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  Unable to support them a moment longer, Vic allowed her arms to flop. She and Hauk crashed to the bed, laughing.

  It was only a short matter of time before reality invaded.

  Hauk would go home to Sophie. She would go to her salon. They wouldn’t speak of these moments outside the bedroom unless they could be entirely sure no one would hear. Hauk had spent too much time in the middle of Whispering Cove gossip to allow himself to end up there again.

  With the salon empty for the first time since she’d opened that morning, Vic could hear the country tunes crooning through the speakers. She had an eclectic blend of music on her iPod that she docked in the back office, but the customers seemed to prefer country. Young or old, people enjoyed the blends of ballads and dance tunes the genre had to offer.

  As a popular dance beat began, Vic made mental notes on possible singers for the festival and eased slowly into the chair at the makeup stand to study her face in the mirror. Smudges that were primarily an effect of running makeup darkened her eyes. She couldn’t blame makeup for her heavy lids, though. That was entirely an effect of another sleepless night.

  Grabbing a tube of concealer, she worked on touching up her makeup before the next round of customers came in. It had been two days since she’d gotten Hauk to her apartment. Two days since she’d slept more than a few hours. Two days that had passed in an odd silence between them.

  Sophie had come to see her when she was feeling better, but there’d been no contact from Hauk. No phone calls or texts or passing hellos on the street. Nothing.

  She was beginning to get itchy, as much for her friend as for her newly discovered lover. The same feminine pride that had her wanting to look good kept her from being the one to make the next move. It was probably futile because Hauk wasn’t likely to make a move.

  The man had developed a powerful determination in high school that drove him daily to be faithful to his decisions.

  He had made some tough ones when he found out his girlfriend Krista, who at one time had been one of Vic’s close friends, was pregnant. They’d all been burned by her before the end, but no one had suffered as much as Hauk. He used to say he wanted to be an attorney specializing in family law, but he had put his dreams aside and married Krista, who later abandoned him and their daughter. She had been picking fights in town, spiraling deeper into the unfolding ugliness of her soul. When Vic had refused to believe a claim that Hauk was abusive, Krista had vowed everyone would see the truth soon. Three days later she’d been found dead with bruises on her face, an open wound across her forehead and a broken arm.

  Because of the mysterious circumstances, and in the absence of a goodbye note of any kind, Hauk had been investigated as a suspect. The town had gathered behind him, though, and it hadn’t taken long to recover the boat she’d stolen. On it had been a taped sob story no one believed. When her blood had been found on the railing and no other DNA, her death had been ruled an unsolved death. The injuries alone made it too difficult to believe her death had been an accident or even a suicide.

  After a grueling investigation that had verified Hauk’s alibi and failed to turn up another suspect, his name had been cleared by the law. His heart was a different story.

  Eventually talk had died down, and though they’d never talked about it, Vic knew it was one more reason he’d rejected the full-ride scholarship he had won.

  Instead he took over the running of the pub so his father could retire. Now as a single dad fully immersed in the life he built for himself and Sophie, there was no changing things as he saw it. Vic often wondered if he really would have done things differently. He loved his life, and suddenly she wanted to show him how loved he was. She wanted to see things get easier. To see him relax and enjoy himself more. To laugh like he did when they were alone and he stopped thinking about his to-do list and parenting responsibilities.

  More than anything, she wanted to be the woman to help him find a new side to life. She wanted to be the one to give him all the things he wanted, instead of him always doing the giving.

  “Salon secrets highlighted with fun are the best. Whisper your secrets to me.” Vic smiled at the latest greeting she’d programmed for her door and capped a tube of lip gloss. Carmen, her newest stylist-in-training, and her sister Aimee, Hauk’s waitress, strolled in. Laughter tinted their cheeks a rosy pink and lit their fiercely green eyes with fun.

  “Ladies? Good lunch?”

  “How could it not be in this town?” Carmen sent a mischievous smile to her sister.

  Aimee closed her eyes and patted her heart in an exaggerated gesture. “I never dreamed our stop in Whispering Cove would turn into a new life surrounded by amazing men.”

  They were as alike in their personalities as in their looks. Gorgeous. Vivacious. Fun-loving. Funny. Their differences seemed to lie in the slightly unseen.

  With her always pristine appearance from her clothes to her perfectly styled hair, Carmen would appear to be the high-maintenance one, while Aimee, with her preference for jeans and T-shirts, struck people as the low-maintenance one. They made the perfect case for not judging books by the cover.

  Carmen’s big dream was to find a funny man to settle down with. She wanted laughter in her life. Aimee worked hard, and Hauk had said more than once in the month she’d been at the pub, how good she was, but she preferred to find the neatly cobbled path to an easy life.

  “How is it the single men in this town are, in fact, single?” Carmen asked.

  “They’re resistant. Or maybe it’s that they only fall in love once.” She thought about her friends who’d recently gotten married and smiled.

  Aimee dropped into the styling chair Carmen used. “You mean ever?”

  “It seems so. Take Brody.”

  “The sheriff?”

  “Yeah. He fell in love with Andie when we were in school. Even when she left town, he never gave up on her.”

  “Really?”

  “It was quite romantic to watch.” Vic grinned, remembering the schemes the grandfathers had pulled to get their grandkids married off. It had been so easy for them. “Trent and Katie were the same way. Resistant to what they couldn’t avoid.”

  “Are all the men like that?” Carmen’s voice sounded dreamy as she clearly imagined herself on the receiving end of such devotion.

  “Eh. Sometimes it’s the woman who knows and refuses to back down.”

  “Like Dr. Dani?” Carmen pulled Aimee’s hair from its ponytail and brushed it out. “I love her story.”

  Aimee laughed. “I love her husband.”

  “She was determined to catch his eye.” So much so she hadn’t allowed pride to hold her back. “They’re going to be fun to watch grow old together.”

  “You think it will last that long?”

  Vic walked to the window and looked out on Main Street. With its cobbled streets and the changing colors of fall, people bustling around to prepare for the coming festival, and tourists milling in and out of the shops and stuffing their faces with local foods, there was a mood about the place. “There is magic in this town. I absolutely believe they’ll last that long. We have our rough spots and dark times… There is always a bright side, though. And someone to support us.”

  She and Hauk had both known the sadness of loss and they’d always supported each other as much as the town gathered behind them. They’d shared almost everything the successfully married couples had. The only thing missing was a deeper love and an open commitment. Hell, any commitment.

  “Are we still talking about the same thing?” Carmen teased.

  “Lasting love.” Vic turned away from the window and watched Carmen weave her sister’s hair into an intricate braid. “No matter who we are, there is love in this town and we’re never alone.”

  Though she couldn’t help feeling lonely without seeing Hauk every day. It was something she was going to change. This evening. She’d promised to help plan the musical entertainment for the festival and she wasn’t going to let Byron d
own. Neither was she going to miss the lesson she’d learned from Dani.

  Sometimes a woman had to take drastic measures to catch a man’s eye. She wasn’t going to miss the chance to spend more one-on-one time with Hauk.

  Chapter Five

  “How are you and Vic comin’?” Byron asked as he slid onto a stool as the setting sun shot through the open pub wall.

  “Excuse me?” Hauk whipped his head around, wondering how the old man could possibly know what had happened between them.

  Another nodule of tension formed in his neck, pressing on the nerves in his spine. Every time he’d thought of her, of what they’d done, of how he wanted to do it again, even though he shouldn’t, his tension grew.

  “With the music.” Byron shot him a funny look and motioned for a tumbler of rum. “You come up with any singers yet?”

  “Oh. We’re working on it.” Hauk passed Byron the tumbler and then popped the top on a bottle of extra-strength aspirin. Two plus a healthy chug of coffee might keep him awake enough to get through another night of mixing drinks and pouring beer.

  He had his staff back, but it was karaoke night and Vic was supposed to stop in to see if anyone was good enough for the festival stage. They might get lucky, unless another drunk and off-key woman convinced herself she could tackle Leona Lewis.

  “You two best not let me down. I got a reputation to uphold.”

  “Your reputation will be just fine, Byron. I noticed a couple of the booths going up today.”

  “Not enough and too slowly. We’re worried we won’t get them all done in time. When will the stage be ready? It doesn’t look even close.”

  “I’ve been working on the trim work. It’s about ready to go up and then we just have to get it painted.” They worried every year and they always pulled it off in plenty of time. “And I’m sure you, Harold and Errol will find a way.”

  Leaning on the bar, Hauk caught Sophie’s eye and waved her to him. With her impish smile, she hopped up from behind her perch where she was scheduling the karaoke songs and hustled to him.

  “What’s up, Dad?”

  He kissed her temple and pulled her close enough to whisper in her ear. “Do your old man a favor and don’t let another woman sing Leona Lewis unless she can actually sing.”

  “A couple are good enough to sing at the festival. I made a list.” Sophie’s grin spread. “And for the record, tips increase your chances of having your request granted.”

  “I’ll give you a tip, young lady.” He reached over the bar and tickled her. She ran away laughing, and for a moment he heard her mother in their early days together. With the flash came a pang of agony that he couldn’t risk another woman’s life. And with that pang came the worry that he’d already gotten too close to Vic to keep her safe.

  “How many laws are you breaking having her in here?” a gruff man asked as he slid onto a nearby barstool.

  “Mr. Hayes.” Hauk pasted on his work smile as he turned to his latest customer. “I believe you could have been asked the same thing all those years you had Vic working lobster cages with you.”

  “Guess there’s no law against a daughter seeing how hard her poppa works for her.” Vic’s father inclined his head in a silent touché. “Especially when her momma ain’t around.”

  Vic’s mom had killed herself after years of fighting depression. Hauk had been with Vic when they found her. He’d called her dad and then held Vic while she held her mom. He’d brushed her hair, uncertain of how to comfort her, while she brushed her mom’s. He’d sat with her again during the funeral where she’d shed her last tears.

  She’d never talked much about her mom since. And she’d never given Hauk grief for closing himself off after losing the two women he’d tried to commit himself to. In a way, she’d shut herself off too. She’d wrapped herself in a blanket of cheer that had eventually banished her grief, but the understanding of it was still there. She made her connections to people carefully, but when she did, it was forever.

  She was the embodiment of the kind of woman he’d have loved to spend his life with. She was the person he couldn’t stand to ever see hurt.

  “You want your regular?” Hauk asked Mr. Hayes, shaking off the thoughts. “I hope Sophie appreciates me half as much as Vic does you.”

  “Yep. And she does.” Mr. Hayes looked around the pub. “Speaking of daughters, have you seen mine?”

  “No. Not for…a little while.” Not since she’d taken him to her bed and given him a taste of a heaven he couldn’t keep. Hauk pulled a bottled import he stocked exclusively for Vic’s dad and again tried to shake his thoughts off the tracks they were traveling. He shouldn’t be thinking of his best friend naked and mid-orgasm while serving her dad beer.

  “You two have a fight or something?”

  Or something. “No. I’ve just been busy building the stage for the festival. She’s been working to line up a headliner and making notes on the entertainment.”

  “I didn’t realize she was working on that.”

  Hauk angled his head down the bar. “Byron roped her in.”

  Mr. Hayes’ crooked nose crinkled and the left side of his mouth curved upward to reveal wrinkles from work and laughter. “I thought you were working on that.”

  “We’re supposed to be working together.”

  “Isn’t that easier to do if you actually talk to her?”

  “Good point.” Though talking to Vic wasn’t likely to be the same again. Even seeing her wouldn’t be the same, because seeing her would remind him of how gorgeous she’d looked with her hair sex-tangled and her eyes desire-dazed.

  He would remember, as he had countless times since walking out of her apartment, the feel of their bodies brushing. Her taste and scent and touch. Her laughter. Her spirit. She’d always been a part of his life. One he could never imagine being without. He’d known being intimate with her would change her. He just hadn’t expected it to leave a hole in his heart that ached more the longer he went without her.

  The pub door opened, and as if he’d conjured her, Vic walked in. Dressed in a leg-and-curve-revealing skirt and knee-high stiletto boots, with a long sweater covering a bejeweled tank he’d only seen her wear once before, she was a walking seduction. The dangly earrings tangling with her wavy hair complemented the thin chains circling her neck before slipping in a single strand of glitter into the crease of her cleavage. She’d done something different with her makeup too. More intense.

  Half the men in the place turned to study her. It was all Hauk could do to keep his own tongue in his mouth.

  Mr. Hayes thunked his drink to the bar and stood. “What in hell is she thinking?”

  Before Hauk could echo the sentiment, Mr. Hayes crossed the room, cut off an admiring tourist, and intercepted Vic. They wrapped their arms around each other in a hug, but it was a tense one. The kind of hug that hid a semi-private conversation. When they broke apart, Mr. Hayes nodded once and headed back to his stool with his head slightly bowed. Vic showed no such defeat as she headed to the stage in the corner and Sophie.

  Hauk tried to focus on filling the drink orders waiting, but Vic’s sashaying hips and the memory of her bent over before him claimed his attention. His cock hardened at the image.

  “Trying out Halloween costumes.” Mr. Hayes shook his head. “That girl’s sniffed too many hair chemicals if she thinks I believe that line.”

  “Maybe if her costume is a harlot,” Hauk grumbled. Though she looked more like a sex kitten on the prowl.

  Held prisoner by her, Hauk lost track of all conversation. He mixed drinks on autopilot with no clue what he said to whom. The night was a blur, and he vaguely remembered agreeing to a poker game with Reece McGrath, the town architect, and a few guys from the fire station.

  The karaoke singers—thankfully—were a mild buzz of noise. Then Vic stood from the seat she’d taken by Sophie and turned her back to the room.

  She pulled off her long sweater, revealing her smooth shoulders and a large expanse o
f her back. The low, wide back only partially covered the mark he’d left on her two mornings before. The mark anyone else might take as a bruise. He knew better.

  Licking his lips, he again tasted her skin. Felt the glide and squeeze of her pussy as he thrust in and out. When she stepped onto the stage and turned back to the room, her gaze drifted over all the faces in the room and settled on him.

  Then she opened her mouth and began singing. The purity he’d heard in her laugh translated beautifully to the lyrics as she swayed and danced onstage and sang about a criminal, pivotal kiss and riding off into a sunset. She never broke her gaze from his as she sang about where she could be kissed. When she parted her lips and sighed an ahh midsong, she dropped her head as she had during orgasm.

  Hauk fisted the towel he held and narrowed his stare on her. Damned if the woman didn’t smile, knowing full well what she was doing to him. He’d spent two days trying to forget what they’d done, trying to think of a way to get their friendship back on its original path, and she waltzed into the pub with this act.

  Only the presence of her father and his daughter in the room saved her. If they hadn’t been there, Hauk would storm across the room, drag her off the stage to find a dark corner and devour her. Then he’d whip her—at least verbally--for tormenting him and showing off her lush body to every man in the place.

  Somehow he held himself in check while she wrapped up her song and bowed to the raucous cheering from the room. Even the women had loved what would be her last public performance—especially dressed in her current outfit.

  “My girl has a set of pipes on her,” Mr. Hayes proudly stated.

  That’s not all she has on her. “Yeah.”

  Hauk expelled a long breath as Vic slid the microphone onto its stand and stepped down from the stage. Men surrounded her, all reaching for the chance to touch her. One claimed her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor while another guy got onto the stage and started singing a slow ballad about a woman feeling a man thinking about her.