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Alex’s smile grew. “Clark, I’ve done thousands of dives, and I have yet to be bitten by a shark. You need to come up with a new excuse.”
“I’ll work on one then,” Clark said.
“The idea makes me pretty nervous too,” Hope said. “Not only the sharks—all of it. But I’ve got enough to worry about right now just figuring things out. Sorry, Alex. Not interested.”
His smile faded, and a neutral mask fell over his face. “No problem. It’s your choice.”
She looked at him. Was I a little too cool? “Maybe I could ride along with you guys sometime? I’d like to see how it all works.”
He finished his beer and stood, one corner of his mouth raised. “Whenever you want. You own the place, after all.”
* * *
Alex walked away from the bar, a confusion of emotions rushing over him.
What are you doing?
He had no answer to that. He’d been sitting on his porch and enjoying the late-afternoon sunshine when Hope had appeared at the end of the pier below him.
At first, she had a closed, guarded look on her face, and his stomach clenched in sympathy. That was a visage he’d seen on his own face. Hope hadn’t made much of an impression on him yesterday when they’d met on the pier. Alex hadn’t really even looked at her.
But he was looking now.
Her tight jeans and white tank top showed every curve, but he saw much more than that as she tipped her head back with her eyes closed. She stood like a woman trying to face the entire world alone. Alex was a protective man by nature, and it drew him like a magnet to steel.
Hope turned and walked away with a faint smile as Alex sat, staring at the empty place where she’d stood. “She’s your boss—nothing more.” He closed his eyes and pressed his palms into the wooden surface of the table. Then, before he knew what was happening, he had trotted down the stairs to join her at the bar.
Now, he walked back down the pier, his flip-flops thwacking on the wooden boards as he muttered to himself, “And you positively flirted with her, Monroe. Good thing she shut you down fast. You do not need this in your life.” Alex automatically rubbed his right hip before ripping his hand away.
As he walked into his apartment, he tore off his shirt and started his weight routine, determined to do something productive to work off his frustration at himself.
CHAPTER 14
April . . .
A soft breeze rustled the palm trees as Hope entered the lobby and exchanged greetings with Martine, the front-desk clerk. She was a beautiful twenty-two-year-old with caramel skin, multiple thin braids in her long black hair, and a warm, infectious smile. Behind her, Hope walked into the office, where Patti sat behind one of two desks.
It was a plain white box of a room, with framed staff pictures on two opposite sides. Group photos were on one side of the room and individual ones on the other, but Hope’s attention was drawn to the empty desk, which sat in front of a panel of three windows.
Patti smiled and waved an arm at it. “This will be your desk. Steve wasn’t the neatest person in the world, so you might take some time to arrange things more to your likin’. Next, I can give you an introduction to the types of things Steve worked on, as well as my duties.”
Hope nodded, making her way over to it.
It was worse than she’d thought. A disorganized jumble of papers, some crumpled and torn, sat on the desk. Messy writing was scrawled over several of them. Hope opened the drawers to find solace and instead found veritable chaos within. As a neat and organized person, Hope was made acutely uncomfortable by Steve’s desk. “Ok, Patti, I need to get this desk situation straightened out first. And it looks like it might take a while.”
“Yes, I know. I’m so sorry. I can only imagine what you went through in his house yesterday.”
The two broke into laughter. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing organization is one of my strengths.”
By late morning, Hope had three enormous stacks of papers on her desk—one that could be thrown away, one she wasn’t sure of, and one that needed to be kept and filed accurately. This third pile was already a foot high, and she wasn’t done yet. For the last half hour, a gnawing feeling had been growing in her gut that threatened to become panic.
You can do this. Keep concentrating.
Her stomach gave an angry growl that Patti overheard.
“Hope, why don’t you take the afternoon off and get settled in? You’ve been at that for hours now. You don’t have to tackle everythin’ immediately, you know.”
“You might be right. I feel pretty brain dead right now. I think I’ll go have lunch, but I’ll come back this afternoon and shadow Martine at the front desk.”
