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Wild Lover Book 1
Mia Tennyson was a girl’s girl. She liked shopping and spinning classes, white wine and fro-yo, yoga and book club reads. She was a first grade teacher, for goodness sake. Mia didn’t really believe other women when they claimed to like watching football and drinking craft ale. She thought those chicks were all hiding People magazines behind their copies of Sports Illustrated and beer mugs in an attempt to impress their boyfriends. She stubbornly clung to her girly-ness, until Jeff started complaining that they didn’t have much in common. Since Mia hoped that their two-year relationship would soon become an engagement, she decided to throw Jeff a bone. She couldn’t have predicted that Jeff would chuck that bone right back in her face.
Somehow she found herself standing on a fishing dock in the blazing South Florida sun on a June morning. She stared at her phone. She couldn’t believe, given the circumstances, what she was reading.
Sorry, Mia. I just really think our relationship isn’t going anywhere.
Are you kidding? I booked this fishing trip so I could learn to do something you like
to do!! I paid $300!! Now you’re breaking up with me… and via text??!!
I’m really sorry, but you know I’ve been unhappy. But maybe you’ll like fishing. Take
care of yourself. Let’s get coffee sometime and I’ll give you back the stuff you’ve got at my place.
Fuck you, Jeff. Seriously. FUCK YOU.
“Miss? Are you Mia? Mia Tennyson?”
Mia’s eyes welled up behind her sunglasses. She turned toward the deep, masculine voice.
The speaker had some kind of foreign accent. Maybe Jeff’s unfathomable behavior had caused her to lose her mind, because it seemed like someone had plunked her down in the middle of a Ralph Lauren ad.
The man with the English-or-Australian accent stood on the prow of the blue and white center console fishing boat in the slip before her. The boat’s name, “Wanderlust,” was emblazoned on the side in red letters. The man wore a pair of khaki shorts and a gray polo shirt. He had thick, wavy dark hair that stuck up in a way that would have been silly in an office but was charming on a boat. He was barefoot. Every inch of his exposed skin was tan, except for the white rings around his blue eyes when he removed his glasses.
Mia stared at him, agog, as if she were one of the fish he was supposed to teach her to catch. He tried again, “Mia Tennyson?”
She nodded.
“Are you coming with me… on this charter? We can get going. You’re my only
client today.”
Mia opened her mouth to say something like, “I’m sorry, but I’ve had a change of plans and I really can’t go fishing today. I have to grade a bunch of book reports, or write up report cards.” None of her usual teacher-ly explanations would work, however, because for one thing, it was summer. For another thing, she meant to start talking, but instead she started crying.
“Whoa!” said the boat guy. He jumped onto the dock. “Whoa… are you okay?”
She nodded and sobbed and nodded again. “I—yes, I’m fine—but I… I hate fishing!”
He grabbed a blue towel from the boat’s railing. “You hate fishing? I—well…I thought you were supposed to go fishing with me.”
“I am!” Mia said. He looked at her as if their respective uses of English had suddenly turned into German versus Mandarin Chinese. “I am supposed to go with you. But I booked this trip because my boyfriend wanted us to spend more time together doing the kinds of stuff he likes to do. But now… he… he…”
Boat-Man rubbed his scruffy square jaw. “He…”
“He broke up with me! He sent me a text and broke up with me after two years!”
Mia buried her face in the towel.
“Ouch,” said Boat-Man. “That’s horrible.”
“I can’t believe it…I just can’t.”
“So I guess you don’t need to go fishing anymore.”
She shook her head.
“Damn,” he said. He sighed, and even through her fog of hurt and shock, Mia
noticed the fullness of his lips. “I prepped the boat. The lines—“
She sniffed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about all that. Guess I thought we just
hopped into the boat and you stepped on the gas.”
He smiled at her. “There’s no gas pedal.”
“Oh. Well, if you don’t mind refunding my deposit…”
“Technically I don’t have to, but given the circumstances…” He shrugged. “Can’t take advantage of a lady with a broken heart.”
Mia slung her beach bag over her shoulder. “Thanks,” she said. She watched as the boat guy climbed back onto the Wanderlust. He stretched his arms over his head. The muscles in his back pushed against his polo shirt. She swallowed. “I appreciate you understanding. Sorry for wasting your time.”
“It would have been a waste of time to take you out, anyway. If you hate it so much, you never would have been any good.”
Something about that dismissal irked Mia. “It can’t be that hard.”
He shrugged. “Guess you’ll never find out.”
Mia held out her hand. Jeff thought she was a wilting daisy, and obviously this English-or-Australian Boat-Man did, too. She wasn’t going to be dismissed twice in one day. She decided in that moment to show them both. “Maybe I will find out. And maybe I’ll be the best fisher-woman in South Florida.”
Boat-Man laughed. “Maybe, Miss Tennyson.” He took her outstretched hand and helped her aboard the Wanderlust. “Welcome. My name is Blaine Daniels.”
*
Blaine was right. Mia was no good at fishing. She managed the thirty-minute boat ride offshore with ease, but after ten minutes of aimless floating in the open ocean due east of Fort Lauderdale, Mia felt the creep of nausea. It picked up pace quickly, and before she knew it, she was hanging over the side of the boat.
She didn’t know what was worse: her hurt pride, her embarrassment, or the fact that her stomach seemed determined to lodge itself in the back of her throat. Blaine offered her a Dramamine, but she couldn’t keep it down. Once she’d thrown up everything in her stomach, she lay on the bench seat in the rear of the boat. Blaine propped a towel under her head. He wiped her hair away from her face. “Are you okay?”
She tried to smile, but she failed at that, too. “Yes—no. This is the worst day of my life, honestly.”
“I’m sorry. It didn’t go as I planned, either. When I saw you on the dock, I thought it had potential to be an amazing day.”
“Why is that?” She wiped her eyes.
“I usually take men out on the water. Not gorgeous brunettes.”
She blushed through her pallor. “Thanks. You’re just trying to make me feel better. “
