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AT FIRST, LAURA laughed out loud. Mark expected her to come over for a drink? After how rude he’d been? After he’d practically shouted at her when she’d put out a fire?
Then, after the laughter faded, she reconsidered. It was a nice gesture. Surprisingly nice from a man she could best describe as gruff, and at worst, surly.
The exact opposite of Dean in his heyday. Dean, who used sweet words and bright promises to charm everybody he met. It was why he’d been the director of sales at her former company. He could sell anything to anybody. Mark wasn’t like that. He could barely sell an apology, she reasoned. Sorry about earlier? About when? When she’d saved his workshop from fire and he’d told her he didn’t need her help? Or when he’d implied her thoughts about noise pollution were completely moot?
But, given how Dean turned out, maybe she should give gruff a try. Besides, what was one beer? Part of her didn’t want to be alone right now. She didn’t want to stew in her own misery, to turn over all the ways Dean had betrayed her in his mind, to face the yawning black chasm of her own sadness. Dean would have a baby, all right. Just not hers.
Then again, smooth-talking Dean had turned out to be a liar. Maybe the opposite of Dean was just what she needed right now.
Honestly, she wanted a distraction. Any distraction.
She grabbed the cooler and headed downstairs.
As she stood in front of his metal door, she knocked, the tin plunking sound reverberating in her stomach. The door swung open and Mark greeted her with a neutral expression.
He’d put on a shirt and taken a shower, she saw, as his hair was still wet. The faded T-shirt stuck to his very muscular chest, leaving little to her imagination. This was better than a frown, and yet still she felt like she might be intruding.
“Uh. Just wanted to thank you for this.” She lifted the cooler. He glanced at it, mute. Did he not write the note that invited her to come over for a drink? Was he not going to invite her inside?
She hesitated on his welcome mat, wondering if she’d read the entire note wrong. It certainly seemed like an invitation. “Well, then.” She hated awkward silences. Why was he just staring and not saying anything? “I guess I’ll go.”
She was halfway turned around when his voice stopped her. “Did you want to come in?”
“Uh...sure?” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. “I mean. If you’re not busy.”
He slowly shook his head, dark eyes watching her. “Not busy.” Then he retreated from the door, leaving it open, and she stepped into his condo.
The place smelled like the open air of the beach and ocean because his patio doors were flung wide open. His workshop and the partially restored boat obscured some of the dark, rolling sea, but she could hear the waves gently lapping against the beach. Outside, the moon rose above the ocean, casting a silver light on the water.
The layout of his place was largely the same as hers, although his kitchen was slightly bigger and newer. Instead of touristy bamboo furniture, his was entirely dark, simple wood and modern lines. Also, his place was twice the size of hers; he’d knocked down a wall and made two condos into one. Somehow his place seemed more masculine, too, yet tastefully decorated. A large photograph of a sailboat hung on one large wall near the kitchen, drawing her eye. The matting said Tanner.
“Your boat?” she asked. She set the cooler on his kitchen counter and walked up to the oversize photo of the impressive sailboat to study it.
“My brother’s now. But used to be, yeah.” He fell silent once more as he whipped the bottles of beer out of the cooler and popped open the caps with an opener. Laura suspected there might be a story there but didn’t push it. Mark was a hard man to read, and she was still feeling him out.
“Is the one you’re building going to be like that?” she asked.
“Kind of,” he said, handing her a bottle.
She took it gratefully, wondering if a little beer would make conversation less like pulling teeth. They clinked bottles and Laura took a deep swig of the cold, fizzy beverage, letting the lager slip down her throat. She’d only just starting drinking her first beer and already she wanted her second.
“Want to sit outside?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered a little too quickly. She took another deep swig of the beer.
“You need another one of those?” he asked her, and Laura realized she’d drank nearly half the beer already.
“Probably.” She sighed, thinking about how lately every day just screamed for strong drinks and lots of them. “It’s been that kind of day.”
“For you, too, huh?”
She glanced at his dark eyes and thought she saw a flicker of pity there. Or maybe understanding. She nodded. “I plan to drown my sorrows in alcohol.”
“Well, then, we’re going to get along just fine, after all.” Mark reached back in his fridge and grabbed a few more bottles, loading up her small cooler so full that the lid wouldn’t close. “I was going to finish up this beer alone, which probably means I’m an alcoholic. If we do it together, then we’re both just being social.”
He laughed and she joined him.
He lifted the cooler and headed outside. Laura followed, the warm ocean breeze ruffling her short hair as she followed him past his workshop. The full moon hung in the sky and shed a gray light on the beach. He’d set up two beach chairs not far from his shop, facing out to the ocean.
“Beautiful,” she said, staring at the moon, amazed at how many stars she could see here, far away from the lights of the city.
“Yeah,” he agreed. They both sat in the chairs and he laid the cooler between them. “You never really get used to it.”
Laura finished her first beer and Mark handed her a second. He whistled, sounding impressed. “Boy, you weren’t kidding about the alcohol.”
“I don’t know if you have enough beer to make me forget about my day.” Dean was going to be a father. She might never be a mother. “It’s the worst ever.”
“Can’t be, because mine definitely was,” Mark said as he took a sip of beer. “Started with this pretty lady yelling at me for working in the morning, except that it was practically lunchtime and...”
Pretty lady? The compliment didn’t slip past Laura. He thought she was good-looking?
“Okay, okay, okay.” Laura raised her beer bottle like a shield. “Sorry about that. I was jet-lagged. I thought it was early.”
“Uh-huh.” Mark grinned, flashing a teasing smile that somehow looked even brighter in the moonlight. Laura couldn’t help but think how handsome he was when he wasn’t solemn or grumpy. “Well, apology accepted.”
“And what about you, Mr. Grumpy Guy With a Saw, who might also be a pyromaniac?”
“I’m not a...” Mark frowned, but then he pointed his beer bottle at Laura. “You’re teasing me.”
“Maybe. For all I know, you set that fire on purpose so I’d come running and save you.”
“Why would I do that?”
She took a sip of beer, savoring the cold, crispness as it slid down her throat. Already, she began to feel the tightness in her stomach relax as the second beer hit her stomach, and she glanced out across the dark ocean waves. Above the water, thousands of stars glistened. “Maybe you like pretty ladies who also put out fires.”
He laughed. “Maybe,” he agreed.
Were they flirting? Laura wondered. It