by Jill Shalvis
Beatriz’s eyes lit up. “I heard this. A wedding site…”
He saw the stars in her eyes and laughed. “Don’t get any ideas, Mom.”
“Oh, I already have ideas. And they involve you not being on a dangerous job for once, killing yourself to make money for me, for Elisa, for Troy.”
“I’m not in a dangerous job now.”
“Hmm” was all she said.
“I’m not.”
“You’re still diving. When are you not going to need adrenaline rushes anymore? You’re too old for that.”
“I’m thirty-two, hardly old,” he said on a laugh. “And diving doesn’t bother my leg.”
“A man hits his prime at age seventeen.”
He was going to hope that wasn’t quite true. “I’ve always been careful.”
“No, you’ve always been hungry. You needed to support Elisa, even when she took advantage of you and lived in a way that was above her—and your—means. And then you felt the need to buy me this house…” She gestured to the two-bedroom townhouse he’d purchased for her after his second year on the rigs.
“You’d always wanted your own place,” he murmured.
“And I love it. I love you. I just want it to be your turn to be happy.” She smiled. “A wedding site.”
“Mom.”
“What? It sounds so romantic.”
“It’s not,” Tanner said. “It’s a paycheck, that’s all.”
She made a small tsking sound in her throat. “If she feels that way, then the two of you are well suited.”
Tanner grinned at her.
“I don’t find it funny, my only son refusing to let himself love.”
He sighed, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her in. “I love plenty. I love you, you meddling old woman.”
“Hmph,” she said, looking secretly pleased.
Tanner reached for another doughnut hole, freezing when he caught sight of his mom’s mail. The top piece was a bank statement, opened. He zeroed in on the bottom line and the balance there. “Jesus. Did you win the lottery when I wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” she said. “And yes, I did win the lottery. The son lottery.”
He took his gaze off the statement and stared at her.
She stared back, a little smugly, he thought, and he narrowed his eyes. “You’re scaring me,” he said.
“Don’t be silly. I scare no one.”
“You scare everyone. The money, Mom. How did you get that much money?”
“It’s yours.”
“Mine.” He looked at the balance again and shook his head. “What?”
“It’s the money you’ve given me over the years. At first I used some of it, I had to. But then I caught up. I told you this but you wouldn’t listen. Or stop giving me your hard-earned money. So I started saving it. Figured one day I could help you for a change.”
“Mom,” he said softly, staggered.
“I was waiting for a rainy day,” she said. “That might be a rainy day called Troy’s College Fund, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a rainy day called the Turks and Caicos. Whatever you want, baby.”
He took her hands and looked into her eyes. “I told you that money was for you and I meant it.”
“And I told you I didn’t need it. But you always were stubborn as a jackass. Got that from your daddy because God knows I’m not like that.”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “God knows.”
“Listen.” She set her hands on her cheeks. “I know and everyone else knows that you give to whoever’s in need. You’ve always worked so hard. Then you started Lucky Harbor Charters with Sam and Cole and you still worked your buns off. You’ve always felt you had to be the hardest worker because you didn’t start out with as much as everyone else. You cover your own burdens. It’s what makes you special. But, baby, you can relax a little bit now. You have a cushion.”
He was so moved he couldn’t speak.
She smiled gently. “Now probably you’re thinking, hmm, what can I do to pay back my mama? Well, let me tell you, son. You can give love a shot, a real shot. It won’t always disappoint you, I promise.”
Here was a woman who’d been disappointed by love herself, actually deserted, and yet she hadn’t been destroyed by it. There wasn’t an ounce of bitterness in her. He wished he could say the same. “You don’t know that, Mom.”
“And neither do you. Unless you try.”
Chapter 12
Callie dreamed about kissing. Not a surprise since all she could think about was how she’d felt in Tanner’s arms, his mouth on hers. She’d known he was a reported master scuba diver and explosives expert, but turned out he was also a master kisser. Granted, it’d been a while for her, but she didn’t remember nearly spontaneously combusting from just a kiss before.
It wasn’t yet dawn when she gave up trying to sleep and went to work instead. There were plenty of emails and texts from brides to tide her over and take her mind off Tanner’s sexy mouth.
How do I know I picked the right color for my palette? I mean, I think I’m a spring but my sister says I’m a summer.
What if both my mother and my mother-in-law-to-be want the same dress and neither will bend? In fact, my mother-in-law-to-be said she’d die if she can’t have the dress she wants and my mother said that could be arranged.
How do I tactfully ask my fiancé to tell his bossy older sister to butt the hell out of my planning? I mean, she’s still single so what does she even know about weddings, right?
Callie usually took these sort of questions in stride, but today she wanted to delete them all and tell each of them to get a life.
And then there was the email from her parents, doing their bimonthly check-in. Callie was sure they wanted to know her feelings on Lucille and her mental condition. It’d have been nicer, of course, to actually get a call, especially as she’d left them several voicemail messages over the past week. Since they hadn’t called, she didn’t have to admit that she had made absolutely no headway in her assessment of Lucille’s mental condition.
Sometimes the woman seemed absolutely insane.
And sometimes she was perfectly tuned in, more so than any of the rest of them.
In either case, Callie wasn’t ready to leave. And as she’d subletted her San Francisco apartment, she had no real reason to.
Well, except for the fact that her life was there.
Sort of.
Because it also felt like she was making a life here in Lucky Harbor and that maybe she was doing it better than she had the first time around.
By the time the sun came up and over the mountains and began to lighten the sky, she needed a walk. The dock looked deserted. Perfect. She hadn’t had to Skype any of her brides this morning so she was in comfy clothes from head to toe, yoga pants and a big sweater. All she had to do was add boots and a jacket in deference to the winter storm blowing in and then hit the harbor.
She walked to the pier. She wasn’t surprised to find the ice cream shop closed but was gravely disappointed. On the way back she found the dock showing signs of life now. Tanner’s son Troy was on board the Lucky Harbor Charters boat, swabbing the deck. Grateful it wasn’t Tanner—she wasn’t sure she was ready to face him without begging for another kiss—she waved. “Hello,” she called out.
The teen straightened and shielded his eyes. “Can I help you?” he asked.
So polite. Not at all the sullen kid she’d expected. “Is your dad here?” she asked. Please say no… She hadn’t expected to run into anyone, and she suddenly realized that she should have thought this through because when it came to Tanner, she could bank on one thing: making a fool of herself.
Troy looked surprised. “You know who I am?”
“Sure,” she said. “You look just like him.”
“So you’re the girlfriend.”
Her heart stopped. “He has a girlfriend?”
“You Callie?” he asked.
“Yes,” she
said.
“Then it’s you. You’re the girlfriend.”
She was both ridiculously relieved and horrified. “I’m going to ship my grandma off to a third-world country where there’s no WiFi available,” she muttered.
He grinned and looked so much like a young Tanner that her heart panged. “Could you take my grandma too?” he asked.
She laughed. “Your grandma’s perfectly normal and nice, so no, sorry. And for the record, I’m not your dad’s girlfriend. I’m just his—” The memory of Tanner’s mouth on hers made her trip over the word friend. That didn’t fit any better than girlfriend did. “Neighbor,” she finally said, and gave a mental grimace. Lame.
Troy arched his brow, another perfect imitation of his father.
“So he’s not here, right?” she asked, desperately needing a subject change.
“He’s up at the warehouse with Sam. But he’ll be back any second to check on his slave labor.”
That didn’t sound like Tanner. “You’re not getting paid?” she asked.
“Twelve bucks an hour,” he said morosely.
She laughed. “I’ll trade you jobs.”
He leaned on the mop and shoved back his dark, wayward hair from his face. “Do you really do a wedding website?” he asked.
“Yep. I deal with demanding brides all day long, and trust me, they’ve got nothing on your dad.”
Troy didn’t look convinced.
“I also design wedding websites,” she said. “And granted, that’s a lot more fun but takes some IT knowledge.”
“I know a lot about computers,” he said.
“Then you’re ahead of the game. Do you play football like your dad did?”
“How do you know he played football?” Troy asked. “He never talks about it.”
“I went to school with him,” Callie said, and caught the sudden interest in Troy’s gaze. “He set a bunch of records that I think still stand to this day.”
“His jersey and two trophies are displayed in a glass case outside the athletic department,” Troy said. “They say he could’ve gone pro if he’d been able to go to college.”
Callie heard the change in Troy’s voice at that. Guilt. “There were more important things to your dad,” she said.
Troy looked at her, for a moment nothing more than a very young, vulnerable, hurting kid.
“It’s true,” she said softly.
“They talk about him at school sometimes. About his football record and some of the stuff he used to do. I guess he was pretty wild and crazy.” Now there was a note of awe in his voice, like he wanted to be that guy.
Only thing was, Callie was pretty sure Tanner didn’t want Troy living up to his legacy in that way. “I don’t think he’s as proud of that stuff as he is proud of you,” she said carefully.
Troy snorted.
“What?” she asked.
“I got dumped on him, you know. Here in Lucky Harbor.”
“He’s happy you’re here, however that came to be,” she said. “He’s happy he gets to be a real dad to you.”
Troy gave an indifferent shrug that didn’t match the unmistakable yearning in his eyes and went back to working the mop. “So you really know how to design a website and stuff?”
“Yep.”
“I’d like to know how to do that,” he said. “But not for weddings.”
“I could show you sometime,” she said. “I recently did a wedding site for Sam and Becca, setting it up so people can RSVP for the wedding, see their registry, and chat about it on a message board, all in one place. In fact, the wedding is coming up. We’re having the bachelor/bachelorette party here on the boat.”
“I don’t know why anyone would choose to have a party here, much less live here,” he said. “There’s nothing to do.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? You’ve got the mountains and the water. You can ski, hike, fish, scuba, or just relax in the beauty of it all.”
He didn’t look impressed by any of this.
“Trust me,” she said. “I grew up here. There’s a lot for you to do.”
“So you live here because it’s fun?”
“No, I live here because of my grandma.”
“Lucille.” He grinned. “She’s a little crazy.”
“Crazy nice?” Callie asked hopefully.
“Crazy crazy,” Troy said. “She put my dad and Sam and Cole up on Instagram this morning in a Who’s Hottest poll. They were pissed. There’s also a pic of you.”
Oh God. She hadn’t looked yet today. Just as she thought that, her phone buzzed with an incoming text from the woman herself.
I put this up on Instagram. Thought I should mention it before someone else did. People agree that you and Tanner make a hot couple, and I agree—although it wouldn’t kill you to put on mascara and blush when you go out.
The pic was from the other morning at the bakery. She looked flushed and rather…anticipatory, and the reason for that was clear. Tanner stood behind her, hand on her shoulder, leaning over her, his intent gaze on her face.
If Callie hadn’t actually been there that day, if she didn’t know firsthand that Tanner was in the middle of pounding her back as she choked on a doughnut, she’d have said that she looked like she was halfway to orgasm and that Tanner was about to give it to her.
“Oh my God,” she muttered, and Troy looked over her shoulder.
“I guess you’re close neighbors, huh?”
Callie gritted her teeth. “I was choking on a doughnut and your dad was literally pounding me on the back.” She shook her head. “I’m going to have to hack into her account and set up some perimeters and blocks.”
This caught Troy’s interest. “You can do that too?”
She looked over at him. “Uh, no. No, that would be entirely unethical. And bad. Very, very bad.”
That got a grin out of Troy, and she saw that he was going to be a lady-killer in no time at all, if he wasn’t already.
“My grandma doesn’t get online but she’s pretty nosy too,” Troy said.
“Yes, but she’s a nice crazy,” Callie said. “Mine’s just crazy crazy. And I’m the one who sent her out into the world with my technology knowledge in the first place. I’ve created a monster.”
“Did you see what she’s been doing on Tumblr?”
“Oh, God,” Callie said. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“She’s blogging daily naughty autocorrects.”
Callie stared at him. “Okay, she clearly has way too much time on her hands. Her art gallery’s slow on weekday afternoons. I think that’s where she gets bored because she goes to bed early.” She tactfully left off the part of Lucille’s day where she boinked Mr. Wykowski right after Jeopardy. “I guess she needs an afternoon babysitter.”
“I babysit,” Troy said.
She slid him a look. “Yeah?”
“For cash.”
“Understood,” Callie said. “You think you could put some time in and keep her on the straight and narrow?”