Sea Glass Island (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,112
Ethan’s nerves on edge. “I thought you were seeing Meg,” he said testily. “Didn’t the two of you hit it off?”
Tommy regarded him with bewilderment. “We’ve been out a couple of times. What does that have to do with anything?”
Greg shook his head. “Man, you are pitiful,” he told Ethan, then turned to Tommy. “Don’t mind him. He broke up with Samantha, but apparently doesn’t want another single male within a hundred yards of her.”
A grin broke across Tommy’s face. “You’re jealous? Of me and Samantha Castle?”
“I am not jealous,” Ethan said, grinding his teeth. He scowled at Greg. “He has no idea what he’s talking about.”
“Sounded to me as if he hit the nail on the head,” Tommy replied, clearly amused. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Samantha is way, way out of my league. Besides, I thought things between the two of you were all but settled. It’s against my code to poach on a friend’s woman.”
“She is not my woman,” Ethan reiterated, imagining Samantha’s reaction if she heard him trying to claim otherwise. He doubted she’d like the idea of being anyone’s possession, and at the moment, since he’d let her go rather than publicly jumping to her defense, she probably wanted no connection to him at all.
“We need to go,” he said abruptly. “See you, Tommy.”
Greg gave Tommy a sympathetic look. “Don’t mind him. He’s a little stressed.”
As they took off, Ethan frowned at him. “You might want to remember that,” he warned Greg.
“What?”
“That I’m stressed. Shouldn’t you be trying to settle me down, rather than adding to it?”
Greg clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “Nah. My mission is to help you to see the error of your ways. We’re not there yet.”
Ethan gave him a resigned look, then upped his pace. He might not be able to stop Greg from sharing his annoying insights, but it was entirely possible that he could outrun him.
Only thing he couldn’t get away from, though, was his own conscience. A good man, the one everyone around here believed to be a hero, should have been in Samantha’s corner from the start of this debacle.
* * *
Samantha had been spending a lot of time with her father and Sophia, finalizing the design for the playhouse. He’d taken on the assignment of getting the plans approved at City Hall.
“I have a secret weapon,” he told her, gesturing to Sophia. “She’s charmed every single person in the place. It’s astounding to watch her in action.”
“Lots of practice,” Sophia said modestly, but pleasure sparkled in her eyes.
They’d been getting together every afternoon at Castle’s, spending an hour or so going over everything from budgets to promotional plans. Gabi sat in on those sessions, eager to help with the launch when the time came.
They were just winding up today, when Cass Gray came in looking for Samantha. Judging from her sullen expression, she wasn’t happy.
“Are we finished here?” Samantha asked her father. “I need to spend some time with Cass.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “We’re all set. We’re coming over for dinner, so we’ll see you later.”
When they’d left, Samantha gestured to the seat they’d vacated. “Join me.”
Cass tossed her book bag into the booth, then slid in after it.
“No rehearsal today?” Samantha asked her.
“I skipped it,” Cass said.
Uh-oh, Samantha thought. That was definitely a bad sign. “Why would you do that?”
“Because Mrs. Gentry said some stuff. I came to see if it’s true.”
Samantha’s heart sank. “What stuff?”
“That you were probably leaving town.”
It wasn’t the response Samantha had been expecting. “Did she say why she believed that?”
“She said there was some scandal, and you’d never live it down.” She stared at Samantha miserably. “It’s because of that stupid picture in the paper, isn’t it?”
“There was a bit of a fuss over that,” Samantha admitted. “You do know it’s not true, right? I’ve never been a stripper.”
“Oh, who cares if you were!” Cass said impatiently. “You’ve done all this other cool stuff. That’s what counts. I’ll bet Dr. Cole told you the same thing. How can you leave him? He was starting to have a life, you know what I mean? I saw him yesterday, and he was acting like a grumpy bear. That’s because you’re leaving, I’ll bet.”
Samantha thought the dynamics of her relationship with Ethan should remain between the two of them. “Let’s leave Ethan out of this. The bottom line is that I’m not going anywhere.”