Chapter 1
James
Gravel crunched beneaththe tires of my rental Lexus as I pulled up to my great grandfather’s beachfront cabin. I parked the car with a heavy sigh, staring up at its tattered shingles and chipping paint. Built by my great-grandfather, the beach house had expanded as it morphed from a family home of four into a place to hold reunions and vacations for a family flung to the corners of the country.
Well, for the rest of my family anyway.
I spent my twenties negotiating NFL contracts for up-and-coming players and scraping every dollar I could from sponsorships to morph my players into brands. For eight summers, I’d forgone the beach house for college campuses and high schools, searching for the next up-and-coming NFL superstar.
Until this summer.
I had a full roster of players and, barring illness, I hadn’t taken a day off in years. And after a stern lecture from my boss about the benefits of time off and a not-so-subtle reminder from my mother that the cabin was mine for the week, I’d rented a car and left the city. Back to my childhood. Back to Northshore Island.
Viewing the house in the setting sun, not much had changed in eight years. The battered sedan our family used while on the island sat in the driveway. A car that my sister, I, and all my cousins had learned to drive, usually years before we legally had a license. Someone had repaired the storm windows and a fresh coat of paint on the porch pointed to a few improvements, but not a full-blown makeover. From the outside, the beach house was just another nautical-themed vacation home on a sleepy island.
I exited the rented car and retrieved my luggage from the trunk, regretting having left my laptop behind. I would’ve happily spent the summer in Norwalk, negotiating with sportswear brands and luxury goods companies, while the players I represented trolled the Mediterranean coast, and drank their way through major metropolitans.
And thanks to my percentage of my player’s earnings, I had plenty of money to do the same. But if I didn’t have to glad-hand CEOs and head coaches, I preferred silence. The cabin was a perfect escape.
I walked up the rickety wooden steps and sifted through the collection of seashells in a giant pail beside the door, searching for the key. I found it half-buried under a cowrie. Northshore had less than two hundred residents and only half lived on the island year-round. The closest grocery store was an hour away and with only two other houses on the dirt road to the house, we didn’t get many visitors. Certainly no burglars, unless they had a black market connection to sell mermaid-themed throw pillows and seashell painted dinnerware.
I slotted the key into the lock and opened the door. Once inside, I took in the slight changes to the interior: a new couch after my cousins broke the old pull-out sofa, a painting of the beach put over the space above the TV, my sister’s initials etched into the corner, and a brand new set of dinnerware displayed in the china cabinet. My contribution to the annual “dues” each member of my extended family paid for a week’s use of the cabin every summer.
My little sister and my oldest cousin sandwiched my week, and my sister’s belongings cluttered the cabin, despite calling me the day before from Chicago. I ignored a pink sweater thrown over the back of the couch but scooped up a glass of water on the coffee table, noticing the unwashed breakfast dishes in the sink.
Annoying.
My little sister, twenty-six and a perennial college student, had all the time in the world for vacations. And apparently had no time for cleaning up after them.
I pulled open the fridge, expecting a horror show of moldy takeout. Instead, I found a well-stocked fridge, complete with a six-pack of beer. I grabbed one, closing the door with a frown. Maybe Mom had sent someone to stock the fridge? At least that saved me a trip back to the mainland.
I grabbed the bottle opener on the side of the fridge and popped open the beer, taking a long pull. The relief at being out of the car was rapidly replaced with the anxiety of not knowing what I’d do alone for a week. Did the cabin even have Internet? Cell phone service? What if one of my clients called?
I pulled out my cell phone, relieved to see a single bar of service. But a sweep of the living room showed no signs of a modem or any sign that the Internet existed in the house. Fantastic.
I finished my beer and carried my suitcase upstairs, pausing to peruse the stocked bookshelves in the hallway. A few familiar covers caught my eyes. Mystery books I’d read in my youth alongside a couple of graphic novels about a Dogman I pegged as my younger cousin’s contribution to the library. Along the top row sat all the bodice rippers, each interior cover more scandalous than the last and well out of reach of the children.
My feet carried me to the bedroom my sister and I shared as children. The blue nautical wallpaper looked slightly more dingy, but was still in good condition. I ran my fingers along the top of the dresser, feeling with my thumb underneath the lip where I’d carve my name years ago. A basket of toys sat in the corner of the room.
At nearly thirty, staying in the kid’s room should have been a nonstarter. But something about the room felt comforting and familiar. Besides, it had the best view of the beach.
I pushed open the sailboat curtains, a view of the Atlantic in front of me. Below, the incoming tide ate away at the beach.
I exhaled, still surprised that investors hadn’t bought the island and turned it into a mega resort like a hundred other islands before it. But unlike those islands, Northshore sat at the end of an archipelago with a single bridge connecting it to its larger neighbors. And its residents, though only two hundred in number, could trace back their lineage on the island generations and refused to sell their acres of property despite the exorbitant offers.
And they had been exorbitant.
But my family loved the beach house, returning twice every year for their week of vacation and then for a family reunion over Labor Day. The pack of grandchildren and great grandchildren, excluding myself, quickly vetoed any offers to buy the property over the years.
And staring out at the ocean, watching the sun set over the horizon, a fishing boat trawling in the distance, and waves softly hitting the small pier built by my father, the nostalgia and my love for this place hit me like a brick.
An unwelcome, painful brick to the face.
I abandoned unpacking, instead walking downstairs and retrieving the remaining six-pack for a celebratory drink on the dock. I strode toward the swing installed on the end of the dock, stopping short and nearly dropping the bottles onto the pier.
At the end of the pier, I caught sight of a woman, pale white flash illuminated in the setting sun. Her red hair splayed out around her, creating a halo and tiny droplets of water speckled her cheeks. Completely naked.
My eyes raked down her body, over the irresistible curves of her body, the swell of her breasts and her hard, rosy pink nipples, over the thatch of red hair between her thick thighs. I sucked in a breath, the thought of those thighs wrapped around my waist nearly enough to make me hard. The thought of my face between those thighs making my pants tight and my body tense.
I cleared my throat, expelling the thought as fast as it’d come to me. Only after I ripped my eyes away from her body did I notice the pink blow-up unicorn underneath her. She had her head tilted back, ears in the water and eyes closed.
I cleared my throat again, louder this time, stamping my foot on the creaky planks.
Her eyes popped open. Forest green eyes that complimented her autumn hair. Her pink lips opened and her expression wavered between surprise and shock. Before I could say another word, she flipped over the unicorn, toppling into the water inelegantly before her head popped back out through the center of the tube.
“Who are you?” she spluttered.
I narrowed my eyes, annoyed at the question and annoyed at my reaction to this intruder. “I should ask you the same thing. What are you doing on my dock?”
“Your dock!?!” She clung to the unicorn like a lifesaver, shimmying up through the center and denying me another look at that body.
The body of a damn siren.
Which, in the grand scheme of things, was probably a good idea for both of our sakes. Given a second look, I might have offered her the cabin, the keys to my rental car, and anything else she wanted.
I bit my lip, steeling my frayed nerves. “Yes, mine. My family’s cabin. And I don’t know how you got here or why you’re here, but you need to go.”
Her jaw dropped, cheeks blushed. Her emerald green eyes slid away and plush bottom lip escaped into her mouth. She winced. “Please don’t tell me you’re Jackie’s brother.”