Looking across the beach I realized most people had these or little colorful tents.
“What is that?”
“The windbreak?” He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have these in the US?”
“Nope. We have umbrellas and cabanas to fight off the sun. Not the wind.” I grinned at the thought.
However, when we sat behind it my goose bumps disappeared now that we’d blocked out the breeze. In fact, it was downright toasty under that fall sun.
Windbreaks. They were kind of genius.
I set about slathering Eilidh in sunblock while Thane did the same for Lewis. I tried not to think about the picture we made, all four of us. Like a family.
That way lies danger.
“There’s Anna! There’s Anna!” Eilidh jumped up and down, the frills of her swim dress bouncing around her waist. Following her gaze, I saw she was right. One of her best friends, a little pixie blond girl, was on the beach with her mom and her big sister Rosie.
“I see Connor as well,” Lewis said, craning his neck to look down the beach.
“Don’t you want to sit with us for a bit?” Thane asked, sounding a little put out.
Smiling to myself, I took Eilidh’s hand. “They can sit with us at lunch, no?”
He reluctantly agreed, and we walked away from our spot, me to deliver Eilidh to Anna, with a promise from Anna’s mom to watch her while they played, and Thane to do the same with Connor and his dad.
We met back on our blanket, behind the windbreak and I was suddenly very much aware of being alone with him. “I feel unloved,” I joked to break the tension I was sure only I felt.
Thane chuckled. “It’s just strange they’re both at that age where they want to go off and play with their friends. Not that long ago, they didn’t want to leave my side.”
“They’re still babies,” I assured him as I covered up with sunscreen. I’d deliberately chosen a dress with a high back so I wouldn’t need anyone to help me out.
What I hadn’t been counting on was Thane whipping off his T-shirt.
But why wouldn’t he when he looked like that?
The man wasn’t muscled to the max like some male model. There was definition, yes, but if I didn’t know he worked out, I’d just assume he was naturally built that way. There was nothing overworked about his physique. He was … too sexy to be my boss.
Damn it.
Not knowing where to look, I turned to stare out at the water as he covered himself with sunblock. Apparently unable to control myself, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye just as he realized he’d made an error in judgment by whipping off his shirt.
He couldn’t cover his back in sunblock without help.
And I was a complete opportunist with no self-preservation whatsoever. “Need a hand?”
Thane made an exasperated sound. “If you don’t mind.”
My pulse increased as I took the sunblock and walked on my knees until I was behind him.
His broad back stretched before me, smooth, olive skin over healthy muscle. And there was a tattoo on his right shoulder that I’d never seen before—a Celtic knot symbol.
Taking a deep breath that I hoped Thane couldn’t hear, I slathered cream on my fingers and then pressed my palms to his strong back. For a moment, I didn’t move my hands. I was afraid if I did, I’d caress him.
Thane turned his head slightly, as if he sensed something was wrong. I shook myself out of crazy crush mode and smoothed the lotion into his skin. It was going well until I noted how tense his shoulders were.
“You need a massage,” I said, subconsciously kneading my fingers and thumbs into the too-tight muscle.
He grunted. “Fuck, that feels good. Had that knot there forever.”
Frowning, I rolled my thumb against the area I thought he meant. “Here?”
The sound of deep pleasure made me smirk, and I continued to knead at it.
“You’re good at this,” Thane offered after a few seconds, his voice rumbly and hoarse.
I wondered if he sounded like that after sex?
Tingling between my thighs at the very thought, I had to stop from pressing my breasts to his back.
I was losing my goddamn mind. Control yourself, woman!
I tried to focus on anything but the low groans falling from his lips. “What does the tattoo mean?”
Thane tensed for a moment and then relaxed into my touch again as he replied, “It’s Celtic … it’s the sigil for curse breaking.”
Surprised, my hands fell away from his shoulders and he turned, forcing me to move back.
“Not what you expected?” He rubbed a hand through his beard, looking almost boyishly embarrassed.
Not from Thane. Mr. Practical and Sensible. Mac was the one filled with tales of magic and fairies. I shook my head. “What does it mean to you?” After my many talks with Robyn over the past six weeks, she’d confessed much to me about her relationship with Lachlan. One reason he’d held himself back from a genuine relationship with Robyn was that he was convinced the Adair men were cursed to lose the women they loved. He’d been irrationally terrified (not so irrational, I guess, especially considering their circumstances) that Robyn would die if he loved her back. Was Thane referring to the same family curse?
“Has Robyn told you much about our family?”
Wanting to be honest with him, I nodded. “She’s entrusted me with some personal things. I know about the Adair curse. Or so-called curse.”
“It’s something Lachlan came up with. Something that got into his head and almost ruined his chances with Robyn. The stubborn bastard.” He said the insult with affection I’d seen openly expressed between the two brothers. They were very close, like me and Robyn. “He thinks it goes way, way back. Our great-great-grandfather lost his wife to influenza six months after they were wed. He married again, but how much he’d loved his first wife and never truly recovered from her death was a tale passed down through the generations. His son lost his wife to childbirth and he never remarried. Then my mother died in childbirth, and our father never got over it. Our aunt Imogen stayed with us, helped raise us, but when she died, I think it finished our father.”
“Then Fran died,” I whispered, emotion thickening my throat. I still didn’t know how she’d passed. Robyn said it was up to Thane to entrust me with that information. That no one was coming out to say if she died of cancer or in a car crash or something that happened every day made me think her death had a darker edge to it.
“Then Fran died,” Thane repeated grimly. “Lachlan became convinced we were cursed, but I refused to believe that.” I could sense his penetrating stare through his dark sunglasses. “I refuse to be controlled by some greater fate. So I got the tattoo as a reminder not to let myself go down that path.” He shrugged and scratched his beard. “Seemed a good idea at the time. Now it just seems … silly, I suppose.”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing you don’t have control over your life—if we don’t have control, then we don’t have to hold ourselves responsible for our failings, or even our successes. Some people use that as an easy way out. Or, like Lachlan, they let fear control their choices. I respect you haven’t allowed that to happen.”