“She’s gone…hmm…how do I say this respectfully? She’s not gone cougar, but she’s definitely acting different. She’s dressing way too young for a fifty-seven-year-old woman, and I swear she thinks she’s my new best friend. She wants to talk about guys and sex, and what’s worse is that she suddenly wants to go dancing and to bars. I love my mom, but I don’t need to go to bars with her, and talking about sex with her? Please.”
“I was wondering what was going on when she texted you a hundred times last night.” Bella pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic band. “She’s going through a hard time, Jenna. Give her a break. She was married for thirty-four years. That’s a long time. I’m not even married to Caden yet, and if we broke up and he married a younger chick, I’d be devastated.” Bella and Caden met last year when Bella had been busy rearranging her own life. She’d started a work-study program for the local school district, fallen in love with Caden Grant, a cop on the Cape, and now she was as close as a mother to his almost sixteen-year-old son, Evan. The Cape was a narrow stretch of land between the bay and the ocean. Bella and Caden lived on the bay side in a house that Caden had owned when they’d met, and they would be staying at Bella’s Seaside cottage on and off this summer.
“I get it, okay? I just…God, it’s just so hard to see her struggling with her looks, and honestly, you know I adore her, but she’s sort of making a fool of herself. It’s been two years since the divorce. She just needs to get over it and move on. I do feel bad because I had to take a firm stand and tell her that I wasn’t going to come home until after the summer.”
“Why do you feel bad? That’s what you do every summer.” Amy eyed one of the construction workers, a water bottle held above his mouth, a stream of wetness disappearing down his throat. “Holy hotness.” She fanned herself with her napkin.
Jenna watched the guy wipe his mouth with his heavily muscled forearm. “Yeah, but she wanted me to come home to hang out with her a few times.” The sexy waiter brought Jenna her drink.
“Thank you, doll.” She watched his fine ass as he walked away.
“Doll?” Amy giggled.
“See?” Jenna bonked her forehead on the table. “That’s her word. Doll? Who says that? You have to help me. She’ll ruin me, and I swear if I spend one more summer lusting after Pete, then I’ll be empty on all accounts. My mother will hate me, my hoo-ha will be lonely, and I’ll use words like doll. Jesus, do us all a favor and shoot me now.”
“Yeah, well, about that whole Pete thing?” Leanna nodded toward the crosswalk, where Pete Lacroux was crossing the road carrying the cutest damn puppy.
Holy mother of God, he is fine. I want to be that puppy. Those construction workers couldn’t hold a candle to Pete, and Jenna’s body was proof as her pulse quickened and her mouth went dry. His shoulders were twice as broad as those of the boys on the pavement, his waist was trim and—holy hell—he shifted the pup to the side, giving Jenna a clear view of the pronounced muscles that blazed a path south from his abs and disappeared into his snug jeans. Those damn muscles turned her mind to mush. Yup. She’d gone as dumb as a doorknob.
“Breathe, Jenna,” Amy whispered. “You are so not over him.”
Jenna couldn’t tear her eyes from him. Years of lust and anticipation brewed deep in her belly. Just one more summer? One more try?
No. No. I can’t do this anymore. “The man’s one big tease. I’m moving on.” She forced herself to tear her eyes away from him and guzzle her drink.
And then it happened.
She felt his presence behind her before he ever said a word. Jenna, the woman who could talk to anyone, anytime, had spent years fumbling for words and making atrocious attempts at flirting with the six-foot-two, dark-haired, mysterious specimen that was Peter Lacroux, but despite catching a few heated glances from him, she remained in the friend zone.
Regardless of how her body reacted to him, she didn’t need to beg for a man she could barely talk to, or follow after him like that adorable puppy snuggled against his powerful chest.
She was totally, utterly, done with him.
Maybe.
PETE EYED THE women from the Seaside cottage community, or the Seaside girls, as he’d come to refer to them, on his way across the street. They hadn’t spotted him watching them as they ogled the young construction workers from the patio of the Bookstore Restaurant. Pete had done the community and pool maintenance for the cottages at Seaside for about six years. He was a boat restorer by trade, but when he’d begun working at Seaside, his career hadn’t yet taken off. By the time word got around that he was an exceptional craftsman, he was too loyal of a man to stop doing the maintenance work. Besides, the girls were fun, and he’d become friends with the guys in the community, Tony Black, a professional surfer and motivational speaker, and Jamie Reed, who’d developed OneClick, a search engine second only to Google. And then there was Jenna Ward, the buxom brunette with the killer ass, a cackle of a laugh, and the most intense, alluring blue eyes he’d ever seen.
Fucking Jenna.
He watched her eyes shift to him as he neared the restaurant. Other than his craftsman skills, reading women was Pete’s next best finely honed ability—or so he thought. He could tell when a woman was into him, or when she was toying with the idea of being into him, but Jenna Ward? Jenna confused the hell out of him. She was confident and funny, smart, and too fucking cute for her own good when she was around her friends. Just watching Jenna sent fire through his veins, but when it came to Pete, Jenna lost all that gumption, and she turned into a…Hell, he didn’t know what happened to her. She grew quiet and tentative when she was near him. Pete liked confident women. A lily to look at and a tigress in the bedroom. His mouth quirked up at the thought. He wasn’t a Neanderthal. He respected women, but he also knew what he liked. He wanted to devour and be devoured—and with Jenna, who swallowed her confidence around him, he feared his sexual appetite would scare her off. Besides, with his alcoholic father to care for, he didn’t have time for a relationship.
Jenna turned away as he stepped behind her. Her hair was longer this summer, framing her face in rich chocolate waves that fell past her shoulders. Pete preferred long hair. There was nothing like the feeling of burying his hands in a woman’s hair and giving it a gentle tug when she was just about to come apart beneath him.
He held Joey, the female golden retriever he’d rescued a few weeks earlier, in one arm, placed his other hand on the back of Jenna’s chair, and inhaled deeply. Jenna smelled like no other woman he’d ever known, a tantalizing combination of sweet and spicy. Her scent, and the view of her cleavage from above, pushed all of his sexual buttons, despite her tentative nature around him. But he had no endgame with Jenna Ward. No matter how much he wanted to explore the white-hot attraction he felt toward her, he respected Jenna and treasured her friendship too much to take her for a test ride.
“Hello, ladies.”
“Aww. Can I hold her?” Amy jumped to her feet and took the puppy from his hands. Joey covered her face with kisses.
“She’s a little shy,” Pete teased. He’d found the pup in a duffel bag by a Dumpster behind Mac’s Seafood, down at the Wellfleet Pier. The poor thing was hungry and scared, but other than that, she wasn’t too bad off. The first night Pete had her, the pup had slept curled up against Pete’s chest, and they’d been constant companions ever since.
“Yeah, real shy. How’s she doing?” Leanna asked.
“She’s great. She sticks to me like glue.” He shrugged. “I was just coming over to get her a bowl of fresh water, maybe a hamburger.”
“Hamburger?” Leanna wrinkled her thinly manicured brow. “How about puppy food?”
“Puppies love burgers.” Chicks were so weird with their rules about proper foods. He glanced down at Jenna, whose eyes were locked on the table. She usually went ape shit over puppies, and he wondered what was up with her cool demeanor.
“Want to join us for a drink?” Bella slid a slanty-eyed look in Jenna’s direction.
He felt Jenna bristle at the offer. He should probably walk away and give her some breathing room. She obviously wasn’t herself today. He was just about to leave when Amy grabbed his arm and pulled him down to the chair beside Jenna. Great. Now Jenna had a death stare locked on Amy. Pete was beginning to take her standoffishness personally.
“Sit for a while. I want to play with Joey anyway.” When Amy met Jenna’s heated stare, she rolled her eyes and kissed Joey’s head.
“How’s the boat coming along?” Leanna Bray was a quirky woman, too. Her cottage had always been a mess before she met her fiancé, Kurt Remington. Every time Pete had gone by to fix a broken cabinet or a faucet, she’d had laundry piles everywhere, and sticky goo from her jam making seemed to cover every surface, including herself. Almost all of her clothing had conspicuous stains in various shades of red, purple, and orange. Kurt was as neat and organized as Jenna. He’d taken over the laundry and didn’t seem to mind picking up after Leanna. In any case, her place was much more organized these days.