Beach House No 9 - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,122

to do with myself." He rubbed a thumb over her cheek. "Jane..."

She jerked her face away. "Yeah. I get it. You still know my name."

"About the memoir." Griffin shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I'll call Frank and make sure he's clear that missing the deadline is all my fault. It does not reflect on you. And, please, feel free to use me as a reference. As a matter of fact, I insist on it."

"Oh, as if you'll be so easy to reach at some remote location in Somewhere-istan." Her hair blew across her eyes again, but she shoved it away before he could touch her a second time. "Why don't you at least finish the half of the book that's due before you go?"

His eyebrows rose. "Last night - "

"As if I would let that be the only copy," she scoffed, shaking her head in disgust. "I typed it into a word processing file shortly after you got it from Frank and have added both our comments to it on a daily basis. There's a copy in the cloud, on my laptop, and on three separate memory sticks." She was a little anal about stuff like that.

He looked bemused. "Efficient Jane."

"So you see, you can finish it."

Now he was shaking his head. "I can't. I really can't."

Meaning he really couldn't face coming to terms with the experience. She saw the truth of that on his face, and she had to look away. "All right. But it doesn't mean you need to take off for another war-torn country."

There was a long silence.

"Gage will let me be me. The way I am now," Griffin finally said, so quiet that she could hardly hear him over the surf. "No questions, no expectations, no..." He shrugged.

No Jane and the love she felt for him.

Seagulls were wheeling and diving, their movements a large-scale imitation of what the butterflies were doing in her stomach. Maybe he didn't like facing what had happened between them, but she couldn't pretend things away like he could. She took a deep breath, determined to be straight with him. "If this is about what I didn't say last night..."

"Jane, I don't want you - "

A man's voice, coming from the direction of the sand, interrupted. "That works out well, then, because I do."

Her head whipped toward the newcomer, Griffin's following suit. Ian Stone, looking urbane and completely at ease, stood on the sand below the deck, wearing pressed khakis and a short-sleeve button-down shirt. "Hello, Jane," he said, with his made-for-TV-interviews smile.

She gaped at him. "How did you know where I was?"

"Your father told me." He smiled again. "I've come with an offer you shouldn't refuse - which, by the way, was his message to you."

And with that, the snarled mess that was her current situation took on yet another twist.

* * *

GRIFFIN WAITED AT No. 9 for Jane to return. She'd let The Author Ian Stone - for some reason, he'd started imagining the guy would introduce himself that way - take her down the beach to Captain Crow's for a drink and conversation. He checked his dive watch, then addressed his dog. "How long could it take to say, 'Hell, no'?"

Private didn't reply, and Griffin's patience wore thinner. He had things he wanted to say to the librarian - as well as subjects he wanted to avoid. On the To Say list: Thank you for being kind to my dog and my elderly neighbor. You did good with Tess and the minions. Not anybody else in the universe could have gotten me to touch a single page of that book. On the Subjects to Avoid list was just one item: Last Night.

Despite what he'd told Jane, he remembered everything about it. Well, there was a little missing between having drinks with Ted and falling on the sand with Jane. The impact had knocked him near sober, and the shower had made him even more clearheaded. What happened after...

The memory made him hard. He threw himself into the lounge chair and stared at the ocean, willing thoughts of it away. But they were like the surf, drawing back for a moment but then charging back in. And in. And in. Jesus. He threw his arm over his eyes as if that could prevent the image of a naked, delectable Jane as she'd been last night in his bed. High on her knees, her sweet hips in his hands as he took her with everything he had.

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