Chapter 5
Willa was ready to cry into her large iced vanilla latte with whipped cream.
Overconfident idiot,she told herself.
She sat down at a corner table in the coffee shop she’d stumbled upon, folded her arms on the table, and dropped her head as an upbeat Taylor Swift song played over the speakers. It took everything in her not to audibly groan in frustration, but she was in public, and this wasn’t San Francisco.
“Rough day?” a soft southern drawl had Willa lifting her head up.
A woman with curly, raven-colored hair that starkly contrasted her pale face gave her a concerned smile.
“You have no idea.” Something about this stranger’s presence was comforting, so Willa asked, “What about you?”
“Oh, same old, same old for me. It’s my break at work right now, and I like to come here sometimes for a quick coffee.”
Willa winced. “Sorry to bother you with my self-pity.”
“Don’t be,” she smiled, sipping her coffee. “Why are you having a bad day? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Willa sighed as she leaned back into her seat, defeat coursing through her. “I need a job. Just moved here from San Francisco, where I taught yoga at one of the best studios in the country. So I thought getting a job would be easy. But none of the gyms want me, and the closest yoga studio to my house isn’t hiring right now. And have I mentioned I’ve barely driven a car in the past decade? I never needed one in SF, and now I feel like a teenager again, trying to re-learn how to operate a vehicle. You’d think it’d be like riding a bike and I’d pick it back up no problem, but no. I drove past, like, four stop signs. Accidentally, of course. But still. I’m an unemployed menace to society.”
“Here,” The raven-haired woman extended a plastic-wrapped chocolate chip cookie to her. “You need this more than I do.”
“Oh my god, yes.” Willa grabbed the cookie, opened it up, and took a bite. “I guess I should’ve been more ladylike and pretended to turn down your cookie offer, but I didn’t have it in me.”
Her companion laughed. “Don’t worry about it.”
Willa grinned. “I feel like I should know your name, unless you want me to call you the Cookie Fairy.”
A small laugh trinkled from her. “I’m Layla.”
“I’m Willa.” She took another bite of the cookie. “So, Layla, do you know of anywhere hiring yoga instructors?”
“Hmm.” Layla pinched her lips together in thought. Her eyes widened, lips quirking up for a moment, before she frowned again.
“What?” Willa couldn’t help herself.
“Well,” Layla bit her lip. “I’m the hotel manager at The Beachside Inn.”
Willa furrowed her eyebrows together in consideration. Then she got it. “Oh. Oh.”
“We’re a boutique hotel. We only offer the best of the best, but for activities, we contract with a lot of external vendors. Not a lot of in-house options.” Layla’s hands twiddled nervously around her coffee cup. “But I’ve been pushing our General Manager to try to branch out and incorporate a few in-house, luxury activities for a while now. Like yoga.”
“What are you thinking?” Willa asked breathlessly.
“You tell me. If you were me, what would you pitch?”
Willa couldn’t help it. She started getting excited as she considered the possibilities. The idea of building out a yoga program at a hotel was too thrilling for her to pass up.
“Sunset yoga, a few days a week. That one’s always a winner. And a sunrise class on Saturdays. And then we can expand, if people like it.”
Layla nodded thoughtfully, a grin growing. “We’d have to do a trial basis, of course.”
“Of course. And I can help think through where we should do the classes. And the marketing.”
“And we’d have to get my General Manager’s approval.” Layla frowned.
“Will that be hard?”
Layla sighed. “It’s not that. It’s just…”
Willa felt her energy shift.
“Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to help me out, but the last thing I want to do is create trouble for you, Layla.” Willa smiled. “Even the fact that you’d want to help me means a lot.”
Layla shifted in her chair. “No, no. It’s okay. You know how managers can be.”
Willa frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He’s just…” Layla blew out a breath, fidgeting. “Blake can be difficult.”
“Difficult how?” Willa asked, feeling concerned for her new friend slash Cookie Fairy.
Layla gave her a smile—one that Willa felt was a bit forced. “Let me worry about that.” She checked her watch. “I have to head to the hotel. Drop by at the end of the day and we can finalize everything. Yeah?”
Willa bit her lip, recognizing that she shouldn’t push her new friend. She felt a bit uneasy, but responded, “I’ll be there.”
“What did you cook today, Grams?”Shawn asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway into the kitchen, sweet aromas basking over him.
Her white hair was windswept, like she’d spent the morning sitting out on the wharf before coming inside, putting on her “Queen of Damn Near Everything” apron, and cooking what looked to be an assortment of pies.
“It’s for the church bake sale, Scooby,” she said swiftly, not even turning around to look at him. “It’s on Wednesday and we’re raising money to install a ramp in the entrance. Lord knows, us old people can’t use stairs the way we used to.”
It had been a slow day at the bait shop, which had given Shawn enough time to agonize over how he’d put his foot in his mouth in front of Willa. He kept replaying their encounter last night in grave detail, trying and failing not to think too much about what it’d feel like to stuff her smart mouth with his cock. He felt like a creep for fantasizing about her when she clearly hated him. She brought something out of him—something idiotic and primal.
“Willa really liked those brownies last night, by the way,” Shawn said, attempting to seem casual.
He was anything but casual when it came to the groan she released as she licked her fingers clean of that brownie last night. Even the memory of it surged through him like she was right there, and his cock twitched uncomfortably in his pants as he thought about her sinful tongue. He couldn’t ever remember being this gone for a woman—let alone one he barely knew. He didn’t like it one bit, especially since she’d all but confessed there was no way she’d ever go out with anyone anytime soon after her breakup.
“Is that so?” Grams turned around, eyebrow lifted, both hands on her hips.
Shawn ducked his head, knowing he was caught.
“She remembered you,” Shawn said. “I think she’ll drop by at some point to say hello.”
“Well I’m not sure how anybody could forget me.” She grinned like a cat, expectation thick in the air. A few beats of silence passed. “Out with it, Scoob.”
He sighed. There was no hiding anything from her, so he might as well milk it.
“Any chance you could spare one of those pies?” he asked gruffly. “You know. For Willa.”
Grams pinched her lips together in poorly concealed amusement.
“I suppose you could take one of the pecan pies,” she conceded. “But it’ll cost you.”
He groaned internally.
God, he was pathetic. Using his grandmother’s award-winning cooking as a reason to talk to a pretty girl. He’d wooed dozens of tourists over the years, but this one woman put him on his knees with a simple glare. And he needed everything in his arsenal to get back in her good graces. Of course his grandmother would exploit that. She was little and white-haired, but she was clever.
“Of course it will. Well?”
“You have to accompany me to Bingo this Friday night.”
Shawn narrowed his eyes.
“That’s it?” he asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“For now.”
She turned back to her cooking, as if he hadn’t even walked into the kitchen, so before she could change her mind, he snagged the pecan pie and scurried out the back door. As soon as he stepped outside, the sea breeze calmed him, and he made his way to Willa. He could see her immediately, at the edge of the water, doing yoga. Her auburn hair was in a big clump on top of her head, and the sunset made it burn brighter.
God, she was beautiful. And he had the burning desire to tell her so, but he had some making up to do first.
As he approached her, he noticed that every few minutes, she grabbed her phone. It looked like she was either sending a text or writing down some notes. But after a few moments, she’d put the phone back down and get back into her flow, picking right up where she left off. Once he was only about twenty feet away, she’d settled into a position that perched her ass in the air, and he could see up close how perfect it was.
He forced himself to clear his throat before he started drooling, startling her out of her flow.
She turned to face him, her face pleasantly relaxed but guarded.
“Grams made you a pie,” he offered by way of introduction.
“Another one?” She looked puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“She dropped one off earlier.”
Well, shit. Grams had played him like a fiddle.
“I think she accidentally made a few extras,” he said quickly. “For the bake sale. At the church. Now she’s trying to get rid of them. You know how she is. Old. Forgetful.”
God, he sounded like an idiot.
Willa narrowed her eyes at him, lips twitching in amusement.
“She seemed pretty put together to me, but whatever you say,” she said, trudging toward the house. “Let’s take it inside.”
He followed after her and sure enough, sitting on the counter in her kitchen, was the pecan pie Grams must’ve dropped by earlier. He set the one in his hands next to it and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Look, I feel like every time I’m around you, I put my foot in my mouth. I’m sorry for what I said last night. And I just want to make sure we’re... cool.”
He felt so stupid as he looked at her, and her ocean blue eyes twinkled at him. She chuckled, and he marveled at how good it felt to be the reason for her smile.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “For being so… curt. I’m not in a great headspace right now. It’s making me a little more… combative than usual. Obviously. But yeah, we’re cool.”
“Cool. Good. Yeah. Okay. Great.”
She bit her lip, clearly trying not to laugh at him, and he crossed his arms.
“So. Yoga?”
Maybe changing the subject would help him figure out how to talk to the stunning creature in front of him without sounding like he just got whacked over the head with a baseball bat.
“Yes, yoga,” she smirked at him. “I was an instructor back in California. I just got a gig at one of the local hotels teaching a few classes a week for their guests, and I start tomorrow. So I was just trying to prep.”
“Which hotel?”
“The Beachside Inn.”
“Oh, that new one? Well, they’re lucky to have you.”
She smiled.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve never done yoga before. Maybe I should come to one of your classes.”
“Maybe you should,” she said.
He licked his lips, and noticed her gaze drop to his mouth for a split second before returning to his eyes. He had about a hundred different fantasies playing in his head right now, all starting with devouring her mouth and ending with taking her right on top of the kitchen table.
But she’d sworn off men.
And he’d sworn off women who only wanted to spend a night with him.
“Well, listen, I’ll get out of your hair,” he said, trying not to kick himself for sounding exactly like his grandmother. “But good luck with your yoga class tomorrow, Greene. And I hope you like the pie.”
“Thanks, Shawn,” she said, peeking up at him through long lashes, and dammit if his heart didn’t skip a beat as he heard his name leave her mouth.