Free Temptation Bay (A Windfall Island Novel) by Anna Sullivan

herself, she’d admit she’d been looking forward to the interaction.
    In the two days since her father’s… invasion, Maggie had hunkered in, buried herself in work, kept her own counsel. She enjoyed solitude, she loved her work, but even flying, for the first time in her life, failed to give her mood a lift. After a couple of days keeping her own company—morbid as it was—got to be a little much. So, she’d brought herself down to the Horizon for a bit of cheering up.
    This place and these people always did the trick. Surprisingly, so did seeing Dex Keegan. A man, she mused, and an outsider. Another first.
    Still, Dex Keegan had a quick wit, and she did love a verbal duel. Too bad he wasn’t getting in the game.
    In the screenplay she’d written in her head, she would have breezed in and been lavishly greeted by her friends and neighbors—it was her place, wasn’t it? Dex Keegan would be sitting by himself. His eyes would be on her, only her, those dark eyes that made her itch for things she rarelyindulged in. And that wide and wildly talented mouth—or so she imagined—would be tipped up at the corners just enough to tell her he knew she was ignoring him on purpose and that it was their little joke.
    So much for her imagination, Maggie thought. She sauntered over, watched his brows lift and his smile widen.
    “Have a seat,” he said.
    “I like to separate business and pleasure.”
    “Which one am I?”
    She turned it over in her mind for a second or two. “Come to think of it, neither. Give Jessi a call when you’re ready to leave Windfall.”
    “So you can slot me into the business category again?”
    “Yep.” And then she could put him out of her mind once and for all.
    “That’s a narrow little world you live in, Maggie.”
    She laughed a little, shook her head, “I misjudged you, Keegan,” she said, and started to walk away because she knew dismissing him would rankle. Like seeing him cozied up with Trudie rankled her, she admitted.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    She stopped, turned back, and because she kept her eyes straight on Dex’s when they wanted to shift to Trudie, she saw it strike home when she said, “I pegged you as a guy who likes a challenge.”
    She had to give him credit; he laughed. Even as she watched his temper fire, he held it together and laughed. And when she felt her lips curving she let them.
    “Maggie,” AJ Appelman said, laughing with the rest of the Horizon’s patrons who’d been close enough to overhear the exchange, and since all other sound in the place had died out for that brief minute, that meant everyone. “Haven’t seen you in a couple days.”
    “Been busy,” she said. “No time to entertain the tourists.”
    AJ laughed again, a deep belly laugh—and he had the physique to make it ring from the rafters.
    Tall and barrel-chested, with hands the size of hams, skin ruddy from the sun and wind, and a prize-fighter’s face, AJ Appelman was just the opposite—jolly, cheerful—and those huge hands were so skilled and delicate when it came to cooking he could have been a great chef anywhere. Instead he owned and ran the Horizon. His love and respect for Windfall Island ran clear down to the bone, and Maggie’s love and respect for him was just as deep and strong. If she’d been able to choose her father…
    She shook off that thought, but the feeling hung around, so she couldn’t ignore AJ, even when he walked over and stopped right next to Dex Keegan.
    She deliberately skimmed her eyes over Dex, putting everything she had into the smile she aimed at AJ.
    Dex laughed, and even though she was careful not to look at him again, she could hear the ease and good humor in it.
    AJ looked a little stunned.
    “Who says I don’t have people skills,” Maggie muttered to herself, adding, loudly enough to be heard over the thumping bass of the song someone had punched up on the Wurlitzer, “S & M?”
    “Rihanna’s an islander, too,” AJ said.