the curb with a squeal of tires. Not all four. Just two.
Becca grabbed the dash. “If you’d just give him some of your attention, your time—”
“We’re over this conversation,” he said firmly.
She waited until they were on the highway. “Listen,” she said gently. “I know he screwed up a lot while you were growing up, but I think he genuinely regrets—”
“Over it, Becca.”
“Really?” she asked, feeling her own temper rise. Whenever she was over a conversation, he still pushed.
He must have heard the annoyance in her tone because he slid her a look that had male bafflement all over it, like she’d just asked him if she looked fat in these jeans or what he liked about her.
Somehow that was worse, that he truly didn’t get it, the clueless man. “Why do you get to push me to talk, and I can’t push you?”
“That’s different,” he said immediately.
“How?” she asked. “How’s it different?”
He downshifted into a turn and said nothing.
“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms. “Thought so.”
“Get off your soapbox, Becca,” he said, apparently just as annoyed with her as he was with his dad. “It’s not like you’ve ever really told me shit about you.”
Okay, that was possibly true.
Five tense minutes later, he slid into a parking spot outside of the Love Shack and turned to her.
She made a point of looking out the passenger window.
Sam sighed, the sound filled with frustration and regret. “Look,” he said, “he drives me crazy, okay? And I’m a total ass. I’m sorry.”
So foreign was the notion of a guy apologizing to her for something that she jerked around to stare at him.
“You look confused,” he said.
“One of us is supposed to be pissed off,” she said softly. “Maybe both of us. But you’re not mad at me. And I don’t feel mad at you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with that. Or you, for that matter.”
He slid his fingers along her jaw and into her hair, then pulled her close enough to press his mouth to hers. “If you weren’t my employee, I’d show you what to do with me.” He kissed her again and then whispered against her lips, suggestions on exactly what she might do with him, each hotter than the last.
She felt herself quiver and then get wet, and she stared at his mouth, having some trouble with her thought process.
“We straight?” he asked.
“Um. . .”
His eyes were heated, but they lit with a little humor now as he ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re straight.” He pulled back. “I could use a drink. You?”
“Yes.”
He pulled her from the truck and into him, giving her a really tight, really hard, really great hug. “You’re so damn sweet,” he said into her hair.
She tipped her face up. “Because I interfere?”
He smiled. “Because you care enough to interfere.”
“Yeah? You have your sweet moments, too, you know,” she said. “Not a lot, mind you, but a few here and there.”
He tossed his head back and laughed.
“What?”
“That’s the first time anyone’s ever said I was sweet,” he said, still grinning.
“You apologized to me. And that was sweet.”
“I apologized because I was an ass. That’s what you do when you’ve been an ass.”
“Not everyone who acts like an ass apologizes,” she said.
His smile faded, and he hooked an arm around her neck, drawing her into him again, pressing his mouth to her temple. “They should,” he said against her skin.
Cole and Tanner were at a table inside, and Sam and Becca joined them.
Cole smiled at Becca. “How you doing?”
“Better,” she said. “Thanks again. I’m so sorry—”
“No apologies for that,” Cole said. “Ever.” He gestured to Jax behind the bar, who brought two more longnecks, one each for Sam and Becca.
Cole lifted his in a toast. “To Gil.”
“To Gil,” they all said, and Becca was moved by their low, serious voices that rang out together. They ordered sliders and fries and another round.
Sam made the next toast. “To my dad’s health,” he said.
This surprised and pleased Becca. “See?” she said to him. “Sweet. But your dad looked fine to me.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “but I plan to kill him later, so—”
“Sam,” she said on a surprised laugh. “You’re not.”
“Okay, maybe not kill him,” he said. “Not all the way.”
“What’d he do now?” Cole wanted to know.
“Doesn’t matter,” Tanner said. “You’re not going to kill him because I’m not using our boat fund to bail you out again, not when we’re getting so close to another boat.”
“Again?” Becca asked Sam.
Sam gave Tanner a long look.
Tanner took a long pull on his beer and didn’t look concerned. “Did we forget to tell you that you work for an international felon?” he asked Becca.
Her mouth fell open, and she stared at Sam, who flipped Tanner the bird.
Tanner flashed a grin.
“Yeah, it’s true,” Cole told her. “The last time we had to bail him out, I almost had to try and sell Tanner here for a night just to have enough.”
“You did try and sell me for a night,” Tanner said.
Becca choked out a laugh, and Sam rolled his eyes. “Why does that story change the more you drink?” he asked Tanner.
Tanner pointed his beer at Sam. “You weren’t there. You were cooling off in a Mexican prison. We could’ve just left you there, you know. But did we? No.”
“Instead you got yourself arrested as well,” Sam reminded him.
“Hey, that was Cole’s fault,” Tanner said. “He told me to kiss the wrong woman.”
“Okay,” Becca said, setting down her beer. “I’m going to need to hear this story. The real story.”
Cole grinned. “I’ll tell it.”
Tanner groaned but Cole ignored him. “We’d just left the rig job,” he told her. “We’d bought our first boat, a real piece of shit to be honest, but she was all ours. Well, ours and the bank’s. We were on the water, and our GPS went down. Tanner here insisted he could navigate without it. We were in the southwest Gulf, and he turned us a little too far south, where we came across some Mexican pirates—”
Becca gasped. “Oh, my God, pirates? Really?”
“Oh, yeah,” Cole said. “They boarded us, too. Said they were the. . .” He used air quotes here. “Authorities. And genius here”—he jabbed a thumb at Sam—“decided that they were full of shit and told them so.”
“Okay, yes, I did that,” Sam said. “But in my defense, they were wearing a combo of outdated U.S. and British military gear. They looked suspicious.”
“They hauled his big mouth off to the clink,” Tanner said.
“Which left me,” Cole said, gesturing to himself, “the brains of the operation, to figure out how to spring him.”
“Hey,” Tanner said. “I did my part. You told me to sleep with the town mayor’s daughter.” He smiled at Becca. “She was in the bar we stumbled into to come up with a plan.” He grimaced. “Except—”
“Except it turns out that she was the wife, not the daughter,” Cole said. “Which left me bailing out the two of them.”
“Did you have enough to bail them both out?” she asked.
“He sure as hell didn’t,” Sam said. “Because he’d used his month’s pay on being stupid.”
Becca looked at Cole, who shook his head. “That’s another story altogether.”
“So how did you bail them out?” Becca asked.
“He sold our fuckin’ boat,” Tanner said on a huge, sad sigh. “The Sweet Sally, gone forever.”
“It was that,” Sam said, “or leave you to
become Big Bubba’s jail-mate bitch. And afterward, we bought a better boat.”
“He didn’t care then,” Cole said, and turned to Tanner. “You were still recovering and supposed to be taking it easy, but instead you were on this walk on the stupid and wild side, remember? Gil had just—”
“Hey,” Tanner said, no longer smiling. “Don’t go there.”
“—died,” Cole said.
“I mean it,” Tanner said. “Shut up.”
“What, we just toasted to his memory,” Cole said, “but we can’t toast to your trip to Crazy-Town?”
Tanner shoved free of the table. “I’m out.”
“Aw, come on,” Cole said. “Don’t get like that—”
But Tanner was gone, striding out the door and into the night.
Sam set down his beer. “Really?” he asked Cole.
Cole sighed and got to his feet. “I suppose I should go after Mr. Sensitive.”
“Maybe you want to give him a few minutes first,” Sam suggested. “So he doesn’t rearrange your face again.”
“Yeah.” Cole straightened his shoulders like he was bracing for battle. “Hey, if I don’t show up for work tomorrow, call out a search party, okay? I’ll be the one in concrete shoes at the bottom of the harbor, waiting on a rescue.” He paused, and when Sam only shrugged, he sighed. “Nice knowing ya,” he said to Becca, and headed out after Tanner.
“Is he really in danger?” Becca asked, worried.
“From his own big, fat mouth, maybe.” Sam stood up and pulled her with him. “Want to play?” he asked, gesturing to the piano.
Her heart gave a little kick, and she looked around. The bar was still full. “No, but thank you for asking.”
The night was dark and quiet. Becca looked up at her big, silent, gorgeous escort. “At least this time I can thank you for walking me.”
He arched a brow.
“You usually vanish into the night,” she said. “Like Batman.”
He looked at her but didn’t say anything, neither confirming nor denying.
At Becca’s apartment building, Olivia came out of her door with a duffel bag. “Hey,” she said. “There was a spider in my bathroom. I need to sleep on your couch.” Without waiting for a response, she walked into Becca’s apartment and left Sam and Becca alone in the doorway.
Becca looked at Sam. “You got in touch with her somehow.”
He kissed her. “Night. Sleep tight.”
“See?” she said. “Sweet.” Then she caught his hand, went up on tiptoe, and gave him a good-night kiss.
Chapter 18
After work the next day, Becca was walking across the alley toward her apartment when someone called her name. Turning, she came face-to-face with Mark.
“Hey there,” he said with a smile. “I was just heading in, looking for Sam.”
“The guys are gone,” she said. “Out on the water with clients.”
“Ah, gotcha.” His smile was still in place, but he looked worried. Really worried.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Well. . .I had a little car mishap.”
“An accident?” She put her hand on his arm, looking him over.
He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “I see why he’s into you, darlin’; you’re really something special. But no, I didn’t have an accident. I’m fine.”
“Oh. Good,” she said relieved. “And Sam and I aren’t—”
“Because he’s an idiot. I know,” Mark said. He rubbed his jaw ruefully. “He might’ve gotten that from me.”
“Actually,” she said, “I might be the idiot.”
Mark smiled. “See? Special. Because now you’re protecting the idiot.”
Becca laughed. “Tell me about your car mishap.”
He went back to looking rueful. “I got my ride repo’d.”
“Oh, Mark.”
“I know, I know. I need to grow up. But right now, I need to get to the doctor, I have an appointment.”
“You can borrow my car, if you’d like,” she said. “Fair warning, though, it’s a piece of shit.”
“Pieces of shit are my specialty,” Mark said. “You wouldn’t by any chance have another of those amazing sandwiches with chips on it lying around, would you?” He flashed her a smile that was so similar to Sam’s, she smiled back helplessly.
“No,” she said, “but I can make you one.”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “Definitely special.”
That night Becca sat in Olivia’s apartment sharing Chinese takeout and some wine.
And woes.
They started with work woes. Olivia’s were physical. She’d been in Lucky Harbor for a year now and was outgrowing her store. It was why she’d moved into the warehouse apartment. She’d been living above the store, but that space was now needed for stock storage.
Becca’s work woes were mental. She was trying to teach music to a group of kids who’d never played an instrument in their lives, and it didn’t take a shrink to know that she needed this more than they did.
And then there was the fact that she was falling for her stoic, sexy boss. But as Olivia pointed out while refilling their glasses for the second or third or maybe fourth time, “If you put those two things aside, things are good for you.”
This was actually true, of sorts. Work was going pretty well. She had the Summer Bash plans under control, and she’d finished updating the charter website. The guys had been doing double the work, taking calls for reservations and then having to enter everything into the system. But now the site was fully operational, and people could book themselves.
“I bet you’re worth your weight in gold,” Olivia said. “Come work for me; it’ll be better for you.”
“How’s that?” Becca asked. “You have three hot guys in board shorts, shirts optional, working at your shop to look at all day?”
Olivia snorted. “No, but if you work for me, then you can sleep with Sam.”
Which brought them to the next subject—man woes.
“I’m not sure we’re going there,” Becca said. “And anyway, I’m not in a hurry to have him as an ex.”
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “Exes suck.”
She looked at Olivia with interest. “Tell me an ex story.”
“I once had a boyfriend who was an FBI agent.”
“Wow.”
“Wait for it,” Olivia said, not nearly as impressed as Becca.
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “He said being an agent was why he had to come and go without warning, and why he didn’t have to call.”