“Chloe,” Maddie said quietly, “you’re ambushing her. That wasn’t in the plan.”
“The plan?” Tara repeated. “There’s a plan? What was it, to get me out on the water under the guise of Team Building, where you could grill me?”
“No one’s grilling you,” Maddie said gently. “We’re your sisters. Your support system.”
“And seriously,” Chloe said. “You doing the whole Ignore-Ford thing was a dead giveaway anyway. No one ignores a man that fine.”
“We’re not discussing this,” Tara said firmly.
Chloe sighed. “I’m telling you, if we just talked instead of being repressed all the time, we’d be less grumpy. And by ‘we,’ let’s be clear. I mean you.”
“Not discussing,” Tara repeated.
“Sure,” Chloe said. “Fine. How about your blind date tomorrow night? Can we talk about that?”
Maddie was steering the boat back into the bay with more skill than Tara had shown earlier, but Tara didn’t care about that as she stared at Chloe. “How did you know about the blind date?”
“Are you kidding? This is Lucky Harbor, remember? Ethel told Carol at the post office, who told Jeanine at Jax’s office, who told Sandy, who told Lucille that Ethel set you up with her grandson-the one coming through town for a short visit. So then Lucille tweeted it to Facebook.”
Tara just barely resisted groaning. After serving the ladies of the Garden Society the other day, Ethel had cornered Tara to ask if Ford was courting her. Tara had choked on one of her own lemon bars, both at the old-fashioned and quaint connotation of the word “courting” and at the question itself. First of all, nothing about Ford was old-fashioned or quaint. Not given what he really wanted from her. Tara had firmly told Ethel no, that there hadn’t been any courting-she’d kept the mutual lusting to herself-and that’s when Ethel had mentioned needing a favor.
Tara had reluctantly agreed, and Ethel had laughed. “Oh, no, dear,” she’d said. “You don’t understand. I’m doing you the favor. I’m setting you up with my grandson Boyd. He’s a wonderful, sweet, kind man, with a great personality.”
Chloe was grinning, and Tara refused to say that she was already regretting her decision to accept a blind date. “So I’m going out to dinner. So what?”
“So if you were as smart as I thought you are, you’d be having breakfast with Ford instead.”
Tara’s belly tightened at the thought. “I’m sure Boyd’s very nice.”
“You haven’t dated in how many years? Two? Three? Ten?”
Tara didn’t bother to answer. Mostly because she didn’t actually know.
“Nice isn’t what you need,” Chloe said. “You need-”
Maddie “accidentally” hit Chloe upside the head with a buoy. Tara ignored the following scuffle but took over the cockpit so they didn’t all drown. The sails were down now so she motored them back to the docks, maybe hitting the gas a little more energetically than necessary. She ignored Maddie’s squeak and Chloe’s whoop and concentrated. She concentrated right into a big swell, rocking the boat hard.
“Ohmigod,” Maddie gasped, lifting her head, “you have to steer into-”
“My bad,” Tara said.
“And the-”
“I know,” Tara said.
“Do you also know that you’re a know-it-all?” Chloe asked casually, straightening up and adjusting her bikini.
When Tara just gave her a long look, Chloe shrugged. “We were just wondering.”
“We?” Tara glanced over at Maddie, who winced.
Wheezing audibly now, Chloe pulled out her inhaler again, shook it, and took another hit. She paused to hold her breath for ten seconds, then exhaled. “I’m not supposed to wrestle,” she said reproachfully to Maddie, then turned back to Tara. “And yes, we.”
Tara swallowed a ball of unexpected hurt. “You two were discussing me being a know-it-all.”
“Actually,” Chloe said, “we were discussing your anal-retentiveness, your obsessive need to be right, and your all-around general crankiness.”
“I’m not cranky.”
Chloe laughed. “But you are anal and always right?”
“I’m careful,” Tara said, lifting her chin, feeling defensive. Dammit. “And as for always being right, someone has to be.” Okay, so she knew she wasn’t always right but they’d been talking about her. And yes, maybe she was a little hard on them sometimes, but she was hard on everyone she cared about. She didn’t see the value in letting Chloe suffer through mistakes she’d made due to the wild abandon of youth. Chloe hadn’t had any guiding hand growing up with Phoebe, but Tara had at least had her father.
Which hadn’t saved me from a few pretty major lapses in good judgment…
Tara shrugged that off, focusing on navigating the boat into the slip. She wanted a good relationship with her sisters, and in spite of the bickering, she knew it was happening. They were getting closer.
But the real goal here was making a go of the inn. It had to be. Distracted, she miscalculated how much to crank to the left and hit the boat slip. “Sorry,” she called out as they all nearly fell to the deck. “But some assistance would be helpful!”
“You’re doing fine,” Maddie murmured.
“For a know-it-all, right?”
“Tara,” Maddie said softly, apology heavy in her voice. “I-”
“No, it’s okay.” Tara shook it off. “Really. It’s okay that you two discussed my personal life without me around to defend myself-”
“Hey, we do it right in front of you, too,” Chloe said.
Tara shook her head and moved to follow Chloe off the boat, but ended up plowing into the back of her when Chloe stopped suddenly. “What are you-”
Chloe was staring ahead, and Tara joined her at it, even letting out a soft “oh my.”
Ford stood on the deck of his racing Finn. Every single inch of him was drenched, making his board shorts and T-shirt cling to that built body as he maneuvered into his slip, his arms outstretched as he reached out to tie up the boat.
Tara had always loved his arms. They were sinewy and strong, yet capable of incredible tenderness. He gave some damn fine grade-A comfort when he put his mind to it. And his hands… they could handle rough waters or stroke her into orgasmic bliss with equal aplomb.
“You okay?” Chloe asked Tara over her shoulder without tearing her gaze off Ford.
“Yes. Why?”
“Because you just moaned.” She craned her neck and eyed Tara. “And probably you should check for drool.”
Tara gave her a nudge that might have been more like a push, then surreptitiously checked for drool. Then she went back to staring at Ford. Given the look of satisfaction on his face, he’d enjoyed his sail, and something pinged low in her gut because she’d seen that look on his face before: when he’d been stretched out above her, as intimately joined to her as a man could get.
She made another sound before she could stop herself, then bit her lip. Bending, she concentrated on tying up their boat, but her fingers wouldn’t work. “Dammit.”
Two hands appeared in her vision-big, work-roughened hands-not taking over the task, but guiding her into the correct knot. “Like this,” Ford said.
“I was fixin’ to do it myself.”
“She can do everything by herself,” Chloe told him, heavy on the irony. “Bless her heart.”
Tara straightened and shot Chloe a look, and got an eye roll in return.
“Come on, Mad,” Chloe said. “I think Tara needs a little time out.” And then she took her itty bitty bikini-clad body toward the inn, Maddie in tow.
Once again leaving Tara with Ford.
Tara flashed a vague smile in his direction without looking directly into his eyes-the key to not melting, she’d discovered-and went to step onto the dock.
Ford slid his hand in hers to assist, not letting go of her, even after she tried to tug free. He merely tightened his grip and waited her out.
With a deep breath, she tipped her head back and met his gaze. And yep, right on cue, as she took in the two-day stubble on his square jaw, the fine laugh lines around his mesmerizing eyes and the effortlessly charming smile, she melted like a glob of butter on a stack of pancakes.