Meet Me at the Beach (Seashell Bay)

by V. K. Sykes

Her dismissal brought his eyebrows snapping together in a heavy scowl. He crossed his arms over his chest. She couldn’t help but notice the way his biceps bulged and remember how hard and awesome his body had felt when she’d come apart.

  Stop thinking like a horny teenager, you idiot.

  “No way,” he said in a voice she recognized. Aiden Flynn had decided to dig his heels in. “A bet is a bet, and I’m honoring mine. So spit it out. What do you want me to do?”

  She almost said, Okay, pal, you asked for it.

  But as she glared up at him, taking in how tightly wound he was, she couldn’t help thinking about how difficult his life was right now. Yes, she was mad at him—furious—but she was a big girl and she needed to suck it up. Ultimately, Aiden was always going to reject her. She knew that, and she’d still walked right into that emotional propeller, eyes wide open. So if she got shredded, that was on her not him.

  She also knew how difficult it would be for him to do what she wanted him to do. What right did she have to ask him to take on something that would bring back every rotten memory from his rotten childhood?

  “Let it go, Aiden. I can manage fine on my own.”

  He froze.

  Oops. Lily swallowed past her dry throat as she realized she’d said too much.

  Aiden gave her a brief puzzled look, but then his eyes lit with understanding. “Oh, man, I get it.” He shook his head. “Jesus, how could I have been so stupid? You need a sternman. That’s what the bet was about.”

  “Look, I’ll be okay,” she blurted out, her body hot with humiliation. How had she ever thought she could pull this idea off? She was a horrible person who would no doubt burn in hell for even coming up with it. “You don’t have to do anything.”

  Surprisingly, he pulled off a rueful smile. “I see why you were dancing around the topic all night. Of all the harebrained ideas, Lily.”

  Well, at least it didn’t sound like he hated her or wanted to toss her into the water. That was progress, she supposed.

  “I know,” she sighed. “It was a truly stupid idea that got out of hand.”

  Aiden gave a little snort that she didn’t even try to read. She just waited silently for what he would say next.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve never gone back on a bet, and I don’t plan on starting now. I’ll meet you tomorrow at sunrise, unless you want to head out even earlier.”

  Wow.

  Lily felt like she’d just been hit by a rogue wave. Given what had happened between them a few moments ago, she wasn’t even sure if she still wanted Aiden on her boat, spending long fishing days together—alone. Wouldn’t the tension between them be unbearable?

  But she badly needed a sternman. There was no doubt about that. Could they really find a way to manage this?

  “Lily, this isn’t up for debate,” Aiden said in a hard voice, taking the matter out of her hands. “Like I said, I always honor my wagers.”

  She sighed. What a freaking mess. “Sunrise will do just fine.”

  Chapter 12

  Aiden could almost imagine the poker up Lily’s butt. At the pier, in the skiff, and now aboard Miss Annie, she’d barely spoken a word. Not that he particularly felt like talking. His head ached like somebody had cranked it into a vise, the result of too much tension and too little sleep. Between his jackass father’s antics and that heart-stopping episode with Lily on the beach, he’d spent all night tossing and turning and reliving every moment—especially the one where Lily came apart in his arms.

  As he watched her guide Miss Annie out to the channel, he didn’t know whether to congratulate himself for doing the honorable thing or to kick himself for being a moron. He was leaning toward the latter, because Lily still looked incredibly hot in her no-nonsense, tight yellow T-shirt and trim-fitting jeans. Hell, she looked hot in anything, and how he was going to keep his hands to himself when they were stuck together on a freaking boat was a question for the ages.

  But he had no choice. As much as he wanted her, Aiden had jammed on the brakes before it was too late. It had been a gut instinct more than anything else, a decision made in a heartbeat. One of the hardest of his life, given what he was rejecting—Lily, half naked on the beach, soft and slick from the orgasm he’d just given her, and all his for the taking.

  Still, he’d walked away and then spent most of the night trying to figure out why.

  He didn’t much like the answer he’d come up with, but there it was—he was worried about getting too close and then having to walk away again. Not only for what it might do to her, but for what it would do to him. He had an unshakable sense that once he and Lily finally had each other, he’d never be able to let her go. And that would never work, because she would never leave the island and he would never stay. It was a setup for a life of heartache and frustrated promises.

  “We need to take on bait,” she said curtly, not looking back at him as he stood at the stern rail. She nodded to the northeast channel where, through the dissipating mist, Aiden spotted the bait smack moored at a floating platform. Miss Annie’s diesel hummed contentedly as she cut through the light chop. The weather had turned overcast, and a stiffening breeze from the east blew Lily’s hair around her face. She looked focused and in complete control.

  “I can hardly wait,” Aiden muttered in response to her comment.

  He knew all about refilling bait bags from years on his dad’s boat, and it sucked. All bait smelled bad, but unless it was perfectly fresh it could stink to high heaven. That was why he’d worn Bram’s old oil gear this morning—orange Grundéns pants held up by suspenders, the bib halfway up his chest. They’d be hot later in the day, but they’d keep the slime off and could be easily washed with the deck hose at the end of the day.

  “Are people here still using fresh herring?” he asked.

  “We mostly use pogies these days.”

  “How much does a barrel go for now?” he asked, trying to get her talking. As pissed as she was at him, surely she couldn’t give him the cold shoulder forever. Hell, he was the one who should be mad, given how she’d snookered him into this job.

  “About 130 bucks, give or take.”

  “Wow,” Aiden said, surprised at how much prices had gone up from his lobstering days. “How many traps will that cover?”

  “Depends. Maybe a couple of hundred. We’ll get two barrels.”

  “You’re planning on hauling four hundred traps?” That was a crapload for one day.

  She finally turned a bit to look at him. “You don’t think you can handle that, Mr. Big Shot?”

  Oh, yeah. Still pissed.

  Aiden could handle four hundred, all right. He’d done it before. But at 120 pounds soaking wet, would Lily be up to that many? The captain worked as hard as the sternman, unless that captain happened to be Sean Flynn on his bad days. But questioning either Lily’s commitment or her physical stamina was a fast road to trouble.

  Still, he hated that she pushed so hard. “How many have you been hauling on your own?”

  She gave a little shrug and turned away from him. “Two hundred on a really good day. I need to catch up or I’ll drown in all the red ink.”

  Given the grim tone to her voice, he decided to let it go.

  Lily eased the boat alongside the platform, close to the blue-and-white smack. A big, muscular guy with long, black hair and tattoo-covered arms waved at Lily as one of his crew grabbed the mooring ropes and tied them to platform cleats. Took a moment, but Aiden finally recognized the tattooed guy. Billy Paine. Or, as Aiden and his pals had called him, Billy-Pain-in-the-Ass.

  “Morning, Lil,” Billy said. “You’re looking sexy as ever today.”

  Aiden rolled his eyes. It was clear that Billy’s I’m-God’s-gift-to-women attitude was still intact.

  “Two barrels this morning,” she said.

  Billy hooked a thumb in Aiden’s direction. “So, this is your new sternman? Trading in your Phillies uniform for Grundéns, are you, Mr. Famous Athlete? That must be qu
ite some comedown.”

  “Stow that shit, Billy,” Lily snapped before Aiden could react. She climbed over the gunwale and onto the platform. “I’m really not in the mood for your act this morning. Just get your guys moving with the bait, okay?”

  Billy frowned but held up two fingers to one of his crewmembers. The guys got busy hooking a bait barrel onto a hoist that would swing it onboard Miss Annie.

  “I’ve got to express my appreciation, Flynn,” Billy said as he strolled over. “I’m fifty bucks up today, thanks to you.”

  Aiden gave him a stony stare, refusing to bite.

  “I bet Lily would beat you in the race,” Billy said with a smirk. “Had to give three-to-one odds to get any takers.”

  “Glad I could make your day,” Aiden replied. “But I’m curious. Do you always shoot your mouth off like this? If so, I’d be buying my bait somewhere else if I were Lily. Must get pretty boring to listen to your tired, old routine every day.”

  Billy’s grin vanished. “You know, Flynn, you’re not one of us anymore. You should watch your fucking mouth before it lands you in trouble.”

  Aiden snorted. “Really? From you?”

  Now old Billy just looked mean. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve taken a job with Lil since you don’t have one in baseball anymore. We knew that would happen soon enough. Heard your old man say so plenty of times.”

  Aiden stepped up onto the gunwale and launched himself onto the platform toward the asshole. He managed one stride before Lily jumped forward and yanked hard on his arm. He stopped, but only because he didn’t want to pull her off her feet.

  “Jesus, will you two ratchet down the bullshit?” She stepped between the two of them. “Billy, just shut up about Aiden. He’s doing me a big favor while he’s on the island, and I’m very grateful for it. Anyway, you’re the one who kept nagging me about how dangerous it was to fish alone.”

  With a sly grin, Billy planted a meaty paw on Lily’s shoulder. Aiden wanted to rip his head off.

  “Fair enough, but how about having a drink with me tonight at the Pot, Lil?” Billy said. “You and me always have a real good time, don’t we?”

  “Only in your dreams,” Lily gritted out.

  Billy laughed. “That’s my sweet Lil.”

  Aiden resisted the urge to toss the idiot into the channel, since Lily could obviously handle him.

  She stomped off to the far end of the platform and stood there with her hands on her hips. Billy picked up a clipboard and wrote out the transaction details. Finally, after a minute or two of blessed silence, the bait was onboard, the hoist was removed, and Lily was untying the mooring ropes while Aiden secured the barrels on the deck.

  “See you later, Lil,” Paine said with a suggestive smile, as Lily eased Miss Annie away.

  After Lily cleared the platform, she turned to Aiden with an apologetic grimace. “He can be such a jackass. But he’s worse today because of you. Sorry about that.”

  “No worries,” he said.

  After all, Lily had raced to his defense and put Paine in his place. Not a bad start to the day, after all.

  Lily could not afford to worry about the screwed-up state of affairs with Aiden. Hauling traps was a dangerous business, even in good weather and seas. It was too easy to get sloppy, doing the same thing day after day. One mental slip, and the next thing you knew, your hand was caught in a pot hauler or in tangled ropes, and a few bloody fingers would end up flopping onto the deck.

  Or you could space out thinking about anything from the price of fuel to the origin of the universe, blissfully unaware that pot warp was coiling around your foot as traps hurtled over the side of the boat. A moment later you’d be overboard and in a life-and-death struggle to cut yourself free as the weighted traps dragged you down to the ocean floor.

  Lily cast a nervous glance back at Aiden. The guy hadn’t fished in fifteen years, and he was wearing Grundéns. Nothing could kill a man faster than getting yanked into the water dressed in oil gear. Most lobstermen said that once those pants filled with water you were done for. That was why she fished in jeans, preferring slime and fish guts to drowning. But a lot of fishermen wore oil gear, so she couldn’t really criticize Aiden for doing it, especially since he’d clearly rather be anywhere than on a lobster boat.

  With her.

  She slowed the boat as she approached her first trap line, set about a hundred feet off Wreckhouse Point, the northwestern tip of the island. From her screened-in porch on a low cliff near the point, Dottie Buckle waved as she’d done a thousand times, and Lily returned the greeting as she motored up to her orange-and-green buoy. It bobbed beside the boat while its partner buoy—on the other end of the trap line—was visible in the distance, around three hundred feet away.

  She cut the engine and turned to Aiden, who’d taken up his position to her right. His expression was partly hidden by the shadows cast by his red Phillies ball cap.

  “Ready?”

  “As ready I’ll ever be,” he said grimly.

  Repressing a distracting spasm of guilt, Lily reached down with her gaff hook and hauled the buoy aboard. Dropping the gaff, she lifted the nylon pot warp over the hauling block and tossed the buoy down on the gunwale. With moves born of years of lobstering, she ran the line through the pot hauler and twisted the control until the plates started to spin, pinching the rope in between them and pulling it up from the water. While the wet, slimy rope coiled on the deck, Lily watched for the lead trap to break the surface, ignoring the loud whine, squeals, and pops from the hauler. She glimpsed Aiden out of the corner of her eye, his gaze glued to the point where the trap would surface. He unconsciously bounced on the balls of his rubber boot-clad feet.

  She couldn’t hold back a smile. Now that they were actually hauling, satisfaction and excitement surged through her, giving her a boost. Whatever her qualms about working with Aiden, he was so fit and powerful that she had to believe she could make some serious money, at least for as long as he helped her. Even when she’d had a sternman in the past, especially that weasel Johnny Leblanc, she’d rarely felt as ready to fish as she did now.

  “Here it comes,” Aiden said.

  The big mesh trap broke the surface. Lily stopped the hauler and then yanked the trap up onto the gunwale. She could see four lobsters inside, and her growing optimism pumped even higher. She slid the trap along the rail to Aiden so he could clear it, then restarted the pot hauler to bring up the next of her six-trap trawl.

  Her new sternman didn’t hesitate. Aiden threw open the trapdoor and scooped out the crabs and small fish, chucking them over the side. Then he picked out the first lobster. It was an obvious short, so he tossed it into the water too. The next lobster looked like keeper size, so he flipped it over to sex it, then reached back to drop it in the holding tank. After they finished cleaning out all six traps in this trawl, he’d have the job of measuring each lobster in the tank, throwing out all those with bodies smaller than the three-and-a-quarter-inch legal minimum. Then he’d band the keepers with a tool for that purpose.

  Aiden worked smoothly and efficiently. Despite his long absence from the fishery, his muscle memory was serving him—and her—well. Being a highly trained, fit athlete obviously didn’t hurt either.

  She stopped the hauler and pulled the next trap onto the rail. This one was her responsibility to deal with while Aiden finished cleaning out the lead trap and changing its bait bag. She whipped the trapdoor open, cleaned out the junk, and tossed two keepers into the tank. The last lobster was a big female. Lily knew from the “V” that a previous fisherman had notched into her tail that she was an egg-bearing female and thus protected by law forever. Lily silently wished the girl well as she dropped her back into the sea. Hell, she’d need some luck, because the life of a female lobster wasn’t exactly a picnic. Male lobsters—aggressive bastards all—mated by taking the females into their dens and waiting for them to shed their shells, thus rendering the ladies completely vulnerable. At that point, t
he male made a personal choice—either eat the female or mate with her.

  Lily had always tried not to think of that as a metaphor for her sometimes disastrous dating life.

  Aiden toted the lead trap to the stern rail and then returned to grab Lily’s so he could switch out that bait bag too. “You’re doing great,” she said. “After you get a few more trawls under your belt, your speed will be up to scratch.”

  Aiden gave a little snort. “You sweet talker, you.”

  Lily gave him a little poke to his bicep—which was like poking a rock—as he finished with the trailer trap and took it away to the stern, lining it up beside the lead trap.

  She switched on the pot hauler and brought another pair of traps up. They continued to work side by side, saying little, until the trawl was done and all six traps were emptied and lined up on the stern, ready to be dropped back into the water. Aiden finished checking the lobsters with the brass gauge, throwing out another three shorts in the process, while Lily inspected the rope coiled beneath the traps in the stern. From the looks of the lobsters in the tank, she estimated they had already caught about ten pounds.

  Returning to the wheel, Lily turned the boat around and sailed back to where they’d started.

  “Can we take a five-minute break?” Aiden asked as she slowed the boat almost to an idle.

  Lily gave him a teasing smile. “Okay, but surely you’re not tapped out already? We’ve barely started.”

  He shook his head and popped open the cooler he’d brought with him this morning. “I’ll be good for a long day, but I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  From the sarcastic look on his face, she guessed he was holding her responsible for that state of affairs. “Join the club,” she said drily.

  What were you thinking about all night, Aiden Flynn? About how you sawed off the tree limb I finally climbed out on?

  If she’d had any guts, she’d confront the issue right now. She’d ask him why, after he’d been coming on to her since he got to the island, he’d pulled back just when he was about to hit a home run.