Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (138 page)

“That’s good. Right?”

“Just the touch of his hand on mine. Skimboarding in the moonlight. Silly, stupid stuff. He put paint on my nose. It seemed perfect. So, perfect. And yet he’s not the kind of guy I’d have ever even considered going out with.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes we don’t know what we want until we find it. Sounds like you found it, so why are we so upset?”

“Holden said that Brody is really here in town because his company is getting ready to open a big East Coast distribution center here.”

“He’s R waveStyle?”

“You know about that?”

“Sure. It’s been all the talk. I mean I don’t think it’s been announced that it’s a sure thing, but folks are hopeful. It’ll bring great things to our region.”

“Then why didn’t he tell me?”

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

“Why bother? I can’t be with someone who would lie or mislead me. It’s Holden all over again.”

“Now wait a minute, Elli. I understand this catches you off guard, but he didn’t lie. He’s a rich, successful guy, but you fell in love with who he is, not what he does for a living.”

“I thought he was just some surfer guy with a super big heart.”

“And he probably is. The fact that he came in by charter instead of on a bus didn’t tip you off just a little? I mean, even I thought that was a little weird.”

“I guess I didn’t really think about that.”

“Don’t let Holden mess this up for you too. I’ve never seen you happier than what you’ve been since Brody hit town. Plus, Nana adores him. That has to be good for something. She has a great intuition about people. She never did like Holden, if you remember.”

“True. Well, I guess I better just get through this inspection. Heck, he’ll be gone anyway. You should see all the stuff online about him. He’s not going to settle in Sand Dollar Cove or with a simple girl like me.”

“I’m sorry, Elli. I really am.”

“Me too. I’ve got to go.”

“Hang on.” Pam pressed the speaker button on her phone.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you get someone to take two fire extinguishers out to the car in the visitor spot right next to mine?”

“On it,” the voice came back over the speaker.

“Okay, so that’ll just take a moment. But get your head back on straight here before you leave. Y’all have done an amazing thing down there. You’re a good team. You got a whole building renovated in less time than it took me to just paint. Where was he when I was starting my project?”

“Guess he couldn’t use your land to have his big annual skimboarding competition.”

“You don’t really think he needed to manipulate you for that, do you?”

“I really don’t know what to believe. I thought I’d found him on Facebook. Totally random. It feels very set up now.”

“You look beat.”

“I am, but I’ll be okay.” Elli got up and took her keys out.

“Just promise me you’ll slow down and listen to all the facts before you do anything crazy.”

***

It wasn’t fifteen minutes after Elli hung the fire extinguishers on the hooks installed for them that the inspector walked in.

The man had to be close to retirement age. His blue Dockers and white shirt were starched stiff, and his tie was a little too short for a man of his height. One of her pet peeves.

“Good morning. I’m so glad you could get here so early. I’m excited to get this last inspection done and start moving forward.”

“I’m sure you are. You sure did slap this up in a hurry.”

“Well, we had a lot of hands and man hours. If we stretched that out to work days by spreading the allocated time over —”

The inspector held up his hand.

“Too much?”

“Yeah. It was just a comment. I wasn’t asking for a math word problem.” He started walking through the space, marking on his clipboard.

She didn’t mean to upset him. “I can assure you we took every precaution to be sure we stuck to code and did things right. It was a true team effort. Kind of like an Amish barn-raising.” Her heart two-stepped, thinking about the first time Brody had compared their project to that. It had seemed so special.

“This isn’t a barn,” the inspector said matter-of-factly.

“No, but if a town can build a barn from scratch, why not a small set of shops where there was already a foundation?”

“When was this space last used?”

“Years ago.”

“I see all the wiring was upgraded. Nice work.”

Thank goodness Brody had decided to upgrade those things as they went along. The price now was way less than a repair later.

The man scribbled on that clipboard like a madman. The pen made loud tap and scratch sounds as he did and that was rattling her.

The more he wrote, the more she felt like she might just faint from the anticipation of it all. “Can I get you some coffee? Sweet tea?”

“Won’t be here that long,” he said, never taking his eye off the outlets.

Elli quit puppy-dogging him around. She wasn’t helping. Plus her knees felt like they wouldn’t hold her much longer. She probably should have eaten something this morning.

“Well.” He walked back toward her, still writing something and then fumbling with some pages at the bottom of the clipboard.

Please don’t let it be something big.

“Here you go.” He handed her a card stock form. “Keep this on file.”

“We’re done?”

“Yes. I’m shocked. You had a top-notch project manager. That’s for sure. No shortcuts.”

“Thank you!” She hugged the inspection sheet. “Thank you so much.”

“Good luck. I’m excited to see how things go down here. When I was a kid, this part of the cove was the place to hang out. Your granddad was the coolest guy around.”

She walked the inspector to the door and then sat on the floor and cried.
Pops. This is for you.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Elli swept at her tears when she heard the front door open.

“You in here, Elli?”

She really wasn’t ready to talk to Brody yet.

“There you are. Hey, what’s wrong? Are you crying?” He raced over to where she was still sitting in the floor. “You are. Was the inspector here?”

“Just left,” she said, trying to control her voice.

“It can’t be that bad. Let me see. We can fix whatever it is. Don’t be upset.”

“It’s not that. We passed.”

“We did? That’s awesome! Are those happy tears?”

She laughed and then the real sobs just overtook her.

He took her into his arms, and stroked her hair. “What the heck is wrong?”

Elli pulled herself together and moved away from him. He grabbed for her hand and laced their fingers. “You gonna talk to me?”

“I saw Holden this morning.”

“Oh?” His expression faded. “You don’t still have feelings for him, do you?”

“No.” She shook her head.

He looked relieved.

“He told me who you are.”

“Elli, you know who I am. We’ve been working side by side for days. You know me better than anyone. You’ve snuck your way right into my heart.”

“Why didn’t you tell me who you really are? I didn’t find you by accident on Facebook, did I?”

“I wasn’t trying to keep a secret from you.”

“But you did.”

“It just didn’t come up, and in the beginning it was because we were trying to keep things quiet on the second warehouse for R waveStyle to keep it from the competition. So, I’d been watching for any mention of Sand Dollar Cove on social media and I just happen to find your post. It’s not like I lied. I had every intention of doing that work for you. It was going to be kind of therapeutic for me. It has been.”

“It’s not like you needed the work.”

“I don’t think that was in the job description.”

“Well, I thought you were some kind of beach-hopping surfer dude.”

“But…I never said that.”

“You let me believe it.”

“Please don’t be mad. I didn’t know this was going to turn into…this. And I sure didn’t think what I do for a living would bother you so much. I also didn’t think in a million years that I was going to meet a girl I’d fall for. I’m crazy about you, Elli.”

When he said it she wanted to believe it. So badly, but she didn’t want to be hurt again either.

“Look at me.” He let go of one of her hands and swept her hair from her face. “I know this sounds crazy, but I’m in love with you. It’s fast. I know it. But it feels right. You are an amazing woman.”

“You could have anyone.”

“I’m well aware of that. And I’ve never picked any of them. This is different. Wouldn’t it be worse if I was pretending to be some successful guy with a profitable company, but was really a beach bum?”

She started laughing. “Yeah. Maybe?”

“I’m sorry. Elli, at first it was just a fun project. But then I started really liking this town, and Nana is amazing. Cooking with her and hanging out was like being with my own grandmother again, and it felt good after losing my dad. It was comforting. And then you…well, that was unexpected.”

“What about me?”

“Your spirit. Everything little thing about you. The way you make me feel. I’ve never felt like this. I like it. A lot. Please don’t let this ruin things.”

She dried her tears, but her mind was still reeling.

“I can understand you being upset if you’ve read all that stuff journalists have written about me being the kind of bachelor who will never settle down. And you know, it has been a pretty accurate account up until now. But that’s no longer true. I can see myself here. I want to be with you. Don’t let Holden try to win you back by making me into something that I’m not.”

“He said you were manipulating me so you can hold those surf competitions down here in the cove.”

“Elli, if we do that it will be because you and I want that to happen. Trust me, I don’t need to steal beach rights for R waveSTYLE. The company has enough money to make a deal pretty much wherever we’d like to. I want you to be a part of all that with me.”

“Really? But I’m just a small-town beach girl who loves selling the right house to the right people. You’re …”

“In love with you. Please tell me you’re feeling it too.”

She was afraid to say the words. Instead she tipped her chin and reached up and kissed him.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

On the Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend, Elli hosted a party for everyone who helped with the rebuilding of the plaza. A huge celebration with whole hogs on smokers and kegs of beer being pumped from giant vats of ice, and Ed was going to perform.

Nana was moved into the Lazy Daisy, and Ed was in the process of making arrangements to move into Sol~Mate.

The festivities were low key, and the weather was perfect for it. A bonfire on the beach lit up the night, and people were talking and laughing. It felt just like the first weekend of the official tourist season should.

Each shop in the plaza was open for a practice run with the locals.

Ever-SOL-Pops was serving up free mini-popsicles. Last year’s recipients were there training the kids selected to take over this year, and it looked like they were having a pretty good time.

In the other two kiosks, they’d set up all the utensils for the barbecue and were serving up dinner. Lines were moving quickly, and it appeared the layout was going to really work.

Nana looked like she was queen for a day holding court in the new SandD’s Gifts. Brody had hung the sign for her, and it looked brighter and prettier than it ever had on the old building. Her windows were filled with not only her sand dollar art but also art from other North Carolina artisans, which had taken a burden off of her, and she was having so much fun educating everyone on the different pieces.

In the brand new place called Sea Foam they’d be selling beer from a local Carolina brewery on tap and serving tapas. A fun and different place for locals and tourists that planned to be open year round.

R waveSTYLE took the last spot. They were using it to do prototyping on a new line of skimboards, picking up where Elli’s granddaddy had left off, renting them by the day to tourists and offering sales of custom boards. They also had outlet prices on overstocks of all of their resort wear. Elli had a feeling the locals might buy out all their stock before they ever got to the weekend.

At seven o’clock Elli had promised announcements and entertainment. Ed had graciously offered to play some acoustic songs, and then a DJ would be pumping out the latest popular music from up in the brand new lifeguard shack R waveSTYLE had sponsored. A donation barrel was set up at the bottom of the guard shack, and people had been dropping in bills all afternoon.

Elli climbed the stairs up to the top of the lifeguard shack. Ed and Brody were already up there.

“You ready?” Brody asked.

“Yep.”

Brody flipped on the floodlight. Everyone’s attention spun their way. Elli picked up the microphone. “Hey y’all. Can I get your attention?”

Everyone quieted down.

“Thanks. I wanted to first off thank all of you for coming out tonight to celebrate the grand reopening of the plaza.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

“We’re here for ya, girl!”

“Whoop.”

“Yeah, okay, well I should’ve known all y’all would show up for barbecue and beer no matter what, but I really do want to thank everyone who helped with the renovations. Can we give a big round of applause for those that gave their time and sweat to the project?”

A loud round of applause, peppered with whistles rose from the beach.

“Nana and I both want to thank you for pulling together to help us rebuild the Shoppes On The Cove. We couldn’t have done it without you. Also take note of the boards along the back walls of each shop. Those include the names of all of the original Buy A Board Campaign donors, and all of you who volunteered. I hope everyone will really enjoy the new shops and this end of the beach for the first time in a few decades.”

Everyone clapped.

“And a special thank you to our newest resident of Sand Dollar Cove, Ed Rockingham.”

“’Freebird’,” someone yelled from the crowd.