MATT LACROUX
NEEDED a shower, a vacation, and to figure out what the hell he was doing with
his life—in that order. And sex. Sex would be good. It had been a long time
since he’d had a warm, willing woman in his bed instead of a research project
to work on, papers to grade, or notes to coordinate on the book he was writing.
In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he might move sex up to the top of
his list—if he didn’t have someone else’s blood on his hands.
He
tugged off his torn shirt, tossed it in the hamper, and turned on the shower.
He’d been back on Cape Cod for less than three hours and had already broken up
a fight between drunken college kids over by the Bookstore Restaurant, where
he’d eaten dinner and thought he
would write for a while. Maybe he should have done what so many other
professors did when they took a sabbatical and gone to a nice resort somewhere,
or holed up in a mountain cabin. He could have stayed at his cottage on
Nantucket, but he missed his family, and his father wasn’t getting any younger.
Plus, his siblings’ joint wedding was only two months away. It was taking place
on their mother’s birthday, to honor her memory. It was time to reconnect.
His
mind drifted to the other person he’d like to reconnect with, Mira Savage, his
father’s employee and the woman who had been occupying Matt’s thoughts since he
met her last summer at his younger brother Grayson’s engagement party. They’d
spent the entire day together with her adorable son, Hagen. He’d seen her half
a dozen times since, during brief visits home. They’d taken Hagen to the park
together and a few other places, although they’d never gone on an official
date. They’d exchanged occasional texts over the weeks in between, but that was
as far as it had gone. It being
Matt’s attraction to a woman who lived too many hours away to get involved
with. Mira wasn’t the type of woman whose life he could complicate with
intermittent encounters. She was a selfless woman who put her son and others
first. The type of woman who blushed when he got too close. The type of woman a
man took the time to get to know—almost a
year, that’s pretty damn long—to show her she could trust him, a woman who
should be taken care of and protected but not smothered. And she was the only
woman he’d like to undress slowly, loving every inch of her incredible body
until she was trembling with need and slick as a baby seal. Keeping himself in
check had been like dancing on hot coals, but he’d never stopped thinking about
the sexy single mother and her inquisitive son.
He
stripped off his slacks and stepped into the shower, turning the faucet to cold
now that he was hot and bothered over Mira. He closed his eyes and exhaled a
long breath. One thing at a time.
The
water shifted from his head to his back, and Matt looked up at the faucet,
which promptly fell, clipping his cheekbone.
“Ouch!
What the—” He grabbed his cheek and pulled away from the water spraying in all
directions from the broken spigot. Perfect.
Just perfect. He washed the fresh blood from his fingers and quickly rinsed
off.
He
stepped from the shower and dried off, eyeing the offending fixture. The damn
thing had a crack around the housing and rust on the inside. He’d rented his
friends’ cottage in the Seaside community for the summer. The place was in
great shape, but things like showerheads were easy to miss when renovating. It
was after nine o’clock, and Amy and Tony had a little girl. Matt wasn’t about
to bother them about a freaking bathroom fixture. He pulled on clean clothes
and called his father, who owned Lacroux Hardware Store.
“Hey,
Pop. Is the electronic code to your shop still Mom’s birthday?” His father had
been talking about retiring lately. The hardware store was meant to be the
family legacy, passed down to one of his five children, only none of them
wanted to take it over. But right this very moment, Matt had never been so glad
that his father was in the hardware business. The Cape wasn’t big on chain
stores. The closest Home Depot or Target was a good forty minutes away.
“Yes.
What’s wrong?”
“I
need a showerhead for Tony’s place.”
“Want
me to run one up to you?”
Neil
Lacroux would do anything for his children—even though they were all grown up.
Matt knew he’d been lonely since their mother passed away unexpectedly from an
aneurysm a few years ago, which was another reason he’d chosen to come back
home during his sabbatical. He made a mental note to stop by the store and
visit with him.
“I’ve
got it, Pop. Sorry to bother you.”
The
drive to Orleans took only a few minutes. Even though Matt had grown up on the
Cape, it always took him a day or two to adjust to being out of the city.
Slacks and button-downs were replaced with shorts and tank tops, people moved
at a more relaxed pace, and no matter how far from the beach he was, sand was
ever-present. Sand in the grass, sand on the floors, sand on the seat of his
car—and he hadn’t even been to the beach yet.
He
punched in the code to the security keypad, and the minute he was inside the
dark store, he heard it. Tap, tap, tap.
He froze, every neuron on high alert, and listened. Tap, tap, tap, tap, pause, tap,
tap, tap. It was coming from his father’s office. His arms instinctively
flexed, preparing for a fight. He moved swiftly and silently to the office door
and listened to the incessant tapping. Dad’s
calculator?
He
pushed the door open, and his body flooded with awareness at the sight of Mira
sitting at the desk, her fingers flying over the calculator. Maybe this was his
lucky night after all.
Her
hand flew to her chest. “Matt…?” His name came out all breathy. “You scared me.
I had no idea you were in town.”
Because I made a point of wanting to
surprise you, although not exactly like this.
“Sorry
about that, sunshine. I just got in a little while ago. I came to get a
showerhead.” He walked into the small office, taking in the ledger on the desk,
illuminated by his father’s ancient single-bulb lamp, and the family photos
thumbtacked to the wall. He noticed a new photograph front and center, a
picture of Hagen holding a fishing rod with a little sunfish dangling from the
line. He knew how much Mira and Hagen meant to his father, but seeing Hagen’s
photo among their family’s brought the full impact home. He shifted his gaze to
Mira, and as the shock of his arrival wore off, a beautiful smile spread across
her face. There it was, the brightness that had hooked him all those months ago.
The sweet look of innocence and rebellious I-can-take-on-the-world confidence
in her gorgeous eyes. She had no idea what she did to him.
“Sunshine,”
she whispered, and shook her head.
“You
can’t deny the way you light up everything around you.” He’d given her the
nickname last summer because she had such a positive outlook on life.
“You
should see me before I have coffee in the mornings.”
I’d like that more than you know.
“A
showerhead? Let me show you where they are.” She pushed to her feet, nearly bumping
into his chest in the close quarters. Her chestnut hair tumbled sexily over her
shoulders as she stood before him, one hand perched over his chest, the other
reaching up to touch his cheek. “What happened?”
Their
attraction had been immediate and intense last summer and had only grown
stronger with each subsequent visit—at least he knew it had for him. For months
he’d buried any hope of exploring their connection beneath classes and research
papers. Now, as she gazed into his eyes, all those heated memories came rushing
back.
“I
was assaulted by the old one.”
“Ouch.”
She grimaced, and the spray of freckles on the bridge of her nose rose with the
effort.
He
hadn’t been able to get that cute mannerism out of his head when he’d gone back
to Princeton, and damn, did he like seeing it again.
“You
might need a stitch.” Her fingers lingered on his skin, warm and soft.
He
covered her hand with his, pressing it to his cheek. “It’s nothing, really.”
She
nibbled nervously on the corner of her mouth. “I’ll just…” She pointed out of
the office, and her hand slid from beneath his. Her breasts brushed against his
arm as she walked away, stirring more of that same dark attraction.
There
was no shortage of women vying for Matt’s attention. From coeds to faculty, he
could have his pick back in Princeton, and the choices were just as plentiful
here at the Cape. But the only woman he saw when he closed his eyes at night
was heading down aisle seven of his father’s hardware store.
About the Author: 
