One Unforgettable Summer: The Summer They Never Forgot / The Surgeon's Family Miracle / A Bride by Summer

Two sets of eyebrows had risen practically to their hairlines.

News of kiss number two for the day would be rapidly telegraphed through the town.

And he didn’t give a damn.

‘Sorry, ladies,’ he said, in a voice that put paid to any argument. ‘This shop is closed.’

CHAPTER TEN (#uc496eb5e-deab-579a-8e69-e5302fab20db)

DESTINATION? SOMEWHERE THEY could have privacy. Purpose? To talk more freely about what had happened to each other in the twelve years since she’d left Dolphin Bay. And Sandy didn’t give a flying fig that the two bemused ladies Ben had ousted from Bay Books stood hands on hips and watched as she and Ben hastened away from the shop.

Even just metres down the street she fell out of step with Ben and had to skip to catch up. He turned to wait for her, suppressed laughter still dancing around his mouth, and extended his hand for her to take.

Sandy hesitated for only a second before she slid her fingers through his. Linked hands would make quite a statement to the good folk of Dolphin Bay. Anticipation and excitement throbbed through her as he tightened his warm, strong grip and pulled her closer. She smiled up at him, her breath catching in her throat at his answering smile.

When she’d very first held hands with Ben the simple act had been a big deal for her. Most of her schoolfriends had already had sex with their boyfriends by the age of eighteen. Not her. She’d never met a boy she’d wanted to do more with than kiss. When she’d met Ben she’d still been debating the significance of hands held with just palms locked or, way sexier, with fingers entwined.

And Ben?

Back then he’d had no scars.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, surprised when her voice came out edged with nervousness.

‘My place,’ he said. His voice didn’t sound nervous in the slightest.

Did he live at the hotel? That would make sense. Maybe in an apartment as luxurious as the room where she was staying.

‘Do you remember my family’s old boathouse?’ he asked as he led her down the steps in front of the hotel.

‘Of course I do,’ she said, and she felt herself colour. Thirty years old and blushing at the memory of that ramshackle old boathouse. Dear heaven, she hoped he didn’t notice.

On the sand outside the boathouse, in the shelter of Ben’s father’s beached dinghies, she and Ben had progressed from first base to not-ready-to-progress-further-than-third.

She glanced quickly up at Ben. Oh, yes, he remembered too. The expression in those deep blue eyes made that loud and clear.

She blushed a shade pinker and shivered at the memory of all that thwarted teen sexuality—and at the thought of how it might feel to finally do something about it if she and Ben got to that stage this time around.

‘I live in the boathouse,’ he said.

‘You live there?’ She didn’t know what else to say that would not come out sounding ill-mannered.

Instead, she followed Ben across the sand in silence, wondering why a successful businessman would choose to live in something that was no more than a shack.

But the structure that sat a short distance to the right of the hotel bore little resemblance to the down-at-heel structure of her memory. Like so much of Dolphin Bay, it had changed beyond recognition.

‘Wow! I’m impressed,’ she said.

Ben’s remodelled boathouse home looked like something that could star on a postcard. Supported by piers on the edge of the bay, its dock led out into the water. Timber-panelled walls were weathered to a silvery grey in perfect harmony with the corrugated iron of the peaked roof. Window trim and carriage lamps had been picked out in a deep dusky blue. Big tubs of purple hydrangeas in glazed blue pots sat either side of the door.

Ben leaned down to pluck a dead leaf from one of the plants without even seeming to realise he did it. She wouldn’t have taken him for a gardener—but then she knew so very little of what interests he might have developed in the years since they’d last been together at this rich-in-memories part of the beach.

‘The boathouse was the only part of the guesthouse to survive the fire,’ Ben said. He pushed open the glossy blue door. ‘Jesse lived here before he went away. I had it remodelled as guest accommodation, but liked it so much I kept it for myself.’

‘I can see why,’ she said. ‘I envy you.’

A large ceramic dog bowl filled with water, hand-painted with the words ‘Hobo Drinks Here’, sat just outside the door. She remembered the look of devotion in the dog’s big eyes and Ben’s obvious love for him.

‘Where’s your adorable dog?’ she asked, stepping through the door he held open for her, fully expecting the retriever to give Ben a boisterous greeting.

‘Mum dog-sits him the days I can’t take him to work with me,’ he said. ‘Seems she always has a houseful of strays. He fits right in.’

Sandy was about to say something about his mother, but the words were stopped by her second, ‘Wow!’ as Ben stepped aside and she got her first glimpse of the interior of the boathouse.

She only had a moment to take in a large open-plan space, bleached timber and shades of white, floor-to-ceiling windows facing the water at the living room end and a vast wooden bed at the other.

The thought that it would be a fabulous location for an advertising shoot barely had time to register in her mind, because the door slammed shut behind them and she was in Ben’s arms.

* * *

Ben didn’t want to give a tour of the boathouse. He didn’t want to talk about the architectural work Jesse had done on the old building. He just wanted, at last, to have Sandy to himself.

For a long, still moment he held her close, his arms wrapped tightly around her. He closed his eyes, breathed in the vanilla scent of her hair, scarcely able to believe it was real and she was here with him. He could feel the warm sigh of her breath on his neck, hear the thud-thud-thud of her heartbeat. Then he kissed her. He kissed the curve of her throat. He kissed the delicate hollow beneath her ear. He pressed small, hungry kisses along the line of her jaw. Then he kissed her on the mouth.

Without hesitation Sandy kissed him right back. She tasted of coffee and chocolate and her own familiar sweetness. As she wound her arms around his neck, met his tongue with hers, she made that sexy little murmur deep in her throat that he remembered from a long time ago. It drove him nearly crazy with want.

Secure in the privacy of the boathouse, he kissed her long enough for them to catch right up on the way they’d explored kissing each other all those years ago. Until kissing no longer seemed enough.

The straps of her yellow dress gave little resistance as he slid them down her smooth shoulders. She shrugged to make it easier for him. Without the support of the straps, the top of her dress fell open. He could see the edge of her bra, the swell of her breasts, the tightness of her nipples. He kissed down her neck and across the roundness of her breasts, until she gasped and her hands curled tightly into his shoulders.

He couldn’t get enough of her.

But with an intense effort he forced himself to pull back. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

‘No,’ she said immediately. ‘Not yet. I couldn’t bear it if you stopped.’

In reply, he scooped her up into his arms. Her eyes widened with surprise and excitement. Her arms tightened around his neck and she snuggled her cheek against his shoulder.

She laughed as he marched her towards the bedroom end of the boathouse. ‘Even more muscles than when you were nineteen,’ she murmured in exaggerated admiration, her voice husky with desire.

She was still laughing as he laid her on the bed—his big, lonely bed. Her dress was rucked up around her slender tanned thighs, giving him a tantalising glimpse of red panties. She kicked off her shoes into the air, laughed again as they fell to the wooden floor with two soft thuds. Then she held out her arms to urge him to join her. Warm, vibrant Sandy, just as he remembered her. Only more womanly, more confident, more seductive.

He kicked off his own shoes and lay down next to her. He leaned over her as she lay back against the pillows, her face flushed, her eyes wide.

‘I never thought I’d see you back here.’ His voice was hoarse with need for her.

She kissed him. ‘Do you remember the sand outside this place? How scratchy it was?’ she asked. ‘How we’d sneak off there whenever we could get away from everyone.’

‘How could I forget?’ he replied. Ever since she’d walked into the hotel and back into his life he’d thought of little else.