Her sister stared at her with an open mouth for several long beats. She looked down at her cup. “I think I’m going to need another drink.”
They were on their third round of drinks and explanations when the front door burst open. “Mom! We’re home,” Hadley called.
“Mom!” Ian bellowed. “Did you remember Grandma and Grandpa’s anniversary? Grandpa said in school today it’s a big one and he thinks you and Aunt Remi forgot.”
Remi and Kimber shared a glance.
“Well, shit.”
38
“If you open that oven one more time, I’m going to skewer and marinate you.” Jenise Heffernan, supreme ruler of the Tiki Tavern kitchen, slapped Brick’s hands away with a wooden spoon. She was 6’1”， blonde, somewhere between the ages of forty-five and sixty, and did not tolerate people—including the boss—invading her space.
“I just wanted to check—”
“You’re acting like you’ve got stage fright. This isn’t Tiki Tavern’s first private party, and this sure as hell isn’t my first catering gig. Now get your ass out of my kitchen and go panic over something else. The food will be perfect,” she promised.
He took her advice—and the parting slap on his ass with the wooden spoon—and headed for the stairs. An unseasonably warm March Saturday had worked in their favor barely a week after Remi and Kimber had come to him with big eyes and pouty lips.
Between his off-the-books investigation, getting Remi naked as often as physically possible, and actual work, he’d managed to pull together what he hoped would be an appropriate celebration of the Fords’ thirty-five years together.
He jogged up the steps and pushed through the door into a Caribbean wonderland. So themed out of necessity rather than sentiment. Their decor choices were either country-western or island, and the girls had gone with tropical. He’d negotiated the use of a tent from the Grand Hotel, setting it and a dozen patio heaters up on the Tiki Tavern’s rooftop bar.
Darius and Ken had gone all out on the decorations. The big fake palms they kept in storage until spring had been dragged out and dusted off. Strands of white Christmas lights hung from the tent rafters. The tables were decked with colorful linens and floral centerpieces. Every item downstairs that fit the festive theme had been hauled up to join the party.
The buffet table stretched out along one wall, ready for Jenise’s tropically inspired eats.
The margarita maker at the bar had been filled with Darius’s latest cocktail concoction, the pink and frothy 35-to-life.
Kimber waved from the DJ booth where she was making the last-minute changes to the slideshow she’d put together. Thirty-five years in one highlight reel. Darlene and Gil had been married almost as long as he’d been alive.
“Need anything?” he asked her, wiping his hands over the seat of his jeans.
She shook her head. “Nothing besides making sure my kids don’t get at those signature drinks,” she said with a harried smile.
“Got that covered. I made virgin strawberry daiquiris,” Brick told her.
She shook her head. “You’re a good man, Brick. Any woman who lands you permanently is going to be very lucky.”
Permanently. His palms were sweaty.
After Audrey, he’d sworn off permanent. He’d tried and failed. And learned there was no way to guarantee the person he chose would stay the same. Would want the same things forever. He knew what he wanted. To be here, on this island, with his community. But now there was a wild card in play. Remi.
The last two weeks had been the best of his life. Walking in the door and finding Remington Ford in his kitchen, covered in flecks of paint and very little else. Waking up each morning to her star-fished facedown on the bed, one hand clamped possessively around whatever body part of his she could get to. Witnessing her surrender her body to his again and again. He was living out a fever dream and never wanted to wake up.
He wanted more of exactly that. A lifetime of it.
But what kind of a lifetime did Remi want? She wasn’t one to plant roots. And he wasn’t one to comfortably tumble from place to place. He disliked cities, the anonymous crush of busy strangers. He loved horses, open expanses of water, and the people he served.
But he couldn’t ignore the gravitational pull of her. Just being in her orbit made his world bigger, brighter, more colorful. And he was fucking terrified.
He wandered over to the buffet table and inspected the plates, the utensils, checked the flames on the burners.
“Holy Lady Gaga.”
That familiar voice, the awe and excitement he heard in it, stuck him like one of Jenise’s famous jerk chicken skewers.
Remi didn’t look like Remi. She looked like Alessandra Ballard in a sequined dress that stopped several sexy inches above her knees. It shimmered like she did. Catching the light and the eye with its peachy gold sparkle and graceful long sleeves. Ken had done something goddess-like to her hair, pulling it back from her face in a high ponytail that rained down in thick red curls. Her eyes were smokier, lips bolder and redder.
His heart tripped in his chest, and for a second, he couldn’t believe she was his. And then he remembered. She wasn’t really. Not all the way. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to slide his hand up between her thighs and discover what she wore underneath that dress. Or wrapping that fiery tail around his fist. Or kissing her so hard, so rough that red lipstick smeared.
“Brick, I can’t believe you did this,” she breathed.
Maybe she didn’t look like his Remi, but she sounded like her. And it made him only want her more.
He crossed to her, drawn to her like a planet orbiting its sun. A masochist ready for his next punishment.
“You like it?” he asked gruffly. His fingers flexed at his sides, wanting to touch her, but he was afraid once he started, he wouldn’t stop.
She nodded, and when she looked up at him again, he saw tears in her eyes.
He drew in a sharp breath. The desire to touch her, to taste her, was overwhelming. He wanted to give her this. He wanted to give her everything. To prove to her he was worth staying for.
A hand fluttered to her chest.
“Where’s your inhaler,” he asked.
She flashed him an aggravated eye-roll. “In my clutch in my coat, hanging up right inside the door,” she promised. “I’m just overwhelmed by this.”
He shrugged, pretending like it hadn’t occupied nearly every waking hour for the last week. Pretending that he hadn’t done it to put that exact look on her beautiful face. “It was no problem.”
“Well, shit.” Remi snatched a bright yellow napkin off one of the tables and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “This took work. A lot of that. I can see it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice strained.
Need had taken over. He couldn’t stand not being able to touch her.
When she looked at him, he read it in her eyes.
“Can I see you for a second to talk about that thing?” She hooked her thumb toward the door and batted those big green eyes at him. When her teeth sank into that full, red lip, he barely managed not to pick her up and carry her out of there.
“Sure,” he said, absolute shit at pretending.