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!
Maybe the fact that she’d responded unfavourably to the barbarian meant she’d grown. “Either way, the guy rubbed me the wrong way.”
“I know many a woman who’d give their bikini bottoms to have Jonah North rub them any which way.”
“Are you one of them?”
Claude blinked, then laughed so hard she fell back on the bed with a thump.
“That’s a no?”
Claude just laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?” Honestly. Because even while it had been mortifying, it had been one of the more blatantly sensual experiences of her recent memory: the twitch of his muscles as she’d slid her foot across his flat belly, the scrape of longing she’d felt when she’d realised he was holding his breath. Talk about addled.
Claudia brought herself back under control, then shrugged. “Aside from the fact that Jonah really learned how to pull off ‘curmudgeonly’ the past few years? He’s a born and bred local, like me. You know what it’s like when you know a guy forever?”
“Sure. Pretty much everyone in my social circle will end up with someone they’ve known forever.”
Claudia’s eyes widened. “That’s...”