Beach House Beginnings Read Online Free PDF

hurry-him-out mode, just as she’d been last night. “Meg—”
    “Sorry, but I don’t have any more time to chat right now.” She snatched up her purse and looked ready to push him out the door.
    He rooted his feet to the ground. “Let me take you out to dinner tonight.”
    “I don’t see why you’d want to.”
    His eyebrows rose. Stubborn woman! “Let’s start with that we both need to eat.”
    “We don’t need to eat together. We already did that.”
    Caleb rocked back on his heels. “I really do scare you.”
    She frowned. “Of course not. But you recall what happened last night.”
    He damn sure would remember it for the rest of his life. “Didn’t you enjoy yourself?”
    Her cheeks turned pink again and her green eyes narrowed. “Can’t you take ‘no’ for an answer?”
    “I haven’t actually heard you say that word,” Caleb pointed out, rubbing his knuckles along his jaw. “Not last night. Not now.”
    Meg looked down at her feet, then inhaled a long breath. “All right. Here’s the deal. Last night…last night was nice. You’re fun. You’re funny. I’m sure I’m not the first woman to let you know you’re attractive. After those kisses, I even considered sleeping with you.”
    Now why didn’t that sound like a victory?
    Her gaze lifted to his, and a hint of a smile curved her lips. “Now I’m scaring you .”
    “Hardly. Setting the sheets on fire does not inspire fear in me.” He thought of his hands fisted in her hair, of his mouth on hers, his tongue stroking deep. “When can we make that happen?”
    “We won’t. I considered it, but decided it’s not in my best interest.”
    “Why don’t you give me a chance to change your mind?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
    Meg held him off with a hand. “No. Really.”
    Caleb could see the tension in her body. She was worried about him getting close, and he thought he could understand why. “I realize that after what happened to Peter you might not want to take a chance—”
    “Don’t bring Peter into this.”
    “But he’s here,” Caleb said. “Because he was your first love.” Though if destiny played out the way he hoped, the way he thought it should, he planned on being her last one.
    “Love.” Meg shook her head. “It wasn’t that. What we had was a potent mix of young adult hormones and summer sun. I was more than ready to drink the pre-sweetened Kool-Aid after a childhood overstocked with Disney princess movies and long hours of pretend.”
    Caleb stilled. “You don’t think you fell in love with him.”
    “I don’t believe in falling in love,” Meg said. “I don’t ever want to.”
    It was only later, after she’d once again put him on the other side of her door and he was taking a long walk on the beach, that Caleb absorbed her last words. Then grasped their inherent contradiction. If you truly didn’t believe in the phenomenon of falling in love, there was no reason not to want that to happen.
    Looking toward the water, he grinned. “I’m not giving up on her, cousin,” he promised.
    * * *
    At about 4 p.m., behind the closed and locked door of the property management office, Meg decided she needed a nap. Sure, it was classic avoidance of issues she’d prefer not to face, but it was also…a nap. Rarely did she allow herself one of those and she thought a prize was in order. She’d checked in everyone expected to arrive at the cove that day. More important, she’d held out against Caleb’s still-smokin’ sex appeal.
    He’d strolled in, wearing that confidence of his like a second shirt. When she’d clearly been trying to get rid of him, he’d made himself at home in her visitor’s chair. What perversity inside of her thrilled to that obstinate quality of his? It was almost as if he was bone-certain she enjoyed being with him. That she was supposed to be with him.
    Someone as sensible as Meg shouldn’t be swayed by such persistence. Didn’t she know there was nothing to be gained by a