10. Reid
“Well, it’s going to take five weeks.”
“Five weeks?”
“It’s an old boat. Part’s got to come all the way from California.”
“Jesus Christ,” I grumble under my breath. That’s an extra two weeks on top of what I had already not planned to spend here in Port Nova. “There’s no way to get it here faster?”
Al snorts. “If you can make the United States Postal Service work any faster, you go right ahead. I’m sure the country would name you a damned saint.”
Goddamnit. I can’t leave traps out that long. There’s no telling the bullshit mess I’d come back to. “I’ve got to get to Alaska in September.”
“Well, I guess you better hope it gets here on time, then.”
Fucking prick. “Alright. I may be back to rent a boat.”
Al nods. “I’d suggest that.”
I bet he would. Al’s nice and all—well, not really, but he’s also a greedy old bastard. Just to look at my engine, he’s charging double what the shops in Portland would.
Unfortunately, for me, though, I’m stuck paying it if I want to get back on the water anytime soon.
I leave the shop pissed off at myself for not having a spare of every single part for Hope’s Grace, stored below. Not that I’d be able to float. Fucker would probably sink right to the bottom, but at least then, I wouldn’t be stuck on this island, evading a little blonde tyrant.
Last night . . . Last night was interesting. I laid awake for a couple hours, like I always do, but instead of Alaska and all the shit I need to get done, my mind wandered to Nova and what she was doing. The way she moaned my name, so sweet and soft. If I could make her scream it if I tried hard enough. The way her legs would feel on either side of my face while I made her scream my name.
When I saw her this morning, I couldn’t stop my dick from hardening any more than I could stop Hope’s Grace from breaking down. She blushed and that little moment in the bathroom came full circle. What I wanted to do to her. How I wanted to punish her for being so fucking stubborn.
She’s becoming a damned nuisance.
Okay, she’s not bad. In fact, she’s fucking fascinating, which is the problem.
And also her pretty smile and perfect ass.
If she were anyone else, it would be so easy to lose myself in her for the next few weeks. Spend my days forgetting my problems, buried in the most beautiful woman I’ve ever fucking seen.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Nova is the type to be down for a summer fling and this strange, budding obsession has already gone too far.
I was looking for her this morning when I stopped in for breakfast at the restaurant. Fucking looking for her. I don’t do that.
Not to mention, come September first, I’m on the first flight to Alaska and Port Nova will just be another stop on my list.
Carry Brandt, a guy I used to run trawlers with way back in the day, somehow managed to end up in the same bar in Boston I was, some sixth months ago. Told me about the opportunity to man a crabbing vessel for the upcoming king crab season. I immediately shut him down. I prefer to fish alone and I’ve heard stories of the men who fish the king crab up in the Bering Sea. It’s dangerous, probably one of the roughest jobs you can get in my field.
Then . . . as I always do, I started to get bored.
I spoke to him the next month and finally, I agreed when I started to get that itchy feeling to get fuck out of Maine.
In less than two months, I’ll be the captain of the Stargazer—a crabber with seven guys underneath me.
I’ve never been in charge of people. I don’t even know if I’m capable, but . . . if it gets me out of Maine, I’m willing to give it a try.
Does anyone even live in Alaska?
I always thought the residents of the cold, unforgiving North had to be a myth, but I guess I was wrong.
King crab. Don’t know shit about them. Crabbing is rougher, but a challenge will be nice. I like the hard jobs no one else wants to do. The ones that beat you up and make you really appreciate going to bed at night. The adrenaline coursing through my veins, the spray of the sea, and the knowledge that you really don’t know where you could end up tomorrow?
Fuck, sign me up.
Not to mention, the pay is top tier in my line of work. I could put it toward a bigger boat. Save up enough money to fish lobster in the summer and crab in the winter.
And it will get me the hell out of here. I’ve been feeling stuck, like I’m running in place the last couple months. I’ve never stayed in one place too long and I’ve been in Maine two years, now. It’s time to move on and as rough as the Bering Sea sounds, it might be just what I need.
Not everyone wants the fucking American dream. White picket fence, two and a half kids, and the same woman every night for the rest of your life nagging you about not taking out the garbage or working too much, even though the bills have to get paid, somehow.
No. Fuck that. That’s not me.
I’ve seen the world and all it has to offer and the one place that continues to amaze me is the ocean. I’ve always found I’m most at home on the water where no one can force you to do anything, and the biggest threat is the water itself.
I’m more at home on the ocean than I ever have been in a house, in a warm bed.
I’m just about to step up the stairs leading from the beach when a dog barks, waking me from my internal rant. We lock eyes, he wags his sand-colored tail and then darts straight for me. Before I can move out of the way, the yellow lab—probably the biggest fucking dog I’ve ever seen—knocks me off my feet and I land on my ass in the sand.
Fuck, that’ll hurt tomorrow.
“Oh my God, Toast!” a woman scolds and the sound of footsteps rush toward me. “Are you okay?”
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, a face looms over mine and I swear the dog killed me. Hair like a wild golden halo surrounds her face, her eyes are blue and green like the ocean and the sweetest lips I’ve ever seen.
Fuck . . . I can’t catch a break.
She glares at me, ready to tear into me, but she doesn’t get the chance when the dog jumps between us and starts licking me playfully.
“Toast!” Nova scolds, lugging the dog back by the collar around his neck. “You’re embarrassing me.”
Toast backs off and Nova offers her hand, scowl still on that pretty face.
“If you can’t control your dog, you should keep him on a leash. There could be kids out here.”
She narrows her gaze on me, letting her hand drop when I decline it and get up on my own. My back cracks, my muscles aching painfully. I’m almost thirty and six-four. It’s a long way to fall.
My gaze coasts over her, taking her in. She’s got on another pair of shorts today, and a tank top, letting me see those tan legs and the freckles on her shoulders. Her feet are bare, her toes painted a light purple that somehow causes me to develop a sudden toe fetish. She looks good.
Reallyfucking good.
“I was going to apologize, but now, I’m thinking you deserved it.”
And there she goes.
Fuck.
Normally, I would leave. Go back to the inn and work on something, but today? I feel like following her.
I haven’t spoken to her since yesterday when I stitched her hand and thought of every possible surface I could fuck her on while she rested between my legs.
Not my smartest moment, but I did what had to be done.
“How is your hand?”
She stops a few feet up the beach and turns to glare at me.
“It’s fine.”
Fine. I fucking hate that word. People use it as an out to get away from saying what’s really on their minds.
I want to hear every damn word she has to say, even if half of them piss me off and the other half make my cock hard.
I step in front of her, not giving her the space to deny me, even though she takes a step back. One minute, she wants me in her space. The next, she’s running the other direction. It’s a mind-fuck and a half.
Grabbing her hand, I force her to drop a tennis ball she’d been holding, which Toast takes and runs off down the beach.
She stares up at me with an angry glare while I carefully unwrap the bandages, keeping silent for the first time since I met her.
“Are we going to keep fighting like this every time I see you?”
“I don’t know,” she grumbles. “Are you going to keep being an asshole to me.”
I guess I deserve that. Though, when her dog charged at me like a bull to a red flag and then she appeared, I was so fucking lost on how to react, I did what I do best.
Be a dick.
The stitches look fine, her delicate skin slowly starting to heal itself. She winces but doesn’t complain if I’m being too rough with her.
Figures.
“How did you learn how to give stitches?” she asks quietly, that fire in her voice turning to nothing more than a few embers.
“My mother.”
She doesn’t ask what happened to her, and I’m glad. The last thing I want to do is talk about my mother with Nova. They’re a lot alike in many ways. Both stubborn. Both hard working. Tough. They take care of everyone they meet, and they wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Well . . . wore, in Mom’s case.
“Was she a nurse?”
“She was.”
Nova falls silent while I finish wrapping her hand. Her gaze settles on me and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking.
Oh, to be a thought in her head, so I can read the rest of them. Find out what really goes on behind those pretty ocean eyes. Maybe then, I could let her go.
Something tells me, even if I had a couple days, it would only begin to scratch the surface of this girl.
“From cats to dogs, huh?” I ask, and she jumps, like I startled her. I finish bandaging her and let her hand drop, although begrudgingly.
“I caught him stealing cat food out behind the inn the other night and I just couldn’t leave him.”
I stoop down, picking up the ball. It’s slimy, but I’m used to it. Lobsters aren’t always the cleanest creatures. I wave it at Toast, who dances animatedly in front of me before I chuck it in the sand where the tide rolls up the beach. He bounds into the ocean, happily catching the ball and completely soaking himself. “You rescue all the strays?”
“Only the cute ones,” she says, but then pauses, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of red when she picks up on the hidden meaning behind my words.
Fuck me.
She falls into step beside me, a foot of space between us like she’s afraid of getting too close. After yesterday, when I warned her away from me, I can’t say I blame her.
“He likes you,” Nova says, smiling softly.
“I throw the ball for him.” She chuckles when he instantly brings it back, dropping it for me to throw a little further. “Why live here, though?”
“Why not? I spent my summers here,” she says with a shrug. “Gran and Pappap needed help with the inn and no one else wanted it. It’s a beautiful place, right?”
I guess Port Nova is nice. Surrounded by the Atlantic and full of greenery from the forest outside the town to the cliffs on the far side, way behind Nova’s cottage. I don’t know, I just never focused so much on the beauty of a place over its functionality. From everything I’ve seen, the town needs help. Beautiful, yes. Sustainable? No.
Nothing compares, though, to the fucking way Nova smiles when she thinks I’m not looking.
“It’s alright.”
She rolls her eyes. “Let me guess. Mr. Worldwide has seen better.”
“Not really better, just different.”
“So, why are you still here?” she asks, turning to look at me as we walk. “Is the boat still not fixed?”
“Ready to get rid of me, little bird?”
“Yes,” she admits truthfully and I pause. Of course she is. A girl like Nova is too good for a man like me. She breathes out a sigh after a moment, the tension between us palpable. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she grumbles.
“So, how did you mean it?”
She shakes her head, her brow furrowing while I toss Toast’s ball, again. Thing’s starting to get real wet from our game of fetch, but I need to do something to occupy my hands before I reach for her.
“You just . . . make me think about things that I shouldn’t.”
Fuck, if that isn’t the truth.
I realize why Nova draws me in. She’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She can talk herself in circles and she’s incredibly awkward to a certain point. She knows what she wants, but then she doesn’t at all. Not to mention, she’s the prettiest fucking girl I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe ever.
She’s a walking contradiction and something about it is incredibly fucking fascinating to me. Infuriatingly fascinating.
“I don’t even know you,” she continues. “You could be a murderous psychopath and here I am walking alone on the beach with you.”
We have gotten out of sight of the town. Looking up the steep bank, there’s nothing but forest and boulders making up the rocky cliff.
“I think we’ve spent enough time alone for you to know that’s not the case. Plus, how do I know you’re not the murderer?”
She gasps and shoves at my arm playfully. Heat travels down to my cock from the spot where she touched me. Last night’s zoetrope of sex positions comes crashing back and suddenly, I’m wondering what she’d look like naked and spread out in the sand underneath me.
Was that a laugh I managed to pry out of Nova Fischer?
“I don’t murder on the first date. I’m not that kind of girl.”
I brush off her little comment about a first date—I don’t date, but another thought pops in my head.
“What kind of girl are you, then?”
“What?” she asks, delicate brows knitting together. She bends over to grab Toast’s ball that he dropped in her path and I take the opportunity to let my eyes slide lower. Yep, ass is still perfect. “I don’t know. What kind of question is that?”
“How can you know you aren’t that type of girl if you don’t know what type you are?”
She glares at me and my cock twitches in my jeans. Maybe I am a fucking masochist.
“I don’t know,” she shakes her head. “I just know I’m not that girl.”
“So, you save cats and dogs and whatever else falls in your path. You run an inn. You paint. You walk with strangers on the beach and . . . what else?”
She chews on her lips, her smile faltering like she’s remembering a bad memory.
Finally, she shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. Not until you tell me something about yourself.”
“What’s there to tell?”
“We aren’t strangers, first off,” she points out. “Second off, you’ve barely told me about yourself, other than you have a boat and you catch crustaceans all day. Oh, and that you despise me.”
“What’s there to tell?”
“Wow,” she deadpans, cheeks flaming. “Not even going to argue the part about you despising me?”
“I don’t,” I shrug. I despise my obsession with you.
“Well, where did you come from?”
“Portland.”
“Where did you come from originally?”
“North Carolina.”
“And where are you going?”
“Are you a detective?”
“I’m just curious,” she muses. “Not many people would stay on an island for five weeks because their boat broke down. The ferry runs three times a day.”
“I’m not most people.”
“So, what makes Mr. Reid Morrison so special?” she asks, turning and walking backwards. I almost want her to fall, just so I have an excuse to help her up. Maybe then this line of questioning would stop.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she shrugs. “I’ve told you things. Now, it’s your turn. Why are you here? Don’t you have a home back in Portland.”
When I don’t answer, she stops, her smile fading.
“You live on the boat?”
“Is that so bad?”
She doesn’t answer.
I step up to her, only this time, she doesn’t step back. I keep at least a couple inches between us because God knows what happens every time I touch her.
“I’m not like other people you’ve met, Nova. I’m not interested in a happily ever after. I’m not a romantic at heart. I fuck. I move. I don’t stay in one place for more than a couple years because I like the freedom moving gives me. I’m not the man you take to meet your parents, but I can sure as hell make you come harder than you ever have in your life.”
She blushes at what I’ve said, her eyes brighter than I’ve ever seen against the shade of her skin.
“And when you’re old and alone?” she asks softly.
Carefully, I reach up, moving that damned curl that always falls across her forehead out of the way. I chance a step closer to her and she doesn’t back away, her eyes flashing with something suppressed. Fear? A hollowness she hides perfectly beneath her smile?
I should walk away from this girl, now. Let her go, find some guy that’s not ready to drop everything and move at the slightest whim. I’m not the man who can bring her the stability I think she probably wants. I’m not the type to wake her up in the morning with soft kisses and sweet romance.
“Reid,” she starts and just as I’m about to drag her down to the sand and take her in the middle of the fucking day where anyone could see us, she screams, “Toast!”
She jumps out of my arms, stomping across the sand to the water’s edge. Out in the current, Toast is swimming frantically for his ball which floats out to sea.
“Get back here!”
“His ball’s out there.” I toss my hat in the sand and start unbuttoning my shirt.
“I’ll get him a new one,” Nova snaps. “Come here, Toast. Come here, boy!” She pauses to look at me, freezing when she realizes I’ve taken off my shirt. “What are you doing?” Her gaze travels over me, down to my abs, then up to my chest and I resist the urge to chuckle at the blush spreading up her cheeks.
“Going to get the ball.” I kick off my boots and drop my jeans all while Nova watches, mouth open, face bright as a cooked lobster. Her eyes center in on my cock, still semi-hard from just being in her fucking presence and they go wide. “Don’t forget to breathe, little bird,” I murmur as I walk past her and into the water.
It’s cold but refreshing as the water swallows me. I dip under, swimming through the light current and making my way to where I can hear Toast kicking. He’s about twenty feet out—not too far, but I can see he’s tuckering out, so I swim ahead, grab the ball, and hook an arm around him, steering him back toward shore.
“Can’t be doing shit like this, mate. Your mom’s about to lose her shit.”
When we make it back to the beach, Toast runs to Nova, collapsing at her feet in a wet, panting heap.
“Don’t do that to me,” she snaps, stooping down to his level and hugging him tightly. “You shaved at least four years off my life. What if you were swept away? Huh?” Toast just cocks his head at her and jumps forward to lick her face. “You’d be fish food.”
When he doesn’t reply, she lets out a deep, disappointed sigh.
“Thank you,” she says to me, giving me a small half-smile. It’s the first time she’s actually fucking smiled at me and I swear my heart stops for a second.
So, this is what everyone else sees? No wonder Crusty wrote a fucking song about it.
She stands there awkwardly while I slip my clothes back on. Wet boxers mean I’ll look like I pissed myself, but at least the dog is safe and that little dip in the water kept me from doing something so fucking stupid, I’m not sure I’d come back from it.
“Thank you. Really.” Her eyes rake over me and just like that, my cock’s hardening in my jeans again. Fucking hell. “We can stop at my cottage. I can get you a towel.”
“Little bird.” I fix her with a look. “Do you really think it’s wise for us to be alone in your comfy little cottage right now?”
She pauses, her cheeks damn near the color of a maraschino cherry. My favorite.
“Okay, well how about pizza? Do you like pizza? Or do you only eat what you catch like a wild caveman?”
“Are you asking me on a date, little bird?” I joke, tossing Toast his ball. He takes it, though more because he has to now, than because he wants to play.
“You don’t date and neither do I, remember?”
Interesting. She’s never shared that little tidbit before.
“Pizza and sweet crabs,” she shrugs, her eyes alive with a challenge. “Strictly platonic. You just have to promise not to fall in love with me.”
I should say no. I’m not going to.
But I fucking should.
“What’s a sweet crab?”
She grins, a devious smirk in her eyes. “The best thing you’ll ever taste.”