Chapter 8
EWAN
I think Maisey forgot that going fishing means being up before the sun.
Giving her credit where it’s due, she’s up and at ’em when I knock on her door at o’dark-thirty. She just doesn’t look very happy with me about it. Add that to the unchanged column—Maisey is still not a morning person.
“There’s coffee, right?” she grumbles, climbing up into my truck.
Is there coffee? Of course there’s coffee…I’m not a monster…
I lean over her, reaching for the center console and grabbing the to-go cup I prepared special for her.
My arm brushes against her breasts, and my insides tense, suddenly on high alert as we make contact, wanting more.
Wondering what is going through her mind right now, and if this brief, barely there touch is messing with her as much as it is me.
It’s taking everything in me to think of something other than that kiss. The damn good kiss.
And how I want to do it again.
“Hazelnut creamer and two sugars,” I say, handing her the cup.
Panic briefly washes over me, my brain suddenly second-guessing if this is still how she takes her morning caffeine jolt.
Right behind it is the realization that all the things I think I know about her, I’m going to have to learn all over again.
But then she smiles.
Instantly, heat spreads through me, that smile just as magical now as it was when we were kids. Even more powerful than it has been in my dreams these last ten years. It about knocks me on my ass, but then Maisey slips her hands around mine, holding both it and the cup, grounding me to her.
“Please tell me you didn’t go out and buy hazelnut creamer just so you could make me coffee?”
“No, I already had it.” Heat rushes up the back of my neck, giving me away. “I still use it.”
I pull back from her, still fighting the urge to kiss her, and close her door. I’m around the truck and climbing behind the wheel in no time, greeted by that same disarming smile.
“Still?” she prods. A cute little yawn escapes, prompting her to take a sip.
“Picked up the habit from you.” I shrug, as if it’s nothing. “When you left, there was a mostly full thing in the fridge, and I wasn’t about to waste it. Found I missed it when I tried to switch back.”
It was how I imagined you tasted…
Turns out, I was wrong.
Her kiss tastes nothing like the sweetened creamer she loves so much. It’s better. Sweeter. Fuller. A whole lot more satisfying.
“Still a man of mystery, Ewan Hayes,” she coos, taking another sip.
I shake my head—I am anything but. Truth be told, I’m pretty damn simple when it all comes down to it. I’ll take her thinking that though.
We make the rest of the short drive over to Silver Lake in silence, the early morning darkness feeling like a blanket surrounding us. Nothing about it awkward, just two people still in the process of waking up, listening to the radio as the gravel crunches under the tires.
Twenty minutes later, we’re in the water, nothing but the early morning quiet surrounding us. The Hooked on a Reeling gently moves along with the waves, the soft, easy movement threatening to lull me back to sleep.
“Do we really have to use live bait?” Maisey scrunches her nose, not bothering to hide her borderline disgust. “It’s just so…”
Raising an eyebrow, I wait for her to finish. The nightcrawler precariously held in between her thumb and forefinger wriggles like the metaphorical worm on a hook—errr, well, almost on a hook in this case—as if it knows its moments are numbered.
“Yucky,” she finishes, her blue eyes pleading with me to give her an out.
I chuckle, unable to hold back. The woman is a trauma nurse and sees all sorts of God knows what when it comes to blood and guts, broken bones, and other injuries. But putting a worm on a barbed piece of metal is what pushes her over the edge.
“Do I need to bait your hook?”
It’s a simple question. Two possible answers—yes or no. Maybe a please thrown in there. But the sly smile and the fiery flash in Maisey’s eyes betray her thought process. And it’s anything but simple.
“Even after all these years, that still sounds dirty,” she giggles, the sound echoing out over the open water, vibrating through the air and settling right in my chest.
“Pretty sure only you can make that dirty, Maisey.”
Although right about now I’d like to make her dirty. Find out what those soft little moans she made last night when I kissed her turn into as I make my way down her body. As I explore other parts of her. Discover if the rest of her tastes as good as her mouth.
No—stop. I need to stop.
We’ll get there. I know we will. But I’m not going to rush it. I’m not going to make this about something it’s not. This is about forever. I’m going to act accordingly.
Taking the nightcrawler from her pinched grip, I slide it onto the hook, piercing the barb through the little pinkish brown blob. Maisey recoils, her features still scrunched, but her eyes never leave my hands.
“Dirty or otherwise, I’m happy to do it.”
“I know…” she whispers, leaning forward and winking conspiratorially. “And I’ll let you.”
Fuuuuuuck me…so much for keeping this aboveboard…
I need to think of something else to talk about. Something that isn’t going to get me in trouble thinking about all the things I want to do to her. Something that will get us on the track we’re supposed to be on.
Only, I don’t know what track that is.
I know exactly what I would have done in high school with best friend Maisey. The one I had a crush on, but didn’t have the balls to do anything about. But that’s not who is sitting here with me now.
This Maisey is something else entirely. Just as beautiful—maybe even more so. But this Maisey knows my feelings. This Maisey ran out into the pouring rain to tell me she feels the same.
And suddenly, I don’t know what to do with that.
“I can hear you thinking,” she teases, nudging me with her shoulder.
“Oh yeah? And what am I thinking?”
“That I already tangled my line and you don’t know what you’re going to do with me?”
Holding up her rod, she smiles sheepishly. Sure enough, there’s a small tangle in the translucent filament. Nothing that she couldn’t work out herself, but it gives me a good excuse to busy my hands, distracting me from my thoughts.
“What am I going to do with you?” I mutter teasingly, as I take the rod from her. “Can’t take you anywhere.”
“Oh, you can take me anywhere,” she quips, hands flying over her mouth almost instantly.
We both freeze, the prettiest shade of pink creeping up her cheeks in the dim light of the boat. My dick twitches, the semi I was already sporting from brushing up against her earlier now a full-blown erection, my imagination trying to fight for top billing with a list of ideas.
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, it’s what I meant, but…” She stops herself, yanking the rod out of my hand.
“Careful how you handle my rod there. Don’t want to be too rough.”
Eyes going wide, Maisey gasps, right before bursting into laughter. It’s enough to send us both into hysterics, breaking the weird tension between us. At least some of it.
Plopping down onto the bench seat, Maisey rests her reel in the holder, still laughing.
“So, you bought Knox County Bait and Tackle and named it after a strip club,” she prompts, changing the subject. “Tell me, who lost their shit first, Aunt Hattie, Mrs. Chamberlain, or Reverend Terry’s wife?”
I park myself next to her, adjust her reel so that it’s positioned properly to actually have a chance at catching something, then tighten mine so it doesn’t cross with hers in the water.
“Actually, Miss Belle,” I answer, waiting for her surprise.
Maisey sits up straight, my response catching her as off guard as I expected. Nodding, I give her a minute to process that one.
Mama wasn’t on the trip down to south Florida with Maisey, Hux, Dolly, and me where we encountered the establishment—complete with a building that had these two spherical shapes with nubs on the domes—but she’s heard the story.
She’d laughed initially, going along with the clever idea, shaking her head every time I brought it up but never truly believing I’d go through with it.
Until the purchase went through and I started to work on the branding.
“It wasn’t so much that she disliked the name,” I continue. “She one hundred percent agreed with you that The Booby Trap was a better name for a hunting and fishing store, but she also knew how certain people in town would react, and she was not havin’ it. Auggie had to talk her down.”
“Miss Belle mad is a sight.”
I nod. Yes, yes she is. A former beauty queen, my mama is a true Southern belle and is not to be messed with.
She can curse you out, up one side and down the other, all while still smiling, leaving you unsure if you were even insulted.
However, when she is mad, you will know it.
That woman can stop traffic with a single look.
“I know Hayes Industries is still privately owned, but is there a board? Did the name have to be approved?” Maisey asks.
“The board would be seven of us—well, eight if you include Auggie, but he rarely votes these days. And the board would have to approve if the store was a part of the company.”
“The Booby Trap isn’t part of Hayes?”
“It is in the sense that I own it, and I’m a Hayes, and I have a legal interest in Hayes Industries. But on paper, Hayes Industries has no ownership over the store. I didn’t use Hayes money to purchase it.”
Maisey licks her lips, a subconscious move as she scoots in closer. Confusion is written all over her face, and I know I have a lot more questions to answer. This was not where I saw this morning heading, but maybe we need to get all this out now.
“Why?”
The single-word question slams into me like a wrecking ball. Closing my eyes, I exhale, pushing all the air from my lungs as far as I can. Here goes.