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There had been something so cute and refreshing about Ella’s breathless enthusiasm when she’d got a load of his first place the night before. She wasn’t the only woman he’d brought to the hut, but she was the only one who had appreciated its charm and overlooked the used furniture and lack of amenities.
For some weird reason it had felt good to know all she’d seen was him—not Dive Guys, or the things it had afforded him.
‘That looks real tasty, Coop. You shouldn’t have bothered, though—I already grabbed a crab patty up at the Runner.’
Coop swung round, nearly dropping the tray, to find Sonny’s daughter, Josie, perched on one of his bar stools. With her long legs crossed at the knee and a mocking smile on her lips, she should have looked all grown up, but somehow all he ever saw was the fresh kid he’d met a decade ago and who had made it her mission in life to be a thorn in his side ever since.
‘Josie, what are you doing here?’ He dumped the tray on the counter, sloshing the coffee all over the French toast, as he took in the empty bed in the far corner, and the empty couch where he’d folded Ella’s clothes into a pile not more than thirty minutes ago. ‘And where the hell is Ella?’
Josie’s grin became smug as she snagged a chunk of fresh pineapple off the breakfast tray. ‘So that’s Sleeping Beauty’s name. I always wondered if she had one.’
‘Ha, ha,’ he said without heat, used to Josie’s teasing.
‘She’s very pretty. But kind of shy. Not your usual type.’
‘Where is she?’ he asked again, not happy at the news that Josie had met her. Somehow he didn’t think someone with Ella’s insta-blush tendencies would appreciate being caught in his bed by a smartass like Josie. ‘Please tell me you didn’t say anything to make her bolt.’
Josie sucked on the pineapple, shaking her head. ‘Uh-uh. She bolted all on her own. Seemed kind of spooked that you’d disappeared.’
He ran his fingers through his hair. Damn it, he’d only been gone a half-hour and Ella had looked totally done in. After the workout they’d both had last night he would have bet she’d be comatose for hours yet. The thought had him eyeing his uninvited guest. ‘You woke her up, didn’t you, you little...?’
He made a swipe for Josie, but she leapt off the stool and danced out of his reach, laughing. ‘What’s the big deal? You don’t date the tourists, remember? In case they get ideas.’
Not Ella.
The thought popped into his head, and had him stopping dead in front of Josie—the quest for retribution dying a quick death.
What was with that? Sure Ella had been sweet, and eager and inventive in bed, but how had she got under his guard so easily? Knowing what he did about tourists who liked to slum it in neighbourhood bars, how come he had never thought of Ella as one of them? And why had he crept out of bed and harassed Inez into making her breakfast? He didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Not since... He stared at the ruined toast, the creeping sense of humiliation coming back in an unpleasant rush of memory.
Not since the evening of the junior prom in Garysville, Indiana, when he’d stood like a dummy on Amy Metcalfe’s porch, his neck burning under the collar of the borrowed suit, and a corsage clutched in his sweating palm that had cost him ten of his hard-earned dollars, while Amy’s old man yelled at him to get lost, and his prom date sent him a pitying smile from the passenger seat of his half-brother Jack Jnr’s Beemer convertible.
‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’ Josie stared at him, her usual mischief replaced with excitement. ‘I’ve got news.’
Shaking off the unpleasant memory, he clamped down hard on the dumb urge to head out after Ella. ‘Sure? What news?’ He tossed a piece of papaya into his mouth, impressed with his own nonchalance.
The smile on Josie’s face reached ear-to-ear proportions. ‘Taylor popped the question last night and I said yes.’
‘What question?’ he said, trying to process the information while his mind was still snagged on Ella and why the hell she’d run out on him. Wasn’t Taylor that pimply kid Josie’d been dating for a while?
Josie’s eyes rounded. ‘Damn, Coop, even you can’t be that dumb. The “Wil
l you marry me?” question. Duh.’
Coop choked on the mango chunk he’d just slung in his mouth. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ His eyes watered as his aggravation over Ella’s sudden departure was surpassed by horror. ‘You’re way too young to be getting married.’ Plus marriage was for chumps—and Josie was a smart kid—what was she thinking?
Josie whacked him hard on the back, dislodging the chunk and nearly dislocating his shoulder. ‘I’m twenty,’ she said, indignantly. ‘Taylor and I have been dating for four years.’ She propped her hands on her hips, striking the Wonder Woman pose he knew meant she was about to start lecturing him. ‘And we love each other. Marriage is the obvious next step. So we can think about babies.’
‘Babies!’ he yelped, as a blood vessel popped out on his forehead and began to throb. ‘You cannot be serious?’
‘Just because you’re dead set on being the Oldest Player in Town,’ she countered, ‘doesn’t mean everyone’s that cynical and immature.’
‘I’m immature?’ he snapped. Seeing her flinch, he struggled to lower his voice, and regain some of his usual cool.
But damn it, first Ella’s disappearing act, and now this? Had all the females in Bermuda been hitting the crazy sauce while he slept?
‘Honey, I’m not the one planning to get hitched when I’m still in college.’ Not to mention have a parcel of rugrats. Was she nuts?
The look she sent him went from pissed to pitying. ‘Why does the thought of that terrify you so much, Coop? Maybe you should try it some time yourself?’
