Charmed by His Love Read Free Page A

bring her bridesmaid dress instead of wearing it this morning.
    “We’re going to need more towels,” she heard from behind her.
    Wow, a whole sentence. Peg looked over her shoulder to find that the guy might be talking to her, but it was her three-pregnancy-wide backside he was looking at.
    She immediately turned to face him. “You guys aren’t getting any more towels until you round up the ones you’ve been lugging onto your boats. And here,” she said, thrusting the plunger toward him. “I’ll just leave this with you, since you must know more than I do about the physics of suction.”
    The guy—who appeared to be barely twenty—eyed the plunger as if he didn’t have a clue what it was.
    “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” Peg pulled him over to the toilet. “Okay, watch and learn, because there’s going to be a pop quiz later.” She shot him a brilliant smile. “And if you pass, I will
give
you this fascinating tool, and then you can show all your cabinmates how it works.”
    “I haven’t got time to mess around with some toilet,” he said, turning to leave. “We’re about to launch the submersible and I’m piloting it today.”
    Her heart skipping a beat that she may have just found Jacob’s scary man, Peg grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back around. “Then they won’t launch until you get there, will they?” She slapped the plunger against his chest. “Consider this training for when you’re eighteen hundred feet underwater and your Porta-Potty clogs.” She pulled him over to the toilet. “See, I’m really doing you a favor.”
    The guy actually shoved the
handle
of the plunger into the bowl of clear water—which made Peg suspect it was probably a washcloth plugging the toilet. “You’re a rather bossy broad,” he muttered, sloshing water all over the place.
    Peg closed her eyes to count to ten, but only made it to five. “You try being a single parent without being bossy.” She grabbed the plunger, turned it around, and slapped it back in his hand. “That’s the business end.”
    He blinked at her. “But it’s too big to fit down the hole,” he said, utterly sincere as he held it up for her to see.
    Really? Honest to God
really
? Peg took hold of his hand and guided the plunger down into the bowl. “Speaking of children,”she said, keeping her tone neutral, “I bet when you were a kid you were fascinated by little submarines, weren’t you? And some nice scientist must have showed you all around one, and you got so excited that you decided you were going to drive them when you grew up.” She stopped plunging to give him another brilliant smile. “And because of that nice man, now you do.”
    The guy straightened, getting a faraway look in his eyes. “I was eight when my dad took me down to the pier where they were loading a four-man submersible onto a ship. One of the crew snuck us onboard and even let me climb inside it. That is, until Claude caught us.” He shrugged. “But we left with a snorkel and mask, and the crewman told me to come back when I got out of college.” He smiled, nodding toward the window. “I’ve been interning with Claude for over a year now.”
    “So if you were to see a little kid admiring your little submarine out there,” she said conversationally, “would you show him around and feed his enthusiasm, or would you scare the bejeezus out of him by threatening to use him for shark bait?”
    The guy’s smile disappeared, replaced by confusion. “Oh, you must have met Claude,” he said with a shrug. “He hasn’t got much use for kids. And the submersible has some pretty expensive equipment and delicate instruments. Why? You mentioned being a single mom; you want me to give your kid a tour?” His gaze lowered and then lingered a tad too long on her chest before he shot her an utterly male grin. “If you let me take you to dinner tonight, I could give
you
an in-depth tour of the equipment.”
    Wow; she hadn’t seen that