The Love Shack. Christie Ridgway

many,” the person beside him murmured.

      The bartender spoke up, a helpful note in his voice. “It was Ladies’ Night. He kept opening his wallet.”

      “And yet I still couldn’t cinch the deal,” Gage added glumly. With bleary eyes, he stared at the TV screen over the bar. When had Letterman lost so much of his hair? “I must be getting old, too.”

      “Or maybe more discerning.”

      The moralistic tone sent Gage’s head swinging to the side. His mood, already on morose, slid straight to grim when he saw it was Skye on the next-door stool, wearing another of her circus-tent sweatshirts and a pair of jeans. “What the hell are you doing here? I declared you off-limits.”

      “I didn’t get the memo.”

      “Blame me, bud,” the bartender put in. “I knew you were staying in the cove and I called her when I wasn’t sure you were good to drive to your cottage.”

      “I walked here,” Gage said.

      “Okay. But I’m not sure you’re good to walk to your cottage, either.”

      “Of course I...” His voice dropped off. To be honest, he couldn’t feel his toes.

      “Give us a couple of coffees, will you, Tom?” Skye asked. “Black, a little sugar?”

      When the mugs were set in front of them, she picked hers up and gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m off-limits?”

      “In more ways than one,” he muttered, taking his own long swallow of the strong brew. Even if she smelled like damn heaven, he wasn’t interested in her in the way he was interested in other women.

      “What’s that?”

      He took another drink of coffee. “Look, I didn’t want you around when I...when I...”

      “Went on a gorge?”

      He narrowed his eyes at her. “We discussed that terminology, didn’t we?”

      “Sorry—”

      “Because it’s probably what ruined my evening. I had Updo in the palm of my hand. Halter Top claimed she could tell I was going to get lucky tonight by reading the foam on my beer. Tiffany—”

      “Oh, so at least you bothered to find out one of their names.”

      He frowned at her. “It was engraved on the heart-shaped pendant she wore around her neck.”

      “What a guy.” Skye rolled her eyes. “That’s not her name, that’s the jeweler it came from.”

      “As I was saying,” Gage continued, “every time I was on the verge of suggesting we retire to No. 9 for some private...conversation, I would hear your goddamn prissy voice in my head.”

      “I thought it was the margaritas,” the bartender said, pausing to top off their mugs. “That’s what you blamed it on before.”

      “Skye can take responsibility for that, too,” he said, using the logic of the inebriated. “Because it had to be a woman who decided to screw around with the perfection of tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Flavored margaritas are clearly a female invention.”

      “What are you talking about?” Skye asked, looking between him and the bartender.

      “Mango margaritas were the special tonight,” Tom explained. Then he plopped a glass in front of her and poured inside the last icy dregs from a blender. “I don’t think they’re half-bad, myself.”

      Gage stared at the orangeish concoction as if it were a snake. He could smell the sticky sweetness from here. Just as pumpkin could take him back to Thanksgiving and peppermint to Christmas, breathing in the mango-redolent air sucked him straight to another time and place. He closed his eyes and felt the grit of dirt on his palms and the sick, uneven thud of his pulse in his ears. His throat closed, rebelling against swallowing, and his belly cringed as he imagined the thick liquid splashing into its aching depths.

      “Gage? Gage!”

      His eyes flew open and he stared, uncomprehending for a moment, into Skye’s face. “I imagined you a million times down there,” he said absently, “but never could pinpoint your features.”

      “What? Down where?” Her brows drew low. “What’s wrong?”

      He shook his head, as if he could shake off the memory like a bad dream. “Never mind.” That glass of mango marg still sat there, mocking him, and he slid from the stool. “It’s time for me to get out of here.”

      At his first step, he stumbled a little. “Gage.” Skye put out her hand.

      He brushed it aside, heading for the exit. “I’m fine.”

      She dogged his footsteps. “I’ll go with you to No. 9.”

      “Forget it.”

      “Then you escort me to my place,” she suggested.

      His feet slowed. Damn. “You walked?”

      At her nod, he resigned himself to a few more minutes in her company. By the time they were out of the restaurant and onto the sand, the combination of coffee and chilled air went a long way to sobering him up. He sucked in another long breath and tilted back his head to take in the stars flung against the dark sky. His brain only spun a little.

      “You okay?”

      “I’d be better if I was with another woman,” he said darkly, starting off down the beach.

      She sniffed, trudging beside him. Light from the moon made her face seem to glow. “If your heart was really in it, I doubt anything I might have said could change your mind. Or mango margaritas.”

      He didn’t want to go into the whole mango thing. “My heart really isn’t into it. That’s not the body part looking for company. You get that, don’t you, Skye?”

      She lifted both arms. “So find some solo relief. What’s the big deal?”

      He stared at her.

      Her gaze caught on his, skittered away. “What? I think the hairy palms thing is just a myth.”

      His laughter snorted out. “Still, honey, it’s not the same.”

      One of her shoulders jerked a shrug. “It’s all overrated,” she said under her breath.

      But he heard her. Was that what she’d meant when she said she and Dagwood had physical problems?

      “All men aren’t selfish in the sack,” he said, guessing at the difficulty. “I make certain my partners have as good a time as I do.”

      “I’m sure,” she said, dismissive.

      They’d reached her place. She pulled a key from her pocket, reached to insert it into the lock. The mechanism made an audible click, and then she turned toward him, her expression concerned. “Are you sure you don’t need my help getting home? It’s not far and you appear less, uh, inebriated, but...”

      Her mouth was moving, but he didn’t absorb any of the words with her insulting I’m sure still echoing in his ears. Her unconvinced tone rubbed him wrong, itching at his skin and worming its way under just like her angel scent, her long lashes, her nude earlobes, that unpainted mouth. It was her fault he was alone tonight, and now she was impugning his ability as a lover?

      He took an aggressive step forward, forcing her shoulders against the surface of the door to avoid the brush of his body. They stood so close he could feel her hitching breath against his throat. “I swear I’d do right by you, baby. On my honor, I’d make you come twice before entering you.”

      Her head jolted, thudding against the wood. Eyes wide, she stared up at him. The pale silver of the moonlight couldn’t cool the wave of color flagging her cheeks.

      On my honor, I’d make you