And then she grinned. Who said she couldn’t roll with the punches? With a little luck, before this was all over, she’d wind up with that devil-may-care attitude and a resilient new lease on life, too.
If her grandmother was up there somewhere, watching, Annie was sure she was nodding in approval. She gulped down the rest of her tea and said, “Come on, Lady. Let’s go stake our claim before he comes back and changes his mind.”
CHAPTER TWO
Much to Annie’s delight, the house looked exactly as it had in the photos. Throughout the interior, there were billowy white linen drapes and ivory canvas sofas and chairs interspersed with knotted pine furnishings. The kitchen, open to the living room, was done in leaden blues and greens with touches of beige—as were the bathrooms. Clean, sedate and alluring—it couldn’t have been better done if she had designed it herself.
Upstairs, the windows were open to the breeze, letting in a mix of scents—not all of them wonderful. From somewhere, the odor of sulfur—or something like it—wafted in. Two large bedrooms shared an adjoining bathroom and a sizable sitting room with French doors led to a back upper deck.
Annie chose the bedroom nearest to the inside stairs, dumping her suitcase inside the door and then changed her mind and chose the room closest to the sitting room and deck—in case of a fire. Since the door downstairs would be locked, it might be better to be closer to the deck.
Good planning was the starting point to all favorable outcomes. After all, despite her grandmother’s dire warnings about living too rigidly, it was planning that had gotten her where she was in life.
And where is that? a little voice at the back of her thoughts harassed her. Alone. Great career, but no one to share the fruits of her labors. No kids. No prospects to ever have any. Her best friend was a dog. And the only family she had to speak of was gone—though certainly not forgotten.
“Thanks, Gram,” she muttered.
Obviously, there was no one else in the room. Lady, who had found herself a nice little spot beneath an open window, cocked her head and whined in answer.
Annie was never quite certain what she was responding to or how much she understood, but there was one thing she was one-hundred percent convinced of: Lady was a bright, intuitive dog. “I’m not talking to you,” she reassured, although she wasn’t sure which was more ridiculous: the fact that she was talking to a dog … or that she was arguing with a memory. Clearly, her grandmother’s provident guidance would follow her to the grave.
But that was perfectly OK, she reassured herself, because despite their extreme differences in life philosophies, Annie knew her grandmother had loved her and wanted only the best for her.
Lady abandoned her spot to follow Annie while she investigated the bathroom, then followed close at her heels as she checked drawers, closets and looked under the beds. Although she wasn’t quite ready to unpack yet, it was good to know what she was dealing with. She was trying hard to heed her grandmother’s advice, but she generally just felt better when there was a plan.
Annie, dear … you would plan your own funeral.
Annie eyed her suitcase on the way to the window. “Not today, Gram. Today, it’s all about you.”
Across the street, a single row of houses stood between her and the ocean. It was late afternoon and sunburned folks were already beginning to drag their chairs and coolers off the sand, hauling them toward parked cars on the street, although it wasn’t very crowded here at the edge of the edge of America. East Ashley officially ended about one hundred feet northeast of the house, giving way to a poorly maintained roadway that continued on to the beach. Annie could see the dunes at the end of the cracked and sprouting roadway, but not the shoreline.
She watched two children hurry behind their parents, hopping along the hot sand and tried to imagine her grandmother as a carefree child on the beach, but couldn’t quite reconcile that image with the grown-up woman who had given up so much of her life to care for her only grandchild … especially when her own son refused to do his part.
“Do as I say,” her grandmother would insist. “Not as I do.”
Annie sucked in a breath and walked away, setting the curtain free to dance in the breeze. She couldn’t wait to feel actual sand between her toes—not the sort you bought from Home Depot in bags for some kid’s designer sandbox, but honest-to-goodness beach sand, warmed by the sun and bleached by the sea.
With Lady still at her heels, she made her way to the back deck to survey the vista. Off to the right, beyond the saltwater marshes, she spotted a Lighthouse. Although she couldn’t actually see the channel it guarded, or the salt marsh itself, she knew it was there. She didn’t need Lady’s keen sense of smell to scent water all around her. They were literally surrounded by it, from the Atlantic to the Folly River. On Google maps, Folly Beach appeared nothing more than a spit of sand attached by filaments of earth and it was easy to see why it was hailed as the Edge of America—both geographically and culturally. Crossing the bridge into Folly, you immediately shaved off fifty years of progress. Center Street, the single commercial strip in town, consisted of one and two story buildings that reminded Annie of postcards from 1950s America.
Her grandmother had truly loved this place and up until the day she died, she’d had stories to tell of her childhood on Folly. It was high time Annie saw it all for herself … before all Gram’s stories faded away—like the river apparently had.
Nipping at the inside of her lip, Annie contemplating the waterway that didn’t appear to be.
According to the map, she knew the Folly River was supposed to be right there but at the back end of the yard, alongside a weathered dock, a small boat sat anchored, nearly grounded by the low tide.
She couldn’t imagine throwing her grandmother into that trickle of water and just letting her float there in the muck.
That was a potential problem.
Considering the necessity of a Plan B, she made her way back inside, took off her shoes and placed them side by side at the foot of her bed. Uncertain whether to unpack before Mr. Heywood returned, she grabbed one of the books she’d brought and settled into one of the deep, comfy chairs on the landing to wait.
Lady sat dutifully at her feet and Annie opened her book with a contented sigh and began to read while she massaged Lady’s back with her bare toes.
She was thirty-two pages into her book with her dog stretched out at her feet when Mr. Heywood returned. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard the knock below but the sound didn’t register until he was already climbing the stairs.
Damn. She’d forgotten to lock the door.
“Hello?”
A dirty blond head emerged above the landing.
The weight of Annie’s feet prevented Lady from rising to greet him, but her golden head shot up.
James Heywood’s brows rose as he eyed Lady and belatedly, Annie realized it probably appeared she was using her dog as a footstool—and so she was—sort of. Embarrassed, she slid her feet off Lady’s back and Lady jumped up to greet him, tail wagging furiously.
“She doesn’t usually take to strangers so well,” Annie said, eyeing her dog with a bit of annoyance. She slumped down further into her chair and mentally sent out roots. If she had anything at all to say about any of this, she wasn’t budging from this chair or from this house.
He winked at her, a playful gesture that seemed to come far too easily to him. “Technically, we’re no longer strangers,” he pointed out. “It’s not just any dog who gets to see me in the buff.”
Annie’s face warmed.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice the blush that crept into her cheeks. He stopped where he stood on the stairs and took handfuls of the skin around Lady’s muzzle, massaging it thoroughly—as though he somehow knew it was her favorite way to be petted. “Pretty girl,” he cooed, shifting his gaze to Annie, lingering a long, awkward instant before returning his attention to her dog.
It was a perfectly harmless glance, but his gentle smil
e and something about the way he was stroking Lady’s fur made Annie’s face burn a little hotter.
She watched the muscles in his forearm flex while he stroked her dog and unwelcome images materialized in her head.
“What’s her name?”
“Jesus!”
His head shot up. “Jesus?”
Annie swiped her palm on her thigh. “Uh, no, Lady.”
He smiled knowingly and returned his attention to her dog.
Little doggie ho.
He spent an inordinately long time paying attention to her traitor dog, rustling her hair, massaging her, petting her, cooing to her and somehow it only served to annoy Annie all the more. Finally, he peered up at her and said, “Amazing animal. I’ve always wanted a Lab. You can see real intelligence in those big brown eyes.”
Lady wagged her tail, shamelessly loving the attention and not quite ready to be dismissed. He came all the way up the stairs, but his hand remained on the top of Lady’s head, fingers caressing and for just an instant Annie experienced a ridiculous pang of envy.
When was the last time a man had touched her so gently? Geez, her dog was getting more action than she was!
“Here you go… ” He reached out and handed her a cashier’s check. “As promised.”
Annie sat up and took the check, inspecting it. “Seriously?”
“We had a deal, right?”
“Well, yeah, but that was fast!”
“I worked it for you,” he said, winking again and before Annie could ask him if he had an affectation with his eye, he turned to leave, heading back downstairs. “You’re making out like a bandit,” he announced as he descended. “So don’t waste the entire week holed up in your room just to avoid me.” And the last thing he said before closing the door was, “Lady’s not the only one who needs a little sunshine!”
At the top of the stairs, Lady stared after him and then once the door closed she turned those big brown eyes on Annie.
Annie narrowed her eyes at her dog. “What does he know?”
Lady continued staring, those dark, soulful eyes seeming far too knowing, and Annie slammed her book shut and set it down on the armrest.
“I should have named you Benedict! Do you know who Benedict Arnold is?”
Lady whined, swishing her tail nervously on the wooden floor.
“He was a traitor,” she informed her dog. “Just like someone we know.”
Seriously, what could some guy she just met know about her outdoor habits?
On the way back from the bank, Annie kept peering into her rearview mirror to see what he saw. Her skin wasn’t exactly tawny, but she didn’t look like a vampire either. She was still bristling over the insult when she returned to the house to find him hauling a hose into the back yard. Her instinct was to keep driving, but since the road ended abruptly in approximately one hundred feet and he’d already spotted her, she didn’t intend to prove his point.
She wasn’t compelled to avoid him.
She didn’t even know him! Why on Earth would he think that? Just because he’d treated her to the full Monty didn’t mean she couldn’t be an adult and put it out of her mind.
However, the problem, precisely, was that she was an adult and it had been way too long since she’d seen a naked man—and maybe never one quite so generously endowed.
Damn it.
He stopped and waited for her to pull into the driveway and get out of the car and Lady bolted to his side the instant Annie opened the car door.
“Turncoat,” Annie muttered beneath her breath. She had no idea her sweet, loyal dog could be bought for a smile and a bowl of water!
He dropped his hose and stooped to pet Lady vigorously and Annie approached the pair, both so totally engrossed in their display of mutual affection that it seemed she was invisible.
While she watched them, she took the opportunity to study Jamie a moment. He wasn’t exactly George Hamilton either, but he was no stranger to the sun. His thin white sport shirt clung to the muscles of his chest and it was obvious he worked out. Annie was suddenly a little disconcerted by the thought of wearing her bathing suit around the house. She barely had any tummy at all, but she had never been blessed with washboard abs like the ones she was sure existed under that shirt—nor had she ever been particularly obsessed with the thought of attaining them … until this moment.
He didn’t appear to notice her, but his eyes met hers the instant she opened her mouth to call off Lady. “No trouble with the cashier’s check?”
Of course, he would have guessed she’d run straight to the bank. But then, who wouldn’t immediately cash a check for three grand? “No.”
Decorum dictated she should thank him, but Annie somewhat resented having to. By now, her grandmother would have probably dropped everything to bake him a cake and maybe even set out to buy him a few new pair of boxers—since apparently, he didn’t have enough to wear around the house. But that was the problem with guys like him; women were always scurrying to please them.
“Anyway, so thank you for being so accommodating,” she offered. “The upstairs suite is perfect.”
He stopped fondling Lady’s fur and stood. “Glad to hear! You were right, there were no rooms available.”
“You checked?”
“Just a phone call. There’s only one hotel on the Island, but I was hoping to at least give you girls a choice—ain’t gonna happen this weekend.”
Annie seemed to have a sudden persistent problem with eye contact, but he didn’t, she noticed. He held her gaze, smiling warmly and Annie forced herself not to look away, all the while fighting the urge to shield her gaze from those perceptive blue eyes. His look had that unhurried Southern aspect, lingering just an instant too long, but not long enough to signify any real interest.
Her body didn’t seem to understand that, however. She swiped her damp palms nervously on her shorts. Jesus. Why did she suddenly feel like an awkward teen?
Guys like him were typically not interested in girls like her, she reminded herself. She didn’t wear tight Gucci skirts and three-inch Manolo Blahnik heels. But he was cute. That much she would give him.
“Well … glad you’re satisfied,” he said.
Of course he was glad. She was a customer. “Yeah … well, thank you. So I guess we’ll be going.” She started away, expecting Lady to follow.
“You guys have plans?”
She turned around to find Lady lounging at his side tail wagging happily, but this time his attention was centered on Annie and there was something about the way he looked at her that sent goose bumps racing down her arms. She rubbed them absently. “Not really,” she said.
But the truth was, Annie was never without a plan. In fact, if there was one thing she had in super abundance, it was plans.
He smiled, a lazy smile that reminded her of Elvis. “Good. I thought maybe I’d ask Lady here out on a date … sort of.”
Annie’s brows collided. “You want to ask my dog on a date?”
“Of sorts. I wanted to see if it was OK to take her out on the boat. She’s a Lab—Labs are made for water.”
Something like disappointment sidled through Annie. She repeated, making sure she’d heard correctly, “You want to take my dog on your boat?”
His grin turned lopsided. “Yeah … how ‘bout it?”
Annie immediately shook her head. Sharing the house with him might necessarily have become part of her plan, but sharing her dog was not. “I … don’t know … really … she’s never been on a boat. It would be a first for her and I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Actually, it would be a first for both of them, but she wasn’t about to admit that she’d made it to thirty four without ever seeing the ocean up close.
“You can come too,” he cajoled.
The sheer ridiculousness of the conversation made Annie crack a smile. “Let me get this straight. You’re asking me to be a third wheel on your date with my dog?
He laughed, giving her a glimpse of perfectly white teeth. �
�When you put that way … yeah, I suppose I am.”
Annie just looked at him, unsure how to respond. Some part of her wanted to jump at the opportunity, but the word “yes,” stuck somewhere in her craw. It wasn’t simply fear of being out on the water for the first time it was him—something about the guy made her feel unnervingly out of control.
But he was just some dude who happened to own the house she’d rented—and it just so happened that she knew the bulge in his shorts wasn’t extra padding—nor was it a sign of his attraction. It was just his stuff completely at ease with the world—a state she was working very hard to achieve for herself.
So what harm could there be in going?
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were scared.”
Annie slid her hands into her back pockets and straightened her shoulders. She made an outraged face. “Of you?”
He grinned boyishly—except that there was nothing boyish about him and Annie had never been more aware of a man in her life. “Actually, I was thinking my boat?”
“Hah!” she exclaimed. “No boat ever gotten the best of me! Why would you think that?”
His hands went to his hips as he scrutinized her and even his stance seemed a bit of a challenge. He was back to grinning again. “So you’ve been on a boat before?”
Annie felt a little cornered, but she’d already started down this path and she wasn’t backing down. “Of course!” she lied. “Big boats. Little boats. I like boats!” she rambled nervously.
He chuckled. “Alrighty then, give me about thirty minutes to get the boat ready and come on down and prove it.”
Like furious little NASCAR drivers, nervous prickles raced down her spine. “Yeah, well …. alright. OK!”
He eyed her speculatively. “Thirty minutes,” he said, like it was a challenge that he didn’t believe she’d rise to.
“Alright! I’ll be right back,” she declared and found herself grinning stupidly as she turned to go inside.
She had no idea what had just happened, but she was pretty damned sure he’d just asked her out.
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