Page 56 of Pinch of Love

“I know I will.” I pressed my lips together and let my body fall away from his as the water caught me.

Arms wide, I kicked underneath me to stay afloat and let out a big sigh when I spotted something forming on the beach.

“Should I be concerned that at least a quarter of the Sunshine Breakfast Club is congregated on the beach looking this way, including my grandma and sister?”

Cash let out a low chuckle. “I’d be more concerned if they weren’t.”

Chapter Fourteen

Cash

A distraction.

I could handle being her distraction. What warm-blooded male would turn that down?

She was sexy as hell, smarter than any of my family members combined, and had a spunk about her that made the Energizer Bunny look like he ran out of juice. The woman never stopped.

But I hadn’t really been with a woman since Freya.

My Freya.

Rusty.

I cleared my throat and sliced a tomato on a cutting board in my kitchen.

This was fine. Everything would be fine. It wasn’t like spending time with Maya would turn into something serious. She only rented the place until October, when another family would move in, and this wasn’t ever approached in a serious fashion.

She just needed a distraction.

And I would be that guy.

Freya’s beautiful smile entered my mind, and the way she’d stroke my arm or tug on my ear to bring me back when I got distracted. Her beautiful red hair cascaded down her back to her waist, and she’d always get the strands stuck under her when sleeping. I’d never met a woman who got tangled in her own hair.

Until possibly Maya.

The thought made me smile as I glanced through the kitchen window at the lake.

Just a distraction.

That was all I could handle, anyway.

Obviously, since this many years after Freya passed away, and I was still thinking about her, missing her, I wasn’t ready for anything serious.

At first, I wondered if I should mention Freya to Maya, but there was no future with Maya. We both knew it, and she was already going through so much.

It was probably why I looked appealing. To an outsider, I had nothing to hold me back or tie me down. I was a single guy who flipped and rented vacation rentals.

I wanted to believe that, but I didn’t.

And therein lies the problem.

Maya was a professional mind reader for a living. She picked up on the fact that I was a softie in my core, that I had an unhealthy attachment to all things that come into my life, and that I wasn’t actually born to be as harsh as I appeared.

Freya had always seen that too.

I let out a sigh and slapped the tomato slices on my sandwich and tossed a tiny bite to Chewie, who had impatiently waited for her reward. The tiny pink tongue of the furball poked out as she took the tomato, and I got the familiar feeling that she wanted to know how I was going to make it up to her for making her wait so long. She had a real ego, this one. I plopped another small bite of tomato near her and chuckled.

I took my sandwich and coffee outside and pulled a chair toward me when my phone rang.