Half Moon Harbor (18 page)

She glanced out toward the horizon, her nerves returning and starting to jangle in earnest as she drew closer to the boathouse. It was bad enough that she was scared about what was going to happen with Ford, possibly even as soon as that very day. It didn't help that she had to deal with Brodie on top of anticipating what would happen when she saw her brother for the first time in fifteen years.

Fifteen years. She'd been sixteen the last time they'd been together. It had been June then, too. Angry teenager or not, it hadn't been one of her finer moments.

She shut off thoughts of that day and focused on the current glorious June morning.
New day. New life. New start.
It was Saturday, and the crew had the weekend off so they could head up to Machiasport to participate in some sort of river race regatta. She'd thought about going herself, taking a much-needed day off to enjoy the river races and the country fair type thing she'd heard went hand in hand with the event. Then she'd seen Brodie head out to the boathouse, and another idea had taken root. One she couldn't set aside, at least not until she pursued it and got either a solution to her transportation problem, or more likely, a curt “maybe when the bay freezes over.” With the crew off for two days, there would be no better time to find some way to get out to Sandpiper Island.

She watched Whomper scamper on ahead and hoped he'd do his job as ambassador for her surprise visit. Just because she'd decided Brodie was off-limits didn't mean her dog had. The traitor would disappear for hours at a time and, after a frantic round of calling and whistling for him the first time it had happened, dread filling her as she imagined him either leaping off a pier and drowning, or hit by a truck up on Harbor Street . . . she now knew that when the construction noise got to be too much for him, he'd head on over to visit Brodie, either at his boathouse office or his workshop one.

Brodie hadn't called to complain, and Whomper trotted over quite happily and confidently whenever the mood struck him and always came back in much the same mood . . . so she assumed that at least his visits were welcome. For all that she hadn't contacted Brodie in the past two weeks . . . he hadn't so much as stopped by to see how things were going, either. She'd told herself it was better that way all around. Personally and professionally.

She knew, lingering fantasies about
that
afternoon notwithstanding, at some point they'd have to find a way to deal with each other. The longer they waited to meet again, the more awkward it might become.

“Well, we're about to put an end to that moratorium,” she murmured under her breath. Even more than that, if her reason for seeing him went as planned, they'd be spending more than a few minutes together, which only added more tension to the nerve bundle.

She'd been planning her little speech all morning. “Hi,” she practiced under her breath. “I know I've been avoiding you since we almost had hot monkey sex in the boathouse I bought out from under you, but I need a ride out to Sandpiper Island to find my long-lost brother. Got a few hours to spare?”
Yeah. That's going to go over really well.

She heard strains of music mixed in with the noise of a power saw before she reached the open panel door situated on the opposite end of the boathouse from the side that faced her pier. She'd spent many mornings being alternately thankful and frustrated that she couldn't look into his workshop, see what he was working on.
Okay, okay, see him doing the work. Preferably shirtless.

Yeah, she really didn't need that visual on the brain at the moment. But even that vivid image was mercifully erased a heartbeat later when Whomper came tearing out of the boathouse, a chunk of cut wood clenched in his jaws. He gleefully tore past her and headed at a mad dash back toward her boathouse, where, given the chance, he'd spend at least the next hour chewing on it, then another one determining the exact right spot to bury it.

“So much for my goodwill ambassador,” she called out to his rapidly retreating form, then shook her head with a resigned smile, deciding not to call him back. She'd go get him if the boat ride panned out for the day.

She turned back to the workshop and was startled to a stop again by the sudden emergence of a large pelican, long brown wings unfolding as it lofted itself through the open panel door and out across the water. She laughed. “And I thought I had work distractions.”

She took a moment, hand propped over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun as she watched the big, ungainly thing make its way out to the other, smaller dockside boathouse at the far end of the network of piers. His displeasure at being disturbed was made obvious by the series of grumbling squawks as he flew. It wasn't her first encounter with the crotchety old bird.

She'd noticed early on in her morning coffee-drinking sojourns that the pelican had made a summer nest out at the small boathouse . . . and made regular visits to see Brodie when he was working in his boathouse. She'd like to pretend that she hadn't been jealous of the damn thing, hanging out in Brodie's workshop. Or that she hadn't been charmed by the idea of Brodie and Big Brown, as she'd come to think of the bird, hanging out together while he built boats. She hadn't seen a single other pelican during her time in Maine, so she wasn't sure what the deal was with the big guy, but she'd enjoyed marking his daily rituals as she'd been developing her own.

She stepped around the corner of the boathouse, forcing her thoughts back to the matter at hand, and exactly how to broach the favor she needed from the probably brooding Irishman, but whatever words might have come to mind fled as she stepped into the open doorway . . . and got her first glimpse of the man at work.

The pelican hadn't taken off because of Whomper tearing out in reaction to the loud noise of the saw. Quite possibly it was because the other occupant of the boathouse had started singing along—loudly—with the oldies tune playing on whatever sound system Brodie had rigged up. Not because the man couldn't sing. She'd found that out the first day when he'd showered with her dog. More, probably, because he wasn't exactly shy with his vocals.

The song playing was the one about a green tambourine, but his singing wasn't the only thing that wasn't shy or retiring. What had stopped her in her tracks was the decidedly uninhibited hip action the sexy, not remotely brooding Irishman had added to his performance.

Wearing jeans that looked older than she was, he had his back to her so she could see just how magnificently the worn, faded denim and torn pockets enhanced his very fine, Irish ass as he rocked from side to side in what could only be described as a wicked, oh so very wicked swivel that made her think about just how wicked other parts of him could be. Wicked things . . . and tongue . . . she knew of firsthand.

He was measuring a long piece of wood, making pencil marks as he belted out a line about how money fed his music machine. All Grace knew was that she was suddenly hungry herself. Starved. The old white T-shirt, sleeves hacked off sometime in the past century, did absolutely nothing to hide the play of muscles across his back or the flex and bunch of his shoulders and biceps. Hell, even his forearm flexors made her hormones flutter as he measured, marked, measured . . . and never missed a single, hip-thrusting beat to the tambourine-punctuated refrain.

Grace resisted the rather insistent primal urge to strip naked and jump him . . . but dear Lord, she wanted to.

Then the swirling, sensual tune ended and segued right into . . .

Oh for heaven's sake. “Hanky Panky?” Really?

She knew she had to say something, if for no other reason than to save herself from thinking about hot monkey boathouse sex every time an oldies pop tune came on the radio for the rest of her natural life. But before she could figure out a way to announce her presence, he turned around as he sang the line about a pretty little girl sitting all alone . . . with a grin so sexy, so knowing, and so . . . intent it made her pulse stutter. He crossed the short distance between them, slid the pencil behind his ear, and grabbed her hand, twirling her smoothly into a spin, then wrapping her up against him, back to front, then back out again . . .

And they were dancing, and he was singing, and dammit, he'd known she was there the whole time. Watching the show. Worse, she was laughing. And not exactly extricating herself from their continued spin and swivel.

So much for keeping my physical distance.

She'd been sure he'd be angry with her, or at least distant and dismissive. She hadn't envisioned anything like this. Grinning, laughing, singing . . . and dancing like they'd been doing it for years.

She knew she had to stop, had to explain why she'd come, but as she caught her breath, the music changed again, and suddenly Tommy James was singing about somewhere over yonder and how good it was to find crystal blue persuasion. Brodie had spun her back into him, catching her neatly up against his chest, face-to-face. He curled her arm, his hand still in hers, around her back to hold her there as they swayed to the beat. His sexy grin didn't shift a flicker, but the devilish twinkle in his eyes turned decidedly darker when she gasped as her hips bumped his.

His gaze dropped to her mouth and before she could decide just how bad an idea that was going to be, he slid his free hand beneath her hair and drew her mouth closer, tilting her head back so her lips were softly parted for the taking. Her eyelids started to drift shut as she awaited what she knew was going to be the pure carnal bliss of his mouth on hers, but his gaze flicked back up at the last possible second, locking with her eyes.

“Did you miss this as much as I have?” he asked, shocking her with the admission. “All of it,” he wanted to know. “No' just this part.”

She wondered if he saw the truth in her gaze, if there would be any point in even trying to deny it. Or pretending she wanted to. Her throat worked, but no words came out. His gaze dipped down, and she felt his fingers twitch on the sensitive skin at her nape as he caught the movement of her throat, then looked straight back to her eyes. He was still swaying with her to the slow groove of the music, keeping her hips locked to his. So many things she should say or do, boundaries she should set.

What she did, however, was tip her chin down just a fraction . . . in a nod of assent.

“Thank God,” he murmured. Then claimed her.

H
e'd thought about this moment. Hell, he'd even dreamed about it. About how he'd like it to go, at any rate. Every last vivid, highly specific, erotically charged detail.

He'd spent every day since that afternoon in her boathouse convincing himself that those thoughts had to remain just that—thoughts. It was why he'd stayed away. Why he'd told himself it was smart, smart indeed, of her to do the same. Both on the same page, they were, and wiser for it. Good for them. He might have to live with the fact that she'd sneaked a piece of his heritage away when he wasn't looking . . . but that was the only thing of his she would—or should—get her hands on.

Aye, and look where that brilliant bit of hard-and-fast rule making got you. Lasted all of what, three seconds? Four, tops?

But Grace Maddox was back in his arms again, and frankly, he didn't give a flat, flying damn about the rest.

Like an animal sensing its mate, he'd known she was in the doorway even before her shadow had fallen over him. He wasn't sure what bit of mischief had made him play with her, thinking to make her blush perhaps, with his song and dance. If his sisters knew that not only was he listening to the oldies music he'd found in their CD player, but seducing a woman with it? Didn't bear thinking of. When she'd stood there watching him, and he'd felt that sweet, sweet tension build all over again, the joke had ultimately been on him.

When he'd turned, grinned, and pulled her into the dance, he'd expected that wry, arched brow, a laugh, and a shove. Something that would give him a much-needed reminder of all the good reasons he'd stayed away from her. Instead the music and that undeniable, palpable . . .
thing
they had, had spun them in a very different direction . . . a direction that made it clear her thoughts and dreams hadn't been so far off from his.

Even then, he hadn't thought she'd admit it, despite the truth right there in her eyes, for all to see.

One tiny dip of a chin later . . . and he hadn't stood a chance.

He sank into her mouth and drank her in as if she was the prize sip of water at the end of a very long, very hot race.

Bless Tommy James and every one of his Shondells, as the lad sang about crimson and clover, and Brodie kept Grace's hips melded to his while the beat slowed down. They continued to sway to the music, oblivious to the sawdust, the wood shavings, and scraps littering the floor as they moved in the narrow space between boat and workbench. She fit him all too perfectly; moving with him, she took him as ardently and helplessly as he took her. Mating her mouth to his, the fit perfect, each lured the other into a tango of taking and giving that moved in sync with the thrust and shift of their hips.

She let go of the hand he had pressed to the small of her back, and slid her palms over his shoulders, around his neck, then drove her fingertips up into his hair, raking his scalp, making his body shudder and surge, greedy for every sensation she could give him. He kept her wrapped tight against him, one arm banded around her waist, keeping them toe to toe, hip melded to hip, as he sank his free hand into that thick wave of silk and brought her mouth under his so he could take the kiss even deeper.

He felt that same full-body shudder vibrate through her as he slid his hand around to cup her cheek, rubbing the side of his thumb along her jaw, and he knew she was thinking about the afternoon in her boathouse. He sure as hell was.

He lifted her off her feet, but didn't need to urge her to wrap those strong legs of hers around his waist. All that rowing, sliding fore and aft as she moved the scull across the water, had given her sleekly curved hamstrings, diamond calves, and the sweetest ass he'd had the pleasure to ogle, which he shamelessly had as she'd strolled out on her pier every dawn wearing snug gray leggings. Occasionally she'd don his very own sweatshirt, the one he'd left for her the morning she'd used his shower, what seemed a lifetime ago.

The idea of her showering in his boathouse two feet from his bed, and him not joining her, seemed ludicrous. Did she think the same thing every morning when she slid his old college sweatshirt over her head? The thought of her bunking in her boathouse the past two weeks, much the same as he had while his own had undergone renovation, had driven him close to crazy. So close, yet forever so far away. Something he'd have to get used to, he'd told himself, as she'd be living there full-time when her inn opened. He wondered why the hell he'd waited so long.

“Hold on,” he said, his voice gruff with need. “We're not doing this here.”

He knew where he wanted her, where he'd wanted only her. That she didn't play coy or pretend not to know what he'd meant by
this
cemented his decision. That was the blunt, no-time-for-games Grace he'd missed. Aye, and he respected her all the more for it.

He carried her through the open panel door, up the pier, and across a dock to the next pier, where his double-masted schooner was moored. He kicked the stepladder over until it lined up right with the rail, then climbed aboard with Grace still wrapped around him.

She lifted her head from where she'd been doing the most devilish things to the side of his neck with her teeth and tongue. “This is . . . yours?”

“Whose did you think it was?”

“I don't know. It's so big and elegant and . . . I guess I thought some of the locals docked their boats here.” She looked around, then her eyes went wide and her gaze swung back to his. “Did you—you
built
this?”

“I had help putting her all together, of course, but, aye, she's mine from paper to water, down to the last futtock and cross-spall.” He let her feet slip to the deck.

“Your own design, too, then?” Grace kept her arms around his neck, but shifted enough to take in the schooner, stern to stern to top of the double masts, before looking back at him. “Those marks on the floor, out in the boathouse? Those are the measurements for the boat you're building now, right?”

He nodded. “It's called the laying down, yes.”

“I thought it looked huge, but that one is going to be much smaller than this. I can't imagine the process—where you'd even begin—for something so grand.”

“The same place. Process doesn't vary so much. The scope and the detail simply expand on the basic concepts.”

She looked back to him. “You've got a very special gift, that ye do,” she said, softly mirroring his accent and smiling up into his eyes. “She's beautiful, Brodie. Stunning. Truly.” Her sincerity and awe were all right there in her eyes.

Brodie felt something flip over inside his chest, and perhaps his fingers trembled just the slightest bit as he pushed the windblown tendrils from her forehead. “Aye, she is that,” he said, his voice low, his gaze never wavering from hers.

Her gray-green eyes, already full to capacity with the want and need of what they'd both come for, shifted, softened, and the most delightful color stole into her cheeks.

His grin was slow as it spread fully out to the corners of his mouth. “How is it I can all but rip yer clothes straight from that lovely body of yours in my dusty old workshop, and you're with me every step of the way. But pay you a compliment, and you get all rosy on me?” He stroked her cheek.

Her own grin was that wry twist he'd so missed seeing, and the eyebrow arch that went with it filled him with the same pleasure he'd get upon seeing an old friend. “We both know you're so full of the blarney you can't help yourself. . . it just spills out of you. But every once in a while, I have to admit, the things you say . . . I want to fall for it. I do.”

He deserved her skepticism, he knew that. There was no way she'd been in Blueberry Cove for six long weeks and not heard every story there was to tell about him and all of his rumored dalliances. Even though only a small fraction of them were the full truth, it was indeed a fact that he enjoyed bringing color to a pretty cheek, and a flutter to shyly averted eyelashes, even if the bulk of the time his intent was far from romantic, but simply . . . his nature. Fergus was right in saying that it made no difference if they were in strollers or using walkers, making a woman of any age feel good about herself made him happy. Where was the shame or sin in that?

Still, that didn't mean her reaction didn't twinge at him. “I've no way to make you believe that I mean what I say, other than to give you more words.” He wrapped her up against him again and smiled against her lips as he kissed her. “Maybe showing you would be more convincing.”

She laughed against his mouth as she kissed him back. “Well, just to be fair and to eradicate any lingering doubt . . . you may have a point.”

“Oh, lass,” he said, bumping hips with her. “I've that, indeed.”

She made him groan and his body jerk—hard—when she shocked him with a little nip to his lower lip as she pushed her hips right back. “Well, if you need to . . . press your advantage in order to . . . fully make your point, far be it from me to stop—”

Whatever might have come after that ended on a loud squeal as he scooped her straight off her feet and slid her right over his shoulder. He'd never once been motivated to do that, not a single time in his entire life, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to carry her off to his lair.

“What are you doing?” She beat on his back, but she was laughing so hard, the pounding wasn't even a remotely effectual deterrent.

“Well lass, it was that or drag you to me cave by your lovely, lovely hair.”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .” She made him hoot with laughter when she slid her hands down, grabbed his bum, and squeezed. “Have I mentioned that I have a whole new appreciation for worn denim jeans?” She fingered the tear in his back pocket. “At least now I'll know for sure.”

“Mind your head,” he instructed as he ducked down through the hatch and took the short ladder down facing front, careful to guard her head as he took her belowdecks. “For sure about what?” he asked, bending so she could regain her footing once again.

She grinned as she reached around and pinched his arse, and it was as unrepentant a smile as he'd ever seen. “Boxers? Or briefs?”

“Spent some time on that, have ye?” he asked, backing her up as he moved toward her.

She nodded, the twinkle in her eyes daring him and desiring him.

He didn't think he'd ever been so turned on in his entire life. “Yer aware that I'm a full-blooded Irishman, and as such, have worn the plaid a time or two in my life.”

“You own a kilt?”

He barked out a laugh at the pure unadulterated lust that completely consumed her expression. “Och, lassie, but had I been aware of even of a hint of your interest, I'd have come down wearing nothing but a bit of the plaid that first morning. We might have dispensed with all this parry and thrust we've been doing.”

“Speak for yourself. I myself happen to enjoy a little parry and thrust.” She grinned. “Okay, a lot of parry and, definitely the thrust.” She pretended to look confused. “Are we talking about the same thing?” She squealed when he scooped her up again, keeping her in his arms. “Is this an Irish thing, too? Carting innocent women about?”

“Darlin', there's nothing innocent about the look in your eyes. Though I can honestly say I've never carried a woman off to bed.” He angled them both down a narrow passageway to the master stateroom, ducked through the hatch, then tossed her gently on the bed . . . and followed her immediately down until he had her stretched out beneath him. He slid her hands above her head and linked them with his own until his nose touched hers. He dropped a hard, fast kiss on her lips, groaned when she pumped her hips up into his, then looked down into her storm-tossed, gray-green eyes. “But then, you provoke me to say and do all sorts of things I've never done before.”

She looked into his eyes, and the barest hint of that wry smile ghosted the corners of her mouth, but her eyes were never more serious. “I almost believe that, too.”

His expression turned serious. “Grace, I know ye've reason to doubt my sincerity, given the flirt and banter between us, but I'll no' take kindly to my integrity being questioned. I don't tell lies, no' ever, for any reason. If I say something, I mean it in the spirit given. Making a woman smile is never, and will never be, a bad thing to my mind. But simply because I enjoy bringing a bit of sunshine to someone's day, does no' mean I have an interest in anything else.” He took a moment, a breath, then said the rest, wanting it out in the open between them, needing it there.

He spoke quietly and never so earnestly. “When I tell ye I want you, crave you, think of you endlessly, my words are sincere. It's no' simply to have you here, beneath me . . . but also the conversation, the laughter, the way you take me to task and seem to see me as I really am . . . even that wry tip to your eyebrow. I'm never anything but sincere. You've no reason to trust that, but I'm asking it of ye, all the same. Your faith will never be misplaced. That I can guarantee.”

Grace blinked, and he saw the surface of her eyes grow a bit glassy.

“Och, now don't go and do that. I wasn't—I was simply trying to—”

She shut him up with a kiss. Her hands still trapped in his, she lifted her head to meld their mouths. “Okay, I believe you,” she said against his lips. “I do.”

He kissed her back, pressing her head down into the bed. When he lifted his head, she slid her fingers free and brought her palms to his face, held his gaze, searching for . . . something. He wished he knew what else he could say, or do, but knew there was nothing that would prove the truth of his words but time. And faith.

As if reading his mind, or perhaps his expression, she said, “Trust isn't an easy thing for me. Not just in giving it, but in myself, my own judgment. I let myself want things, and . . .” She drifted off with the slightest shake to her head, then tried to look away.