The cogs in Tessa’s mind locked up like a bicycle chain in need of grease. “Huh?”
“You could lie around on the beach all morning while I work, and then we could spend the rest of the day exploring the islands together.”
Tessa struggled to connect Paul’s words to reality. “I don’t have a passport,” she blurted.
Paul shrugged. “We can have one expedited. Is that a yes?”
Tessa felt like a kid bouncing on a trampoline, unable to find solid footing yet wanting to laugh. “What about the house?”
“It’ll still be here when we get back.” He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers gently grazing her cheek.
Tessa stilled. “Whenweget back?”
His warm hand rested against her cheek. “Is that a yes?” he asked, leaning toward her.
Tessa had been daydreaming about this moment, and now that it was here, all she could do was stare at Paul. When her lips parted, she said, “Uhh.”
Paul chuckled long enough for Tessa to think,Great, now you’ve completely ruined the moment. But Paul leaned in again and kissed her. In that moment with Paul’s lips against hers, Tessa believed she would follow him into an active volcano. When he kissed along the edge of her jaw, her bottom lip went numb, but she still managed to ask, “Do they serve piña coladas on the islands?”
Paul laughed against her neck. “With little umbrellas.”
“Perfect,” she said and shivered as Paul kissed her neck and returned to her lips.Perfect.
Tessa blinked in the feeble green morning light filtering through the tent fabric. When she rolled her head to the side, she stared at Paul’s back. A slow smile, accompanied by a sigh, stretched across her face. A rattling noise came from somewhere nearby. Tessa parted a tent flap and zeroed in on the front door. The doorknob jiggled. Her body tensed.
Paul grunted beside her. “Are the bats back?”
“Someone’s trying to get in.”
Paul flipped over with another grunt and opened the other flap. A click sounded like a dead bolt turning, and the front door swung open. Tessa sucked air into her lungs. She heardshuffle, shuffle, clunk. Shuffle, shuffle, clunk.An elderly woman with snow-white hair swept on top of her head in a cotton-candy coif stepped into view. She gripped a curved silver-topped cane in her right hand and looked around with a pinched expression of disgust. A second shadow stretched across the hardwood, but Tessa couldn’t see the other person.
The old woman’s burning gaze found Tessa and Paul peering out of the tent. Her hazel eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in my house?”
Tessa’s stomach lurched. She recognized the brittle, angry voice. “Mrs. Steele?”
Chapter 20
Eggs Benedict
Mrs.Steelemovedtowardthe archway leading into the living room. She lifted her cane and pointed it at the tent. “I won’t have squatters in my house. Get out!”
Her anger seethed across the floor and curled the edges of the papers in front of the tent. Paul dropped the tent flap and looked at Tessa, offering them flimsy privacy. “Is that the lady who sold you the house?”
Panic rose so violently in Tessa that when she opened her mouth, a squeaky noise squeezed out of her throat.
Paul touched her arm. “You look like you’re going to either pass out or throw up. I can deal with a lot of things, but I’d prefer it not be vomit. Can you choke it down?”
Paul’s words joggled Tessa’s mind free from the claw-like panic gripping her. She glanced down at her bare legs. Her pants were in a pile at the bottom of the tent with her socks and shoes. “I’m not wearing pants. I can’t go out there like this.”
Paul grinned at her. “Youcould.”
“I can hear you!” Mrs. Steele barked.
An object hit the top of a tent pole, and Tessa flinched. Paul made a move to crawl out of the tent, but Tessa latched onto his arm. “You’re not dressed.”
Paul glanced down at his boxers and smiled at her. “I doubt it’s anything she hasn’t seen before.”
“Not in at least fifty years.”
