In Over Her Head: An Anchor Island Novel by Terri Osburn (reading eggs books .TXT) 📗

She stared him down as he set a soda in front of her. “You haven’t called me that since I was twelve, and you only ever did it when there was something you didn’t want me to rat you out on.”

“Who are you going to rat me out to?” he asked. “I’m a little beyond the getting grounded age.”

Watching him closely, Mia squinted in concentration. “You had a woman here.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You definitely had a woman here. Please tell me you didn’t finally give in to Roberta from the grocery store.”

Roberta Silverman had been hitting on Nick for more than a year. He’d been careful not to encourage her since learning that she’d been married three times already and was on a mission to land her next significant other. She was also about twenty years older than him by his best estimation. Not that Nick had anything against older women, per se, but two decades was a little out of his comfort zone.

“I have not given in to Roberta and we are here to talk about a birthday present. Can we please stick to the topic?”

“But this is so much juicier,” she pressed. “You sounded pissed when you answered, so I must have interrupted something good. Not that I want the gory details.” Mia held a hand up palm out. “I just want to know who she is.”

Nick drank what was left of his soda and rose from his chair. “Let it go.” He opened the pantry to toss in the empty bottle and found the recycle can full. “I need to empty this. You better have a gift idea when I get back.”

“You’re seriously no fun.”

Carrying the plastic bin through the house, he stepped out the front door and followed the porch to the end where he kept his cans. He’d just tipped the contents into the larger can when Mia stepped onto the porch. “Your phone is ringing. Why do you have it on vibrate only?”

As she handed him the cell, a black SUV pulled down the road. He glanced up to see Lauren through the side window. They locked eyes before she hit the gas and sped off. Nick stepped off the porch and watched her go, hoping to see which cottage was hers.

“So you are breaking your own rule,” Mia murmured.

“What?” Nick spun to see her watching him with a knowing grin and remembered the phone vibrating in his hand. The name on the screen told him Jackson was calling. “Go eat,” he snapped, answering the call.

Mia stuck out her tongue before prancing back inside.

“Hello?”

“Nick, buddy, you aren’t going to believe this. Chef Riley has us all going to some crazy adventure park tomorrow.”

Watching Lauren cut him a quick look before shuffling inside the fourth cottage down, he replied, “I wonder where she got that idea?”

In the month that Lauren had been on Anchor Island, no one had knocked on her door. Until tonight. It didn’t take a genius to guess who she’d find on the other side. She would answer, because he’d watched her come home and knew she was there, but she would not invite him inside.

Still, she fluffed her hair and checked her teeth in the mirror that hung near the door. She’d grabbed a salad on her way home and didn’t want to face Nick looking as if she’d been gnawing on a head of lettuce.

Doing her best to look as if butterflies weren’t creating a funnel cloud in her stomach, she opened the door with what she hoped was a blank expression. “Hello.”

“Hey,” he said, his hands tucked deep in the front pocket of his jeans. The ever-present scruff along his jaw was darker than usual, as if he’d decided to let it grow out. She hoped that wasn’t the case. “Can I come in?” he said.

Send him home, ordered her rational, sensible side.

“Sure.” Lauren stepped back to let him enter and the scents of salt water and woodsy pine mingled like an erotic cocktail that evoked both clean and not so clean images in her mind. “What can I do for you?”

Help you take that shirt off perhaps?

Lauren closed her eyes and told her libido to calm down. The man kissed you one time. Chill the hell out.

Nick seemed to be assessing her furnishings, which weren’t really hers at all. The place had come furnished, of course. The coral-pink couches, navy coffee table, and Kelly-green bureau were more colorful than she’d ever pick for herself, yet she’d gotten used to the splashes of color, which stood out against the all-white walls.

“You left in a hurry last night,” he said.

If in a hurry he meant in a dead run like the coward that she was, then yes she did.

“You had a call so I showed myself out.”

Brown eyes caught hers. “Are you really pretending that nothing happened before that call?”

“We kissed,” she said matter-of-factly. “Since you said you don’t date chefs, I thought I’d save us both from this conversation.”

Partially true. She’d really wanted to save herself from looking like a fool when he reminded her of his dating policies. Not that she wanted to date him. Lauren didn’t do relationships. But a woman needed to scratch an itch now and then and she’d bet anything that Nick would be an excellent scratcher.

“There are exceptions to every rule,” he mumbled, walking farther into the house. “Nice place. I haven’t seen the rentals since they were redone after the hurricane.”

Still dazed by the exceptions comment, Lauren said, “The hurricane?”

“Hurricane Deloris. Tore through in November and left a good bit of destruction in her wake. I lost some shingles but this cottage and the next two were ripped up pretty good.” He glanced into the room off the living room, which was her bedroom. “Looks like they updated during the renovations.”

Uncomfortable with the man so close to her bed, she pulled the bedroom door closed. “That explains why everything looks so new.”

Nick proceeded into the kitchen as