Seaside Dreams (Love in Bloom: Seaside Summers, Book One) Contemporary Romance (28 page)

“She’s coming along.” Pete had been refinishing a custom-built 1966 thirty-four-foot gaff-rigged wooden schooner for the past two summers. Working with his hands was not only his passion, but it was also cathartic. He’d spent the last two years pouring the guilt over his father’s drinking into refitting the boat.

“What will you do with it when you’re done?” Amy Maples looked like the girl next door, with her sandy blond hair and big green eyes, and acted like a mother hen, always worrying about her friends.

Pete shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll sail someplace far, far away.” He’d never leave his father, or the Cape, but there were days…

That brought Jenna’s eyes to him. Jesus, she had the most gorgeous eyes. They weren’t sea blue or sky blue or even midnight blue. They were more of a cerulean frost, and at the moment, pointedly icy.
What the hell did I do?
He racked his brain, going over the last two weeks, but he hadn’t seen Jenna for more than a minute or two. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done to warrant her attitude.

Jenna raised her eyebrows in Amy’s direction. “Time for
me
to go away.” She rose to her feet, bringing her red-string-bikini-clad body into full view. The tiny triangles barely covered her nipples and the bottom rode high on her hips, exposing every luscious curve.

Pete shot a look around the patio—every male eye was locked on Jenna. Jenna wasn’t even five feet tall, but she had a better body than any long-legged model.
How the hell can a woman have a body like that and not be one hundred percent confident at all times?
He stifled the urge to stand between her and the ogling men.

“Where are you going?” Bella’s eyes bounced between Pete and Jenna.

“I’m going to do what I came here to do. There’s a construction guy with my name on him over there.” Jenna lifted her chin toward the sky, and her pigeon-toed feet carried her fine ass off the patio, across the grass, and directly toward one of the young construction workers.

“What’s she doing?” Pete narrowed his eyes as Jenna approached a ripped construction worker. He expected Jenna to put her hands behind her back and sway from side to side like she did when she spoke to him—reminiscent of an excited girl rather than a sensual woman—adorable and confusing as hell.

“Oh. My. God.” Bella rose to her feet, her eyes wide.

“Nothing, Pete. She’s…Oh God.” Amy put Joey in Pete’s lap. “Take her. I um…Darn it.” Amy reached for Bella’s hand as they gawked, mesmerized by Jenna’s bold move.

Her shoulders were drawn back, her beautiful breasts on display—proudly on display!
What the hell?
She put one hand on her hip, and holy hell, Pete didn’t need to see her face to feel the slow drag of her eyes down that bastard’s body in a way similar to how she usually looked at
him
when she thought he wasn’t looking. But then she’d go all nervous when he’d approach.

What the fuck?

“Holy shit. She’s going for it.” Bella sat back down, as Jenna put her finger in the waistband of the guy’s jeans and shrugged. “She’s something this summer, isn’t she?”

Jealousy clutched Pete’s gut.

“Yes, and this summer’s rock fixation? What’s up with pitch-black rocks? She’s never collected them before.” Amy’s voice trailed off as she watched Jenna in action.

Pete made a mental note of the rocks Jenna was collecting this summer. He’d spent five years taking mental notes about Jenna. Every summer she collected different types of rocks—egg shaped, all white, gray, and oval. There was never any rhyme or reason that Pete could see for her rock selection, but she knew what she liked, and the ones she liked ended up all over her cottage and deck.

Jenna’s eyes were fixated on the guy.
That
was the Jenna Pete had hoped would talk to
him
, and now…Now he was getting pretty damn pissed off.

“Those aren’t local guys; they’re contractors,” he warned. “They probably have women in every town around here. Want me to intervene?” Jenna wasn’t his to protect. They’d never even gone out on a single date, but somewhere in his mind, despite his confusion, she
was
his. Summers to Pete meant six to eight weeks of seeing Jenna, and over the last two years, while his father buried his troubles in alcohol, seeing Jenna meant even more to him. But until this very second, he never realized how much he wanted her, or how much she meant to him. Joey turned her tongue on Pete’s chin. Frustrated, Pete lifted his face out of reach.

Leanna shook her head. “God. Look at her go.”

Look at her go? You think this is okay?

“Pete, have you heard something bad about them? Should we worry?” Amy’s voice was laden with concern. “Bella, maybe we should…”

Pete watched Jenna take her phone from her pocket and type something. A second later the blond guy took his phone from his back pocket and nodded.

“She gave him her number. I can’t believe it,” Leanna said.

“She wasn’t shitting us,” Bella said. “Damn, our girl’s getting her groove on.” She settled back in her seat and petted Joey. “Oh, Pete…
tsk, tsk, tsk
.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He clenched his teeth so tight he thought they might crack.

“Nothing.” Leanna smacked Bella’s arm.

Bella set her eyes on him. “A woman like Jenna only comes around once in a lifetime.”

He was just beginning to realize how true those words were.

“Bella, don’t,” Amy warned.

Bella shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

He didn’t know what to make of the woman who was a wallflower around him and a sex kitten around a random dipshit in the street. Jenna sashayed back toward the table with a grin on her face. That was Pete’s cue to get the hell out of there before he was stuck listening to Jenna going on and on about that dipshit. He rose to his feet with Joey in his arms.

“Wait. Don’t leave,” Amy pleaded. “You didn’t get Joey her water.”

“I’ve got to get going.” With Joey in his arms, he headed off the patio. Jenna brushed past him without so much as a word, and it pissed him off even more. He couldn’t escape fast enough.

“Guess who’s going to the Beachcomber tonight? Oh my God. He’s even hotter up close.” Jenna’s voice echoed in his mind as he crossed the street to get Joey a bowl of water from Mac’s.

Holy Christ. Like I needed to hear that shit
.

(End of Sneak Peek)

To continue reading, be sure to pick up the next

LOVE IN BLOOM release:

SEASIDE HEARTS,
Seaside Summers

Love in Bloom series

Please enjoy the first chapter of the first

Love in Bloom
novel

Sisters in Love

Snow Sisters, Book One

Love in Bloom Series

M
elissa
F
oster

"A beautiful story about love and self-growth and finding that balance to happiness. Powerfully written and riveting from beginning to end."

—
National bestselling author Jane Porter

THE LINE IN the café went all the way to the door. Danica Snow wished she hadn’t taken her sister Kaylie’s phone call before getting her morning coffee. Living in an overcrowded tourist town could be a major inconvenience, but Danica loved that she could walk from her condo to her office, see a movie, have dinner, or even stop at a bookstore without ever sitting in a car. Every minute counted when you lived in Allure, Colorado, host to an odd mix of hippie and yuppie tourists in equal numbers. The ski slopes brought them in the winter, while art shows drew them in the summer. There was never a break. Every suit and Rasta child in town was standing right in front of her, waiting for their coffee or latte, and the guy ahead of her had shoulders so wide she couldn’t easily see around him. Danica tapped the toe of her efficient and comfortable Nine West heels, growing more impatient by the second.

What on earth was taking so long? In seven minutes they’d served only one person. The tables were pushed so close to the people standing in line that she couldn’t step to the side to see. She was gridlocked. Danica leaned to the right and peered around the massive shoulder ahead of her just as the owner of that shoulder turned to look out the door.
Whack!
He elbowed her right in the nose, knocking Danica’s head back.

Her hand flew to her bloody nose. “Ow! Geez!” She ducked in pain, covering her face and talking through her hands. “I think you broke my nose.” Each word sent pain across her nose and below her eyes.

“I’m so sorry. Let me get you a napkin,” a deep, worried voice said.

Two patrons rushed over and shoved napkins in her direction.

“Are you okay?” an older woman asked.

Tears sprang from the corners of Danica’s closed eyes.
Damn it
. Her entire day would now run late and she probably looked like a red-nosed, crying idiot. “This hurts so bad. Weren’t you looking where—” Danica flipped her unruly, brown hair from her face and opened her eyes. Her venom-filled glare locked on the man who had elbowed her—the most beautiful specimen of a human being she had ever seen.
Oh shit.
“I’m…What…?”
Come on, girl. Get it together
.
He’s probably an egomaniac
.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice was rich and smooth, laden with concern.

A thin blonde grabbed his arm and shoved a napkin into his hand. “Give this to her,” she said, blinking her eyelashes in a come-hither way.

The man held the woman’s hand a beat too long. “Thanks,” he said. His eyes trailed down the blonde’s blouse.

Really? I’m bleeding over here.

He turned toward Danica and handed her the napkin. His eyes were green and yellow, like field grass. His eyebrows drew together in a serious gaze, and Danica thought that maybe she’d been too quick to judge—until he stole a glance at the blonde as she walked out of the café.

Asshole
. She felt the heat of anger spread up her chest and neck, along her cheeks, to the ridge of her high cheekbones. She snagged the napkin from his hand and wiped her throbbing nose. “It’s okay. I’m fine,” she lied. She could smell the minty freshness of his breath, and she wondered what it might taste like. Danica was not one to swoon—that was Kaylie’s job.
Get a grip
.

“Can I at least buy you a coffee?” He ran his hand through his thick, dark hair.

Yes!
“No, thank you. It’s okay.” She had been a therapist long enough to know what kind of guy eyes another girl while she was tending to a bloody nose that he had caused. Danica fumbled for her purse, which she’d dropped when she was hit. She lowered her eyes to avoid looking into his. “I’m fine, really. Just look behind you next time.” Not for the first time, Danica wished she had Kaylie’s flirting skills and her ability to look past his wandering eyes. She would have had him buying her coffee, a Danish, and breakfast the next morning.

Danica was so confused, she wasn’t even sure what she wanted. She chanced another glance up at him. He was looking at her features so intently that she felt as though he were drinking her in, memorizing her. His eyes trailed slowly from hers, lowered to her nose, to her lips, and then settled on the beauty mark that she’d been self-conscious of her entire life. She felt like a Cindy Crawford wannabe. Danica pursed her lips. “Are you done?” she asked.

He blinked with the innocence of a young boy, clueless to her annoyance, which was in stark contrast to his confident, manly presence. He stood almost a foot taller than Danica’s impressive five foot seven stature. His chest muscles bulged beneath his way-too-small shirt, dark curls poking through the neckline.
He probably bought it that way on purpose
. She glanced down and tried not to notice his muscular thighs straining against his stonewashed denim jeans. Danica swallowed hard. All the air suddenly left her lungs. He was touching her shoulder, squinting, evaluating her face.

“I’m sorry. I was just making sure it didn’t look broken, which it doesn’t. I’m sure it’s painful.”

She couldn’t think past the heat of his hand, the breadth of it engulfing her shoulder. “It’s okay,” she managed, hating herself for being lost in his touch when he was clearly someone who ate women for breakfast. She checked her watch. She had three minutes to get her coffee and get back to her office before her next client showed up.
Belinda. She’d love this guy.

The line progressed, and Adonis waved as he left the café. Danica reached into her purse to pay for her French vanilla coffee and found herself taking a last glance at him as he passed the front window.

The young barista pushed Danica’s money away. “No need, hon. Blake paid for yours.” She smiled, lifting her eyebrows.

“He did?”
Blake
.

“Yeah, he’s really sweet.” The barista leaned over the cash register. “Even if he is a player.”

Aha! I knew it.
Danica thrust her shoulders back, feeling smart for resisting temptation.

(End of Sneak Peek)

Check online retailers for the Snow Sisters series

SISTERS IN LOVE, SNOW SISTERS, Book One

Love in Bloom Series