Lisa Kleypas - Smooth Talking Stranger

"Matthew, honey…" Liberty hopped up and went to get him, lavishing him with kisses. "Did you have a nice nap? Do you want to play with Mommy? We have a friend visiting, and she brought her baby… do you want to see him?" He responded with an enchanting wide grin, conversing with his mother in a few garbled sentences, his plump arms wrapped around her neck.

After giving us a cursory inspection, Matthew decided that playing in the sand was far more interesting than the new baby. Liberty stripped down to her swimsuit and took her son to the edge of the water, where they sat and began to fill a bucket with sand. "Ella, come put your legs in the water," she called. "It feels great."

I was dressed in a printed halter top and matching Bermuda shorts, but I had packed a swimsuit. Pulling it from the diaper bag, I said, "Give me a minute to go and change."

"Sure. Oh, this is our nanny, Tia… let her take care of Luke while you put on your swimsuit."

"Is that okay?" I asked Tia, who came forward with a smile.

"Yes, he's no problem," she exclaimed.

"Thank you."

"There's a guest bathroom off the kitchen," Liberty told me, "or if you need a little more space, go into any of the upstairs bedrooms."

"Got it." I went into the house, relishing the coolness of the kitchen, and found a small bathroom with earthy-hued striped walls and a stone vessel sink and a black-framed mirror. I changed into my pink swimsuit, a retro-styled one-piece. Padding barefoot through the kitchen, carrying my clothes, I heard the sound of voices, one of them Jack's deep murmur. The voices were accompanied by hammering and sawing, and the occasional squeal of a power drill.

I followed the sound to a partially opened door that led to the spacious garage, where a huge shop fan circulated the warm air. The space was brilliantly lit from the secondhand sunlight that bounced in through the open garage doors. Tapping the door a little wider, I watched unobserved as Jack, Gage, and Carrington worked on the wooden skiff, which was propped up on padded sawhorses.

Both Jack and Gage had removed their shirts in the heat. I wondered wryly how many women would have paid good money to see the two Travis brothers dressed only in jeans, all sun-burnished muscles and long, lean bodies. As my gaze lingered on Jack's sweat-glittered back, I had a flash of recent memory, my hands urgently gripping those hard muscles on either side of his spine, and a pleasant riff of awareness went through me.

Carrington was busy spreading a thick layer of glue on the last of three strips of wood that would be joined and fastened to the top edge of the skiff as a gunnel. I had to smile at the sight of Gage crouched beside her, murmuring instructions, holding back one of the braids that threatened to drag through the glue.

"… and then at recess," the girl said, squeezing a huge bottle of wood glue with both hands, "Caleb wouldn't let anyone else play with the basketball, so Katie and I went and told the teacher-"

"Good for you," Gage said. "Here, put more glue on the edge. Better to use too much than not enough."

"Like this?"

"Perfect."

"And then," Carrington continued, "the teacher said it was someone else's turn to play with the ball, and she made Caleb write an essay about sharing and cooperation."

"Did that fix him?" Jack asked.

"No," came Carrington's disgusted reply. "He's still the terriblest boy you could ever meet."

"They all are, honey," Jack said.

"I told him you were going to take me fishing," Carrington went on indignantly, "and you know what he said?"

"That girls aren't good at fishing?" Jack guessed.

"How did you know?" she asked in amazement.

"Because I was a terrible boy once, and that's probably what I would have said. But I'd have been dead wrong. Girls are great at fishing."

"Are you sure about that, Uncle Jack? "

"Of course I-wait a minute." Together Jack and Gage lifted the assembled wood strips and fit them to the edge of the boat.

"Sweetheart," Gage murmured to Carrington, "bring that bucket of clamps over here." Carefully he placed clamps along the gunnel, pausing to adjust the wood strips when necessary.

"What were you saying, Uncle Jack?" Carrington pressed, handing him some paper towels to wipe up dripping glue.

"I was about to ask you: Who is the fishing expert in this family?"

"You."

"That's right. And who's the expert on women?"

"Uncle Joe," she said, giggling.

"Joe?" he asked in feigned outrage.

"Humor him, Carrington," Gage said. "Otherwise we'll be here all day."

" You're the expert on women," Carrington told Jack promptly.

"That's right. And I'm here to tell you, some of the best anglers in the world are women."

"How come?"

"They're more patient, and they don't give up easy. They tend to fish an area more thoroughly. And women can always find the spot with the hidden boulders or underwater weeds where fish are hiding. Men, we just look right past those spots, but women always find 'em."

As Jack spoke, Carrington caught sight of me in the doorway, and she threw me a grin. "Are you gonna take Miss Ella fishing?" she asked Jack, who had picked up a Japanese saw and was cutting off the protruding end of the gunnel at an angle.

"If she wants to," he said.

"Is she gonna catch you, Uncle Jack?" Carrington asked slyly.

"She already did, darlin'." At the sound of her titter, Jack paused in his sawing, followed her gaze and saw me standing there. A slow smile spread across his face, and his gaze turned dark and hot as he glanced over my pink swimsuit and bare legs. Dropping the saw, he muttered to the other two, " 'Scuse me, I've got to talk to Miss Ella about something."

"No, you don't," I protested. "I just wanted a peek at the skiff. It's beautiful, Carrington. What color are you going to paint it?"

"Pink like your bathing suit," she said cheerfully.

Jack was coming toward me. I retreated a few steps.

"Don't take him away for good, Ella," Gage said. "We still need to fasten the gunnel on the other side."

"I'm not taking him away at all, I… Jack, get back to work." But he headed for me without pausing, and I giggled and retreated into the kitchen. "Leave me alone, you're all sweaty!" In a few seconds, I found myself pinned against a countertop, his hands gripping the beveled granite edge on either side of me.

"You like me sweaty," he murmured, his denim-clad legs corralling mine.

I leaned backward to avoid contact with his damp chest. "If I have caught you," I told him, still giggling, "I'm going to throw you back."

"You only throw the little ones back, darlin'. The big ones you keep. Now give me a kiss."

I tried to stop smiling long enough to comply. His lips were warm as they moved over mine, the kiss erotic in its careful lightness.

After the boat-builders had finished gluing and nailing the gunnels in place, they cooled off in the pool, and we spent the rest of the afternoon lazing and swimming. Lunch was brought out, big bowls of field greens tossed with grilled chicken, red grapes, and walnuts, and we shared a bottle of ice-cold white burgundy in chilled glasses. The nanny took the children inside the cool house, while Gage, Liberty, Jack, and I ate at a table shaded by a huge umbrella.

"I'm making a special toast," Gage said, lifting his glass. We paused and looked at him expectantly. "To Haven and Hardy," he continued, "who by now have become Mr. and Mrs. Gates." He smiled as we all stared at him in surprise.

"They got married?" Liberty asked.

"I thought they were going to Mexico for a long weekend," Jack said, looking torn between pleasure and annoyance. "They didn't say anything to me about any wedding plans."

"They had a private ceremony at Playa del Carmen."