The Last Train to Key West - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,37
licking at the toes of his sensible—boring—black leather shoes.
“I thought we were supposed to be visiting the camps, not playing around,” he grumbles.
“I was more than ready earlier. You were the one who was still sleeping. Are you going to join me?” I tease, splashing the water around me.
He shifts, fixing me with an expression I suppose is meant to be stern. “I thought we’d formed a truce of sorts last night. No flirting.”
“Oh, honey, flirting is like breathing. You shouldn’t take it personally.”
A speculative gleam enters his gaze. “You’re not what I expected.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Hell if I know. I thought you society girls were demure.”
“They threw me out, remember?”
“I can’t hazard a guess why.”
I sigh. “Fine, let me put you out of your misery. I can practically feel your embarrassment from here.” I walk toward the shore, waiting for him to do the gentlemanly thing and turn around.
He doesn’t.
Instead, his gaze rakes me over from head to toe, the damp fabric of the chemise clinging to my legs, a few wet spots where the sea splashed against my torso. Now that I’m no longer in the ocean, my decision to go swimming seems foolish, a hint of salt sticking to my clothes.
I stop, and Sam bends down, picking up my dress and handing it to me wordlessly.
There’s a moment when our skin brushes as he gives me the dress, his hand twitching, and I regain control of the situation, but it’s swept away by the curve of his lips, the sardonic smile affixed on his face.
“You’re going to be wet and miserable all day.”
“In this heat? I’ll be dry in ten minutes.”
I slip the dress over my head, the rough cotton dragging over my skin causing goose bumps to rise. When my dress is righted, the buttons down the front redone, I meet his gaze once more.
“Are you ready?”
Sam leans forward. His lips graze my ear. “You missed a button.”
I glance down, and sure enough, midway down my cleavage a button hole gapes open. I refasten it, and by the time I’ve finished and glance up, Sam’s back is already to me as he moves away, leaving me little choice but to follow him.
We walk up to the inn’s parking lot, to his car, and Sam opens the door for me as I slide into the passenger seat.
Once he’s seated beside me, the key poised in the ignition, I can’t help myself—
“I’m to be married,” I blurt out.
I’ve no idea why I say it, only that it seems like it needs to be said.
Sam doesn’t respond.
“Let me guess, you pity the man who would be saddled with me?”
He turns the key in the ignition, the engine humming to life. “I didn’t say that. And I don’t think it.”
“Then what do you think?”
“That he’s lucky bastard,” he says, shocking me. His lips quirk. “And I hope he’s ready for a bit of trouble. More than a bit,” he amends.
“You think I’m trouble?”
“You know it. And unless I miss my guess, you like it.”
Maybe I do.
“You must love him a great deal to agree to be tied down,” Sam muses. “I wouldn’t have thought you wanted that. You seem like you’re searching for freedom more than anything.”
Now it’s my turn to be silent, his words hitting uncomfortably close to the truth. And at the same time, there is a loneliness to being wholly on your own that I didn’t anticipate. Perhaps I wish to find the person with whom I can be free.
Eleven
Helen
I wake the next morning before the sun is up, fixing Tom his breakfast before he goes out fishing. It hardly seems like a day to be on the water, a storm threatening, but after last night’s argument, I know better than to further provoke him—the bruises on my wrist are reminders enough of the consequence of his temper.
After Tom is gone, I set the cottage to rights, scrubbing the spilled bourbon from the floor with salt water, straightening pieces of furniture knocked askew. I’m more tired than usual by the time I walk the two miles to Ruby’s Café, a persistent drizzle and a gray sky my companions along the way.
Despite the weather and the early hour, business is steady throughout the morning. Every so often, the door opens and a man lumbers in, and I tense.
Did Tom decide to check on me after all?
“Thought the weather might put them off,” Ruby comments as I set down my tray with a wince. “They keep coming, though. It’s