Sand Castle Bay (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,14
it, maybe I would have. Instead, you said we were over. You made it sound pretty final.” He studied her face. “Or was that the lie you had to tell yourself so you could leave town and not look back?”
She seemed to take the question to heart and actually mull it over. “Something like that,” she conceded eventually. “Okay, we both made mistakes. I wasn’t clear enough. You jumped to conclusions. I can admit to that much. Can you?”
He hesitated, then said, “I suppose.”
“Such a heartfelt concession,” she murmured dryly, then met his gaze. “But it doesn’t change anything, Boone. Not really. My life still isn’t here.”
“Believe me, I’m well aware of that. What Cora Jane hasn’t told me, B.J. has. He’s very impressed with you and Samantha. You’re the first real celebrities he’s ever met.”
Emily had the grace to chuckle at that, the tension easing slightly. “Samantha can lay claim to being a celebrity, but I just work for a few. Most of my clients aren’t that famous.”
“Just rich?” he queried.
“Is there something wrong with being rich? Your family wasn’t exactly poor. Your father was a high-powered lawyer, and your mother married a guy who made millions on widgets or something.”
He smiled at her dismissive assessment of his stepfather, who’d owned a multinational manufacturing company. “That has very little to do with me. I started from scratch and earned what I have.” He gave her a lingering look. “And I wasn’t making judgments. I just meant that having money calls for a certain kind of lifestyle, keeping up appearances, that sort of thing.”
“No question about that.” Her gaze narrowed. “Are you making a point?”
He gave her a thorough survey that put patches of bright color in her cheeks. “I just wonder what those clients of yours would make of it if they saw you in shorts and a tank top with a discount store tag hanging out the back?” He winked at her as he snapped off the tag, allowing his fingers to linger just a little too long against her bare skin before adding, “Me, I just think you look incredibly sexy.”
Her breath caught, and there was no mistaking the struggle she had to keep her gaze steady.
“Let’s not go there, okay?” she pleaded. “Obviously we have to find some way to get along with each other for the next couple of weeks for my grandmother’s sake, but then we’ll go our separate ways again. Acting crazy will only make that harder to do.”
Well, that was a clear enough warning, he thought. “No craziness,” Boone said. “Got it, though it might help if you defined this craziness you think we should avoid.”
“No fighting,” she said at once. Color climbed into her cheeks. “No touching or kissing. You know exactly what I mean, Boone. Don’t pretend you don’t. It doesn’t take much, even now, to stir us up, apparently.”
He grinned. “If you can keep a civil tongue in your head and your hands to yourself, so can I.”
“Okay, then,” Emily said.
He thought he detected a hint of disappointment in her eyes, but it was gone too quickly for him to be sure.
She turned to head back inside, but Boone caught her shoulder. Her skin heated beneath his touch, though he felt her shiver.
“Just one thing,” he said, holding her gaze. “Why were you crying when I came out here?”
The question clearly flustered her. “Just being silly,” she said, obviously not wanting to discuss it.
Boone knew better. He knew it ran deeper. The entire time they’d been together, he’d seen her struggling to find some kind of elusive acceptance from her father and even, to a degree, from Cora Jane. Her grandmother’s approval had never been withheld, in his opinion, but Emily hadn’t always been able to see that. And the distance between Sam Castle and his daughters had been impossible for any of them to bridge.
“You took offense when Cora Jane brushed off your offer,” he guessed based on past experience. “You thought it meant she didn’t need you here, didn’t you? You thought that’s why she didn’t jump all over your advice about the renovations.”
“Maybe,” she conceded, the tears gathering in her eyes proving his point.
He tucked a finger under her chin. “She needs you here, Em. She needs all of you here, not because of what you can do or how much help you’ll be. She needs you because she’s getting older and she misses you. Remember that, okay? She loved you all enough to let you