Tidal Reservations (Brides & Beaches Romance Book 1)

  “A few days ago. We’re friends online. It said you guys were too, and I thought she looked like you a little. Saw her maiden name was Madsen.” He sounded entirely too nonchalant to Charlotte.

  She needed to think through this and why this pinched her the wrong way. “Did you tell her about us?”

  “Why would I?” He put his hand on her shoulder and gently turned her toward him. “Why is this freaking you out?”

  “I don’t get along with my sister.” And the fact that he’d once found her attractive, even if it was over twenty years ago? Charlotte didn’t like that either.

  “We went out once,” he said. “Maybe twice. I apparently didn’t get along with her either.”

  “She has that affect on people.”

  He touched her back, and she calmed a little. “Does she know you’re here in Getaway Bay?”

  Charlotte shook her head, this part of her life what she’d left behind when she’d left the mainland.

  “Kind of funny we lived by each other growing up, don’t you think?” Whether his voice was deliberately light or he really found it amusing, Charlotte didn’t know. She knew she liked lying in his arms, watching the sun sink into the water, the scent of her new flowers below the deck lilting through her nose.

  So she did that, determined not to let her thoughts about her sister and her once-husband ruin her evening.

  Chapter Eight

  Dawson turned in a slow circle, taking in the entirety of his new place—a three-hundred square-foot trailer. Hey, it had beachfront property, and a hammock in the tree it was parked under if he didn’t feel like sleeping indoors.

  A tiny air conditioner had been plugged into the electrical outlet in this trailer park, and he stood right in front of it and barely felt any air at all.

  Didn’t matter.

  He liked small spaces, and he felt comfortable here. Now, bringing Charlotte here, that would be a whole different ballgame. But she hadn’t asked to see his new place, and he spent most of his free time up on the bluff, helping in her yard or slathering paint colors like midnight moon or fresh daisies onto the walls.

  Now that she had a job, her home improvement projects had slowed down. But every time he saw her, she had something going on, from watering a dry patch of grass to tearing out the linoleum in the spare bathroom upstairs…that no one ever used. The woman never just sat down for a minute.

  Well, unless he kissed her. Then she sort of melted into him and he could get her to lie with him in the hammock for a while. The conversation about her sister had stuck in his head, and he wasn’t sure why.

  “Probably because you liked her and were disappointed you hadn’t gotten another date.” Which was true. Wilma had been beautiful, with great curves, and a vivacious personality. Dawson had liked her a lot, and it wasn’t until later that year that he’d realized Wilma was counting the number of boys she could get to take her out. He’d been number four.

  He wasn’t sure if he should be flattered by that or not. She had flirted with him in history class until he’d taken her to the drive-in. Grilled cheese, burgers, and a flick he couldn’t remember. He did remember the blonde in the passenger seat, but not her little sister with more red in her hair.

  It had been a few days since that conversation, and Dawson was starting to wonder if Charlotte had more plaguing her from her past than he knew. He had been determined to take things slow with her, but she had kissed him first.

  So he wiped down the tiny counter in his trailer and stepped out onto the beach, firm in his resolve to keep his questions to himself and his phone securely in his pocket so he wouldn’t text her.

  He walked to the edge of the shade and sat in the full sun, his heart pulsing double-time when his phone rang. It settled when he saw his brother’s name on the screen, but his adrenaline kept pumping through his bloodstream as if he’d just fought off a rabid dog.

  “Hey, Rich.” Dawson listened to the sound of the waves coming into shore, beyond glad he’d chosen this place to start his second career. “How’s Allie?”

  “Pregnant again.”

  Dawson wasn’t sure if he should congratulate his brother or not. Rich had a very dry sense of humor, and he spent long hours pouring over briefs and helping others win cases.

  “That’s great,” he ended up saying, because there was still a pause on the line. “Four kids, wow.”

  “This one better be a boy,” he said.

  “Is that what you’re doing? Going to keep going until you get a boy?” Dawson almost started laughing, but he held it back just in time.

  “No,” he said. “This is it. But it would be nice to have more testosterone around here.”

  “I’ll bet.” Dawson waited, because he hadn’t made this call.

  “Mom wants to know if you might come home for Christmas.”

  “Rich.” Dawson sighed. “I just…can’t.”

  “Bronson broke up with Janet.”

  “No, she broke up with him.” Dawson hated this conversation. “And besides, it isn’t about that.” Maybe it had been for a few years. Maybe five or six. But could anyone blame him for not wanting to spend time with his younger brother who had been engaged to Dawson’s ex-girlfriend?

  That engagement had stretched on and on, until Janet had finally ended things. Dawson still hadn’t been home to see Bronson. Or his parents, which he knew hurt his mother.

  “What’s it about, then?” Rich asked.

  “I don’t fit there,” he said. “No one knows what to say to me, and I don’t know what to say to any of them.”

  “We talk just fine.”

  “Because you don’t think I should be married, or that I should’ve retired from the Air Force a decade ago, or that you get to dictate my life.”

  “Will you at least think about it?”

  “Sure,” Dawson said. It was only September. He had plenty of time to figure out a legitimate reason he couldn’t fly across the ocean for the holidays.

  “So.” Rich exhaled heavily. “Anything new going on in Getaway Bay?”

  Dawson considered telling him about Charlotte, but said, “There was this landslide a month or so ago, and a bunch of people got stuck on top of a mountain. That was pretty exciting.”

  “You think people getting stranded is exciting?”

  “I got to fly up and help with the rescue efforts. They were in this radio tower. Didn’t look all that dangerous to me, other than they couldn’t get down.”

  “So you still love the flying.”

  “I sure do.” And Dawson was so over defending himself for it. Just because his mother had loved Janet and couldn’t understand why Dawson wouldn’t give up everything he’d worked for to stay on the ground with the woman didn’t mean she was right.

  His phone made a strange chiming sound, which meant someone had messaged him through one of his social media accounts. That usually spelled trouble, but today he seized onto it. “I have another call coming in. I have to go, Rich.”

  “Think about it,” his brother said, and Dawson hung up.

  He sighed out his frustration with his family before checking his phone again. A blonde woman sat in the little circle on the side of his screen. He tapped on her, and Wilma’s name came up.

  How do you know Charlotte?

  Oh, he wasn’t going to touch this. Was he? He let his phone fall without typing anything. They didn’t get along, and Wilma didn’t know where Charlotte was. Dawson certainly wasn’t going to tell her.

  Charlotte who? he typed out.

  She’s my sister, Wilma said. I see you’re friends now.

  Dawson had requested Charlotte’s friendship the other day, and she must’ve finally accepted it.

  Instead of replying to her sister, Dawson broke his promise to himself and dialed Charlotte’s number.

  She answered after two rings, and he said, “I think I have a problem.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, and it has to do with your sister.”

  “My si
ster?”

  “Yeah. So we’re friends, and she saw that you accepted my friend request too, and she wants to know how I know you.” He felt like he was about to lose Charlotte. “It’s no secret I live in Getaway Bay, and your sister seems…like the type to put two and two together.”

  “She’s nosy, you mean.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say it.” He chuckled, hoping a date from over twenty years ago wouldn’t come between him and Charlotte now.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I tried to pretend I didn’t know you. But she saw we became friends.”

  “I’ll talk to her.” She didn’t sound happy about it.

  “I didn’t mean to cause a problem.”

  “You’re not the problem.”

  Relief filled him, and he decided to take a chance. “Does that mean you might want to go to dinner tonight?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  Dawson’s hopes fell. “All right.”

  “I just got a new bride for the holidays,” she said. “And she can’t come meet until five-thirty. If you’re willing to eat later, I can text you when I’m done.”

  Dawson would eat a midnight if it meant he could see Charlotte. She was different that the other women he’d dated, starting with the fact that she didn’t think he needed to be fixed. Of course, he no longer flew for the Air Force, and maybe things would’ve been different if he was asking her to live with him home only fifty percent of the time, or move every few years.

  “Text me when you’re done,” he said. “I’m not working tomorrow either. Maybe you have a job for me at the house?”

  “Are you offering free labor?”

  For her, he’d do almost anything, and he wasn’t quite ready to reveal that yet. So he said, “Depends on the job.”

  “If I make it indoors, where there’s air conditioning, does that change your mind?”

  “Do I have to be down on my hands and knees? Because I have a bad knee, you know. I don’t think I’ve told you that.”

  “Which knee?”

  “My left one. Blew it out in a training exercise.”

  “And yet you run on the beach every day.”

  “Oh, let’s not exaggerate things. I maybe run three or four days a week.”

  She laughed, and the awkwardness between them evaporated. “So maybe something easy like windows.”

  “Washing them or tearing out the old ones and putting in new ones?”

  She laughed again, and he knew it was the latter. “I’ll do it if you have some of those chocolate pops in the freezer.”

  “Lucky for you, I was planning to go to the grocery store tonight. But I can’t if we’re going to go to dinner….”

  Dawson heaved a sigh like no chocolate pops was the worst news ever. “Fine. I’ll buy the chocolate pops and bring them out myself.”

  “I like it when plans come together so easily. Oh, I have to go.” She hung up before he could say anything else, and Dawson found himself smiling at the waves and wishing he had a chocolate pop right now.

  “I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Charlotte stood as Dawson approached her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I got your text, and then I dropped my phone in the sink.” Well, it was the toilet, but he didn’t really want to tell her that. He received her into his arms and gave her a quick kiss, a fast, furious spark shooting through him.

  “So I couldn’t text you.” He sat across from her at the tiny table with a single orchid in the middle of it. She’d already ordered drinks, and he stared at his. “You ordered my soda?”

  “Diet Coke,” she said. “With lemon.” She looked anxious. “Did I mess it up?”

  “No, no.” He grabbed it and took a long drink, the carbonation burning as it slid down his throat. “It’s great. Perfect.” He smiled at her. “It’s just something Janet would’ve—” He cut off, pure horror snaking through him.

  Charlotte narrowed her eyes for a moment, and Dawson thought she might let the slip pass. Then she asked, “Who’s Janet?”

  Chapter Nine

  Charlotte watched as the beautifully suntanned Dawson went utterly pale. Ah, so Janet wasn’t a sister. Not his mother. Definitely a woman from his past, and he’d just made a mistake mentioning her.

  He hadn’t sounded choked or like it was hard to say her name. She couldn’t be that big of a deal.

  “An old girlfriend,” he said, reaching for the Diet Coke again and sucking down half of it.

  “Yeah, I think she’s more than that.” She’d told him about Hunter. Well, kind of.

  “She was.” Dawson put his arms on the table and leaned into them. “I guess you want the whole story?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Then you’ll tell me more about your ex-husband.”

  “Was Janet your wife?” He’d said he’d never been married.

  “No, but I loved her, and she loved me, and we were talking about marriage.” A ghost of something passed through his eyes. “She didn’t like my job. I didn’t want to quit. We broke up.”

  There was so much more behind that story, but Charlotte nodded. “She was your opportunity to get married.”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Seven years? Something like that.” He glanced up at the waiter and they put in their orders. Charlotte’s mind spun around a few key details.

  Once the waiter moved away, she said, “So you haven’t dated for seven years.” It wasn’t a question, and extreme curiosity coursed through her.

  “I mean, here and there,” he said dismissively. “Nothing serious.”

  Charlotte gestured to him and then herself. “Is this ‘nothing serious’?”

  Dawson’s eyes turned into lasers, and he leaned forward again as if someone at the nearby tables cared what they were talking about. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want a boyfriend.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You said you’d just gotten divorced and didn’t want to start dating.” Those eyes were sharp and they would not let go of hers. “Then you kissed me. So, honestly, Charlotte, I have no idea what this is.”

  Charlotte reeled from the bluntness in his words. But she couldn’t blame him. She had told him those things, and she had kissed him first. She still wanted to kiss him every chance she got. So Wilma being present in his past had been a little speed bump. Dawson obviously hadn’t been that important in her sister’s life, and he wasn’t interested in her sister now.

  “You’re right,” she said. “So maybe we just keep seeing where this goes.” She looked at him with hope lifting through her. He didn’t seem like the type to want to settle down, and he nodded, which confirmed it.

  Charlotte relaxed and spread her napkin over her leg. “So Janet didn’t like your job in the Air Force. Why not?”

  “I was gone too much,” he said. “Moved a lot. She had family in San Diego, same as me, and she wanted to put down roots.” He swallowed and glanced at his soda, which was nearly gone. “Pilots don’t have a lot of roots.”

  “Was it hard?” she asked. “Breaking up with her?”

  “Yes.” His voice was little more than a whisper amidst all the other chatter in the restaurant.

  And he hadn’t dated seriously since. Charlotte took a deep breath and let him off the hook. For now.

  “So my husband’s name was Hunter,” she said. “He was, well, he still is, a real estate agent on Carter’s Cove.” She watched him for any sign of recognition. “It’s the number one island destination in the continental United States. Lots of money to be made in time shares, condos, stuff like that.”

  “Is that why you left Carter’s Cove?”

  Charlotte couldn’t even sort through all the reasons she’d left. There were simply too many. She’d lost all her friends, as she’d done everything as part of a duo. And without Hunter, she didn’t fit. He was everywhere on the island, literally, as his face was on signs, his name on bu
ildings.

  “I…didn’t belong there anymore,” she said. “It might have been okay if he hadn’t left town for a weekend and come back with a new wife.” That had definitely been the tipping point. Or maybe she hadn’t reached that until she saw pictures of the newlyweds with all of her friends.

  They’d looked so happy. Toasting him like he was the god of the island. And where was Charlotte? In a back room, at the hotel where she had one more job to finish.

  “I lost you.” Dawson’s hand came down on hers, startling her out of that black hole in her life. “Look, we don’t have to talk about it.”

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte said. “It’s just easy to get bogged down with it. It was so recent.”

  The waiter arrived with their food, and the mood lightened once she’d had a bite of her vegetable tempura.

  “As soon as I finished my last job there,” Charlotte said. “I moved here.”

  He swallowed, smiled, and said, “Like you were starting over.”

  “Yeah, kind of. I just needed to get out of there, and Getaway Bay sounded like a great place to get away.”

  “I came for a fresh start too,” he said, his dark eyes sparking with that desire she’d seen every time he kissed her.

  She lifted her glass of soda. “To fresh starts.” He clinked his against hers, and took another bite of his sushi. Charlotte smiled too, but something writhed way down deep inside her.

  Questions spiraled around her head, the biggest, loudest one was Is this a fling?

  Because if it wasn’t, she needed a label for their relationship.

  September faded into October, and Charlotte expected the island to calm down a little. If anything, there were more tourists than ever. She took on four new clients for the custom wedding packages, a fact that had Hope beaming from the doorway of her office.

  “How are things coming with the Grays?” she asked.

  Charlotte pulled a green folder toward her. “Since the initial consultation, I’ve been working with the dress designer. She has three sketches for Claudia to look at. She’s coming the day after tomorrow.” She flipped a page. “Once we have the dress, we’ll be able to move on to the cake, dinner, and flowers. Claudia wanted it all to flow around the design of the dress.”