“Because I’m easy to talk to,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. He turned serious. “You haven’t mentioned your dad. Is he gone?”
She nodded. “He died of a heart attack when I was three. Never really knew him.”
He squeezed her hand. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, then sighed deeply, as if the air were refueling her. “What about you? Why do you do this?”
“This is just a job for me,” he said, trying to keep his tone even.
She turned to him and knocked on his forehead.
“Knock. Knock.”
He laughed. “Fine. I’ll take the bait. Who’s there?”
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying, that’s who.”
“Just a job,” he repeated, toeing his own party line. He didn’t like to give up pieces of himself. He’d been burned the last time he let someone in.
But this woman wasn’t going to let him get away with that.
She stopped in her tracks and parked her hands on his shoulders. “Nothing is just a job,” she said, tipping her forehead to the inky black of the sea at night, starlight dancing across the water. “Take what I do. I do adventure tours because I love it. But also because the water is where I’ve always felt most at home, especially after my dad died. It’s this very special place to me. The ocean made me feel peaceful again, and it felt like a part of me. The part that made me whole. So what’s your story, Jake Harlowe? It’s only fair. We partnered up, and you know my motivation. I want to know what your story is. All I really know about you is that you have two sisters and you’re kind of a recovery specialist.”
He heaved a sigh and pointed to the sand. Walk and talk. Here it went. Serve up a piece of yourself. This wasn’t something he did terribly often. He didn’t like to revisit the shittiest days of his life. But she’d been honest, and he owed it to her to do the same.
“I have a little brother, too. There are four of us. And I do what I do because I’m good at it. Because it pays the bills. Because my older sister and I are responsible for my younger sister and younger brother.”
“Ah,” she said with a nod, an understanding one as she quickly processed what this meant. “When did your parents die?”
“They were killed by a drunk driver when I was in high school.”
She cringed. “Oh no. I’m so sorry.” She reached for his arm again, wrapping her hand around it as they walked through the sand.
“And the fucker got away with it,” Jake added through gritted teeth. A bout of long-simmering tension curled through him, winding in his veins, twisting through his blood as memories flashed before him.
The cops at the door.
The knock.
The solemn look on their faces as they took off their blue caps, came inside, and told them the news. Died on impact. The car had skidded off the road and wrapped itself around a tree.
“I was seventeen, Kate was eighteen, and the younger ones were only seven and eight.”
“Wow. I can’t even imagine. That’s so sad. Did they find the guy?”
He breathed in sharply. “Yes, but nothing happened.”
Those words—nothing happened—contained all his anger, all his frustration, and all his reasons.
“What do you mean?”
“He was some twenty-three-year-old trust-fund baby, smashed out of his mind, and he lawyered up and got away with it. I think, if memory serves,” Jake said, sarcasm dripping from his tone, “he did have to put in fifty hours of community service. Reshelving books at the library. I’m sure that taught him a big lesson.”
Steph huffed. “Amazing how just hiring a lawyer and fighting like an asshole can enable you to get away with stuff.” She squeezed his arm. “And that’s why you do what you do? Because you don’t like it when the bad guys get away with it,” she said, and she got it. Not like it was hard to connect the dots, but it was a relief not to have to.
“I guess I’ve found my own way to try to see justice done.”
“You’re Batman,” she pronounced, and that made him laugh. The serious moment started to fade away, like grains of sand pulled out to sea. “So that makes us Batman and Robin Hood, then?”
“Seems like it. Except I don’t have that weird nipple armor.”
She stopped walking, darted out her hand, and splayed it around the fabric of his shirt. She pretended to assess his nipple armor, or lack thereof. “Confirmed. The subject does not have nipple armor. However, he does have insanely hard pecs, and quite possibly the firmest chest we’ve ever felt.”
He chuckled deeply as he backed up, leaning against a lifeguard stand, unoccupied at this late hour. The bar wasn’t far away, but he felt like they were in their own corner of the night. He couldn’t deny there was something nice about the moment shifting so seamlessly from heavy to light. That the harder conversation was had, and they weren’t going to linger or wallow in it. They were speeding toward the path of innuendo again and that had its own risks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He clasped his hand over hers, tugging her closer.
“This whole just-work thing is working out really well, isn’t it,” he said in a low voice as he held her hand against his body. He craved her touch. Hell, right now, a part of him seemed to need it. Not just that insistent organ in his pants knocking on his fly. But his heart. That organ. Because he liked this woman. Liked her humor. Liked her heart. He still didn’t want to get involved on a job . . . but he knew one thing for sure—he wanted her.