The Sweetest Thing

“I know. Cute and talented,” Mia said.

Carlos came into the room from the back door. Mia turned a smile on him. The poor guy took one look at her mile-long legs in her short shorts, and walked smack into the island.

Chloe shot Tara a smirk.

Tara ignored her in favor of taking a good look at the teens, and didn’t like what she saw, because she was seeing a whole hell of a lot of heat. “Busy day,” she said to Carlos as he attempted to recover. “We need to hose down the front porch, water the flowers, and fix the flickering lights on the dock in case guests want to walk along there at night.”

“On it,” he said, and vanished back outside.

“I’ll help,” Mia said and followed him out.

Tara waited until the door shut behind them. “Those two are-”

“Having sex,” Chloe said helpfully.

“She said they weren’t.”

“Okay, but probably I should add some condoms to the baskets I just put out in the bathrooms.”

Tara choked, and Chloe patted her shoulder. “They’re seventeen, babe. That’s like ninety-nine percent hormones, as I’m sure you remember.”

Tara felt her gut clench. “I’m going to have to fire him.”

“Are you going to fire every boy that looks at her?”

“That or kill them,” Tara said, only half joking.

That night Ford ended up behind the bar at The Love Shack. Earlier he and Sawyer had gone out for a long sail, something that had never once in his life failed to soothe him. They’d had clear blue skies filtered only by a few scattered clouds. Winds had come out of the northwest with knots at twelve to fourteen, which actually was “holy shit” weather on a sailboat. Just the way he usually liked it. It’d taken every ounce of concentration just to stay on the water and not ten feet under. Sawyer had bitched about it the whole time.

The sail should have cleared Ford’s mind. It hadn’t. He just kept thinking. About his life, and what he was doing with it. About Mia. About Tara… And Christ, he was tired of thinking. Tired of his life being in flux.

And when had that happened? He’d thought he had things set up. He had money in the bank, and a job running the bar when he felt like working. He wanted for nothing.

Okay, that wasn’t quite true.

He wanted something new, something he’d never really wanted before-a relationship. In the past, any attempt at one had been rough to maintain while sailing eight months out of twelve. Hell, just seeing his own sisters and grandmother had been challenging, although now that he was no longer racing so much, his sisters managed to invade his life on a fairly regular basis.

Which meant that these days, a relationship could actually work.

Slightly terrifying.

Sawyer strolled into the bar after his shift. “Since you saved Logan’s ass, you’re now ahead in the polls by eighty percent.”

Lucky Harbor’s gossip train was the little engine that could. Nothing slowed it down-not real news, not decency, and certainly not the truth.

The door to the bar opened again, and in came Logan, not looking any happier than Ford. “Fucking perfect,” Ford muttered to Sawyer.

Logan headed straight for the bar. “You cheated,” he said to Ford. “I’ll take a beer and keep ’em coming.”

Ford served him. “What do you mean, I cheated?”

“A kid? You came up with a kid?”

Ford was surprised at this. “You didn’t know about Mia?”

“I knew that you’d had a baby. I didn’t know that baby had grown up and then shown up.”

Ford had been wondering how much Logan and Tara talked, if at all. Not much if it’d taken him this many days to learn about Mia. This fact made him feel marginally better.

“I can’t compete with that,” Logan said and took a long pull of his beer before turning to Sawyer. “How the hell do I compete with that?”

Sawyer shrugged. “You were married to her.”

Ford slid Sawyer a look, and Sawyer shrugged again. “He asked.”

“Yeah,” Logan said, finding solace in Sawyer’s words. “You’re right. We were married. She used to call me her superhero.” He looked at Ford to make sure he was listening. “I was her Superman, her Green Hornet, her Flash Gordon, all rolled into one.”

On Logan’s other side, a group of women with a pitcher of something pink and frothy were blatantly eavesdropping. One of them was Sandy, town clerk and city manager. Sandy was pretty in a no-nonsense way and never lacked for male companionship, though she’d been ignoring men in general since last year when she’d gotten two-timed by some asshole in Seattle. She was eyeing Logan like maybe she’d finally gotten over it.

“Looks like you’re in trouble, Ford,” Sandy said. “He’s got you with the superhero thing.”

“Do you even have to be in good shape to drive a race car?” someone asked.

It was Paige, from the post office. Ford could have kissed her.

“Hey, it takes more core body strength to control a car than a boat,” Logan said in his defense. “And I’m completely fit. Look.” He raised his shirt to show his abs.

The women all hooted and hollered. “Nice eight pack!” Amy said. She was a waitress at the diner, and tonight she was also Sandy’s fearless wingman. In her late twenties, she was tall and leggy and blonde, and in possession of a smile that said she was not only tough as hell, but up for dealing with whatever came her way. “Your turn, Ford,” she said with a grin.

This produced even more ear-splitting woo-hoos. Ford looked at Sawyer, who raised his beer in a go-for-it toast.

Oh hell, no. “We’ve had this conversation,” Ford told whoever was listening, which was exactly no one. “I’m not going to show you my stomach.”

This only made them all yell louder.

Logan grinned. “You’re afraid of the competition. It’s okay; no worries.”

Goddammit. Ford wasn’t afraid of shit. So he lifted his shirt.

The crowd went crazy.

Sawyer shook his head.

Ford sighed.

“Nice,” Amy said. “I declare a tie.”

Sandy was on the fence. “I don’t know. I think we need more examples.”

At this, Amy grinned wider and turned to Ford and Logan. “You heard her, boys-whip ’em out. Sandy, you gotta tape measure?”

Ford, who’d just taken a drink from his Coke, choked. Sawyer smacked him on the back, hard.

“Worth a shot,” Amy said with a shrug.

Sandy smiled and nudged her shoulder to Logan’s. “Never mind the poll, Logan. Besides, Tara’s not the only woman in town. You know that, right?”

He sent her a slow smile. “She’s not?”

“Nope.” Sandy scooted a little closer to him. “And you can be my superhero any time.”

At two a.m., Tara was still lying in bed, gazing at the clock. In a few hours, she needed to be wide awake and making breakfast for their guests’ last day, but she couldn’t relax enough to sleep.

And this time, it had nothing to do with Chloe’s snoring, because Chloe wasn’t even home yet. She’d gone out with Lance and friends, and they were God knew where, doing God knew what.

Maddie was at Jax’s, safe and sound. One worry off Tara’s plate, but she had plenty more. She’d caught Mia and Carlos in the marina building earlier. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d interrupted since they’d leapt away from each other faster than she could blink, but the guilt on their faces had been disturbing.

Short of firing one of them or locking Mia in a chastity belt, what could she do without looking like a first-class hypocrite of the highest order?

And then there was Ford. A small part of her wanted to be cuddled up with him right now. Okay, a big part. She fluffed her pillow and once again tried to fall asleep. It didn’t happen. She started wondering if the bills had gotten