It's in His Kiss Read online

  together enough to keep Sam from landing in foster care, to now, when Mark still didn’t have it together. “How much you need?” Sam asked.

  “Uh . . .” His dad laughed again, guilt heavy in the sound. He’d spent a total of maybe ten minutes being a dad, so he’d never really gotten the hang of it. “That’s not why I called.”

  Yeah, it was. Of course it was. They had a routine. Sam would call his dad to check in every week, never getting a return call until Mark ran out of money, which happened every few months or so. “It’s okay, Dad. Just tell me.”

  “A grand.”

  Sam opened his eyes and stared at the sign.

  Smile.

  Be friendly.

  “A grand,” he repeated.

  “Carrie needs to buy stuff for the baby, and—”

  “Got it,” Sam said, not wanting to hear about the demands of Mark’s latest woman. Or the baby that’d be Sam’s half sister when it arrived in a few months.

  A baby sister.

  It didn’t defy the odds any more than picturing his dad trying to be a real dad . . . “Did you ask for the paternity test like we talked about?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Dad—”

  “She’d kill me, son. You have no idea how touchy pregnant women are.”

  Sam bit back anything he might have said because there was no point. His father had made a career out of getting ripped off by women. “You need to find a way to try,” Sam said.

  “I will.”

  Sam blew out a breath. He wouldn’t try. “So a grand, then. To the usual bank account?”

  “Uh, no,” Mark said, back to sheepish. “I closed that one out.”

  More likely, the bank had kicked him out for repeatedly overdrawing his funds.

  “I’ll email you the new info,” his dad said. “Thanks, son. Love ya.”

  The love ya was so rote that Sam wondered if Mark even realized he was saying it. Not that it mattered. Nor did his response, as his dad had already disconnected.

  The phone immediately rang again. Resisting the urge to throw it out the window, he yanked it back up, wondering what his dad could have possibly forgotten. “Yeah?”

  “Hi, um . . . is this Lucky Harbor Charters?” a female voice asked, sounding uncertain.

  Shit. Sam glanced at the sign. He still didn’t have a smile in him so once again he attempted friendly. “Yes, you’ve reached LHC.”

  “Oh, good. I’d like to book a deep-sea fishing trip for a family reunion. It’s our first big reunion in five years and we’re all so excited. There’s going to be my dad, my grandfather, my two brothers, my uncle—”

  “Okay, great. Hold please,” Sam said, and punched the HOLD button. He took a deep breath and strode out of the warehouse and to their “yard.” This led to the waterfront. There they had a dock, where their fifty-foot Wright Sport was moored.

  Hours ago, Tanner—their scuba diving instructor and communications expert—had texted Sam that he was working on their radio system.

  “Hey,” Sam called out to him. “How about answering a damn phone call once in a while?”

  “You’re the one inside,” Tanner said, not stopping what he was doing, which didn’t look to be work so much as sunbathing. Not that he needed it with the mocha skin he’d inherited from his mother’s Brazilian roots. He’d stripped to a pair of board shorts, a backward baseball cap, and reflective aviator sunglasses, and was sprawled out on his back, face tilted up to the sun.

  “Busy, are you?” Sam asked drily.

  “Cole and I chartered the midnight cruise last night and didn’t moor until three a.m.”

  “And you slept until two p.m., so what’s your point?”

  Tanner lifted a middle finger.

  Sam gave up and strode up to the smaller building—a hut really—that they used as their front office and greeting area. The rolling door was up when they were open for business and shut when they weren’t.

  It was up now, and Cole was sitting behind the front counter. He was their captain, chief navigator, and mechanic, and was currently hunt-and-pecking at the keyboard of his laptop. The fingers stopped when Sam reached into the bucket beside the counter and pulled out one of their water guns. The thing had been touted as a squirt gun, but the more apt term would have been cannon. Sam weighed it in his hands, decided it was loaded enough, and turned back to the door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Cole asked.

  “Going to spray the hell out of Tanner.”

  “Nice,” Cole said, fingers already back to hunt-and-pecking. “Carry on.”

  Sam stopped in the doorway and stared at him in surprise. Cole was their resident techno-geek. He wore cargo pants with handy pockets and could fix just about anything at any time with the ingenuity of a modern-day MacGyver. And he always, always, objected to fighting among their ranks. “What’s up?” Sam asked him.

  “Trying to work. Go away.”

  “If you’re working so damn hard, why aren’t you answering the phones?”

  Cole lifted his head and blinked innocently. “Phones? What phones? I didn’t hear any phones.”

  Sam shook his head. “We need to get that damn ad in the paper.”

  Cole’s fingers clicked one last key with dramatic flair. “Done,” he declared. “Ad placed.”

  “What does it say?” Sam asked.

  Cole hit a few more keys. “Looking for self-motivated admin to answer phones, work a schedule, greet customers with a friendly attitude, and be able to handle grumpy-ass bosses named Sam.”

  Sam arched a brow. “You’d push the buttons of a guy holding a loaded water cannon?”

  Not looking worried in the slightest, Cole smiled and reached down beneath the counter, coming up with his own loaded cannon, which he casually aimed at Sam. “You forget who bought these.”

  “Shit.” He turned to go.

  “You’re forgetting something else,” Cole said.

  Sam looked back.

  “Tanner’s ex-profession as a Navy SEAL.”

  “Shit,” Sam said again, lowering the cannon. He was pissed, not stupid.

  “Good choice.”

  “Line one’s for you,” Sam said.

  Becca wasn’t much for regrets so she decided not to stress over the fact that she’d rented a third of a dilapidated warehouse sight unseen. Thanks to Sexy Grumpy Surfer’s warning—I take it you haven’t seen it yet—she’d been braced.

  But not braced enough.

  The building was similar to Sam’s in that they were both converted warehouses, and had the same floor-to-rafter windows. But that’s where the similarities ended. Her warehouse hadn’t been nearly so well taken care of. According to the landlord—an old guy named Lyons—the place had once been a cannery. Then an arcade. Then a saltwater taffy manufacturer with a gift shop. And finally a boardinghouse, which had last been used for a bunch of carnies in town for a long-ago summer, and they hadn’t been kind.

  At the moment the entire warehouse was a wide-open space divided into three units by questionably thin walls. Each apartment had a rudimentary galley kitchen and bathroom and was filled with a variety of leftover dust and crap from the previous renters—hence the furnished (sort of) part of the ad. In addition to beds and tables, this included some odd-looking carnival equipment and a saltwater taffy pull.

  Or possibly a torture device . . .

  Becca and Mr. Lyons walked through each of the apartments. The first unit was cheapest since it was the smallest, and also the coldest, as it got the least sun exposure.

  Since cheap was right up her alley, and she didn’t have to worry about cold for another six months, she’d handed over her check.

  “If you need anything,” Mr. Lyons said, “yell for the guys across the alley. Tanner’s almost always on the dock or their boat, but he’s a real tough nut to crack. Cole’s good for fixing just about anything. But Sam knows all there’s to know about these old warehouses. He’s your man if you need anything.”