Kayaks and Kisses by Maria Hoagland

Author:Maria Hoagland [Hoagland, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gelato Publishing LLC
Published: 2018-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

From his first encounter with Brynn, Gage had been impressed with everything about her. He’d pored over every online picture he could find and had known she was pretty, but she was easily more beautiful in person—even when she was dressed in grubby clothes with her long, auburn hair pulled into a ponytail, ready to work. She was graceful and thin, strong and confident. Someone he could hang out with in a less-professional situation—like fishing, hiking, going to the gym.

But it was more than her looks that impressed him. He admired her work ethic—showing up early, working as hard as he did, making decisions easily and logically. He hadn’t given the woman on the other end of the emails enough credit.

From that first conversation, he knew she didn’t realize that he was the Mr. Konewko she disparaged so easily and so thoroughly. It hadn’t occurred to him before they met, but of course she wouldn’t know he went by his middle name. It wasn’t like he was hiding his identity from her—he signed only what he had to with his legal name, Joseph Gage Konewko III, but on most of the papers, he either omitted the Gage part for brevity’s sake, or used only initials where permissible, as he did with his business emails. The entire name was too much work.

Once he realized the misunderstanding, he’d been about to set the record straight, trying to figure out how to reintroduce himself, when her feelings about Mr. Konewko came out. He couldn’t exactly interrupt her then. It would only embarrass her once she’d started, so he’d allowed her to assume he was the hired hand. Which was good and bad. It made for a nice day, but now, he was in the uncomfortable position of somehow letting her know exactly who he was.

This was all Keenan’s fault. At practically the last minute, Keenan let Gage know he and Avery had to finish a job in Corpus Christi, which meant Gage had to cover. That required an unexpected all-day drive back from the expo. The morning after his late night dawned way too early—a malfunction of his fisherman’s early-morning internal clock. If he hadn’t been so stinking tired, he wouldn’t have allowed things with Brynn to go so awry. He’d pay for it eventually.

Instead of setting things straight, like an idiot, Gage had allowed the misconception to continue as the two of them worked in tandem. Because Nora had slacked off in ordering replacement stock over the summer, it took far less time to empty the room of the portable products than Gage had expected. The hardest part was scrounging up enough boxes and bins to temporarily store everything, but a couple of visits to nearby boutiques replenished their supply.

“Hi, Brynn!” The jewelry boutique owner next door seemed genuinely happy to see her when the two of them walked into her shop. With the familiar greeting, Gage had to wonder if the two were old friends, though the proprietor had to be fifteen years older than Brynn.

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