Almost Just Friends (Wildstone #4)(31)

Something else he blamed himself for. Because maybe if he hadn’t left for the Coast Guard, he could have helped more. He missed her, but he felt bad the most for Rowan, who’d never really gotten to know her.

“I’m so sorry.” Piper’s voice was soft. “So your dad . . . he’s your only living relative left?”

Except for the baby her sister was carrying. The baby she didn’t yet know about, no matter how much he bugged Winnie to tell her. And while he’d promised not to give away the secret, he wouldn’t, couldn’t lie outright to Piper. She didn’t deserve that. And as always when his mind went down that path, he deeply regretted giving Winnie his word. Holding back from Piper didn’t feel good, but when he factored in how attracted to her he was, how much he wanted her, it felt even more wrong.

Piper apparently took his silence as the need for a subject change, so she turned to the window and her brows went up as they exited the highway at Pismo Beach.

“Why do I feel nervous?” she asked, when he pulled into a parking lot.

He got out of the truck and came around for her, taking her hand. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I give you butterflies.”

“You don’t,” she said, so quickly that he grinned, because now he knew that he totally did. “Whatever,” she muttered. “It’s not like you don’t know that you melt bones when you kiss.”

And now he kept grinning, because he was incredibly flattered that he could melt her bones. But it was more than that. When he touched her, kissed her, he got flashes of the real Piper, the one she liked to hide from the world. The real Piper was softer, sweeter, and reached him in a way no one else ever had. “You’re good for my ego.”

“Like you needed help in that arena.”

He laughed as they walked to the beach. Hills made of sand spanned in either direction, making this a beach people tended to come to for four-wheeling rather than sunbathing.

“What are we doing here?” she asked, eyeing the choppy deep-blue water and heavy surf. “Don’t tell me we’re going swimming.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m”—she appeared to fight herself for a moment—“not super comfortable around the water, which I know is ridiculous, since I live on a lake.”

“For the record, I’d never say that. But what are we talking about here, a general light fear of the water, or full-blown phobia?”

“Just a light fear,” she said, her breathing a little fast from just talking about it.

Okay, then. Phobia it was. He thought back and realized he’d never seen her on the docks at the marina. Earlier, she’d remained on shore, not taking a single step onto the dock at all. “We’re not going in the water,” he promised, leading her down the stairs to the beach and then about a hundred feet to a small shack with a huge sign that read:

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!

“Oh, boy,” Piper whispered. “Um—”

“Are you . . . uncomfortable with sand?” he asked.

“No.”

“Are you uncomfortable with wind in your hair?”

She bit her lower lip again, possibly to hide a smile now. But he wasn’t sure; it could be to hide her urge to murder him. “No,” she finally said.

“Are you uncomfortable having a good time?”

She turned to him, utterly serious. “I’m not sure I’d recognize a good time.”

He smiled and cupped her face as he leaned in and gave her a soft kiss. “Then trust me to show you one. One hour, Piper. Yeah?”

She stared at his mouth for a beat, like maybe she wanted it back on hers—which made two of them—and then nodded. “Yeah.”





Chapter 10


“That was possibly the most thrilling ride of my life.”

Piper had no idea what she thought she was doing. She didn’t treat herself to fun very often. Or ever. But it was on her list of things to do, so that made her feel better, because tonight she’d be able to check off a box. She loved checking off boxes.

“That looks good on you,” Cam said.

“What?”

“The smile.”

She nearly tripped over her own feet. She was starting to realize that he saw her as someone far more adventurous and fascinating than she really was. Maybe . . . for this little while at least, she could be the woman he saw.

The guy standing at the shack waiting for them looked like every cliché of a surfer dude Piper had ever seen, sun-bleached hair to his shoulders, sunglasses, no shirt, board shorts, and no shoes. He grinned at Cam and gave a smart-ass salute. “Got your text. Your adventure awaits.”

“Piper, meet Brodie,” Cam said. “We were in initial training together, eons ago.”

Brodie smiled at Piper. “Did he tell you that I beat him in every training exercise?”

“No,” Cam said. “Because that’s a lie. And anyway, who tapped out after his four years?”

“Guilty,” Brodie said easily. “Wasn’t cut out for the life. Or for walking about battle rattle when just trying to grab grub.”

“Battle rattle?” Piper asked.

“Yeah. When you, like, have fifteen minutes to get food, so you run into a takeout place with so many weapons and tools that you rattle. Get it? Battle rattle.” He smiled at the look on her face. “Yeah, you’re in the presence of two serious badasses.”