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on-screen.
    Damn
it.
    My
fist clenches around the handset, but I stop myself before I can get
too tense. I’ve left all that behind me now. I don’t have
to get dragged back anymore.
    I
hit “decline,” toss the phone aside, and settle back in a
lawn chair to finish my beer. I’ve got a to-do list a mile
long, but there’s only one thing I need to figure out right
now:
    How
to get the girl.

 

Five.
     
    Delilah
     
    Sunday
mornings are usually for getting over Saturday night, but thanks to
Will distracting me, I wasn’t in the mood to hit the town. I
turn in early, get a full eight hours, and still wake in time to
see . . . is that sunrise filtering through my bedroom drapes?
    I
leap out of bed, restless. I still can’t shake that unsettled
feeling I’ve had ever since Will showed up in town, like a
flock of nervous butterflies is whirling in my stomach, so I decide
to harness all this energy instead: I pull on some workout shorts,
lace up my track shoes, and head out for a morning run.
    My
feet pound the empty sidewalks. It’s barely six a.m., and Oak
Harbor is still asleep, but the air is crisp with a salty ocean tang,
and the breeze feels great as I stretch my muscles and lengthen my
stride, jogging along the boardwalk and cutting across the silent
town square. It feels good to be running again. I was never much for
fitness, but I took it up in college to keep the dreaded freshman
fifteen at bay. Now, I fit it in around the rest of my schedule, but
it’s been months since I’ve had a good long workout like
this: pushing myself until my lungs are burning, and I feel the
pleasant ache in my limbs. I do three circuits, winding around town
and back, before I finally come to a stop, breathing heavily, outside
the bakery on Windward Street.
    Time
for my reward.
    Inside,
the air smells yeasty and delicious, and the old baker, Franny, is
just setting out a tray of fresh, gooey cinnamon rolls. “When I
die, someone better be waiting for me at the pearly gates with one of
your fresh-baked rolls,” I tell her. “Otherwise I’m
coming right back here.”
    Franny
waves away my praise, but her face still glows. “Why wait? Will
one be enough, honey, or do you want another for the road?”
    “Don’t
tempt me,” I groan, laughing. “And a cup of coffee too,
please.”
    “Great
minds think alike.”
    I
turn, startled, at the voice. Will is lounging in a chair by the
windows, drinking coffee with a newspaper in his lap. “Mornin’,”
he drawls, with a smile that would send my heart racing—if it
wasn’t already still beating hard in my chest from the run.
    “Morning,”
I manage to reply. He’s still casual, still scruffy, and damn,
he still looks way too good. I see his eyes slip over me, and realize
too late that I’m in my ratty jogging shorts and a bright pink
sports bra, my hair in a sweaty mess, and not a lick of makeup on my
face.
    Just
because I have no intention of dating the guy, it doesn’t mean
I want him seeing me as a complete mess. I try to act like I don’t
care I have damp circles under my armpits and ask, “You managed
to find the best coffee in town then?”
    “First
morning out, can’t be without it.” He raises his mug,
watching me with a thoughtful look. “I didn’t take you
for an early riser.”
    “I’m
not,” I admit. “Not on weekends, anyway. You?”
    “Always.”
He gives a rueful grin. “I was in the office by seven every
day, I guess I can’t shake the habit now.”
    I
try to picture him in his suit and tie again, but even after just
these couple of encounters, I can’t imagine it. He looks like
he was born in jeans, and if the gods had any justice, he would never
take them off.
    Except,
when someone takes them off him  . . . 
    Franny
returns with my paper cup of coffee, and a bag for the cinnamon bun.
I fish a five-dollar bill from my sports bra, but she waves it away.
“No need, sweetheart. We still owe you for finding that
apartment for my