Hot Stuff

Excerpt

It was June first, and he was coming back.

He always came back on June first.

Cayenne stared out to sea as sweat dripped down her back and between her shoulder blades. Heat and humidity hung heavily in the air, only broken by the very occasional ocean breeze. Even then, the relief was only shortly lived.

But, she was used to it, and she wouldn't live anywhere else.

She kicked off her sandals and stepped onto the hot sand. It was scorching, but she didn't care. She traipsed through the sand with the skilled practice of someone who'd been doing it all her life. And she had.

Well, pretty much. She and her mother had arrived at the tiny coastal town when Cayenne was only ten. Her mother left when Cayenne was sixteen, but by then she had a job at the candy store and was practically supporting them both anyway. It hadn't been such a hardship going from supporting two people to supporting one.

And she'd done it without anyone ever being the wiser.

Well, almost anyone.

And that anyone was what brought her to the beach this morning. Shane was back in town, again. Daisy, down at the local diner, said he was looking for her.

Which was why she was trying desperately not to be found.

"Hey, Hot Stuff."

She'd just reached the water's edge when a deep, masculine voice called to her. It sent shivers down her spine just like it had the last time she heard it.

Last summer.

She turned slowly, trying to gear herself up for the impact that seeing Shane again would have on her. But, when she actually saw him she realized that nothing could ever prepare her.

Cayenne's temperature skyrocketed, and it didn't have anything to do with the weather. Her nipples pebbled and moisture flooded her panties.

It was as if time had stopped, but at the same time everything had changed.

He, too, was barefoot.

The board shorts he'd worn a year ago had been traded in for a pair of cargo shorts, and the ripped tee shirt was now a button-down, collared shirt. The Shane she remembered from her teenage years wouldn't have shaved for several days, and his hair would be long and caked with sea water. The new Shane's face looked smooth and his hair was neatly coiffed, shorn close to his head.

Yet, somehow, the man and the boy melded in her mind.

"Shane," she said.

For a moment he looked like he was going to hug her. But then he stepped back and put his hands in his pocket.

"How'd you find me so quickly?" she asked.

He shrugged, and that's when she noticed how much he'd grown. As a teenager he'd been tall and wiry. He had the build of a surfer. He was still tall, but he'd filled out, a little more each year. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick, tapering to a narrow waist.

"I figured if you knew I was looking for you, you'd go to the last place I'd look. So, that was the first place I looked. The water's edge."