Will turned around but wasn’t prepared for what awaited him. Lizzy stood in a bikini, arms crossed tightly over her chest, the small scraps of fabric just enough to cover her while exposing the pale skin along her hips, the curve of her stomach…
This might have been a bad idea.
He reached around his back, pulling his hoodie over his head and handing it to her. “Here.”
Her eyebrows pinched together. “No, I don’t—”
“Lizzy,” he said, his voice low and serious. “Take the sweatshirt.”
Her mouth snapped shut but there was still a long pause before she reached out to take it. She slipped it over her head slowly, and while he expected to mourn the view of her bare skin, a new possessiveness took hold when he saw his sweatshirt draped over her, so big it fell to the middle of her thighs.
She hugged the sweatshirt to her body as she looked around the shop. “This place is amazing.”
“It is,” he said, looking away.
Her head tilted to the side as her gaze slid across the photos behind the register, and he studied her face. The line of her jaw seemed infinite, a graceful arch that never ended, merely fell out of view in her hairline.
He turned away from her, taking a deep breath, and willed his mind to find something else to fixate on.
“I can’t believe I’ve never been here before,” Lizzy continued, still surveying the store.
“Ray isn’t exactly good at marketing.”
Her nose scrunched up. “His name is Ray?”
Will nodded, pretending to see something interesting on the other side of the room.
“Then who’s Jack?”
“No idea. I think Ray bought the place in the nineties and never got around to changing the sign.”
She laughed. It was deep and rough, and it hit a chord low in his gut. “Reminds me of the bakery.”
“How so?”
“There’s about a million things that we need to update, but just never get around to. The computer, the bookkeeping system…” Then she shot him a wry half grin. “The answering machine.”
He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face, and itdidn’t even occur to him to try. Not until he caught the look of confusion on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before. Now I’ve seen it twice in the last twenty minutes.”
He almost argued. Then he realized she was probably right.
“Here we go!” Ray bellowed as he emerged from the backroom. “Good as new.”
He laid the wetsuit flat on the counter, showing off where the hole had been, but which was now expertly mended beneath a patch. He’d even been able to match the purple neoprene.
“Wow,” Lizzy said, eyes wide. “I’m impressed.”
Ray laughed. “Don’t be. Darcy probably could have done this himself in five minutes.”
“Yeah, but it would have come with a ten-minute lecture on what I did wrong in the first place, and who has that sort of time?” Lizzy said with a dramatic sigh.
Ray laughed. “I like her, Darcy.”
I do, too.He almost said it before he could stop himself.
