Czytaj książkę: «From Temptation To Twins»

One

Here Comes Trouble

The man all but filled the open doorway of the dilapidated Whiskey Bay Crab Shack. His feet were planted apart, his broad shoulders squared and his no-nonsense chin was tipped up in a challenge.

“Is this supposed to be a joke?” he asked, his deep voice booming through the old brick building.

Jules Parker recognized him right away. She’d expected their paths would cross, but she hadn’t expected open hostility—interesting. She hopped down from where she was kneeling on the dusty old bar and stripped off her leather work gloves.

“I don’t know, Caleb,” she answered as she sauntered toward him, tucking the gloves into the back pocket of her faded jeans. “Is there something funny about dismantling shelves?”

He squinted at her. “You’re Juliet Parker?”

“You don’t recognize me?”

He held out a level hand, moving it up and down, judging the distance to the ground. “Last time I saw you, you were—”

“Fifteen years old.”

“Shorter. And you had freckles.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that. “Okay.”

That was nine years ago. Did he think she wouldn’t have changed?

His gray eyes hardened. “What are you doing?”

She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “Like I said, dismantling the bar shelves.”

“I mean, what are you doing here?”

“In Whiskey Bay?” She and her younger sister, Melissa, had arrived yesterday, having planned their return for over a year.

“In the Crab Shack.”

“I own the Crab Shack.” At least, she owned half of the Crab Shack. Melissa was her partner.

He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket, brandishing it in his fist. “You extended the business license.”

“Uh-huh.” The fact clearly upset him, though she wasn’t sure why.

“And you extended the noncompete clause.”

“Uh-huh,” she said again. The noncompete was part of the original license. Everything had been extended.

He took a step forward, all but looming over her, and she was reminded of why she’d had a schoolgirl crush on him. He was all male then, and he was all male now—hot, sexy and incredibly good-looking.

“What is it you want?” he asked in that low, gravelly voice.

She didn’t understand the question, but she wasn’t about to back down. She squared her shoulders. “How do you mean?”

“Are you playing stupid?”

“I’m not playing at anything. What’s your game, Caleb? Because I’ve got work to do here.”

He glared at her for a couple of beats. “Do you want money? Is that it? Are you looking for a payout?”

She took a stab at answering. “The Crab Shack’s not for sale. We’re reopening.”

The Whiskey Bay Crab Shack was her grandfather’s legacy. It was hers and Melissa’s dream, and also her deathbed promise to the grandpa she adored. Her father hated the idea of the family returning to Whiskey Bay, but Jules wasn’t thinking about that today.

Caleb’s gaze covered the room, seeming to dismiss it. “We both know that’s not happening.”

“We do?”

“You’re starting to annoy me, Juliet.”

“It’s Jules. And you’re starting to annoy me, too.” His voice rose in obvious frustration. “Are you telling me it’s not about this?”

She looked to where he was pointing out the window.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“This.” He headed out the door.

Curious, she followed and saw the Whiskey Bay Marina. It looked much as it always had, although the caliber of vessel berthed there had gone up. The pier was lined with sleek, modern yachts. Beyond the marina, in what had always been raw land, there were two semitrailers with a front-end loader and a bulldozer, plus a couple of pickup trucks.

Whatever was being built there likely wouldn’t be as attractive as the natural shoreline, but it was far enough away that it shouldn’t bother their patrons after they reopened. To the south of the Crab Shack, it was all natural vistas. The signature, soaring cliffs of Whiskey Bay were covered in west coast cedars and wax-leafed salal shrubs. Nobody could build on the south side. It was all cliffs and boulders.

Jules made a mental note to focus the views on the south side.

“I don’t think that’s going to bother us too much,” she said.

Caleb’s stunned expression was interrupted by Melissa’s arrival in their mini pickup truck.

“Hello,” Melissa sang out as she exited from the driver’s side, a couple of hardware store bags in her arms and a bright smile on her face.

“Do you remember Caleb Watford?” Jules asked.

“Not really.” Melissa set the bags down on the deck and held out her hand. “I remember the Parkers hate the Watfords.”

Jules knew she shouldn’t smile at her sister’s blunt statement. But the revelation couldn’t come as any surprise to Caleb. The feud between their grandfathers and fathers was well-known. It was the likely reason Caleb was being so obnoxious. He didn’t want the Parkers back in Whiskey Bay. Well, that was too bad.

Caleb accepted Melissa’s hand. “Either you two are the best actors in the world...”

Melissa gave Jules a confused glance.

“Don’t look at me,” Jules said. “I haven’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about. But he’s ticked off about something.”

“You see that?” Caleb pointed again.

Melissa shaded her eyes. “Looks like a bulldozer.”

“It’s my bulldozer.”

“Congratulations...?” Melissa offered hesitantly, her confusion obvious.

“Do you two have any idea what I do?” he asked.

“No,” Jules answered.

She knew the Watfords were rich. They owned one of three mansions set along the cliffs of Whiskey Bay. Besides the mansion, the only other house on the bay was the Parkers’. It was just a regular little old house. Her grandfather had lived there for nearly seventy years before he’d passed away.

“Do you drive a bulldozer?” Melissa asked.

“Seriously?” Jules asked her sister, finding it impossible to imagine Caleb as a heavy equipment operator. “The Watfords are mega wealthy.”

“He could still drive a bulldozer,” Melissa said. “Maybe he likes driving a bulldozer.”

“Rich guys don’t drive bulldozers.”

Jules pictured Caleb behind a big desk in an opulent office. No, that wasn’t quite right. Presiding over a construction site, maybe? He could be an architect.

“Have you ever seen Construction Vacation?” Melissa asked.

“The TV show?”

“Yeah. All kinds of guys, rich, poor, whatever. They come on the show and play with heavy equipment. They like it. It’s a thing.”

“Well, maybe on a lark—”

“Stop!” Caleb all but shouted.

Melissa drew back, clearly shocked.

“He’s been like this ever since he showed up,” Jules said.

“Like a bear with a hangnail,” Melissa muttered.

“I don’t think that’s a metaphor,” Jules said. “Bears have claws.”

Caleb was glancing back and forth between them. His skin tone seemed to have gone a little darker. Jules decided it might be good to let him speak.

“I own and manage the Neo chain of seafood restaurants. That—” he stabbed his finger in the direction of the bulldozer “—will be the newest location.”

Both women looked along the shore, and Jules realized why Caleb was so annoyed.

“Oh,” Melissa said, pausing for a short beat. “Except you can’t build it now because of the noncompete clause in our business license.”

“It was supposed to expire on Wednesday,” he said.

“I saw that when we renewed.”

“Now I get it,” Jules said to him. “I can see why you’d be disappointed.”

* * *

“Disappointed?” Caleb caught the beer Matt Emerson tossed him from the wet bar at opposite side of the marina’s sundeck. “I’m a million dollars into the project, and she thinks I’m disappointed?”

“You’re not?” TJ Bauer asked evenly as he popped the top of his own beer.

The three men were on the deck that sat atop the Whiskey Bay Marina office building. A quarter moon rose in the starlit sky, while the lights of the pier reflected off the foamy water eddying between the white yachts.

Caleb shot TJ a glower.

“Do you think this is about your dad?” Matt asked.

“Or your grandfather,” TJ added, bracing his butt against the rail. “This could be your chickens coming home to roost.”

“They’re not my chickens,” Caleb said.

“Does she know that?” Matt asked.

Caleb couldn’t believe Jules was capable of executing such a nefarious revenge plan.

“Are you suggesting she figured out that I was planning to build a Neo location at Whiskey Bay, waited until the last possible moment, the fortieth anniversary of their grandfather’s business license, to extend the noncompete clause and shut down my project so I’d lose a fortune, in retaliation for the actions of my father and grandfather?”

“It would earn her a significant score on the evil-genius meter,” TJ said.

“Your ancestors were pretty evil to her ancestors,” Matt said.

Caleb didn’t disagree with that. His grandfather had stolen away the woman Felix Parker loved, while his father had ruined Roland Parker’s best chance at a college education.

There wasn’t a lot about either man that made Caleb proud. “I didn’t do a thing to the Parkers.”

“Did you mention that to Jules?” Matt asked.

“She’s sticking to her story—that she had no idea I wanted to build a restaurant of my own.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” TJ said. “You know, this wouldn’t be the worst time in the world to take on investors.”

“This would absolutely be the worst time in the world to take on investors.” Caleb had heard the pitch from TJ before.

“One phone call to my clients, Caleb. And seventeen Neo locations across the US could become forty Neo locations around the world. A million-dollar loss here would be insignificant.”

“Read my lips,” Caleb said. “I’m not interested.”

TJ shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Then call her bluff,” Matt said, crossing the deck and dropping into one of the padded chairs surrounding a gas fire pit.

“She’s not bluffing,” Caleb pointed out. “She already extended the noncompete clause.”

“I mean pretend you believe her. That she’s only after her own business interests, and this isn’t some warped revenge against your family. See if she’ll be reasonable about coexisting.”

TJ moved to another of the chairs. “I see where he’s going. Explain to her how Neo and the Crab Shack can both succeed. If she’s not out to harm you, then she should be willing to discuss it.”

“They serve different market niches.” Caleb sat down, thinking there might be merit to the strategy. “And where they overlap, one could be a draw for the other.”

“Cross-promotion,” TJ said.

“I’d be willing to push some customers her way.”

“Maybe don’t make yourself sound so arrogant,” Matt said. “I don’t think women like that.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the big expert on women?” TJ asked Caleb.

“Jules isn’t a woman,” Caleb said. But even as he spoke, he envisioned her sparkling blue eyes, her billowy wheat-blond hair and her full red lips. Jules was all woman, and that just made things more complicated.

“I mean,” he continued. “She’s not a woman in the way you’re thinking about women. Not that she’s not good-looking, she is. Anybody would tell you that. But that’s irrelevant. It’s irrelevant to the situation. I’m not trying to date her. I’m trying to do business with her.”

“Uh-oh,” Matt said to TJ.

“That’s trouble,” TJ said to Matt.

“It’s not like that,” Caleb said. “The last time I saw her she was fifteen.”

TJ grinned. “And that was a logical comeback to what?”

“She was a kid. She was my neighbor. And now she’s a thorn in my side. This has nothing to do with, you know, our recent discussions about the two of you getting back into the dating pool. How’s that going, by the way?”

Both men grinned at him. “You think we’re going to let you change the subject that easily?”

“Either of you dating?” Caleb asked. “Are you? Because I had a date last weekend.”

Matt had just made it through a bitter divorce, and TJ had just passed the two-year anniversary of his wife’s death. Both had committed to living Caleb’s bachelor lifestyle for the next year. And Caleb had committed to helping them achieve it.

“Hey, Matt?” came a female voice from below on the pier.

“Speaking of women...” TJ said, interest perking up in his voice.

“Speaking of not women.” Matt muttered under his breath as he rose to his feet.

“Who is she?” TJ asked, standing to look over the rail.

“My mechanic.” Matt raised his voice. “Hi, Tasha. What’s going on?”

“I don’t like the sound of MK’s backup engine. Can I have a day to tear it down?”

Through the rails, Caleb could see a slender woman in a T-shirt and cargo pants. She wore a pair of leather work boots. And she had a ponytail sticking out of the back of her tattered baseball cap.

“It’s booked out starting Sunday.”

“That gives me all day tomorrow,” Tasha called back. “Perfect. I’ll make sure she’s ready.”

“Thanks, Tasha.”

“That’s your mechanic?” TJ asked as he watched the young woman walk away.

“You want to date my mechanic?” Matt asked.

“She’s pretty cute.”

Matt laughed. “She’s tough as nails. I wouldn’t recommend her as a starting point.”

“You calling dibs?”

“Fill your boots, brother. She’ll eat you for lunch.”

Caleb couldn’t help but grin. “Should we go into the city and hit a club tomorrow night?”

Whiskey Bay was less than two hours from the nightlife of Olympia and it sounded like TJ and Matt could use a little push into the social scene. Caleb would be more than happy to forget his own problems for an evening.

“I’m in,” said Matt.

“Sounds great,” said TJ.

Caleb finished his beer. “In that case, I’m going home to strategize.” He rose. “I like your idea to test Jules’s sincerity. I’ll do it in the morning.”

“Good luck,” Matt called.

Caleb took the stairs to the pier then left the lights of the marina behind him on the walk home.

Whiskey Bay was characterized by stunning steep cliffs. There was very little land at sea level, just an acre or so under the marina and another parcel of a similar size where Caleb intended to build Neo. The Crab Shack was located on a rocky spit of land to the south of the marina. It had been closed now for more than ten years, since Felix Parker had grown too old to run it.

Four houses sat on the steep rise of the cliff. Matt’s was directly above the marina. TJ’s was a few hundred yards to the south, then came the Parkers’ small house, with Caleb’s house last.

Back in the ’50s, his grandfather had built a small place similar to the Parkers’. But while the Parker place had remained intact, the Watfords had rebuilt numerous times. After his grandfather’s death Caleb had bought the house from the rest of the family, gradually renovating it to make it his own.

There was a path halfway up the cliff that connected the four houses. Caleb, Matt and TJ had installed solar lights a few years back, so walking after dark was easy. Caleb had passed below the Parker house thousands of times. But in the five years since Felix Parker had moved to a care home, there’d never been a light on there.

Tonight, it was lit. Caleb could see it in the distance, filtered by the spreading branches of cedar trees. As he grew closer, the deck came into view, and he had a sudden memory of a teenage Jules. It had to have been her last summer visiting her grandfather. She’d been dancing on the deck. Dressed in cutoff shorts and a striped tank top, her hair up in a messy knot, she was dancing like nobody was watching.

He could see her freckles. That’s how he’d remembered she’d had freckles. The sunlight had glowed against her blond hair and her creamy skin. She’d been far too beautiful, and far too young. He’d felt guilty for even looking at her back then. He’d been twenty-one, building his first Neo restaurant in San Francisco.

“Spying on us?” Jules suddenly appeared on the trail in front of him.

“On my way home,” he answered, quickly pulling himself back to the present.

She wasn’t wearing cutoffs, and no tight striped tank top either. Thank goodness. Although her blue jeans and cropped white T-shirt weren’t exactly saving his sanity. In fact, it was worse, because she was all grown up now.

“You’re standing still,” she pointed out.

He went with a partial truth. “I’m not used to seeing lights on in your house.”

She glanced up at the deck. “I guess it’s been a while.”

“Quite a few years.” He gazed at her profile. She was quite astonishingly gorgeous. He couldn’t remember ever meeting a woman so beautiful.

“Did you know your family sent flowers?” she asked. “When my grandfather died.”

“I did.” It had been Caleb who’d arranged it.

“Sent my dad off the deep end, I tell you.”

Caleb felt a twinge of regret. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

She turned to look at him again. “So it was you?”

“Was that a test?”

“I was curious. It didn’t make sense that your dad would have sent them.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Caleb’s father had once been arrested because of an altercation with Jules’s father, Roland. Caleb had never heard all the details, but his father had often railed about the overreaction of the authorities, and how it was Felix Parker’s fault they were called in the first place.

“He might have sent a brass band,” Jules mused.

“I don’t know what to say to that.” Caleb wondered if she was looking for an apology.

“It was a joke.”

“Okay. It seemed a little...”

“Inappropriate? To acknowledge your father might have wished my grandfather dead?” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “We can pretend if you want.”

“I meant to joke about your grandfather’s death at all.”

“He was ninety. He wouldn’t mind. In fact, I think he’d like it. You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” She tipped her head to one side.

Heck, yes, he was still mad at her. But he was also massively attracted to her. Gazing at her in the dim glow of the trail light, anger was a pretty difficult emotion to dredge up.

“We can pretend I’m not,” he said.

She smiled, and his chest contracted. “You do have a sense of humor.”

He didn’t smile back. He hadn’t been joking. He was perfectly prepared to pretend he wasn’t angry with her.

She stepped unexpectedly closer. “I used to have such a crush on you.”

He stopped breathing.

“I have no idea why,” she continued. “I barely knew you. Only from afar. But you were older, and it was summer, and I was nearly sixteen. And I’m sure it didn’t hurt that our families were feuding. Nothing like the Montagues and the Capulets, or the Jets and the Sharks, to get a young girl’s heart going. It’s kind of funny now that you—” She blinked at him. “Caleb?”

He couldn’t kiss her. He couldn’t. He could not...

“Caleb?”

There was no way she was doing this by accident. She had to guess what it would do to him, to any mortal man. She truly was an evil genius.

“You know exactly what you’re doing, don’t you?” he managed to force out, annoyance in his tone.

She searched his expression. “What am I doing?”

The woman deserved an acting award.

“Putting me off balance,” he said. “Dancing around on your balcony, tight shorts, tight shirt—”

“What? Dancing where?”

“You’re twenty-four years old.”

“I know that.”

“You’re standing out here in the woods, alone, telling a grown man that you once had a crush on him.”

Her expression fell, and she took a step back. “I thought it was a sweet story.”

His voice came out strangled. “Sweet?”

“Okay, and a little embarrassing. I wanted to open up. I was trying to get you to like me.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment. He couldn’t let himself believe that. He couldn’t let her get under his skin. He didn’t know what to do with this, what to do with her, how to put her in any kind of context. “I’m not going to like you.”

“But—”

“You should go.”

“Go?” She actually sounded hurt.

“I think we’re on two completely different wavelengths.”

She didn’t answer. The woods around him fell silent.

He opened his eyes to find her gone. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then the relief turned into regret as he second-guessed himself. He could usually read the signs with women—tell the difference between flirting and an innocent conversation. With Jules, he couldn’t.

* * *

“You told him you’d had a crush on him?” Melissa asked from the bottom of the stepladder the next day.

Jules removed the next in a cluster of ’50s movie star portraits that hung on a wall of the restaurant. “I was trying to... I don’t know.” She’d had more than a few hours to regret her words.

“Did you not think it would sound flirty?”

Jules handed the portrait of Grace Kelly down to Melissa and reached for Elizabeth Taylor. “I didn’t mean for it to be flirty.”

“It was flirty.”

“I realize that now.”

“What were you thinking then?”

“That it would be charming. I was being open and honest, sharing a slightly embarrassing story. I thought it might make me seem human.”

“He knows you’re human.”

“In the end it was just humiliating.” Jules handed down the Elizabeth Taylor.

“So, you learned something.” Melissa crossed the room to set the portraits in a cardboard box on the bar.

“I learned that he has zero interest in flirting with me.”

“I was thinking maybe a broader point about relationships, time and place, and appropriate comments.”

Jules climbed down and moved the ladder, settling it into place where she could read the next three portraits. “Oh, that. No.”

Melissa grinned. “Tell me more about the crush. I wish you’d told me about it back then.”

“You were too young.”

“It still would have been exciting.”

It had certainly been exciting for Jules. “I was fifteen. He was tall, and he shaved, and he lived in a mansion on the hill. And I was fresh out of grade nine English class. Between the Brontë sisters and Shakespeare, I spun a pretty interesting fantasy.”

“I don’t even remember him from back then.”

“That’s because you were only twelve.”

“What I remember most is Grandma’s hot chocolate. It was so nice, coming here, spending time with her, especially after Mom died.”

“I miss them both.”

Melissa gave Jules’s arm a squeeze. “Me, too. But I don’t miss the squirrels waking us up in the morning.”

Jules handed Audrey Hepburn to Melissa. “I hated those squirrels.”

“You really should have thought of that before we moved back here. They’re going to wake us up every morning.”

“Do you think we could livetrap them, relocate them like they do with bears?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Jules thought about it for a moment as she handed down Jayne Mansfield. “I wonder what we’d need for bait.”

“Going fishing?” The sound of Caleb’s voice startled her, and she swayed, grabbing the top of the ladder to steady herself.

“Whoa.” Caleb surged toward her.

“Steady girl,” Melissa said.

“I’m fine.” Jules regained her balance.

She focused on his forehead instead of meeting his eyes. She’d pretend nothing awkward had happened last night. Hopefully, he’d play along and they could both ignore it.

“Should you be up on that ladder?” he asked.

“I was fine until you scared me.” Jules turned back to her work and reached for Doris Day.

“You were talking about fishing?”

“We were?” Jules couldn’t figure out why he thought that.

“You said we needed bait,” Melissa put in.

“Matt can take you fishing,” Caleb said. He was hovering beside Melissa, looking like he wanted to take over the operation. “Do you need a hand with that?”

“Why are you suddenly being nice?” Jules asked as she handed over the next portrait.

She’d prefer it if they were cordial to each other. But after their argument yesterday and their encounter last night, she’d expected him to avoid her, not to drop by and pretend they were friends.

“I’m not being nice,” he said.

“Who’s Matt?” Melissa asked as she crossed the room with Doris in her hands.

“He owns the marina.” Caleb took over from Melissa and braced both sides of the ladder.

“All those yachts?” Melissa asked.

“He has a charter service.”

“Out of our price range,” Jules put in. She could only imagine the exorbitant cost of renting one of the lavish-looking yachts.

“He won’t charge you.”

Jules took a step lower on the ladder, expecting Caleb to move back and give her room. “We’re not going fishing.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Melissa said.

“I can set it up.” Caleb didn’t move.

Jules turned before she took another step down. Deciding she’d prefer to face him while edging into his space.

“We’re far too busy to fish,” she said, meeting him at eye level.

“Exactly how long would we need for a trip like that?” Melissa asked.

“How are you not suspicious of this?” Jules spoke to Melissa but kept her gaze locked on Caleb. “An enemy bearing gifts?”

“I’m not your enemy.” Caleb’s deep voice seemed to rumble through her. There was a challenge in his gray eyes. One more step down, and she’d practically be in his arms.

She wasn’t going to be the one to back down. She took the final step. “So why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?” She told herself to ignore the sizzle of arousal that skipped across her skin. He was a great-looking guy, and she had some emotional baggage where it came to him. But she could handle it. She could easily handle it.

He drew a deep breath, his broad chest expanding. A few more inches and they would be touching. She wondered how he’d handle that. She should make it happen and find out.

“The contractor’s here,” Melissa said, as a vehicle engine sounded outside in the parking lot.

“You need me?” Jules made to move, thinking she’d probably just been saved from...something with Caleb.

“Nope. I’ll just show him around,” Melissa said and headed for the door.

“We don’t need to be competitors.” Caleb firmed his stance as he spoke to Jules.

“We’re not competitors.” She wondered how long he intended to keep her trapped. She eased slightly forward to test his boundaries. “I have a noncompete agreement, so you can’t build Neo.”

Caleb leaned in himself, as if he could read her thoughts. “Neo’s not your competition.”

“I know it’s not. Because it doesn’t exist.”

“I mean, if it did exist. We’d cater to a different clientele.”

“The Crab Shack caters to seafood eaters. What does Neo do?”

“Neo’s high-end. The Crab Shack is casual.”

“What makes you say that?”

He seemed surprised by her words. He glanced around the building, taking in the aging brick, the torn linoleum and the rustic wood beams. “It’s humble, basic, kitschy. Don’t get me wrong—”

“How could I take that wrong?” She crossed her arms, and her elbows touched his chest. She tipped her head, recapturing his gaze and letting her annoyance tighten her expression.

“If you were to go high-end,” he said.

She waited. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t backed off yet.