Baby I'm Yours (Angel Sands 5)

They’d almost reached Paxton’s Pier. Delmonico’s was already busting with customers eating brunch on the deck. The air was filled with the sound of their chatter. On her right, she heard the crashing of a wave against the shore, and she looked up to see Breck’s surfboard carry him in. Behind him, Harper could see Jackson and Griff sitting on their boards and waving. She lifted her hand to wave back.

“Hey,” Caitie called out, as Breck waded through the shallows. “That was good timing.”

“I aim to please.” He grinned, lifting his board out of the water. “How are you holding up.”

“Harper’s distracting me, so it’s all good.” Caitie glanced at her watch. “It’s been almost twenty minutes. That’s some kind of record, right?”

His eyes softened. “Baby, you’re doing great.” He looked at Harper. “You doing okay?”

She nodded. “I’m good.”

“No, she isn’t. She has guy problems.” Caitie pressed her lips together. “Hey, maybe you can give us a male perspective on this.”

“If it’s okay with Harper.” He planted the end of his board in the sand, and leaned against it, the breeze ruffling his damp hair.

“Yeah, it’s okay with me.” She welcomed it. Maybe he could make sense of what the heck was going on in James’s life.

“Okay, then,” Caitie said, her eyes catching Breck’s. “Why did you ask me to move in with you?”

“Because I couldn’t live without you.” He shrugged. “Is this a trick question?”

In spite of the location, Caitie melted. “You’re the sweetest talker, you know that?”

“You guys want me to leave?” Harper grinned.

“Nope. Sorry, I just got distracted for a moment. So, back to this problem.” Caitie shot her an apologetic glance. “How easy did you find it to tell me how you felt?”

“Before we moved in together? Or before we got together at all.”

“The last one.”

He shook his head, a smile playing at his lips. “She knows the answer to this already,” he told Harper. “I was terrified. Didn’t even want to admit it to myself. I kept kidding myself that I was being brotherly toward her. After all, she’s Lucas’s sister and he’s one of my best friends. There’s a code for that, you know?”

“The bro code,” Harper agreed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”

“How long did it take you to tell me how you really feel?” Caitie continued, the smile still lifting her lips.

Harper knew some of the answer to this. Caitie had been her roommate for years, after all, giving Harper a ringside view to the push and pull of her friend’s

relationship with Brecken Miller. She’d had to watch silently – okay, maybe not so silently – as Caitie had pushed away her feelings for him, denying the attraction between them that was so obvious to everyone else.

But she’d never heard Breck’s side of the story. Intrigued, she turned her gaze on him.

“It took me months to pull my head out of my ass,” he admitted. “It wasn’t so much I was hiding my feeling as denying them. I didn’t want to admit to myself I’d fallen for you until I realized there was no other way.”

“Why didn’t you want to admit it?” Harper asked, her brows knitting together.

“Because I was scared.” He blinked away a droplet of water that had fallen from his hair into his eyes. “Is this about James? What’s happened?”

“He asked me to move in with him.”

“Okay…” Confusion fogged his eyes.

“But he made her feel as if it was for convenience’s sake,” Caitie added. “He didn’t tell her how he felt about her at all.”

Breck sighed. “Sounds like a guy. You want me to go beat him up for you?”

Harper smiled. “Nah. I like him the way he is. Without bruises.”