Hideaway Cove (A Windfall Island Novel) (5 page)

H
old stood at the curb a minute, studying Hideaway Cottage. He’d been told this was the name the villagers used to refer to the home that had been in Jessi’s family for the better part of two hundred years.

It reminded him of the gingerbread house from the story of Hansel and Gretel, or maybe the one about the old lady in the shoe. Definitely something out of a fairy tale: a narrow house on a rocky cliff, rising three stories to a steeply gabled wood shake roof over eaves decorated with fanciful scrollwork. The siding had been painted cream, the trim in shades of pale blue, tan, and brown; and the walkway was made of what he took for ballast stone, variously colored and slightly rounded from the ships that had moored—or been wrecked—off the island’s shores.

There were houses to either side, set at some distance along the rocky bluff they occupied, unevenly spaced along the edge of a small cove. The rocky walls soared about fifty feet at the village, tapering down at either end to make a labyrinth of the entrance to Hideaway Cove that only a resident would know how to navigate. He’d been told this was where smugglers had secreted their caches of illegal booze during the Prohibition era.

The place suited her, he thought, suited her bright, quirky personality, her sparkling green eyes, her stubborn streak and her annoying insistence on keeping him at arm’s length—which was why he’d hijacked her dinner. If he stood there any longer, however, it would be cold, and she wouldn’t thank him for that. Hold took himself by the scruff of the neck—mentally since it would have been awkward to do it in reality—and walked to the front door, knocking before he could equivocate any longer.

“I’ll get it, Mom,” he heard a kid’s voice yell from inside.

The front door flew open, and Hold couldn’t help but smile. Benji Randal favored his mother. He had the same lively green eyes, same heart-shaped face, although his chin was more square. A shock of chestnut hair would have curled as wildly as his mother’s if it hadn’t been buzzed to a couple inches in length. His demeanor was the same, too. The boy studied him openly and solemnly, with a little wariness thrown in.

After a minute he half-turned, keeping a careful eye on Hold as he yelled out, “There’s some guy at the door, Mom.”

“What guy?” Jessi yelled back. “You know everyone on the island…except this one,” she finished as she appeared behind her son.

Because, Hold thought with some heat, she’d kept them purposely apart. He tried not to let it irk him, knew she was only sheltering her son, but damn it, he wasn’t some scoundrel come to break hearts and torture defenseless children.

“He’s got our pizza.”

“I see that,” Jessi said, her eyes narrowed.

“Why does he got our pizza?”

Although Benji had spoken to his mother, Hold swallowed his annoyance and hunkered down so he could be eye to eye with the seven-year-old. “Had a hankering myself, son,” he said. “I happened into the pizza place just as they were lamenting how busy they were, and so I volunteered to bring it out to y’all.”

“Great. The whole island will know about it by now,” Jessi grumbled.

“Just delivering a pizza, sugar,” Hold said with a grin. “No ulterior motive.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” And she disappeared, coming back straightaway with her purse. She opened it, looked inside, then at him again, her cheeks coloring a little when she pulled out two one-dollar bills.

“I, uh…Can I give you the rest tomorrow?” she asked faintly, looking everywhere but at him with an expression of distress that told him she thought being beholden was roughly on a par with having a colonoscopy.

Next, he supposed, she’d be offering him change from the jar on her dresser. She seemed like the type who squirreled away her nickels and dimes for a rainy day. And just the thought of it, of Jessi worrying about finding herself in a situation where she needed something she had to pay for with hoarded spare change, irritated him even more.

“It’s just a pizza, Jessica.”

“My pizza, that I ordered. And when Peter Carelli showed up to deliver it, I’d have paid with my credit card.”

He closed his eyes, breathed in and out, and bit back on the temper that had put a snap in his voice. “I didn’t mean to put your back up. Although I seem to have a particular talent for it.”

“What do you want, Hold?”

“I just want you to let me buy you a damn pizza.”

“That’s a bad word,” Benji piped up. “Mrs. Larimore said it in school today, and now Mom says everyone is going to be mad at her.”

Hold looked down into his earnest little face. “Your mom is right, son.”

“My mom is always right.”

Hold shifted his gaze to Jessi’s, smiled a little when she rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Only where her child is concerned.” She reached for the pizza.

Hold lifted it away. “I was hoping you’d share.”

“Maybe if you let me out of this corner you’ve backed me into.”

“It’s just supper.”

“Which I plan to have with my son, just like I told you this morning.”

“You never said I couldn’t come, too.”

Jessi smiled a little. “You sure you’re not a lawyer?”

“Now, sugar, there’s no cause for insults.”

“He’s dressed like a lawyer,” Benji observed.

“And he knows how to slide through loopholes.”

“What’s a loophole?”

“It’s an exception lawyers use to get around rules. Don’t even think it,” she added as Benji looked at Hold, a considering expression his face. “Great. Now he’s going to be looking for ways around every rule I set.”

“Loopholes don’t apply to seven-year-old boys,” Hold said to Benji. “Not when it comes to the rules their mothers set. ’Course, you should never underestimate the value of a good argument, humbly delivered.”

“Huh?”

“Here’s your pizza, son.” Hold offered the box, but Benji just stood there, watching him suspiciously.

“You can have this, too.” He took the two dollar bills from Jessi and handed them over.

Benji snatched the money, shouted “woo-hoo!”, and darted inside.

Jessi crossed her arms, gave him a look.

“Consider it a tip,” Hold said.

“It’s not the money, it’s the bribery.”

“Money talks,” Hold said, “even to kids.”

“Mom, I’m starving,” Benji said.

Hold smiled hopefully, waggling the pizza box.

“You’re going to behave yourself. No loopholes.”

Hold crossed his heart.

Not looking entirely convinced, Jessi stepped back, pointing to a small table off to one side of the main living area. “Sorry. It’s just Benji and me most of the time, and we don’t need much.”

“I’d call it cozy.” Hold stepped close and lowered his voice. “And if there isn’t another chair, you’re welcome to sit on my lap.”

“Get the stool, Benji,” Jessi said, shooting Hold a speaking look as she followed her son into the kitchen.

Benji reappeared almost immediately with a tall kitchen stool.

Jessi’s voice floated out after him. “We usually just use paper plates and napkins.”

“That’s fine,” Hold said.

“I don’t keep beer or soda pop in the house, so you get your choice of milk or water.”

This time Hold followed Benji back into the kitchen. “Stop apologizing. Whatever you do is fine.”

She grinned. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven if you tell me why you feel the need.”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re all dressed up.”

Hold looked down at his casual slacks, sweater and shirt, all in deep brown. And okay, the slacks were Hugo Boss, but she didn’t know that. “I’m not wearing a tie.”

“Alert the media.” But she laughed. “Do you even own a pair of jeans?”

“Of course.” But in his life, jeans were for, well, practically never.

“Mom, can I have chocolate milk?”

“Make that two,” Hold said. “Does it matter? The way I dress.”

“Of course. Doesn’t it matter how I dress?”

And there was an invitation he couldn’t have resisted, he thought, even if he hadn’t already appreciated the way her snug jeans and the v-necked t-shirt she wore beneath an unzipped hoodie hugged the curves of her body.

She was a little bit of a thing, as his mama would have said, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. But what there was of her was well put together. And surely, the way she was dressed mattered, seeing as those jeans were tucked into heeled boots and made her legs seem a mile long. Even though the whole outfit was conservative enough to make it clear she was in Mom mode, all he wanted was to get her alone and peel her out of it—

“It’s not polite to stare.”

“No, son, it’s not, but sometimes it can’t be helped. You’ll understand in a few years.”

“Mom tells me that all the time,” Benji said glumly. “Who are you, anyway? How come you talk funny?”

“My name is Holden Abbot,” he said, absorbing another small sting that Jessi hadn’t even mentioned his name to her son. “But you can call me Hold.”

“Mr. Abbot,” Jessi corrected from the kitchen, where she’d gone off on yet another errand.

She returned with a gallon of milk, chocolate syrup, and an expectant expression. Maybe she didn’t want to ask questions herself, but she was paying close attention to the answers. He’d just have to watch his words, and be grateful he was being cross-examined by a seven-year-old.

He’d decided, after much consideration, to keep his own counsel where his origins were concerned. He’d been burned, and burned badly, by a woman who’d strung him along, accepted his engagement ring, pretended to love him, all so she could buy herself a lap full of luxury. Even the life she had to sell for it was built on a lie.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t trust Jessi, he told himself. Despite her clear and unapologetic yen for the ease money would buy her, he didn’t believe she’d set her cap for him if she knew his net worth counted in the millions.

Still, money—that kind of money—changed everyone. He didn’t know where they’d end up, but he was determined to work his way around Jessi’s resistance. No, not just determined; frantic would be the better term for what churned in his stomach and whipped through his blood whenever he set eyes on her. He couldn’t put a name to it—or wouldn’t, yet—but he could no more turn his back on it than he could stop his own body from drawing in air, or his own heart from beating.

What sense, he reasoned, would there be in complicating an already confusing matter? There’d be time enough later, once her feelings—and his—were sorted out, to tell her about the family fortune. And if his need for her burned out as fast and hot as it had roared into flame, then what harm would have been done? It wasn’t as if he was deceiving her, after all; he was just choosing what to tell and what to keep to himself.

“I talk funny,” Hold answered Benji, “because I’m from Louisiana.”

“Loo-Loosiana?”

“Louisiana,” Jessi corrected. “It’s way down south by Florida. Where Disney World is.”

“Have you been there?” Benji asked, all but dancing in place. “Mom says we can go.” He shot her a look. “Maybe.”

“We’ll talk about it, Benj.”

Benji nodded, watching his mother with the supreme confidence of a child who’d never been let down.

Jessi poured milk and added chocolate syrup, looking like a mother afraid she’d have to do exactly that.

“Why are you all dressed up?” Benji asked him, and Hold had to let the pang of sympathy—edged with that snap of dislike for her predicament—go.

“What is it with the pair of you and my wardrobe?” he murmured for Jessi’s benefit. To Benji, he said, “My mama isn’t so laid back as yours. She frowns on jeans.”

“But you’re all grown up.”

“You never outgrow your mama, son.” He held Jessi’s chair for her before taking his own.

“Yeah, that’s another thing Mom tells me all the time.”

“And now you have living proof.” Jessi slid a piece of pizza on her son’s plate.

“All the other tourists are gone,” Benji said around a mouthful of pepperoni and cheese. “So what are you still doing here?”

“Just now I seem to be doing all the talking.”

“Benji’s got a point,” Jessi said. “How is it that you can just take off from your regular life to work on a small-town gen—” She broke off, and the way she glanced at her son told Hold he wasn’t the only one taking care with what he said. “Shouldn’t you be manning a desk somewhere?”

Hold winced. “No, ma’am, no desks for me. You might say I’m a kind of salesman.”

“And what do you sell?”

“Happiness. Or at least a chance for it.”

Jessi dropped her pizza and stared at him.

Hold tapped lightly on her forehead. “What’s going on in there?”

“Mom, can I watch some TV?”

Jessi latched onto the diversion. “Homework?” she asked Benji.

“Did it in school.”

“Okay, one hour, and keep it down.”

Paper plate in hand, Benji whooped and raced all of ten feet to their little family room, snatched the remote from the top of the TV and flopped down on a beanbag chair.

“I repeat,” Hold said, reaching out.

Jessi grabbed his finger before he could tap it against her head again.

He curled his hand around hers and lifted it, bringing her fingers to his lips. Those lips curved when she jolted, when he saw the pulse throb to life in her neck. She trembled, and he feared he was pushing too hard, but when her eyes lifted to his and he read the desire there, heat flared inside him and spread.

“Jessi—”

“Hold, I…” She eased back, but he knew if he let her think, she’d retreat entirely. So he claimed her mouth. He framed her face, nipping her bottom lip before he sank in. She stiffened, but just when he was sure she’d push him away, she sighed, softened, opened her mouth to let her tongue tangle with his. And gave. He’d known she would; she was so generous, so caring. She had a heart as big as the world, and though she tried to guard it, her heart was wide open. So he told himself as he slipped his hands into the glory of her hair. He’d just have to guard it for her, be careful not to offer more than he wanted, or let her give more than was good for her. Still, he took the kiss deeper, tasted the sweetness of her, swallowed the sexy little moan she made and felt his control begin to crumble. He wanted more, needed her like his next breath.