“It’s not that. She’s...” Stunning, sexy, yet despite the big-city sophistication still somehow compellingly naive. She could swipe his legs out from under him if he wasn’t careful. “A pain in the ass.”
Luke thought on it a moment. “Then again, aren’t they all?”
Jonah tapped the neck of Luke’s beer bottle with his own.
“I’ve been around the block a few times now,” Jonah went on. “I’ve made mistakes. I’d like to think I’ve learned when to trust my gut about such things.”
“Since You Know Who?”
Jonah raised an eyebrow in assent. “And yet, I can’t seem to...not.”
“Then lucky for you the man she clearly wants is me.”
At that, whatever morbid little tunnel Jonah had been staring down blinked out of existence. He leant back in his chair, and smiled at his friend. “Not as much as she thinks she does.”
“Now what makes you think my charms aren’t all-encompassing?”
“I have it on good knowledge that she’s...in flux.”
Luke’s laughter rang through the bar. He sat forward. All ears. And, thankfully, not a lick of rivalry in his gaze. “I’ve been out of circulation too long. Since when does ‘steak’ stand for something else?”
“Calm down. Steak meant steak,” Jonah rumbled.
“But something happened.”
When Jonah didn’t answer, Luke slammed the table so hard their beers bounced. “Jonah North, pillar of the Crescent Cove community, made out with my dinner date who is also apparently his worst nightmare. Was this before or after she asked me to dinner?”
Jonah’s cheek twitched and his head suddenly hurt so much he couldn’t see straight. “Hell.”
Luke’s laughter was so loud it echoed through the small bar till the walls shook. “Man, you have no idea how much I’m enjoying this. The number of times girls came up to me only to ask if the dude with the palm-tree surfboard was single... And then along comes a sophisticated out-of-towner, not instantly bowled over by your—to my mind—deeply hidden charms, and—”
Luke’s words came to an abrupt halt as the parallel with the last great—not so great—relationship of Jonah’s life came to light. Luke slapped Jonah hard on the back. “Walk away. Walk away now and do not look back.”
“Sounds fine in theory.”
“Yet far better in practice. Trust me,” Luke said with the bitter edge of first-hand knowledge.
Jonah nodded. The other outsider had shaken up his whole life until it had never been remotely the same again.
But he’d been a different man back then. Barely a man at all. Alone for so long, with nothing tethering him to his life, that he’d mistaken lust for intimacy. Company for partnership. The presence of another body in his house for it finally feeling like a home again.
His foundations were stronger now. He was embedded in his life. There was no way he’d make the same mistake twice. If something happened between Avery and him, he’d be just fine. Which meant the decision was now up to her.
“You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?” Luke grumbled.
“About what?”
“Battening down the hatches. And several other good boating analogies.”
“What the hell do you know about boats? Or women, for that matter.”
Luke stared into the middle distance a moment before grinding out an, “Amen.”
* * *
Avery stood outside the elegant Botch-A-Me restaurant Luke had picked for their date, and took a moment to check her reflection in the window. Her hair was twisted into a sleek sophisticated up-do. Her platinum-toned bustier was elegant and sexy, her wide-legged black pants floaty and sensual. Her favourite teardrop diamond earrings glinted in the light of the tiki torches lighting the restaurant with a warm golden glow.
The man didn’t stand a chance.
Pity then that as her focus shifted as she looked through the window, she imagined for a second she’d seen a head of darkly curled hair.
Seriously? After the way Jonah had acted as if that kiss was some kind of consolation prize. Forget him. It was why she was here tonight after all. Only her damn heart wouldn’t give up on him. Pathetic little thing couldn’t think past the kiss at all.
Suddenly the dark curls moved and Luke’s face came into view, and Avery’s stomach sank. She wasn’t imagining things. Jonah was there. With Luke. And they were clearly a couple of drinks down. Avery’s stomach trembled even as it fell to her knees.
“Hey, kiddo! Sorry I’m late.”
Avery turned to find Claudia beside her, peering through the window, her wispy blonde hair caught back in a pretty silver clip, and—for once out of uniform—looking effortlessly lovely in an aqua maxi-dress that made her blue eyes pop.
“Late for what?”
“Ah, dinner? I begged Luke to use the Grand Cayman back at the Tropicana—the new chef I just hired is fantasmagorical. But he insisted we need to check out the competition. Everything okay? You look a little unwell.”
“No. Everything’s fine,” Avery said, while the truth was she now shared Claude’s urge to slap Luke across the back of the head. As for Jonah? Knees and soft body parts came to mind. All four of them at the same table was going to be a disaster.
Her usual MO would be to bounce about, create some cheery diversion to keep every faction distracted before it escalated into something she couldn’t control. It was what she’d do back home.
Or she could face the music.
Taking a deep breath, Avery slipped a hand into the crook of Claudia’s elbow and dragged her inside. Avery motioned to the host so that she could see her dining party and made a beeline for the table near the edge of the room, her heart beating so hard she could hear the swoosh of it behind her ears.
Luke saw her coming first, and gave her an honest-to-goodness smile that started in his mouth before landing in his lovely brown eyes. She might have forgiven him if not for the fact that she knew the moment his companion noticed it too. Jonah’s buff brown forearm with white shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows moved to slide across the back of his chair, as his head turned and his eyes found hers.
Nothing like a polite smile there. In fact, Jonah was scowling at her as if the fact that he’d trapped her into a kiss gave him some kind of right to be upset with her for making a date with another man.
Gripping her sparkly purse so he couldn’t see her trembling, Avery dragged her eyes from his and found Luke standing. Such a gentleman, unlike certain others who were giving her a once-over that made her feel as if her sophistication had been peeled all the way back to skin.
“Lovely to see you, Luke,” she said.
“Evening, Avery. Don’t you look stunning?”
“Thank you. As do you.”
Jonah coughed beside her.
With a smile she leant into Luke for a kiss. With a light hand on her hip, he pressed his lips to her cheek. Nice lips, she thought. Firm. The hand on her hip brief but sure. And he smelled great. When he pulled away she waited for that lovely feeling of bereftness that came when a lover was no longer close enough to touch.
And realised with a sense of impending doom she’d be waiting forever.
“Good evening, Avery,” said a deep voice to her left.
Avery looked into the deep grey eyes of Jonah North. He’d stood.