Chapter 4
Shawn gaped after her as she swung her hips, walking back on the wharf, where he could vaguely see a fishing light shining at the end of it.
He couldn’t believe his fucking luck. The redhead from earlier—Willa—lived right next door to him.
When he first left his house, he could see her casting the net from his backyard in that tiny little bikini. Her tits were perky and supple, and as he’d gotten closer to her backyard, he nearly drooled over the way they bounced slightly every time she tossed that fucking net in the water.
He observed her for longer than he’d like to admit as she cast that net before finally making himself known. And he hadn’t lied when he said she knew her way around a cast net. She was far better at it than he was, a fact he wasn’t too proud to admit to himself. Each of her casts spread the net open wide, a perfect circle. She methodically searched for schools of mullet before sending it to the water, and she caught at least a few fish with each cast, often tossing the ones she judged too small back into the water.
And that laugh.
He thought a smirk or belittling glare was all she was capable of, but when she laughed at him, her eyes lit up, showing warmth he hadn’t seen before.
She was gorgeous, but when she laughed—God, she was absolutely stunning.
Shawn watched her walk away for all of ten seconds before grabbing a brownie, shoving the entire thing in his mouth, and chasing after her. He was ten steps behind her when she picked up the cast net from where she’d left it and continued walking.
“If you’re going to join me, you could be a little quieter,” she quipped. “I’d rather not scare all the fish away before I even toss a line in the water.”
He slowed his pace, feeling like a chided schoolboy. Then he grinned to himself.
He had a crush.
Fuck, he hadn’t had butterflies like this since he was a teenager.
And he was fumbling the bag so badly every time he opened his mouth.
Willa breathed in deeply, inhaling the ocean air with her eyes closed, a slight smile curling her lips upward. She looked so natural out here, the moonlight reflecting off her auburn hair. When she opened her eyes, she glanced over to him and bit her lip as she noticed him gawking at her.
“Not much fish tonight, huh?” she gestured to the water.
Shawn whipped his head toward the spotlight shining on small bait fish swimming underneath it. A few saltwater catfish swam in and out of view, on the periphery of the light.
“I figure I’ll need to keep the light on every night for a few weeks before the fish I want start showing up,” Willa continued.
Shawn grunted in response, then felt an overwhelming desire to face-palm.
He was a self-proclaimed ladies’ man for most of his life, but one little crush had him at a loss for words.
God, how embarrassing.
“But in the meantime,” she said, turning around and grabbing a couple of fishing rods and the bucket of shrimp she’d bought from him earlier, “there’s no harm in a little catch and release.”
She offered him a rod, which he accepted, before she baited her fishing line and tossed it into the water. He followed suit. They cast their fishing poles in companionable silence for ten minutes or so, replacing bait that got taken by the catfish occasionally, before his curiosity got the better of him.
“My grandmother heard that you moved here,” Shawn said. “For good.”
Willa hummed in agreement as she methodically reeled in her line, and damn it if Shawn couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for her to hum like that with her lips around his cock. He shifted as his pants suddenly felt tight at the thought. Why couldn’t he keep his mind out of the gutter today? He’d been around hot girls in bikinis his whole life. Taken them fishing on his boat. Considered himself all but immune to the wiles of women in bikinis holding a fishing rod.
But he wasn’t standing behind Willa, teaching her how to bait a hook and cast the line. She was doing it all on her own. She didn’t need direction or help from him; in fact, if he tried to offer it, Shawn was pretty sure she’d put him in his place with that smart mouth of hers. He held back a smile at the thought.
“Why?” Shawn followed up, hoping to get more in response this time.
Willa sighed, and she frowned.
“Bad breakup,” she finally said, her knuckles white as they clenched onto the fishing pole.
Shawn’s head ran wild wondering what kind of bad breakup she’d been through. Was she dumped, or did she do the dumping? Was it someone she’d been with for a while? It had to have been, for her to have that look on her face. Did he break her heart? His curiosity begged him to ask her for details, but he couldn’t bring himself to pry.
“That sucks,” he said.
She let out a humorless laugh.
“Yeah, well. Let’s just say I’ve sworn off men for a while.”
A pang of disappointment ricocheted through him.
“So you thought the best place to escape them would be here?” he asked.
“I thought the best place to escape everything would be here,” she responded quietly.
Her ex must’ve been the one to call it off. That had to be the reason she looked so broken-hearted. Shawn wondered what kind of guy would let go of a girl like her.
He suddenly felt like shit for underestimating her earlier. God, what a dick move.
“Look, I feel like I need to apologize,” he said, and she looked at him with a bemused expression. “For earlier.”
Willa set her fishing rod on the chair near her and crossed her arms, looking at him expectantly.
Okay, so she wasn’t going to make this easy for him at all.
“I shouldn’t have assumed you were clueless at the bait shop,” he said. “I’m a fucking feminist, and I acted like a dick. Sorry.”
She bit her lip, clearly trying to hold back a laugh.
“It’s just that you don’t look much like an experienced fisher,” Shawn said, trying to bring himself back to the conversation at hand.
He immediately knew he’d said the wrong thing. Her smile dropped slightly and her eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, well,” she said, quickly reeling in her line. “You don’t look much like a feminist. So.”
Shit.
Shit.
What he meant to say was, You were just so gorgeous with your flowing hair and your piercing eyes and your delectable tits that I thought, surely a creature this perfect can’t also fish like she was born to do it?
And instead, he’d said… that.
Once her line was all the way in, she withdrew the leftover bait from her hook and tossed it in the water. She put her fishing rod in a holder mounted on the wharf before facing him.
“I’m heading inside. Just put your rod away whenever you’re done.”
As she walked back to the house, she unceremoniously dumped the cast net into a dock box. Shawn watched her walk away until he could barely see her silhouette through the flashlight she was using to navigate back to the house. He sighed, reeling in his rod and disposing of his bait like she did, before hanging it on one of the holders they’d mounted on the wall.
As he walked back to his house, he checked the time and noticed over an hour had passed since he left to bring her the brownies. She operated on the water with the comfort of a local, fished like she’d been doing it since she was a baby—which, Shawn realized, she probably had. He wanted to make sense of her.
But she dressed like a Valley Girl and was as forthcoming as a barnacle.
And his stupid little crush meant he desperately wanted her to like him, which she clearly didn’t. He’d spent years doing nothing but flash a pleasing smile to tourists before teaching them how to fish, laying his accent on thick because he knew the effect it had on people, getting easy approval and trust from strangers.
Not to mention, he was a people-pleasing Southerner. He’d become the town’s go-to handyman over the past several years, ever since he took over the bait shop and his grandmother started giving out his phone number like it was the peppermint candy she carried in her purse. He’d fixed people’s docks after tropical storms, taught his elderly neighbors how to use Netflix, and mowed lawns for his grandmother’s friends while they were out of town. He knew the best fishing spots and took a group of elderly men fishing every month, before bringing them home to filet and cook their fish for them.
Everybody liked Shawn. He’d never had a problem charming women and he always knew what to say when someone was going through a rough time. He was reliable and steadfast and never hesitated to help someone out.
He didn’t know what to make of the fact that Willa tongue-tied him so much that everything out of his mouth seemed to offend or annoy her. Most of the time, it seemed better to just keep his mouth shut. And he wished to God, more than anything, that he didn’t care as much as he did.
Because even though he had butterflies again, he kept replaying what she’d told him.
Let’s just say I’ve sworn off men for a while.
A single lamp was lit in the living room. His grandmother was curled up under her favorite blanket knitting, and he grinned as he pushed open the back door.
“Can’t believe you’re still awake, Grams,” he drawled as he took his shoes off and sat across from her.
“You sure have been gone a long time, Scoob,” she said, lips pressed together and eyebrows lifted expectantly.
Shawn groaned, dragging a hand over his face.
“So that’s why you’re still awake,” he muttered.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“I thought you said you hadn’t seen her since she was a kid?”
“I’ve got binoculars for a reason, Scooby,” Grams said.
“Lord, have mercy, Grams. Don’t tell people that.”
“I’m 78 years old. I’ll do what I want.”
Shawn was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to hide her binoculars. Instead, he got up and started heading to bed.
“Excuse me, I wasn’t done talking,” Grams pouted as he walked away.
“I was.”
“Just answer my question.”
Shawn turned around with the enthusiasm of a teenager being forced to tell a parent how school was. He glared at her.
“Don’t you think she’s pretty?”
Pretty didn’t even begin to cover it. But he wasn’t going to tell Grams that.
“I have eyes, don’t I?”