“She’s yours?” one of the other guys asks.
Beau tucks a hair behind my ear, his brown eyes looking into mine with a warmth that makes me wonder if my brain is still concocting fake scenarios of us. “I’m not sure if she’s mine, but I’m definitely hers.”
Heart thudding, I stare at him, aware on some level that he’sputting on a show to protect me. Nobody’s going to mess with a cop’s girlfriend, right? Even if theyaredrunk enough to offer him a beer.
But on another level—located somewhere right around my heart—his words are wreaking havoc.
I’m definitely hers.
It takes a few more minutes for the guys to haul themselves off the beach. Beau keeps his arm around me, and even though I’m positive he’d let me out if I made any move to, I don’t. I can’t for the life of me explain why. I’m not actually scared of these guys, so that’s not why I let him keep me close.
Which just leaves one option. An option that isn’t an option.
I slip out from his arm while he works on persuading the guys that they do, indeed, need him to act as their designated driver. “I know right where the bar is, so I’ll just take you,” he says. “Your place is close enough you should be able to walk home once you’re ready. Your cart will be waiting for you at the bar in the morning. They have a great breakfast too.”
That last sentence officially sells them on his plan, and they start climbing into their stretch cart, which has two rows behind the driver’s seat.
Beau turns to me as we reach his cart. “Will you be okay to follow in the patrol cart with Xena?”
I cock a brow. “Will I be okay? Have you ever driven Grams’s cart?”
“Ihavehad that questionable privilege.”
“Then you should know I’ll be fine.”
“Fair enough. You’re not wearing heels, right?” He glances down at my sneakers, and I wiggle my toes in them.
“Oh, um…” I point behind him.
He turns as one of the guys climbs on top of the stretch cart. He blows a breath through rounded lips and looks at me again. But he’s still smiling, and so am I.
“Wish me luck,” he says.
I tell Xena to hop in the cop cart with me, and she hesitates until Beau repeats the instruction. We get situated, and I look over to see how Beau’s getting along.
I pull out my phone and snap a photo of Officer Palmer surrounded by shirtless drunk men on the golf cart version of a stretch limo. There are tanned limbs with sun-bleached hair all over the place. He deserves a promotion to full-time based on tonight alone.
It takes about ten minutes for us to get to the Beach Break Bar and Grill. Beau goes in to explain things to whoever’s working—or warn them, maybe.
He’s talking on his cell phone when he comes back to the cart a few minutes later, pausing just under the lamppost a dozen feet away to finish the conversation. The few snippets I catch tell me he’s probably talking to Noah Belacourt, letting him know things are taken care of. I snap another photo. I can only assume a lot of his job is communicating by phone like this.
I stare at the photo for a minute. He’s leaning against the lamppost, one leg crossed over the other. He looks…very attractive. I swipe to the previous photo: him in the party golf cart as the designated driver. Somehow, he’s even more attractive in that one. And it’s not even his looks, though those don’t hurt.
Beau Palmer isn’t the jerk I expected at all. In fact, he’s almost too perfect. Nothing ruffles him. Everything’s a good time. Things roll off him like water off a duck’s back. I’ve seen him disappointed one time—and that was mild. Does he ever really fight for something? Or someone?
“Oh, jeez,” he says, surprising me with his sudden appearance next to the cart. “You’re not planning on using that for my PR campaign, are you?”
“Absolutely I am,” I say. “And this one too.” I swipe to the photo of him being handed a beer.
“So, this is a smear campaign.” He tries to sit down in the cart despite the fact I’m still in the driver’s seat.
I move to avoid becoming a human seat, helping Xena scoot over too. “Hey, I’m just capturing what I see.”
He reaches past me and scratches Xena around the ears. “Which just happens to be the momentbeforeI turned down the beer.”
I shrug. “Gotta be careful about appearances, BB. Why are you smiling like that?”
He sits back, his narrowed eyes on me. “What did you call me?”
