“The crime ring with my parents as the masterminds,” he said. “The arrests. Certainly the news made it across the way to the land of vegan delights.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little preoccupied with opening that land of vegan delights. Speaking of which, what is this all about? And when will it be over? And why didn’t you tell us this would be taking place?”
He turned around, the same old disinterested scowl carved into his features. The fact he was obscenely attractive was truly regrettable. It was unfair at an outrageous level. What was nature tripping on to make a man withso much. Good hair, huge hands, tall as a redwood, jaw sharp enough to peel potatoes. And the scowl situation, it should not have worked for him the way it did. It should’ve marred this otherwise perfect portrait of a troll who had everything and then some. But it didn’t, not at all. All of these pieces added up into a man composed of hard edges and impossibly long limbs and a scowl that reminded me he was made of stone and had the emotional depth of quick-dry cement.
“I didn’t realize I had to run capital improvements on my property past you.”
“A little notice is all I need,” I fired back. “If you’re going to have a crane”—I flailed my arms toward the massive thing—“parked outside my café, I’d love a wee bit of notice.”
“The next time I call for a crane, I’ll see that I do that. Until then, this is the reality we’re working with. We can’t wish it away and there’s no sense in debating it either. Run along to your café and play with your vegetables and nut milks.”
His dismissal knocked me back a step, then another. He didn’t have to make everything so difficult. I was being perfectly nice andhewas the one being hostile.
Annoyed, I took another step away from him. “Can you at least tell me when this will be—”
I didn’t finish the thought because Beckett darted forward, grabbed me by the elbows, and threw me up against the building. “What the fuck was that?” he roared over his shoulder, his broad chest heaving against mine. Each breath rumbled like a steam engine. “You could’ve killed her! Watch where you’re going!”
Just a few feet behind him, a forklift sped past, it’s arms loaded with lumber and bags of concrete mix. The driver shouted, “Good reason to stay outta the way.”
With a growl, Beckett stared down at me. He dragged his hands up to my shoulders. His paws were enormous and surprisingly warm. He watched me, each fingertip pressing into my skin, lingering there long enough that I didn’t know what was happening or how to respond. Did I seize the opportunity to knee him in the balls or grab that tie and give him a good yank? Or did I stare into his eyes and try to find an explanation as to what was happening here, what was going on inside me in this hot, prickly moment?
In the end, I didn’t have to do anything because he ruined it all by opening that damn mouth of his.
“I assumed the situation last week was an accident but now I’m wondering whether you’re simply careless with yourself.”
His hold on my shoulders was relentless. Once or twice it seemed like he was stroking his thumbs over my collarbones in the kind of psychotic foreplay that preceded him wringing my neck. I reached up, closed my hands around his wrists. My thumbs settled on the pulse points there. “If you’re thinking about strangling me, I should remind you that there’s an FBI agent watching.”
Something in his dark eyes sparkled and I realized they were more green than brown but only in this light and only up close. I’d never have known that if I only looked at him from a polite distance. And this was anything but polite.
This was war—and something else I hadn’t figured out yet.
“Are you encouraging me to strangle you? Is that what’s happening? Are you giving me pointers?”
I tried to shrug but his grip didn’t allow it. “If you’re going to do something, at least have the self-respect to do it well.”
“Perhaps we could apply that logic to you not walking in front of heavy machinery.”
“Perhaps heavy machinery should slow the hell down because I’m not the only person walking here and it’s a narrow space to begin with.”
He didn’t release my shoulders and I didn’t release his wrists. We stared at each other, locked together in this battle embrace, and I detested myself for marveling at the thick, corded muscle under my grip though the real outrage came when I realized I was tracing that muscle with my fingertips. Taking a thorough inventory and cataloging it for future reference, as one did in neck-wringing moments.
I stopped, remembered myself and my trusty iceberg, and that was when Beckett dropped his gaze to my hands. The smallest fraction of a smile moved across his lips.
Such a jackass.
“You need to be more careful,” he said.
“I know all about careful. I’ve dedicated entire decades to being careful. You don’t get to tell me anything about it.”
I squeezed his wrists until he released me. He dropped his hands to his waist and allowed his gaze to travel over my face like he was entitled to examine me. For a long beat, he did. Then, “You’ve grown up to be quite the storm cloud, Sunny.”
“And you’re still an asshole.” I crossed my arms to force a bit of space between us but he didn’t back up. My forearms brushed that ridiculous vest. As if anyone needed to wear a vest here, on the seacoast, in May. He probably did it because someone told him the angel-tailored vest-trouser-shirt triumvirate made him look like a corporate wet dream when in reality he was a grizzly bear dressed up in stupidly expensive clothes. “What’s the deal with the construction?”
He glanced toward the dock ramp, saying, “Some kids took a boat out last night and didn’t know what the hell they were doing. They plowed into our dock a little after two in the morning. When the Coast Guard showed up, they tried to tow the vessel out from under the ramp and succeeded in damaging it beyond repair. Since we use this dock as the primary port for harvesting as well as receiving deliveries from local fishing co-ops, we needed a functional dock more than we needed to worry about equipment getting in anyone’s way.” He swung his attention toward me and the heavy weight of it pressed down just the same as his hands. “I’m paying a premium to have the work completed today.”
This had to stop. We couldn’t stand here like—like whatever the hell this was. It was tense and uncomfortable and we weren’t getting anywhere. Time to push back on the bear. I stepped around him, forcing him to follow me this time. “Okay, so, first of all, you should’ve led with that. There was no need to make me squeeze info out of you.”
“Like I said, I don’t need to run capital improvements past you.”
