Dangerous: A Seaside Cove Romance (2 page)

"You don't like math?" Eli asked, hand on his chest in mock offense. He was funnier than she thought he would be. When he was behind the bar counter, he was serious and smoldering. "I get that a lot, but numbers are like breathing to me. Simple, always the same. No variables."

"Isn't variable a math term?" she asked.

Eli's lips turned up in a crooked grin and he opened his mouth to speak, but his paintbrush slipped out of his hand and fell on her knee. The green paint immediately soaked into the denim. Before she could tell him not to worry about it, he hopped out of his seat, and grabbed a few wipes from the center table by the fruit.

He handed one to Claire who cleaned her hands while Eli wiped at the knee of her jeans. A tingle traveled up her thighs, and they squeezed tight unconsciously. She pretended like it was the most normal thing in the world to have a stranger rubbing her knee.
Not at all sensual.
He was simply cleaning up his mess.

"You're right, variable is a math term. I should have said, I can solve for those variables easier than I understand people; people have entirely too many variables. Numbers I can pin down and... I'm not making sense." He lifted the wipe, staring at it as if it was the most interesting object in the classroom.

Claire, conscious of his hand still on her knee, did her best to not appear squirmy. "You're making as much sense to someone who sucks at math... can make sense... to? Now I'm not making sense."

"No, you're not," Eli teased. He smiled, laugh lines appearing around his gray eyes. Claire's heart skipped a beat.

Eli set the cloth down, and looked into her eyes, which she wished were any color but boring brown. "I think I ruined your pants."

"They're old; it's no big deal," she said, avoiding his gaze, as if that could keep him from noticing how red her face had become. Claire wondered if she imagined it when Eli's fingers trailed off of her knee slower than necessary.

Eli was flirting with Claire; he knew it. He was not quiet about it. As obvious as if someone dropped an anvil on their heads. He could not stop himself from flirting, even if she was not flirting back. Claire was probably so used to the attention; she was able to brush it off.

Claire was beautiful, and not small town beautiful, but like a Greek goddess. With her olive skin tone and curves in all the right places. When she laughed, he saw her crooked eyetooth setting her smile apart from everyone else. Perfect. Well, physically. Part of him hoped she would let him follow through with his threat to lift her up and carry her into the room.

He had to keep reminding himself;
she has kids.
 

No husband. He slid that question in there, and she slid right back to him. An involved father, but no husband. Even though, a mother? No future for Eli and Claire except someone fun to kill time with at school.

They talked through the rest of the class period, and as time went on, Claire seemed to relax, and the two talked about their backgrounds. She was single. Funny. Smart. She worked as the lead baker at the grocery store in Seaside Cove. She had a sexy little tattoo on her ankle. He almost asked her out for drinks after class. But before he asked, she said something about her kids.

That's right. A mom.

Eli had nothing against children; once upon a time he imagined he would settle down with his own family. But, men with his kind of past did not have children, families, or security. They had one-night stands and casual flings.

Eli's mother had been the type to run around. The type to leave. He would never come between a family.

On top of all of that, he enjoyed talking to her, and wanted to sit by her the rest of the semester.

"So, I've seen you before," she said. "At first I thought I knew you from the store, but it's from the brewery."

"Yeah?" he asked. He was not surprised. The Brewery on the Bluffs was becoming a hot spot in the sleepy town. He
was
surprised, but, that he had not noticed Claire when she was there.

"My sister took me a few times. And if you're the same bartender I'm thinking of, you're dating Bridget from the news, right?" Claire painted the background, her face screwed up in concentration. Eli suppressed a laugh. It was cute how hard she was struggling to get the fruit right. And it was a good thing she looked adorable when she mentioned Bridget.

"Bridget and I dated for a few months. It did not end... We'll just say she is my only ex I'm not on speaking terms with." Eli's mood darkened as he thought of the night he had brought a bottle of wine over to Bridget's house to surprise her. A surprise for Eli too.

"I'm sorry to bring it up," Claire said, and she flushed. "Rachel didn't tell me what happened."

Eli forgot about Bridget.
Rachel's sister?
"Rachel? As in Molly's Rachel? She's your sister?"

"Molly's Rachel. I've never heard her called that before," Claire said.

He searched her face, squinting, for any resemblance to Rachel. He did not believe this was her. The woman Molly had told him about. Molly insisted that she was perfect for him, in every way. Now he sat next to her, and he did not even realize it was her. How had Molly not told him how perfect Claire was?

But she had, he realized. She told him over and over. According to Molly, Claire was supposed to be the woman of his dreams. 

Her eyes grew wider, like a deer caught in headlights. Eli was still staring at her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Eli stopped squinting. Rachel was tall, thin, angular, blond. Rachel was cocky, rude and high maintenance. From what Eli saw, Claire was her sister's opposite. "You don't look like Rachel."

"No, she got the looks, I got the leftovers." She covered her mouth when the last word left her mouth. "Sorry, that sounds totally self-depreciating, I'm trying not to say that sort of stuff. It's just something I heard a lot growing up."

Claire rolled her eyes and cocked her head. Her hair spilled over her shoulder and hid her expression as she turned back to her painting. "Seriously though, I look like my dad's side of the family, she looks like my mom's. They are like Nordic gods, or something."

"I think you're beautiful." The words were out of Eli's mouth before he knew they were coming. He wished he could stuff them back inside. Not that they weren't true, and not that she did not deserve to hear them. But because he pushed away an attraction to her ever since he watched her fall out of her car almost an hour earlier. Eli did not want to give into that attraction. Did he?

Want and should are two very different paths.

"Thanks, but you don't have to say that," she said, the tip of an ear, just visible through her hair, turned pink. Her shoulders stiffened. "I promise I wasn't fishing for a compliment; I say stupid stuff sometimes."

He should have said, "I didn't say that because I had to." But, he sat in a silence, only broken by Taliah's announcement about the following Thursday's class.

Eli cleaned his paintbrushes as the class wrapped up, wanting to say something but each time he opened his mouth, the words disappeared. He was blindsided by the fact that she was Rachel's sister. What had Molly said about her? He could not remember a thing except Molly saying "prick ex-husband." 

I'm a moron.

"Do you remember where your next class is?" Claire asked, studying a spot of paint on the back of her hand. Her tone was serious and quick.

"Yeah. Claire, did I say something wrong?" Eli said.

She shook her head, biting her bottom lip. A thought struck him. He wanted to be the one to bite her lip.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm just tired." When she spoke, her voice was lighter again. He wished he believed her.

They stood, walking out of the classroom together. Eli found himself, aware of her body, the way it moved next to him, falling in step with his pace. The way she held her huge bag at her side, in between them.

"Thanks for your help tonight, Claire." He pointed to the room number.

"Sure," she said, shrugging. "I guess I'm going in the opposite direction. We're in biology together Monday; over there."

Eli nodded and looked in the direction Claire pointed, then back to her. "I'll see you Monday."

"See you Monday," she said, nodding briskly and walking towards the stairwell. Eli could not leave it like that. Too many opportunities were lost by leaving things unsaid. He watched it happen with Jack and Molly. Ten years lost because of silence.

Eli caught up to her at the top of the first flight of stairs. He touched her shoulder.

"Claire," Eli said, "please stop, just one second, okay?"

She stopped ahead of him, stepping out of the way of passing students. Eli followed her.

"Yeah?" she asked, checking her watch.

"If I said something to offend you, or gave you the impression that I'm a creep, I'm sorry. I meant what I said, you're beautiful. I'm shocked you don't realize that. Most women who look like you, you're right; they are fishing for compliments." Eli paused while group of students passed. A window behind Claire showed that night had fallen. "But I don't think you were. Fishing. I felt like you needed to hear it."

"Thank you," she said. "I'll see you Monday."

"So you aren't going to tell me why I pissed you off?" Eli asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance, maybe she was as high maintenance as Rachel. "I wasn't flirting with you in there or anything."
Lies.
"I thought we were having fun together and becoming buddies."

Lies
. He was flirting during class. Every time he set down his brush and watched her paint, he imagined doing things to her that she would find more offensive than telling her she was beautiful.

But these lies put her at ease. He noticed her shoulders soften, and her lips slowly grow into a smile.

"It wasn't that," Claire said. She tilted her head back to look at the ceiling, then straightened. "Okay, maybe it was a little. I'm on the offense a little when it comes to men. If you said anything nice to me, I would have gone into ice princess mode."

The prick ex-husband. 

She checked her watch again. "I really have to go, or I'll be late."

"Okay, yeah," Eli said, clearing his throat. "Bye, Claire."

Eli watched her run up the stairs, failing at keeping his eyes off of her perky butt. Rachel's sister. Off limits to him, but even if she wasn't - he was not her type.

Hell, she was not his type in the least. Not anymore. He had a strict policy when it came to women. No one he could form an attachment to. Bridget was the last one he had bent that rule for, and it blew up in his face. Never again.

But, when Claire reached the top of the stairs and looked back at him, something lit in her eyes. A light that told Eli she might not be as uninterested as he originally thought. Maybe she would be an exception to his rule, this one time. The problem was, with someone like Claire, he could see himself snapping that rule right in half, instead of simply bending it.

"Dangerous," he whispered.

Gravel kicked out from under Claire's tires as she drove the steep unpaved road to her house. Her headlights spilled into her driveway, rolling over Rachel's truck. Rachel had slept at Claire's almost every night during the past few weeks. Rachel's neighbor's baby was teething, and she could hear the child's late night cries even through the thick apartment walls.

Claire climbed the porch steps of her little log cabin, avoiding the soft step. The cabin was a mild fixer upper. The twenty acres of forest surrounding the cabin made up for the flaws. Not paying on a mortgage helped, too. Claire's grandfather left the cabin to her when he passed away.

The porch vibrated from the music blasting from her house. Disco. She took a deep breath and stepped through the door.

"ABBA," Claire grumbled, wincing as Dancing Queen belted from her mother's childhood record player in the corner of the room.

She scanned the living room for Rachel. The wood-paneled walls used to make her skin crawl when she first moved in; too reminiscent of the trailer she lived in growing up. The cabin's walls were real wood, and that finally became enough to bring Claire to terms with the dark walls.

"Rachel?" Claire yelled, kicking off her muddy sneakers and passing across the new, but cheap, tan carpet. Eventually she would get the hardwood floor underneath updated.

She lifted the needle off the record. Blissful silence. "You know, there's these things called CD players? God, not even CDs, you can stream-"

Claire turned around, throwing her hands in front of her face; tiny pieces of glitter and confetti shot into the air, sticking to her hands and trailing down to the floor. She dropped her hands in time to see Rachel stick a party favor in her mouth and blow into it. It unfurled to smack Claire on the nose.

"Congratulations!" Rachel yelled, jumping up and down, her blond hair seeming to float around her.

"Congratulations?" Claire asked, brushing tiny bits of confetti off of her face. She crouched down, scooping as much of the confetti into her hands as possible. She inspected the party confetti, but she saw her name on a tiny strip; shredded mail. "You threw trash at me."

Rachel grabbed Claire's hands and pulled her to her feet. Claire sighed as all the papers she had just picked up floated back to the floor.

"You know I live with children, right? Their entire life's mission is to create a mess. I don't need the adults in my life doing the same thing."

"Leave it! We're celebrating! It's your last semester. This time next year you'll be teaching a room full of little mess makers." Rachel pulled Claire into an embrace. Claire stiffened her shoulders at first; she wanted to be irritated with her sister, but Rachel's good mood was infectious as always. Claire allowed herself to fall into her sister's hug.

"You're assuming a lot. Who knows if I'll even get a job?" Claire said, her laugh muffled against her sister's shoulder. "And you're in an amazing mood. What's up?"

"My neighbors are moving out!" Rachel fell into the brown reclining couch. A gear popped and the feet of the couch shot out. Rachel clutched at her chest. "Holy shit! When are you going to get furniture that doesn't eject me like a spy car!"

"When my kids are done spilling milk on everything in the house. That's when I'll buy new furniture. When are you going to stop throwing yourself into my furniture like it's a swimming pool?" Claire opened the coat closet, pulled out the vacuum and set it in front of Rachel. "For when you're done being dramatic."

Claire dropped the diaper bag on the ground next to the coffee table, buried under Legos, board books and whatever magazines Rachel had brought with her. She walked through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Her house was a disaster, but what was that silly phrase she read on Pinterest all the time? 'We're busy making memories.' When they moved in, Robert decided the first thing he would do was refinish the kitchen. He tore out half of the cabinets and counters, stacking them in the corner of the kitchen where they still sat two years later. Her ever growing to-do list included hauling the scraps to the dump. But the task always worked its way to the bottom of her list.

Claire grabbed a Pepsi out of the fridge and returned to the living room. She settled in on the couch next to her sister, tucking her feet under her. From the back of the couch, she grabbed the black and white afghan and tossed it over her knees. 

"When are they moving out?" Claire leaned her head back and closed her eyes. They snapped open a second later. "Do I smell pizza?"

"Oh!" Rachel leaned forward, pushing her magazines off the coffee table and onto the floor, revealing a box of pizza.

"You are my favorite person right now," Claire said, taking the box from Rachel. She opened the lid and inhaled the scent of cheese, grease and sausage; the works -- Claire's favorite. She grabbed a slice, warm still, and took a bite.

"They're moving next Monday. I guess they're renting a house in the valley, on one of the numbered streets," Rachel said. "I ran into the poor chick after my nail appointment today, she looks like shit. Remind me to never, ever become a mother."

"Um," Claire said around a mouthful. "Thanks."

"No, you know what I mean! That whole brand new baby, not sleeping stuff." Rachel grabbed a slice of pizza.

"You will have ten kids, just watch," Claire said.

"Don't put that evil on me!" Rachel said, laughing and taking a large bite.

"You'll love every second," Claire said. She imagined Rachel as a mother one day in the distant future. She'd probably surprise both of them and be one of those perfect Pinterest moms.

"Nope," Rachel said, through a full mouth of food.

"You're amazing with my kids," Claire insisted.

Rachel raised her finger, and quickly chewed her food, swallowing before speaking again. "That's different. They are the coolest people in the world and I get to do all the fun stuff with them because I'm Aunt Rachel. I don't have to deal with the
real
mom stuff."

"Whatever. But, you cursed yourself. It's like when a guy says he's never getting married and then the next month-"

"You're at his wedding!"

"Exactly," Claire said. They were going to Molly and Jack's wedding in the spring. The story being that Jack had sworn off serious relationships when he and Molly had worked in Santa's Workshop together and fell back in love.

"Speaking of men-"

"We weren't."

"How was Robert when you dropped the kiddos off?" Rachel tossed her uneaten crust back into the box and grabbed another slice of pizza.

"Massive prick to me, and captain amazing to the kids. As always." Claire sighed, picking a mushroom out of the cheese and offering it to Rachel.

"I hate him. If he had not given me those two adorable children of yours to love on, I'd kick his ass." Rachel threw her hands around animatedly when she said this, slapping her purse off of the side table. She leaned over the couch and came back up with her black bag.

Claire remembered tiny purses from before she had children. She was lucky these days if she left the house without half of the backseat packed with kid's stuff and at least two diaper bags. "Before I forget, I checked your mail when I came in."

She handed Claire two envelopes. "That was nice of you."

Rachel shrugged. "Sometimes I am."

Claire ripped open her GI Bill statement. The GI Bill was the money for college she had earned by serving in the military. Claire should have been able to get a four-year degree in teaching with the money, which was the intention. With as often as she had let Robert bully her into dropping out of school, she was lucky she squeezed two full years of school out of it.

"How was school?" Rachel asked, flicking the statement in Claire's hand.

"Good," Claire said. Eli's gray eyes appeared in her mind. She pushed him away every time she had thought about him on the drive home. It was ridiculous. A stupid crush. Maximized by him calling her beautiful, touching her leg and being too damn hot. She picked at the corner of the envelope. "Eli's in my art class."

"Eli?" Rachel said. "Like from the brewery?"

"He seems nice." Claire lifted the soda to take a sip before Rachel could notice the smile spreading on her face. She was not fast enough.

"What is that look for?" Rachel asked. "Don't even think about it. He is serious trouble."

"I wasn't thinking about anything," Claire insisted.
"
Even if I did, guys like him don't date girls like me."

"Oh hush, he'd be lucky to have you." Rachel grabbed a magazine and smacked Claire with it. "He doesn't deserve someone like you."

"Didn't you just say, don't think about him?" Claire teased.

"You're messing with me. Don't stress me out like that. He's bad news. Like, real bad news, not just like... 'I have smoldering eyes so have sex with me' bad news."

"Did you guys have sex?" Claire asked, her eyes wide. If Eli and Rachel had slept together that would be worse than webbed toes.

"Ha! No. Hell no. I don't date guys like that."

"What does that mean?" Claire wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin.

"He gets in a lot of fights." Rachel rolled her eyes. "Or, at least he used to."

"Did you actually see him get into a fight?"

"Twice, down at Squatters while you guys lived in California, and trust me... he comes off all nice and helpful, but underneath it all, he's an asshole."

"California? That was years ago. And what the hell were you doing at Squatters?" Squatters was the small bar just outside of town, with a rough reputation.

Rachel shrugged. "I wasn't always this fine upstanding lady. Those years you were in the Air Force, I went a little..."

"Nuts. Crazy. Skanky."

Rachel raised her hand in defense. "Alright, alright I know; I screwed up. It wasn't easy at Mom's after you left." Rachel picked at her chipped nail polish. "But, I'm not who we're talking about here. We're talking about Eli. I saw him hit a guy with an eight ball."

"Like a pool ball?"

"Yes. Anyways, he smacked him in the back of the head with an eight ball. He was lucky the guy didn't die, I swear."

"Why'd he hit him?" Claire asked, closing her eyes and imagining Eli hitting someone like that.

"I don't know, and that's not the point. Good guys don't knock people out with pool balls."

"I don't think Molly would work with him if he was volatile, do you?"

"He owns the place with Jack, it's not like she has a choice." Rachel disappeared into the kitchen and Claire heard glasses clinking.

She did not know Eli owned the brewery with Jack. She thought he just worked there. There was no way Molly would go into business with someone unless she trusted him. Rachel walked back into the living room with a bottle of wine and two empty glasses.

"I can't drink tonight, Rach," Claire said. "Work starts at four."

"In the morning? You're crazy." Rachel sat on the recliner, and Claire spread out on the couch, flipping on the TV. "See if Bridget's on! She used to date Eli."

"I thought she did the five o'clock news?" Claire asked, but flipped to Channel 5. Behind the desk sat an older anchor, not Bridget. She wanted to ask Rachel what happened between Eli and Bridget, but she thought better than talking about Eli too much in one night. Her sister might suspect she had a crush, and then she would never leave Claire alone. But one thing still ate at her. "Eight years ago you saw Eli get into a fight, and you've decided he's a big asshole forever?"

"There's other stuff," Rachel said, squinting at Claire. "Mostly fights. A lot of fights. Then I heard from Beth, who heard from Jenny, who used to date Rick-"

Claire laughed. "Nope! I do not listen to stories that start that way." Claire shook her head pulling the blanket up around her shoulders.

"No, listen! Rick said that Eli and his dad used to sell drugs out of their gas station."

"No, they didn't!" Claire sat up and the blanket fell off of her. "Molly wouldn't work with a drug dealer."

"He did -- just no one could ever prove it. Where do you think a guy like him got the money to buy a brewery? He couldn't have made that much off selling his dad's old shop, that place was falling apart. The one off of Fourth Street and Tanner?"

Rachel grabbed the remote, turning up the volume. A report came on about the local bait and tackle shop running a clothing drive the following weekend, but Claire did her best to tune the TV out.

Claire knew the old auto garage. It reminded Claire of the sort of garage one would see in the middle of a desert, partly boarded up and weather-beaten siding. The garage was exactly the kind of place a rumor might explode from. Could there be truth to anything Rachel said?

Could she really have spent the evening talking to, no,
fantasizing about
, a violent drug dealer? Claire shuddered. She hoped Rachel was wrong. Gossip was like a weed in a small town like Seaside Cove. Eli could have been busted with a single pill that did not belong to him and the gossip mill turned it into him having an entire drug operation.