Everything goes hot—my body, the air, our tangled breaths. It’s like the calm before the storm, when everything stills before the warning comes in a violent rumble.
It’s Anderson who closes the distance, merging our lips in an achingly slow caress. When the shock subsides, I match his movements—slow, shaky, and timid, yet there’s an eagerness brimming beneath the surface that’s palpable.
A groan slips from his mouth to mine, awakening a bundle of unspoken feelings within me, and I can’t hold back anymore. My tongue dips between his lips. My hand snakes beneath his cotton shirt and drags up his chest. My front presses closer to his. And he reciprocates with every move—kissing me harder, pulling me flush against his body, and slipping his rough hands beneath my silk shorts.
We find a natural rhythm, our exploring hands daring to reach unexposed territory, our kiss deepening with each passing breath, and my heart rate tripling.
“Make love to me.” It’s just a whisper against his lips, but the moment the words are out of my mouth, I know it’s the wrong thing to say. In the silence that follows, I’m starkly aware of the weather outside that has turned eerily calm.
Anderson freezes, his entire body tensing, and then he pulls away faster than I can even blink. “I can’t do this.” He stands, pulls on his jeans, and begins to refasten his belt. “You should take the job, Hope.” Anderson turns toward the door.
I can’t breathe, but somehow, I manage to think fast enough to leap out of bed and race across the room to plaster my body against the door, blocking his exit. “You’re pushing me away.” Emotion claws its way up my throat. “Why do you always push me away?”
He shifts his gaze, turning his head with it in a blatant attempt to avoid facing the hurt that he’s caused. “You’re meant for so much more. More than this camp can ever provide you.” He faces me again, the hardness in his eyes revealing his unbreakable stance on the matter. “Take the opportunity. Take it while you can.”
My chin quivers with each word. “And if I don’t?”
His amber eyes flash a warning I can’t quite decipher. “Then you’re fired.”
I take a step to the side at that biting remark and watch him open the door and step back into the night. Then I leave him with a final threat that I hope haunts him for the rest of his days.
“You’re going to regret this, Anderson Bexley.”
Chapter One
ANDERSON
The dock is rickety under my weight when I leave the boathouse—a stark reminder that I have loads of work left to do on the renovations I set out to tackle two years ago. After a generous donation from someone close to our family, everything I ever dreamed for this place began to come to fruition. But in my mad dash to expand and renovate every section of camp, it appears I overlooked the marina.
Lanterns light a clear path for my exit, but I don’t head in that direction. Instead, I walk to the edge of the dock and stare out over the moonlit water. This is where I do my best breathing after a long day of work. Whether I’m tending to guests, training employees, drafting contracts for vendors, or filling in for missing staff, moments like these are cherished ones.
It’s a perfect fall evening. Clear skies. Quiet night. Our last guests of the fall season left earlier today, which means staff gets the next month off to do as they please—three weeks longer than normal. But with camp renovations winding down, I want to get the place prepped and ready for new guests in the winter. Some staff will use the time to head home to their families, and others will take off for vacations. No one stays when camp is closed.
I’ve been looking forward to this in-between time more than all the previous ones. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been running a million miles an hour over the past years to take my mind off more personal matters. Or maybe because I can finally dedicate the next month to the massive branding overhaul I’ve been working toward for the past two years.
Come to find out, while drowning myself in my work has been helpful, it hasn’t taken away the emptiness I still feel when I think about all the people I’ve lost along the way to building the camp’s success.
Like Hope.
“Hey, stranger.”
The unexpected voice causes me to swivel away from the water, my heart rate rocketing in my chest. The sight of a blonde with silver eyes and a familiar smile shocks me still.
“Shit, Silver. I wasn’t expecting you.” I walk forward, swooping my sister up in my arms and squeezing her tight. “God, I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, doofus.”
She tousles my hair and pulls back with a tilted head. “Looks like my sisterly intuition kicked in at the right time. You look like shit, Bexley.”
My groan leaves me before I can process my emotions, but it serves me right to be all up in my feels when Silver happens to stop by. She knows me better than anyone else in our family, probably because she’s more of an adoptive sort of sister. My family took her in when she was seventeen and needing a home. She was heaven-sent, coming to us at a time I think we all needed it, and she grew on us all—me, the most.
When my brothers all took off to abandon the family camp, Silver stuck around, loyal to a fault. Well, until recent years had her altering her course. I couldn’t be happier for her. It’s been two years since she’s worked as our head camp nurse, but she still pops by on occasion.
“I was just heading to get a drink. Want to join me?”
Silver grins. “Absolutely. As long as I can have my old cabin.”
“No can do. They’re all being refurnished this week, but I can put you up in something better.” I wink.
She gasps and jumps a little. “The new site is all ready?”
“It is,” I tell her.
“I can’t wait to see it all.”
I pause for a second, realizing something is off about Silver’s arrival. “Wait. Did you walk here from the parking lot?”
She nods. “I drove.”
My mouth falls open while my fingers press into my chest in mock horror. “Oh, my. No seaplane this time?”
She rolls her eyes and nudges me from the side. “Hush. I happen to enjoy the drive and the ferry ride. Besides, I had to stop by Orcas Hospital to see one of my old mentors, so I made a day of it. With Kingston out of town, our house gets a little lonely.”
A vague picture pops into my mind of Silver and her NFL star husband’s obscenely large home in Seattle. “I can imagine. Well, you picked the perfect time to visit. I could use your help with a few things.”
She stuffs her hands into her pockets and shrugs. “Sure. Put me to work. You know I love getting my hands dirty.” She grins up at me.
“All the major renovations are done. No dirty work needed besides a few tune-ups here and there.” I frown when I remember the creaky marina and mentally add that to my to-do list. “I’m talking more about marketing.” I wave my hand around, gesturing to the camp. “I built it, and now I need for them to come. Marketing is a beast I am far from comfortable with. I haven’t had to think about it much over the past year since we’ve always been booked out so far in advance, but now with the new adult site, I’m kind of feeling lost.”