Marine for Hire by Tawna Fenske Read Free Book Online Page B

beach with visions of making sand castles and gleefully tossing Cheerios to birds on the beach. Clearly, she had a lot to learn.
    “You okay?” Sam asked.
    She turned back to him. Even behind his dark sunglasses, she could tell he was studying her. “I’m fine.”
    “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
    “No, why?”
    “You had a funny look on your face just then.”
    Sheri sighed. “Have you ever worried you’re not cut out for the job you thought you were destined to do?”
    She expected him to laugh or shore her up with encouraging platitudes, but instead, he nodded. “Plenty of times.”
    “How did you handle it?”
    “Not as well as I could have.”
    She nodded, surprised by his frank answer. “I have a confession.”
    “Oh?”
    “I’m switching back to disposable diapers.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “That’s your idea of a confession? I thought you were going to tell me you club baby seals.”
    She smiled and gave a little shrug. “Ask my Mommy and Me group which is worse and I think they’d say the diapers.”
    “You need new friends.”
    “Maybe. I’m still new in town, so maybe I’ll find a mothers’ group that enjoys seal clubbing.” She reached across him for her beach tote, and felt his whole body tense as her breast brushed his arm through her T-shirt. “I guess now’s the best time to read, huh? While the boys are sleeping.”
    She pulled a romance novel out of her bag and rested it on the corner of her beach towel. She hesitated, glancing at Sam. “This is my first time in public in a bathing suit since they were born.”
    “Would you like me to—uh—avert my eyes?”
    She laughed. “Not unless you want to. I won’t take offense either way. Two good things about going through a lousy divorce right after giving birth? Stress melts off a lot of the baby weight,” she said, tugging her T-shirt over head. “And discovering there are tougher things in life than a few extra pounds makes you stop giving a damn about the rest.”
    Sheri set her T-shirt aside and glanced at him. His dark glasses made it tough to tell where he was looking, but she sensed he was keeping his gaze trained on her face. She knew she should probably feel self-conscious about stretch marks or her less-than-perfect muscle tone, but the sun felt so good on her skin. She closed her eyes and breathed in the ocean air and the faint scent of plumeria from the tree behind them. A whisper of breeze tickled her hair and made her nipples pucker beneath her turquoise tankini top.
    “Good God.”
    She opened her eyes and looked at him. He shook his head and looked away, his expression chagrined behind the dark glasses. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
    Sheri laughed as something warm and liquid spread through her limbs, and she knew it wasn’t just the sunlight making her skin prickle pleasantly. She wriggled out of her shorts and folded them neatly, setting them aside. “Last week a guy whistled at me when I walked by a construction site and I was so thrilled I actually called Kelli to tell her,” she said. “At this point in my life, I’m not even going to pretend to take offense at being ogled by a man.”
    Sam nodded, his expression stoic and his eyes still hidden behind the dark sunglasses. “In that case, I have to say you look fucking amazing.” He glanced back at the twins asleep in the canopy. “Sorry guys.”
    She laughed again and resisted the urge to toss her hair like a supermodel. “I doubt they took offense, and neither did I.”
    “Seriously, you’re hotter now than you were in college in that white bikini with the little strings that tied here and—”
    “God, I’d forgotten that bikini. How on earth do you remember that when I can’t even remember meeting you?” She shook her head as she heard her own words replay in her mind. “Sorry, I hope that’s not rude.”
    “No ruder than me ogling you in a bikini,” he said. “Then or now.”
    “Then we’re even.” Sheri