2. Mac
“What in the goddamned hell!”
I scowl at the shout coming from outside, my floured hands going still on my bread dough.
More muffled yelling sounds from outside my bar, though it’s lower now so I can’t make out the words.
“Goddammit, Stu,” I grumble.
There are two sets of doors between me and the beach, but I recognize our local town asshole’s voice. Stu getting into it with a tourist wouldn’t be breaking any records. He’s retired and spends all his time at the beach just outside my bar, rain or shine, doing annoyingly good watercolor landscapes. Last summer he got into it with a tourist going for a jog earlier than this. Shoved him into the water when he let his dog shit on the beach without cleaning it up.
Can’t say I blamed him for that one.
I’m in too foul a mood for this.
But the shouts seem to have stopped. I keep still a moment, listening just in case. Blissful silence continues. I turn back to my bread making, kneading my big-ass fists into the puffy white dough maybe a little more vigorously than necessary.
I’d blame Stu, but I was already pissed off. I could easily attribute my mood to the bread, since hardly any of my regular patrons order it. I sell most of it in loaves to the natural food store in town. I’m a bar owner, not a bread maker. I should quit making it. But I don’t want the starter to die. Plus, I like making bread. It’s like fishing, or backcountry hiking. It’s simple. Honest. Therapeutic.
But it’s not just the bread.
“Mac!”
God dammit. It was wishful thinking to think anything around here could take care of itself. I wash the flour and bits of dough off my hands and head for the door of the Rusty Dinghy, drying my hands off on a bar towel just as the barking starts.
My stomach twists.
That’s my dog.
I sprint the last few steps to the door. My fourteen-year-old son, Nate, is in charge of Tink when I’m at the Dinghy.
Normally, thinking about Nate makes my stomach ache. Things haven’t been good between us.
But Tink only barks like that when there’s trouble.
Panic seizes my chest as I flip the deadbolt and fling the heavy wooden door open like it’s a flimsy curtain. “Nate?” I yell.
Stu screws up his gray-bearded mug, sticking a finger in his ear. “Dammit, Mac, my hearing’s already going!”
“Where’s Nate?” If something happened to him…
“He’s fine,” Stu says, pointing his chin down to the water.
He’s right. Nate’s upright and walking. But my relief is short-lived, because Nate’s not alone. There’s a sopping-wet woman draped over his shoulder.
I take off down the beach. Tink bounds up the sand toward me, her leash trailing behind her. She barks as she reaches me, jumping in big leaps and spraying me with sand.
“I know, girl. I got it,” I say to my dog as I sprint past her.
An ancient, familiar panic has my whole body on a knife-edge by the time I reach them.
“Where are the rest of them?” I demand.
“She needs a towel!” Nate says, his prepubescent voice cracking.
I rip off my flannel shirt, throwing it around the woman’s shoulders. She’s pale as a ghost, her wet hair hanging stringy, obscuring most of her face.
“Nate! Is there anyone else?” I scan the water for a boat. I’m tense as a bowstring, ready to run in.
“I don’t think so,” Nate says.
“Think’s not good enough.”
Nate cringes at my yelling. Guilt springs up, but I can deal with that later.
But the woman speaks then. “It’s j-j-just me,” she says from behind her hair. Her voice is tangled up in her shivering, but still, relief hits me hard for the second time in as many minutes.
“I don’t think she was in a boat,” Nate says.
I let out a long breath, my shoulders sagging. There’s no one else. It’s okay.
It’s not happening again.
“Walked right out of the water,” Stu confirms from behind me. He’s breathing hard. I’m impressed. Stu doesn’t run for anything. “Thought she was one of your tourist groupies, but it’s the wrong time of year.”
“Jesus, Stu,” I breathe out, resting my hands on my knees. Not because I’m tired, but because I’m goddamned shaking. Images flash in my mind of a face in the water. A hand reaching for me.
I swallow hard, willing myself not to retch.
“Hell, guess she still could be,” Stu continues, looking suddenly suspicious. “Remember that time that girl faked drowning so you would?—”
“Stu, shut the hell up!” I say.
Everyone’s eyes are wide on me. Including the woman’s.
The hair’s fallen away from her face, so I can see it for the first time.
The moment I do, it’s like lightning’s struck me right in the chest. It’s almost painful. For a moment, I can’t think. I can’t do anything except stare.
She’s beautiful. Her face is heart-shaped, with a button nose and bow-lips. Freckles spattered over pale cheeks. A mole on her forehead and another by her ear. It’s unassuming, so you don’t notice until it slaps you in the face. Like it just did.
But it’s the eyes that give me trouble breathing. They’re hazel edging on green, like the color of the ocean when you peer in off a boat on a clear day. They’re ostensibly very pretty, but it’s more than that. They make me feel like I could look at them a thousand times and they’d never quite look the same.
She blinks, and I remember myself. The woman’s fancy pantsuit, drenched and gritty with sand and bits of seaweed, is soaked from her swim in the frigid water; it’s suctioned to her curves like cling-wrap. Her abundant curves. Jesus, if she weren’t shaking like a leaf, I might quickly forget myself again.
But she is, and her knees look like they could give at any moment.
I’m an asshole.
“Here,” I say, relieving Nate of her weight. I pull one of her freezing wet arms over my shoulder and wrap the other one around her back. She’s so much shorter than me that with my body tipped toward hers and my elbow bent to support her, my hand comes to rest right at her waist. I try not to notice how my broad hand spans the space from her ribs to her soft hip. How the soft indent there feels like it was made to fit my palm.
How every part of her pressed against me feels like a different variation of soft.
I start half walking, half carrying her up the beach.
“We need to get you warmed up.”
She stumbles, leaning into me, and I have to grit my teeth to stay focused.
The woman mumbles something I can’t hear.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“R-r-rice,” the woman says. “I need r-r-rice.”
Nate, who’s jogging alongside us holding Tink’s leash, meets my eyes. His are like dinner plates.
“Rice?” he whispers.
“Call Fred,” I say. “Tell her we found a woman in the water, and I’m bringing her to the Dinghy to warm up.”
“Who’s F-F-Fred?” the woman asks.
“Chief of police?—”
“What?” She pushes away from me. “I don’t need the p-p-pol-l-l.”
She can’t even finish a sentence.
“We need to focus on keeping you from getting hypothermic,” I say.
I reach for her to help her again, but she takes an unsteady step back. “I said I’m f-f-fine.”
Despite my worry, a flicker of irritation hits me. “Really? Fine people jump into the ocean in April fully dressed?” The ocean here is cold but swimmable in the summer, but in April, it’s still frigid.
She narrows her eyes. “I’ll b-b-be f-f-fine,” she corrects. Then a shudder goes through her. “I just need to get to t-t-town.” She tries to walk, but her knees give way.
I catch her, holding her up. Thankfully, she lets me hang on.
“Are you in trouble with the law, lady?”
Reality claps back. For both of us, apparently, because the woman grits her chattering teeth. “No. I just d-d-don’t need you to make a big d-d-deal.”
“Okay,” I say, steadying her back on her feet. “I won’t call Fred. On the condition that I take you inside to warm up.”
When she doesn’t say anything, a thought occurs to me. She’s dressed in one of those pantsuit things. The only people who dress like that over here are the corporate types over on Business Island—what the locals call the island off the beach with the retreat center.
If she didn’t fall in, she had to have jumped in and swum over here. There are very few reasons someone would do that any time of year, let alone in April, when it’s still mostly cool, the water frigid. “Did someone hurt you?” I ask, my voice steely. My arm is still against her back to keep her upright, and she must feel me tense, because she quickly shakes her head. “I came here of my own v-v-volition.”
She says it with enough conviction that I relax slightly. Still, I tread carefully.
I point to the Rusty Dinghy. “That’s my bar. Everyone in town knows me. That’s my son.” I point my chin at Nate. “And that’s Stu. He’s an asshole, but he’s harmless. Just like me, I guess. I’d take you into town right away, but I’m worried as hell about you. Your lips are blue, and hypothermia’s a real threat in that water outside the summer months. Please, let me bring you inside. After we warm you up, I can personally drive you wherever you need to go.”
She looks up at me, and suddenly, her lips curve into a tiny smile. “You’re the hot b-b-bartender.”
I’m so distracted it takes me a moment to register her words. “What?”
“I told you she was a groupie!” Stu says.
I grit my teeth. “Stu, me telling you to shut the hell up a minute ago was me being nice. Don’t be an asshole.”
“Mac!” Nate says.
When I look at him, he points his eyes in the direction of the woman.
She’s shaking hard now. “Okay,” she whispers. “W-w-warm.”
I don’t wait. I swing her up into my arms and carry her the rest of the way to the bar.
I swear I hear her stuttering something about being too heavy, but I don’t dignify that with an answer.
“Get the door,” I tell Nate.
“I got it,” Stu says, overtaking Nate and pulling open the door.
Nate looks wounded.
“We’ve got it, Stu,” I bark out.
The permanent frown on Stu’s face deepens. “What, is it illegal to be helpful now? Or are you the only one who gets to be a hero around here?”
If I wasn’t holding a beautiful ice cube of a woman in my arms, I’d grab Stu by the scruff and toss him onto the beach. Some days he knows how to poke a finger into what hurts. “You want to be helpful,” I say, my voice tight with barely restrained anger, “take my dog home.”
Luckily, Nate has no problem with slamming doors. After he thrusts Tink’s leash at Stu, he sends the door home with a loud thud.
I relax slightly with Stu handled. Though now there’s still the matter at hand. Or rather, in my hands.
But I can feel the woman looking at me. She’s harder to ignore than the tourists who come into my bar and giggle aggressively from their tables.
She swallows. “I think I can st-stand now.”
I don’t want to, but I set her down on her feet.
“Go grab all the sweaters in my office,” I say to my son.
Nate chews his lip.
Hurt plucks at my chest. He doesn’t know his way around his dad’s bar because he’s refused to spend any time here since he got here. “There!” I point my chin to the door on the far side of the bar.
Nate takes off, darting easily around the tables and chairs in his way.
“Kid barely picks up a dish at home,” I grumble. “You come along, and he’s breaking speed records.”
“I should s-s-swim more often.”
I scowl at her. “You can joke when you’re not hypothermic.”
Her teeth clack together like a tap dancer.
I can’t just cover up her wet clothes. I need to get her warmer faster.
“Change of plans,” I tell Nate as I redirect the woman toward the kitchen. “There’s a box in the shed at home.” Our place is a half-mile down the beach from the bar. There’s a detached room off the back deck that’s supposed to be a guest cabin, even though it’s just a loft with a tiny powder room. I use it to store things that hurt to look at. My sister’s stuff, mostly. “The box says Annie on it. Grab a pile of clothes out of there and bring them back here.” My little sister’s got about a foot on her, but something in there’s got to fit. And Annie won’t miss it; she hasn’t been back here in a decade.
Nate nods, and once again, he’s off. I can’t help the wash of pride I feel at how capable he’s been through all of this. I might even forgive him for staying up again last night.
I lead the woman across the kitchen, grabbing a stack of soft, clean bar towels as I pass the linen shelves.
But when she sees our destination, she pulls up short. “You’re not serious.”
I turn on the hose at my industrial sink, adjusting the water to the right temperature. “Of course I am.”
“I’m not getting in the sink!”
I stick the plug in the bottom. “I have a great dishwasher; he scrubs the sink down every night.”
“I said I’m not getting in the s-s-s-sink. I just need to find a hotel. Then I’ll be out of your h-h-hair.”
I rest my hands on the edge of the stainless-steel basin, letting out a long breath. Then I turn around, the tub still filling behind me. “Listen. I’ll make you a deal. If you get in there and warm up, I’ll make you a club sandwich. I make the best club in town.” It’s the only club in town if you don’t count the abomination of a sandwich they serve at the truck stop down the road.
She still looks hesitant.
“Plus, I’ve got an espresso machine out there. You seem like a…” I look her up and down, realizing too late how that looks—and how it felt to take in her wet clothes clinging to her. I clear my throat and turn back to the sink. “Like a London Fog kind of girl.”
With the little intake of air, I know I’m right. Hazard of working in beverages for the past twenty years. “We’ll deal with everything else later. For now, please just get in the warm water before you break your back from shivering.”
For a moment, I think she might have disappeared. Then I hear a sigh. A moment later, she stands next to me, struggling to pull off her suit jacket. “Can you…”
I nod, coming behind her and peeling it off her, inside out. Even though I’m behind her, I look skyward to avoid her blouse, which, from the flash of nude bra strap, I’m painfully aware is fully transparent. I turn around and sling it over the counter behind me.
I don’t know how much she’s taking off, so I press my palms onto the opposite counter, my back to her. “I’m going to stand like this, okay?” I should leave altogether to give her privacy and to get my pulse back to its normal rhythm. But she’s not exactly stable on her feet. I decide to risk walking around to another work area. I’m far enough away to give the illusion of privacy, but I can still hear her.
I hear the swish of wet fabric, then a soft splat as something hits the floor. Another follows a moment later. My heart clunks against my ribs, my brain in a cage match with itself to try not to visualize what’s happening.
“Hey, um…” she says.
“Yes?” I croak.
“I think I n-n-need a b-b-boost?”
Fuck. I should have brought a stool over. I still could, but I can hear the faint clack-clack-clack of her teeth.
“I, uh…” Shit. “Are you okay? I can close my eyes.”
“It’s f-f-fine. I think I’m p-p-past the p-p-point of humil—hum?—”
Fuck it. She’s going to freeze to death. I clench my jaw and look up as I walk over, catching a glimpse of a nude lace bra. Then I scoop her off her feet and set her in the tub.
The moment I’m sure she’s in there safely, I whirl back around, running my hand through my hair.
Except once she’s in the water, she lets out this long sound that might be pain. I chance a look over my shoulder to see her sinking down in the water.
I tense, ready to rush back, but she only submerges herself for a moment. And when she comes back up, her hair is slicked back from her face, her eyes closed, mouth slightly parted.
And goddamn if that expression doesn’t make that warmth in my chest come back.
I swallow hard, willing myself to turn away. To think of how thoroughly I’ll have to scrub the sink to make it food safe again. Hell, I even try to think about what Stu would say if he saw a woman in my sink. He’d be on the phone with the health inspector before I could blink. Unlike the time I served him tuna tartare, this time he’d actually have a case.
But just as I’m about to spin around and give her some space, God help me, she starts to laugh.
The woman tilts her beautiful face back, throws her arm over her forehead, and laughs.
The sound sends little tickles like brushing wings all the way over me, right down to my toes in my sturdy Blundstone boots.
“You okay?” I manage to grunt out.
“It was the camel,” she says, nonsensically. “The camel broke my back. Or was it hers? Also, I’m in a sink.” She gasps, she’s laughing so hard. “I’m in a sink at a bar. I swam here!” She laughs so hard she curls up and then lies back again. Water splashes everywhere. It even reaches me. Then she hooks one leg over the edge of the basin. Seeing her glossy pantyhose-clad leg is too much.
“I’m going to give you a few minutes,” I say.
I don’t even know if she heard me.
I leave the bar at a stride so fast it’s practically running. I can’t get out of there fast enough. When I crash through the door, I slip sideways to the wall and tip my head back against it, eyes closed. I press my hand against the cool wood paneling. Only somehow the wall seems to curve against my hand, transforming itself into that curve of her waist again.
I clench and unclench my hands, but the feeling doesn’t leave. It melds into me like it’s writing itself into my DNA.
I don’t know what the hell that feeling was, seeing her relax like that—my guts feel scraped out—but I never want to feel it again.
I need to stay as far away from her as possible. Because this woman—she makes me feel like I want to know her. To be around her. To look out for her.
And the only person I need to look out for is my son. The last thing he needs is for another woman to come breezing in and out of his life again.
Given the impossibility of needing to stay away from her with her current predicament, I decide I just won’t look at her again.
And I’ll work to get her out of my bar as soon as fucking possible.