Pelican Point (Bachelors of Blueberry Cove) by Donna Kauffman Read Free Book Online Page A

Yeah.”
    Feeling the twinges of a headache, he finally pushed off the bed and pulled on a sweatshirt, then dug out a pair of jeans, surprised at how rested he felt. He’d slept like the dead. He tugged his zipper up, then paused . . . remembered the shower, and rolled his eyes. Seriously, how pathetic is it that you slept like you got laid when all you got was a hot kiss and a soapy hand on your —a shriek echoed through the old house, cutting off the rest of his thought.
    It immediately occurred to him that that shower hadn’t been used in— oh shit. He took off downstairs, hearing the pipes groan again as the water was shut off. Then they kept groaning.
    “Alex!” he shouted, taking the stairs two at a time. “Alex, get out of the shower! Those pipes are probably rusted out.” He slid to a stop in front of the closed bathroom door and smacked his palm on the warped wood panel. “Alex, it’s not safe, you really need—”
    The door opened—well, after a firm yank, it opened— and Alex, wrapped in an old bath towel, hair dripping wet, with tear-tracked makeup smears spread farther out from the blast of water she’d apparently taken to the face, stood there . . . with a wrench in one hand and a piece of copper pipe in the other. “What you really need is a new fitting, a washer, and some Locktite. But that should hold it for now.” She held out the wrench and the rusty copper pipe until he silently took them from her hands. “Does your shower work?”
    “It does.”
    She calmly wiped her dirty hands on the faded navy blue towel she was wrapped in, then with a dignified air, pushed the sodden locks of hair back from her face. “Upstairs?”
    “End of the hall, through the bedroom on the right.”
    “Thank you.” Head held high, shoulders very squared, she moved past him and walked directly and quickly to the stairs, dripping all the way.
    He heard the pipes groan and rattle on the second floor a few moments later.
    He stood there for another ten seconds, then finally shook his head and walked to the kitchen. Coffee. That would help make sense out of this. Or, at the very least, kick out the little throb at the base of his skull. And the not so little one in his pants. Jesus, Joseph and Mary, McCrae, you’re not sixteen. Get a damn grip. And despite her grand entrance the day before, Alex MacFarland is no fragile, wilting flower, either.
    It surprised him a little when he caught his reflection in the old metal toaster a moment later to discover he had something that looked like a smile on his face. “And what’s funny about this? Nothing.”
    He put two more slices in the toaster when the first two popped out. Scraped the black off them, then grabbed butter and blueberry preserves from the fridge and set them on the small cherrywood table tucked into the bay window alcove. It was one of Eula’s, actually, and had been in his family longer than he’d been alive. By the time the water upstairs shut off, he had two cups of coffee and a pile of scraped toast on a plate. He sniffed the carton of milk still in the fridge, then, satisfied it wouldn’t kill either one of them, he set it on the table along with a small bowl filled with sugar packets.
    “Coffee?” came a hopeful voice from the doorway.
    “And toast. Sorry, I’m out of eggs. And . . . food.”
    “No, that’s good. More than good.”
    He’d picked up the coffeepot to take it to the table, then almost sloshed all of it onto his feet when he turned and got his first look at her. His first real look. She was wearing the same jeans and pullover she’d worn yesterday, or he assumed so. She’d had her coat on the day before. But they were definitely hers and not his, so . . . great deductive reasoning there, detective.
    That wasn’t what had made him almost drop the coffeepot. It was what she did for those jeans and that pullover. He’d felt her body, of course, all curled up against his chest and pushing against his—“How do you take