Skinny Dipping by Connie Brockway Read Free Book Online

solid, broad-shouldered man who not only made Armani look good, but even stripped of his couture, she suspected, wouldn’t be anyone you’d be in a hurry to throw a stadium blanket over, either.
    Not only did he look good, but he oozed confidence, sophistication, and composure. Lots of composure. In other words, the guy was Cary Grant. Cary Grant on the set of The Beverly Hillbillies. Which, she supposed, made her Ellie Mae—with a few more years behind her.
    She must have looked like a complete madwoman, popping up like the creature from the black lagoon on the other side of the poor man’s car and then running away like an idiot. Luckily, she’d never been burdened with much self-consciousness.
    “Hi.”
    He looked around and smiled. He had a killer smile. It reached right up into his eyes.
    “Hi. You’re clean.”
    “Soap’ll do that.”
    She’d always had a thing for a really good male voice, and Joe had one of the sexiest she’d heard, the sort of voice that affected your body at the cellular level, like twenty-year-old Scotch: smoky, smooth, and intoxicating.
    “Someone left it here,” Mimi said, seeing his gaze slip to the smiling starfish romping across her chest. “Mid-seventies, I’d say.”
    He looked down at her feet encased in worn, cheap pink flip-flops. She’d wrapped her foot in gauze and secured it with sticky tape. Both foot and gauze were already a little grimy.
    “Is your foot okay?” he asked.
    “Fine. I popped that thorn out like a pit from a ripe cherry. You know how those things are: the instant they’re gone, you feel better.”
    A look of alarm crossed his face. “You didn’t use your fingers, did you? I mean you did sterilize a needle or something?”
    She looked at him with amusement. Joe was a germaphobe? Cute. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I fired up the Bic and put flame to metal until it was so hot I dropped the damn tweezers on the floor.”
    At his involuntary wince, she laughed. “I’m messing with you,” she admitted, succeeding in making Joe look even more disconcerted. She suspected not many people “messed” with Joe. “How about I take you on a culinary tour of the place?”
    She led him between the picnic tables, their faded red-and-white-checkered tablecloths billowing around their legs. At least a hundred people milled around the grounds, strolling along the paths, settled in cheap lawn chairs in front of the cabins, or ensconced within their small screened porches. A group was playing volleyball on the beach, swearing and laughing as those on the sidelines cheered.
    Mimi’s favorite cousin, a blond giant named Gerald who’d been tormenting her since childhood, hollered at her to join them, and she hollered back good-naturedly, “Can’t you see I’m limping? There’s a reason I’m limping! I’m injured! Geesh!”
    She looked over her shoulder at Joe. “I can’t spike, but I can dig.”
    “Me, too.”
    She glanced at him sharply, uncertain whether he was now messing with her. He didn’t look like the pickup-game sort. The type who had a personal trainer, yes. Maybe polo. Not beach volleyball.
    She brought him to a halt in front of a fragrant, rubicund pile of thinly sliced, garlicky-smelling meat. “I suggest starting with a sandwich.”
    Joe regarded her with an oddly uncomfortable expression before carefully surveying the bounty in front of him. Then, just as cautiously, he picked up a plate and speared a slice of spiral-cut ham. Mimi regarded him with pity. With all the spectacular homemade cuisine staring him in the face, he would have to choose that.
    “Ah, just so you aren’t disappointed, that ham is”—she glanced swiftly left and right, looking for eavesdroppers, then leaned over the tray of deviled eggs between them and whispered—“water packed.”
    “Water packed,” he repeated.
    “Yup. Johanna’s been sticking cloves in commercial hams for years and passing them off as her own.”
    “Johanna?”
    “One of my