Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews

Author:Mary Kay Andrews [Andrews, Mary Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

The girl who answered the door at Ebbtide looked only vaguely like the Ellis Sullivan Ty had seen on the beach and on Sunday night at Cadillac Jack’s.

Ty was no fashion expert, but it looked to him as though Ellis had been transformed. She was wearing some kind of lacy, low-cut black lingerie-looking top with a cobwebby jacket sort of thing over it. The hem of her skirt barely brushed the tops of her knees, and she was wearing some ridiculously high heels. Her hair was in some kind of sophisticated updo, with earrings that nearly brushed the tops of her nearly bare shoulders.

She opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch, giving him a shy smile. “Hey,” she said.

He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help himself. “You’re beautiful,” he blurted. Mental headslap. Of course she was beautiful. Ellis Sullivan was beautiful in those goofy cupcake boxers, with her hair in a lopsided ponytail. But tonight, she was different. He’d have said she looked spectacular, if he were the kind of guy who ever used the word “spectacular.”

Ellis blushed. “Julia and Dorie double-teamed me,” she said. “I feel sorta like Cinderella. This is all borrowed finery. The only thing I’m wearing that’s my own is my panties.” She gasped and blushed even harder. “Sorry. TMI again. You seem to have that effect on me.”

“Whatever you’re wearing, it’s working,” Ty said. He gestured down at the khaki slacks he’d so laboriously pressed and the starched white button-down shirt, which he’d found still in the dry-cleaner’s bag at the back of his closet, along with his navy blazer, which he hadn’t worn since the time when, in one last desperate attempt to rein him into the family fold, Kendra had dragged him to a cocktail party at her father’s country club. He’d even polished his best loafers until they shone like they hadn’t since the day he bought them. No socks, though. He had to draw the line somewhere.

“Sorry, but this is all my own stuff,” he joked. “Good thing Julia and Dorie aren’t here to see me.”

He took her hand and led her down the porch steps to the Bronco, which he’d washed and vacuumed earlier in the day. He’d even thrown away all the beer bottles and fast-food wrappers.

“Oh, they can see you, all right,” Ellis said, nodding her chin just slightly north. “They’re watching us from the window in Julia’s room.”

Ty glanced up, but all he saw was the slightest twitch of a curtain. “Let’s give ’em something worth watching,” he said, taking Ellis’s hand and kissing the back of it before he opened the car door and helped her in. Then he turned and waved, and the curtain twitched again. As he pulled the Bronco out of the driveway, he saw Ellis, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror.

* * *

He’d chosen a seafood restaurant in Duck, twenty minutes north of Nags Head. It was a tiny place at the end of a gravel road, at a marina overlooking the sound.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.