One Lucky Deal by Kelli Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

change.
    *
    When Tad finally emerged, his hair was just a little damp from his shower, tousled, and looking so much better than hers, and all he’d done was run his fingers through it. He’d pulled on a pair of board shorts that she didn’t even know he owned, and a black shirt that was just the slightest bit too tight.
    “Ready?” He adjusted the bottom of his shirt like he’d only thrown it on just before he emerged from his bedroom.
    “I’m ready, yeah.” Candace stood up from her lean against the arm of their couch. She grabbed her mini cooler and headed out the door with him.
    Once they were out on the beach, Tad had just kneeled down on the blanket when he was already snooping in the cooler. “What did you pack?”
    “Nothing too exciting. I just picked some things up at the deli. I did bring some beer, though.”
    “Ah.” He squinted to keep the sun out of his eyes as he looked up at her. “Should I just propose now?”
    Candace grinned while Tad fished things out of the cooler. “Well, you’re in a good position for it.” He was kneeling directly in front of her.
    His smirk gave him away first. He was about to tell a joke. “That’s not the only thing this position is good for.”
    “God.” Candace laughed and shoved him a little with her foot, toppling him back onto his bottom. “Do you ever quit?”
    “Do you really want me to?” Tad handed her a sandwich. He knew which one was hers because she always got the sliced chicken breast, spinach, and black olives on wheat and not the salami on rye. That one was his.
    She took a deep breath and a big bite of her sandwich and looked out at the lake. It was beautiful. She loved it here. The cool wind blowing in from the great lake, the gray seagulls, the kids running around with pails of water and sand—it really felt like summer. That good old summer nostalgia was starting to sink in.
    She couldn’t explain it, but summer always made her feel different. The warm weather, flip-flops, the smell of sunscreen… It reminded her of being a kid, or the Fourth of July—of summer camp and the boy she’d first fallen hard for.
    The thing was, he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man, and that man was stretched out on the blanket beside her. “It feels like a storm.”
    “What? Don’t say that.” Candace tipped her face toward the sky but felt nothing but the warm sunshine.
    “It does. I can feel it.” Tad motioned to his skin and Candace rolled her eyes. There wasn’t a storm cloud in the sky.
    “It’s beautiful out.”
    “Maybe.” Tad finished his sandwich.
    A little while later a small, freckled girl with a gap in her teeth came up to the two of them and asked if Tad would carry their water bucket because it was too heavy for the kids. Candace and Tad were easily sucked into helping the three kids—one girl and two boys—build the greatest sand castle of all time. Then again, they all might have been a little biased.
    “Is that your sister?” the oldest, most precocious asked.
    “No.” Tad lifted his head at Candace over the wet castle. Their fingers brushed roughly against each others’. A barrier of sand rubbed between them as they tried to mold the turret.
    “Is she your wife?” the little girl asked, brushing a stray strand of brown hair out of her eyes.
    “No.” Tad grinned, on the verge of a laugh, but held it in, probably not wanting to embarrass the girl for asking incorrectly again.
    “Girlfriend, then?” The youngest boy scrunched up his adorable sun-kissed face.
    Candace and Tad shared a smile. “Nope, not my girlfriend,” Tad answered the young blond-haired boy.
    “Well then, what is she?” The girl dug a little more sand out for their moat.
    “She’s my friend,” Tad answered. His fingers grazed Candace’s again. His fingers were hot over her cool ones and rough against her soft skin beneath all the sand.
    “Best. Friend,” Candace emphasized and smiled at Tad. The sky then crackled open, and out of nowhere