Temptation Bay (A Windfall Island Novel) Read Online Free PDF

surprising him again by how easily she reined in her anger. A woman who’d had a lot of practice, he’d bet, and found himself wondering why.
    He let that go, too. What made Maggie Solomon tick was none of his concern. “I was told everything is in walking distance.”
    “As long as everything you want is in the village.”
    “Do you live there?”
    “I live here.”
    Dex looked around, belatedly realizing they’d landed on the seaward end of the island, about as far from town as they could get, thinking,
why am I not surprised
, but saying, “Maybe you could put me up. I’m not very picky. I’ll sleep just about anywhere.”
    “Well, then, you definitely need to stay at the Horizon. You’ll be the biggest thing to hit the place since the hurricane of ought six.”
    “Not a lot of single men in town?”
    She gave him a look, down, then up, definitely laughing at him again, although at least this time he got the joke. “Single won’t be the deciding factor. On either side.”
    “Should I take that as a compliment?”
    “I’d take it as a warning. Most every man on Windfall has a gun, and there’s a long history of territoriality.”
    That wiped the smile off his face. “You sure there’s not a spare room around here? You’re hostile, but I don’t get the feeling you’d shoot me.”
    “Pull what you did a minute ago, and I wouldn’t be so sure.”
    “Maybe you should loosen up a little, have some fun.”
    She sent him another look.
Not if you were the last man on earth
.
    He’d never thought of himself as a guy who needed the pursuit, but he got a kick out of being rejected by Maggie Solomon. “I’m always up for a challenge,” he said.
    “Then you came to the right place.” Maggie turned for the office, her long-legged stride eating up the ground. “I’ll have my business manager, Jessi, drop you at the Horizon.”
    He abandoned his luggage to trail after her. “I appreciate it.”
    “She’s about to head home anyway, so if you don’t mind it’ll save me the trip. If there’s anything else you need, she can point you in the right direction.”
    “Can she get you to have dinner with me?”
    “That’s not a direction she’ll be pointing you,” Maggie said lightly. She glanced over her shoulder, her expression… If she’d been any other woman, he’d have sworn she was flirting with him.
    He smiled back. “I rarely stop for directions.”
    “Then it’s a good thing you won’t be driving.”
    Okay, not flirting, Dex decided, but still smiling, at least. The thing was, he couldn’t take no for an answer. If he knew his small towns, and he did, gossip would be the hobby of choice for just about everyone on the island. Except for Maggie Solomon, apparently. That meant any information he could drag out of her would be reliable. “Are you always this standoffish?”
    “If I can help it.”
    “Good, I was afraid this place would be boring.”
    The Solomon Charters waiting room was a calm, clean space with old-fashioned tile waxed to within an inch of its life, serviceable, if dated, chrome-and-black Naugahyde furniture, and a long unmanned counter. The wide office beyond was like getting too close to the sun, all heat and bright light and crackling energy. Maggie was used to it. Dex looked a little shell-shocked.
    Music played, the printer hummed, the radio squawked, and every inch of wall space was covered with charts, maps, bulletin boards, and random notes tacked up at odd angles with multi-colored push pins.
    Jessi Randal, Maggie’s best friend and Girl Friday, stood in front of a desk crowded with office equipment, her son’sschool projects, and haphazard stacks of paperwork. She had a phone jammed between her ear and shoulder, and she was bent over the desk taking notes with a fuzzy purple pen, her butt waggling to a song that was thumping bass and not much else.
    Maggie tossed the clipboard she’d brought in from the Twinstar on top of a stack, sending papers and file