Her Forbidden Love (Indigo Island Book 2) (3 page)

Jack was especially in shape and looked like a model. She’d watched him stand up to Steve in front of the whole staff, but she’d also watched his incredible dimples. She had noticed that, like her, his smile didn’t reach his eyes, not when Steve was around at least. Jack was the epitome of a lifeguard – broad shoulders, dark wavy hair and muscles like she’d never seen. He could be a movie star. He was that gorgeous. And he was closer to her age, older than the rest of the staff. Whenever she thought about him her heart beat a little faster.

But that was silly. Dorsey heard how rude he had been to the young woman during orientation. Rebecca had burst into tears. Dorsey watched all the young, cute women flirting with him during staff meetings or whenever she walked through the pool complex. She knew she didn’t have a chance of catching his eye. Even so, it was nice to realize she could get a little crush again. She hadn’t had the butterfly feeling in her stomach since the early days with Chad. It was a fun feeling, even if it wouldn’t amount to anything.

She walked along the wide warm sandy beach alone, getting her feet wet at the edge of the warm water. She looked across Calibogue Sound to Hilton Head Island and suddenly felt envious of the throngs of people lining the beach. She was aware of how very alone she was here and in the world. She swallowed hard and kept walking.

Behind Dorsey, huge egret nests were perched on the tops of the trees at the edge of the sand. Beyond the egret homes was a vast forest that the club planned to develop someday. It was early evening and only the end of May, but five minutes into her walk, she was drenched in sweat. Out in the ocean, shrimp boats bobbed in the flat water, just as they did every day. The lazy arms of the boats worked all summer and continued long into the fall in a quest to find the popcornball-sized delicacies as they hopped by in schools called swarms.

Feeling uncharacteristically brave and particularly hot, Dorsey decided to wade farther out into the water. She was careful to shuffle her feet to avoid stepping on a horseshoe crab. She’d made it out to just about her shorts line when a loud clicking sound erupted on the water, like a bunch of people snapping their fingers. She turned in time to see a swarm of shrimp lurching toward her. She didn’t know what was chasing them, but she didn’t wait to find out. Her heart racing, she hurried out of the water, tripping over a rock or a large shell on her way out.

“Ack!” she hopped to the dry-sand line and plopped down to examine the bottom of her foot. A big gash on the pad of her foot below her big toe was blooming with blood, dripping down her foot and onto the sand.

“Hey, can I help?”

Dorsey looked up and realized it was the god of lifeguards. Shirtless, sweaty, sexy.

“Hi, I’m Jack,” he said, extending his hand.

“Dorsey,” she said, fighting to remain calm. She realized she was a clumsy mess, her hair frizzy, her foot dripping with blood. But still, his touch had been electric, at least to Dorsey.

Jack kneeled down next to her. “What happened?” he asked, his huge brown eyes kind and caring. He smelled like sea air and sweat, a surprisingly intoxicating mixture.

Dorsey’s heart thumped in her chest.

“I tripped on something. I’ll be fine, I think,” she answered, although the blood was still flowing from her cut and her foot was beginning to throb.

Jack gently held her foot in his hand, assessing the wound. “Wait here, I’ll be right back with a medical kit from the pool,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze before jogging off in the direction of the main clubhouse.

Dorsey leaned back into the warm sand. Her foot throbbed but Jack’s touch still lingered on her shoulder. She couldn’t believe how his touch made her feel, and as she thought about it, her stomach flipped again. Stop it, she told herself. He was just being nice and she was acting like a schoolgirl with a crush.

Jack came jogging back, sweating muscles glistening, carrying a fully stocked first aid kit under his left arm, two water bottles in his right.

“Drink this. I’m glad I decided to go for a beach run today. I usually just run on the cart paths,” Jack said, bending down to examine her foot. “Sorry I took so long. It’s at least a mile back to the plantation.”

“Thanks so much,” she said, pouring the cool water into her mouth, trying not to wince as he doused her foot with antiseptic. Dorsey didn’t trust herself to say anything else, she simply leaned back on the sand, enjoying his care, his skilled touch.

“This is too deep for a shell cut,” Jack said.

He bandaged her foot and then rose, standing over Dorsey and looking out at the calm ocean. “Where’d you go in? Right here?” Without waiting for an answer, he walked slowly into the ocean and then dove in right where the shrimp swarm had been. She watched as he swam slowly around in the shallow water, popping underneath the waves in the spot where she’d cut her foot.

“Eureka!” he said, walking back to shore, soaking wet. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the pages of a magazine, abs defined and hard, his arms strong and powerful.
Stop it
, she told herself. He handed her an arrowhead, carved of pink quartz. The tip—the obvious culprit—was still as sharp as it must have been when it was crafted by one of the first residents of the island.

“Wow!” she said as he dropped it into her hand. The arrowhead, more of a spearhead, was longer than her hand and beautiful, with different gradations of pink. The tip was sharp. Very sharp. She shivered.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring a towel or anything. But the golf cart should be here any minute.” Jack sat down on the sand next to her. “You’ll need some stitches. It’s a great find, though. I’ve found six arrowheads so far, but nothing like this. These Savannah River points, as they’re called, can be eight thousand years old.”

“How do you know all of this?” she asked, playing with the spearhead in her hands. Her heart was beating faster just because he was sitting next to her; she could feel the heat from his body, and it was making her dizzy.

“I like to know all about the place I’m going to live,” he said. “It’s amazing what you find when you know what you should be looking for. Now that you know you might find an arrowhead, you might find one every time you’re out walking. Just wait. I can’t walk the beach without finding one.”

“So you’re here past the summer, too, right? I saw you at orientation.” Dorsey blushed, and looked away. She tried not to stare at his six-pack.

“I saw you, too,” Jack said, nudging Dorsey’s shoulder with his. Electricity shot through her body. “I am making my career here, I hope. I was promised a management position but when I arrived, Steve told me I had to lifeguard again through the summer. Asshole. He better keep his word when Labor Day rolls around.”

“I heard. Sorry about that,” she said. “I’m head of the Kids Club. I’m excited to get working with the kids. I hope it’s the start of a new career. All I’ve done so far is clean. It was a mess.”

“Yeah, Lila left in a hurry. Anyway, you’ll be bringing the kids to the pool, so we’ll see a lot of each other,” Jack said. “So, um, want to go to the employee bonfire with me tonight? You’re going to need help with that foot of yours, I mean if you want to go.”

Dorsey was shocked. She swallowed. Was Jack asking her on a date? “Sure. Great.”

“Cell phones don’t work here, as you know, so call my cottage if you change your mind. Otherwise, I’ll swing by about seven?”

“Perfect,” Dorsey said, as Steve pulled up in an all-terrain golf cart.

Dorsey tried to stand up, but fell back on the sand. Jack reached for her hands as Steve said, “Here, Dorsey, let me help you,” scooping her up off the sand as Jack turned away. “You’re good to walk back, right, Means?” Steve asked Jack. Steve dropped her into the back of the cart and they drove away, leaving Jack behind on the hot sand.

“Why didn’t we give Jack a ride back?” she asked. “He really helped me a lot back there.”

“I’m sure he did. You know my policy, right? No dating among employees. I enforce it very strictly,” Steve said. “Summer staff is one thing, but you are an employee, like Jack is now. Will be quite a change for the lad from last summer.”

“Right,” Dorsey said, getting the chills. Her foot was throbbing, the sun was hot and Steve was, well, Steve.

“Quite the playboy, that one, but now he is in management. Rules change. I learned that the hard way on my first management job. I was quite the ladies’ man back in my day,” he said. “Yup, but now I’m a career man. Career first, pleasure second. Excellence in everything.”

As she held on to the golf cart, Dorsey realized she’d sort of agreed to go on a date, a date with the hottest guy on the island. Hopefully, though, Steve would just think Jack was helping her out by taking her to the bonfire because of her injured foot. And really, that’s all they could ever be anyway, even without Steve’s strict rules. Friends. She knew she wasn’t ready for more. She’d made a promise to herself after Chad broke up with her that she’d spend this time, this chapter of her life alone. It only made sense.

Dorsey looked at her foot, at the blood seeping through the bandage Jack had applied, and shuddered, remembering years ago the blood that had splattered all over her face and pink t-shirt, and all over the flowers they had been planting in the garden. The police said the killer must not have seen Dorsey, as she was kneeling down, planting a row of seeds. They also told her she must have seen the shooter, just before he turned to run away.

She’d been fourteen years old, old enough to remember, her mom kept saying.

Dorsey wrapped her hand tightly around the arrowhead as tears flooded her eyes.

Five stitches later, and with orders to use crutches for the next three days to allow the cut to heal, Dorsey was released from the resort’s clinic. Steve hadn’t left her side, insisting on being there as the doctor cleaned the cut and then stitched her foot, an excruciatingly painful process. She didn’t understand why he had to be with her, watching her suffer, his beady eyes glinting under the fluorescent clinic lights.

“I’ll drive you back, Dorsey,” Steve said, holding the door for her as she learned to walk with the crutches. “Tomorrow is a busy day. You should stay in and rest tonight. It’s OK for you to skip the bonfire.”

“Um, right,” Dorsey said, swallowing. He couldn’t know about her plans with Jack, she realized. But it was almost like he did. She shook her head. The pain pills were making her loopy.

As soon as she walked awkwardly out the clinic door, sweat formed on her forehead and dripped into her eyes. The cart ride provided a brief respite until Steve stopped and parked near the ocean, just below the swimming pool, where a group of happy day-trip vacationers stood waiting for their “nature walk and history talk.”

“I hope you don’t mind but I’ve got to do a little talk for these good folks before I run you home,” he said. He climbed out of the cart and approached the group.

Really? More time in the sun was the last thing she needed, but she had no choice. She reached for her water bottle and swallowed another pain pill.

“This is what it was like over in Hilton Head forty years ago,” Steve explained. “It’ll take a while for us to get this old island into Top Club shape. But it’ll happen. We’ll embrace the past of the place. There were bloody Indian battles here, grand Southern plantations with fields of cotton, famous oyster-canning companies, and flourishing Indigo fields. We’ll bring it all back around, fix up what we can. That’s Top Club’s commitment.”

Nothing would ever fix the summer weather. It was only May and stepping outside felt like walking into a steam shower, but she supposed with air conditioning and swimming pools, tourists would still come. And she was getting accustomed to her new look, she thought, reaching up and touching her hair, an uncontrollable frizz shooting out all around her head. She’d have to give up. Back home in Grandville, it had taken an unusually fiery and damp August day to cause the kind of havoc each day brought on the island. Here every day would be a big hair day, but nobody would notice. She would simply be one of many blue-shirted employees there to serve wealthy vacationers’ kids.

As she strained to listen to Steve’s history talk, her foot started throbbing. She still couldn’t believe she had been attacked by an inanimate object in thigh-deep water.
I’m feeling sorry for myself,
she thought.

But if she hadn’t stepped on the arrowhead, Jack wouldn’t have come to her rescue, and they wouldn’t have a date tonight for the bonfire. She knew he’d only asked her because he felt sorry for her, her clumsiness, her lack of friends, her chaotic hair. But she had felt the electricity between them, even if the current had only run one way. She’d enjoy every minute around his perfect muscular body, even if it was a pity date.

Chapter 4

Jack

F
rom his lifeguard chair, Jack saw Dorsey trapped on Steve’s golf cart – her bandaged foot propped up on the dashboard – as Steve performed his show for the day-trippers. She must be hot and uncomfortable. He knew she should be taken to her cottage, she needed air conditioning and rest. What was the jerk doing? Trying to make her suffer or trying to impress her with his king-like knowledge of the island? Either way, Jack was disgusted.

Jack was stuck in the chair, even though there were only two 30-something sunbathers at the entire pool complex and the two women hadn’t gone in the water past their ankles so far. Most of the time, they just smiled at Jack and whispered as they flipped through their gossip magazines.

The two college girls working the snack shack and pool hut looked equally bored. He knew they should all be appreciating this relaxing day as tomorrow was a full house, with every room and cottage booked. But he hated being bored, and he hated that he couldn’t go rescue Dorsey.

What was it about her that immediately attracted him, he wondered? He’d noticed her at orientation, of course. She had looked like a deer in the headlights when Steve had called her out. He’d wanted to protect her from that moment on. She had crazy curly strawberry blonde hair and gorgeous green eyes, and now that he’d been close to her on the beach, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the freckles dotting her small nose, about her full lips, about the heat that sparked between them.