by Terri Osburn
“Don’t do that,” she snapped, pushing the umbrella back, but he was stronger, taller, and determined to be a gentleman. With no other choice, she closed the space between them until he was once again beneath the cover. “You’re a stubborn ass.”
“And you aren’t?” he countered. “You’d rather stand in the rain than be this close to me?”
“You’d rather get wet than let me stand where I want?”
His eyes dropped to her lips, and it was the ferry all over again. What the hell?
“I can’t do this.” Roxie stomped around him and broke out in a run.
Alex was on her in seconds. “What can’t you do?” he said, his voice raised to be heard over the rain that was falling in buckets now. Despite the umbrella, they were both soaked.
“This,” she said, shoving him away. “I can’t stay here, and if I can’t stay here, I can’t fall for you any more than I already have.”
“You’ve fallen for me?”
Of course, that was the part he picked up on.
“I’m not kidding, Alex. In a couple of weeks, there won’t be any reason for me to stay on this island. I can’t live off my cousin forever, and jobs here are slim to none.”
“That’s because the season hasn’t started yet. There’ll be plenty of work once the tourists come back, and you know that Beth wants you here. You know you want to be here.”
Wiping the rain from her face, she looked out over the bay. “I want to stand on my own. I’ll be thirty this year, and I have nothing to show for my life. I have nothing.”
Tears mixed with the rain, and Alex stepped close again, sheltering her from the storm. “You have us, Roxie. Family and friends on this island. You have me. You’ll only have nothing if you leave.”
She wanted to believe him. To believe that she could have this. That she could belong somewhere. But believing meant taking the risk of being wrong, and she’d been wrong so many times before.
“What if it falls apart again?”
In his typical way, Alex said, “What if it doesn’t?” He laid a hand against her damp cheek. “Your past doesn’t have to be your future, Roxie. You can start over, right here, right now. Just don’t walk away.”
He made it sound so easy. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No,” she brushed his hand away. “I mean I don’t know what to do for a job. Everyone here has something that they do. Art. Food.” She poked him in the chest. “Medicine. I’m twenty-nine, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Then we’ll find something for you to do.” Taking her hand, he led her toward the Dempsey house. “We’ll figure it out together.”
She’d never been part of a we before, and carrying all of the weight on her own was exhausting.
As they walked, Roxie laid her head against his arm. “You know it won’t be that easy, right?”
Alex kissed the top of her head. “Nothing with you has been easy so far, but I’m still here.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. Yes, you are.”
“Your grandmother sent a card,” Flora called from the front desk.
Alex stepped into the hall and took the envelope extended his way. Grandma always included a funny picture or town gossip update with her cards, as if she’d turned snail mail into her own form of Facebook. This time was no exception, though something extra fell out of the envelope.
“What is this?” Flora retrieved the slip of paper from the floor. “It looks like a fortune from one of those cookies.” She turned it over and read, “The right one will come along when you least expect it.” With a chuckle she held the slip his way. “I think she’s trying to tell you something.”
Opening the card, Alex read aloud. “Got this from a cookie last week and it made me think of you. No pressure, but you aren’t getting any younger.” With a sigh, he stuck the fortune back inside the card. “I guess she’s joined my parents in thinking I need to find a wife.”
“She isn’t wrong,” Flora mumbled. When Alex shot her a warning glare, she added “I meant about the fortune. The right one always lands in your lap when least expect.”
“What are you guys talking about?” asked Flora’s daughter, Emma, rolling toward them on the desk chair. Thanks to a broken water pipe that closed her middle school for the day, she’d come to work with her mom.
“Alex’s grandmother sent him a fortune to try help him find a wife.”
“Like from a cookie?” the teen asked.
“Yes, from a cookie. And I was just telling him that the saying about love coming when you least expect it is correct. I’d given up on ever finding Mr. Right when your father barreled into my on his bicycle.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Not that story again. You two are sickeningly obsessed with each other. None of my friends’ parents are as gross as you guys.”
“What is so gross about loving each other? Besides, you go way more gaga for those K-pop boys of yours than I do over your dad.”
Cheeks pink, the teenager rolled back to the desk. “Whatever.”
Alex and Flora exchanged an amused look before he returned to his office. There was only one appointment left for the day, and he still had another fifteen minutes before Nota would arrive. To his surprise, she’d actually made it to her next regular appointment without any unannounced visits.
Before he could sit down, he heard the front door of the practice slam open, accompanied by Beth Dempsey calling his name.
“Alex! Where is Alex?” she yelled, presumably at Flora.
Dropping the envelope on his desk, he darted into the hall. “What’s wrong?”
Beth stormed his way, dragging Roxie along with her, both of them clenching the younger woman’s left hand. “My cousin is an idiot; that’s what’s wrong.”
“I am not an idiot,” Roxie defended. “It’s fine.”
Angrier than he’d ever seen her, Beth jerked to a halt. “There is nothing fine about it, and I am going to beat my husband’s ass for not taking you to the emergency room.”
Alex had never heard Beth curse before. This must have been serious. He spotted the blood running down Roxie’s arm and went into action.
“In here. Flora get me—”
“I’m on it,” she said before he could finish.
Leading them into an exam room, Alex said, “Let me see.” Beth unwrapped a kitchen towel from around Roxie’s hand to reveal a large Band-Aid over the thumbnail. “I need to take this off.”
“Wait until you see what’s underneath,” Beth mumbled. “I cannot believe—”
Before she could finish, Roxie let out a yowl as the bandage came off to reveal something gray sticking out of the bloody digit.
“Is that—”
“A nail,” Beth snapped. “She has a nail through her finger, and no one thought this was a damn emergency.”
“Have you tried to take it out?” Alex asked as Flora entered the room. Roxie shook her head and sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Based on the positioning, he didn’t believe the nail hit the bone, which was the best-case scenario. “I’m going to try, okay? Take some deep breaths.”
Roxie breathed in and out twice while Alex opened the sanitized tweezers.
“Here we go.” With a quick tug, the nail was out.
Unfortunately, so was Roxie.
Roxie had never been so humiliated in her life. Considering her track record, that was really saying something.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alex assured her. “I have no doubt that hurt like hell.”
If by hell he meant like having her thumb smashed by Thor’s hammer, then he was close. At least Beth was no longer giving her raving lunatic performance, thanks to having to pick up the girls from daycare. Yes, she’d scared her, and Roxie wouldn’t want to be Joe this evening, but her cousin seriously needed to calm down.
“I’ve never fainted in my life,” she assured him, taking a sip from the bottle of water
the teen at the front had brought her. “It must have been the blood loss.”
Alex was nice enough not to correct her. “I’m sure it was. Keep the hand elevated, and I’ll be back as soon as I finish with Nota.”
Due to her fainting spree, they refused to let her be alone, which was the only reason Roxie was still there. “I feel fine. Can I not go home now?”
She preferred to wallow in her mortification alone. Also, the throbbing was getting worse, and she didn’t want to cry in front of Alex again.
“Absolutely not.” Alex closed the folder he’d been writing in, blowing a slip of paper off the desk and into her lap.
On the tiny slip of paper was the words The right one will come along when you least expect it. “What is this?” she asked.
“Something from my grandmother,” he replied. “She’s trying to tell me something.”
“Sounds like Grandma wants great-grandbabies.”
“Then she’ll have to get them from Tanner.”
“Who is Tanner?”
“My brother,” Alex said, rounding the desk.
Dancing into dangerous territory but unable to stop herself, she said, “You don’t want kids?”
“I’m not saying that,” he said, gently raising her arm higher. “I just don’t want kids right now. I’m having a hard enough time trying to win you over. The last thing I’m going to do is scare you off with baby talk.”
Smart man. “Then I suggest you keep this until a later date.” Roxie handed back the fortune.
“Emma!” Alex yelled toward the hallway.
A teenager popped up in the doorway. “Yo.”
“Sit with Roxie while I take care of Nota, please.” To Roxie, he said, “Keep that hand up.”
“Yes, sir.” Pulling one foot onto the chair, she propped her elbow on her knee. “But I don’t need a babysitter.”
Alex ignored her and left the room.
Emma plopped down in his desk chair, her eyes locked on her phone. When Roxie spotted the AirPod in one ear, she asked, “What are you watching?”
“NCT.”
That told her nothing. “NC what?”
Blue eyes rolled hard, and Roxie couldn’t help but feel as if she were speaking to the thirteen-year-old version of herself. “NCT 127. They’re a K-pop group, and their comeback is today. I’m streaming the video over and over. Our goal is twenty million views in the first twenty-four hours.”
Twenty million? “Is that even possible?”
She leaned back in the chair and held the phone in front of her nose. “NCTzens don’t have a great history when it comes to streaming, but we’re determined to make the boys proud this time around.”
Pretending she understood any of that, Roxie tilted her head. “Who is that in the back of your phone?”
“Mark.”
Not what she expected. “Is he part of this NCB thing?”
“NCT,” Emma corrected. “And yeah, he’s my bias. I mean, not my ult bias. My ult ult will always be Baekhyun—he’s in EXO—but Mark is my bias in NCT 127. He was my bias in Dream, but he isn’t in Dream anymore, so now my Dream bias is Jaemin, but him and Jeno are, like, a package deal, and I can’t really choose between the two of them.”
Roxie was regretting ever starting this conversation, but curiosity got the better of her. “What do they sound like?
“What?” Emma mumbled.
“NCT. What do they sound like?”
Emma touched the screen on her phone, and then sat up straighter. “You really want to hear it?”
She hadn’t expected the girl to be so shocked. “Yeah. I’m always up for finding new music.”
Dropping the AirPod to the desk, Emma swiped the screen and two taps later, a sharp guitar sound echoed from the phone, before a chorus of male voices starting changing “Let me introduce you to some new thangs…”
The song went on and Roxie caught bits in English. Something about a bass drum and Bruce Lee. “I like it,” she said as Emma stared at her, eyes wide with expectation.
“It’s good, right?” she said with a wide grin.
Roxie unlocked her phone and slid it across the desk. “Add them for me.”
The teenager blinked. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I’ll add it to my running playlist. Sounds like the perfect song for a workout.”
Filling the request, Emma offered the highest praise a teenager could give. “You’re all right, Ms. Roxie.”
Ignoring how old the Ms. Roxie part made her feel, she shifted her elbow on her knee and said, “Thanks, kid.”
Chapter Ten
If Roxie moaned like that one more time, he was never buying her cheesecake again.
“I would ask if you want another piece,” Alex said, “but you’ve had two already.”
A third would mean more moaning, and he was already struggling not to drag her to the bedroom. Not that they’d crossed that line yet, but after spending the last five evenings together either watching movies or making out on his couch, he was hoping things might progress that way soon.
But first, they needed to work out this job issue so she’d stop talking about leaving.
“Don’t judge.” She wiped her mouth and set the empty plate on the coffee table. “What’s that for?” Roxie asked, eying the legal pad in his hand.
“Brainstorming.”
“What are we brainstorming?”
He set the pen and pad in her lap. “Jobs for you. We’ll start with the businesses you’ve already looked into, and I’ll add the ones you’ve missed.” Roxie held up her left hand, and Alex took the pad back. “Right. I’ll take the notes.”
Though better, writing was still difficult for her with the injured thumb.
“I’ve talked to the coffee shop, the rental office, the fitness center, and the Trading Post,” she counted off. “No openings.”
“What about the hotels?” he asked, still writing the ones she already said.
“Neither of Sam’s have any openings. The Waterfront Inn said maybe closer to summer, and the Starfish said no.” Roxie crossed her ankles on the coffee table and tucked herself against his side. “The rest that I could find are bed & breakfasts and don’t hire out.”
Alex tapped the pen against his chin. “There has to be something. Have you talked to Callie?”
“Not about my job hunt, no, but I told you the hotels aren’t hiring.”
“Not the hotels. The wedding planning business.”
Roxie jerked away. “There’s a wedding planning business?”
This clearly piqued her interest. “Have you done that before?”
She pulled her legs up under her and nearly bounced with excitement. “My favorite temp job was for an event coordinator. I was only there for six months, but I loved the fast pace and how every day was different.”
“Then you need to talk to Will Navarro. I’m pretty sure she owns it, but Callie works with her maybe?” Alex shook his head. “I might be remembering that wrong, but either way, it’s called Destination Anchor, and you never know. Will might need some help.”
Her enthusiasm waned. “I don’t want to get my hopes up. What if she wants someone with more experience?”
They really needed to work on her pessimism. “Roxie, how many years have you worked in offices?”
“Six,” she replied. “But never more than a year at the same place.”
“Then you have a variety of experience. And you’ve worked on events. How many other people on this island do you think can say the same?”
With a hopeful smile, she settled against him again. “You’re really good at this cheerleader stuff.”
“I’m good at a lot of things,” he murmured, putting his arm around her.
Roxie stretched her legs across his lap. “I know you can cook. And you’re good with punctured thumbs. What other services do you offer, Dr. Fielding?”
“I can sew,” he said, pulling her onto his lap.
Her husky giggle made his pants tighten. “
You’re lying.”
Alex kissed behind her ear. “A man doesn’t lie about his ability to sew.”
Sliding her arms around his neck, Roxie whispered. “What else?”
“There’s one thing I’m really good at.” His hand dipped beneath the hem of her top. “I could show you.”
Breath heavy, she nodded. “You should do that.”
With one quick movement, Alex rose off the couch, lifting her with him. By the time they reached the bedroom, they were both breathless and desperate. “Are you sure you’re good with this?” he asked, setting her on her feet at the foot of the bed.
Roxie shoved the T-shirt up his torso. “I’ve been trying not to jump you for the last three days.”
Ripping the shirt over his head, he said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Why did we wait so long to do that?” Roxie asked, lounging atop Alex’s chest and feeling more relaxed than she had in years.
“We’ve only known each other for a month, and you didn’t like me until ten days ago, remember?” This euphoria made her regret those wasted early days. “I liked you,” she admitted. “I just didn’t want to like you.”
He dipped his chin down to look at her. “I’m going to try not to be insulted by that.”
If she couldn’t be honest while naked in a man’s bed, when could she be?
“You just aren’t my type.”
“I know I’ll regret asking this,” Alex sighed, “but what is your type?”
Maybe this wasn’t the time to be honest. She kept her answer vague.
“Some would say bad boys. Others might call them lost souls.”
“What do you call them?”
This one she could answer. “Assholes.”
Alex sat up higher, rolling her onto his stomach. “Hold on. You didn’t like me because I’m not an asshole?”
“I said I liked you,” Roxie corrected, wishing he wouldn’t make a thing of this.
“Oh, right. You just didn’t want to like me.”
Roxie scooted over to her side of the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. “If I explain this to you, you’re going to argue with me.”
No immediate response came so she ventured a glance his way. Alex leaned on his side, his head propped on his hand. “This is more about you than about me, isn’t it?”