CHAPTER 1
There’s a whole lot of sex going on. At least I’m assuming it’s sex. I’m seeing limbs flinging this way and that, bodies stuck together, pretty much the whole shebang...no pun intended. It could be a mugging, but that usually happens with one’s clothes on, and this is happening with a definite lack of clothes. The couple also looks very happy, which is not normally the go to emotion during a mugging.
Their arms are wrapped around each other with her leg up around his hip. It’s like an erotic romance book cover. If I wasn’t watching through a closed window, I’d bet money that I’d hear some moaning. Lots of moaning.
Who wouldn’t moan while in Thor Stockman’s arms? He’s one of the best looking men on Summer Island, which is chock full of good-looking men. He and newcomer Beryl were hit and miss for a while. I was rooting for them, but Marcy, the other waitress here, bet fifteen dollars that they wouldn’t wind up together. For a moment it looked like she would win her bet. In fact, just fifteen minutes ago, I was serving Beryl and Thor pie a la mode here in the Summer Island Diner where I work, while they were saying a sad goodbye and getting ready for her to take the ferry to the mainland.
But she obviously missed the ferry, and instead of breaking up, they’re lip locked, limb locked, pelvis locked, and not coming up for air against the lamp post on the abandoned pier under a rain that’s getting heavier by the minute.
I fan myself with a menu and fight back the urge to put my hands against the glass to see more clearly. There’s low visibility because of the brewing storm, which has plunged Summer Island into darkness in the middle of the afternoon, and, because I’ve been breathing pretty heavily on the window while watching them do the nasty, now the window is fogged up.
“Whatcha looking at, Norma?” Marcy asks. She’s hemmed her pink waitress uniform so high that I can see her blue panties when she bends over. She’s told me that her sewing skills have given her enough income in tips to buy a new living room set with two recliners. My sewing skills aren’t that daring or profitable. My pink waitress uniform is hemmed to just above my knees, and for that I had to take off a yard of material because I’m only a hair over five feet tall. I’m short all over, with a short, button nose, a bob haircut, and even short fingernails.
“Nothing,” I tell Marcy, stepping away from the window and turning her around so that she doesn’t see the action. Thor and Beryl deserve their moment of privacy, even though they chose to get hot and heavy out in the open in the middle of the afternoon. Not that it looks like day outside. It’s more of a total eclipse, Dorothy is going to fly overhead, District Nine kind of day. We’re a small island off the coast of Southern California, so we’re not used to bad weather. I don’t even own an umbrella. But we’re getting our share of bad weather today. The wind and rain are even throwing boats against the wharf, making a terrible noise.
“You-know-who is here,” Marcy whispers to me, as we walk to the kitchen to pick up the orders.
“You don’t have to call him you-know-who.”
“I don’t want him to know that you’re talking about him.”
“I’m not talking about him. You are.”
Marcy grabs hold of my arms, stopping me in my tracks. “Right. Exactly. Why aren’t you talking about him? When are you going to start talking about him? He won’t stay interested in you forever, you know.”
Her voice is low but urgent, and her big blue eyes look like they’re going to bug out of her face from earnestness. I sneak a peek at you-know-who, who’s sitting at his regular table in the corner.
Oh, my. You-know-who.
I take a deep, appreciative breath. Every time I think of you-know-who—Stone Jenkins—I take a deep, appreciative breath. He’s been my big brother’s best friend since I can remember. Therefore, I’ve been taking deep, appreciative breaths for a very long time.
Stone is about six foot three, strong as a horse, blond with green eyes. His skin is weathered from working as a deep sea fisherman since he was a teenager, since even before I started working at the Summer Island Diner when I was in high school. He’s a great fisherman, probably because he’s so hot that the fish jump into his boat on purpose. Anything to get closer to him.
When Stone’s boat is docked, he comes to the diner every evening for an early dinner. Otherwise, he’s out fishing, just like my father and brother. He grew up hanging around my house, stuck like glue to my big brother and becoming a surrogate member of my family.
So I should be used to him by now.
And yet.
“He’s not interested in me,” I say and walk around Marcy. I’m a damned good waitress, and I can carry six plates at once. Nobody waits for long when they’re lucky enough to sit at one of my tables.
Stone always sits at my table.
“You’re so stubborn,” Marcy hisses at me, as I pick up the order. “And a liar. Make sure you’re near some water because your pants are on fire.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not lying. He doesn’t care about me.”
I serve an old married couple and then it’s time for Stone. He’s reading the menu, even though he’s got to have it memorized, since it hasn’t changed in the twenty-eight years that I’ve been alive.
“What can I get for you?” I ask, pulling out my pencil and order pad. I try not to smell him because whatever cologne he wears drives me crazy, like it’s some kind of pheromone booster or something. He looks up from his menu, giving me a good dose of his drool-worthy, beautiful green eyes.
Damn. His drool-worthy, beautiful green eyes are my trigger. Normally, I’m an intelligent, put-together, woman, but when he looks at me, I turn into a spastic idiot.
Stone Jenkins has always made my body react in a very specific way. Besides the throbbing, melting, pelvis-on-fire kind of way, I get a chemical reaction from him that affects my neurological system. He’s like some kind of World War One chemical weapon, totally against the Geneva Conventions. When in close contact with Stone, first I gasp, like I’ve been underwater for four minutes and get my first whiff of oxygen. After the gasp, my body spasms violently. And for the finale, my bones turn soft, and I fall. As hard as it is to believe, this is my reaction every single time I see Stone Jenkins. Every time I get up close and personal, my decades of pent up puppy love takes over like a Rottweiler in heat.
And I get up close and personal with Stone every night that he’s on the island. He orders, I wait on him, and I have a seizure.
Tonight is no different. We lock eyes, and I gasp. My body convulses, and my arm straightens with amazing force, throwing the pencil from my hand like a dagger over Stone’s head and into the wall.
