Melting Into You

Chapter One (Scene 1)

Ben Harland slept late one Saturday morning and dreamed.

Not an inspirational dream or a combination of fleeting images jumbled into meaningless nonsense, but a down and dirty, Technicolor extravaganza involving Stewart Island’s seriously hot widow, Kezia Murphy. She smacked a wooden ruler across his knuckles as he slid a hand up her skirt.

“Worth it, babe.” He rolled onto his side, dragging his pillow with him.

In his head, Kezia’s no-nonsense boss rapped on the classroom door shouting at Ben to keep his hands and mouth off Oban’s prettiest teacher. Damn busy-body, he hadn’t even tasted Kez, yet, and—

The rapping from his dream merged with banging on his front door, accompanied by the repeated bzzzzt of the doorbell. Ben groaned and opened his eyes, flinging an elbow over his face at the sunlight streaming through his bedroom windows.

Kezia. Off limits—since lusting after her broke his personal decree: Don’t mess around with local women and/or one of your sisters’ friends. Yet he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

He flipped over to check the alarm clock. Nearly eleven. Late, even by his standards. But with no shark cage tours booked, he deserved to sleep in.

The doorbell gave another blast.

“Coming,” he hollered.

With a last longing squint at his mattress, Ben rolled off his bed and shambled halfway across the wooden floor before a chill whisked over his bare skin.

Oh. Right. Clothes.

Ben snatched yesterday’s jeans off the floor and yanked them on. Another flurry of knocks. Hell’s bells, what was their problem? Everyone knew everyone on New Zealand’s southernmost island, so why didn’t they just—

Bzzzzt.

His shoulders hunched close to his ears. First job after downing a gallon of coffee? Remove the doorbell’s batteries.

“The door’s unlocked. Just come in, for Pete’s sake,” he muttered, tugging a tee shirt over his head as he stepped out of his bedroom.

At the far end of the hall, a distinctively female figure stood outlined in his front door’s patterned glass, making no move to enter his house. The figure was too short for either of his sisters, and his mother would wear a red mini-skirt when a practical joker manhandled it onto her unconscious body. Kezia, she of the Mona-Lisa smile and wooden ruler, had a more conservative dress sense. And yeah, he’d noticed.

A potential client, maybe?

He zipped his jeans, checked the wall mirror and winced. Having nearly lost his diving business, he couldn’t afford to scare off customers. Fixing a welcoming smile on his face, he hustled down the hallway.

Ben opened the door to a blonde who had a big fake smile and bigger, faker boobs. Boobs trapped in a half-unbuttoned white blouse that threatened mutiny under the weight of so much cleavage. She looked to be in her late twenties, with an upturned nose, blue eyes, and a curtain of long, straight, straw-colored hair.

He didn’t know her.

“Hello, Ben.”

Or did he? Her slight nasal tone bristled along his nerve endings and tickled a vague memory. His smile flat lined.

The woman’s smile slipped at his silent regard and then grew wider. “Don’t you remember me, cutie? I’m Marci, Marci Roberts—well, Carter now.” She giggled, a shrill, twitter-y sound, snipped off when her teeth clamped down on her lower lip.

The name Marci Roberts didn’t jingle any warning bells, but the piercing giggle and “cutie” did. They jingled him back to his twenty-year-old self—back when he’d nail any willing woman.

For two nights they’d screwed like minks before she left for her home in—actually, he had no idea where she lived. He folded his arms. Why in God’s name was she on his doorstep?

The woman pulled a ridiculously pouty duck face. “I was here on holiday with my girlfriends nine years ago—”

“I remember.”

“Oh.” That giggle again.

Ben attempted a not-at-all-impatient smile. “Why are you here, Marci?”

Her blue eyes grew flinty and she sucked in a breath, which made her scary-ass boobs wobble. “Still not much of a conversationalist, I see.”

He shrugged. Why deny the truth?

She huffed, causing another boob wobble. “I’ll get to the point then. Jade?” She flicked her fingers at her side in a “come here” gesture.

Frost drifted down his spine. Jade? Her point was a semi-precious gemstone? What the—?

Ben stepped over the threshold. A little girl in a green dress and a pink backpack sat huddled on an over-turned suitcase in the corner of his front porch. Her sandy hair—tinged with auburn—was pulled into two pigtails and her hazel eyes, the same color as his sister, Piper’s, locked onto his.

His heartbeat hit warp-speed as Marci impatiently extended a hand to the girl. “Jade. Come say hi to your daddy.”