Chapter 4
QUINN
Besides the fact that my parents were no longer here, nothing much had changed in Starlight Cove in the fourteen years I’d been gone.
It still had one of the most beautiful beaches I’d ever seen.
Everyone in town still knew everyone’s business.
And Ford McKenzie was still an insufferable ass…
and hotter than any man had a right to be.
And I’d just paid two thousand dollars to go out on a date with him.
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
The phrase had started running through my head since the second I’d called out my bid, and it hadn’t let up in the time since.
Not when Everly had gasped and asked what I was doing.
Not when she’d excused herself to go in search of Beck after I couldn’t come up with a plausible reason why I’d lost my mind.
Not when one of Addison’s helpers had come over to collect the ungodly sum of money I’d bid.
And it only increased now as my gaze locked with Ford’s from across the park as he stalked toward me.
He looked hot, as usual. Though that was to be expected.
I couldn’t recall a single time this man had looked anything less than gorgeous, and it was truly unfair.
There should’ve been some kind of rule that your nemesis looked like a haggard old troll rather than a model peeled straight off the pages of a magazine.
The bastard hadn’t even had the decency to go through that awkward, cringeworthy stage in fifth grade like the rest of us.
His dark hair, cut close on the sides and longer on top, was in careless disarray.
Enough stubble covered his sharp jaw that I definitely never wondered what it would feel like on my skin, and his full lips were curved in their perpetual state of amusement.
He wore a pair of threadbare jeans that hugged his ass perfectly—not that I’d been looking—and a T-shirt that showed off the muscles he worked hard for at the fire station and being the handyman at his family’s resort.
Yeah, no. This interaction wasn’t happening. There was no way I was talking to him tonight. He wanted answers. I could see it in the determined set of his eyes, focused on me. But considering I didn’t even know why I’d just done that, I had nothing that would satisfy his curiosity.
I spun around, set on heading straight for my car and getting the hell out of here, but I nearly ran into Mabel in my haste to leave.
“Quinn,” she said, phone pointed in my direction like she was recording. Her phone case was bright pink, large sparkly letters proclaiming Ask me about my favorite toy scrawled across the back. “So glad I caught you! Mind having a quick chat with me for my watchers?”
Mabel and her fucking Facebook Lives. I’d become well acquainted with them since moving back, considering I was renting a room from her and her husband because the rental game in a town this size was abysmal.
I’d hoped the reason for my first broadcast would’ve been when the clinic got transferred over to my name, but no.
Of course not. It had to be me, looking harried as I attempted to escape the man I just spent a fortune to go on a date with.
Like I couldn’t get one by any other means.
Regardless if it was true or not, that was exactly how my parents were going to see it, and I couldn’t wait to hear about it. About how my doing that looked for them . And there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that this would get back to them, even all the way in Florida.
And now that fact was going to be forever immortalized on the internet. Fantastic.
“Actually, I—”
“Great!” She smiled sweetly at me, but she wasn’t fooling anyone.
She may have been Starlight Cove’s Grandma—if your grandma was a horny old woman—but she was a piranha out for blood.
“The viewers at home want to know what your plans are for your date with the devastatingly hunky Ford McKenzie.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“The views shot up when word got around about your bid.”
“When word got around—” I pressed my fingers to my temples and closed my eyes. “That was ten minutes ago.”
She shrugged. “Spread like wildfire. It’s not every day we see a pairing like this of two people so volatile together.
So tell me, what are you thinking? Going to make him scrub our toilet with his toothbrush?
” She tapped her finger on her chin, her expression contemplative.
“I wonder if they make a French maid’s costume for men.
If they don’t, you could just make him walk around shirtless and—”
“Mabel,” I interrupted, absolutely not needing that visual in my head. I glanced over my shoulder, noticing Ford was far too close for my liking. I needed to get out of here, and I needed to do it quickly. “I’m late for another engagement, so you’ll have to excuse me.”
Without waiting for her to reply, I left her sputtering behind me and took off at a brisk walk.
I might’ve been wearing heels, but I’d perfected the no-nonsense walk eons ago.
I could run in these things if I needed to.
I had half a mind to do just that, but that would only call more attention to me, and I certainly didn’t need that.
Especially when Ford was behind me, calling out for me to wait and drawing the gazes of everyone around us.
But nope. No . Absolutely not. I was not going to have a conversation with him right now. Not after the day I’d had.
But, like everything with Ford, it didn’t matter what anyone else wanted. When it came down to it, it was all about him.
He grabbed my wrist, his fingers brushing the delicate skin and sending a shiver down my spine, and tugged me to a stop.
“Jesus, woman, are you training for a marathon?” he asked, not even having the decency to be out of breath after jogging to catch up with me. “You have earbuds in or what? I’ve been calling your name.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and sniffed, glancing to the side and planning my escape. “I heard you.”
“Heard me and just decided to, what? Ignore me?”
I glanced up at him—he had to be at least 6’3” because he still towered over me, even when I was wearing heels—and simply raised an eyebrow in response. Because, yeah, clearly that was exactly what I’d been doing.
“What the hell was that all about?” he asked.
“What was what about?” I could play dumb with the best of them.
He huffed out a laugh and gestured behind him to where swarms of Starlight Cove residents still milled about, far too many of them pretending like they weren’t watching us like hawks.
“Uh, the whole you just paying as much as my first car to go out on a date with me. If you wanted me so badly, all you had to do was say so. I’m sure we could’ve worked something out. ”
I ground my teeth together, my lips pressed in a tight line. “I didn’t come here for you . Everly is my friend, and I promised your sister I’d support this festival.”
“So you decided your best option to do so was to bid on me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I got here late. You were literally my last option. Now, are we done?”
Without waiting for him to answer, I stalked off, forcing myself to act as dignified as possible and not like I was running away from the big, bad wolf.
Except I hadn’t gotten even three feet when my heel caught in a crack on the sidewalk.
My ankle rolled, a sharp snap sounded—my shoe, thankfully, and not a bone, though it still hurt like a motherfucker—and I went tumbling backward on a gasp.
“Son of a—”
“ Jesus .” Ford lurched forward, catching me before I could fall to the ground, his thick arms wrapping around my waist to steady me. “You all right?”
“I’m fine .” Ignoring the feel of his solid body against mine, I jerked away from him and reached down, snatching my broken heel off my foot.
And then I attempted to march off with as much grace as I could muster while wearing only one shoe. Which, admittedly, wasn’t a whole lot. Especially when I put weight on my rolled ankle and gasped at the pain that shot up my leg, reaching out to steady myself on the nearest object.
Which just so happened to be Ford’s chest.
It was firm and warm, solid and steady, his heart thrumming a fast rhythm beneath my hand. I yanked it back as if I’d been burned, but I couldn’t move away because even the slightest pressure on my foot caused me to gasp in pain.
“Yeah, that’s not happening.” He stepped in front of me, blocking my path.
The expression on his face was calm and casual, as if nothing in the world bothered him, but his posture was anything but.
His shoulders were stiff, and a muscle ticked in his jaw as he stared at me.
“In my arms or over my shoulder? Your choice.”
I huffed out a disbelieving laugh as I stared up at him, carefully balancing on one foot. “You’re not going to carry me,” I said, gesturing to myself, which only made him scowl.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“I’m fine.” I tried hard to hide the grimace that crossed my face when I applied the barest weight on my left ankle, but he saw it.
He raised an eyebrow, and I wanted to slap that insufferable smirk right off his stupid, handsome face. “Last chance, kitten.”
“Oh my God, do not call me— Hey!”
Before I could even get the words out, Ford scooped me into his arms—one at my back and the other below my knees—with as much ease as if I were a couple bags of groceries and started strolling toward the parking lot.
“I gave you the option. Next time, be a little quicker on the uptake. You’re normally snappier than this.” He glanced down at me, his full lips quirked up at the side. “I’ve got you flustered, don’t I? You can admit it.”
I shoved against his chest, ignoring the soft feel of his T-shirt and the firmness of his chest beneath it. “Put me down!”
He tipped his head to the side. “Did you prefer over my shoulder? You should’ve just said so.”
“I prefer not being carried at all. I can walk, you jackass.”
“Oh, so I didn’t just witness you roll your ankle?”
“No. You didn’t.”
His brows lifted, and he stared down at me with something that looked an awful lot like admiration. “Goddamn, woman, I can almost feel the threads of history rewriting themselves just because you declared it so.”
“Shut up already and put me down .”
“Put you down,” he repeated flatly.
“Yes.”
“So you can, what? Walk?”
“ Obviously .”
“Are you telling me that if I put you down, you’ll be able to hustle your sweet ass to your car again like your pants are on fire?”
“I was not—” I cut off, grinding my molars together as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Being calm and collected was my wheelhouse.
It was literally in my job description. And yet, every ounce of that flew out the window whenever I was in this man’s presence.
“Yes,” I bit out. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. ”
Without a second to allow me to acclimate myself, he stopped and set me down, then raised a brow as if to say, let’s see it, then .
I steeled my shoulders, preparing myself to hustle away as fast as humanly possible.
But I didn’t make it half a step before I stumbled, the pain in my left ankle ricocheting up my calf and stealing the breath straight from my lungs.
I gasped. “Motherfuc—”
“That’s what I thought. Up you go.”
This time, he didn’t carry me in his arms. Nope, now I hung upside down over his shoulder, being hauled away like a sack of potatoes and feeling about as sexy as one.
I pressed my hands against his lower back and pushed away, snapping my head up and glancing behind us.
Probably one of my worst ideas tonight, and that was saying something.
I could’ve gone my whole life being blissfully unaware of the dozen or more people who stood with their gazes locked on us, mouths agape, as they watched Ford cart me off, over his shoulder . One of those people was, of course, Mabel, her phone trained in our direction and a huge smile on her face.
“Are you serious right now?” I hissed to Ford, then pinched his side for good measure. “People can see us.”
He rumbled out a low laugh, the sound reverberating through my body and tightening my nipples into stiff peaks. “A little lower, kitten.”
“You’re a jackass.”
He shrugged, like he wasn’t carrying a fully grown woman over his shoulder. “A jackass who’s making sure you get to your car okay.”
He strolled easily across the parking lot, holding me to him with his hand cupped against my upper thigh, his thumb enticingly close to a place that hadn’t felt another’s touch in longer than I wanted to admit.
That was the only reason this flurry of butterflies erupted in my stomach at the chaste touch. The only reason my downstairs suddenly perked up after a hibernation long enough to make even the fiercest grizzly bear jealous.
“Ford McKenzie,” I spat in the sternest voice I could muster. “Put me down right this second.”
He hummed low in his throat—a sound I wasn’t sure I would’ve heard if I hadn’t been pressed up against him. “I love when you say my name like that, kitten.”
“Then next time I’ll just call you Assho—”
Before I could get the rest of the word out, he bent at the waist and set me on my feet. With his hands on my hips, he steadied me, his eyes boring into mine. Despite the smirk on his mouth, his brow was creased, his eyes wary as he watched me. As if he was…concerned?
Tension hummed between us with nowhere to go.
Not when my car was at my back and Ford was so close I could hardly breathe.
Except I had to, which meant I sucked in a lungful of his frustratingly delicious scent, all crisp and clean and warm, and I absolutely was not thinking about what it’d be like to press my nose into his neck and inhale straight from the source.
He stepped forward, and my breath caught in my throat. What was he doing? Why was he so close that I could feel the heat coming off his body, and why the hell did I like it so much?
As I was locked in the prison of his gaze, unable to look away, he reached around me and opened my car door.
Then he plucked the broken shoe from my hand and tossed it onto the passenger’s seat before he brought his attention back to me.
I could’ve sworn his gaze dropped to my lips, but it was over in a millisecond and then his eyes were focused on mine once again.
A beat passed where neither of us said anything. Was I even breathing? Who the hell knew.
Then he broke the spell when he opened his insufferable mouth and sent any ounce of attraction that had boiled up back into the depths of hell right where it belonged. “You let me know about that date, kitten. I can’t wait.”