Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters)

There he went, looking blissful again.

Fox chuckled, uncapped his second beer with his teeth, and spat the cap into the sink. “Speaking of your reason for ending your self-imposed celibacy, shouldn’t you be home having dinner with her?”

“She’s keeping my spaghetti warm for me.” Brendan shifted in his seat, pinned him with a laser look that was famous among the crew. It translated to Sit down and shut the hell up. “I had another reason for coming over here to talk.”

“Do you need advice on women again? Because you’re way out of my depth now. If you’re here to ask me what your fiancée wants, ask me to recite the periodic table, instead. There’s a better chance of me getting that right.”

“I don’t need advice.” Brendan looked at him hard. Closely. On the hunt for bullshit. “Hannah is coming to town.”

Fox’s throat closed up. He was halfway to sitting down when Brendan said those five words, so he twisted at the last second, staying half turned, stuffing an unnecessary pillow behind his back so he wouldn’t have to look his oldest friend in the eye. And, God, how absolutely pitiful was that? “Oh yeah? What for?”

Brendan sighed. Crossed his arms. “You know she’s still working for that production company. Somehow she convinced them Westport would be a good place to film.”

Fox’s laughter cracked in the sparse living room. “You must be thrilled.”

The captain was the unofficial mayor of Westport. He was notoriously a man of few words, but when he gave his opinion on something, everyone damn well listened. In some towns, football stars were revered. In this place, it was the fishermen—and that went double for the man behind the wheel. “I don’t care what they do as long as they stay out of my hair.”

“People from LA staying out of your hair,” Fox mused, forcing himself to delay the conversation about Hannah. Like some kind of weird, self-inflicted punishment. “How did that work out last time?”

“That’s different. It was Piper.” Well, I’ll be damned. The tips of the man’s ears were red. “Anyway, my parents will be here visiting while this whole filming business is going on. That’s why Hannah can’t use our guest room.”

He feigned annoyance. “So you offered mine.”

It was hard to tell if Brendan was buying his act. “Piper had kind of nixed the idea, but Hannah seemed interested.”

Fox’s thumbnail dug into the beer label and ripped a clean strip down the side. “Really. Hannah wants to stay here?” Why were his palms turning damp? “How long are they going to be filming? How long would she stay?”

“Two weeks or so. Figured she’d have the place to herself half the time, when we’re out on the boat.”

“Right.”

But the other half of the time, they would be there together.

How the hell was Fox supposed to feel about that?

More importantly—and this was a question he asked himself way too often—how the hell was he supposed to feel about Hannah? He’d never, not once, had a girl for a friend. Last summer, Hannah and her sister had crash-landed in Westport, two rich girls from LA who’d been stripped of their allowances by Daddy. Fox had only been trying to help Brendan nurse his crush on Piper by distracting the younger sibling with a walk to the record store.

Then they’d gone to the vinyl convention together. Spent the last six months texting each other about everything under the sun . . . and she’d had the nerve to crawl up under his skin in a way that made absolutely no sense to him.

Sex was a non-possibility between them.

That had been established early on, for a host of reasons.

Number one being that he didn’t fish local waters.

If he needed the company of a woman—and he should really get back to doing that kind of thing sometime—he went to Seattle. No chance of accidentally sleeping with someone’s sister or wife or cousin’s cousin, and he could wash his hands of the whole encounter afterward. Return to Westport with no chance of bumping into a hookup. Easy. No muss, no fuss.

The second reason he couldn’t sleep with Hannah was the very man sitting in his living room. Fox was read the riot act last summer. It was seared into his memory. Sleeping with Piper’s little sister would spell disaster, because if she got attached, Fox would undoubtedly hurt her feelings. And that would make his captain and best friend’s life hell, because the Bellinger sisters stuck together.

But Fox had a third, and most important, reason for keeping his hands off Hannah. She was his friend. She was a woman who genuinely liked him for something other than his dick. And it made him feel terrifyingly good to be around her. To talk to her.

They had fun. Made each other laugh.

The way she translated song lyrics out loud made him think. In the six months that she’d been gone, he’d noticed the sunrise more. He’d started paying attention to strangers, their actions. Listening to music. Even his job seemed to have more gravity to it. Hannah did that somehow. Made him look around and consider.