“Nope. She’s excellent with the mace that’s probably tucked in her bra. Trust me. That’s a fact little Mikey Moltan will never forget.”
Trevor turned the skewer over to cook the other side. “He attacked your friend?” If there was one thing in the world he couldn’t tolerate, it was aggression against women. Something his three older sisters pounded into him at an early age.
“No. Never had the chance.” Julie laughed, a light, sweet sound that carried away on the breeze. Nothing like the way Marsha used to cackle for attention. “Poor Mikey. He invited her over for a party, but she didn’t want to go alone, so I went with her. We got to the house, and it was only him and another friend. Mikey said there were more people out back so she should follow him while I spoke to his friend. I knew the guy from my math class, so we chatted, but within a minute or so she ran back into the room, rubbing her eyes. Mikey hollered and howled like a wounded puppy running around the room. They both coughed and sniffled and cried out. Apparently, when they had reached the back door, Wind could see that there was no one else outside, so she pulled out the pepper spray to tell him what would happen if he tried to put the moves on her, and it accidentally went off.”
“That’s awful. I can say that I’ve never been pepper-sprayed, but I can imagine it’s uncomfortable.”
“It is. Even from the other room, my eyes watered. So you better warn your friend not to put the moves on her.”
He smiled, relaxing into their mutual understanding of their friends. “Nah, I’ll let him figure that one out on his own. He deserves a good pepper spray. Women are always throwing themselves at him, and he thinks he’s something special. All I ask is that you make sure she sprays him where I have a front-row seat. Well, maybe a fourth row. I don’t want to be that close to the action.”
“Sorry, you probably won’t get a chance to see it before the police swoop in. See that house there?” She pointed to a cottage to their right. “I guarantee Old Mr. Mannie is at the window with his binoculars and the telephone by his side with the police on speed dial.”
“Small-town life, I guess.” Trevor eyed the fading light and wished he could see the sunset, but that was on the West Coast. It didn’t matter. He would get up for sunrise tomorrow. It was his favorite time of day.
“Yep, we heard about you two on the SISB line within ten minutes of your arrival.”
They settled against the log, side-by-side but with a good distance between them.
“SISB line?”
“Summer Island Salty Breeze line.”
“Oh, gotcha.”
Despite wearing a pretty dress, she didn’t fuss over sitting in the sand or her hair being messed up by the elements. He rested his skewer on the box and tugged the cooler over. “Chardonnay? We weren’t sure what we were eating and what you ladies liked, so I have some beer and a bottle of wine and some soda.”
“I’m thinking beer with the dogs.” She took his hotdog, put it on a bun for him, and then set it down on the side of the box to fix her own. He couldn’t believe the woman was actually going to eat something processed and drink beer out of a can while sitting on sand. He wasn’t in the big city with a model on his arm anymore. And God help him, he liked it.
He opened a beer and handed it to her. “You’re different than I expected.”
She took a sip of beer and twisted the bottom into the sand so it stayed upright. “You thought I was some desperate single woman looking for a man to save her from her horribly lonely life?”
“No. Okay, maybe a little. But in all fairness, I only met you hours ago. And that was because your trained pet ferret stole an engine part to get me to your shop.” He smiled to show he meant it as friendly humor, but based on her pressed lips and averted gaze, he assumed he looked more like the Joker than Mr. Rogers.
She squirted ketchup down her hotdog. She didn’t look upset or offended, but there was something in her expression he couldn’t decipher. “You’re safe. I’m not interested. This is all Wind’s doing.”
He didn’t like the way her rejection bothered him. Was it a defense mechanism? Dustin would tell him she was playing hard to get, but he didn’t think that was the case.
Dustin and Wind headed back their way but then continued past, walking in the other direction. Stars began to twinkle in the fading light. A romantic scene for a non-romantic outing. “Can we start again? I mean, without the ferret and awkward pushing together and abandonment of our friends?”
“Sure.” She wiped her hands on a paper towel that had been lodged under the food in the box and offered her hand. “Hi, I’m Julie Boone.”
He took her hand. It was soft but strong. “I’m Trevor Ashford. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you. What brings you to our quiet little town of Summer Island?”
“I’m here to start over. Call it a midlife crisis or post-divorce-finding-myself mission, but I quit my corporate job, left all my material possessions with my ex, split half our assets since I wasn’t smart enough to require a prenup, and escaped the big city noise for the soft sounds of nature.” He’d blurted out his entire situation in seconds. What the heck? He didn’t even like talking to Dustin about it. He felt like such a girl dumping on her bestie. It was for the best, though. Now she knew his sordid past that left him broken and not the right sort to find a relationship of more than friends.
He took a breath and readied for the onslaught of questions about his former life.
She didn’t
