Break Your Heart: A Small Town Romance (Bounty Bay Book 5) by Tracey Alvarez

Author:Tracey Alvarez [Alvarez, Tracey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Publishing
Published: 2018-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Sam didn’t want to get into it with his sister, but trying to dislodge Tui when she was on a mission was like trying to peel a leech off your ass with only your teeth. Impossible, and likely to hurt more than just dealing with the problem in the first place.

They’d eaten their fish ’n’ chips right on the beach. The Wrights had oohed and ahhed over the melt-in-your-mouth quality of the fresh battered kahawai, the salty, delicious hot chips, and the novelty of eating both straight off sheets of unwrapped paper. Tui accompanied them home for drinks on his back deck, all sweetness and warmth and laughter with their guests.

But she refused a ride home with Isaac and Nat when they rose to leave at nine, saying she’d walk back to the place she was house-sitting because she needed the fresh air. The Wrights also excused themselves and retired, leaving Sam with the choice of small talk with Tui, or Vee—since Ruby had been asleep for hours.

“I’ll walk you home, Tu. Turbo needs the exercise,” he said.

“Good luck with that.” Vee busied herself with loading glasses into the dishwasher. “Bet you five bucks you’ll end up carrying him.”

Vee had also been in prime form this evening, playing her role of hostess with the mostest to a tee. She refreshed drinks like a professional bartender, talked fashion with Julia and Nat, found a fellow kindred spirit with Eric in a shared love of old John Wayne movies, and put Ruby to bed with so little disruption that nobody noticed she’d left the deck.

Except him.

He’d noticed every move she made even when she wasn’t directly in his line of sight. He felt her. Like an implant shoved under his skin that caused a low level buzzing whenever she was near.

Tui wandered into the kitchen, bringing with her the last of the glasses from the deck. “Room for these?”

“I can fit them in.” Vee held out her hands for the glasses, but Sam noticed she didn’t meet Tui’s eyes.

Tui passed her the glasses and leaned a hip against the counter, watching as Vee rearranged mugs and plates. This was the first time he’d seen his sister and Vee together in the same room for ages. Once you couldn’t see one without falling over the other. Tee and Vee, thick as thieves, his ma used to say. “Where’s the TV?” was the joke between the Ngata and Sullivan families. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

“You ready, then?” he asked his sister.

She nodded. “See ya, then, Vee.”

“Nice to catch up with you again, Tui,” Vee said.

Frosty politeness stretched between them. His gaze flicked from Vee—her neck and shoulders stiff above the summery top she’d changed into, her hair coiled up into a tight bun—to Tui, wild curls spilling down her back, towering over the other woman by a good three inches even though he could tell by her posture she was trying to appear smaller.

He tugged one of Tui’s curls. “Isn’t there a hot tub at the place you’re staying? Vee should come over and have a soak with you sometime.

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