"Oh." Her lips took on a feling curve as she stepped back, slowly pulling the pick through her long corkscrew curls. "Were you figuring that?"
"Yeah. Then I was figuring how about if I just wandered on up stairs afterward, maybe wandered right on into your room. We could try this in a bed for a change."
"Well." she ran her tongue over her top lip. "I might just be available tonight-depending on what kind of tipper you are."
He grinned and captured her just-moistened lips with his in a kiss that rocked her straight back on her heels.
When she could breathe again, she exhaled slowly. "That's a real good start." she bent down to gather the blanket, deliberately turning to tease him with tight buns in tight shorts, then turned her head. "I'm going to give you ... excellent service."
I By the time Gaff was back in his truck and on the road to the campground, his heart rate was nearly back to normal. The woman was potent, he thought, and life with her was going to be a continual adventure. He didn't think she was quite ready to have her notions adjusted to a lifetime with him, but he was going to work on that too.
He smiled to himself, flipped the radio up so Clint Black wailed through the speakers. He had it all planned, Gaff mused. The courtship-which was progressing just fine in his opinion. The proposal, the marriage, the life.
As soon as he convinced her that he was exactly what she needed, that would be that. Meanwhile, they would give each other a hell of a ride.
He turned into the campground, frowning a little as he saw the teenager inside the booth instead of Ginny. "Hey, Colin." Gaff braked, leaned out his window. "Got you manning the post today?"
"Looks like."
"Seen Ginny?"
"Not hide nor hair." The boy tried out a lascivious wink. "she musta caught a live one."
"Ye ah." But there was an uncomfortable shift in Giff's gut. "I'm going to look in at her cabin. See what's up."
"Help yourself"
Giff drove slowly, mindful of the possibility that a child might dart out in front of him. With summer just around the corner, he knew more would be coming, stacking up in the campground, the cottages, spreading towels on the beach. Those in the cottages would fry themselves in the sun half the day, then come back and run their ACs to the max. Which usually meant he'd be kept busy replacing coils.
Not that he minded. It was good, honest work. And though he dreamed now and then of taking on something more challenging, he figured his time would come.
He pulled up into Ginny's short drive and climbed out. He hoped to find her in bed, moaning, with her head in a basin. 'That would explain why it was so damn quiet. When she was home, Ginny always had the radio blaring, the 'fV on, her voice raised in song or in argument with one of the talk shows she was addicted to. The noises clashed cheerfully. she said it kept her from feeling lonesome.
But he heard nothing except the click of palm fronds in the breeze, the hollow plop of frogs in water. He walked to the door, and because he'd run as tame in her cabin as he did in his own home, he didn't bother to knock.
He nearly jumped out of his skin as he pulled open the door and a man's form filled it. "Jesus Christ Almighty, Bri, you might as well shoot me as scare me to death."
"Sorry." Brian smiled a little. "I heard the truck, thought it might be Ginny." His gaze shifted over Giff's shoulder. "she's not with you, is she?"
"No, I just heard she wasn't at work and came to check."
"she's not here. It doesn't look like she's been around today, though it's hard to tell." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Woman's messy as three teenage girls on a rampage."
"Maybe she's at one of the sites."
Brian scanned the trees that crowded close around the tufts of go Iden marsh grass. There were a couple of pinta' ducks taking a breather in the slough on their trek along the Atlantic flyway. A marsh hawk circled lazily overhead. Near the narrow path, where spiderwort tangled, a trio of swallowtail butterflies flitted gaily.
But he saw no sign of the human inhabitant of this small corner of the island.
"I parked over near number one, circled around to here. I asked after her, but nobody I ran into has seen her since yesterday."
"That's not right." The discomfort in Gaff's stomach escalated into dull pain. "Bri, that's just not right."
"I agree with you. It's after two o'clock. Even if she'd spent the night somewhere else she should have surfaced by now." Worry was a fist pressing at the back of his neck. He rubbed it absently as he looked back into the living mess of Ginny's cabin. "It's time we started to make calls."
"I'll go by, tell my mother. she'll have half a dozen calls made before either of us can make one. Come on, I'll drop you back at your car."