The Firefly Cafe
Authors: Lily Everett
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages), #Billionaire Brothers#1
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Contents
Chapter 1
June 2013
Dylan Harrington popped the kickstand down and swung his leg over the seat of his
hand-restored fifteen-year-old BMW sport bike. Tugging off his helmet, he stared up
at the fairy tale of Victorian gingerbreading and white clapboard at the end of the
boxwood-lined walkway.
This may have been a mistake.
Or maybe that was just the hangover talking, and all of this stately colonial business
would look better after a strong pot of coffee and a pile of greasy cheese fries at
the one restaurant he’d passed on his way in. Even a tiny, picturesque seaside joint
called the Firefly Café would serve cheese fries, right? Right?
Dylan pinched his eyes shut around the throbbing headache. Walking his bike onto that
tin can masquerading as a ferry boat hadn’t helped the sickness roiling in his gut,
and the way he’d turned heads with the growl of his bike as he rode through the town
square sure hadn’t done much for his state of mind. But he was here now, and what
the hell? His grandparents’ vacation home was as good a place as any to lay low until
Miles got over his temper tantrum.
Dylan wasn’t a moron. He was well aware that he was wasting his life partying, getting
into bar fights, and taking a different woman back to his penthouse every night. He
didn’t need his perfect, responsible, judgmental eldest brother to lay it all out
for him.
Miles looked at me like I was a complete stranger.
Shoving down the angry shame that choked him at the memory of his brother’s disappointed
frown, Dylan set his jaw. Miles made his choice a long time ago, and it hadn’t been
to stick with the family and be there for his brothers.
This was just another in a long line of lectures about his lifestyle, Dylan reminded
himself. Yet another argument with Miles about missed opportunities and what their
parents would think if they were still alive. No reason to get bent out of shape.
It certainly wasn’t why Dylan had impulsively jumped on his bike and started riding
south.
Dylan was bored with the city, that’s all. Same scene every night, same gallery openings,
same women in tight dresses looking at him with that same edge of calculation from
under their fake eyelashes. He needed a break from being the “Bad Boy Billionaire,”
as the scandal rags had tagged him.
Sanctuary Island, though? Might turn out to be more of a change than he could handle.
Realizing he’d been standing on the sidewalk in front of the house for a good five
minutes, Dylan shook his head to clear it. The way his pickled brain sloshed against
his skull made him regret it instantly, but at least it got him moving.
He slung his leather duffel over his shoulder before starting up the walkway to the
wraparound porch. Morning light glittered off of the house’s navy-blue-shuttered windows,
and Dylan shivered a little and zipped his leather jacket a little tighter to his
chin, even though it was warmer here than he was used to.
Back in New York it was still in the sixties almost every morning, but tucked away
off the coast of Virginia, Sanctuary Island already felt like high summer. Pink and
white dogwood blossoms nodded at him from the small trees lining the path, and deep
magenta azalea bushes crowded the flowerbeds below the porch.
He glanced over his shoulder to remind himself that, yep, the house really honestly
faced out on an old-fashioned town square, complete with gazebo and bandstand set
in the lush green sprawl of the grassy park.
It was beautifully serene, almost idyllic. Dylan felt as if he’d blundered into a
Thomas Kinkade painting. Rubbing a hand over his suddenly dry mouth, he grimaced at
the rasp of stubble against his palm.
Just like that old song from when we were kids … one of these things is not like the
others.
Despite feeling viciously out of place, even a jaded cynic like Dylan could appreciate
the appeal of this place. No wonder his grandparents, Bette and Fred Harrington, had
loved this island. They’d spent summers on Sanctuary until their deaths, one following
the other as closely as they always had in life, five years ago.
The edges of grief had smoothed over time, like stones tumbled on the riverbed, and
Dylan breathed through it as he contemplated how to get into the locked vacation house.
He probably should’ve planned ahead, gotten the key from whoever his family employed
to oversee their various properties around the world. Now he’d have to bust in a window
or something, which sounded like a lot of trouble in his hungover state, after ten
straight hours on his motorcycle.
Dylan was tired, his bones almost aching with it. Of course, that’s why he’d come
to Sanctuary Island in the first place.
If he was honest, Dylan was tired of the life he’d chosen, the reputation he’d deliberately
cultivated.
The pretense of it all, paddling around the shallow waters of the New York art scene,
made him sick. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked a beautiful woman in
the eye without catching the edge of calculation as she wondered what she could get
out of him.
Grimacing, he dropped his duffel on the porch and prepared to jam his leather-jacketed
elbow through the diamond pane of decorative etched glass flanking the front. Before
he could do more than crack his knuckles, the heavy wooden door swung open.
A woman appeared in the doorway, pushing a strand of dark chestnut hair out of her
eyes. She was small and delicate looking, with softly rounded cheeks that were flushed
a healthy pink that had nothing to do with cosmetics.
She couldn’t look more different from the magazine-ready models he usually dated,
so the sudden shot of desire caught him off guard. Already off balance from nearly
getting caught in the act of breaking into this woman’s house by accident, Dylan stood
there silently while the woman closed those wide hazel eyes and clasped her hands
in front of her.
“I thought I heard someone out here,” she breathed. “And thank the sweet lord, because
my shift starts in half an hour and I can’t afford to be late. Come on in, the toilet’s
this way.”
“Toilet?”
Wrong house. Man, I even manage to screw up my vacation.
Somewhere, his brother Miles was laughing his ass off.
Obviously clocking his confusion, the angel flushed and brushed a self-conscious hand
down her front. “Right. The uniform. I know, it doesn’t look right, and I swear I
don’t usually wear it around the house.”
For the first time, Dylan noted her getup, which looked like a costume for a diner
waitress in a fifties movie, complete with a sea-green skirt that bared long, slender
legs and a tiny white apron emphasizing the curves of her waist. T
HE
F
IREFLY
C
AFÉ
was embroidered in pink over her left breast.
“You look just fine to me,” he told her honestly. Dylan was no stranger to beautiful
women, but this woman, with her messy, tumbled-out-of-bed hair and slightly tired
eyes unaccentuated by makeup sparked something in him. Something he hadn’t felt in
a long time.
She managed to look so
nice,
even while rolling her eyes; maybe it was the good-natured twist to her pretty pink
mouth. “You’re sweet. A liar, but sweet. And I’ve got a plumbing issue that needs
to be fixed or the Richie Rich one percenters who own this place will throw a hissy.”
Dylan frowned—was she talking about his family? Maybe this was Harrington House, after
all. But what was this woman doing here? Stalling for time to figure out what the
hell was going on, he said, “I’d like to help you out, but I’m not sure I’m the guy
you want.”
The smile that lit her face heated Dylan’s blood faster than the most seductive pout.
“Oh, you’re definitely the guy I want.”
Arousal, all the stronger for being so unexpected, tightened his belly. “Is that right?”
Pink bloomed over her cheekbones and down her neck, but instead of getting bashful,
she lifted a flirty brow and said, “That’s exactly right, sugar. So long as you can
snake my pipes.”
His bark of laughter surprised even Dylan. “Is that my cue to make a crack about showing
you my tools?”
“Don’t strain yourself, sugar.” She waved a cheerful hand. “I work the night shift
at the only restaurant on this island that serves alcohol. Trust me, I’ve heard every
dirty joke there is. Now get in here, the clock’s ticking and the plumbing isn’t the
only issue. I’ve got a whole list.”
When Dylan hesitated, reluctant to own up to belonging to the family she’d rolled
her eyes over before, a slimly toned arm shot out and grasped the lapel of his leather
jacket. With a laugh, she hauled him over the threshold and into the dimness of the
house.
Half a second later, Dylan Harrington, third son and heir to the multibillion-dollar
Harrington fortune, stood in a small white-tiled, paisley-wallpapered bathroom staring
down at the plunger in his hand.
Glancing up, he caught a glimpse of his own bemused expression in the gilt-edged mirror
above the pedestal sink. The wry half-grin tugging at the corner of his mouth gave
his face an unfamiliar lightness, but it felt good.
So much for a vacation from women who wanted something from him.
But somehow, as he faced down a misbehaving toilet and whipped out his smartphone
to search the Internet for tips on plunging, Dylan admitted to himself that this was
something different.
The mystery of who this woman was, and why she was living in his grandparents’ old
vacation house, roused Dylan’s curiosity. But the bigger mystery was why he found
himself attracted to a woman whose clean, fresh looks screamed “good girl.”
Dylan gripped the handle of the plunger, his rusty laugh echoing off the bathroom
tiles. For the first time in a long time, his life had taken a sharp turn … and he
couldn’t wait to find out what was around the corner.
Chapter 2
Penny Little smoothed her palms down the front of her oft-mended uniform, fingertips
automatically worrying the loose buttonhole at the collarbone, and breathed deep to
calm her racing heart.
When she phoned her employers for help, Penny had been expecting Grady Wilkes, the
local handyman, or one of the Hackleys who ran the hardware store on Main Street.
Not some tall, muscled, motorcycle-riding, scruffy-chinned vision of hotness on her
doorstep.
“Bad Penny,” she muttered as she escaped to the kitchen to fix a pitcher of sweet
tea. “Quit thinking about borrowing trouble. You’re full up already.”
And a man like the one who’d peeled off his leather jacket to reveal a white T-shirt
straining across broad shoulders was nothing but trouble. A dark band of ink circled
one muscular bicep, and Penny’d had to stop herself from asking where else he was
tattooed.
Still, trouble or not, good manners dictated that she offer him a glass of something
cold, Penny told herself as she headed back down the hall to the sound of muffled
curses from the bathroom. Good manners. That was all.
But she recognized that for the dirty lie it was the instant she cracked open the
door. Her breath caught at the sight of trouble leaning over the toilet in a way that
molded those sinfully tight jeans to his lean hips and … well. Penny wished she had
a hand free to fan herself with.
His surprisingly high-tech phone buzzed from the side of the sink, and he frowned
down at it as he reached to heave the lid off the tank. The muscles in his corded
forearms bulged briefly, drawing Penny’s gaze to the tanned skin dusted with hair
a shade or two darker than his light brown buzz cut.
Setting the lid down with a clang, he twisted at the waist to consult his phone again,
pulling that T-shirt tight across his chest.
“Is that for me?”
The deep voice startled Penny into bobbling the glass. Ice sloshed and cold tea dripped
onto her hand as she dragged her gaze up from the mesmerizing play of muscles under
his clothes.
He was smiling at her again, the devil grin that heated Penny’s blood and sent it
racing through her body like a runaway horse. When he reached to take the glass from
her, their fingertips brushed. A jolt of electricity zipped up her arm, and the slippery
glass dropped and shattered on the floor.