Two Brutes, One Barista: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (Alaskan Romance Book 3) Read online

  “Good. We’re very close to done, think we might finish tomorrow.” I parked myself in the seat just behind her so that, with both of us facing toward the side, we could comfortably talk. Then, careful to keep my distance from her line, I cast out.

  “And you’re doing what to it, again?” Glancing over at her, it struck me again how beautiful she was. The greenery in the background made her hair seem even more red than usual, and the sun lit up her dark-whiskey eyes. Her life vest obscured her figure, but she’d straddled her bench—giving my overactive imagination some definite ideas—and I admired the strong curve of her thigh beneath snug black yoga pants. Those sexy pants ended at mid-calf, revealing slender, lovely ankles—ankles that I knew would look even better crossed behind my neck.

  Down, boy. What had she asked? “Putting on a Brute Kit. Extending the body a bit, giving it a truck bed, and lifting it four inches. Making it a better off-road vehicle.”

  “Oh, right.” She considered a moment. “I can see how the lift would help, but how does extending it and giving it a truck bed make it a better off-road vehicle?”

  “I… have no clue. It was my brothers’ idea.”

  Thea flashed me a grin. “Your ‘crazy’ brothers?”

  “Yep. They demanded I help, and then manipulated me into doing so.”

  “How?”

  “They kicked me into their guest shed, said my banishment would continue until my willingness to help improved.”

  “They have you in a shed?” She’d set down her rod and was looking at me, waiting for my response… but her hands were working at the front buckles of her life vest, distracting me utterly.

  “Um,” was the best I could manage as she revealed a low neckline and a stretchy, figure-hugging shirt.

  “You actually have something in that cooler?” she asked, setting the vest aside.

  “Some sodas—7Up, root beer, orange soda—and Alaskan Amber.” The beer, I’d had to make a special trip to the bar for. “What can I get you?”

  “Beer, please,” she said, and I snagged her a bottle. I popped the top, handed it over, and then got one myself.

  She hadn’t picked her rod back up, instead opting to turn more fully toward me while she sipped her drink. I struggled with my goal-oriented nature for another couple casts, and then set my own aside to mirror her posture. Thea was looking at me, really looking at me, and that light in her eyes was considering.

  “How was it,” she asked, “growing up with two brothers?”

  “Two older brothers. Kinda chaotic. Loud. Violent. Wild. We also have a younger sister,” I offered. “We’re Irish twins; she’s only about ten months younger than me.”

  “It sounds nice.”

  “I was lucky to have survived.”

  She laughed.

  “Do you have siblings?” I asked.

  She glanced away, and her smile faded. She shook her head.

  I could take a hint, and decided not to prod. “Where’d you grow up?” I asked.

  “A little town in southeast Washington.”

  “And school?”

  “I’m going to George Fox University. It’s outside Portland.”

  “And so what brought you here, Thea of Washington and then Oregon?”

  She smiled. “My grandparents.”

  I was surprised. “They live around here?”

  Nodding, she took another sip. “Upstream. Just before finals, my Gram called me up to let me know about a summer job serving coffee.”

  “What are their names? Maybe I’ve heard of—”

  A strange shriek cut through my sentence, raising the hair on the back of my neck. “What the…”

  A boat had appeared at the curve of the creek, a bunch of guys standing up in it as they motored slowly along. As they got closer, the sounds got louder, a series of shrieks and howls.

  “Oh, it’s the Bigfoot hunters,” Thea said.

  They had a video camera, a big, professional-looking one, on a tripod. And a megaphone, I realized as they pulled even with us. That’s where the weird sounds were coming from, easy to hear over the idle of their engine. Next up was what sounded like babbling in Japanese.

  “That’s what they think Bigfoot sounds like,” Thea explained.

  The weirdos returned our scrutiny as they slid slowly by, making their foreign noises, poised with their big camera. We watched them watch us until they were well past.

  “Could they be any stranger?” I asked.

  Thea shrugged and drained the last of her beer. “Where is home for you?” she asked.

  “Phoenix, Arizona.” Which, I kept forgetting I had a ticket back to in just a few days. Fuck.

  “So you’re here—instead of there, or Hawaii, or elsewhere—because of your brothers?” She’d swung her other leg over so she was facing me fully. She leaned forward with interest, her head tilted charmingly, and I so badly wanted to kiss her smiling lips.

  “As unmanly as this sounds, as much as they’d make fun of me if they heard me say it, I do love my brothers. And my sister.”

  “Is she crazy, too?”

  “Oh, yeah. Less stupid-crazy, though. More angry-crazy.”

  “Oh, there are brands of crazy?” she asked, laughing.

  “There most definitely are. Like mine, for example: more of a mild, laid-back crazy. I’m just along for the ride.”

  Thea’s eyes sparkled, and the breeze caught in her beautiful hair, and the way she sat, hands braced on the bench as she leaned forward, her smile kinda bashful, all hit me somewhere in the region of my heart. I suddenly needed to be closer to her.

  I slid down so I was sitting on the floorboards, leaning back against the bench. It put me a whole foot closer, and I guessed, if given half a chance, and given what I knew about human behavior…

  “How about that massage?” she said.

  Well, that was not at all what I’d been expecting, but, “Oh yes. Please.”

  She dug in her bag, pulled out a pump bottle, and headed over. “Just stay there,” she said when I made to move. “You mind if I sit behind you?”

  “No, please,” I said, mentally slapping myself for sounding so eager. I leaned forward, and her thigh brushed my shoulder as she stepped over. When she sat, I was very, very aware of the fact that her legs were spread around me. I got a little dizzy as my blood headed south.

  “Take off your shirt?”

  I couldn’t get it off fast enough.

  “Here,” she said, tucking a float cushion behind me. I heard the pump work, and then her hands were on me, smoothing oil over my shoulders.

  Yes! It felt absolutely glorious, even better than I’d dreamed.

  She dug in, working the tension out, and I groaned. I thought she’d just concentrate on my injured shoulder, but she massaged both. She worked on me for a few minutes, turning me into a puddle of goo.

  “I don’t know if I’ve said this yet,” I murmured, “but thank you.”

  “For?” she asked, involving her forearms in long, hypnotic strokes.

  “For helping me. I appreciate it. A lot.”

  Her hands felt like a waterfall of touch as they moved up my neck. “You’re welcome,” she said, her voice soft.

  She was tracing circles in front of my ears when my head rocked back and brushed her chest. I started to lean forward, to give her space, but she gently pulled me back, intentionally cushioning the back of my head with her breasts. My heart kicked into high gear, and then it got even better: She urged me to turn my head to the side as she worked on the cords of my neck. I could feel her nipple against my cheek, could hear her heart pattering along just as fast as mine.

  I listened to her breathe, shivered when she traced my ear. Then, her hands delved into my hair. Her fingers tightened, tugging, and I was suddenly hard as iron. She moved my scalp around, gently pulling this way and that, and I’d grasped her ankles before I even knew I’d moved.

  She paused. I froze.

  “Sorry,” I said, starting to release her
.

  “It’s okay,” she said, still petting me. “Your hands are warm.”

  So, desperate opportunist that I was, I left them there. And she didn’t object, just continued working me over. Though, there was no ‘just’ about it. She’d returned to my shoulders, and her touch had deepened. She put her weight into the kneading, and I was suddenly glad I had something to hang onto.

  “So… why’d you choose physical therapy?” I asked, needing something to distract me from the throbbing going on in my groin.

  “Well, I was always a touchy-feely person,” she said.

  I almost cried when she skimmed her nails lightly over my skin.

  “I started with massage, did that for a couple years out of high school. But massage is so superficial. Not all things can be fixed by rubbing them. True recovery takes stretches, strengthening exercises—the whole nine yards. I really wanted to help people… and then I met someone.” The way she said it left no doubt she meant a man, in the romantic sense.

  I shifted, not really wanting to hear about her with another man, but wanting to know her past experiences—wanting to know her. “Go on,” I said, realizing I was stroking her ankles. They felt delicate in my hands.

  “Not much to tell. He was a physical therapist, and watching him work, hearing him talk about it, convinced me it was what I wanted to do.”

  “This was your last boyfriend?” I asked.

  “My first out of high school,” she said. “Not my last.”

  “And what happened?” I’d closed my eyes, envisioning a younger Thea as I relaxed completely, giving myself over to her touch.

  “How’d it end, you mean? He moved away.”

  I gave her ankle a little squeeze. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  “I had a couple relationships since, but they always seem to end the same way.”

  “Were they good relationships, at least?” I couldn’t imagine not being good to Thea.

  She was silent so long, I craned my neck to look up at her. She looked like a goddess with the sun caught in her hair.

  “For the most part,” she said, running her fingertips gently along my jaw. On the one hand, I loved the way she was exploring me, checking out the texture of my stubble, and I didn’t want to interrupt. On the other, I was suddenly alert, muscles tight. I had to know.

  “What does that mean?”

  She hesitated. “Well… my last boyfriend was a bit of a mean drunk.”

  “He hurt you?” I was so completely ready to hurt him, this person I’d never met, whose name I didn’t know.

  “No, it never went that far. I just avoided him when he’d been drinking. He was really wonderful when he wasn’t. But when he was, he got violent. We had a couple close calls. And… then he graduated, and moved away. And I was glad,” she finished quietly.

  I covered her hand with mine, offering support. She gave my shoulders a brief squeeze.

  “I’m a naked drunk,” I offered, wanting to lighten the mood. “A very friendly one, too.”

  She laughed. “I’d kinda like to see that.”

  “You would, huh?” I asked, teasing her. “Well… not today. I gotta drive us home.”

  “Well, in that case, I’d like another drink,” she said, leaning to fish a beer out of the cooler. She stood and disentangled herself, then slid down into the bottom of the boat opposite me.

  Mourning her touch, I pulled my shirt back on, then settled my elbows on the bench to either side and lounged back with a sigh. It was a lovely evening, the remainder of a day that had been hot and sunny. There was just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs off, causing wispy little excuses for clouds to chase each other across the sky. The water sparkled as it lapped at the boat, rocking us gently.

  “Do you have any pets?” she asked.

  “Nah. I don’t have the lifestyle for it. You?”

  “I’m a bird girl. I’ve had a pair of cockatiels and a Sun Conure—all older rescues, so they were only with me a few years—and am currently between pets… One day, I’d like to get an African Grey.”

  “The mobile,” I said, remembering the dozens of brightly-colored birds I’d hung over her counter.

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  I reached into the cooler, retrieved a soda this time, and was picturing Thea with a parrot on her shoulder as I opened it.

  “Do you read?” she asked.

  “Um. Like, for fun?”

  That grin of hers just wouldn’t quit. “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes.” I bent my powers of mind control on making her change the subject. It didn’t work.

  “What do you read?”

  I cleared my throat. “Fiction.”

  “Oh, c’mon. You gotta give me more than that.”

  “I like books with a happy ending,” I said evasively.

  She gave me a look.

  I sighed. “You ever watch that movie, The Notebook?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Well, I went to see it on a date, and… it made an impression. So, I bought the book. And then I bought all of Nicholas Sparks’ books. And read them.”

  “Every one?”

  “Yup.”

  “So… you’re telling me you read romance.”

  “No, I read Nicholas Sparks.”

  “You read romance,” she repeated.

  “Don’t tell my brothers.”

  She laughed in apparent delight. “What about when you were a kid? Favorite book?”

  “The Monster at the End of This Book. You?”

  “Green Eggs and Ham,” she said.

  “Ah, the classic. I would not, could not, in a house...”

  “I would not, could not, Sam I am.” She tilted her head. “That reminds me. When Pierre first came to the coffee shop, he called you Jesse. That’s your name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the D? What’s the D stand for?”

  I coughed. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “My name is Danger,” I said, affecting a British accent and a cheesy leer. “Jesse Danger.”

  “Your name is Jesse Danger?”

  “First name Jesse, middle name Danger. Thus, J.D.”

  She laughed. “Really? You had it changed?”

  “Ah, no. My mom chose my name. Funny story, that. She had really bad nausea when she was pregnant with me. Nothing worked, and so she finally gave in and tried smoking pot. Worked like a charm. She was actually pretty high during the delivery, laughed through the whole thing. Anyway, she was high, and Jesse Danger sounded good. And she didn’t change her mind the next day.” At least she hadn’t named me Sue.

  “Wow. So… your legal name is Jesse Danger, you read Nicholas Sparks, and you’re a kitten whisperer.”

  “And I beat people up for a living,” I said. “Don’t forget that.”

  We talked, laughed, and flirted well into the evening, just sitting in the bottom of the boat. By the time we decided it was time to go, Thea was thoroughly tipsy. She started to pull up the anchor, but she was laughing and threatening to tip over the side, so I helped her. When we set the anchor in the bottom of the boat—managing not to smash any toes—I got caught in her eyes.

  She straightened. “We’re drifting downstream,” she observed.

  “Shit.” I lunged for the engine, got it started, and gave it quite a bit of gas trying to keep us from being swept into a log.

  Thea, still standing up, fell onto the bench. She was on her hands and knees, and still laughing as she crawled over. “You’re not very good at that,” she said.

  “What? Driving a boat?” I asked, my ego stinging. “I’m awesome at driving a boat.”

  “You’re not,” she insisted, heading toward me. “Scoot over.”

  “I can’t. I’m driving.”

  “Poorly. I’m going to help you,” she announced. Then, she dropped onto my bench on the other side of the tiller. As we pulled out of the slough and into the silty, turbulent waters of the main river,
she wrapped her hand around the end of the throttle, pushed up snug against mine. Giving it a bit more gas, she pulled the tiller toward her.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Steering us toward the middle of the river. You’re on a collision course with that big eddy, and big eddies are usually caused by big rocks.”

  “Yes, I understand about the big eddies, but I totally wasn’t gonna go over that.”

  “So you say.”

  We motored on for a while with her steering. She wallowed right, then did a big swoop to the left, but she seemed happy with it. And we were going upstream, so I let it go. I just sat, and enjoyed the feel of her hand against mine.

  A cabin cruiser motored by going the other direction, trailing a big wake. I tried to guide the bow into a nice right angle to the waves rolling toward us, but Thea wasn’t having it.

  “We need to go into the waves,” I said, trying to shoo her hand off the tiller.

  “No. We need to go that way,” she said, pointing upstream.

  “Listen. You are drunk. And when you are drunk, you forget that—”

  She speared me with a glance. “That you are in charge?”

  “Yes.”

  Just then, the wake hit us, and Thea squealed as we rocked wildly. I grabbed her to keep her from being tossed out of the boat, then squealed myself as we shot forward. The only thing I could figure was that her hand had tightened on the throttle… but before I could even think of recovering it, the tiller swung, hard, and we turned nearly on our side.

  She finally let go. The roar of the engine quieted, and the boat righted itself.

  I’d tugged Thea toward me, and had her half in my lap, the tiller sandwiched between us. She was breathing hard, her face tucked in against my chest.

  I waited for my heart to slow down a bit, and then I nudged her chin up, making her look at me. “You are drunk,” I told her.

  “Yes. You already said that,” she pointed out tartly. Didn’t she understand she’d almost killed us? I sorta felt like spanking her.

  “So, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna kiss you,” I said, watching her eyes widen, “just once. Then I’m going to drive you home, I’m going to walk you up from the docks, I’m going to drop you off, and nothing else will happen. Not tonight. Understand?”