The Ivy House - By Drea Stein Page 0,52

but disappointed when he had finally gone.

“So it was amazing. Are you going to do it again?” Lynn was looking at her eagerly, her nose scrunched up, her face happy.

“I don’t know. It’s complicated.” How do you explain the fact that kissing Chase was a bit like reliving someone else’s history?

“What’s so complicated? You think he’s hot, he thinks you’re hot. Shouldn’t you just get together, you know, do the horizontal mambo?”

“Lynn.” Phoebe threw a pillow at her, felling the flush crawl up her skin.

Lynn caught it neatly. “Ahh, I get it. You’re not the type.”

“What type?”

“You know, the casual, hot-sex type. And he probably is. I mean he’s gorgeous, rich, has a boat. And not to mention all the women he’s been linked with. Arm candy, every one of them.”

“I know.” Phoebe had come to that very same conclusion herself, after flipping through several websites devoted to the East Coast’s social bigwigs. Chase Sanders had been a regular, a sailor with a girl in every port…or a different one for every occasion. He was a player plain and simple, and Phoebe, after being used for her personal connections all of her life, had no intention of becoming someone’s arm candy again. No matter how delicious he might be.

“Still,” Lynn continued, “there’s always room for a fling. You know, the once-in-a-lifetime fling before you find Mr. Right.”

“What makes you think there’s a Mr. Right?” Phoebe asked.

Lynn smiled, looking completely self-assured. “Because there is. Everyone has a Mr. Right. Maybe you’ve just been dating the wrong guys, but you, especially, Phoebe, will find Mr. Right.”

“You’re such a hopeless romantic,” Phoebe said, thinking that love was too complicated. Perhaps arrangements, with chemistry were a better way to go. Still, even casual flings took too much energy, energy that could be better put into her work and career.

“Love makes the world go around. Or at least hot sex keeps it rolling. You should totally go for it. You’re not dating anyone. What do you have to lose?”

Everything, Phoebe wanted to say. Lynn had her pegged. There was nothing casual about her and from the moment she had seen Chase, she’d been attracted to him, with just a look from him sending her body into somersaults. And since he had flown out of Ivy House so fast that he’d barely said goodbye, she didn’t even know if the kiss had meant anything to him at all.

“I don’t even know if he meant anything by it,” Phoebe said.

Lynn rolled her eyes. “Girl, you always know.” With that, she resumed the DVD player, and Savannah and Roger Dailey’s passionate embrace was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot.

Chapter 23

It was the Queensbay annual flea market and the bargain hunters, dealers, and junk sellers were out in full force. The sun was shining, with just a few of those super-white, cotton-candy clouds darting across a perfectly blue sky. A band was playing, there was the smell of coffee and grills going, families with kids dashed around, and groups of girlfriends prowled the tables.

Chase had bided his time after leaving Ivy House the other day. The force of what he felt for Phoebe, what he wanted to do to her, had him holding back, seeing if it was just some sort of madness, some sort of weird reaction to kissing the granddaughter of the woman who had been his first crush.

Perhaps there was some sort of residual lust build-up in the house, because all Chase had wanted to do was pull Phoebe to him and kiss her, run his hands over her long, lithe body, feel what he could do, how far out of control he could push her. Because that would be it. He had wanted to throw her down on that old steamer trunk, break through her air of studied casualness, and find what had to be a red-blooded woman below it.

But he sensed that while it might have solved a momentary itch, Phoebe was a more complicated woman. She didn’t trust him yet, and until he could prove that he wanted her, just her, she wouldn’t be ready for what he had in mind.

So, he had done his research. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she would be here. It was one of the town’s biggest events, held on the stretch of grass and parking lots near the town dock and marina.

Chase saw Phoebe first, catching a glimpse of the red-gold hair, standing tall in the crowds. A smile creased over his face before