Crossing Abby Road (2 page)

“I think it might go with your eyes,” I added. Like I knew one damn thing about what kind of hat looked good on someone.

She cocked her head, that sexy sass again. “Is that some kind of line?”

“Um, no.” I waved the straw hat between us. “See if I’m right. I’m curious.”

One of her eyebrows arched, making the suspicion in her expression seem forced. Adding to this, she swept her gaze up and down, and not very subtly. The girl I’d been checking out for the last five minutes had just checked
me
out. So maybe this wasn’t a lost cause.

She took the hat to a mirror on the wall, put it on, and examined herself from different angles. “I like it, but it doesn’t look right,” she said.

“I think you’ve got it sideways.” Like any helpful store owner trying to bag a sale, I reached out and made the necessary adjustment. She smelled pretty amazing. Like honey or vanilla…something that made me want to nuzzle my nose to the side of her neck, under her hair. I took a full step back and crossed my arms. “Now what do you think?”

“Yeah, better.” She wasn’t a huge talker, but when she lifted her eyes to me, then smiled, I felt the effects of both in my lower abdominals.

As her smile held, it dawned on me that there was something familiar about her, like we’d met once or knew each other from…before. But no, I would’ve remembered this sun-kissed babe in cutoffs and a tight yellow tank top. “Do you live around here?” I asked, going for casual nonchalance.

“Nope. Just visiting.”

Okay, but from where?

“You’ve been here before, though.” This made more sense than knowing each other in college or New York, since Seaside was a tourist trap. It was like I could see her face, but not the way she looked right now.

She nodded. “Yes, but I’ve never been in this store, you sexy beast, you.”

Okay, she didn’t say that, exactly. But would it be all Bruno Mars-douchey of me to say “that’s what her eyes said”?

I tilted my head, gauging her from a different angle. “I recognize you.”

“Yeah, um, yesterday.” She tugged at the ends of her hair. “I’m pretty sure I saw you at the Barnes and Noble in Pensacola. Were you there?”

“I was,” I said, taken aback. “Looking for ideas for a dive trip I’m planning with some buddies.” I stroked my chin in thought. “And I do remember seeing…you.”

There’d been the flash of a face behind the tall bookshelves. She’d been in dark shades and a hat, maybe the same Dodgers cap she had today. I’d certainly noticed her, but when I’d cruised down that aisle a minute later, she was gone.

“So, you’re stalking me.” I cocked a brow, trying not to smile.

Her eyes flew wide. “No! No, I swear, I…” She paused and let out an exhale, noticing when I finally did smile. “Oh. Yeah, no stalking, just a coincidence.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. That’s it.”

As she smoothed her hair back, I got another flash of her face in some other setting, definitely not a bookstore. Damn, it was driving me crazy. “No, no,” I said out of frustration, though the answer was getting closer, circling my head like a CH-53E chopper. “I
know
I know you from somewhere else.”

“Don’t stress, it happens all the time. I’ve just got one of those faces.” She shrugged and made a move toward the front door.

The last thing I wanted was for her to leave. This girl could stalk me anytime. The
next
thing I didn’t want was to run into her in town and for this conversation to be her last impression of me. I really did have game. Usually. Before she could do either, I grabbed the blue dolphin from where she’d set it on a pile of T-shirts.

“Aren’t you forgetting this?” I held the dolphin figurine between my thumb and finger. At least now she wasn’t leaving. But dammit all, seeing her face again only made my terrible, sand-blasted memory more frustrated. “You sure we haven’t met? I could swear—”

“Yes, I’m positive. Can’t I just buy the thing without the twenty questions?”

She was even cuter when she was on the verge of being pissed off.

“You got it,” I said, back to playing responsible business owner. I moved behind the counter and to the antiquated cash register. The thing was a million years old and when I’d bought the store, I’d had every intention of converting the technology to a single iPad and credit card scanner. But after a while, its old-fashioned “cha-ching” grew on me.

I punched a couple of buttons, grinning at the familiar sound of a sale. I’d busted my ass over the past six months to keep my tiny store afloat. When I was in high school, it was cool having the safety net of parents with money. But now, I had no intention of making another withdrawal from my trust fund. Every sale I made was another step further from the undirected, nomadic kid I didn’t want to be anymore, but also toward the successful business owner I did want to be.

“That’s six plus tax,” I said. “Paying with paper or plastic?”

“Oh, shitballs—my wallet,” she blurted, patting down the front of her shorts. Even her cursing was sexy. “I left home in such a hurry, I must’ve forgotten…” She slid a hand into her front pocket, pulling out a five-dollar bill that looked like it had been through a war. “Do you have a layaway plan?” she asked, biting her lip.

This new expression on her face…her eyes steady and wide, almost pleading, made me want to laugh. Then, I kind of wanted to hug her, then mess up her hair and do some other stuff. Who was this girl? Yeah, she was kind of neurotic, but good hell, she was adorable.

Or trouble. I couldn’t tell which.

“I have the money for it. I just need to come back later.” She pointed at the wall across the way. “I’ll take the hat, too.”

Oh, yeah? Now this chick was up to something. “Thought you didn’t like it,” I said, not hiding the skepticism in my voice.

With animation, she whirled around and practically bounced toward the hat wall. I followed with rekindled interest—also enjoying my view of her from behind—as she picked up the straw hat from earlier and slid it on her head. She spun around to me, turned up the side brim, then shot me a smile so sexy, so warm and sunny, it felt like a one-two punch to my solar plexus.

“
Regardez-moi
,” she purred in a French accent.

Another string of images raced across my mind like whizzing bullets. Those eyes—the wrong shade but definitely hers—and that smile. But in my mind she was under a flood of lights in a fancy dress.

No, wait, it was a photograph. Or a magazine cover. No. She was on my TV screen, my computer, and…iTunes.

With each incoming shock wave of realization, my jaw unhinged another inch.

Standing in the middle of my rinky-dink surf shop, one arm’s length away from me, wearing cutoffs and sandals, and with wild-ass, sexy tangled hair…was Abigail Kelly, the most famous singer on the planet.

Hooooly shit.

Chapter Two

“I’ve Got You Under My Skin”

Probably from shock and lack of oxygen to my brain, I spoke without thinking. “Wait a minute.” I pointed at her. “Aren’t you—”

“Who?” she cut in, but then didn’t speak for a moment. “Oh. You mean
her
?” She made air quotes with her fingers, rolled her eyes, but then gave me a smile. “No, I’m not. Seriously.” While backing away, she bumped into one of the sales racks behind her, those gray eyes shifting to the side then fluttering up at me.

Was she trying to flirt her way out of this?

Fine with me, if that was her game.

I stayed where I was, her earlier nervous/neurotic behavior making sense now. Abigail Kelly was used to being hounded by fans—
mobbed
by fans. Seemed like I’d seen a news blurb recently about an incident on the sidewalk in front of her doctor’s office in L.A. I think she was being harassed or followed by the paparazzi, then damn near surrounded until the cops came to pull her out.

Hell, some shitty way to have to live. She was about five-foot-six and slender, but not scrawny, because she definitely had muscle tone. If I had to categorize her, I’d say she was built like a ballerina: graceful, but could also crack walnuts with her thighs.

Maybe she’d broken the lock on the front door of my store because she was trying to hide out so she wouldn’t be harassed like that. Was she all alone? No bodyguard or personal assistant or anything. How typical was that?

“I’m really not her,” she repeated, even though I hadn’t said anything. “Okay?”

Even her voice was familiar now. I wasn’t a huge follower of Top 40 music, but with a singer like Abigail Kelly fronting a band as famous as Mustang Sally, you couldn’t help being exposed, getting the hooks to those pop tunes stuck in your head, singing along to the radio when you’re alone in the car. Even I’d been guilty of that.

“Hmm. Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeppers.” She nodded, took off the straw hat, then became consumed by a rack of XXXL gaudy Hawaiian shirts.

The desire to tease her, maybe do a little flirting back, kicked in. “Weird, ’cause you look just like her…actually, maybe
exactly
like her.”

“Oh, I know.” She waved one hand breezily, while combing through hangers at supersonic speed with the other. “I get that
all
the time. Such a total drag.”

Yeah, she was a sucky liar. I wasn’t an expert at interpreting micro expressions, but the pink, marbly flush creeping up her throat and onto her cheeks had to be a sign of major pants on fire.

“I’m not surprised at all,” I said, playing along. “The resemblance is extraordinary. Maybe you should get a job as her impersonator.”

This made her toss her head and burst out laughing. The sound filled the room; it was strong and musical—which shouldn’t have surprised me. I laughed, too, stoked that I’d broken through her mask again.

“Oooh, here’s an idea,” she said. “How about this?” Grabbing the straw hat, she walked right up to me, rose up on her toes, and placed it on my head.

The sudden nearness of her body warmed mine, made the back of my throat ache as her scent washed over me. More of that vanilla, or was it cinnamon? It reminded me of homemade cookies. My mouth watered as I imagined her taking one step closer.

“Hmm…” When she stepped back, all that buildup in my body evaporated, and I could only see the bottom half of her body—her tight waist and long legs—since the hat brim hung over my eyes. “Yep. Perfect. Now
you
look more like her than
I
do.”

With the ice sufficiently broken, I stuck out my hand. “Hi. I’m Todd.”

“Abby,” she said with a happy laugh that I could tell was also laced with relief. Like her sunrise facial expressions, her laughs had different meanings, too.

“I know,” I said.

She tilted her head just enough so she could meet my eyes beneath the brim of the hat. As soon as our gazes connected, I winked.

At Abigail Kelly.

Welcome back, playa.

Our hands were still clasped. Heat passed between us, pooling in the center of my palm, spreading up my arm. Had it come from her or from me? Yeah, I was tall, could bench press both my sisters, and I’d been voted most likely to date a supermodel, but the idea of a spark shooting from a celebrity of her caliber was delusional.

Then again, she was blushing that adorable pink just like earlier, making me forget I was standing in front of a singer who’d performed at the Grammys a few months ago. Right now, she was just a dead-ass sexy girl with smoky-gray eyes and a tenacious grin, who liked dolphins and forgot her wallet.

She was Abby.

And she was kind of kick-ass.

“Sorry if I was rude before,” Abby said as we simultaneously dropped hands. “There were some kids outside—fans—and I didn’t want…to deal with it.” I followed her gaze toward the window. “Well, I mean, I guess I don’t know if they were fans, but people, you know? The public?” She was talking really fast now. “It can get crazy and if they saw me, I was afraid something, um, crazy was gonna happen, ’cause it’s happened before. All the time, actually. So I took cover.”

Fans. So I was right about that. The sidewalks were dotted with teenagers who’d recognize her on sight. Or they would in a while, which made me think again how odd it was that she was all alone. That thought really bugged me, wouldn’t let go.

She wrapped a strand of her hair around one finger, and though she wasn’t speaking anymore, I could hear her breathing hard. And why wouldn’t she? The thought of being swarmed by strangers made even my heart beat fast, and I was a pressure cooker-trained Marine; I never allowed my pulse to go above normal while under duress. That could cost me my target. Or my life.

“Crowds,” she added, “even the thought of crowds makes me…” She paused and shook out her hands. “And I kind of freak out.”

No joke. Wouldn’t anyone?
I wanted to say, but she probably didn’t want my sympathy. In fact, she’d seemed chiller when we’d been ignoring who she was. Maybe that was what she needed, for me to go back to being just a guy in a surf shop, talking to a girl.

So I replied with something noncommittal and focused on straightening a pile of tank tops, trying to remember how I’d been taught to fold them like a paper airplane.

And then I waited for Abby to make the next move.

“So, that wasn’t a lie before. I don’t remember this store from when I was here last,” she said after a minute, her voice and breathing steadier now. “Do you work…I mean…is it yours?”

“Yeah. I took it over six months ago.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You look pretty young for that.”

I shrugged. “I graduated from high school at three.”

“What?”

“Okay, three and three quarters.”

“You’re lying.” She laughed and made like she was batting the air in front of me.

With no more shirts to fold, I walked toward the counter, tapping my palm over the new Werner kayak paddles hanging from the ceiling like I was giving them each a high-five.

She followed, and when she got to where I was leaning against the counter, she tipped her chin and stepped back to examine the signage above the register. “You named your store Todd’s Tackle,” she said in perfect deadpan. “Seriously?”

“Clever, right?”

Abby shook her head and grinned. “You come up with that all by yourself?”

“Bet you’re shocked a guy my size could have such a way with names.”

“Please catch me if I swoon.”

The banter. She was hella good at it.

“You grew up here?” she asked.

“No, but I’ve lived just about everywhere else.”

She swept her hair back and over one shoulder. “Army brat?”

The quick assumption made me laugh, though she was dead-on. Because of Dad’s job, I was forced to move twelve times in the first eighteen years of my life. And later, my own assignments with the Marines kept me in a state of semi-constant travel, even during college. Professors at Annapolis obviously had to be understanding when I ditched a pop quiz in English Lit because I was flying to Baghdad to take out a target.

For a moment, blackness clouded my vision, flashes of fire and explosions, patches of blood on the sand that I could see from six hundred meters away. Images I was trying to forget. My job in the Corps wasn’t what I wanted to be thinking about right now, or ever.

“You could say that,” I answered. “My dad was in the military, but I’ve been around the block, too.”

“So exotic.” She leaned against the counter, looking chill and relaxed. “And these worldly travels have made you an expert on women’s casual beach headwear?” She twirled the straw hat around one finger.

Damn, she was funny. Loved that dry humor. And no better way to keep my head in the present. While waiting for my reply, she lifted an eyebrow, reminding me of the first moment when I’d spotted her and my mind had gone stupid-blank.

She’s just a girl,
I told myself again.
A beautiful girl who—on any normal day—I would chat up, banter with, and try hard to make laugh again, then probably ask out. No, definitely ask out. Again and again.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you this, but you have to keep it between us.”

Abby grinned and leaned toward me an inch, hair falling over her shoulders. “Okay.”

“As I was watching you when you first came into the store, my mind was searching for an opener to try out on you, something that wouldn’t sound corny but would say something much less lame than ‘Nice weather we’re having.’ In the time I had, the best I could come up with was, ‘Hey, you, put on this hat. Now.’”

She exhaled a breathy, feminine laugh and tucked some hair behind an ear. “Damn, you’re one smooth operator.”

I laughed, too, my gaze automatically grazing across her exposed neck. I was sure the perfume or lotion or soap or whatever she was wearing would smell even better right
there
.

“Yep, they tell me I’m the smoothest,” I said, pushing off the counter and moving to the other side of it, thinking a barrier between my body and hers was a smart idea. “I was confident I’d eventually win your attention with my irresistible combination of wit and hats.”

She laughed again. As it faded out, she held her smile. It was a real one. I knew that kind of smile, and seeing it aimed at me caused heat to flood my chest and my muscles to flex. I hadn’t wanted a girl to smile at me like that since…

At the thought of Sophie and smiles that made me want to leap over counters and take immediate physical action, I cleared my throat and yanked open a drawer, pulling out Lee’s old bookkeeping notebook. Like the cash register, it was from another era, barely held together with rubber bands.

“The previous owner was severely behind the times,” I said, displaying the notebook. “Store’s not exactly the way I want it yet, but it will be someday.”

It was strange how the change in subject made my chest lose the heat, but then go tight, as I recalled when I’d signed my small business tax forms, the day Lee gave me the keys, and the morning I’d made my first sale. After dragging my feet and putting off decisions about the future, I was finally at a point in my life when I was starting to take whacks at my list of goals.

That first decision had been the most difficult:
Don’t join the Army
. I was a proud kid, a stubborn little bastard, and a natural risk-taker. I couldn’t do something as predictable as follow in my dad’s footsteps, so I’d enrolled at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Decision number two:
Follow my OSO’s advice to train as a USMC Scout Sniper
. With the proper training at Annapolis, it was clear early on that I had majorly advanced skills in marksmanship. Sometimes with a team, sometimes alone, I’d been sent out to locations at a moment’s notice, often briefed on the target en route to the site. But at the end of the day, one patch of desert looked like any other, and I was there to do a job. Guilt about what I’d done—the “collateral damage”—never touched me in those moments. That all came afterward, almost every night.

Decision three:
Don’t reenlist
. I’d proudly served my country, but I wanted more, and I knew it wasn’t as a career Marine. So I’d taken another risk and moved on while completely clueless about what to do next. After trotting across the globe my entire life, the one thing I knew I wanted was a place to call home.

Decision four:
Get a job
. After lying stock-still in a ghillie suit, buried in sand for thirty-six hours while surrounded by enemies, a nine-to-five day job was cake. I’d taken the first one offered, but that was also the first time I’d played it safe. My first mistake.

Decision five:
Move to Seaside
. It was a string of unconnected circumstances that had brought me to the Florida Panhandle. The overnight business trip for Dad had turned into two days, then a week, then I broke the lease on my Manhattan apartment and called a South Walton County realtor. To hell with it, no more playing it safe.

Making the surf shop more profitable, planting roots, dating again: these were the future. Part one of my plan—Todd’s Tackle—was in the forefront of my mind because of my meeting at the bank today to sign the loan paperwork. Opening another store was a big-time decision. But just because it was nerve-wracking didn’t mean it wasn’t right. If I wanted to stay on plan and keep the ball rolling, I had to make my move.

Abby shifted her weight, leaning both elbows on the counter, wearing a searching expression as her eyes focused on me. Her mere presence damn near made my heart stop. Experiencing off-the-charts chemistry with a celebrity was definitely
not
part of my plan.