Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) (7 page)

He held her there, painted toes off the floor, drinking in the spicy, elemental fragrance of her warm hair. Her body pressed against his, and he could feel unbridled pleasure at the win flying along her skin, pulsing through her. He couldn’t imagine there being anything better than this. Everything about her just fit.

The Wheel was spitting out a seemingly endless reel of tickets. All the adults, and a few of the kids, around them stopped to see what the commotion was. Reluctantly, Silas set her down. Raising her hand like a triumphant prize fighter, he addressed the small crowd.

“She won the Wheel.”

Sofia tore off her tickets and held out her hand. With a little bow, he handed her the stack of folded tickets from his pocket. She took them and turned for the prize counter, but not before taking his hand to tow him behind her.

They didn’t have enough for a panda, but Sofia traded her tickets in for a perfectly horrible purple glass mermaid statue. When Silas laughed, she very seriously informed him that the mermaid was for the cashier’s window at the Landing.

“Well, in that case, she’s perfect.”

Sofia tucked the mermaid into her straw purse. “To the ring toss?”

“How about the milk bottles? I’m feeling like a sure thing.”

Sofia’s wry smile was worth the bad joke.

The hawker was a guy in his early twenties. These days the hawkers worked the crowd with a headset, but the essential game was unchanged. Silas handed him a five for three chances. He felt like a high school kid again, trying to impress a beautiful girl with his athletic prowess. Sofia leaned against the counter, watching him gauge the throw. In the bright lights of the midway, she could have been a high school girl, too.

His first ball went a little to the left, but it nicked a bottle hard enough to knock over the first pyramid. He squared his shoulders.

When the third pyramid of bottles clattered to the floor of the booth, Silas whooped. He whirled Sofia off her feet, giving her a smacking kiss before setting her down again.

“So,” asked the hawker, “what would the lady like?” He gestured to the row of super-sized animals hanging above.

“The panda.” They spoke together, giggling as the hawker fetched it down. Sofia hugged it hard, and Silas was reminded of the deal they’d made in Dex’s bar.

“You two have a good night.” The hawker sent them off, already drawing in new players for the game.

Silas struck out for H Street. “Come on, panda girl. Let’s get you some fried dough.”

~~~

Sofia couldn’t remember being so happy in Hampton, not since she was a child. With the panda looped under her arm, she walked in easy time with Silas. At the first cross street, he reached for her hand.

Blinks was a blaze orange shrine to fried dough. The porch overhang was crowded with people waiting for orders; the line stretched down the stairs into the sidewalk.

“What do you want?” Silas asked.

She handed him the stuffed panda. “This is on me.”

Silas took the bear. “Cinnamon and sugar.”

She snuck a glance at him while he leaned against the signpost. As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned to her. The street light threw his face into deep shadows, but his intent was unmistakable. She shivered, understanding pooling low in her belly.

Rejoining him with the fried dough, she gestured across the street, where several empty benches lined the beach boardwalk. Silas set the panda down to one side to take his fried dough. He looked at hers, brows raised. “Cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar?”

She nodded. “The only way to have it.” The first bite was perfect, crisp from the fryer, soft inside, sugary and sweet. She hummed with pleasure.

“Remind me to take you for fried dough more often,” Silas said, sinking his teeth into his own.

They ate in silence, watching the amateur fireworks displays from the beach, followed by the Hampton police on their quads breaking up the lawbreakers. She started to hand Silas a napkin, but he licked the sugar and cinnamon from his fingers with a wink. Sofia swore she could feel his mouth on her own skin.

“Look,” Silas said pointing to the sky above them.

A red Chinese lantern drifted over the beach. It caught a column of air and spiraled gently up before flying out over the Atlantic. They watched it until it burned out over the horizon.

“I’ve never seen one before,” Sofia whispered. “Not like that.”

“Me neither.” Silas stood, snagging the panda by one plush paw. “Come on. Let’s walk home on the beach, see if we can find where they’re launching them.

They walked along the boardwalk until they reached a set of stairs down to the sand. Without speaking, they stopped to take their shoes off. Bare-footed, they set out southward on the beach.

“They grant wishes,” she said. “Or they can.”

As they walked, a new pair of lanterns rose from the far side of the dunes at the southernmost end of the state park parking lot.

“What’s your wish?” Silas asked.

To have my parents back. The thought surfaced quickly, taking her by surprise. Unwanted tears pricked the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath. It felt wrong, under a sky full of stars and paper wishes, to lie. “I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to my dad.”

Yet again, Silas took her hand in his. He squeezed gently, offering silent comfort.

“I’d try to forgive him.” The confession made her lightheaded. “I wish I could have told him that I missed her, too, but that I needed him, and I was so angry, so sad, and so alone. So goddamn jealous of the booze.”

Silas stopped, dropped the panda, and smoothed his warm hands over her shoulders. His face swam in and out of focus through her tears.

“He knew, Sofia.”

She blinked, letting the tears take their course.

“He knew,” Silas said again. “He might not have spoken about it, but I’m sure he knew. He was sober, Sofia, and he worked his tail off. He filled that apartment with photographs. He wore his memories like a hair shirt.”

“Why?” Her voice caught. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s eating you up.” He pulled her close, lips brushing her temple. “Forgive him. Let him go.”

“I wish I could.” She stepped out of the embrace. “I hope I can.”

Silas’s whispered kiss at her temple burned like a brand. There was nowhere to look but his face, nothing to do with her hands, and then he reached for her, brushing her knuckles with his thumb. He dropped his shoes on the sand and traced her jaw with his finger.

His lips were cool, his tongue sweet from the fried dough. His hands slipped under the hem of her top, skimming the small of her back. He slipped his fingers through the straps of her slingbacks, unwinding her grip and dropping them near his sandals. She tipped her head, wrapped her arms around his neck and drew the kiss in deeper. The gentle simmer of desire between them boiled over, seasoned with a little desperation. Tonight, she wanted him. Consequences be damned.

He breathed in the touch of perfume she wore at her clavicle. “Totally worth a panda.”

He reached down, cupping her ass and pulling her up against him. She smiled against his mouth; he wanted her just as badly. Her lashes fluttered when his teeth nipped at her lower lip. Overhead, the lanterns soared. She braced her hands on his forearms.

“Silas.”

His response was low and hoarse. “Yeah.”

She scooped up her shoes and walked down to the water’s edge. When Silas’s expression asked her an unspoken why, she laughed. “I can walk faster on the wet sand.”

Mischief. She saw it in his eyes, and then he rushed her, reaching down for his sandals and the bear as he did. He slung her over one shoulder and ran down the tide line. She shrieked, giddy laughter bubbling up along with the salt spray from his feet in the waves. After a hundred feet, he set her down, panting and grinning.

Sofia pushed a few stray strands of hair off her face. “That’s one way to get home faster.”

Silas regained his breath. “Not fast enough.” He kissed her purposefully.

Behind him, a campfire flickered in its copper fire pit. Sofia knew the spot from her evening walks on the beach. A group was lighting and releasing the Chinese lanterns behind one of the rental cottages on Haverhill. This time, she took his hand. “What’s your wish?”

Silas looked meaningfully at Buck’s Landing’s sign beckoning from down the beach, and ran with her toward them. “We’re almost there.”

They tumbled through her door, blood hot and pulses racing. Her bag and the panda fell forgotten just inside the apartment. Sofia pushed his faded Princeton tee up, baring his chest. She ran her nails through the soft hair there. Their arms tangled in their hasty efforts to get to skin. His teeth scraped her jaw, nipped at her neck and shoulders.

Sofia shivered when he pulled her tank top over her head, heat like mercury pooled between her thighs and she tugged at the button of his khaki shorts. Silas stepped out of them even as he was pushing denim down over her hips. Breathless, they paused; he in his cotton boxers, she in a few scraps of lace.

Slowly, so slowly, he reached up and behind her neck. He tugged the elastic from her braid, twisting it between his fingers briefly before tossing it on the nearby coffee table. When he reached for her again, she stilled his hands. Without a word, she threaded her fingers into the braid and shook it free, her curls tumbling down over her shoulders with a little toss of her head.

He came into her arms and she pressed them both down into the faded leather sofa. Straddling his lap, she reached back to undo her bra. He filled his hands with her breasts, thumbs grazing the soft well of flesh. From beneath lashes grown heavy with lust, she watched him take one aching nipple into his mouth. With the first touch of wet heat and the scrape of his teeth, she was ready for him. She reached between them, caressing him through his boxers.

Silas left her breast to lay a trail of damp kisses along her collarbone, to tease her lips, to torture her with sweetness. Her blood sang; her skin was on fire. His hands, which slipped under what satin remained, found her slick and wanting; everything about his onslaught left her breathless.

He kissed from her lips to her ear, whispering low. “Do you have anything?”

She sat up on her knees. “This way.”

Her feet had barely touched the floor when a shrill yowl split the night. Silas sat up. “What the hell?”

He slipped back into his shorts and out onto her landing; wrapping a blanket around herself, she stepped out behind him. A thrashing bundle of fur and claws was scrapping in the narrow concrete lane between Buck’s Landing and the Atlantis Market.

“Shit.” Silas stuffed his feet into his sandals. “Houdini!”

His feet thumping on the stairs broke up the spat between his tiny ball of fury and a skinny marmalade that streaked away down the block. Sofia watched him coax Houdini out of the shadows. Even from her vantage point, she could see the ridge of raised fur along the kitten’s spine.

Silas looked up at her with a pained expression. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Not if I make it up to you first,” she said. She tried for flirtatious, but disappointment pressed against her ribcage. She loitered in her own doorway as Silas unlocked his back door and disappeared inside with the angry cat.

Picking up her scattered clothes a few moments later, she realized Silas had left his shirt. With a foolish smile, she inhaled his scent from the fabric. She left the Princeton tee folded on her sofa, but the fragrance of sunshine, sand, and soap stayed with her until she fell asleep.

FIVE

Sofia was sweeping the sidewalk under the awning when the tenants from 2A, a French-Canadian couple down from Montreal for the week, passed by, headed out for a morning whale watching trip.

“Bonjour, Sofie,” waved Catherine, trailing her husband towards their sporty green car. “We’ll bring you a whale!”

The charming Gallic elegance in the Gaultier’s English put visions of wine, Brie, baguettes, and perfect bites of dark, silky chocolate into Sofia’s head. For all she knew, Catherine Gaultier had just such a picnic stashed away in her sailor-striped canvas tote.

The set up at the Landing allowed for both the Snack Bar and the Mini-Golf to operate out of the food-service window when she was understaffed. Since she was on her own until her teenaged employees arrived, Sofia set out the sign redirecting golf traffic to the Snack Bar. She busied herself setting up the soft-serve machines, industrial coffeemaker, and beverage cooler before opening the register.

It occurred to her, not for the first time, that it wasn’t so much a snack bar as an ice cream window, but her dad hadn’t been much for marketing specifics. She was three lines into a list of fresh names when her first customers arrived, and she remembered that the Landing’s future wasn’t up to her.

She handed the family their scorecard and brightly colored golf balls and directed them around the building to the first tee. “Enjoy your game,” she called.