This time, when those two sentences rang through his head, they held a whole new level of meaning.
“What about Doc?” The words burst out of him like they’d been shot from a cannon.She frowned. “What about him?”
“I thought maybe you two—”
“Seriously?” she interrupted. “You thought me and Doc?” When he nodded, she snorted and shook her head. “No way. I mean, IlikeDoc. I think he’s a good guy when he isn’t all butthurt about lawyers. But we’re friends. Just friends.”
“That’s what you said about us.” He couldn’t help reminding her.
“Well, with him, Imeanit,” she declared staunchly.
And there it was, the last reason why he couldn’t have her had been swept away.
His gaze must’ve gone predatory, because her eyes widened. “Spiro, what—”
Before she had a chance to say anything more, his lips were on hers. He didn’t remember closing the distance between them. He didn’t remember shooting a hand around the back of her head to pull her forward. And he didn’t remember closing his eyes and puckering up.
But he’d done all three, working on pure instinct.
When he swept his tongue over the seam of her lips, his first thought was...soft.His second thought was...warm.He didn’t have time for a third thought because the sound of footfalls crunching through the sand had Mia pulling back.
“Woohoo!” Doc’s deep voice reached them a couple seconds before the man himself did. “Once you see what I found”—Doc huffed to a stop in the sand behind Cami, who’d been the first to arrive on the scene—“you’re going to want to kiss me.”
“I highly doubt that,” Romeo muttered, silently calling Doc every dirty name he knew in EnglishandSpanish for having the shittiest timing on the planet.
His thoughts must’ve shown on his face, because Doc blinked and glanced from Romeo to Mia and back to Romeo. The toothpick in Doc’s mouth tilted up slightly, right along with Doc’s eyebrows. “Are we interrupting something?”
“Oh, yeah.” Cami nodded vigorously. “We definitely are.”
“What did you find?” Mia prompted and Romeo saw her cheeks flaming redder than usual. He nearly pounced on her when she lifted a hand to her mouth as if to hold in the heat of his brief—all too fuckingbrief—kiss.
The lawyer’s hands were behind her back, but a rod tip poked up behind her head. Which meant her dramatic flourish when she revealed the fishing rod was a little anticlimactic. “Ta-da!” she said. And then she frowned at Doc. “And just so we’re all clear,Ifound the fishing rod.”
Doc looked instantly indignant. And then he proved that a medical degree didn’t stop him from reverting to his former ten-year-old self. “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”
“Ididfind it,” Cami insisted. “I’m the one who dug it out of the sand. All you did was point and say,What’s that?”
Doc blinked. “So what, exactly, would be your definition of the wordfind?”
“I think the generally accepted definition, which isto lay hands on.”
“I beg to differ that’s the generally accepted definition. I think the generally accepted definition isto catch sight of.”
Cami fisted a hand on her hip. “Are you really going to argue semantics with a woman whose understanding of words is an integral part of her job?”
“Pfft.” Doc waved a hand. “Being a lawyer doesn’t automatically make you a word wizard. But itdoesmake you a—”
“Okay!” Romeo clapped his hands. For real, though, if this was what the two of them considered foreplay, he’d hate to see what the ultimate act might look like. He envisioned a lot of jockeying for the superior position combined with loudly voiced instructions on the “correct” way to do things. “Therealquestion”—he jerked his chin toward the rod and reel; it took everything he had to turn his mind from Mia and her soft, warm lips—“is does it work?”
“Itdoes!” Cami hooted. She demonstrated that the line around the spool unwound when she pulled on it, and then rewound once she worked the reel. “But that’s not even the best part. The best part is...drum roll, please.” When no one made the drum roll noise, she sighed. “You guys are no fun.” Turning to Doc, she made a come-hither motion with her fingertips. “Go on then. Show them.”
From out of the folds of his sling, Doc withdrew a silver lure meant to look like a baitfish. It had a touch of rust in places, just like the reel, but its two treble hooks looked remarkably intact and sturdy.
“It’s a minnow crank bait,” Doc said unnecessarily since Romeo had done more than his fair share of fishing while living on Wayfarer Island. Although maybe it was necessary for the ladies’ edification. “And the rod and reel and this here lure are good news for two reasons. The first one being it means fishermen come to this island. Hopefully theyfrequentit. And the second one being we now have a way to catch fish that doesn’t involve making nets out of palm fronds.”
“Hey!” Cami whacked Doc on his good shoulder. “I still think that was a good idea. I mean, if they can make place mats”—she gestured with her chin toward Romeo’s creation—“then surelynetswouldn’t be too difficult.”
“They aren’t place mats,” Romeo was quick to insist. “Or at least theywon’tbe once we make five or six more of them and attach them all together. They’ll be a tarp.”
