Read Playing for Love at Deep Haven for Free Online Page B

nice room waitin ’ for ya .”
    Violet nodded,
opening the door and letting herself out onto the porch of the old inn. To her
left was a crisply painted white rocking chair that afforded a nice view of Frenchman
Bay. She plopped down in the chair, hugging her thin pink cardigan to her body,
and shivered as an autumn breeze blew in from the water, making her exposed skin
rise with goose bumps. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She had no other
choice. Short of sleeping in her car, she was going to have to return to Deep
Haven and share the rental house with Zach—at least for tonight.
    Zach Aubrey.
    For goodness’
sake, what were the chances of him showing up at the same house she’d rented in
some obscure town in Maine? One in a million, that’s how many. She shook her
head in disbelief. Of all the crappy luck.
    She sat back,
rocking, trying to ignore the chill and put off the inevitable.
    Damn, he looked
good. So edgy and hard, foreign and forbidden, with his tattoos and jewelry,
ripped jeans and heavy metal T-shirt. He’d taken that quiet, brooding thing
he’d had going on in college and amped up the heat level to scorching.
    He’d changed a
lot over the years, for sure. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he had that
small silver stud in his nose and two in his eyebrow, which she didn’t like a
bit. (Did she? No! Of course she didn’t!) His face had been shuttered and wary
in college, and even though it was more open and less apprehensive now, it was
harder and cockier too. And his body. She sighed, and a small moan-like sound
surprised her. His body looked solid and toned under his T-shirt, and his ass .
. .
    She forced
herself not to think about what he looked like walking away from her as he went
back into the house. But she could probably bounce a quarter off that ass. Her
belly fluttered as she remembered the feeling of his hands on her shoulders.
She hated how much she liked it when he touched her. It made her feel something
she hadn’t felt in a long time. If she was honest, something she hadn’t felt
since . . .
    She was gripping
the rocker arms so unforgivingly that some of the
paint chipped off and lodged under her nails. She started rocking again with a
vengeance, trying to reason with herself .
Badass metal rockers are hardly your type, Violet! Get a hold of yourself!
    Preppy, solid,
and conservative was her type. (Wasn’t it? Of course it was!) She’d been with Shep since she was nineteen years old, and he was about as
preppy and old-school as a man could be. Since Shep had died, Violet hadn’t dated much at all. Twice she’d met Shep’s divorced golf buddy, Garreth , for drinks at the club,
but when he leaned in to kiss her, she whipped her head so far back from him,
she was lucky she hadn’t gotten whiplash. His cheeks reddened with
embarrassment, and he didn’t call her again. It wasn’t necessarily that Violet
intended to live like a nun for the rest of her life, but if she didn’t count
Zach, which she generally didn’t, she’d only ever been with Shep .
    That one weekend
with Zach? She’d tried unsuccessfully to relegate it to dream status for almost
a decade. But it wasn’t a dream. It was a startling, unavoidable actuality that
was suddenly reasserting itself into her life with brutal precision and
clarity.
    She thought of
the long nights she’d spent writing poetry on his dorm room bed as he played
the keyboard, wearing headphones, at his desk. When their schoolwork was done,
sometimes he’d set one of her poems to music.
    “Vile, you got
verses for me?”
    She’d look up
from her scribbling to find him grinning at her. His eyes, generally downcast
around others, met hers easily, even teasing her—dipping his glance to her
breasts and making her cheeks flush.
    “You think I hid
the verses in there?”
    “They’d fit.”
    “You’re fresh .”
    But she grinned
back at him from across the room. His music was so far under her skin, she
didn’t hear her own thoughts in