Barefoot Bay: Unconventional Love (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Scarred Hearts Book 1) Read online

  He wanted him. He wanted him so fucking bad. However, more than he wanted him, his seventeen-year-old self was terrified that he would ruin him. How many times had he seen people struggle through raising their kids, working minimum-wage jobs? He didn’t want to be that guy, tied to a girl who had been a good time when life was light and carefree, but with the weight of life and poverty sitting like an anvil on their shoulders turned on him, and he on her.

  He didn’t want to give his son bitter, resentful, and bone-weary parents.

  He didn’t want to destroy Megan, a girl who, after real life hit, he couldn’t even swear he loved.

  She pushed her fries at him and turned on her stool to face him. “Takes a strong man to do something that selfless.”

  He turned just enough to see her out of the corner of his eye. “How do you know I wasn’t some selfish kid who just wanted to party?”

  She shrugged and bit into another fry. “I don’t, but there’s something about you that screams honorable. You worried about my age. You have integrity. It’s refreshing.”

  “Are you some kind of eternal optimist?”

  She laughed and, if he wasn’t mistaken, snorted a little. “God, no. I just would like to hope that when I’m your age…” she cringed, “—er, sorry, umm, I’d like to hope that I’ll eventually get past the crap I’m holding on to.”

  “When you’re my age…so let’s get it out there. How far apart are we?”

  She took a spoonful of her soup and then took a bite of her baklava. “I’m thirty.”

  “Jesus. My son is a year older than you.”

  “Hey,” she said as she grabbed his sleeve, giving it a tug. “Don’t get all stodgy on me. It’s not like you’re flirting with a teenager.”

  “I’m not flirting.”

  “I don’t know, I think I detected some discreet flirtage coming from this direction,” she said, waving her hands at him.

  “Flirtage? Is that even a word?”

  “What is this, a game of Scrabble? It’s a word now. And eating my fry? Definite flirtage.”

  He raised a brow, his lips twitching. “Eating your fry…I don’t like the sound of that when you say it.”

  “Psshhhh, I do.”

  “I’m pretty sure you need adult supervision.”

  “Good thing you’re sitting with me then.” She tipped back the rest of her beer and giggled. “You seem very adult.”

  He winced. “Hey, be nice.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” She waved a hand at the bartender. “So, out with it. How old are you?”

  “Maybe another drink—” Jack started, but the bartender was already there.

  “You want another?” the bartender asked her.

  “Could I get some ice water please?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She directed her attention back to him. “You were saying?”

  “I thought you were getting another beer.”

  “And if I was, I’m adult enough to make that decision.”

  Ouch, okay. He’d stepped on some toes. “Sorry.” He held a hand up in surrender. “I’m forty-eight,” he finally confessed, if for no other reason than to distract her from his fumble.

  “You say it like you’re collecting a social security check, yeesh. That’s not old. My sister would love you…she’d say you’re peppered. Wait, that’s not the word.”

  She bit her lip with bright, white, perfectly-straight teeth, and he lost his train of thought.

  “Seasoned!” she said, stabbing a finger into the air between them. “Maureen would call you seasoned. She’s a romance reader…lately she’s been big on romances with seasoned heroes.”

  She said seasoned with wiggling eyebrows, and he couldn’t help but smile at her. Definitely an interesting woman. Glowing, optimistic, way out of her element at a bar if her trusting-nature, winking-pants were any indication.

  And something else…lonely. No, she didn’t quite seem lonely or tired per se. Maybe a little lost and unsure. Every once in a while he’d catch a look in her eye, a wariness when she glanced about.

  She definitely wasn’t comfortable in the bar.

  Which begged the question…what was she doing here?

  “Seasoned, huh? I can live with seasoned.”

  She leaned forward, just mere inches from his face. “Tell me, Jack, did you have any more kids?”

  He schooled his features. “No.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I don’t deserve them.”

  “What? Why in the world would you think a thing like that?”

  “I gave my child away. He’ll never know his father, his mother. I don’t get to go and start new after that. No do-overs.”

  She sipped her water and regarded him. He imagined she saw a whole lot more than he wanted her to. “Seems like kind of a harsh punishment for being human and making a mistake.”

  “What if my kid came back to find me and he saw I had this whole other family…kids I kept, but not him. What does that tell him?”

  She tore at the paper napkin next to her plate. “That’s a big if, him looking for you and all. Maybe he’d get that you did what was best for him at the time. Maybe he would thank you.”

  “Yeah, I doubt that.” He drained his beer. “Are you almost finished? I can give you a ride home.”

  “I’m done, but I was going to walk… I don’t live far.”

  “Ah, sobering up and taking into account that I’m a complete stranger.”

  She smiled, dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the counter, and slid off the bar stool. “You know, I think it’s time you forgave yourself.” She kissed him on the cheek. At the feel of her warm, soft lips, he closed his eyes. She was about to walk out of the bar, out of his life and, for whatever reason, the idea of that rocked him to the core.

  “Thanks for keeping me company, Jack.”

  When she made it past his back, he snaked out a hand and snagged her wrist. “Hey, what about you?”

  “What about me?” she said.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you forgave yourself?”

  She gave him a sad smile. “Ahh, but my mistake is a lot more recent than yours. I have a bit of a price to pay for it yet.”

  “Will I see you again?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Maybe. I guess we’ll have to see if we’re meant to.”

  He let go of her wrist and watched her as she slipped out the door.

  He told himself to stay put. She was young, probably wanted a family of her own. He couldn’t give her that.

  Fuck. He slapped a twenty on the bar and headed for the door. He pushed his way into the cool night air, scanning the parking lot. Cars and SUVs gleamed under the parking lot lights, but he saw no movement.

  Heard no sounds.

  Maybe it was better that way.

  3

  Laura threw back her sheet and dragged her exhausted butt out of bed at 6:30AM, in an effort to get a jump on her day before Bryce regaled her with stories of the dreams he’d had in the night. There was no way he’d had all the dreams he claimed, but Laura would never stifle that creativity in him.

  Her little storyteller.

  Most mornings she looked forward to the tales of dragons, knights, and maidens, rather impressive at his young age of four, but this morning she suffered from lack of sleep.

  After brushing her teeth, she examined her face in the chipped-corner mirror and noted the dark shadows under her eyes. She looked almost as worn out as her pedestal sink with rust around the drain which no amount of scrubbing and cleaners could change.

  She’d traded in three hours of heavenly sleep to fantasize about a certain silver-haired hottie she’d met the night before.

  And it was stupid, because they had no future.

  The minute she realized that he had no intentions of forgiving himself or moving on, she had to discard any possibilities, because she had Bryce and he deserved the best.

  Jack, although so very handsome, funny, and the fir
st man to give her that spark since Ken, was not the best for her son. Not with the weight of his past holding him down.

  The reality didn’t stop her from entertaining a few scenarios in her head. Another night at the Toasted Pelican, a few more beers, a warm, wet, steamy kiss…whoa!

  Down, girl!

  This was the problem. Just the thought of those warm lips of his, that stubble brushing against her skin, had her burning and every last cylinder firing.

  She looked down at herself and there it was, the flushed skin and hard nipples. She sighed. There was no way she was walking around like this. Her sister would be all over her.

  She grabbed her robe from the hook behind her door and tied it tight. Glancing down at herself, she shook her head. She lived in Florida, for God’s sake; the robe was thin cotton, and still giving away a few of her secrets. It was nowhere near perfect, but it would have to do.

  With one thought and sixty seconds, she had reduced herself to needing to hide her arousal with clothing.

  Good thing no one had seen her last night, naked, twisting in her sheets, her hand between her own thighs while she imagined the two of them naked and in a compromising position.

  Several positions, in fact.

  Three hours of fantasy and a finale.

  After that, she finally fell into a sound sleep.

  Thank you, Jack.

  Laura tamped down the grin splitting her face.

  Tiptoeing over the cold tile floor in the hall, she ducked into the kitchen and found her sister already up, coffee in hand, and a gleam in her eye.

  Here it comes…

  “So, how was girls’ night?” Maureen asked from her seat in the breakfast nook, overlooking their square patch of front yard.

  The house may not be much, with its chipped Formica counters, scratched white appliances, and thirty-year-old cabinets, but the sunny little nook in the kitchen that let in the bright Florida sunshine each morning as she and her sister shared a cup of coffee made all the sacrifices worth it.

  The place had been due for an update at least a decade ago, but the price was just right; it was clean, rodent-free and, thank God, bug-free, so she had no intentions of bitching about it.

  After all, she had had a more modern home before…maybe not bigger, but newer. When it came down to it, the stainless steel and granite did nothing to soothe her shattered heart when her husband was killed.

  No sense dwelling.

  “Girls’ night was good,” Laura said as she poured a cup of coffee.

  “How’s Kelly doing?”

  Laura took a seat across from her sister. She was better off just telling her that Kelly had been there, they’d had a good time, the food was excellent, and all that happy garbage. If she told Maureen about Jack, she’d have her trussed up in slutty lingerie, under leather pants and a halter top, and back at the bar that night. “She’s good, been busy.”

  “Not as busy as that husband of hers. Or so I heard when she called here last night, hoping to catch you before you left,” Maureen said with a raised brow and a smirk. “Which begs the question: why did my incorruptible baby sister just lie to me?”

  Busted. And why did she care? She was a grown woman with a job, a son, and bills. She didn’t have to answer to anyone. Except she knew Maureen well enough to know that the longer she held out, the bigger a deal she’d make out of it.

  “You know, not everything is your business,” Laura said, although it would do no good. Laura had always been the reserved one of the two. Maureen had been brash. Of course, after the way Laura behaved last night, maybe she had a bit of her sister in her after all.

  “Oh, honey, believe me I know. Problem for you is, I just don’t care,” she said in a sing-song voice while patting Laura’s hand.

  “Kelly couldn’t meet me, but I had already ordered a flight of beers so I figured why not stay and have dinner anyway.” Laura didn’t meet her sister’s eyes.

  Meet her eyes, damn it. It’s the only way to save yourself!

  “Oh, my, God…your face! You met a guy.”

  Laura sipped her coffee like any civilized human being, and pretended that her heart hadn’t just jumped pace and started to riot in her chest. “There are lots of guys in bars and restaurants. Girls, too. You should go out and explore some time.”

  Maureen threw her head back and laughed, her box-maintained auburn locks cascading down the back of her chair and swinging back and forth. “Oh, honey, the things I’ve seen. I did that for enough years, so I’m good right where I am. You, on the other hand, met someone. I know you did. You might as well come out with it.”

  Laura leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “I talked to someone for a short time, yes. Seriously, though, he’s not a good fit, but a nice enough guy that I wish he had been.”

  She glanced out the window at the tidy homes lining her street. They sat on maybe a tenth of an acre. Right now, the tiny backyard was enough for Bryce. Well, between that and trips to the park and his afternoons at the beach with Maureen, but soon he’d need more room.

  Her growing boy was already six inches taller than the average four-year-old, something he got from his father. Once he started school, started having sleepovers, made more friends, he’d need a bigger backyard for running around with his buddies.

  It would be a stretch, but one she would work on making. If they could stay in this house for another year, she and her sister splitting the bills, Laura would get her school loans paid off and that money could go into a bigger place.

  Laura shrugged and glanced at her sister. “Maybe it’s not the right time for a man anyway. I’m not settled, not by a long shot.”

  Maureen pushed herself up out of her chair and refilled her cup. “There is never a good time for a man. It’s like babies. There are better times than others, but no perfect times. If you get settled, who’s to say you’ll want to uproot everything for a man?”

  And that was the rub. “Yeah, you have a point.”

  “There’s no sense going down that road right now. I would say we have a handful of minutes before the Screamin’ Demon wakes up and this conversation evaporates, ever to be avoided from here on after by my baby sister. Now, out with it. What did he look like?”

  Laura smiled. Maybe there was no harm in a little fantasy. And Jack might well fuel her fantasies for some time to come. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, picturing Jack from the night before. “He’s tall and fit, with an impressive broad chest. He has a short beard and mustache, short hair with a little spike to the top, and…” she sighed, “…aquamarine eyes.”

  Maureen let out a husky laugh in appreciation. “Oooh, he does sound good. I wonder what’s wrong with him.”

  Laura frowned at her. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Maureen shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “Well, yeah, he’s at a bar alone. Woman trouble, maybe he’s married but trolling, gay…the possibilities are endless.”

  “Wow…you just reek of positivity over there. I don’t hear you talking like this when it’s some guy you’ve met.”

  Maureen snorted, cupped her chin in her hand, and propped her elbow on the table. “I don’t have to speculate when I meet a man, honey. I know there’s something wrong with him. If he’s interested in me, it’s practically a guarantee.”

  She was right. Laura hated to admit it, but the good ones her sister had found turned out to have huge medical issues that cropped up later, leaving her widowed twice already at thirty-seven. Her sister deserved better. She deserved to be happy.

  Of course, had her sister’s life gone any other way Laura wouldn’t have her here with her in Mimosa Key, willing and able to take care of Bryce so Laura could focus on her new career.

  Maybe they were cursed. It couldn’t be natural for a set of sisters to both be widowed by the time they hit thirty. That had to be some sort of record.

  No good could come from that line of thought. “No woman trouble, not married, that was the other guy who almo
st slid in next to me, and definitely not gay.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Well, I guess I can’t. I mean, he could be married and lying, but I doubt it. He didn’t seem like he was in a relationship, either. And he definitely likes women, or did at one time since he has a son a year older than me.”

  Maureen’s head snapped up. “Well, well, well, you snagged a daddy.”

  “He’s not a daddy, ack. Well, technically—look, he gave his son up for adoption at seventeen, so I would hardly say he’s ready for retirement or anything. He’s forty-eight. He’s like one of those seasoned guys from those books you like so much.”

  “Hmm, he sounds it. Now I’m even more curious about how he snagged your attention. You’ve always liked your men clean-shaven and your age.”

  “Hey, I’ve never ruled out someone older.”

  Maureen grinned. “I seem to recall this guy, Cal was it? He…”

  “Cal doesn’t count.”

  “Well, he was a man of means, and only in his early forties.”

  “Yes, and if I was willing to attend every social event with him in those damn shiny suits, his chest hair squeezing out of his half-unbuttoned dress shirt, and thick gold chains around his neck, he would have been great.” She shivered. “No, you know what? The bonded teeth wouldn’t have made it past me. His teeth looked so big and unnatural in his mouth. Couldn’t do it.”

  “See?” Maureen said.

  “Yeah, but that had nothing to do with age. It was everything other than his age.”

  Laura met Maureen’s gaze, her lip twitched as did Maureen’s, and before she knew it they were giggling like teenagers.

  “Mommy, I’m hungry,” Bryce said from the doorway as he rubbed his sleepy eyes. His Thor pajama pants twisted around his waist as they usually did when he rushed while in the bathroom.

  Laura kissed the top of his dark head and brushed at the short dark curls he’d gotten from his daddy. “I’ll get your breakfast started right now. In the meantime, did you wash your hands?”

  Bruce looked up to her, his brow furrowed. “I don’t like washing them.”

  “Yes, you tell me so every day, and every day I make you wash your hands, young man. Go on.”