Sea Glass Island (15 page)

Samantha’s mood brightened. “That’s definitely encouraging. I’m still not looking forward to telling Ethan about this, though. He wanted to control the situation, set up when and where we met. Cass settled that by showing up at Castle’s on her own.”

“Not your fault,” Cora Jane said, waving off the issue. “But I have to say, you seem awfully eager to check out this girl’s capabilities. Any particular reason for that?”

Samantha hesitated, then admitted, “After stopping by the high school rehearsal the other day, I’ve been giving some thought to maybe teaching a few acting classes here.”

Cora Jane’s eyes immediately lit up. “You’d stay?”

“At least long enough to give it a try. What do you think?”

“I think it’s an incredible idea, but would it provide the fulfillment and lifestyle you’re looking for? You wouldn’t make much, I imagine.”

“Gabi thinks I’m thinking too small. She wants me to go big and open a playhouse.”

Cora Jane clapped her hands together at that. “What a wonderful idea! It would be an incredible addition to the community.”

Samantha studied her closely. “You’re not just saying that because you want me to stick around?”

“Well, that’s certainly a consideration, but it’s not the only one. I can see all sorts of potential for a playhouse, especially with you in charge. You have all those amazing contacts you’ve made over the years. It would be a real contribution to our cultural landscape.”

“That sounds a little grander than it’s likely to be,” Samantha said wryly. “But it could be fun.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Nothing just yet. I have a lot of details to iron out before I even know if it’s feasible. For one thing, I’d have to figure out an affordable location, determine if there are enough people interested in acting in this region, probably a million other things I haven’t even thought of. I was going to make a list, but I don’t seem to have Gabi’s or Emily’s gift for that.”

“You’ll work it out. As for that location, talk to your father. He has some land with a little house on it. Your grandfather left it to him. It’s in an area that’s been zoned residential/commercial now, so it would be easy enough to get the zoning approved. I have no idea what condition the house is in, but there’s enough land around it for parking, I think. And Tommy Cahill and Wade could tell you if it would cost a fortune to convert it.”

Stunned by the news, Samantha threw her arms around her grandmother. “You’ve just given me exactly the boost I need to move on to the next step. You actually make it all sound feasible.”

“It
is
feasible,” Cora Jane said emphatically. “Castles can make even the impossible happen. Remember that!”

Samantha laughed. With an energetic, positive woman like Cora Jane as a role model, how could she possibly forget?

* * *

Rather than three sisters on the town on their own for Emily’s night out, they’d decided to include a few of the friends Gabi had made since moving here. Wade’s sister Louise, Meg, who owned a stunning gift shop in town, and Sally, who’d tried to mentor Gabi in making glass wind chimes, had been asked to join them at a casual local bar that had a country band playing.

“I can’t tell you the last time I was out like this with the girls,” Louise, a mother of five, said. “Thank you for including me.”

“We’re counting on you not only to be the sensible one, but to help us wriggle out of any trouble we get into,” Gabi told the woman, who also had a busy career as an attorney.

Louise frowned. “Does that make me the designated driver, too? I really don’t want to be the designated driver,” she said, looking longingly at the frozen margarita that had just been placed in front of her.

“No designated driver,” Samantha said. “Boone, Wade and Ethan are coming by later to pick us up and carry us home.”

“My brother is coming?” Louise said, looking shaken. “I’ll never hear the end of it.” Then she shrugged. “Oh, well,” she said, taking a long, slow drink of her margarita. She sighed with pleasure. “This is definitely worth a little aggravation.”

Emily didn’t look much happier about the arrangements than Louise did. “My fiancé isn’t supposed to see me tonight,” she protested.

“He’s not supposed to see you on the day of the wedding,” Gabi corrected. “Tonight, though? He practically begged to get in on this. So did Ethan, by the way,” she added with a pointed look at Samantha. “He seemed especially anxious to spend a little time with my sister, in fact.”

Samantha slugged back a healthy amount of her margarita. “He might be just the teensiest bit annoyed with me,” she admitted. “He told me to stay away from Cass Gray.”

“Who’s Cass Gray?” Sally asked. A relative newcomer to the area, she wasn’t as familiar with the locals. Nor, apparently, had she been around when Cass’s accident had made the news.

Samantha explained about the teen’s disability and her desire to act. “So, of course, Ethan’s worried I’m going to kill her dream. He has no faith in my diplomatic skills at all. I don’t want to see Cass hurt any more than he does.”

“Sweetie, if you keep going through drinks the way you’re going through that one, he won’t be able to have an intelligent conversation with you tonight, anyway,” Emily teased.

Samantha grinned. “An excellent point,” she said, and ordered another one.

“Oh, dear,” Gabi said worriedly. “If she’s the only one who’s totally sloshed, we are going to have some explaining to do.”

“To Ethan?” Samantha asked. “He’s not the boss of me.”

Emily chuckled. “Something tells me it’s too late for second thoughts. Our sister is a lightweight when it comes to alcohol.”

“Maybe it’ll help if we dance,” Meg said, checking out the dance floor enviously. “I’ve always wanted to learn the two-step.”

“Let’s go, then,” Sally said, pulling her up. “Nothing says we can’t corral a couple of the men in here to teach us. Who looks as if they know what they’re doing?”

“That one,” Meg said, her expression brightening as she pointed toward a lanky guy who looked especially good in a pair of faded jeans and a tight T-shirt.

“That’s Tommy Cahill,” Gabi said, following the direction of her gesture. She caught Meg’s hand. “Come on. He works with Wade, or Wade works for him. Doesn’t matter. He’s a sweet guy.”

With the possibility of an actual introduction squarely in front of her, Meg held back. “Married?”

“Nope,” Gabi assured her. “Not even dating as far as I know. He’s a contractor with an excellent reputation for building and remodeling high-end beach houses.”

Now Sally frowned. “Gay?”

Gabi smiled. “Not a chance. Just shy, I think. Now come on. He’s with friends. I imagine we can get them all on the dance floor. It won’t be like I’m trying to set you up,” she assured her friend.

“Oh, what the heck? I wanted to dance, not to get married,” Meg said, following Gabi across the wide-planked wooden floor.

Samantha hung back.

“You’re not going to dance?” Emily asked her. “You used to love dancing. You taught both me and Gabi.”

“That was when I could stand up without falling right back down,” Samantha said.

Emily laughed. “Your head’s already swimming?”

“Uh-huh,” she admitted. “You were right. I am a lightweight. And since I do not want to make a fool of myself in front of Ethan again because I’ve had too much to drink, I’m switching to coffee.”

“Do you think Boone will be furious if he comes in and catches me dancing with another man?” Emily asked, looking enviously at the other couples who were stumbling their way through the two-step by now.

“I think he’d want you to enjoy your bachelorette party,” Samantha told her. “Just skip the slow dances.” She looked across the room. “Looks to me as if there’s someone over there without a partner. Go for it.”

Emily started to cross the room, then turned back, her eyes wide. “It’s Boone,” she said, her voice hushed. “He’s not supposed to be here yet.”

Samantha chuckled. “I guess he couldn’t stay away.”

“Maybe he doesn’t trust me,” Emily whispered.

“That glint I can see in his eyes suggests something else entirely,” Samantha told her. “He’s on his way over here, so put on your prettiest smile and go dance till you drop. He’s always been the only man for you, so why pretend otherwise, even for a night?”

“He is pretty gorgeous, isn’t he?” Emily said, a slow smile spreading across her face. She put a little extra sway in her hips and headed in Boone’s direction. “Hey, sailor, want to give a girl a turn on the dance floor?”

Boone grinned. “I was looking at that beauty sitting over there behind you. Is she available?”

Emily punched him in the arm. “Not even remotely funny. You stay away from my sister.”

Boone looked down at her, his expression filled with adoration. “She doesn’t hold a candle to you,” he assured his bride-to-be.

That was the last Samantha heard as he pulled Emily into his arms. She sighed. She wanted that. She really did.

“Care to dance?”

Startled, she glanced up to find Ethan standing beside her. “You’re here!”

He smiled. “So it seems. I’m not so sure what sort of moves I have left, but I’m willing to try if you are.”

“Sure,” she said, eager to feel his arms around her.

She stumbled on the way to an empty space on the floor. Ethan’s eyebrow went up. “Tipsy already?”

She sighed. “Afraid so.”

He laughed. “This should be fun, then.”

But when he drew her into his embrace, she could feel all that solid muscle and taut control and knew with absolute certainty that she was in safe hands.

“Ethan, are you mad at me for talking to Cass?” she found herself asking.

“Not now,” he said, his breath feathering across her cheek. “Let’s just live in the moment.”

“But you aren’t happy with me, are you?” she persisted.

He looked down into her eyes. “I’m still worried, that’s all. And we’re not going to resolve this tonight, so let’s leave it for another time. Why don’t you just enjoy tormenting me?”

“Tormenting you?” she asked, intrigued.

“Sure. Don’t you know that holding you this close and knowing that this is where it’s going to end is pure torture for me?”

“A lesser man might conclude it didn’t have to end here,” she whispered.

She felt his smile against her cheek.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a lesser man,” he said.

“You could reconsider,” she suggested. “Go a little wild.”

He laughed. “Believe me, darlin’, that idea holds a lot of appeal.”

“But you’re not going to give in to temptation, are you?”

“Afraid not.”

She sighed and rested her head against his chest, listened to the steady beat of his heart, wondered what it would take to scramble his pulse so badly he’d have to give in.

One of these days, she decided, she was going to do everything in her power to find out.

15

“D
o you think Ethan will hire a stripper for Boone’s bachelor party?” Emily asked plaintively over breakfast on the morning after her bachelorette party. “I don’t think I’d like that, especially after the guys crashed my party and kept me from having my last fling as a single woman.”

“There was never going to be any fling,” Gabi said sternly. “You’re all talk, little sister. You’d never do that to Boone.”

Emily smiled, her expression dreamy. “You’re probably right. Why would I want to cheat on perfection?”

“Oh, gag me,” Gabi said.

“I think it’s sweet that she’s all caught up in the romance,” Samantha said. “That’s the way it should be. Watching you and Wade being all sensible and practical, well, it’s a little scary. What happened to being crazy in love?”

“We
are
crazy in love,” Gabi insisted. “We’re just mature.”

“Uh-oh,” Samantha said, catching the glint of annoyance in Emily’s eyes. “She doesn’t mean you’re immature, Em. Just that all couples are different, right, Gabi?”

“Absolutely right,” Gabi said hurriedly.

“Whatever,” Emily said, taking another sip of her coffee. “Let’s get back to the bachelor party. What if Ethan does invite a stripper?”

Samantha chuckled at her sister’s genuinely worried expression. “That doesn’t strike me as Ethan’s style,” she reassured her sister, then thought about it. “But I don’t think I’d be all that thrilled about it, either, now that you mention it. I wouldn’t want my man ogling a naked woman right before our wedding.”

“Exactly,” Emily said.

Gabi listened to them and shook her head. “You could order a cake and jump out of it just to see what’s going on,” she suggested mildly.

Emily’s expression immediately brightened, taking her ludicrous comment seriously. “Great idea! Samantha, you do it. I don’t want Boone to think I don’t trust him.”

Samantha frowned at the pair of them, Gabi for coming up with such a ridiculous idea and Emily for seizing it like a lifeline. She knew her younger sister well enough to know that Emily was unlikely now to let go of it.

“I am not jumping out of a cake,” Samantha told her flatly, though she’d taken on more embarrassing jobs to pay the bills in her early days in New York.

“It would dazzle Ethan,” Gabi suggested, getting into the spirit of things, or maybe trying to pacify Emily by siding with her for once. “You told us yourself he seems to respond to the unpredictable side of your nature, to say nothing of the glazed over, gaga looks he gives you every time you walk into a room. And that’s without ever seeing you naked.”

“Exactly,” Emily enthused. “And you wouldn’t have to be naked. In fact, that would be tacky, but you’d look fantastic in a bikini. I’ll even pay for you to get a spray tan.”

Samantha studied her sisters incredulously. “You’re really serious about this? You want me to jump out of a cake at Boone’s bachelor party just so I can make sure there are no strippers there?”

“And to stir up a few fantasies for Ethan,” Emily said. “He needs to live a little. Oh, he’s doing everything he has to do for the wedding, but he’s way too somber these days. This is practically your patriotic duty, to say nothing of the favor you’d be doing me. And we all know you want to get him into bed, even if you intend to deny it with your dying breath.”

Samantha could see that her sister’s heart was set on this absurd idea. Since she’d made a promise to herself to do nothing to spoil these next few days for Emily, she sighed.

“If you can arrange for the cake, I’ll do it, but I’m taking one quick look around and then I’m out of there. I can bear only so much humiliation, even for you.”

Gabi grinned and slapped Emily’s outstretched hand. “Told you she’d go for it. Mentioning how staid and uptight Ethan is these days was a nice touch. She came home last night all hot and bothered because he’s still holding out on her.”

Samantha frowned at the on-the-mark but annoying observation. “Watch it. I can still back out.”

“But you won’t,” Emily said, throwing her arms around her. “Because you love me too much. And you’re at least half in love with Ethan. This could push that along nicely.”

“Whatever relationship I have with Ethan—and I’m not saying there is one—it does not need to be pushed along by the likes of you,” she declared, though it was obviously a wasted argument.

“If not us, who?” Emily inquired. “Grandmother’s good, but she’s not half as inventive as Gabi and I are.”

“Maybe because Grandmother has the good sense to know when to leave well enough alone,” Samantha retorted.

Gabi chuckled. “Nah, that’s not it. She’s just biding her time. I’m pretty sure she still has a few tricks up her sleeve in case you and Ethan don’t get with the program. But she’s not likely to push the boundaries of good taste the way Emily and I will.”

Samantha suspected her sister was exactly right. The thought of Cora Jane kicking her matchmaking skills into high gear scared her to death. Hopefully she was so preoccupied with wedding details that Samantha and Ethan weren’t on her radar just yet.

* * *

Ethan glanced up when the door to the deck at Castle’s opened to allow a huge cake to be pushed through on a trolley. There wasn’t enough icing in the universe to disguise that the cake was fake. Since he hadn’t ordered a cake of any size, its arrival was definitely a surprise, and a suspicious one at that.

Suddenly there was music, too. Boone and the dozen or so men who had gathered for the bachelor party ceased talking and stared. Boone turned to Ethan with a questioning look. Ethan shrugged.

Boone backed away from the cake. “Please tell me Emily is not going to jump out of that cake,” he said, his eyes glued to the lavishly decorated cardboard monstrosity. “And if she is, please, please don’t let her be naked. That view is meant for me alone. I am not sharing.”

“No idea,” Ethan said tersely.

“And it’s not a stripper?” Boone asked.

“If it is, then someone else called for one,” Ethan assured him. “Sorry, but the thought didn’t cross my mind, since I thought all the men here tonight were more mature than that.”

Boone grinned at the stuffy remark. “Then, again, it is a bachelor party. Who knows if I’ll ever again get to see a naked woman who isn’t my wife? I’m starting to hope it
is
a stripper.”

“If you’re too eager for the sight of naked women, you might want to reconsider getting married,” Ethan suggested wryly, even as the top layer of the cake began to sway dramatically. That was accompanied by a few grunts and a pounding noise, then a yelp of dismay. That yelp sounded oddly—distressingly—familiar.

“Maybe we should do something,” Boone suggested, his gaze glued to the cake.

Ethan grinned, discovering that he was oddly fascinated by the prospect of seeing just what Boone’s bride-to-be had cooked up...with a little help from her sisters, no doubt. “Allow me.”

He walked closer to the cake and tapped on the top layer. “Having problems?” he inquired.

“Get me out of here,” an imperious voice commanded.

“Won’t that spoil the effect?” he asked, his suspicions confirmed about who was inside the cake. Samantha! Who else would Emily be able to talk into pulling a stunt like this? Why she’d done it hardly even mattered.

“Ethan, if you don’t help me right this second, when I do get out of here, I swear I’ll...” Words seemed to fail her.

“What?” he asked curiously.

“I’m not exactly sure, but you won’t like it.”

“We could wait and see.”

“Ethan, I’m hot and I’m annoyed.”

“Okay, okay. How were you supposed to get out?”

“The top is supposed to pop right open, but it’s stuck or something. I think all that fake icing turned into glue.”

He searched for some sort of hinge, then realized that when that final layer had been set on, the paint had probably still been a little wet, or maybe the icing had turned to concrete. It was hard to say. Either way, the sections were stuck together, as was the lid. He pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and went to work on the edges, unsealing the paint and chipping away at the icing.

“Try it now,” he said. “It should pop right open, and you’ll be able to make your grand entrance. Want a little stripper music? I think the tape ran out. You probably need to hit Rewind and start over.”

He was pretty sure her reply was anatomically impossible.

Apparently she gave the lid a good hard push, because it toppled off and Samantha stood up looking a lot like a magnificent, harried goddess who’d just tangled with an entire Greek army. She might have emerged a winner, but she definitely wasn’t happy, not even after cheers and masculine catcalls erupted around the deck. As the men stomped and whistled at the sight of her bikini-clad body, Ethan’s mood deteriorated as quickly as hers had.

“Okay, that’s it,” he muttered. “You’ve had your show. Let’s go.”

Samantha merely lifted a brow. “I’m supposed to sing.”

“I think you can be forgiven if you don’t.”

She regarded him stubbornly. “I rehearsed Boone’s favorite song. It’s the only part I was looking forward to.”

“Really? You wanted to stand in the middle of a tacky cake being ogled by a bunch of drunks while you sing?”

“Well, not when you put it that way,” she said, trying to climb out of the cake and nearly tumbling off the trolley and onto the floor. Fortunately she landed directly in his arms.

Ethan looked into her eyes, shook his head and aimed for the door. “I knew the first day I laid eyes on you that you were going to be a handful.”

“According to a few people we both know, that’s just what you need,” she said, as if she’d made it her assigned mission to rectify the situation.

“No, what I need is to get through this wedding without losing the rings, and then go back to my nice, peaceful existence,” he assured her.

She studied him doubtfully. “You were happy being bored?”

“I’m never bored.”

“Lonely?”

Now, that, he thought, was another kettle of fish. “Not lonely, either,” he lied.

She sighed at that. “Lucky you,” she murmured, in a way that took him once again by surprise.

Ethan thought it was probably something they should talk about, this glamorous life he’d envisioned her leading, and what was, perhaps, a very different reality. These admissions of hers that her life wasn’t rosy kept surprising him. Tonight, though, with a nearly naked Samantha snuggled in his arms, talk was pretty much the last thing on his mind.

Only the sheer grit that had gotten him through two wars kept him from giving in to temptation, hauling her into some private corner of Castle’s away from prying eyes and checking out whether she really intended to go through with what she was so blatantly offering.

* * *

Being carried unceremoniously out of Castle’s, Samantha sensed that she’d gotten on Ethan’s last nerve. But underneath his disapproval, she’d seen something else, a man on the edge of giving in to temptation. Wasn’t that interesting?

“You can put me down now. My car’s right over there,” she said, gesturing toward the far side of the parking lot.

“And mine is right here,” he countered, opening the passenger door and depositing her unceremoniously inside.

“You can’t leave your own party,” she said, though her pulse was starting to scramble at the tight line of his jaw.

“I’ll be back soon enough,” he said. “They’ll hardly miss me.”

“Ethan, I’m not drunk,” she said, even though the thought of having a drink or two before climbing into that awful cake had been very appealing. “You don’t have to drive me home.”

“Who says I am?”

“Are we going to your place?” she asked, knowing she probably sounded a little too eager.

Despite his frown, there was no mistaking the quick tug of a smile at the corners of his lips. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say no,” she said agreeably.

He shook his head. “I was afraid of that.”

“The idea of sleeping with me makes you afraid?”

“Not the act of making love,” he assured her. “The implications.” He shook his head. “No, scratch that. The
complications
.”

“There don’t have to be complications,” she argued. “We’re a couple of consenting adults. We both want this. Why would it be so wrong?”

“Because you deserve forever, Castle women are all about forever, and that’s not on my agenda.”

“Maybe we should test your theory. You could be wrong about what you want.” Even as she spoke, she buried her face in her hands. “God, I sound pathetic. Or desperate. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m pushing so hard when you’re so obviously not into me.”

He regarded her with dismay. “You don’t sound desperate. Don’t you dare think of yourself that way. It’s not what this is about.”

“Oh, please,” she protested. “I’m all but begging you to take me to bed. That sounds pretty desperate to me.”

To her surprise, he pulled off the coastal road and into the parking lot at his clinic, then cut the engine. When he turned to face her, he looked as miserable as she felt.