Sarah Morgan - Some Kind of Wonderful

“Thanks. Do I need to count the money?”

It was a question she never would have asked before, and he stared at her for a long moment, watching the flush build in her cheeks.

Although that was one crime he wasn’t guilty of, he knew he was guilty of plenty of others so he didn’t bother defending himself.

Instead, he looked at the clothes strewn haphazardly on the floor of the bathroom where she’d obviously struggled to strip them off. He was no detective, but it seemed to him that she’d slept in the clothes she’d traveled in.

Dragging his eyes from the thong, he eyed her plaster cast. “You having trouble managing with that thing on your arm?”

“No. No trouble.”

It was her right hand. She was right-handed. It had to be a problem, but he guessed she would rather have faced another spider than admit to him that she was struggling.

He glanced from the mess on the floor to the cast on her wrist and told himself it wasn’t his business.

“You’ve got people you can call if you need help?”

“I don’t need help. Goodbye, Zach.”

His legs refused to move. “You need to think about getting a new bolt on your back door.” The cottage was isolated. Her nearest neighbor was a mile away. The thought sent his tension levels rocketing.

“My lock is fine. This is Puffin Island.”

“Last time I looked there was nothing stopping the criminal element stepping aboard the ferry.”

“I guess you’re proof of that.”

Zach’s eyes met hers. He’d always assumed that his less-than-clean-cut past had been part of the attraction for her, at least initially. At the time it had amused him that a few nasty secrets had the upside of making him more interesting to the opposite sex. He’d milked it for all it was worth. Why wouldn’t he? If the gutter had a silver lining, then he figured he might as well wrap himself in it.

Those days were long behind him, but clearly not forgotten. Not by him and not by the residents of Puffin Island. And, it seemed, not by his ex-wife.

With a brief nod, he turned and walked out of the house, this time leaving by the front door.

If she chose not to buy a better lock for the back door, that was her business. At any rate, he was willing to lay bets that there wasn’t a decent lock to be had in any of the stores since he’d landed back on the island.

“HOLY CRAP, he saw me naked. Could it be any more humiliating?” Brittany lay on her back on the bed, talking to Skylar on the phone.

“He heard you scream and broke in to save you. That’s so romantic.”

“It’s not romantic, it’s the sign of a misspent youth. Would you know how to break through a door without damaging the lock?”

“No, but we all have different skills and you’re missing the most important point. All these years you thought he didn’t care, but he obviously does.”

“I don’t know how you draw that conclusion.”

“He thought you were in trouble, Brit! You screamed and he came. A knight in shining armor.”

“He was wearing black jeans.” An old pair of Levi’s and a black T-shirt that had fitted him perfectly, molding to every contour of his muscular frame. “He looked like a ninja not a knight.”

“Yum.”

“Not yum! I don’t want him.”

Sky chuckled. “You mean you don’t want to want him.”

Remembering the sizzle of awareness when their eyes had met, Brittany bit her lip. “Why did this have to happen? Why did he have to pick this moment to come back here?”

“It’s fate.”

“I hate it when you say that.”

“Finish the story. You saw the spider, screamed and then he appeared. And you weren’t wearing anything at all. Not even a teeny tiny thong?”

“I was wearing a teeny tiny thong fifteen minutes before he arrived. It was on the floor.” She heard a sound and frowned. “Are you laughing?”

“I might be. Look, maybe he didn’t notice.”

“He noticed. He smacked his head into the door frame.”

“Oh, poor him. That must have hurt. I always said that door was too low. I can’t walk into that bathroom in heels.”

Brittany gave a murmur of exasperation. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, of course, but I do sympathize that he banged his head and I’m not going to be angry with him for looking out for you. So he saw you naked—then what?”

“He threw me a towel and got rid of the spider.” With those big, calloused hands that could break down a door or the defenses of a woman with equal ease.

“Well, there you go. The actions of a perfect gentleman.”

“It was a hand towel. And I can think of lots of different ways of describing Zachary Flynn, but ‘perfect gentleman’ isn’t one of them.”

“Did he, or did he not, get rid of the spider?”

“He did, but—”

“And he came back to check you were okay?”

“Yes, but—”

“It wasn’t his fault the closest thing was a hand towel. So then what? You stood there looking at each other and all you were wearing was a plaster cast. That must have been awkward.”

“It was a little more than awkward.” And hadn’t been made less so by the fact the incident had played out on the same stage as their intense affair. They’d had sex in that bathroom. They’d had sex in almost every room of the house.

“Just awkward? Not sexy? He didn’t push you up against the wall and press his heated body against yours?”

“No! And you need to rein in your imagination.” And she needed to rein in hers.

“Can’t do that, I need it for my job.”

“So keep it for your art and don’t get creative with my sex life, especially not where Zach is concerned.”

“I always thought he’d be the kind of guy to take what he wanted without asking permission.”

“I think we’ve already established he didn’t want me.” And it shouldn’t bother her. It really shouldn’t bother her.

“It must have been hard for him to commit to someone, given he’d been alone all his life.”

“You sound as if you’d like to adopt him.”

“Now you mention it, he’s like one of those stray dogs who have been badly treated and no one ever wants to give a home to because they’re afraid of being bitten.”

“Not every stray dog can be tamed.”

“Agreed. So what happened after he’d performed epic spider removal? He left?”

“Right after I virtually accused him of stealing from my purse.”

“You didn’t! Brit? Why would you do that?”

“Because—because—I don’t know.” She was upset with herself. “I was feeling vulnerable. And he had just broken into my house.”

“To save you! Do you want to know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think seeing him really messed with your head and you wanted to see the worst in him.”

“Of course it messed with my head. I was naked! And I have no idea what I’m going to say next time I see him.”

“You say ‘thank you for removing my spider.’ What are you doing this morning?”

“I’m supposed to be meeting Em for breakfast. She’s in love.”

“I know. Can you believe it? And Ryan is gorgeous. How come we never met him when we came to stay?”

“Bad timing, I guess. Up until four years ago, he was always traveling. How do I handle the fact that Zach is here?”

“How do you think you should handle it?”

She went through the options. “Anger would imply I still care, happy would be too hard to play, so I was going with indifference.”

“Indifference sounds perfect to me.”

“But he saw me naked.”

Sky laughed. “Honey, it’s not the first time.”

BRITTANY TOOK THE PRETTIEST route to the harbor and the Ocean Club, walking up the coast path and then cutting across the fields that skirted the wooded interior of the island.