Ally Blake - Her Hottest Summer Yet

Avery’s feet stopped working, right in the middle of the street. For there, standing behind Claudia and a little to the left, thumb swishing distractedly over a smartphone, was Luke Hargreaves—tall, lean, handsome in a clean-shaven city-boy kind of way, in a suit she could pin as Armani from twenty feet away. If that wasn’t enough, compared to the mountain of growly man flesh she’d left back there on the beach, not a single skin prickle was felt.

With relief Pollyanna tap danced gleefully inside her head as Avery broke out in a sunny smile.

TWO

A car honked long and loud and Avery came to. Heat landed in her cheeks as she and her still wobbly legs made their way across the road.

She wished her entrance could have been more elegant, but since in the past half an hour she’d near drowned, passed out, woken up looking into the eyes of a testosterone-fuelled surfer who made her skin itch, she had to settle for still standing.

Avery walked up the grassy bank to the front path of the resort where Claudia near ploughed her down with a mass of hugging arms and kisses and relieved laughter. When Avery was finally able to disentangle herself she pulled back, laughing. Compared with the stylishly subdued Mr Hargreaves, Claudia with her bright blue eyes and wild shirt was like sunshine and fairy floss.

“What happened to you?” asked Claudia. No hellos, no how was your flight. The best kind of friendship, it always picked up just where it left off.

“Just been out for a refreshing ocean dip!”

Avery shot a telling glance at Luke. Claudia crossed her arms and steadfastly ignored the man at her back. Avery raised an eyebrow. Claudia curled her lip.

They might have lived on different continents their whole lives but with Skype, email, and several overseas trips together, their shorthand was well entrenched.

Finally Claudia cocked her head at the man and with a brief flare of her nostrils said, “Luke, you remember Avery Shaw.”

Luke looked up at the sound of his name. Avery held her breath. Luke just blinked.

Rolling her eyes, Claudia turned on him. “My friend Avery. The Shaws stayed at the resort ten odd years ago.”

Still nothing.

“They booked out the Tiki Suite for an entire summer.”

“Right,” he said, a flare of recognition finally dawning in his seriously lovely brown eyes. “The Americans.”

Claudia clearly wasn’t moved by it. Something he’d said, or the way he said it, had Claudia bristling. And Claudia wasn’t a bristler by nature; she was as bubbly as they came.

Avery didn’t have a problem with him seeming rather...serious. Serious was better than hives, any day. And like the worrying of a jagged tooth her mind skipped back to the scratch of the other man’s leg hairs on her inner thighs. To the hard heat of his hands gripping her waist, calloused fingers spanning her belly, big thumbs digging uncomfortably into her hips. Those cool grey eyes looking right through her, as if if he could he would have wished her well away...

She shook herself back to the much more pleasant present where Claude snuggled up to her with love. Waiting till she had Luke’s distracted attention, she brought out the big guns—a smile that had cost her parents as much as a small car. “Nice seeing you again, Luke. Hopefully we’ll bump into one another again. Catch up on old times.”

He blinked again, as if he thought that was what they’d just done. But it was early days. She had time. To do what, she was as yet undecided, but the seeds were there.

“I’m off duty as of this second, Luke,” Claude said, not even deigning to look his way. “We’ll talk about that other stuff later.”

“Soon,” he said, an edge to his voice.

Claude waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder, offloaded Avery of half her gear as they headed up the stairs into the resort.

“Are you sure?” Avery said. “You must be so busy right now, and I don’t want to get in the way. I can help! Whatever you need. I have skills. And they are at your disposal.”

“Relax, Polly,” Claude said, using the nickname she’d given Avery for when she got herself in a positivity loop. “You are never in my way.”

“Fine, Julie,” Avery shot back. Claude’s nickname had sprung from an odd fascination with The Love Boat that Avery had never understood. Though when Claude instantly perked up as a seniors tour group from the UK emerged from behind a pylon—amazingly remembering everybody by name—it couldn’t have been more apt.

Cyrus—who’d been leaning on the desk staring out at nothing—straightened so quickly his pirate hat flopped into his eyes.

Claudia frowned at Cyrus, who moved off at quite a pace. “Welcome to Crescent Cove,” she said to Avery, “where heat addles the hormones.”

“Is that in the town charter?” Avery asked, grinning. “Did I read it on the sign driving in?”

“Unfortunately not. Do you think it would work? As a marketing ploy?” Claude looked more hopeful than the idea merited.

Avery, whose business was public relations and thus who was paid to create goodwill, gave Claude’s arm a squeeze. “It couldn’t hurt.”

They reached the Tiki Suite and Claudia dumped Avery’s stuff on a white cane chair in the corner, oblivious to the bucketload of sand raining onto the floor. “Now, refreshing dip, my sweet patooty. What happened to you out there?”

“You should see the other guy,” Avery muttered before landing face down on the bed.

Claudia landed next to her face up. Then after a beat she turned on her side, head resting in her upturned palm as she loomed over Avery, eyebrows doing a merry dance. “What other guy?”

Avery scrunched up her face. Then rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “My leg cramped, and a guy on a surfboard dragged me out of the ocean. I’d have been fine, though. I am a very good swimmer.”

Claudia landed on her back and laughed herself silly. “I’ve been locked inside with Luke all morning, forced to listen to him yabber on about figures and columns and hard decisions and I missed it! Who was the guy?”

Avery opened her mouth to give his name, then realised he hadn’t given it. Barbarian. “I have no clue.”

Claude flapped a hand in the sky. “I know everybody. What did he look like?”

Avery tried a shrug, but truth was she could probably describe every crinkle around those deep grey eyes. But knowing she would not be allowed to sleep, till Claudia knew all, she said, “Big. Tanned. Dark curly hair. Your basic beefcake nightmare.”

Claudia paused for so long Avery glanced her way. Only to wish she hadn’t. For the smile in her friend’s eyes did not bode well for her hope that this conversation might be at an end.

“Grey surfboard with a big palm tree on it? Magnificent wolf dog at his heels?”

Damn. “That’s the one.”

Claude’s smile stretched into an all-out grin. “You, my sweet, had the pleasure of meeting Jonah North. That’s one supreme example of Australian manhood. And he rescued you? Like, actually pulled you out of the ocean? With his bare hands? What was that like?”

Avery slapped her hands over her face to hide the rising pink as her skin kicked into full-on memory mode at the feeling of those bare hands. “It was mortifying. He called me honey. Men only do that when they can’t be bothered knowing your name.”

“Huh. And yet I can’t even remember the last time a guy called me honey. Raoul always called me Sugar Puff.”

“Raoul?”

“The dance instructor I was seeing. Once upon a million years ago.”

“Well, Sugar Puff is sweet. Toothache inducing, maybe, but sweet.”

Truth was Avery usually loved an endearment. They always felt like an arrow to the part of her that had switched to maximum voltage the day her parents had told her they were getting divorced. Like me! Love me! Don’t ever leave me!