Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

1. Raphael

Chapter 1

Raphael

T here’s an extremely attractive backside in front of me.

It belongs to the woman I’m standing behind in the concession line at the Redbeard Cove beach, where I’m waiting to buy curly fries for my slightly testy and extremely pregnant sister and her bestie. Also pregnant. I don’t argue with pregnant women. It’s best to do their bidding to keep them happy so they don’t eat your head.

This backside though—it’s a very welcome change in scenery. It’s round and lush and covered only nominally with a white bikini bottom. I can’t tell if it’s the butt itself or the way it’s dusted in sand, but it does something to me.

Then I realize I’m blatantly staring at a woman’s ass, like I’m at a fine art gallery made for me.

“Shit.” I look away, rubbing my jaw.

I don’t objectify women, as a rule. I’ve slapped my teenaged brothers upside the head for less. But my soda cup was slippery with condensation, and I nearly dropped it taking a sip, and while my eyes were on their way back up I did a double take, because damn. Who wouldn’t?

Probably lots of people. Me.

I sigh, training my eyes on the beach to keep my gaze respectful. It’s crowded today, looking more like where I come from in California than the small-town little curve of sand up the coast of British Columbia, three hours from the closest big city by road and ferry.

But the woman in front of me shifts and I catch the scent of pineapple and coconut, laced with…peaches? Do they make peach shampoo?

“No,” the woman says into her phone. The clip of that word is surprisingly firm. She knows herself. She’s assertive.

Damn, just what I love in a woman.

Just like that, my eyes pivot back to her. And because she’s facing forward, straight to her sexy, sand-dusted ass I go. It’s a gorgeous?—

The backside disappears, replaced with a deeply sexy, ever-so-slightly padded stomach.

I look up. The woman’s eyes are on me. She’s short. 5’3 or even 5’2, I’d guess, so she has to look way up to glare at me.

There’s a brief beat where I can tell she’s surprised at my appearance. She maybe even likes my appearance. But it’s gone a second later when she says, “Like what you see?”

I snap my gaze up at the icy tone .

Only instead of being my usual charming self, all I can say when I see her face is “Whoopsies.”

Whoopsies . Yeah, that’s what I said, and I’m glad, because it’s a helluva lot better than what’s flying through my brain in lit-up lights: “Holy shit.”

I don’t get stunned by women. I don’t even get nervous around women. Just fifteen minutes ago I met a girl over by my car when I picked up her sunhat that had blown across the parking lot. She handed me her number. I might have given her my prizewinning smile, but I didn’t ask for her number.

But this one in front of me? She isn’t a girl. This is a Woman. Capital W .

She’s late thirties maybe, or early forties. Her deep brown hair falls in loose waves around a tanned face, dusted all over in freckles. But her eyes. Jesus, her eyes. Poets have written about less. They’re…ethereal. Hazel edging on green, ringed in gold. Thick, dark lashes. Tiny lines at the corners that tell me she at least knows how to smile, even if she’s a million miles from it right now. Her lips aren’t curved up, they’re pursed, those breathtaking eyes narrowed into a death glare.

Her mouth falls open, revealing a soft, wet, pinkness inside that does something to me.

I can’t help it, my lips curl up in a smile. And I don’t miss the faint blush that comes to her cheeks in response, before her jaw tenses.

She whips around, muttering, “Unbelievable.”

I bask in that peachy shampoo scent. And the fact I flustered her. She might hate my guts on sight, but she wasn’t immune to at least some part of my charm .

I feel my sister’s glare as if she was standing right next to me instead of back down the beach.

Okay, so maybe she was just thrown by my boyish good looks. Shit, does she think I’m just a boy? Was she flustered because a younger man—a twenty-six year old man—was the one ogling her?

Fuck. Suddenly I need her to know just how grown I am.

“I do, actually,” I say.

She looks over her shoulder at me. “Excuse me?”

“Like what I see.”

For a moment, she says nothing. Her mouth falls open slightly, then snaps shut again.

You know, I’ve been told I’m charming. My sister loves to throw it in my face. Don’t think you can charm your way out of this, Raphael!

Spoiler, I almost always do.

But I haven’t stunned her this time. This time, the woman looks at me like I’m something stuck to the bottom of her foot. Her beautiful little arched, red-toenailed foot.

She could step on my neck and I’d croak Thank you !

“Jesus,” the woman says. She turns back around, readjusting her shoulder bag in a short, fast tug. I can tell by the way her arms shift that she’s folded them.

“Nothing,” she says into the phone. “It’s no one.”

I rub my chest. No one. Ouch.

“Next!” the kid at the cash register calls.

It’s the woman’s turn to order. But she hasn’t noticed she’s been called.

“Don’t ‘Lana’ me, Mike,” she says. “I told you they’re not going!”

Lana. It’s the perfect name for her. Graceful. Classic movie-star pedigree. Sexy as fuck. Meanwhile Mike is the name of one of my little brothers, and it sounds sullied by whoever she’s talking to.

“Ma’am!” The kid says. He looks sweaty and irritated, like he’d rather be anywhere but here. He looks over her head at me. “You wanna go next?”

“No,” I say, even though the two hangry pregnant women I’m here for—my sister Deanie and her best friend Shelby—would throttle me if they knew I could have gotten curly fries to them sooner.

“Miss?” I say. Should I have said ma’am?

I consider what the chances are that she might knock me out if I tap her on the shoulder.

Shit, I might like that.

“Hey,” I say, leaning in.

She whirls around. “I swear to God,” she says. “I’m having a day. If you don’t?—”

I lift my hands, then bend one finger down, pointing to the cashier.

She gasps and hurries forward.

“I’m so sorry,” she says to the cashier. She orders two milkshakes. She’s polite, her voice softer and kinder to him than to whoever was on the phone. And me. I deserved her ire. Probably phone guy did too. Mike. I hate him. Luckily I call my brother Mikey. He’s only fourteen. Is the second milkshake for Bad Mike? I hate him even more.

When it’s my turn, I order my two giant orders of fries, my eyes more discreetly on the woman, who’s moved over by the birch tree to wait for her order.

“Sir, your change?”

“Keep it,” I say, distracted.

The cashier’s eyes go wide. “Really? Thanks!”

I shouldn’t really be giving cash away since I’m not TA’ing at the university again until the fall, but I’m already moving sideways, my eyes on the woman.

Her shoulders are stiff, jaw tight as she taps into her phone with tensed, fast-moving thumbs.

I want to ask if she’s okay. What the fuck did Mike do?

But when she looks up at me and I smile—a polite, non-charming smile this time—she just narrows her eyes and looks back down.

It’s okay, I deserve that. I can bask in the glow of that fire. Toast a marshmallow.

I stand a good few feet away from her, giving her space.

She tosses her phone into her bag.

And looks right at me.

I’m not staring, I’m not standing too close. But she won’t stop staring at me. Finally she says,

“What is your problem, buddy?”

Her pulse flashes in her throat.

When I meet her eyes, her expression flashes too. There’s something there that surprises me. A kind of vulnerability, I think, before the daggers drop back into place.

I suddenly realize what an ass I’ve been. She’s beautiful, of course, but that’s almost an afterthought now. I’m curious about her. I can tell she’s fierce and doesn’t take shit. But she’s got a story. And she’s going through something.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I mean it.

She blinks. “Sorry?”

“For objectifying you.”

She looks surprised at that. She purses her lips, not saying anything.

“You can objectify me back, if you want,” I say. “I don’t mind.”

Her eyes narrow.

I turn around slowly, arms up in the air.

She bunches her eyebrows together like she thinks I’m insane.

I stop. Most of the time making someone laugh is the best way to diffuse a tense situation. Maybe not here. “I won’t say anything else,” I promise. “I’ll just wait for my fries.”

“Could you wait farther away from me?”

I’m already several feet away from her. But I nod. “Sure thing.”

I move a few feet away, right next to the garbage can. It’s stuffed to the brim. I stand right up next to it, like it’s my best friend. It reeks. Baking dog shit, probably. I make a gagging sound. Then another, covering my mouth with my hand. I don’t even need to fake it.

Again, she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, which I guess I have.

But if I’m not mistaken, there’s the tiniest twitch to her lips. Almost imperceptible if I wasn’t terrific at reading faces. Which I am.

Then her lips are a hard line again.

But for that brief millisecond, she was fighting a smile.

Suddenly, I consider everything that might actually make her smile. Shouting the menu in spoken verse? Reciting Tolstoy to the tune of Mamma Mia? I know a lot of Tolstoy, thanks to my PhD. And all of Mamma Mia thanks to my sister.

I’m about to ask her if she likes ABBA when the cashier hollers, “Order 102!”

The woman—Lana—lifts her chin and strides back to the counter, picking up her milkshakes.

I swear I’m going to leave her alone. But when she asks for a drink tray, the kid rolls his eyes and tosses one to her without helping. She struggles to get the cups in and I have to physically hold myself back by shoving my hands into my pockets.

Then one of the cups slips, sloshing creamy pink milkshake onto her hand.

“Shit,” she says.

Fuck it. I go over, grab a napkin and hand it to her. Then wordlessly, I pop the drinks into the tray, tuck a stack of napkins and the straws between them and hold it out to her.

“You’re good at that,” she says without looking at me. “You work here too?”

“I should. I’m great at customer service. Really excel at making a first impression.”

She presses her lips together and I want to punch the sky in victory. That was absofuckinglutely a suppressed smile .

“103!” the cashier calls, sounding as thrilled as if he were calling out numbers at the DMV.

“I can count, too.”

She picks up her tray, gives me one brief look, like she wants to say something. Then she doesn’t. She turns around to go.

I collect my fries as quickly as humanly possible. But by the time I turn around, she’s already gone.

For a moment, I don’t move. I really, really want to go after her.

But she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I sigh, pitying my sad little heart, and stride back toward the hangry moms-to-be.

Still, I can’t help whistling an old song my mom used to play. It’s about an older woman who seduces a young guy in his twenties. It’s called Mrs. Robinson.

A guy can dream.