Killer Summer, Lynda Curnyn [books suggested by bill gates .txt] 📗

I mean for a kid.

A rich kid, that is.

Chapter Sixteen

Sage

My love life is going to the dogs. So to speak.

I’m not a calculating person. Generally speaking, anyway. But I do believe that some matters—like men—should not be left up to chance.

I also knew that this thing with Vince was not going to happen unless I made it happen. He was elusive, that one, darting off just moments after we had gotten Tom into bed last night. I had been hoping for a little post-Tom-tuck-in nightcap. Apparently, Vince just wanted to go home and tuck himself in.

So I decided to use my resources. In this case, Janis Joplin, who was looking a little neglected anyway. I figured she could use a nice walk along the beach. It was a beautiful day. Everyone was at the beach. Everyone except Zoe, who had gone running, probably to avoid getting burns on top of her burns. Nick had been there for a little while. I heard him gabbing on with someone on his cell phone, before he took off to God knows where. Who brought a cell phone to the beach? Everyone who mattered to him was at the beach, though I was starting to think no one mattered to Nick more than Nick.

I had nothing to lose by taking my stroll. I was getting a little exercise, and that never hurt. Janis looked like she could use the companionship. As much as she looked anything. I wasn’t much of a dog person, though I had grown up with a dog. Well, Hope’s dog anyway. My parents had bought her a German shepherd puppy for her tenth birthday—she had been begging for a dog the entire summer before. But Hope was gone before Prince was barely housebroken. I had taught him to walk on a leash, mostly because my parents were too catatonic to remember they’d ever had a dog, much less another daughter. They never had him fixed, and he was gone by year’s end, too. Ran off, I suspect, with the mongrel down the street.

I guess there was no accounting for taste.

Now as Janis led the way along the shore, I realized it felt good to have a leash in my hands again. I think Janis was enjoying it, too. Tom hadn’t exactly been paying much attention to her anyway. I was starting to give some serious thought to dog ownership. I had been stopped by no less than three guys—two of them quite good-looking—on my way down the beach.

Not that I was interested. I seemed to have only one man on my mind. Vince.

Maybe it was the challenge. Zoe had accused me often enough of loving the chase more than anything else. Yes, it was true my interest had spiked the minute he outmaneuvered me at the party, but it wasn’t just that this time. There was something about him. Something I had glimpsed in his eyes as we carried Tom back to the house together. A genuine caring.

I don’t think I was imagining it either. After all, no one else— none of Tom’s other pals—had rushed to help Tom the way Vince had.

But I guess they were best friends. Which was why I needed to be careful, too. I wasn’t sure if Tom would approve of dating within the office. Then I remembered Yaz had dated a sales rep at Luxe, which was a full three blocks down Seventh Avenue from the showroom for Edge. And the office Vince worked from was all the way out on Long Island.

Still, I would have to be discreet. At least initially. Tom was paying me a pretty fat salary as head sales rep at Edge. But that didn’t mean I had to lose an edge on getting next to Vince.

Now, where the hell was he?

My eyes scanned the beach as I got closer to Seabay Walk, the block where Vince mentioned his house was located. Chances are, he had set up camp on the beach close to Seabay, which was about five blocks east of West Lighthouse Walk, where Maggie’s Dream was located. But as my gaze moved over the blankets and beach umbrellas that lined the sandy shoreline, I suddenly couldn’t picture Vince out here. He seemed too worldly and sophisticated to be lying on a beach blanket. I could see him on a sailboat, dressed in whites. Sitting outside a beachfront cafe sipping a martini—not that we had any beachfront cafes in Kismet.

Maybe gazing into my eyes across a table in Rome…

Mmm. I always wanted to go to Italy.

I heard Janis gasp and realized she was choking as she tugged me along. Who taught this dog to walk on a leash? I wondered, realizing that it was probably Maggie and that Maggie had left off…midtraining. I think they’d only gotten Janis this past year. I pulled Janis to a halt and she sat, looked up at me, her brown eyes all innocence, her tongue flecked with foam.

Clearly I wasn’t ready to pick up where Maggie left off with the dog. The poor thing was dying of thirst, and I hadn’t even remembered to bring water for her. So much for my new life as a dog owner.

Then I felt my own throat grow dry at the sight of darkly tanned legs. My eyes roamed up to the darkly handsome man attached, who was sitting in a low beach chair, talking on a cell phone.

Okay, so maybe the cell phone on the beach was a guy thing.

The question was, did I wait for him to get off it before I moseyed by or…

Suddenly my choice was taken away from by none other than Janis, who leaped forward, barking wildly as she pulled me toward the water.

Oh, God. She was going to take me right into the tide.

Yes, I was wearing a bikini, but drowned rat wasn’t the look I wanted for my next meeting with Vince.

“Janis, heel!” I yelled, and miraculously, she