One of the Boys Read Free Page B

night. He couldn’t believe he’d given in to the impulse to kiss the woman who’d tumbled so conveniently into his arms. She was a mass of contradictions, as prickly as she was outspoken. He couldn’t figure her out, and his neat, orderly mind hated that kind of ambiguity.
    One thing was clear, though. His body wasn’t experiencing the least ambiguity. Just the memory of her mouth under his put a kink in his gut that wouldn’t quit.
    He shifted in the bucket seat, trying to erase the discomfort with a healthy dose of common sense. The scars from his divorce had pretty much healed, but he’d learned his lesson. He intended to look long and hard before he took another leap into the pool. Particularly with a woman as confusing as Maura Phillips.
    With a distinct twinge of regret, Jake decided he’d best avoid her in the future. Eglin was a big base, the largest in the world. It had more than five hundred square miles of test range and ate up half of the Florida panhandle. Surely that was enough room to keep some distance between him and this particular female.

Chapter 2
    â€œH i.”
    The tentative greeting drifted through the brim of the floppy straw hat shading Maura’s brow. Angling her head, she squinted into the late-afternoon sun at the silhouette standing ankle deep in the water just a few yards away. The hazy figure gradually resolved itself into a smiling, dark-haired teen.
    â€œHi, yourself.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to wake you,” the girl offered as she waded closer to Maura’s lawn chair. The chair was set in two feet of warm, shallow water with the seat just inches above the lapping wavelets.
    â€œDon’t let the closed eyes and snoring fool you,” Maura responded, shifting Bea’s dead weight to amore comfortable spot on her stomach. “I wasn’t sleeping, just soaking up some rays.”
    The girl giggled. “I was just surprised to see anyone in this cove. I come here just about every afternoon, and it’s always deserted. It’s my special place.”
    Intrigued, Maura studied the gangly teen. She guessed her age at about fifteen or so and wondered why the girl would spend her summer afternoons in a deserted cove. Her own experience with half a dozen nieces and nephews made her think trips to the mall and beach parties with hordes of noisy friends were more usual pursuits.
    â€œI just discovered the cove myself,” Maura confided. “It’s only a short walk from the cottage I’ve rented. It’s so quiet and peaceful, I thought it would be a good spot to contemplate nature, even with eyes closed.”
    Actually, she’d thought it was a good spot to let her tired body rest in the sun. Still trying to get a handle on her new job, she’d worked late every night last week and all day Saturday. This morning she’d woken late and toyed briefly with the idea of unpacking a box or two. Instead, she’d lingered over coffee until the unnatural urge went away, then decided to go exploring. The vast Choctawhatchee Bay called to her.
    Pulling on a bathing suit and a pair of sneakers that had passed their prime years ago, she dug through the boxes for the straw hat one of her nephews had won at a county fair and wouldn’t be caughtdead in. With a lightweight folding chair under one arm and Bea under the other, she’d set off along the narrow beach that edged the bay.
    Following the shoreline from the cluster of cottages surrounding her own, she’d soon left all traces of civilization behind. Minutes later, she’d rounded a curve and found herself in this picturesque, deserted cove. Fallen tree stumps littered its bank, and shells washed up onto the ribbon of sand that constituted its tiny shore.
    With a sigh of contentment, Maura had unfolded her lounger in the shallow, lapping waves, settled Bea atop her stomach, and let the sun soak into her tired bones. The sunlight dancing on the waves