fact, I’ll hold him down for you if you’d like. But unless you want to go for a swim to retrieve him, you’re going to have to wait a few hours.”
She turned to face him. He was still dangerously quiet, and there was an anger in his eyes she’d not seen since he kicked that patron out of the Love Shack that first night. It gave her yet another heart lurch, even though she knew he wasn’t mad at
“You’re doing good. You’re doing real good.”
She let out the breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding and tipped her face up to his. “Yeah?”
His eyes warmed. “Yeah.”
She managed a little smile. “Would you really hold him down for me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
For some reason, that gave her a warm fuzzy, and her smile spread. “It’s not exactly… politically correct.”
The look he gave her said he didn’t give a shit about being politically correct, he only cared about what was right.
And God, even from here, he smelled delicious. How was it that he always smelled so good? But rather than grabbing his sweatshirt and pulling him in, she stepped around him to her desk. “I’ve got to finish getting all this straightened out. I don’t want to lose money because I don’t know what I’m doing. And Mr. Jenkins threatened to sue me for stupidity, which would really suck.”
“Tell him you’re going to countersue for emotional damages.”
She smiled at the thought. “Can someone really do that?”
“If you could prove you were negligently injured.”
“You sound like a lawyer.” She grinned. “Good thing you’re not, because then I’d probably not like you as much.”
“Come here,” he said softly and pulled her in for a hug. “Kiss me, Maddie. Show me you remember our place.”
She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him until she couldn’t remember her own name, then pressed her face to his throat, feeling an odd tug in her chest at how much this meant. At how much he meant.
“Maddie-”
“I love how open you are,” she said. “How honest. Do all the women you date appreciate that?”
“I’m not dating anyone else right now. Tell me that you know that we wouldn’t have had sex if I was seeing someone else.”
“Well, you’d think I’d know that, but I’ve made some bad choices,” she said. “I no longer trust my judgment. It’s easier for me to hear it straight from you, because I can believe what you say.”
That odd something crossed his face, coming and going so fast she couldn’t identify it. For a long moment, he watched his thumb glide along her jaw. “How about what I don’t say?”
“What?”
“I haven’t been in a relationship for five years,” he said. “Since before I moved back here. Opening up isn’t exactly second nature for me, Maddie.”
“Five years is a long time to go without sex.”
His eyes cut to hers. “I didn’t say I’d gone without sex.”
“Oh.”
“But before you, it’d been a while for that, too.”
“There’s plenty of women in town.”
“Yes, and most of them take their dating far more seriously than I do. Maddie, you need to know something about me.”
God. “You’re married. You’re a felon. You’re-”
“A lawyer. Before I moved back to Lucky Harbor, I was in Seattle. I was practicing law.”
Jax spent a few days building new bathroom vanities at his own home wood shop on the other side of town. Maddie hadn’t said much about his revelation, but then again, she’d made herself scarce.
There was nothing Jax could do about his past, it was written in ink. And he’d done the right thing by telling her. Especially since he’d held back other things-secrets that weren’t his to share.
He only hoped Maddie saw it the same way. He kept telling himself that she would, that what they were beginning to feel for each other would be stronger than extenuating circumstances.
As he made his way through his house to leave for the shrimp feed, he shook his head at all the decorations Jeanne had put up, complete with mistletoe hanging from his doorways. It was clear that she was optimistic for his shot at having a woman in the house. Probably he’d blown that.
He drove to the pier. In a few hours, just about everyone in town would arrive for the annual event. The money raised tonight would supplement the funds for the police and fire departments, which was important but definitely not the first thing on people’s minds as they paid to get in.
Nope, that would be the events. First up was the parade of shrimp boats, always led by the mayor on a decorated jet ski. Then the person who came closest to guessing the amount of shrimp brought in would get to kiss the mayor.
Man, woman, or child.
With Jax’s luck, it’d be Ford or Sawyer. Last year it’d been his mail carrier-much to everyone’s utter delight. Hopefully this year, plenty of the other two thousand people in town had bought tickets.
Afterward, they’d eat until their guts hurt and then dance to the Nitty Gritty, the local pop-rock band. People would probably still be dancing as the first pink tinges of dawn came up on the horizon.
Sawyer arrived right after Jax. He was in uniform, there on official crowd-control duty. And to make fun of Jax, of course. Ford showed up, too, setting up a booth for the Love Shack from which beer, wine, and eggnog would be floating aplenty.
Jax eyed the jet ski waiting for him. It was a loan from Lance and his brother-when they weren’t manning their ice cream shop, they were big jet skiers. In the summertime, like normal people.
Not many were crazy enough to go jet skiing in the dead of winter, but tradition was tradition.
Lance was grinning when he handed over the key. The kid was facing a virtual death sentence with his cystic fibrosis, but he knew how to enjoy life. He’d lavishly decorated the jet ski with Christmas lights. Sawyer had helped him, and both had promised that everything was battery operated and waterproof so Jax
Good to know his friends had his back.
Out on the water about two hundred yards, three shrimp boats waited, also lavishly-aka garishly-decorated, ready for him to escort them in parade-like fashion. “Good times,” Lance said and grinned.
Jax turned his face upward. Lots of clouds, but no snow or rain. That was good. But it was forty-eight degrees, so “good” was relative. He pulled on the thick, waterproof fisherman gear the shrimpers wore so at least he wouldn’t freeze off any vital parts.
The crowd woo-hoo’d as if he was stripping instead of putting on gear, and he rolled his eyes. Looking out into the faces, he locked gazes with Maddie.
She shook her head. Obviously, she wasn’t over the whole lawyer thing-not that he blamed her-and just as obviously, she thought he was crazy.
He’d have to agree there. He smiled at her. She didn’t return it. Ouch. He’d have to work on fixing that, but one problem at a time. Stepping into the water, he straddled the jet ski and took another look at the shore.
Ford and Sawyer were grinning. So was Chloe.
Bloodthirsty friends.
Maddie had her hand over her mouth, so he wasn’t exactly sure what her expression was now. He hoped it was sympathy, and he also hoped that he could get that to work in his favor in a little bit when he needed warming up.
As he’d imagined, the next ten minutes passed in a frozen blur as he rode the jet ski and lead the shrimp parade. Then he was back on shore, being warmly greeted and wrapped in blankets. Sandy shoved a mic into his hand and a piece of paper. The crowd hushed with expectant hope.
“Eight hundred and fifty-six shrimp,” Jax called out.
No one had guessed that exact amount, but one person had come close at 850. He accepted another piece of
