Anything But Vanilla. Madelynne Ellis
know this was the location he’d meant. From the track that skirted the cliff top she could see the iron rings fastened to the rocks. One presumed they were intended to tie boats to but, given Ric’s feudal claims about his family’s past, she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it wasn’t something she had time to dwell on right now. Nope, she was not going to think about mister lean, sexy and emotionally stunted, not one itty bit. The ball lay in his court. She had no problem with casual sex.
Chris’s purchase proved to be dark and cobwebby. It was also minus electricity and hot or cold running water and empty of food, just when Kara’s stomach had woken to the idea of breakfast.
‘Shit!’ She didn’t want to go back to Ric’s to ask for help. There had to be someone else living on this accursed rock who could assist. There’d definitely been some sort of shop in the bay where she’d left her car. With any luck, they’d know the relevant numbers to call. She had to head down to the car to pick up her luggage anyway.
Several vehicles occupied the bay when she reached it, including an ice-cream van that already sported a five-deep queue, and an enormous camper van. An assortment of kids in shorts and cagoule-wearing tourists milled around the bay, carrying camping equipment and chasing after balls. One or two were scrambling over the seaweed-strewn rocks in order to fish amongst the rock pools.
Kara made her way to the building she’d spied the night before. THE BUNKER, the sign said. It had a concrete frontage, but clearly made use of a natural fissure in the cliff face. A plaque outside detailed its history as an ammunitions store and a guard-post some time during the nineteenth century. Inside, the windowless structure felt decidedly cave-like. The air had a damp, sea-salty quality to it despite twin dehumidifiers rumbling by the counter. She’d hoped for supplies, but what faced her was a barrage of tat; tinkling wind-chimes, vast arrays of semiprecious stones, buckets, spades and an awful lot of overpriced seaside-themed holiday gifts. There was not one edible item in the whole shop, unless you considered Kendal Mint Cake edible, nor did there appear to be a shopkeeper.
Downcast, Kara mooched over to the ice-cream van and joined the queue there.
‘What can I get you?’ the serving girl asked her from beneath the brim of a baseball cap.
‘A bacon butty,’ Kara replied wistfully. Given the way her stomach was imitating a chorus line, she needed to put something inside it, and quick. She supposed she’d have to nip across to the mainland for supplies once she’d found out how to turn her utilities on.
The girl shook her head. ‘Sorry, no can do. Hot drinks and ice cream only, and we don’t do anything overly fancy, none of those frappe-latte-mocha things.’ She raised a hand to point out the blackboard hanging from a bracket secured to the outside of the van.
‘Fine, I’ll have a ludicrously oversized black coffee and an ice cream then,’ Kara replied without giving the board much more than a glance.
‘Flavour?’
‘Anything but vanilla.’ She was already regretting the notion of something quite so sweet for breakfast, but she had no idea how far it was to the nearest supermarket, and her stomach absolutely couldn’t wait.
‘My kind of girl.’
Kara jerked her chin upwards, half expecting to find Ric, hands in pockets and sporting an enormous grin. Instead a man with much shorter brown hair stood looking at her. It was the guy from the night before last. ‘Jack?’ She furrowed her brow straining to remember.
‘Zach,’ he corrected
‘Zach, right.’ What the hell was he doing here? When she’d left Zach on the quayside, she hadn’t expected to cross his path again. Doing so made things awkward. It placed certain expectations on them that she hadn’t sought. ‘What are you doing here?’
Zach mussed the long top strands of his hair so that they fell over his brows in a messy tumble. ‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’
Gah! Talk about awkward. Now he probably thought she’d pursued him here and was looking for a repeat performance. Not that he was a bad choice if she was going to contemplate such actions. His appearance certainly lived up to her memory of him, all big-boned and yet oddly wiry. Zach seemed to have been put together by someone who liked strong features, but had no idea about what they actually wanted to achieve. His brows and especially his mouth seemed over-generous for his narrow features, while his nose seemed almost petite. Nevertheless, the result was certainly arresting.
‘Um, my brother just bought Beachcomber’s Barn.’ The actual house name had been handily carved into the front-door lintel.
‘You’re the new occupant?’ His brown eyes widened a fraction, and a ripple of tension seemed to stiffen his limbs. ‘No, I mean that’s great. How are you settling in?’
Kara fluttered her fingers at him in response. ‘No supplies. I thought I’d be able to get some things here, but I guess not unless I want a new wind-chime.’
‘Flavour?’ The girl in the van prompted, thrusting the ice-cream scoop towards Kara. ‘Sorry to hurry you, but there’s a queue. We have cherry, chocolate, mint choc chip, rum and raisin, pistachio, rhubarb, lemon sorbet, toffee or vanilla.’
‘She already said she doesn’t do vanilla, and I can vouch for that.’ Zach flashed Kara a cheeky grin before looking up at the girl. There was an obvious family resemblance. ‘I’m guessing rum and raisin.’
‘Lemon,’ Kara said decisively. She needed something sharp and palette-clearing at the moment.
‘Tart,’ Zach remarked.
The serving girl took no notice, but made an efficient job of doling out the ice cream on to a cone, which she handed over along with the coffee. ‘That’s £4.85.’
‘I’ve got it. It’s on the house.’ Zach settled a hand upon Kara’s arm as she made to delve into her purse, which earned him a look of exasperation from his employee. ‘Whatever,’ the girl mumbled. She turned to the next customer and began talking over Kara’s head.
Kara turned away from the serving window. ‘Your van?’ she asked Zach.
‘Yeah. This and the Bunker.’
She really hadn’t pegged him as the owner of a tat cave, or an ice-cream vendor. He wasn’t dressed in oversized sweat pants and a three-quid T-shirt, for starters. No, he had on a shirt and a pair of beautifully clingy moleskins that made magic out of his thighs and would no doubt set his butt off to perfection. In short, he looked every bit as scrumptious as he’d been the night before last when she’d wanted to lash him to the canal railings and take lewd snapshots of him. The thought of draping him over a rock instead and taking said pictures briefly entertained her, but Kara pushed it aside for the moment. Her muscles still ached from the workout Ric had given her.
A sudden thought briefly entertained her. Maybe she could persuade Ric to give her photography lessons, or take her on as an apprentice, and she could start a new career as … as what – a pornographer? Actually, sticking to happy snaps might be a better idea.
Zach offered her a tight smile, so Kara raised the oversized paper cup in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘Well, thanks for this.’ She headed to her car in order to eat, feeling just a teeny bit guilty at dismissing him.
Just moments after she’d settled into the front seat with the radio on low, Zach rapped upon her window. Kara wound it down, squirming a little in her seat, then fixed on a smile and endeavoured to be nice. It wasn’t as if she’d say no to a repeat performance with the guy. He was smoking hot. It was just a tad awkward, seeing as she’d fucked someone else in between.
‘Have you met Ric yet?’ he asked, much to her astonishment. Kara gaped at him, knowing it to be a loaded question. Hell, she could see it in Zach’s eyes, and the way he scanned her face searching for an answer.
‘Last night.’
‘Yeah?’ His mouth broadened into a slightly uncomfortable grin. ‘And how did that go?’