Going Deep (Coastal Heat #1) (3 page)

“Me. Compliment me.” She softened her voice to convey the same patience she’d use with a slightly addled prizefighter. “As a rule, it’s good form to compliment the woman to whom you are speaking.”

To his credit, Brian recovered quickly. His eyes narrowed. Cocking his head, he studied her like she was one of his elusive microorganisms swimming under a microscope. “I don’t bother much with rules. It’s too hard to remember them all.”

“Sad to see your cognitive skills haven’t improved.” She shot him a sidelong glance.

His smile turned rakish. She’d be damned if his eyes didn’t twinkle when he faced her dead-on. “No, but I’m still an ace when it comes to chemistry.”

She had to laugh. Her traitorous heart also took the opportunity to pop off a back flip. Shaking her head, she did her best to banish her body’s instinctive response to him. “Welcome home, Brian.”

“Good to be home. You look beautiful, Brooke.”

Sincerity infused what should have been a polite compliment. Twinkle and rakishness aside, his answering grin radiated warmth. The full, soft lips that once branded her with adolescent humiliation now tempted her. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—think about that.

Not now.

She had bigger fish to fry, an important story to be told, and the cocky, arrogant man standing in front of her was the mouthpiece she needed to make big things happen.

Drawing a steadying breath, she locked eyes with her former classmate. “So, Brian, since you’re back I was wondering—”

The smile he wore intensified. “Yes, I’m happy to see you.”

“—if I could get an interview.”

His smile faded and the light in his dark eyes dulled. “All requests for interviews should go through my agent.” Those lush lips thinned into a line of disappointment so familiar her stomach dropped. He inclined his head in that stiff, formal way of his, but this time she couldn’t find any warmth in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was deep, gruff, and edged with enough hurt to make her feel about two inches tall. “Nice to see you again, Brooke.”

Before she could process what had happened, he turned and melted into the crowd.

* * * *

“Brian, wait!”

She called after him, the honeyed alto of her voice undercutting the squeaks and squeals of the raucous Irish jig bleating from the speakers, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. If he did, he’d have to look at her again. Listen to her pitch. Run the risk of giving in.

The temptation to give in to Brooke had dogged him since he was fifteen years old, but he’d resisted. Always resisted. It wasn’t easy and it sure as hell wasn’t what he wanted to do, but some base instinct told him it was absolutely necessary to his survival.

“Brian!”

He nodded to a cluster of women gathered near an ice sculpture. The blatant invitation in the redhead’s smile made his gut twist, but he honed in on them nonetheless. Any port in a storm, right?

“Brian, please.”

He grimaced as a hand hooked the crook of his elbow. The moment of hesitation had cost him. Steeling himself, he turned his head enough to catch sight of Brooke staring up at him, her eyes wide and pleading.

“It’s not what you think.” Her fingertips pressed into his arm, rumpling the sleeve of his jacket with the force of her assertion.

“Seemed simple enough. You’re a member of the press. You want an interview, contact my agent.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“And making that dream come true is what earns my agent her fifteen percent,” he countered.

“I meant I want to talk to you as a friend.”

He stiffened but kept his expression as neutral as possible. “We’re friends?”

She blinked but didn’t back down. “We used to be. Sort of.”

A smirk twisted his lips. “Well, there’s a compelling argument.”

“Please. It’s important.”

The assertion plucked the last thread of his patience. “Look, let’s cut to the chase, okay?” Shaking his arm from her grasp, he tugged at his sleeve in a vain attempt to erase the marks she’d left on him. “Boxer briefs, ocean-blue, and my favorite word is still algae.”

“I need your help.”

The request for assistance didn’t shock him as much as the word ‘need’. The Brooke he knew was always careful about what she said to people. Since she’d become a journalist, he had to assume word choice was still every bit as important to her now. And how was he supposed to turn his back on her if she actually did need him? As if sensing his inner turmoil, she plunged ahead.

“I’m working on a story. A big story. Big as in important. Not that your choice in underwear isn’t—”

“Hello, beautiful.”

Brooke stiffened as a hand encircled her waist. Brian had to glance down to confirm it wasn’t his own hand. It wasn’t. He jerked his head up, prepared to glare at the fool who dared to interrupt this moment. Surprise, surprise. Jack Tucker.

As oblivious as he’d always been to anyone but himself, the jackass pulled Brooke a little closer to his side. “Miss Emmaline said she thought you might make an appearance, and I couldn’t miss my chance. You are one tricky lady to pin down.”

Watching them together, Brian found it hard to believe the overblown frat boy was still a variable. The guy was clinging to Brooke like the creeping kudzu Brian’s mama battled in her garden. And like those persistent vines, the man was insidious. Thankfully, the brittle smile frozen on Brooke’s pretty face told him she felt the same way.

“Didn’t you ever get your cell phone replaced, Sugar?”

Brian bit back the urge to take notes when the flash of annoyance flittered across Brooke’s beautiful features. The girl who once ruled his daydreams had lost the ability to mask her true feelings, and that was a discovery worth witnessing.

“Oh. Uh….”

She darted a glance in Brian’s direction and wet her lips. If she’d looked at him like that in tenth grade biology, his knees would have gone weak and his palms sweaty. Today, he managed to stand his ground. Barely. He wasn’t a nervous, awkward boy anymore. He was a man. A highly educated and accomplished man. And a celebrity. Of sorts. Women wanted him. Men wished to be him. At least, some men did. And as for the women… Funny, he was still most intrigued by a woman he’d known almost all his life.

Her sharp green eyes and the killer curves poured into a slinky black dress were the bow on a potent package. A pearly pink blush stained Brooke’s cheeks. He knew her well enough to recognize it as the glow of anger and frustration, not embarrassment. As a teenager, she was far too bright and ambitious to fit the mold everyone wanted her to squeeze into. Everyone around her wanted her to be less than she was.

All he ever wanted was for her to be more. To herself and to him.

Brian once prided himself on pushing her. Looking back on their friendship, he could see he clearly hadn’t been fair to her either. With the perspective of time and distance, he saw he was as guilty as the rest of them. He hadn’t allowed Brooke to simply be.

Seeing her now, it was obvious she was still the paragon she’d always been, but more imperfectly perfect. He wanted her more than ever. If that was possible.

“I did, but they gave me a new number.”

“Well, what is it?” Jack’s tone was colored with enough indulgent amusement to make Brian grind his teeth, but Brooke handled it with her usual grace.

“I can never remember it.”

Her airy reply startled Brian from his reverie. He stared at her, incredulous. Any idiot could see the annoyance and impatience simmering beneath peach-colored skin. Well, any idiot but Jack Tucker. Brian stifled a snort, but failed at hiding his grin. Nothing more amusing than watching an intelligent woman try to play dumb.

“You were never a technical girl.”

The moron actually chuckled when he said it. His too jovial, too condescending, too-stupid-to-be-believed laugh made Brooke’s nostrils flare. The tension in Brian’s shoulders and back uncoiled. Jack Tucker would never have any luck with this new and improved Brooke.

“Hand it over and I’ll put my number in for you.”

Brooke’s eyes narrowed when Jack waggled his fingers. Brian was surprised she didn’t try to bite them off. She proved she was still the same girl who ruled the cheerleading squad and the student government with equal aplomb when she fixed the fool with a brilliant smile. “I left it in my coat pocket.”

“And you wonder how your phones end up stolen, Sugar.”

Brian wanted to deck the supercilious asswipe. It rankled that a man who graduated in the bottom third of their class thought he could talk to like she was the one challenged by complex sentences. He took a half step forward, but Brooke halted him by threatening the toe of his shoe with her stiletto.

“You know, you’re probably right. You’re so smart, Jack.”

Brian choked on a laugh but quickly covered by raising his glass. Focusing all his attention on his new best friend, Johnnie Walker, he pretended not to be affected when the girl who fueled his teenage fantasies took his arm and pulled him closer.

“You remember Brian Dalton, don’t you?”

She squeezed Brian’s bicep as if she was testing him for ripeness, and a part of him hoped she would. If he could get rid of the big blond dickweed, he’d show her a man at the peak of his prime.

Washed-up Ken barely spared him a look. “How’s it going?”

The dismissive greeting pissed Brian off more than the
People
magazine article calling him ‘the Earth Channel’s sexy shark stalker.’ First of all, he didn’t stalk sharks or any other aquatic predator. He was a highly-trained marine biologist and oceanographer. Second, if the sexy label held any water, he was going to use every ounce of it to pry Jack Tucker’s hand off Brooke’s tiny waist and claim it as his own.

“It’s going great.” Turning to Brooke, Brian dropped a slow, deliberate wink. “I’m glad your mama called to invite me. I figured I’d show up and drop off a check. I didn’t know I’d get a chance to catch up with the old…gang. Nice to see not much has changed since I moved away.”

She turned to him with a smile set to stun and an edgy gleam in her eyes. “Brian and I were about to dance. Weren’t we, Brian?”

He held it together. Barely. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she announced she’d seduced Brad Pitt in the Winn-Dixie and was carrying the movie star’s quintuplets.

But she hadn’t.

She said she wanted to dance. With him. His inner geek did an awkward dance-step-spin thing, but the rest of him stayed stock-still. He ignored the annoying, incessantly rational part of his brain when it chimed in to remind him this event wasn’t set up for dancing. Recorded pipers played a relentless stream of jaunty reels through a discretely hidden sound system, but there was barely enough room to walk, much less dance. Still, if Brooke wasn’t concerned with the plausibility of her excuse, he wouldn’t be either.

“Yes, we were.” With Brooke’s hand secure in the crook of his left arm, he couldn’t resist the impulse to rub a little salt in Superjock’s gaping wounds. Offering his hand, he stared the other man straight in the eye and told the biggest lie of his life. “Good to see you again.”

Jack scowled. “Yeah. See ya.” The ice in his glass rattled as he drained the last of his drink then turned away without taking the proffered hand.

Brooke stiffened as they watched Jack stalk toward the bar. Brian didn’t need to read her mind to know the faux pas was unforgivable. One thing a gently-reared Southern woman took seriously was the appearance of good manners.

“Horse’s ass.”

She drawled the epithet, her lips pursed with enough taut displeasure to warm Brian straight down to the bone. Anxious to claim his chance at getting his hands on the Homecoming Queen at last, he covered her hand with his and started leading her from the room.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he steered her toward the narrow hall.

“To dance.”

Brooke shot Brian a sidelong glance as they approached the kitchen, but her footsteps never slowed. “You know as well as I do that was bullshit.”

He raised one eyebrow as he held open the swinging door. “The mouth on you. Does your mama know you swear like a Biloxi doxie?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Did you just call me a dog?”

Her spirited retort made his heart pound with anticipation. “Not quite.”

The catering staff barely spared them a glance as they wove their way through the hustle and bustle. The cool spring evening greeted them as they slipped out the back door. Holding her hand tight, he skirted the cases of champagne stacked on the veranda. The moon whitewashed the manicured gardens. Fueled by one white lie and two fingers of scotch, he grabbed a bottle as he led her down the shallow steps and onto the dewy lawn.

He released his hold on her long enough to plant the bottle in the damp grass. When he straightened, he found Brooke rubbing her arms briskly. “Oh! Here.”

Brian shed his suit coat and held it out for her. Settling the heavy wool on her delicate shoulders gave him a moment of pause. The length of his jacket stretched well beyond her hemline. She pulled at the lapels, holding the fabric close and erasing any hint of the clingy black dress she wore beneath. Forever imprinting the image of Brooke Hastings wearing nothing but his discarded clothing in his brain.

Her smile blossomed sweet and a tad shy. “Thank you.”

He dismissed her gratitude and his more ungentlemanly thoughts with a brisk shake of his head. She’d never been anything but friendly to him, and he repaid her with petty jealousies and the irrational competition he’d created between them. He’d wanted her to want him. She only had to ask, and he would have handed over his heart. It hurt to realize she wanted his chemistry notes and nothing more.

Truth be told, he still wanted her. He came to the stupid fundraiser for the chance of seeing her. He’d been all over the world, conquered great depths and climbed to great heights, but she was the woman he’d never been able to forget. The flare of interest he’d seen in her eyes drew him in like a net. Memories of the hot, urgent kiss he’d planted on her knocked into him, persistent as waves against the shore. He needed to find out once and for all if Brooke might possibly want him, too.