The Beach Blueprint

Chapter 2

Scott Anderson had a big laugh, and he used it a lot. His first instinct after Joy—the gorgeous blonde he’d been crushing on for a solid six months—asked if she could stay with him was to laugh.

Hard.

He managed to pull back on that before anything escaped his mouth. Thankfully. He did need a few moments to stare and blink while he tried to come up with what he should say or do instead.

Joy Bartlett waved her hand like she was swatting away errant flies. “Never mind. That was so stupid. There are like, fifteen thousand hotels here. I’ll find another one.”

Scott’s face did relax into a smile then. The woman had just asked to stay with him. He hadn’t known where they’d be when he saw her. Flirting and texting and even calling a woman was something Scott excelled at. He could talk to anyone—literally anyone—but he didn’t tell Joy that. He wanted her to feel special, and she was.

He enjoyed talking to her more than anyone else in his life right now, that was for dang sure. He couldn’t wait to finish with his lawns, bushes, shrubs, trees, and pools to get home, shower, and then talk to Joy. She evened out all the odd things inside him, and Scott liked her far more than any other woman he’d dated in oh, at least five years.

“I totally want you to stay with me,” he said, leaning forward and ignoring the waitress as she approached. In the end, he decided he better not be so open and flirtatious and…scandalous in front of a stranger.

He looked up at the woman—not a stranger—and his face split into a grin. “Kate,” he said. He slid out of the booth and hugged the woman. “This is a secret,” he murmured in her ear, and then he faced Joy.

She also stood and Scott put his arm around Kate, who he hoped looked enough like him to assure Joy they were related. Kate stared at the side of his face too, but Scott ignored her. “Joy, this is my cousin, Kate Arnold. Kate, this is Joy Bartlett.”

No qualifier, though Scott knew which one he wanted to use. He’d been talking to Joy for three months. They hadn’t seen each other in person once, until today. He shouldn’t have brought her to Mead’s. Instead, he should’ve insisted on meeting her in Charleston and taking her somewhere there so they could be alone.

Everywhere Scott looked, he saw people he knew. It wouldn’t be long before Grant, Harrison, Blake, Oliver, and Ty knew about this date. And that meant Joy’s Supper Club friends would know too.

His pulse blipped in his chest as Joy put that stunning smile on her face and leaned forward to shake Kate’s hand. “So great to meet you,” she said in that sexy drawl that was so much like his, but so different too.

“Oh, where are you from, honey?” Kate asked.

“Texas,” Joy said. She smiled and met Scott’s eye.

“Let’s sit,” he said. “We don’t need to stand.” He slid back into the booth. “I want the smothered potato skins, Katie. And the strawberry lemonade sweet tea.” He picked up his menu and looked over it to Joy. “It’s incredible. It’s why I wanted to bring you here.” She’d talked about her sweet tea, which was her grandmother’s recipe, as well as several other varieties around her small town in Texas.

Her face lit up. “That’s this place?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned at her and didn’t look at the menu again. He didn’t need it.

She looked up at Kate. “Do you have peach?”

“Absolutely. Peach it is.” She didn’t write anything down. “Any other apps?”

“I haven’t even looked,” Joy said.

“I know what you want, baby,” he said, and he swore he didn’t mean to sound all sultry. His voice just came out that way with Joy. He looked up at Kate, his face heating when his cousin smiled so wide, those drawn-on eyebrows so dang high. “She’ll like the artichoke dip, please. And bring us an order of the bar pretzels—double the hot mustard sauce.”

“You got it, Scotty.” Kate turned and walked away before Scott could growl at her for using his childhood nickname. He hadn’t been Scotty for decades, and blast her for embarrassing him on his first real date with Joy.

ScottyHe cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the woman across from him. “Everyone on the island is going to know about us by nightfall.” He shifted in his seat. “I sort of forgot she works here.”

Joy’s surprise hit him straight in the throat. “So my friends…”

“They live on the island, “he said. “And they all have husbands or boyfriends who are well-connected locals.” Scott shook his head, his chin dipping down in regret. “Sorry, Joy. I know you wanted to keep this a secret.”

She picked up her phone calmly, and Scott loved this aloof side of her. She’d shown it to him plenty of times this past summer, when he’d been blatant in his feelings and asked her out to her face. Twice. Maybe three times, even when she had a boyfriend.

“Not exactly a secret,” she said quietly. “I’m just…I don’t want the pressure of talking about us yet.” She looked at him. “You get that, right?”

“Yes,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if he did or not. Kate would razz him about Joy, and that didn’t bother Scott. He could admit he liked her—he wasn’t trying to keep that a secret. It almost felt like Joy wasn’t sure of her feelings for him, and that thought rang so true, he knew it was.

Take the flirting down a notch, he told himself. He could. For her, he would.

Take the flirting down a notch“One problem at a time,” she said. “I need a hotel tonight.”

“You could tell your friends and then stay with Lauren,” he suggested, but Joy shook her head before he even finished the sentence. “I was going to say…before Kate came over.” He swallowed and wished he had his strawberry lemonade sweet tea. “I totally want you to stay over, but I’m not in my place right now, remember? I’ve got a studio apartment on the edge of the ocean, and that might be a little…intimate for our first date.”

Joy’s face turned a delicious shade of pink, and that satisfied Scott greatly. “You’re right,” she said. “I forgot.”

“That said.” He leaned back in the booth and folded his arms. “I want you to, for the official record and all that. But, I also have someone you can call about a hotel room. In fact, I’ll text him now.”

He took his phone from his pocket and started tapping. “I stayed there for a few nights before I got into this studio. Ty’s great, and if he has anything, he’ll give it to you, I’m sure.”

“I know Ty,” she said. Scott looked at her, surprised. “I mean, sort of. He’s the real estate agent who helped Lauren buy her house.”

“Oh, of course.” Scott had forgotten about that too. He couldn’t hold things in his head the way he used to, and he let extraneous details flow through his mind without holding onto them. This skill normally served him without a problem, but his ability to forget anything and everything sometimes got him into trouble—like when he hadn’t remembered meeting Joy the first time.

He hadn’t had a day go by where he hadn’t thought about her since seeing her sunbathing on Harrison Tate’s deck, months and months ago. Even after she’d turned him down. Even after she’d been sassy with him, and he figured he had no chance with her. She’d burrowed into his skull, and his brain wasn’t letting her go.

Of course, then she’d texted him out of nowhere in September. He could scroll all the way to the top of their messaging thread and re-read the message, but he didn’t need to. He had it memorized.

Hey, it’s Joy Bartlett, and I just heard you’re going out with someone tonight. I don’t want you to. That’s bold, I know, but as I thought about you going out with anyone but me…I didn’t like it. Call me. Or text back. Or don’t and enjoy your date.

Hey, it’s Joy Bartlett, and I just heard you’re going out with someone tonight. I don’t want you to. That’s bold, I know, but as I thought about you going out with anyone but me…I didn’t like it. Call me. Or text back. Or don’t and enjoy your date.He’d never gotten a bigger shock in his life than that text, and he could still see himself coming to a complete standing halt as he read it. The mowers and edgers had continued around him, and he’d laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then, he’d promptly messaged her back, saying he was finishing up one last lawn for the day, and then he’d call her that night. He’d canceled his date with a woman whose name he’d already forgotten, and he’d been talking to Joy every day since.

Ty’s message popped up, and Scott smiled. “He says he’s got a room at Beach Beauty, and that’s a nice property.”

“Can I afford it?” Joy wore a worried look, and Scott had learned over the months that her default was worry. She worried about everything, from how her sons were doing—a legitimate concern—to her students, to if her cat was lonely at home during the day while she worked. She worried over him too, and Scott sure did like that, because he knew Joy only worried about things she really cared about.

He reached across the table and took her hands in his. Touching her…there was nothing like it. Phone calls, video chats, and texting were one thing. Being with her, holding her, touching her, seeing her only a few feet away…that was magic.

“Yeah,” he said. “You can afford it, because he said it’s free.”

She shook her head, her expression turning hard. “I don’t need his charity. I can pay something.”

Scott grinned and shook his head. “This isn’t a contest, Joy. Are you going to insist on paying for dinner tonight?”

“No,” she said, the set of her jaw a tad on the stubborn side.

He c****d his head and pulled his hands back to his side of the table. “Why not?”

“We’re on a date.”

“He’s doing you a favor.”

“I don’t need a favor.”

“Then the hotel is part of the date,” Scott said. “Dinner and a place to stay.” He smiled at her, and Joy finally cracked.

“You’re impossible,” she said.

“You like impossible,” he threw back at her.

She laughed then, and that sound while they were in close proximity could never be replicated over the phone. He joined her, and then as they quieted, he said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Strawberry lemonade sweet tea,” Katie practically yelled. “Peach sweet tea.” She set both glass mugs down with loud clunks. “Do y’all know what you want to eat?” She looked back and forth between Scott and Joy, her auburn ponytail swinging as she did, as if she hadn’t just interrupted something sweet and tender and intimate.

Scott gestured for Joy to go first, because he needed another moment inside the feeling streaming through him and he didn’t want to speak and ruin it. He wanted to keep Joy in his life for a while, and that meant he had to figure out how to hide all of his flaws until she was madly in love with him.

However long that took. However much time she needed to figure out that he was the one for her. Only then would he allow some of the…less great things about himself be known.

* * *

“This place is too nice,” Joy complained as she entered the room Ty had gotten for her at Beach Beauty, a gorgeous beachfront property that boasted a restaurant and their “famous” key lime pie on the first floor.

“Oh, my word, Scott, look at that view!” She hurried over to the bank of windows across the room while he towed one of her suitcases across the threshold of the room.

She sighed; the door closed; Scott left her large suitcase by her small one and went to join her at the windows. “I told you this was a beautiful property.”

“I can’t believe it’s available.”

“You’re a few days before the Christmas crowds.” He lifted his arm around her, and Joy sank into his side. The sun outside had started to set, as it was December, and that meant they got less daylight hours. They stood there and watched it sink lower and lower, the reflection on the water almost gone before Joy said, “This was the perfect day.”

“Was it?” he asked. “Flying for most of it, then driving here, and then me scaring you in the parking lot?” He chuckled and adjusted his hand lower on her arm to keep her close.

“Everything after three-thirty,” she amended.

“Hmm.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “That sounds like everything with me, sweetheart.”

She didn’t deny it, and instead said, “Yeah.”

Scott needed to leave right now, or he wasn’t sure he’d be able to bring himself to do it. He dropped his arm and turned away from the view, from Joy. His eyes landed on the big, puffy, king-sized bed, and everything inside him tightened. “Well, I better get going.” He swallowed and walked on wooden legs toward the exit.

“You’re not working tomorrow, are you?” she asked, following him.

“No, sweetheart. We’re going on that alligator thing in the morning, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I was just checking.”

He turned back to her at the door, and she came within inches of him. Too close, but not close enough at the same time. “I’ll bring breakfast, unless you want to eat downstairs.” He gave her a smile punctuated with raised eyebrows.

“No.” She returned his grin. “You promised me a chocolate croissant. That’s what I want.”

“And coffee with caramel,” he said, sliding his hand along her hip. “And we have reservations at Lighthouse Point for lunch. Then, I guess I’ll have to let you go see Lauren.”

Joy returned his smile and put one palm against his chest, branding him. Sealing him as hers. “Thank you, Scott.” She tipped up onto her toes, and Scott easily took her into his arms. Did she want him to kiss her? Could he do that and then walk away? He honestly wasn’t sure.

She smelled like peaches and vanilla, and he couldn’t wait to taste it on her lips. He leaned down, giving her plenty of time to stop him. She didn’t.

Scott touched his lips to hers, expecting heat, and getting burned instantly. He held for a moment, took a breath, and then stroked a better kiss across her lips. She responded eagerly, and Scott couldn’t help but wonder if she’d thought about him every day since last summer, despite going out with another man.

She sure kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him like she had, and that was just fine with him.