Her Best Bet Read online

SHE WATCHED HIM FOR A few minutes, his broad chest gently rising and falling as he drifted to sleep. He’d been something to see reeling in that fish, his hair messy, his jaw dark with a day’s growth, his sweatshirt sleeves pulled up above muscled forearms, and his strong hands gently setting the fish free. But there was more to him than just his rugged exterior. Underneath, there was vulnerability and tenderness…And, oh, God, she could almost feel it, there was pain.

  She listened to his steady breathing for a few minutes, then yawned and settled into her cushioned corner with her book, shifting from one side to the other in an effort to find a comfortable position. The boat swayed with each move.

  “Having some trouble?” Gib murmured.

  “I’m sure I’ll get this right in a few seconds.”

  “Lay your cushions here.” He rested a hand on the floor next to him. “If we do this right, we can double up the padding.”

  She hesitated—but only for a second. Carefully moving so she didn’t rock the boat too much, she rearranged her cushions and settled in next to Gib. Suddenly ill at ease, every inch of her acutely aware of the man next to her, she opened her book just as he reached around her shoulders and drew her close. Her pulse started to hammer and she forced herself to relax. It was everything she could do to keep from curling into him, putting her head on his chest and going to sleep in his arms to the beat of his heart.

  “Isn’t this better?” he asked drowsily.

  She nodded against his shoulder and tried to read. Within minutes, she was struggling to keep her eyes open; the gentle sway of the boat, the water lapping against the side, the sun raising the temperature even though they were in the shade, all conspired to remind her she hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Finally she gave in to temptation, snuggled closer to Gib and shut her eyes.

  “RISE AND SHINE, BEAUTIFUL. Time to head to shore.”

  She woke to the sound of Gib’s voice and struggled to figure out exactly where she was. He’d just called her beautiful. She could feel the sun hot against her face, could smell the soft scent of cocoa butter. Oh, yeah, she thought lazily, we went fishing. She was in the boat. On the lake.

  In Gib’s arms.

  Her eyes flew open. Mortified, she tried to subtly shift away from him, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “You caught another fish,” he said.

  She glanced around for her pole. “I did?”

  “Uh-huh. Slept right through it. I reeled it in, let it loose, brought both poles into the boat, had some juice and another doughnut. And you didn’t even break your snore.”

  “I was snoring?” Her cheeks began to burn.

  “Only a bit.”

  This was like a bad dream. No doubt she’d been drooling, too. She pulled back in horror. “Really?”

  “I’m kidding.” His eyes sparkled and he grinned and she thought she would melt from the way he looked right now. Beautiful Boy. Shelly was right about that. The sun shimmered in his dark hair and touched his cheeks with gold. She looked at his mouth and swallowed hard, knew she was staring at his lips. And she thought to herself that some women would lean forward this short distance and kiss him. Some women, but not—

  And then his mouth was on hers and she wasn’t sure which of them had made the move. She closed her eyes and all thoughts fled at the softness of his lips, the taste of orange juice and powdered sugar on his tongue. She trembled at the connection, felt the heat of it race through her, making her dizzy and greedy, and she leaned into him, wanting more. When finally he broke the kiss, she just floated, breathing him in, dazed. She opened her eyes to find him watching her, his lips curving upward. “Welcome to White Bear Lodge.” He tugged his arm from behind her back and pushed himself up onto the bench seat, and she had to hold herself back from begging him to kiss her again.

  He started the engine and hauled in the anchor.

  Scrambling up onto the front seat, she tried to think of something clever to say. “Does everyone get this special treatment?”

  “It’s reserved for our favored guests. Unfortunately, any follow-up favored guest activities will have to be scheduled for later because I have to go to work.”

  Izzy glanced at her watch in disbelief. “I slept three hours?”

  “Easy to do out here.” He put the engine into forward gear and headed the boat for home.

  Ten minutes later, they were back at the dock. Though it was still morning, the beach was already busy with children swimming and adults stretched out in lounge chairs, reading. Izzy helped Gib hang the boat cushions inside the boathouse, then thanked him for taking her.

  “Come along anytime.” Cooler in one hand, he stepped toward her. “I’d love to have you.” Then he bent and kissed her again and her stomach trembled as her face grew hot.

  “O-okay. I’ll think about it.” She held in a giddy laugh as she backed out the door and hurried toward the path to her cottage.

  “HEARD YOU WENT FISHING this morning,” Matt said with a smirk.

  Gib unpacked Hawaiian leis, grass skirts and tiki torches from a box he’d pulled from the storage room and laid them out on one of the tables in the dining hall. “So?” He tried to ignore the memory of how Izzy had curled into him and fallen asleep, how warm and soft she’d felt in his arms.

  “Making friends.” Matt grinned and hung a lei around his neck. “Tonight I think I’ll make friends with Shelly.”

  “She’s probably got ten years on you,” Gib said.

  “Hey, I’m just doing my part to make sure the resort is shown at its best in the movie.”

  His grandmother entered the dining hall carrying a laundry basket. “Do you think this Hawaiian luau will help?”

  “It’s not a luau, it’s a beach party,” Gib said.

  “At least it’ll help put the grease fire out of everyone’s minds.” Matt tied a bright green grass skirt around his waist and began to hula around the room.

  “Yeah, and if the beach party doesn’t, watching you sure will,” Gib said.

  His grandmother dropped the basket on the floor and lowered herself into one of the old wooden dining chairs. “But don’t luaus have special food like poi and pork—”

  “That’s why we’re not having a luau. We’re having a beach party. Wear your floral print shirt and flip-flops…”

  “Couldn’t we make burgers on the grill again like last night? I don’t think anyone cared that the kitchen was out of commission.” She looked tired as she began to fold the clean towels.

  “As long as we can’t use the kitchen yet, we might as well make the meal memorable. Most of the guests never got the hot breakfast they ordered yesterday. And with the kitchen still down, they didn’t get one this morning, either.” He pictured Izzy eating her doughnut on the boat, licking chocolate frosting off her upper lip, her cheeks flushing pink when he kissed her….

  He pressed his hands flat against the table and leaned his weight forward as he took a slow breath. He should never have kissed her. She was a guest at the resort. She was staying only a week or two. And she was filming a movie that could, in some respects, help make or break White Bear Lodge. Getting involved with Izzy could screw everything up. He forced his thoughts to the issue at hand. “We need to overcome the black marks we got with our guests yesterday. That’s why it has to be shish kebab tonight.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Grandma, I know the fire and cleanup did you in. You’ve been working too hard. So if you run a couple of errands into town for us, Matt and I will take care of everything else.”

  She sighed. “You’re sure this will help?”

  “If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on it.”

  “How much?” his grandfather asked with a grin as he appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I’ll take that wager.”

  Gib rolled his eyes. “That is exactly why we’re doing this. So you never have to take up that damn side business again.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I THINK YOU HAVE A SERIOUS admirer.” Shelly p
icked up a tube of aloe vera lotion from the drugstore shelf. “‘Soothing for sunburns,’” she read aloud.

  “What?”

  “‘Soothing for sunburns.’”

  “Not that. The serious thing.”

  “Don’t be coy,” Shelly said. “Beautiful Boy. Gib Murphy. From the first minute he brought up fishing, it was obvious he wanted to take you along.”

  Izzy’s heart began to beat a staccato rhythm. She bent to peruse the ingredients in a bottle of green herbal sunburn spray. “Your imagination is running wild again.”

  “He kissed you. And then he walked you back to the cottage after fishing, for God’s sake.”

  “I walked myself home.”

  “Okay, but he kissed you.”

  “Twice.” Izzy felt a rush as she remembered. “But it’s nothing serious—just a cruise ship romance sort of thing.”

  “Ack, you have a dreamy look on your face, like a cartoon character in love. I’m not complaining, mind you. He’s a heck of an improvement over Andrew.”

  “What do you have against Andrew?”

  “Nothing, as long as you’re okay with spending the rest of your life as a Stepford wife.”

  “He’s not that bad,” Izzy said, though she had to admit sometimes he was. She took the lotion from Shelly and lifted the bottle of sunburn spray off the shelf. “Come on, lobster girl, let’s go. I can’t believe you let yourself get so burned.”

  “I didn’t let myself do anything. If you had woken me up when you got back from all those hours of fishing, I wouldn’t have lain out in the sun so long.”

  “I was back by ten-thirty—”

  “But I didn’t wake up for another hour.”

  “How could I know you took to the chaise at eight?”

  Outside the store, Shelly began to rub the cooling lotion into her red arms. “Not only did you not wake me up,” she continued, “but you’re out fishing for four hours, bring home none, report two kisses, and that’s it? No other stories to tell? Highly suspicious.”

  “I told you—nothing happened. That was the problem. It’s definitely a sport for patient types. We got a couple of nibbles and then nothing the rest of the morning.”

  “Nibbles in the boat and kisses in the boathouse. He sounds smitten.”

  Izzy held up a stop-sign hand. “You’re crazy. It happened because of the mood, the moment—he’s not interested in me.” A warmth spread through her chest and into her belly. The morning had been wonderful, not a care in the world except whether the fish were biting—and hoping they weren’t. It had felt so comfortable talking to Gib, so natural to sleep with his arms around her—

  “Hey, isn’t that Grandma Murphy?”

  Izzy turned to see the diminutive gray-haired woman give a small white envelope to a man in the parking lot across the street. He tucked the envelope in the breast pocket of his suit coat and grasped her hand before getting into a silver Lexus and driving away.

  “Oh, ho, what’s going on over there? Payoffs?”

  Izzy groaned. “It might help to remember that your secret meeting in the woods last night was a night crawler dig.”

  “Catherine,” Shelly called. She headed into the street with Izzy tagging behind, muttering, “You are certifiably insane.”

  Catherine spotted them and smiled. “Hello, girls. Are you coming to the beach party tonight?”

  “What beach party?” Shelly squeezed some aloe vera lotion into the palm of her hand and rubbed it into her burned forehead.

  Catherine clucked her tongue. “Gib said he would stop by your cottage to let you know.”

  Shelly laid a fabulous white-toothed smile on Izzy. “He did?” she asked in a pleased voice. “That’s sure nice of him. But here we are in town, getting sunburn lotion.”

  “We’ve been gone awhile.” Izzy glared at her friend. “Shelly burnt herself but good this morning.”

  “Might want to rub yourself down with some vinegar. Takes the pain away and turns it to tan.”

  “White vinegar or cider?” Shelly asked.

  “Either will do, I guess,” Catherine said. “Stop up at the lodge when you get back. I’ve got a big jug in the pantry.” She began to search through her purse. “I need to pick up a few things…The boys are decorating the beach. We’ll be having shish kebabs and strawberry daiquiris—Matt made a list of things to pick up for that. I was just going into the grocery.”

  “Do we dress in theme?” Izzy asked.

  “Anything beachy is what the boys are talking about. Starts at five-thirty. Now, if I can only find that list…I suppose I could call home…” Suddenly she stuck a hand in the pocket of her yellow slacks and triumphantly pulled out a torn piece of envelope. “Thank goodness, there it is!” She headed through the automatic door into the grocery store.

  “See you tonight,” Shelly called after her.

  As soon as the door swung shut, Shelly hooked her arm through Izzy’s and began to tug her down the street. “Did you see the back of her shopping list?”

  “No.”

  “It read, Saints 24. What do you suppose that means?”

  “She’s in a Bible study?”

  Shelly wrinkled her nose.

  “Did you sunburn your brain today, too? Don’t even waste one second telling me you think something’s going on here. It was a piece of an envelope that someone scratched a note on. That’s it.” Izzy opened the car door and got inside while Shelly jumped into the passenger seat.

  They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally Shelly dropped her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Nothing illegal is going on here.” She leaned back in her seat and grinned mischievously. “But, what if—”

  “Stop! You’ve succeeded! If you say one more word about illegal activity or Mafia the rest of the time we’re here, I will drive straight to the airport and leave you behind to walk.”

  BY DINNERTIME, GIB WAS THINKING there had to be an easier way to make the resort successful. No wonder his grandparents were looking so tired. He and Matt had worked feverishly to get everything ready on time. He’d cut up big bowls of peppers, onion, tomatoes and marinated steak, while Matt had gone all out on the fruit salad, cutting several scooped-out watermelons into basket shapes complete with handles, then filling them with melon, cantaloupe, grapes, strawberries and blueberries.

  Now, with the torches up and lit, the party was underway. The sun was low on the horizon, casting its golden glow on the beach, Jimmy Buffett was singing about paradise from the portable CD player on a nearby picnic table, and a balmy, light wind rustled the leaves. If you squinted, you could almost believe you were at an island paradise, Gib thought as he handed out grass skirts to the arriving guests.

  “What the hell, Matt?” He nodded at the melon baskets. “You’ve really gotten in touch with your feminine side.”

  “It takes a real man to know when to be a woman.” Matt surveyed the party, now nearly thirty strong. “This is everyone, isn’t it?”

  “Except our resident moviemakers.”

  “They’re here. Over by the grill.”

  Gib spotted Izzy and couldn’t drag his eyes off her. Izzy, in a floral-print sundress, her hair straight and shiny, her nose and cheeks pale pink from their morning on the water. The phrase California girl came to mind even though she was from—where was she from? “Ladies, welcome to Daiquiri Beach. Where the sun is hot, the drinks are cold and your every whim is our command.”

  “Every?” Shelly asked.

  “Within reason,” he answered smoothly. “Would you like to start with a strawberry daiquiri?” He picked up a clear pitcher filled with the icy red beverage.

  “And how about a lei?” Matt held up the colorful floral necklaces. “I’m in charge of leis tonight.”

  “Matt,” he warned.

  His brother grinned. “They don’t mind.”

  “They just humor you.” Gib handed each woman an acrylic glass, then took a swallow of his own. “Aah, the sweet taste of a tropical getaway.
Enjoy.”

  The party kicked into full gear with much eating, drinking, laughing and dancing. By the time the sun had gone down in a blaze of orange and pink, most of the guests had returned to their cabins and the number of people present had dwindled to exactly four—Gib, Matt, Izzy and Shelly—sitting at a picnic table at the water’s edge, enjoying the night and drinking daiquiris. The heat of the day lingered in the air and the sand. The Beach Boys played on the CD player. And Shelly, wearing one of the grass skirts over her plaid bermuda shorts, got up and began to dance her way down the dock. “This is what summer is supposed to be like,” she said lazily. “Hot nights, hot…” She beamed sloppily at Gib. “Hot friends. Don’t you think, Busy Izzy?”

  Izzy turned to Gib. “She’s getting a little happy.”

  “But fun happy,” Matt said.

  “Hot nights. Hot friends. Cold lake,” Shelly yelled. She ripped off the grass skirt, then leaped off the end of the pier, squealing as she hit the cool water. Moments later she burst to the surface and splashed her way to shore, climbing onto the dock again. “Come on in, you guys. The water’s fine! Feels wonderful on a sunburn.” She jumped into the lake again and peppered them with droplets.

  “Somehow, I don’t see a lot of filming taking place tomorrow,” Izzy said.

  Gib got the impression it didn’t bother her all that much.

  Shaking the spray off his arms, Matt set down his glass.

  “Oh, no. I should have known.” Gib groaned.

  Matt pulled off his Hawaiian shirt, kicked off his sandals and darted down the dock. “Hey! Top this!”

  “Run!” Gib pushed himself to standing, grabbed Izzy’s hand and raced in the opposite direction.

  Matt leaped into the air and hit the water like a cannonball, sending spray flying in every direction.

  Wayward sprinkles hit Gib’s back as he and Izzy beat their retreat. “Did he get you?” he asked.

  “Not too much.”

  Still holding hands, they watched the two cavorting in the water like kids. Gib felt a quick wave of pure happiness, something he hadn’t experienced in months. Maybe even years.