The Love Shack. Christie Ridgway

could invite them to the cove. Sun and sand can be healing.”

      Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping, Gage mused, then turned his thoughts back to Mara and her son. No doubt they could use a dose of sun and sand. It had come down to Charlie’s next of kin—to Mara—to give the go-ahead on an American military raid to rescue her husband. He hadn’t survived the attempt. One of his kidnappers had shot him as soldiers stormed the compound where he’d been held.

      “I’m glad Griffin has made the choice to stick close to his woman,” Gage said abruptly. “If you love somebody enough, you won’t chance putting them through that.”

      “He loves Jane a lot.”

      “He does,” Gage agreed, shaking off his dark thoughts and breathing deep of the clean, open air. “Speaking of love lives, how’s yours?”

      Skye made a great show of screwing the empty cap back onto her thermos. “Oh, let’s not talk about me.”

      “Why not? Did something go wrong with you and Dagwood?”

      Her eyes narrowed at him. “Dalton.”

      “Dalton, Dagwood.” With a vague wave of his hand, he dismissed his mistake. Fact was, Dalton felt like the mistake. He didn’t know the guy, but she’d written that he worked in commercial real estate. Probably wore a suit seven days a week and didn’t like to get sand or seawater on his feet.

      “We broke up,” Skye said.

      “Good—wait, what?” Gage turned to face her. “When did this happen?”

      “A while back.” Now it was her turn to make an offhand gesture. “He still keeps coming around, but it’s over.”

      “And you didn’t tell me?”

      She shrugged.

      Call him nosy, but he couldn’t let it go at that. They’d shared quite a bit of themselves through their letters. “What was the trouble?”

      A flush suffused her face. Her wet tongue came out to paint her upper, then her lower, lip. Gage watched the nervous movement, aware he was getting aroused again. Damn. And damn her for the hesitation that had his hackles rising, too.

      “Skye?”

      “We...uh...” She cleared her throat. “There were some physical problems.”

      Dumbfounded, he stared at her. He’d expected to hear the guy was married. Or maybe two-timing Skye with some other single woman. But...physical problems? What the hell did that mean?

      Without thinking, he slid close and gripped her upper arms to turn her toward him, a sharp urgency driving him. “Did he hurt you? I’ll kill him if he hurt you.”

      She shook her head. “It wasn’t him. He didn’t hurt me.”

      Gage frowned, searching her face for the truth. “Okay. Good.” Then, driven again, he yanked her close and buried his face in her hair, breathing in more floral sweetness. “You scared the shit out of me for a minute.”

      It took another of those minutes for him to realize she was stiff in his hold. God, he thought, releasing her to put some distance between them. She probably considered him nuts. He was nuts, because he could still feel the imprint of her delicate form against his chest, the soft mounds of her breasts snuggled against his pecs. His cock throbbed and he shoved a hand through his hair, trying to push from his mind how good she’d felt in his arms.

      Fuck. He needed to get laid, whether or not it insulted Skye’s prudish sensibilities. Not that she’d have any reason to know about who and what he did between the sheets. He could be discreet.

      Though he wondered about his erection, because it was still upright and clamoring for immediate action.

      Gage shot to his feet. “I should get back. Give Griffin a call.” If his brother refused to go babe-trolling with him, maybe Jane had a friend who was up for sexual adventure. Because that was exactly what he needed.

      Skye stood, too, her plastic container in hand. “See you later.”

      “What are you doing today?”

      “This and that.” Then she crossed the uneven surface at her feet to peer into the nearest tide pool. “First, I’m gathering some sea lettuce.”

      “Huh?”

      “It’s a bright green seaweed—looks just like lettuce.”

      “I know what it is, I just don’t know what you want with it.”

      She sent him a smile. “I’m going to eat it in a salad. Want to come over for dinner tonight and share it with me?”

      “Tell me you’re not going to serve it with sea cucumber.” They were unattractive orange, sluglike creatures, about as long as a man’s hand, with a bumpy, leathery skin.

      Her gaze went back to the tide pool. “I think I see one or two of those in here, as well.”

      He made his way over to take his own look. “You don’t really eat them.”

      “I don’t really eat them.” She leaped over a nearby pool to approach yet another. “Oh, here’s an octopus.”

      Who could resist an eight-armed animal? Gage walked toward her, sliding a little on some slimy surf grass covering the exposed rock.

      “Be careful,” Skye admonished.

      He shot her a grin. “Thanks, Mom.” Upon reaching the edge, he squatted for a better view.

      Skye mimicked his position. They were shoulder to shoulder. Her arm lifted, and she pointed toward a small underwater cavern below the surface. “See?”

      Gage studied nature’s temporary goldfish bowl. It took him a moment, but then he saw the creature, its brown-speckled body about the size of his fist. As they watched, one of its tentacles drifted out and explored the rock overhead. It touched a bright green anemone, which immediately drew in its petals. A trio of starfish, one orange, one brown, one rose, clung to another shelf of rock nearby, huddled close to each other. A small sculpin fish wiggled about the sandy bottom on its own mission.

      “Beautiful,” Gage said, turning his head to give Skye another grin.

      Her head turned, too, and she smiled back.

      Beautiful, he thought again, gazing into her face, then homing in on that soft, tender mouth. Her smile slid away and it was so serious now. So seriously in need of a kiss.

      Gage leaned forward.

      Skye scrambled back, stumbling as she rose. He shot up, too, taken aback by her sudden movement. Her left heel caught on a jut of rock, and the right sole of her slip-on canvas shoe slid on a patch of surf grass. Then she was falling, going ass-first into one of the larger, deeper tide pools.

      She didn’t submerge all the way, but managed to come to a stand, wet from the neck down. They both stared at each other a moment, and then she burst out laughing. “So much for my dignity,” she said, apropos of nothing and between bouts of laughter. “I feel like an idiot.”

      “You look like one, too,” Gage confirmed and leaned down, palm outstretched to help her out. After a moment, her wet hand met his and he pulled, her light weight making it nothing to get her back onto land, water streaming from her clothes and puddling at her feet.

      “I probably terrified some poor little sea creature,” she said, turning around to inspect the still-sloshing surface of the pool.

      Gage’s gaze got stuck on her backside, the thin linen of her clothing now transparent and plastered to her skin. Oh, God. She had the sweetest—the sweetest—of high, firm asses. His favorite kind.

      Then she spun back and the fabric was only the frailest of veils here, too. He could see every lovely line of her: the delicate framework of her collarbone, the gentle slope of her breasts with their cold-hardened peaks, the flat plane of her belly