PROLOGUE
Summer, Five Years Ago
I cupped my hands over my eyes so I could gulp down the view. A sun- drenched bay. Water glittering like sapphires beneath rust-colored cliffs.
Seaweed lying in knotty nests on a strip of sandy shoreline. A wood-sided restaurant. Stacks of lobster traps. A man in hip waders.
Sea brine filled my nose and the putt-putt of a fishing boat my ears. A salt-kissed breeze sent the skirt of my dress flapping against my calves, and I smiled. It was everything I imagined my first Prince Edward Island vacation would be, minus one crucial detail. Bridget may have missed her flight, but I was here. And I was hungry.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust when I stepped inside Shack Malpeque. My attention went straight to the girl wearing fake red pigtails and a straw hat. She sat at a table by the window, and while her older brother watched the mussel farmers on the water, she plucked a thick French fry from his plate. She popped it into her mouth as she caught me staring, and I gave her a thumbs-up.
“Your problems will seem smaller once we get to the island,” Bridget had promised yesterday. I was slumped at the kitchen counter in our apartment, forehead on the granite. She rubbed my back. “Don’t listen to your parents.
You’ve got this, Bee.”
Bridget never used my given name. I was Lucy Ashby to most everyone in my life except my best friend. To Bridget, I was Bee.
I stood beside the hostess stand and a hand-painted sign that read SHUCK IT UP, the tang of malt vinegar in the air making my mouth water. The
mismatched wooden tables were full, and no one looked close to settling their bills. It was that kind of day.
As I was about to leave, a server with salt-and-pepper hair and three plates of lobster rolls balancing on the length of her arm called over to me.
“Take a seat at the bar, sweetie.” I twisted my neck to find a row of empty
stools behind me.
And him.
He was on the other side of the counter, head tipped down, shucking oysters. His white T-shirt strained against his arms and shoulders as he worked. His hair was a shade darker than mine—a deep chocolate brown, thick and wavy—short enough that it didn’t fall into his eyes but long enough for disorderly conduct, tumbling over his forehead. The urge to dig my fingers in it was sharp.
I watched his forearms flex as he sank a small wood-handled knife into an oyster, watched his wrist twist, prying it open. He wiped his blade on a folded tea towel and then slid it through the middle of the shell. The top was tossed aside. There was another flick of his knife, and then he set the oyster on a bed of crushed ice.
As I walked closer, he cleaned his blade again. Instead of plunging it into the next oyster, he paused and glanced up at me.
I almost stumbled. His eyes were the most dazzling shade of iceberg blue, striking against his deep tan. A cleft parted the center of his chin. His face hadn’t seen a razor in at least two days, and it was a study in contrasts. Strong jaw. Soft pink lips, the bottom fuller than the top. The bright eyes trimmed in black lashes.
He held my gaze for less than a second. I saw him, and he saw me, and in that blink of time, something passed between us.
A knowing. A need. A want.
Electricity.
My pulse raced, loud and insistent in my eardrums, and the weight of all the worry and fear and shame I’d been carrying since I told my parents about quitting my job slipped from my shoulders like silk.
He went back to work and didn’t acknowledge me when I pulled out a stool. I stared at his hands as he undressed one oyster after another with incredible speed. He dismantled a full dozen and set the platter at the end of the bar.
He looked straight at me then, and for a moment we both stared. There was something guarded about his gaze, a wariness that lingered under those bright pools. For a second, I saw a flicker of sadness, but just as I was wondering where it came from, it was gone. Up close I could see that his right iris had the smallest smudge of brown below the pupil. A tiny, perfect flaw. Suddenly it didn’t seem tragic that Bridget had missed our flight. It felt like destiny. This was, without question, the sexiest guy I’d ever seen.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Starving,” I replied, and I thought I saw his lip twitch.
“Where are you in from?” His voice was deep and as dry as birch bark.
His accent was thicker than Bridget’s—his you more like a yah.
“How do you know I’m in from anywhere? I could be local.”
He held my eyes. Again, an exchange. A current zipping along a live wire. His focus drifted to my hair—copper brown and braided into a crown around my head—and then to my outfit. His brow sketched up. When I planned my holiday wardrobe, I thought the dress was appropriately pastoral —an off-the-shoulder number in oversized red-and-white gingham. Anne Shirley with a modern twist. But maybe the puffed sleeves were a little on the nose.
He shrugged a single shoulder, a gesture that felt familiar. “Most islanders don’t dress like tablecloths,” he said, deadpan, as the server scooted behind him, batting him on the shoulder with a tut. I smoothed my hands over the cotton, frowning, then straightened the neckline.
He picked up another oyster and, after taking it apart, said, “It’s a nice tablecloth.”
“It better be. This tablecloth stretched my credit card within an inch of its life.”
“Don’t mind him, sweetie,” the server said as she took two platters of battered haddock from the kitchen pass. “He’s rusty. Thinks he can get by on
those eyes alone. Women appreciate manners, I keep telling him.”
I laughed. His gaze swung to mine at the sound, and I felt it again.
Lightning down my spine.
“Is that what women appreciate? Manners?” His voice was low, brushing across my collarbone, my shoulders.
I knew that tone. A flirtation. He was subtler than what I was used to— lacking the blatant pickup line and you can’t resist me swagger—but it was there. An invitation to play. A scene partner’s opening line in an improv. I could flirt. Flirting, I was good at. My lips tingled; a grin played on one side of his.
“I don’t know about other women, but this one would appreciate a menu.”
I leaned in closer. “Please.”
“Fair enough.”
But he didn’t obey my request. Instead, he grated a knob of fresh horseradish, which tickled my nose, and he placed it along with two lemon wedges in the middle of a ring of oysters. He set the plate and a bottle of hot sauce in front of me. Six glossy Malpeques.
“It’s on me.”
“Really?”
He moved down the bar. He wore jeans, dark denim and cuffed at the bottom, and a pair of black-and-white-checkered Vans. I watched his biceps as he poured a pint. He placed the frosty glass in front of me.
“Here you are . . .” He drifted off.
“Lucy.”
“Here you are, Lucy.”
“Thank you . . .” I gestured to him.
He wiped his hands on a tea towel, eyes fixed on mine like he needed to decide something before giving me his answer. “Felix,” he said after a moment.
“I’m not usually a beer drinker, Felix.”
“It’s a blueberry ale, made here on the island. Try it.”
I took a sip. It was ice cold and slightly tart.
“Thanks.” I set the glass down. “And you were right earlier—I’m not from here. I live in Toronto,” I said, picking up an oyster.
“Toronto,” he repeated, though it sounded more like Terranah. He nodded once, solemn. “Sorry about that.”
I gave him a crooked smile. “Don’t be. I like it. Most of the time. Have you been?”
“Once,” he said. “I was only there for a night, but it was long enough.”
I hummed. Toronto could be an acquired taste, and even though I’d lived there for seven years, I wasn’t certain I’d entirely acquired it. I topped the oyster with a pinch of horseradish and a squeeze of lemon and lifted it toward Felix in salute before tipping it back with my eyes shut. Fresh ocean salt hit my tongue, and with it a memory.
Bridget and I in our apartment last fall. We’d just moved in together and had spent the weekend unpacking and assessing. How did our stuff fit together? How did we fit together? By Sunday evening, we’d determined we had two can openers, no coffee table, a futon with an aggressively uncomfortable frame, and a lifetime supply of IKEA tea lights.
We were covered in dust and lying on our backs on the floor when Bridget jumped up and skated to the kitchen in her socks. She pulled a box of PEI Malpeques from the fridge. Bridget was a rare twentysomething with her own shucking blade, but I’d never had an oyster. She couldn’t find the knife in the chaos of newspaper and plastic wrap and cardboard, so she jimmied the whole batch open using a screwdriver she’d dug from her toolbox, face scrunched pink with effort.
“If you ever meet my family,” she’d said as I fished out a shard of shell, “swear you’ll never tell them what a shit job I did with these.”
We’d been friends for a year, and aside from my aunt, she was already my most treasured person in the world, but I fell a little more in love with Bridget that night.
She should be here for this. My first oyster on PEI. I’d seen her just that morning, but I suddenly missed her with such intensity, my throat ached.
When I opened my eyes, Felix was staring at me. I could have sworn I’d seen a hint of pain—a melancholy swimming beneath the blue surface. But it
vanished again before his mouth hooked up at one corner.
“Good?” he asked.
“Very.”
I shifted on my seat, crossing my legs. I could feel the beginnings of a blush. I wore my strongest emotions on my chest in bright red. It started between my breasts and crept its way to my neck. Felix’s eyes skated down, landing on the trio of moles below my collarbone.
“So what brings you to the island?”
“Girls’ trip.”
It had been Bridget’s idea. I would finally tell my parents I’d left my PR job, and then we would take a vacation to her family’s home on the island.
Two weeks of oysters, sand, and sea. Two weeks to unwind, with nothing to worry about. It felt like we’d reached a new level in our relationship. We’d been roommates for a year, and friends for a year before that, but you never really know someone until you meet their family. And I couldn’t wait to meet Bridget’s. She was the most confident, most capable, most bighearted person I knew, and I wanted to see where she came from.
Felix made a show of looking at the empty seats beside me. “Did you lose your friend along the way?”
Bridget’s parents were visiting friends in Nova Scotia until the following week, and her younger brother hadn’t responded to her texts or calls about my solo arrival. I was supposed to drive to their place and let myself in. “Go around the house to the deck,” Bridget had instructed. “There’s a spare key under the ceramic toad.”
I hated being alone as much as sitting still, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon lounging around the Clark house by myself, my parents’ displeasure reverberating in the quiet. I drove the rental car directly from the Charlottetown Airport to Shack Malpeque.
“My friend’s arriving tomorrow,” I said, holding Felix’s gaze.
He processed this information, head slanted to the side, squinting, and then he picked up his knife. I watched him shuck three dozen oysters in minutes, his hands moving with impressive speed. I was starting to think I’d read him wrong, when he spoke, eyes finding mine from beneath his lashes.
“Do you have any plans before your friend gets here?”
Maybe it was the beer or the buzz of being somewhere new, but I wasn’t usually so forward, so sure about what I wanted. “No,” I told Felix. “I’m wide open.”
His eyes expanded and then he cursed. A ribbon of blood unspooled down his arm. I grabbed a handful of paper serviettes from the dispenser, hurrying
around the bar.
“Are you okay?”
He lifted his hand over the wound on his left wrist, and I covered it with
napkins.
“I think you might need stitches.”
“It’s just a nick.”
I stepped closer, holding his arm, applying pressure to the cut.
“For the love of Mary,” the server called. “Clean that up, then get out of here.”
Still clutching his arm, I followed Felix into a tiny office, where he found a first aid kit in the desk drawer.
“Does this happen a lot?” I said as I wrapped his wrist with gauze. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin.
“No, Lucy. Beautiful women don’t tend to tell me they’re wide open
while I’m holding a sharp object.”
I smiled. “How about blunt ones?”
“Afraid not.”
“That’s a shame,” I said, not that I fully believed him. His face was the intersection of breathtaking and rugged. Plus, the hair and the biceps. I’d taken a good look at his backside, too, and it was outstanding. I bet Felix had heard one or two pickup lines involving shucking puns. I’d come up with at least five since I’d walked into the restaurant.
I fastened the bandage but couldn’t make myself let go of him. “Do you want to get it looked at?” I asked. “I can drive you to a hospital.”
“My arm’s fine.” Felix ducked to meet my eyes.
Spark. Fizz. Crackle.
“How about taking me home instead, Lucy?”
• • •
WE HARDLY SPOKE ON THE DRIVE, BUT THE AIR INSIDE THE CAR WAS BUZZING WITH anticipation. I could feel Felix’s attention roaming from my cheek to my shoulders. Lower. I’m sure he could see the pulse in my neck.
I was nervous, my stomach swooping and diving like gulls through an open sky. At twenty-four, I was familiar with no-strings hookups. Flings, dalliances, a night of fun, a few weeks of fooling around—casual was my specialty. But this felt different. Riskier. We hadn’t shared a meal, or a drink.
I hadn’t googled him. I didn’t know his last name or how old he was. Early twenties? All I knew about Felix was that he was hot, made shucking oysters look like foreplay, and he wanted to have sex with me.
I turned down his driveway, a red dirt squiggle through a celery-green field. Sprays of pink and purple grew in a fringe along the ditch. I rounded one bend, then another, and a house came into view. It stood proud in the distance, with graying cedar shingles and a roof that soared in two dramatic peaks at either end. The trim was fresh white, the front door a happy yellow.
The ocean sprawled behind it, a shimmering plain of blue.
“This is where you live?” I asked once I parked. The flower beds were fantastic. Peony season was over in Toronto, but here they were in full bloom. There must have been at least a dozen. Roses galore. Magenta clematis climbing a trellis. Snap dragons. Black-eyed Susans. I turned to Felix. “Is this your garden?” But he was already getting out of the car.
He walked around the hood, opened my door, and held out his hand.
Atlantic air filled my lungs as a strong breeze whipped my skirt around my legs. I laughed, trying to hold it in place, but Felix tugged me close. I forgot about the peonies. He was an inch or two taller than me, and we lined up perfectly, nose to nose, chest to chest, hip to hip.
“This is not how I expected today to turn out,” I said.
I caught the wink of a dimple in his left cheek as he smiled, no trace of the sorrow I’d sensed at the restaurant.
“No?”
His lips brushed against mine before they trailed down to my neck. I tilted my head back, gazing at a heron that flew above.
“Nuh-uh.”
His stubble tickled my skin as his mouth found its way to the triangle of moles. He placed a kiss on top of them, then tasted them with his tongue. I shivered.
“You mustn’t have done your research,” he said, lips moving to my ear.
“This is how we always welcome gorgeous women from away—a traditional islander greeting.”
It pulled a laugh from my throat. “If I’d known that, I would have come sooner.”
His hand curved around the back of my head. “I think your timing is impeccable.”
There was a thread of air between us, and we watched each other for one charged second, before snapping it closed. I wanted to go fast, but it started slow and soft, tentative, until Felix’s tongue slid past my lips. I leaned into him, my fingers migrating to his hair. He sucked my bottom lip, and I let out a moan. And then his teeth were there, dragging over my lip. His bite wasn’t hard, but it surprised me enough that I opened my eyes.
He inched back, gaze heavier than it had been moments ago. “Too much?”
I touched my mouth, shaking my head. “More.”
Felix led me into the house, and before I had time to gape at the view, we were kissing again. I reached for the hem of his shirt as I heard the metallic snick of my zipper, and then we were undressing and tripping over our clothes, climbing upstairs to his bedroom, a frantic tangle of limbs and laughter.
We fell onto his bed together, already naked. Felix’s body was all hard lines and shadowed ridges, as if it were designed for aerodynamics. His shoulders were broad, his chest solid and dusted with dark hair. I skated my fingers over his bronzed skin, marveling at the tight packs of muscle covering his stomach.
I didn’t notice much about his room, just the worn copy of Wide Sargasso Sea on his nightstand that caught my eye as he kissed his way down my body. It struck me, briefly, as unusual reading material for a guy in his twenties, but then his jaw scraped against the inside of my thigh, and I stopped paying attention to the decor.
The sun was setting, stripes of royal blue and orange rippling across the sky, when we decided we needed to refuel. Felix made dinner. Thick slices of crusty bread slathered with butter. A plate of juicy tomato rounds, salted and glistening with olive oil. Another of cold rotisserie chicken. Cheddar cheese.
Corn on the cob. We assembled open-faced sandwiches with the tomatoes and cheese and demolished the entire plate of chicken on the deck overlooking the gulf, him in a pair of boxer briefs, both of us wearing white T-shirts he’d retrieved from a drawer full of them.
The next time, we didn’t make it upstairs. We didn’t even make it inside.
Felix tasted like the summer-ripe tomatoes we’d eaten at supper—a fresh
burst of sun and salt.
More, I kept saying. More.
• • •
I WOKE IN THE MORNING WITH FELIX’S ARM OVER MY MIDDLE, HIS BODY WRAPPED around mine. We must have fallen asleep like that, though I had no memory of it. I lay still, not wanting to rouse him, not wanting to confront the inevitable awkwardness of morning. We had been frenzied last night. We were strangers who’d acted like long-lost lovers. I think Felix had needed to cut loose as much as I had. Surely we’d both be embarrassed in the daylight.
But then I felt the rasp of his jaw on my shoulder and the whisper of his lips on my neck. And it wasn’t awkward. It was slow and lazy and sweet, like warm caramel sauce sliding down a scoop of ice cream.
When we eventually pried ourselves apart, when I said I better get going, Felix told me I didn’t have to rush away.
“Have a shower if you want,” he said. “Do you drink coffee or tea?”
So I stayed. I showered. Felix had tea, and I had coffee.
“When do you need to leave to get your friend from the airport?” he asked. We were on the deck, he in the armchair and I in the corner of the outdoor sofa where we’d ravished each other the night before.
“Soon, I think. Her flight lands at twelve.”
Felix blew into his tea, and steam curled from the mug.
“I had a great time last night,” he said, lifting his eyes to mine. “I know you’re here for two weeks, but—”
I cut him off. “Felix, last night was . . .” Explosive. Hot as hell. Ruinous, probably. Legitimately the best sex I’d ever had. “It was . . . well, you were there. You know what it was.”
His eyes dipped to the flush blooming across my chest, pausing on the trio of moles. “I was there.”
I wanted him to know that we were on the same page. We didn’t have to have that talk. “What I’m trying to say is that I agree—it was tremendous.
Five stars. But I know it was a one-time thing.”
“It was more of a four-time thing.” His single dimple flashed.
“Right,” I said, my eyes catching on his.
Spark. Fizz. Crackle.
He cleared his throat. “Where are you staying? If you want, I can give you some suggestions for places to check out. I have a list for when someone asks at the restaurant. I left my phone in my buddy’s truck the other night, but I’ll text it to you when he drops it off today.”
“That would be great, actually.” I reached for my phone and opened my text chain with Bridget. “My friend grew up here, but she’s been living in Toronto for years now.” I read off the address she’d given me for Summer Wind, then glanced at Felix.
He watched me, unblinking, his face suddenly pale.
“What?”
It took him a few seconds to speak. “Are you sure?”
“I think so?” I read the address again. “Why? Do you know it?”
His eyes darted around my face. “You’re Bridget’s friend,” Felix said. “I thought you were coming next week.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then I spotted the green ceramic toad next to the sliding door. My stomach dropped, fast and hard, like an anvil
from a cliff’s edge.
“Oh my god.”
Bridget gave me just three rules for the trip.
Number 1. Eat your weight in oysters.
“You’re Bee,” Felix said.
I was shaking my head, even though he was right. I was Bee.
Number 2. Leave the city behind.
I tore my sight from the toad, under which I knew was a set of keys.
“You’re Wolf,” I murmured. “You’re Bridget’s . . .” The nausea hit me with such dizzying force, I couldn’t finish the sentence. I covered my mouth with an unsteady hand.
And Number 3. Don’t fall in love with my brother.
“Yeah,” Felix said. “Bridget’s my sister.”
