Page 3 of Crossing the Line (Whitecap)

She scuttled down the aisle toward the counter at the front of the store. I watched as she hoisted herself up on the cushioned stool and pulled out one of the many romance novels she kept hidden at the back of the shelf beneath the register, thinking we didn’t all know her little secret. We all knew. Hell, when things were slow, I tended to raid her stash as a way to pass the time. She had a penchant for historical romances that had rubbed off on me. I’d take a sexy plundering pirate or a rakish duke over real-life men every day of the week.

I shook my head on a grin as she started reading, and got down to re-stocking, moving my way through the shelves. Just as I was finishing up with the cereal, the bell tinkled as the door whooshed open in a rush, bringing the sea breeze in with it.

“What’s the rush, Luna?” Georgia asked from her place at the counter.

I lifted my head, and my eyes landed on my friend just as hers found me. “Oh good, you’re here!”

I lifted my arms out at my sides. “Where else would I be, Lu? I’m here five days a week. It’s my job.”

Luna Copeland was the closest thing I had to a best friend, considering the only things she knew about me were the lies I’d told her and everyone else in Whitecap. She only knew me as Sawyer Darcy. She knew absolutely nothing about Cheyanne Knightly. There had been a few close calls over the years—mainly after we’d had a bit too much to drink during our monthly Margarita Mondays—when I camethisclose to telling her all my secrets, but I’d always managed to pull myself back before my mouth could get away from me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. If there was anyone I knew I could count on, it was her, but the risks were just too great. I had to put Renee’s safety first. I’d run before Graham could discover I was pregnant. If he found out about the daughter we shared, he’d hunt us down and take her away from me, and that wasn’t going to happen. I kept her safe. I loved her. I did everything in my power to protect her. If her father had the first clue she existed, she’d be in danger and I’d die before I let that happen.

Luna skip-walked down the aisle, a huge, shit-eating grin on her face. “Have you seen him yet?” she asked excitedly.

“Seen who?”

She let out a whistle and danced a little jig. “If you’re asking that, you definitelyhaven’t.”

I smacked her in the stomach with an unopened box of marshmallow puff cereal. She snatched it out of my hand and peeled the flap open, tearing the interior bag and stuffing a handful of cereal into her mouth. “Will you stop speaking in code and just spit it out already?” I pointed at the cereal box. “And you’re paying for that.”

She rolled her eyes like I was being ridiculous before explaining through puffy, cereal-packed cheeks what had her in such a state. “So I heard from Dina who heard from Carley who heard from Addy that she had a new renter at the beach house on Sandstone Lane right down the street from your house.”

The skin between my brows puckered as I frowned in confusion. “That usually happens with rental properties, right? Peoplerentthem. It’s kind of the whole purpose.”

Luna’s cheeks flushed a pale, excited pink as she leaned in and lowered her voice like she was about to reveal she knew who shot JFK or that she’d stumbled on Coca Cola’s secret recipe or something. “Yeah, but according toall of them, she’s never had a renter that was this gorgeous.”

I snorted as I turned away and began breaking the empty box down with a box cutter. “I seriously doubt that. Tourist season brings people from all over the country. There are hot men all over the place during the summer.”

Luna let out a wistful sigh and fanned her face. “Don’t I know it,” she replied dreamily. “Damn, I miss the summer.”

“It’s still technically summertime, babe.”

“Yeah, but it’s theendof summer, which means all the talent has headed back home or been sampled already.”

My friend was what I liked to refer to as a seasonal dater. She was basically the female version of the world’s most notorious bachelor, keeping her dalliances strictly to men she knew wouldn’t be sticking around for more than a couple weeks. Three months out of the year she went nuts with the hot, single men passing through, and as soon as fall hit, it was like she went into hibernation until the following summer.

Her thought was she was still young enough that the tick of her biological clock was just a distant noise at this point, and she intended to soak up as much fun as possible before she even considered such things as settling down and monogamy.

She refused to get involved with any locals, claiming things tended to get a bit messy when you took a guy home from the bar and the dude you’d wham-bam thank-you-ma’am-ed a few weeks before lived just up the block.

“Anyway,” I said, shifting the focus back to the matter at hand, “I’m sure Addy was exaggerating. You know she tends to do that.”

“I thought the same thing. But then Sherry at Gas and Go said she spotted him when he swung through to gas up his ride, and she confirmed it. So I’m going to need you to be on the lookout for me, ’mkay?”

“What? Why me?” She let out a huff that scattered cereal crumbs all over the front of my shirt. “Oh, come on. You’re so gross,” I said on a laugh as I dusted myself off.

She finished chewing quickly and swallowed. “Sorry about that. And you know why. You have that crazy weird juju where you can get a read on a person just by looking at them.”

She wasn’t wrong about that, but it wasn’t exactly juju. It was a skill that came from years of hiding and lying about my identity. I’d basically grown to be suspicious of everyone around me. It wasn’t the easiest or healthiest way to live, but it kept Renee and me safe.

“Why do you think I never hook up with a guy until I’ve gotten the okay from you?”

Oh yeah. And it had also turned me into a walking creep detector for my best friend.

“What if this guy’s not just passing through? What if he’s planning to move here?”

She gave me a look that screamed,oh, you precious, silly girl.“If he’s as hot as people are claiming, I’m willing to make this one exception. You know, for the greater good.”

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