Defiant Heart (Starlight Cove Book 1)

SINCE IT WAS my day off and I was already at the resort, I figured I might as well swing by the diner and grab something to eat. Even if it meant taking a ribbing from one or more of my brothers on the fact that I’d had to endure those damn goats. Didn’t matter. In fact, it might help. God knew I needed something to focus on to get my mind off Luna and her hands on me.

Why the hell had I given her the green light to touch me? Especially when she’d been wearing that—a pair of leggings that showcased her perfect ass and a thin shirt that left little to the imagination swooping low over one shoulder. It showed off the tiny strap of a pale-pink tank top and the black lines of a dainty tattoo in the shape of a constellation that stretched across her left shoulder, just over her collarbone. I had no doubt the damn thing would make an appearance in my dreams tonight, along with the remembered feel of her hands on me, and the coconut-lime scent of her hair that made me hard for no goddamn good reason.

I pulled open the door to the diner, pleased to see a couple I didn’t know at one of the three tables and Jon, the owner of the hardware store, taking up another. Three people buying lunch wouldn’t exactly spark life back into this place, but it was better than nothing.

Jon and I exchanged nods as I settled at the bar, running a hand through my hair as Beck stepped up and slid me a glass of water.

“How was it?” he asked.

I grunted then drained the glass. “Never thought I’d need to wear a cup for yoga, so there’s that.”

Beck snorted, leaning back against the counter behind him, his arms and ankles crossed as he regarded me. “Well, I definitely had fun. Thanks for the entertainment.”

He and half of Starlight Cove, thanks to Mabel, her nuisance of a phone, and her penchant for causing trouble.

“Yeah, well, thanks for lunch.”

“What lunch?”

“You know what I like. I’ll wait.”

Beck just shook his head, turning his back to me as he pulled out ingredients. “It’s really a wonder why you’re still single,” he said dryly.

Considering my job was a very close second on my list of priorities right after my family, and my life always consisted of issues from one or the other, no. It really wasn’t a wonder. No one wanted to be third place after a job that took too much of my time and a family that took even more. I was thirty-five years old and had never had a relationship—long-term, short-term, extended booty call, or otherwise. I’d never allowed anyone past the wall I’d erected a long time ago, and no one had ever cared enough to try.

“Could say the same about you.”

Beck grunted and set a plate down in front of me as he waved to someone outside the diner. Considering we had all of…zero guests staying at the resort, I twisted on the barstool and glanced out the front windows to see who it was.

Luna. Of course, because I couldn’t get away from her.

She smiled at Beck, lifting her hand in a wave as she strolled down the path toward the main inn. The tiny niggle that had been consistently getting louder by the day was nearly a siren now as I darted my gaze between my brother and the woman who drove me out of my mind. The woman whose lips I could still taste and whose fiery eyes and undeniable spark lit something inside me I’d long thought dead.

Nothing good would come of voicing this question, no matter what the answer was. But I still couldn’t seem to keep it bottled up.

I twisted back in my seat and picked up half of my sandwich. “There something going on with you two?

“Who?” he asked, brows drawn. “Me and Luna? No, why?”

I took a large bite, taking out a third of it in a single go and ignoring the sudden wash of relief that swept over me. Shrugging, as if the answer didn’t bother me one way or another, I said, “You know her order…”

Beck’s eyebrows flew up his forehead, nearly to the bottom of his backward baseball cap. “I know everyone’s orders. Kind of goes with the territory.” He gestured to the tuna salad on wheat in front of me. “I know yours, Luna’s, Jon’s, Everly’s… Does that mean I’m into them, too?”

“You go out of your way for Luna.”

“I cook for her. It’s literally my job. How is that going out of my way?”

“You’re stocking all kinds of disgusting shit in here now, all because she asked you to.”

“No, she suggested some varied offerings that would appeal to a broader range of customers while also allowing us to keep our supplies local.” He braced himself on the counter in front of me. “There’s a big difference between going out of my way for someone and taking their suggestions into consideration because it makes good business sense.”

I stuffed the last of my sandwich into my mouth and studied him, looking for any kind of tell but coming up empty. “So…nothing?”

“Not even a little. Why, you into her?”

I’d just taken a drink and promptly choked on my water, coughing and sputtering as I glared at him. I swiped the back of my hand over my mouth. “Of course not. She’s impossible. She’s too cheerful. Too unpredictable. Too…

“Unencumbered by rules?”

“Exactly. She drives me up a wall. I want to strangle her half the time.”

“And the other half?”

I snapped my jaw shut, even as he stared at me with a knowing glint in his eye. Like he knew the other half was fantasies of handcuffing her to my bed and giving her mouth something else to do besides running a mile a minute and driving me crazy.

Beck knocked twice on the counter before grabbing the pitcher of water and refilling my glass. “Yep, that checks.”

“What checks?”

He stared at me for a long moment before shaking his head. “You seriously don’t get what’s going on here? It’s a classic case of opposites attract.”

“Of what?”

“Opposites attract,” he enunciated. “You know, where, on paper, two people couldn’t be less of a match, but in person—” he brought his hands up, miming an explosion “—sparks fly.

“Are you drunk right now?”

“No, I’m not fucking drunk. And don’t act like I’m the idiot out of the two of us. Maybe you should read more. It’s a very popular romance novel trope.”

“A…romance novel trope,” I said slowly. “Is that what you’ve been doing in here?”

“Whatever. Everly reads, like, two a week. Can’t get enough of ’em. She left one here, and I had to know what the appeal was. It was the off-season, and I was bored. What do you do when you’re bored?”

“Set some speed traps. At least my boredom brings valuable dollars into the town.”

Beck rolled his eyes. “All I’m saying is one of us is right. And one of us is about to fall for his complete opposite, if it hasn’t happened already.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to ask out Everly.”

He snorted. “Nice try. Opposites as she and I may be, there’s no friends-to-lovers in our future, but there definitely could be some enemies-to-lovers in yours.”

“You’re really starting to worry me. Do I need to stage an intervention?”

Beck snatched my empty plate and tossed it into the bin below the counter, fixing me with a hard stare. “Make jokes all you want, but don’t come crying to me when you need help with a grand gesture.”

“A grand—what?” I held up my hand as I stood, shaking my head. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll see you later.”

I had no idea why the fact that there was nothing going on with Beck and Luna had loosened something in my chest. Settled the undercurrent that had been bubbling for days. Had no idea why I cared enough to ask in the first place.

A FEW DAYS had passed since I’d last seen Luna, and that was exactly how I preferred it. The motion for discovery that she’d filed was holding up progress for Holton Group, which meant I hadn’t had to babysit her to ensure she wasn’t causing trouble.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t keenly aware of every move she made in town. I had no choice in the matter, considering the busybodies of Starlight Cove and their penchant for sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. Why they thought I’d want to know she’d stopped by the senior center to give complimentary massages to the residents or made a house call to ninety-three-year-old Greta bearing a homemade foot cream to help with her neuropathy was beyond me.

I had enough on my plate to worry about, and what Luna spent her time doing wasn’t on that very extensive list, so long as she kept her nose out of trouble and her wrists out of my cuffs.

“Good news,” Addison said as soon as everyone was seated at the dining table. It was usually too early for her to do much but grumble during these meetings, let alone smile, but there was no denying the grin stretched wide across her mouth. “Well, sort of. I just got an email.”

“Thanks for sharing,” Aiden said dryly, never lifting his gaze from his phone, “but we don’t actually need to know the contents of your inbox.”

“An email,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “that said while they haven’t made their decision yet—”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Ford asked, pulling the top off one of the muffins Beck had brought before stuffing the whole thing in his mouth.

She shot him an exasperated look. “Weekend Wanderlust.”

Aiden straightened up. “Did we get it?”

“If you idiots would let me speak, I could tell you.” Addison pinned us each with a look, and when we all kept our mouths shut, she finally said, “They’ve narrowed their selection down for the feature, and the last spot is between us and one other town.”

“That’s…” Disappointing? Frustrating? A kick in the nuts?

“Yeah,” she agreed with a nod. “But it’s not a no, so I’m keeping the faith. They’re sending someone back to observe the festival this weekend.”

“Harper?” I asked, brow raised.

“Yep, she’s checking in on Thursday.”

“Wait…” Beck said, brows drawn. “Harper who used to spend every summer here, glued to Levi’s side? That Harper?”

“One and the same,” Addison confirmed with a nod.

“Since we’re trying to get on her good side, don’t mention Levi around her,” I said before taking a sip of my coffee. “Made that mistake already. Apparently they tossed out their friendship bracelets.”

“Noted,” Beck muttered with a nod.

“Hopefully this storm doesn’t fuck up her arrival.” Aiden thumbed his phone, probably scrolling for the latest weather update.

A storm had cropped up, gaining more traction than what we usually saw this time of the year, but it still wasn’t much to worry about. As of now, the forecasters had issued a high wind and coastal flood watch, but it hadn’t even escalated to a warning yet. It’d probably die down into nothing and fizzle out before it reached us.

I waved him off. “She’ll be fine.”

“Which cottage are we putting her in while she’s here?” Aiden asked, glancing up at Addison.

“One, obviously.”

The resort property was spread out over five acres and contained the main inn—which didn’t actually offer any guest rooms since it was where Addison and Aiden lived—as well as nineteen cottages along the shore, some directly on the beach and others on the bluffs. No two were alike, and whether intentional or not, we’d focused most of our efforts on the lower numbers in recent years—the ones with the best locations and interiors—and let anything above ten languish. Cottage Nineteen was practically a storage unit now, stuffed with all the castoffs we didn’t have a place for, and Ford had moved in to Cottage Sixteen, not wanting to wake Aiden or Addison with any late-night emergency calls—not to say anything of the unmentionable Cottage Thirteen—though it wasn’t like it mattered. We hadn’t had more than five cottages booked at the same time in years.

“I’m going to spend the rest of the week working through our list and making sure everything’s in order,” Addison said. “Ford, I could use your help.”

He saluted her. “You got it, boss.”

“Between the festival and everything else, Harper’s weekend will be full. I’ve already talked with Luna—she’s going to run a one-on-one yoga class for Harper while she’s here, and we’ve got Cottage Two set up for a massage. I know we did this as a compromise with her, but I’d love if this could be a permanent offering for the resort, and I think a write-up about it would really help.”

The mention of a massage reminded me that I still had part of my deal to make good on, and it soured me all over again. “Since you’re actively inviting Luna into Harper’s presence, I take it I’m off the hook?”

Addison laughed. “No, you definitely still need to keep an eye on her. You just don’t need to do it while she’s on the clock here. It’s her downtime I worry about, and we don’t need any more surprises. Not when this isn’t a sure thing yet.”

Yeah, if only it was that easy. Trouble was, Luna was full of surprises, and I feared that no matter how much I looked after her, and no matter how much I attempted to keep her under my thumb, we’d still be caught off guard at one point or another.