Lori Foster – A Buckhorn Summer (страница 2)
Because they’d just reached the dock, Lisa didn’t reply. Without waiting for the boat to steady, she stood and leaped out, a rope in hand, and secured the front of the small boat to a cleat.
Shohn did the same to the back. Adam, holding their bait bucket, hauled himself out behind her.
Every woman around stared. Always. Her cousin and brother had that effect wherever they went. Between them, she felt insubstantial, inadequate, even bland.
Which in part explained why she’d glommed onto business. In a family full of prime physical specimens, male and female alike, she was just so-so.
Except for when it came to brains and drive. Then she excelled.
Or used to. Now she considered changing it all. She could join her family in the slower, easier life of Buckhorn County, Kentucky. Doing what, she didn’t yet know.
Fishing today. But tomorrow? She was not an idle person.
“We lost her again.”
Sure, she needed to slow down. Her health and her very recent aberrant behavior proved she needed that change. No one in her family yet knew of her tension, her migraines, her sleepless nights.
Only that one man, a man she’d never see again—
She screeched when Shohn scooped her up and headed to the side of the dock. “Ohmigod, don’t you dare!”
“You need to be dunked.”
Knotting one hand in his dark hair, the other in his worn T-shirt, she growled, “Try it and you’re going in with me. Or at least your hair is.” She gave a tug to prove her point.
Wincing, laughing, Shohn said, “I’ll jump us both in.”
“No!” Okay, sure, her lake clothes, as she called them, wouldn’t be harmed, but she’d braided her hair and didn’t want it soaked. “Seriously,” she said more calmly.
Standing beside them, Adam crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Then no more brooding over business.”
Lisa blew out a huff of breath. “If you must know, I wasn’t.”
“Bull.”
“I was thinking of...a guy.”
Both men laughed.
Was it so unheard of for her to be socially interested and interesting? Admitting the pathetic truth, she knew that yes, it was. At thirty, she’d never had a single serious romantic relationship.
She’d had some dates. She’d had some sex.
She’d had that one amazing night that would forever leave her warm and wanting...for more, more, more.
But she’d never been involved. And damn it, that hurt.
Mouth tight and brows angled down, Lisa turned her face away.
The laughter died.
Shohn slowly lowered her to her feet, obliging her to release his hair.
Without a word, Adam slung an arm around her shoulders and again got them heading along the dock to the gravel lot alongside the boat launch and then up the worn path to the small renovated structure that sold anything and everything boaters might need.
Hoping to clear the air, Lisa asked, “When did this change?” She remembered the structure being smaller, more weatherworn and utilitarian. Now it looked like a regular two-story house, complete with flowers planted around the exterior.
The double front doors, standing open, and the picnic tables placed all around the area made it clear the store remained, but otherwise it could have been any other home in Buckhorn.
“Rosemary sold the marina some years back to a married couple who did the additions. But they sold it a few weeks ago and retired to Arizona to be nearer to their grandkids. A new guy stepped right in and the place never closed, not even for a day. It was pretty seamless.”
“Huh.” So it had changed hands twice and she’d been unaware. Crazy how detached she’d been from her home. “I like the addition of a second level. Does the owner live here?”
“I dunno,” Shohn said. “I’ve only met him a few times. He’s friendly, but not real talkative, which I guess makes sense given he’s a retired cop.”
“You’ll probably like him,” Adam teased. “All the single ladies seem to.”
Sure enough, as they stepped into the building, Lisa saw a trio of bikini-clad women huddled around the front counter and register, giggling in amped-up flirt mode.
She snorted. It was barely eight a.m., but the ladies were already on the prowl. The new guy must be interesting. Then again, Buckhorn was such a small, intimate town that anyone new got plenty of attention.
Shohn headed for the live bait selection, Adam went to fill the cooler with drinks and she moseyed down an aisle to pick up sunscreen. As a kid, she’d kept a light tan. As a woman who’d spent most of her time traveling from one business meeting to the next, her skin rarely saw prolonged exposure to the sun.
She remembered fishing trips from her youth and knew the guys would keep her out for hours, maybe right through lunch. She grabbed the sunscreen and a straw hat.
Heading for the snacks, she turned, took two steps—and gasped.
So did the man standing in front of her.
The big, sinfully gorgeous man.
The man with the amazing bod and killer smile and devour-you sex drive.
The man from a month ago.
Her...
* * *
GRAY NARROWED HIS EYES, but the vision didn’t change. Big brown eyes locked on his. Those sweet, lush lips parted. Color filled her cheeks.
It was her, but an all-new version of her. A softer, sexier version, though how that was possible, he didn’t know, because every night for a freaking month he’d remembered her as so damned sexy, he felt obsessed.
Neither of them spoke. Hell, he didn’t know what to say.
Shohn Hudson and Adam Sommerville, cousins he’d met before, suddenly flanked her.
Cocking a brow, expression cautious, Shohn asked, “Problem?”
Yeah, about a hundred of them. Gray didn’t know her name, didn’t know why she was here, didn’t know if she remembered him or was horrified at seeing him again or if, God willing, she’d like to get reacquainted.
Adam slipped his arm around her and, yeah, that was another problem.
“You’re new,” Gray finally said, regaining his voice, rough and low as it sounded. His interest must’ve been obvious given how both Adam and Shohn looked at her again, almost as if they’d never seen her before.
She cleared her throat, worked up a very bright, false smile, and stepped away from the two men with her hand extended. “Hello. I’m Lisa Sommerville. Adam’s sister.”
Related? Now that she’d said it, he could see it. She and Adam shared similar dark eyes. And if they were siblings, that’d make Hudson her cousin. Nice. Only related, not involved. He could work with that.
Tucking a small box of candy bars under his left arm, Gray accepted her hand and held on. “Gray Neely.” Her hands were as small and soft as he remembered, her skin just as warm.
Her scent every bit as stirring.
She tugged, and he had no choice but to let her go. “Actually,” she said, now a little breathless, “I’m local.
An accusation? “So you live here?” That’d be too much of a coincidence—the first good luck he’d had in a year.
Her chin lifted. “Yes.”
A slow smile growing, Adam looked between them. “Lisa’s a shark, usually away wheeling and dealing with the big dawgs in business.”
“She’s settling back in for a spell, though,” Shohn added.
“Maybe just the summer,” she was quick to say.