AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her mouth is dry as she reaches for her glasses, which are resting on a coffee table next to her. It all comes back in a flash as she looks at the blanket that’s draped over her legs and at the nautical decor all around her: she’s inside Dexter’s tiny home on Christmas Key.
The little house is quiet, and all of the curtains are closed, thank god. Ruby finds her phone and looks at the time—it’s 7:02 am. When she peeks around the curtain over the front window, she sees that the sun is still low in the sky. There will be time to rush back to the B&B, maybe even enough time to stop and pick up a coffee at Mistletoe Morning Brew at the corner of Main Street on her way, and tiptoe back into the room to mess up her bed before Sunday even wakes up and realizes that she’s been sleeping in the room alone all night.
Quietly, Ruby picks up her sandals and gives herself a quick pat down: dress on and fully zipped; underwear in place; hair a total disaster. Okay, nothing happened between her and Dexter, which is good…and kind of bad, she supposes, because she’s entirely convinced at this point that a night with Dexter North would be like throwing a match on dry tinder. But no, no, no—they’re working together on a book! He’s thirteen years her junior! She’s the former First Lady! There are right and wrong ways to behave, and ohhhh, as she glances longingly up the open stairway that leads to the loft where he sleeps, she desperately wants to climb up there and behave thewrongway.
“Pull it together,” Ruby mutters to herself, bending over and reaching for her purse, which is wedged under the couch. She shoves her phone into her bag and carries her sandals in her hand as she tiptoes to the door.
Now that she’s fully awake she remembers coming back here with Dexter after watching the fireworks on New Year’s Eve, ostensibly so that he could show her his photos and his work from Ukraine. They’d put on music and opened a bottle of wine, and the next thing Ruby knew, she was feeling drowsy. And then, boom, it was morning and she’d woken up covered by a blanket and with Dexter nowhere in sight. So now she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s either A) a true gentleman, or B) not interested in her. It has to be one or the other.
The front door creaks loudly and Ruby winces as she pulls it shut behind her, standing on her bare feet on his sandy porch as she tries to creep away without waking him. The humiliation of having to face Dexter with her slept-on hair and cottony morning breath when she’d basically passed out on his couch after a single glass of wine is more than she can bear.
“Oh mygod!”
Ruby nearly jumps out of her skin when she hears a female voice. She whips around guiltily, only to find herself face-to-face with Sunday. “Oh mygod!” she shouts in return. Both women cover their mouths in surprise, then point an accusing finger at the other. “What are you doing here?” Ruby asks, looking at the tiny house that Sunday is sneaking out of. “Wait, that’s where Banks is staying…”
“Shhhh!” Sunday waves both hands crazily, scrunching up her entire face to quiet Ruby before she wakes the neighborhood. “Shh! Hush! No words!” she hisses, reaching out and grabbing Ruby by the wrist.
The two women—both in the dresses they wore the night before, and both barefoot but holding their shoes—tiptoe hurriedly across the sand. When they finally get past all the tiny homes and they’re alone on a stretch of sandy beach they slow to a walk.
“I have so many questions,” Sunday says, swatting Ruby on the butt with the flat sandals that are swinging from her hand.
“Youhave so many questions?” The bottom of Ruby’s dress blows wildly in the wind coming off the water. “I just ran into you coming out of the house where my Secret Service agent is staying!” She gives Sunday a totally gobsmacked face. “Did you…?”
In return, Sunday rewards her with a totally pleased-with-herself grin. “Yep,” she says. “I did. And I’m not even a tiny bit sorry.”
Ruby laughs. “Good for you!” She reaches out and pulls Sunday in for a hug. Their hair tangles together in the morning wind.
Three identical blonde women in different colored shorts and tank tops come striding up the beach, arms pumping in unison. “Good morning!” they call out, lifting their hands and smiling at Sunday and Ruby, who let go of one another and hold their hair back so that they can see the identical triplets who own the gift shop/grocery store on Main Street. “Good morning!” they shout back, waving as the triplets walk on.
“Let’s get coffee.” Ruby takes Sunday by the hand and pulls her directly into the wind as sand blows up around them.
“Oh no you don’t, Ruby Hudson!” Sunday pulls her friend to a stop. “I dished the dirt to you, so you better dish it back! I just caught you sneaking out of Dexter North’s house with your panties in your purse, so I want details!”
Ruby laughs. “Unfortunately, my panties are exactly where they're supposed to be, but you did catch me sneaking out of Dexter’s—that part is true.”
"And?"
"And...nothing," Ruby admits plainly. "I went over there with him after the fireworks and we opened a bottle of wine and started to talk about the book again, but all it took me was one glass and I curled up on his couch and fell asleep."
Sunday makes a disappointed face. "Oof."
"Well, yes and no to thatoof.” Ruby has already weighed the two possible outcomes and decided that the way things went the night before is probably for the best. "If we're going to be working together closely, then maybe we shouldn't be working togetherthatclosely, if you know what I mean."
"I do know what you mean, and I violently disagree."
This makes Ruby laugh. "I hear you. And I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't have had a perfectly lovely time," she says.
"Perfectly lovely? Rubes, you two would have blown the roof off. A gorgeous, brilliant, sexy man in his thirties, and a worldly, beautiful, vibrant woman of fifty?” Sunday whistles. “Damn, girl. I want to see that happen.”
"Well, be that as it may," Ruby says, arching an eyebrow, "I think keeping things professional is maybe our best bet at the moment."
“Yeah, yeah," Sunday says, nodding as she gives Ruby a single eye roll. "Just don't let it bother you too much that Banks and I have gone a tiny step beyond professional." She grins happily.
"Oh, just a tiny step?" Ruby nudges her friend as they approach the end of Main Street, which is where the paved road starts. Mistletoe Morning Brew is there at the corner and they walk in, disheveled and still in the clothes they'd been wearing the evening before.
"Shoot," Sunday says, trying and failing to tame her hair by running her fingers through it. She looks at Ruby and lowers her voice. "These people were all at dinner last night. Are we doing a walk of shame?"
"I'm not," Ruby says with a wink. "But if it will make you feel any better, I'll pretend to be so that we can get judged together, because that's what friends are for."
