Джоанна Рок – Scandalous Mistress: Double Take / Captivate Me / My Double Life (страница 16)

For the most part, everybody on Wild Boar was just as friendly. Her landlady had made a point of stopping by with more cookies, the cashiers at the shops were always cheerful, the waitresses at the diner always laughed and chatted. It was all so very...nice.

She wished she could say she loved that, but she was too much of a big-city girl not to find it all just a little suspicious. Too much niceness made her teeth ache, and she really wished Callie were around to add a wee bit of snark to her day.

After school, wanting an injection of caffeine, she went to her favorite new haunt. The main street of the town, which bore the same name as the island, was about a mile long, and was lined mostly with walk-ups and small businesses. Mom-and-pop shops, a drugstore, a bakery, a hobby shop and a couple of restaurants operated year-round. She’d noticed signs on some of the craft and antiques businesses that said they would reopen in May, in time for tourist season.

The coffee shop, though, called The Daily Grind, was open all day, every day, and that’s where she headed. She pushed the door in, bringing a strong spring breeze with her, and the heads of everyone inside turned to watch her enter. From behind the counter, the owner, a happy-looking, middle-aged woman named Angie, smiled and called out a greeting. Nicely, of course. “Hi, Lindsey. Extra-large coffee with two creams and two sugars?”

She’d never lived in a place where the people not only knew their customers by their first names, but also remembered how they took their coffee. In Chicago, Lindsey had stopped at the same chain café near her apartment a couple of times a week for two years and had seldom seen the same barista twice.

“Sounds great.”

Angie got to work as Lindsey headed over. “How’s everything going over at the school?”

“Just fine.”

“What about Callie and the baby? Have you talked to her lately. Is he doing well?”

Nodding, Lindsey replied, “It sounds like baby William is doing much better. Callie has called me several times to give me lots of tips and advice about handling ‘her’ kids.”

“You tell her for me to stop worrying about anybody else’s little ones and just focus on her own precious angel.”

“I will,” Lindsey said, glad to hear the warmth and fondness in the older woman’s voice.

Whether Lindsey was comfortable with it or not, the niceness definitely benefited Callie. She hadn’t lived here long—two years, maybe—but the town had claimed Callie as one of their own after her marriage to Billy, a local boy. Everybody was concerned about her and the baby.

Lindsey hadn’t seen Billy since her arrival. He was either working or at the hospital, wanting to be there for his wife during these early, touch-and-go stages of their son’s life. But everywhere she went, people sang his praises, too, which made her feel more confident about her dearest friend’s life here.

“Here you go,” Angie said, pushing a white ceramic mug toward her. “T.G.I.C.”

“Huh?”

“Thank God It’s Caffeinated.”

She grinned, liking the woman, and replied, “You’ve got that right.”

Taking her coffee, she headed to an empty café table in the back. The shop had free wireless internet access, one of the few places on Wild Boar that did. Since she hadn’t had time to get anybody to come out to the cottage to wire her up, and the school’s wireless blocked a lot of sites to keep the kids off social media during the school day, she had to do her emailing and catching up on Facebook from here.

Opening her laptop, she booted it up, sipped the hot coffee and glanced around the shop. She recognized a few faces. There were two other teachers, at whom she smiled. A couple of strangers offered her cautious but friendly nods, obviously knowing who she was. A trio of her honors students sprawled in a circle of lounge chairs in the front window, chatting and using their laptops. They waved at her with enthusiasm.

“We’re doing our homework,” one of them, a pretty blond-haired girl, called from across the room.

“Sure you are,” she replied with a wry lift of a brow. “Just don’t rely on Twitter to help with next week’s exam.”

The kids laughed good-naturedly, going back to their conversation, and Lindsey began to flip through her email. She immediately deleted the dozen interview requests that had come in since yesterday. Also deleted were the obligatory penis-enlarging, Russian bride and overseas finance minister scams.

That left her with two emails, one of which was from Callie. Attached to it was a picture of the baby, so tiny in his incubator. At least she could see him now, unlike when she’d gone to visit at the hospital ten days ago. His precious face had been covered with a mask, his body frail and weak-looking. He appeared much stronger now, bigger, too, and judging by the tone of her friend’s email, was growing beautifully. That made Lindsey’s whole Wild Boar ordeal worthwhile, in her opinion.

Surfing onto Facebook, she checked her private page, accessible only to real friends. She’d deleted her professional one when the comments had gotten absolutely unbearable.

Once she’d finished her online stuff, she slowly sipped her coffee, somehow loath to leave this little slice of society and return to her quiet, empty house. After living in Chicago for several years, she just wasn’t used to silence. She had never felt more alone than she had since this move, not having had one visitor since Mike left on Saturday.

By four, she realized she couldn’t take up a table while continuing to nurse one cup of coffee, so she began to pack up her stuff to leave. She unzipped her laptop case and slid her computer into it, paying no attention to the ringing of the bell over the coffee shop door.

At least, not at first.

Then she heard Angie greet the newcomer. And she could do nothing else but pay attention as the dark-haired, dark-eyed man in khaki walked in and headed to the counter.

“Howya doin’, Chief?” asked Angie.

It was the very person she’d been unable to stop thinking about. The very one she’d had those wild and wicked dreams about.

The very one she needed to avoid.

“Good, thanks.” Mike Santori offered the woman a slight smile and a nod, looking around and giving the same casual greeting to everyone else.

Until his eyes landed on Lindsey. With her he didn’t smile, nod and move on. Instead, his eyes widened and his mouth parted on a quick inhalation that she could almost hear.

Her heart thudded and her stomach churned. She realized her hand was shaking when her nearly empty coffee mug rattled enough to splash a small amount of lukewarm coffee against her fingers. Lowering it, she forced herself to take a steadying breath. She was going to be here for weeks; she needed to get used to running into him. She simply couldn’t afford to be embarrassed about what had happened between them on Saturday.

It’s not embarrassment.

She tried to hush the voice in her head, even as she acknowledged it was right. Yes, there was some embarrassment about the things he’d witnessed, and the fact that she’d fallen into his arms so soon after they’d met. But mostly what she felt when she saw Mike Santori was this strange, urgent tension. Currently her blood was gushing and a sort of electric energy surged through her, making the hairs on her arms stand up. Her foot was tapping on the floor, her fingers doing the same on the table, as if she just needed to move.

It was awareness. Attraction, too. She hadn’t been able to get Mike out of her mind since the moment they’d met.

“Here you go, Chief,” Angie said, handing him a foam cup with a lid. Obviously he was taking his to go.

Lindsey held her breath, wondering if he would leave without a word to her. After everything they’d said on Saturday, about how neither of them was interested in any romantic entanglements, what they should do was continue exchanging nothing more than those polite smiles in public. If he actually sat with her and started a conversation, the gossipers would have them engaged by midnight.

She knew that, knew she should be hoping he’d turn around and leave. But instead, something inside her blossomed and warmed at the idea of him sitting in the empty seat at her table. And within fifteen seconds, he was.

“Is this seat taken?”

“You’ve just taken it,” she pointed out, trying, unsuccessfully, to hide a smile at that fact.

“True.” He sipped his coffee, eyeing her over the cup. “How are you doing, Lindsey?”

“Fine, thanks. No more seasickness.”

“The island doesn’t move quite as much as the ferry did.” There was a twinkle in those brown eyes, and little crinkles beside them. The guy whose very career should make him dour, was quick-to-smile, instead. She liked that about him. Among the many things she liked about him.

His mouth, his hands, his body.

His kiss. Oh, good lord did the man know how to kiss!

She shook off the thoughts and replied, “That’s good. I doubt I’d survive another sea voyage anytime soon.”

“Are you settling into the cottage okay?”

“It’s a little drafty,” she admitted. “Being close to the lake, those watery winds tend to sift through the eaves. But I’ve got lots of blankets on my bed.”