Page 7 of Sweet Passions at Bayside
“What now?” she asked, surveying their work.
“Now we pray they don’t go into shock.”
“Oh no, really? I feel horrible, but they actually look prettier now. Not so much like weeds.” With a hand on her slim hip, she said, “They obviously needed my touch.”
He was pretty surehe’dlook better if she had her hands all over him, too. He sprayed her with the hose and she shrieked, taking off right through the garden they’d just planted. He dropped the hose and thrust his hands out, catching her around the waist and lifting her straight up before she could trample the plants, her legs still moving. He tossed her over his shoulder and carried her toward the house.
“Hey! I’m sorry! Dean! Where are you taking me?”
“Keeping the chaos away from my gardens.” If she werehis, he’d carry her straight into the bedroom and keep her busy so she couldn’t cause any more trouble. But she wasn’t, and she’d told him enough horror stories over the last few months about dating friends to know better than to even try. He stopped at the patio and set her on her feet.
She crossed her arms and narrowed her beautiful eyes. “Are you calling mechaos?”
He was sure she meant to look mean, but she looked so cute, and he couldn’t help but smile. “You said it,whirlwind, not me.”
Tango, one of his two kittens, wound around her feet. She scooped him up, holding him against her chest and nuzzling his head. “I amnotchaosora whirlwind. Am I, little guy?” She glanced at Dean, rubbing her cheek against the area of the cat’s head where his ear should have been. “I can’t believe I can finally hold Tango. I wanted tosobadly when I saw you feeding him and Cash on Skype.”
In early spring, when he was out for a morning run, Dean had found the two kittens down by a marsh. They were nothing but skin and bones, shivering, with barely enough energy to lift their heads. Both had been severely injured. Tango, a calico, was missing one ear, and the wound had become infected. Cash, who was all gray, had an open wound on his tail. He’d taken them directly to the vet, and they’d clung to him like a lifeline. He’d bottle-fed them and cared for their wounds. They’d recovered well and had become mischievous little guys, and they’d been sleeping on his bed ever since.
She rubbed noses with the kitty and set him down. “Where’s Cash?”
He shrugged. “Probably out prowling around somewhere.”
“Speaking of prowling around, why aren’t you out chasing hot chicks on your day off? You do landscaping all week long. Don’t you want someprowlingtime?”
“Do I seem like the prowling type to you?” He had women hitting on him all day long at the resort, the assisted living facility, the hospital, and at the beach. Once upon a time, he’d enjoyed that availability to the fullest, but ever since getting to know Emery, there had been only one woman on his mind.
And at the moment, she was bending over to pet Tango, giving him an eyeful of herplayful girlsand driving him out of his ever-loving mind.
Chapter Two
“YOU MIGHT BE even better at grilling than Desiree is at making breakfast.” Emery reached over and stole a pineapple chunk from Dean’s plate. He’d grilled shrimp and steak kabobs with chunks of pineapple and peppers for dinner, and they were eating at the table on the patio. After the garden debacle, she’d been relegated to the patio, the house, or basically anywhere that wasn’t green. “You know, that says something, considering Desiree’s breakfast skills are driven by her sex life.”
The running joke at Summer House Inn, where Dean, Rick, and the rest of their friends gathered for breakfast most mornings, was that the quality of Desiree’s breakfasts was determined by how hot her love life with Rick had been the night before. Emery had to admit, she was a little jealous that Desiree had a five-star love life while hers was practically nonexistent. She’d had plenty of experience over the years, but watching her best friend fall madly in love had opened her eyes to what she’d never known she was missing. Not that she was capable of having such a loving, stable relationship. Her parents had divorced when she was young, and although she still had a close-knit family and had grown up splitting time between both parents’ houses, neither she nor her brothers seemed capable of maintaining anything worthy of being called arelationship—much less finding everlasting love.
She pushed those thoughts away and snagged another pineapple chunk from Dean’s plate, having nearly licked her own clean. “ByDesireestandards, you must be getting some pretty hot sex, too. That’s not surprising. I mean look at you.” She waved her hand at him. “You’ve got it all going on, with that killer smile, eyes that say, ‘I’ll take you and cherish you at once,’ and a body that turn women’s minds to mush from twenty feet away.”
He raised his brows in quick succession. “Give you any ideas?”
“Like you need me on your list of lovers?” She laughed and took a sip of his iced tea, as hers was already gone. Dean had spoken often about hanging out with friends and his work over the past few months, but he’d only alluded to going on a few first dates. She was curious about his personal life. “As I said, you must be keeping busy.”
He scoffed. “Hardly.”
“Seriously? You cook this welljust because?” Cash wound around her feet, purring. She’d loved him up while Dean was grilling, and he’d been following her around ever since. “I’m not buying it.”
“I do everything welljust because.”
Enjoying his cockiness, she said, “Careful saying that around women, big guy. They’ll want you toperform.” Her phone vibrated with a text and she began licking her fingers while simultaneously looking around for her napkin. She spotted it on the ground and bent to retrieve it. “Can you check that text for me?”
“I’m a little busy,” he said, eyeing her cleavage.
She glared at him and wiped her hands, but they stuck to the napkin. “Ugh. Still sticky. Maybe you could put your checking-out skills to better use and read my text for me.”
“You really want me toreadyour text?”
It was cute to see such a large, confident man worrying about what he might see on her phone. “It’s probably my brothers checking up on me. Come on, it’s not like it’s going to be a dirty text from a hot guy or anything.” Dean had met her entire family over Easter, when her older brother Austin had walked in on the two of them FaceTiming at their mother’s house. Austin had made a big deal of bringing the whole family in to meet Dean in a failed attempt to embarrass her. She didn’t get embarrassed over friendships. He’d deemed DeanVikingthat night because of his beard and the stern impression he’d left on Austin. Before she’d taken off for the Cape, Austin had told her not to call him in a month and say she was shacking up with Dean, or he’d come out and teach the poor bastard a lesson. Yes, being out from under her brothers’ thumbs was a very good thing, though with her luck, there was no chance of making out with—much less shacking up with—anyone anytime soon.
She went into the house and washed her hands in the kitchen sink. “Not all of us have great love lives,” she called out to Dean.
