia’s eyes twinkled behind her wire-framed glasses. “You always were a very practical girl, Morgan.”
“Glaring at the crew has always worked for me,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, but I’m not some six-four, jacked hunk who looks like he was carved out of a granite cliff,” Morgan scoffed.
Ryan’s dark brows politely arched up, while his mother’s eyes popped wide. Morgan mentally winced.
“Ah, I hope business is getting better at the B&B,” Julia finally said into the awkward pause. “How’s it looking for the Fourth?”
The July Fourth celebrations in Seashell Bay brought boatloads of visitors. The B&B had always been fully booked during the holiday when her dad was in charge.
Not this year.
“We’ve still got some space, Mrs. Butler,” Morgan said. “We usually get some last-minute bookings, so I’m hopeful we’ll fill up.”
“Let’s load up your stuff,” Ryan said. “You’ll need to get that beer in the fridge soon.”
When the three of them reached the parking lot, Julia took Ryan’s duffel and headed off to her car, an ancient Jeep Cherokee even more rusted than most of the island beaters. After Morgan opened the tailgate of her dad’s red Toyota pickup, Ryan helped her get everything stowed.
He opened the driver’s door and handed her inside. “I’ll talk to Mom about our arrangement later,” he said after she rolled down the window. “I didn’t want to spring it on her here.”
“Sure.”
“She’s obviously not going to be thrilled that I won’t be staying with her and Dad,” he said.
“Well, take your time. Your room at the B&B will be ready for you whenever you want to move in. In fact, you can have a choice.” He’d be staying in the main house while her bedroom was in the attached annex. Though that wouldn’t put much distance between them, every little bit helped. “You can have the biggest one we’ve got. We usually reserve that room for families—”
“Morgan, all I need is a bed and a closet,” Ryan interrupted, leaning on the window frame and looking impossibly tough and handsome. Her heart skipped a few beats just looking at him. “Big and fancy are wasted on me.”
She laughed. “Well, none of our rooms are very big, and we definitely don’t do fancy at Golden Sunset Bed-and-Breakfast.”
She didn’t often refer to the B&B by name because she hated “Golden Sunset.” While the sunset view from the inn was often spectacular, she thought the name made it sound like a retirement home. Morgan still hoped to adopt a fresher label, but her sister was balking. Sabrina’s greatest desire was for everything to stay the same. Change—almost any change—filled her with anxiety.
“I’ll spend tonight with my folks,” Ryan said, “and tomorrow morning we can start by going over what you want done. How’s that work for you?”
Fantastic—if this plan doesn’t bl
ow up in my face. “Sounds perfect. You can’t believe how much I appreciate this, Ryan.”
He shook his head. “It’s no big deal. Is eight o’clock too early?”
“Absolutely not. Sabrina gets breakfast started by six, and I’m usually in the kitchen helping her by six thirty. You like omelets?”
His lips curved into a sexy grin that left her short of breath. “I’ll eat anything that isn’t still moving.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Please, spare me the detail. Eight o’clock tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, it should be . . . interesting.”
After that cryptic comment, Ryan gave the roof of her truck a tap and headed off across the lot.
In her rearview mirror, Morgan watched him all the way to his mom’s Jeep before she finally put her truck in gear. Ryan Butler was hands-down the hottest man she’d ever known, and starting tomorrow night, he’d be sleeping under her roof.
That evening, Morgan wheeled past the Doyle home and trap lot and up the long driveway to Lily’s place. A sunset glow washed over the jumble of lobster traps, buoys, coils of rope, and the large steel shed that served as Lily’s workshop for repairing equipment.
She parked in front of the two-bedroom cottage Lily had built a few years ago at the back of her father’s acreage. The house was cozy as heck, with its wood-burning stove and warm, comfortable furnishings. Morgan had wonderful memories of countless meals and bottles of wine with her best bud here. In this cottage, they’d shared joy and heartbreak, and joked about island life and the trials of finding a suitable mate in Seashell Bay.
Surprisingly, Lily had finally found her true love among one of the island guys—Aiden Flynn, who had left Seashell Bay at eighteen and returned only a year ago. Soon, Lily and Aiden would be married, and the newlyweds would move into the historic Flynn family home on the other side of the island.
Lily threw open the screen door. “The beer is cold, the coffee’s warm, and Mom stocked me up with fresh-baked blueberry tarts this morning.”
Morgan gave her best friend a quick hug. “Oh, please. I gain a pound every time I even take a look at those darn tarts.”
“After what you said on the phone, I’m guessing you’ll take beer, not coffee,” Lily said as she headed back to the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. Her bare feet and damp, curling hair meant she’d already showered after a hard day of hauling lobster traps.
“Yeah, like, move over coffee because this is a job for alcohol.”
They settled in the living room, where Morgan took an overstuffed armchair and Lily sprawled on the sofa, putting her feet up on the battered wooden coffee table. After taking a hefty sip of her Shipyard Ale for courage, Morgan told her about meeting Ryan on the ferry.
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell Aiden he’d be staying so long this time,” Lily said. “Not that Ryan is ever a fount of information.”
“No kidding. At least he told me a bit about what he’s been up to lately. He’s with some private military contractor now.”
“Really? Doing what? Chasing terrorists? Saving the world from an alien invasion?”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Aiden’s got you playing too many video games. No, he’s been protecting diplomats and corporate bigwigs in foreign countries. I did a search for the company, Double Shield, when I got home.”
“Wait, you did an Internet search on Ryan? Seriously?”
“Yeah, busted.”
Lily laughed. “Oh, well, you could always make it your summer project to find out everything he’s been up to, I suppose. If anybody can probe that man’s defenses, it’s you. Especially after what happened between you guys at—”
“I prefer not to be reminded of that particular descent into insanity,” Morgan interjected. “It was a momentary aberration due to stress and alcohol.”
“Uh-huh. You stick with that story if it makes you feel better, girlfriend.”
Morgan tossed a throw pillow at Lily.
“Are you going to assault me or get on with it?” Lily said, after deftly catching the pillow. “There are some juicy bits, right? I bet all that wicked chemistry between you is still front and center.”
Off the charts. But Morgan wasn’t yet ready to admit that. “Ryan doesn’t want to stay with his folks, so he’s going to try to rent a house.”
Lily smirked at the dodge but let it go. “That makes sense, though he must be forgetting how busy it is here in the summer.”
“I told him he’d have trouble.” Morgan tried to sound casual. “So I offered him one of the empty rooms at the B&B for a while. For free, of course. Just to help out a friend.”
Lily set down her beer. “Uh, well, that was certainly kind of you. Probably not the smartest move you’ve ever made but definitely kind.”
If there was one thing Morgan could always count on with Lily—though actually there were a lot of things she could count on—it was the unvarnished truth.
“It seemed to make sense in the moment,” Morgan said. “You know how much work needs to be done, and I’m so strung out financially that I can’t really afford to pay a carpenter or handyman to do it all.”
“And what did Ryan say after he picked himself up off the deck of the boat?”
Morgan waggled a hand. “He agreed, eventually. I insisted that he either had to take the room or I had to pay him for his work. I’m not about to take advantage of the guy that way.”
Though I’d like to take advantage of Ryan Butler in a bunch of other ways. Oh, yes, I would.
“So when does he move in?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Mother Mary. Well, at least he’ll be sleeping upstairs in one of the guest rooms, not right next to you in the annex. Temptation will still be close though.”
“I’ll be sure to keep my bedroom door locked in case he comes down to the kitchen for a midnight snack and gets lost,” Morgan said.
Lily laughed. “Look, I totally get why you’re doing this, but if the shoe were on the other foot, you’d be giving me holy hell. You were like a mama bear from the moment you got a sniff of something starting to happen between Aiden and me.”
Morgan didn’t buy that comparison. “Not the same, Lily. You’d been in love with Aiden since forever, so I thought you’d get really hurt when he went back to his life in baseball. But all I’ve ever had for Ryan was some . . . uh, well, let’s call it hormone-related interest.”
“Had? Past tense? Hey, sweetie, you can’t fool me.”
“Okay, so maybe I do still have a certain lust for his fine form. But it’s not like I’d be courting a broken heart. It won’t happen, because Ryan and I are totally different.”
Lily lifted an eyebrow. “How so, exactly?”
“Well, what do we have in common? Nada, other than this island. And when it comes to Seashell Bay, Ryan steers clear of the place except for a few days a year, while I come home every chance I get. That’s a pretty fundamental difference, don’t you think?”
“That sounds like what I said about Aiden and me,” Lily said drily. “And I still remember how you called bullshit.”
“Okay then, how about the fact that he spends his life toting a gun? You know how I feel about the gun culture, Lily. And while I support our troops, I don’t think war is a good answer to anything.”
“Forgive me for harping on the same theme,” Lily said, “but Aiden and I don’t exactly see eye to eye on a lot of issues either. And yet our differences have a funny way of seeming totally insignificant when he’s got his arms around me. Or when he’s making my life easier in a thousand ways.”
“Did you just change your tune from a minute ago? I know you’re desperate to get me married off now that you’ve hooked Aiden, but really . . .” She gave Lily a wink in case there was even a remote chance her pal would think she was serious.
Lily pointed an accusatory finger. “Hey, if a little carefree sex was all there was to it, I’d be thrilled for you. But you know it won’t stop at that, and you will ge
t hurt. Not because you and Ryan are so different, but because I don’t see Mr. Tall, Dark, and Loner settling down anytime soon, if ever. And not around here, that’s for sure.”
Morgan had the urge to hunch her shoulders. “You think I should withdraw the offer?”
Lily paused and then said, “What does Sabrina think about it?”
“She was leery at first, which didn’t surprise me. But once I went through all the work we needed done and how much money Ryan could save us, she was okay.”
“Sabrina appreciates everything you’re doing,” Lily said. “She understands how hard it was for you to leave your job and come home. It was a huge act of love on your part, Morgan.”
“Love and guilt.” Morgan hated that she still struggled to come to terms with her messed-up feelings about her dad, Sabrina, and the B&B. It was like an anchor strapped to her chest. “And my sister isn’t nearly as positive about it when she’s talking to me.”
Lily shook her head. “Enough with the guilt trip, you. Cal had no right to expect you to give up your career and come running back after your mom died. Especially not when he had Sabrina to help him.”
Morgan grimaced. “But you remember how devastated he was. Losing Mom made him think he couldn’t run the place by himself. And Sabrina was an even bigger mess than he was after Mom died, so that weighed on him too. Dad pulled it together over time, but he never stopped needing my help. I let him down, Lily.”
“Oh, bullshit. The B&B is still alive and kicking.”
“Alive but hardly kicking. Anyway, he made me promise that, if anything ever happened to him, I’d take care of Sabrina. And he meant making sure the B&B would be there for her. If it were just up to me, I’d try to sell the place while it’s still got some loyal clients. If it keeps going downhill, it isn’t going to be worth much in a sale, and then we’ll be in real trouble.”
Still, she hated the idea of selling, because it would mean she’d failed her father and her sister again.
“You think the money you’ll save from Ryan’s work will be a significant help?” Lily asked.
“Define significant. I have very little savings left, and the bank won’t extend Golden Sunset’s credit. So unless I get the work done free or on the cheap, the place is going to start looking even more like an old shack.” She hated that idea too. Golden Sunset didn’t deserve such shabby treatment.