Brothers of Paradise Series

“I hate him,” I say. “I don’t care that he somehow fathered the cutest girl in the world. I fucking hate him, and he’d better not set his foot in this town.”

Jamie’s smile softens, settling into an expression of trust. It soothes the jagged edge of rage inside me. “He’s in the past,” she says. “His words don’t hurt me anymore.”

I vow to myself that they never will again. Dropping my head, I kiss one of her pink nipples. “Perfection,” I say. “The best fucking size.”

She laughs and slides her hand into my hair. “I’ve never heard you swear so much.”

“You’ve got me worked up,” I say. In my mind, I’m thinking a lot worse about her ex. Words I wouldn’t say around her or anyone I loved. I drift to her other nipple, its perfect pinkness teased taut.

“Are you going to prove every comment wrong?”

“Damn right.” I drift down beneath the sheet, my fingers finally finding the silky-soft skin between her legs. “And this? It can never get too wet. That’s a goddamn compliment, and a man who doesn’t see it that way isn’t worth the title.”

It takes us an hour to get out of bed. Jamie sits up, a flush of satisfaction on her cheeks, and sees my alarm clock for the first time.

“Oh my God.” She throws the cover back and I get a glorious view of her nude body in the morning light. “It’s past our usual workout time.”

“Yes,” I say. “Thinking about your family?”

She hunts for her underwear, finding them next to my dresser. I turn on my back and look at her shimmying them up long legs and hiding my new favorite place from view. “Yes,” she says.

“What are your plans for the day?”

“Mom is meeting friends in the next city for lunch, and Emma and I will probably go to the beach. I promised her we’d bake this afternoon.”

“Sounds nice.”

She pauses, bra snapping around her chest. Hiding my second new favorite place from view. “Do you want to join us?”

“You and Emma?”

“Yes, if you want to.”

“Yes,” I say. “I want to.”

A shy smile stretches across her face. “Okay. It’s a date, then.”

The next two weeks are the best of my life. I sail the new boat into the marina and both Hayden and my father are there to help tie it up at the dock. She’s beautiful, and she’ll need work, and she’s all mine.

Hayden had crouched on deck and inspected one of the portlights. “Needs to be replaced,” he’d said. And I’d grinned at him and he’d grinned back, and there’s a reason he’s my best friend and my brother in all but blood.

The yacht club has found its sea legs and runs smoothly under Stephen, Neil and Kristen’s stewardship. I’ve had to put in another order for the caps, which apparently sold out after a local high schooler wore one to a party.

But what makes the weeks the very best is Jamie. The meltdown at the White Party seems to have broken through a dam and let out the fears she’d kept inside. Because the smiles she shoots me every time we’re together make me feel ten feet tall.

It’s not the teenage Jamie, occasionally defensive and argumentative and idealistic. And it’s not the Jamie from this spring, with her guard up so tightly it was concrete-enforced steel.

It’s a mixture of the two, and something entirely new, the image of the Jamie she is now. Grown, a mother, still strong and fierce but tempered the way a blade is, put through flame. She knows when to bend to avoid breaking now. It’s become my mission in life to make her laugh as often as I can.

I’d surprised her one morning at work with a box, waiting for her in the back office.

“What’s this?” she’d asked, running a hand over it. And then she’d seen the fruit symbol. “Oh. You got a new computer?”

I shake my head. “This is more of an investment.”

“An investment?”

“Yes, in a talented graphic designer whom I hope the yacht club will work with for years to come.”

Her eyes meet mine. Protest flares, then disbelief, and then surprised joy. “Parker, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“I can’t possibly accept this.”

“Of course you can. I’ve hired you to run the booking system, website, and the newsletter. Not to mention the store and all the merchandise. It was all your idea.”

“But this is too much. I already have a computer I can use.”

“Which is your mother’s, and it’s on its death bed. Won’t this make your job easier?”

She looks down at the box. “Yes.”

“Well, that settles it.”

Jamie smoothes a hand over it. “I don’t know how to repay you.”

“You already have,” I’d said. “Your help with the business has been invaluable.” And that had been it. That evening she’d sent me pictures of the newsletter she was setting up for the yacht club on her new computer, with the logo as the header, informing the community about the seasonal menu items to be announced soon.

Her mother knows about us, too. We talk about it once when I go to pick up Jamie and Emma. They’re coming with me to the docks to see the new boat and go for an evening swim. Vera is the one who answers the front door. She gives me a too-knowing smile. “Hello, Parker.”

“Hi, Mrs. Moraine. How are things?”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Her smile widens, filled with insinuation. “We’re all good, thanks. As are you, if what I’ve heard from my daughter is correct?”

I won’t deny it. “I am, and your daughter has something to do with that, too.”

She gives a delighted laugh. “And here I thought I would have to pull it out of you!”

“Oh, I’m an open book, Mrs. Moraine.”

“Vera, please. I’ve known you your whole life,” she says, waving a hand. “This is refreshing. I have to ask and ask and ask to learn things from my daughter, and even then, she tells me one thing and hides two.”

“She plays things close to the vest,” I say.

“She does. Always has. But not with you, I suppose. You know, she’s happier than she was when she first got back.”

My hand stills on my leg, from where it had been drumming. “I’ve noticed that too.”