When his plans to enter the Secret Service went south thanks to a bum knee, Coop retreated to the family beach house to mull his future. Romance is the last thing on his mind, until he fishes a curvy brunette out of the sea. Now, spending time in Darcy's arms seems like the ideal distraction, even if it is just for a week.
But with Darcy's departure date fast approaching and their careers on the line, can they realize in time that their beach fling might become the real thing?
“Thanks for the rescue. If you
hadn’t grabbed me, I’d still be doing somersaults underwater. In my book, that
qualifies you for hero status.”
An unreadable emotion flickered
across his eyes so fast she almost missed it. In a low mutter, he said, “Don’t
call me a hero.” He hit the hard-packed sand at the edge of the water and
stopped walking.
Modest, heroic and gorgeous. And it
didn’t take even a fraction of her eight years of training in cultural
anthropology to figure out he was attracted to her. They’d long since hit land,
and yet he made no move to put her down. Not that she was complaining. She’d
happily continue to sit cradled in his arms. It gave her an up-close view of
his chiseled cheekbones, sharp enough to etch glass. Her fingers brushed
through the salt-spiked tips of his blond hair. No doubt about it: she’d found
the man candy Trina had promised. One bite of him would be as sinful and addictive
as a chocolate honey truffle.
“Well, I can’t call you Mr.
In-The-Right-Place-At-The-Right-Time.” When his lips curled up showing off his
dimple, Darcy’s interest kicked up a notch.
“Good point. I’m Cooper Hudson.
Coop, to my friends.”
“Darcy Trent.”
“It’s been a long time since I met
an ocean virgin.”
“Oh, but only in the aquatic sense, I assure you.” What? Why wave her
long-vanished virginity under his nose? Now he probably thought she had the
morals of an alley cat. But hearing the hottest man she’d ever seen use the
word virgin threw her for a loop. Not
the standard nice-to-meet-you conversation, by a long shot.
He flashed an easy smile. “Don’t
worry. I hadn’t planned on delivering you as a virgin sacrifice to appease the
volcano gods over at the mini-golf course.”
Okay, now Darcy could add funny to
the list of his overwhelming awesomeness. Maybe she really had blacked out and
was hallucinating her ideal man while unconscious, underwater. What else could
explain such perfection?
“Darcy, what happened?” Trina’s yell
preceded her appearance in front of them. After a quick yank upward to her
scrap of a top, she rested her hand on Darcy’s leg. “Why’s he carrying you? Did
you get stung in the foot by a jellyfish? ’Cause if you did, I’ll pee on it.
That’ll take the sting away.”
That certainly settled the whole
am-I-hallucinating question. Never, ever would Darcy fantasize about her best
friend peeing on her. The situation had to be real. And if Trina in all her
adorable annoyingness was real, then her hot hero hunk had to be real, too.
To her dismay, Cooper lowered her to
the ground.
“Your friend’s fine,” Cooper
announced. “A wave almost rolled her, so she’s a little shaken up, but
uninjured.”
“You keep your distance,” Darcy
warned with a hand raised to keep Trina at arm’s length. “Don’t even think
about peeing on me. Not even if I get attacked by an entire school of
jellyfish.”
Trina wrinkled her nose. “Okay, but
if the situation arises, just remember that I would be willing to make that
sacrifice.”
“Friendship is a beautiful thing.”
Cooper’s sardonic tone belied the sincerity of his expression.
Atlantic City is the perfect place for detective Bradley Hudson to nurse his broken heart. A week of beer and strippers is sure to erase his former fiancĂ©e from his memory for good. What he didn't count on was running into a sassy redhead from his past. Maybe a rebound romp is an even better plan…
Trina Trimble, private eye in training, is thrilled to be reunited with the hottie she almost hooked up with last summer. She's undercover on her first solo case, but there's always time to lock lips with a sexy cop. Besides, a fun fling with Brad doesn't have to last beyond his week in town.
Brad and Trina are supposed to be just flirting, not forging a new forever. Brad's still healing, and although Trina changes careers the way other women change shoes, she has finally found her calling in her new life of disguises and stakeouts. But when an irresistible job offer threatens to lure her away, Brad will need to decide to let her go or bet it all on love and risk his heart again.
Worst
honeymoon ever. Not that Bradley Hudson had experienced much in way of
comparison. But he knew it was missing some key ingredients. First clue? He was
not sitting on a sunny Caribbean
beach, sucking on a rum punch. Second clue? No sex. And the third, most telling
piece of evidence?
No
wife.
He
took a sip of something brown and tasteless that was as weak as it was pricey.
Oh, well. Not as if he’d come here to get blitzed. Brad could drink for free
when he hit the casinos. At a strip club, the draw was the eye candy. What he
could see of it past all the fake greenery.
The
strip clubs here weren’t just your basic stage and a pole like the ones he’d
raided as a beat cop back home in Baltimore. No, in Atlantic City everything
had to have a theme. Here at Club Eden, each of the stools at the edge of the
stage was shaped like the ass end of a different animal, complete with tails
hanging from the back. A spiky green plant poked at the top of Brad’s head.
More surrounded him, giving his fake grass-covered banquette in the corner the
feeling of a private cabana. A very green, very tacky cabana.
So
his view was limited to straight ahead. Only about a third of the stage. Since
Brad only gave a third of a rat’s ass about seeing the gravity-defying racks on
the dancers, it didn’t matter. After all, he hadn’t even wanted to come. But
his dad—of all people—made him promise to engage in the age-old custom of
staring at fake boobs at least once, just to stick it to the memory of his
ex-fiancée. And everyone at his Maryland State Police barracks had pitched in
to give him a wad of singles to stuff…somewhere.
What
he did enjoy was the view of the waitress who was to-and-fro-ing it in front of
him. She wore a green bikini top with a few strategically placed twining vines.
A grass skirt was too long by the width of a single blade of grass for him to
arrest her for indecent exposure. Her butt twitched the grass with every step
in a hypnotic swish that pulled him far more than the gyrations on stage. As
did the cascade of deep red curls that skimmed the top of it.
Not
that it mattered. Not that Brad intended to do anything more than just look.
’Cause if you dug a hole straight through to the opposite side of the earth,
you still wouldn’t get low enough to rank women on his priority list. Right
now, for him, they just made good scenery. Like the backdrops he’d painted the summer he pitched in
with the school musical to catch the eye of Kerri…no, Cammie? Some hot blonde a
year ahead of him who’d kissed him across an enormous canvas covered with wheat
fields and haystacks. The night the backdrop got stuck up in the fly system,
the show still rolled on. The music and story came out just as well without the
backdrop. And for now Brad’s life rolled on, better than ever without the
complication, heartache and headache of a woman in it.
The
music switched from Eurotrash pop to a technobeat that buzzed in his molars.
Brad shifted to pull his phone out of his pocket. He wanted to take a picture
of his cheesy fake grass-covered seat and shoot it to Coop. Chances were his
cousin wouldn’t believe the description without photographic evidence. Distrust
for what he couldn’t see was part of what made Coop such a good detective. Not
quite as good as Brad, of course, but close.
As
soon as the flash went off, little Miss Grass Skirt barreled over, long hair
almost covering her face. “No photos in here, hon. You’re lucky the bouncer
didn’t see you, or you’d be losing an arm along with your phone.” She held out
a hand.
“Sorry.
I didn’t think.” Brad passed over the phone. “Look for yourself—there aren’t
any people in this photo.”
She
took it. Snorted. “Talk about pointless. Did your butt form a deep, sentimental
attachment with the fake grass beneath it? Wanna remember it forever?”
Wow.
Bet she didn’t get many tips with that kind of an attitude in this place. But
it did tease a grin out of him. “I don’t have to explain my spank bank to you.”
“Funny.
Or really sick and twisted, if you’re not kidding.” She flipped the hair out of
her eyes. Gasped. “Brad?”
He
looked at her. Really looked, past
the glitter caked on top of green eye shadow. Past the fake lashes and scarlet
lips to the face beneath the painted-on mask. The delicate, almost elfin
features. Eyes the same green as the beer bottles on her tray. And realized
he’d ogled this particular face and figure before. Four months ago, to be
exact. On the beach. Where she and her best friend Darcy stumbled across a
counterfeit green-card scam. Since Brad’s cousin Coop was falling ass over heels
for Darcy at the time, he and Brad got dragged into their investigation. They
got the bad guy, and Coop got the girl.
“Trina
Trimble?”
A
dimple formed at the corner of her smile. “You remember. Even my last name. I’m
impressed. Here I thought you detective types had to consult your pocket
notebooks to remember anything.”
“Two
minutes, and two insults. You haven’t changed a bit, Trina.” Knowing it was her
now, and not just some random set of great legs, Brad gave her a slow
head-to-toe. The view from the front was just as good as the one from the back.
Tan, freckled legs were bare all the way down to feet jammed into clear, well,
he had to call them hooker shoes. No other way to describe the Lucite stilts
she wobbled on, with toenails peeping out the same glittery green as her eye
shadow.
“Why
fix what’s not broken?” she sassed back.
“Good
point.”
Trina
set his phone on the table. “What’s a nice boy like you doing in a skeezy place
like this?”
“Seriously?”
Brad huffed out a laugh. “Good or bad, young or old, most men come to a strip
club at least a couple times in their lives. You really think you need to dig
deep to discover my motivation?”
“Most
men like you don’t come alone and drink in a corner. Unless…” She slammed down
her tray, bottles rattling. Leaned forward far enough he could see the emerald
satin edge of her bra. Made him wonder if her panties were the same color. “Are
you here on a stakeout?”
This
was the Trina he remembered. The one who jumped to conclusions faster than a
kangaroo on speed. “Hope not. Since you just yelled that loud enough for
everyone within ten tables to hear.”
The
sparkle of excitement in her eyes snuffed right out. “Sorry. I got excited.
Thought I’d get to see some action in here.”
Her
choice of words cracked him up. “I’ll bet you get to see all sorts of action in
here most nights.”
Trina
grimaced. “Not the kind of action I want to see. Or even think about. I sort of
want to bleach my memory bank after every shift.”
Exactly
the feeling Brad had after some of his shifts. As a homicide detective, he saw
things all too often that he didn’t want popping up in his dreams. Which they
invariably did. It was a hazard of the job. Worth it, though, to catch the scum
who perpetrated the crimes and make sure they never repeated themselves.
“I
don’t want to get your hopes up, so no, I’m definitely not on a stakeout.”
“Bummer.
Of course, if you’re not on official business, then I get to do this.” Trina
slid in next to him. Leaned over for a hug. Even with the plastic vines
attached to her top poking at his chest through the open collar of his white
polo shirt, it was one hell of a hug.
In
the short time he’d known her, Brad had noticed that Trina threw herself into
everything she did with whole-hearted enthusiasm. This hug was no exception.
Most people did a polite squeeze and release. In and out as fast as the flu
shot the department made him get every year. But Trina clung tight. Which was
fine with him, as it pressed those perky breasts right up against him. Her face
burrowed into the hollow of his neck. Brad could swear her lips rested on the
pulse point that hadn’t picked up its pace over a woman in six long months. All
of a sudden, blood pounded through him, on a much swifter course due south,
away from one head straight down to his other.
Oh yeah. This hug was chock-full of potential. And
the night suddenly looked a hundred times brighter.
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