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  “Well,” West said, once the women were out of earshot. “Beats the bachelor auction, hands down.” Then he hummed the first few bars of the Mission Impossible theme. “And good luck with the woman hunt, Hol.”

  Holly rolled her eyes as more good-natured teasing erupted. Ford kept his laid back to the point of coma grin pinned in place and let the comments roll off him because the only thing that spiked his interest was the sudden disturbance in the force of his and Holly’s friendzone. And if agreeing to Mrs. T’s idea meant he got a chance to understand what kind of disturbance it was?

  Win-win.

  ***

  Ford let Due South’s door hiss shut as he stepped into the chill night air. Behind him, conversation rumbled as the locals made the most of the last hour before West donned his manager persona and kicked them out. Light spilled from the huge picture windows facing Halfmoon Bay. He sniffed, closing his eyes a moment to savor the scent of brine from the sea, beer from a small foaming puddle left on the concrete steps and woodsmoke drifting from chimneys.

  Familiarity. Comfort. Home.

  Something he’d never take for granted.

  He zipped up his battered leather jacket and strode into the night.

  He trudged past the darkened windows of the garage workshop, paused and cocked an ear. His dad had a bad habit of forgetting to turn off the tunes at the end of the working day.

  The quiet call of morepork-morepork from the little owl hiding in the trees behind the workshop and the hiss of waves tumbling onto the sand broke the night’s silence.

  Light shone from the windows of Holly’s house tucked further up the hill. He continued past then doubled back. Maybe she’d thought he wouldn’t notice her slipping away early tonight—but he had. Like a tire pressure sensor registering a dramatic drop, when Holly left his space, he noticed.

  So he’d stop by, even though the sensible thing to do would be to text. A sensible but chicken-shit move. A chill raced up and down his spine. He told himself to man up as he hesitated in front of Holly’s front door. After a brief self-wrestle where he stomped on his yellow-bellied soul, Ford knocked.

  A few moments passed, and then footsteps padded on the other side. The door opened to Holly, hand on the hip of striped pajama bottoms washed so many times the navy had faded to a mid-blue. Mussed brown and pink hair was flattened on one side of her head, and her tee shirt had a couple of chocolatey smears. Drifting out from the living room behind her came the guitar riff from Supernatural—Holly’s comfort-binge-watch DVD series.

  Oh. Hell.

  But he was here now, so time to face the music.

  “What season?” he asked.

  “Four.”

  Tension oozed out of his upper back muscles. Season four wasn’t worst-case scenario, meaning it was safe to engage. “Can I come in?”

  Part of him studied her reaction, maybe even a little hopefully, seeing if she gave any reaction to being caught with mussed hair and chocolate crumbs on her shirt. The kind of embarrassed reaction a woman aware of a man who wasn’t her brother or best-fucking-friend-forever might show.

  Holly crooked an eyebrow and gave a pointed glance over her shoulder. “You better have a damn good reason for dragging me away from my guys.”

  Not even a blush as her bare breasts shifted under her tee shirt. His gaze dropped—straight to the men’s woolly rugby socks on her feet.

  Oh yeah. The cement confines of friendzone had him good and locked down. Obviously, his overactive imagination had been called into play earlier.

  “I need a reason to hang out with you now?”

  He stepped into her hallway, skin prickling as he caught the whiff of dark chocolate on her breath and her flowery shower gel that cost over ten bucks a bottle. Insane—but he had to admit the flowery stuff, combined with her naturally appealing female scent, made for a taste-encouraging combo.

  Holly turned away from him with a loud pfffft sound and strolled into her living room. Ford shut the front door and followed, finding her already draped over her sofa.

  She snatched up the remote from her coffee table. “No changing channels.”

  Ford peeled off his jacket and tossed it onto the armchair. The lights burned brightly in the adjoining kitchen, including the desk lamp beside Holly’s laptop. The glittering scales of a Pisces fish print on the wall sparkled in the lamplight and highlighted the row of family photos atop a small bookshelf. Framed photos of her older brothers and sisters, posed grins of her nieces’ and nephews’ school portraits, and one—only one—of Holly and her parents. A picture of a pig-tailed kid in shorts and flip-flops, taken at the nearby Ulva Island Bird Sanctuary. Holly’s parents had their arms around each other, while Holly stood in front, her eyes squinting a little in the sunlight.

  Had she ever noticed how her parents appeared to be looking slightly off to the side? How neither of them laid a hand on her shoulder to show their solidarity as a family? Ford sank into the armchair next to the sofa. Projecting his own botched-up issues onto other people. He had to kick the habit.

  He leaned forward and snatched a chunk of dark chocolate off the plate, used it to point in her direction. “You knew about Mrs. T’s batshit idea.”

  “Yup. I knew.” Holly hit the remote’s pause button and crossed her sock-covered ankles.

  Ford shoved the chocolate into his mouth, crunched, swallowed.

  Holly’s eyes narrowed. “You’re meant to suck it and savor it, you chocolate plebeian.”

  “So you keep telling me.” He ran the tip of his tongue around his teeth. “Why didn’t you give me a heads up?”

  “Maybe I wanted to see you squirm—though I didn’t see much squirming. That led me to the conclusion you don’t think the idea’s batshit at all.”

  “A man has nee—”

  A small cushion smacked into his head and cut off the rest of the word.

  “Hey. You have a problem with me going on a few dates? ‘Cause you sure seemed happy to fix me up at the pub.”

  Holly snatched another chunk of chocolate. She nibbled a corner then let it rest on her lower lip. She pulled the chunk from her mouth, and the tip of her tongue swept out and licked the spot of melted sweetness.

  Damn. His cock twitched.

  Ford dropped the cushion into his lap and all casual like, rested his hands on top. “What’s bugging you?”

  She bit the chunk in half and sucked, cheeks hollowing under her killer bone structure, studying him with eyes close in color to the chocolate she nibbled on. His skin tingled, and goddammit, his cock hardened further.

  “I just don’t want you hurt, sweet.” Holly sat up, sliding one of her long legs under her butt and leaning forward. “Some of the women on dating sites only want one thing.”

  “Please say long hours of sweaty sex.” Ford twitched his eyebrows and grinned.

  Holly rolled her eyes. “After that, they’ll want a ring on it at some point.”

  “Ah.” Ford adjusted the pillow, stretching out his legs. “You know, I don’t have a commitment phobia…unlike my brother.”

  Holly flinched. A tiny movement—a jerk of her chin upward, a flash of some indefinable emotion flickering through her eyes. Enough to remind him of the reasons he’d tried to smother the spark of attraction toward Holly these last three years. While she probably thought she’d done a bang-up job of hiding her emotions toward Harley, now a hot-shot artist in New York, Ford knew better. He’d witnessed the whole blushing giggles and walk-past-their-house stalker moves, the just-happen-to-be-at-Russell’s-at-the-same-time coincidences and dreamy stares when Holly thought Harley couldn’t see her. Granted, she’d been a teenager at the time, but it was still one of the many reasons he and Holly were better off as just friends. The other biggest reason being, he didn’t want her hurt either.

  “I got no problem settling down with the right woman.” He paused, waiting until her gaze, which for a few moments skipped around anywhere but on his face, returned to him. “But I won’t settle.”r />
  Settle for being the second-best brother to get a shot with Holly. Second-best anything.

  “That narrows down your dating pool,” she said.

  “Yeah, it does.” He scratched a thumbnail along the cushion’s plump edge. Scowled at the thin line of grease still remaining under his nail. “Me being a prize catch and all.”

  Holly pulled an exaggerated lip pooch. “Aw, sweet. You want me to tell you what a big, strong, sexy beast you are to make you feel a widdle better?”

  “Jerk.”

  She snickered and pointed a finger. “Bitch.”

  Since his groin had settled down after the ice-water-dousing reminder of Holly’s crush on his twin, Ford threw the cushion back at her.

  “I want you to tell me you’ll help with this online hook-up thing,” he said.

  “You really want to try find a woman this way?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are not many single women on the island.”

  “Erin’s single. And pretty. And she feeds your caffeine addiction.” She tucked the cushion under her head, wriggling to get comfortable.

  “True. Don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for the whole fake spider in her lunchbox prank.”

  “Like you, holding a grudge is one of her super-powers.”

  “That, and she bosses me around like a little sister.”

  “No chemistry, then?”

  “Neutral pH.”

  “Damn.” Holly ran her fingers down a lock of hair, separated it into three strands and started to braid. “Tarryn?”

  The bad-ass Department of Conservation worker who’d arrived in Oban a year or so ago. Still a newcomer, so far as Island-time was concerned.

  “You kidding?” Ford stole another chocolate chunk. “She’d eat me alive.”

  “There is that. What about Bree?”

  “Queen Bee? You made me watch Frozen, against my better judgement.”

  Holly laughed and nudged her sock-covered toe against the hand he had draped over the armchair. “Remember a few days later, you called her Elsa by mistake? Gawd, I’m sure actual razor-sharp icicles shot out of her eyes and speared your nuts to the wall.”

  She laughed again, and Ford felt the corners of his mouth turn up. He scrubbed a hand down his jaw and chuckled with her. “So you admit I need to cast the net a bit wider than Oban.”

  Holly stopped giggling, her lips thinning into a terse line before easing into neutral. She lifted a delicate shoulder. “Maybe you were right before. I do know what sort of woman you’re attracted to.”

  He arched his eyebrows and Holly cut him a pointed look.

  “Short, blonde, big tits, on a working holiday.”

  Ah. So she’d noticed. Well, he couldn’t deny it, but he sure as hell wouldn’t discuss his type with her. How his “type” was deliberately her polar opposite.

  He crooked an eyebrow and waited, playing the struck-dumb-male card. On any other woman, this wouldn’t be an act—he didn’t have an innate charm gene like his mate West or Kip, Due South’s barman. But Holly was different. She didn’t fill his silences with non-stop chatter. She didn’t interrupt when he spoke, and she didn’t finish his sentences if he took too long saying them.

  Again, she waited him out, toying with the thin braid she’d woven into her hair, watching him from beneath lowered lashes. His heart gave a hard kick before it dropped like a rock into his gut. Before he could tell her he’d changed his mind and would stick to the occasional blonde on holiday, she picked up the small laptop from the coffee table.

  She opened it, sliding him an indecipherable glance. “Let’s find you a woman then, sweet.”

  Chapter 3

  Creating a profile on Kiwi-Match was like being sixteen again and attempting to get his learner drivers’ license with the same testing officer who’d failed him on his first attempt. Only worse, because this was Holly. She’d seen him fail at the “meeting women” thing more than twice.

  Her fingers tapped over the keys, brow in cutely concentrated wrinkles.

  “This covers all the basics.” Holly clicked her tongue and sat back to study the screen. “Looking to meet women aged twenty-five to thirty-five, relationship not hook-up. You’re twenty-nine, star sign Scorpio, dark brown-blackish hair, brown eyes, about six feet tall, body type athletic, dress style—” Holly scanned him from plaid shirt down the legs of his ripped-knee jeans to the toes of his socks—which oops, had a hole in the big toe.

  He wriggled said toe, and she huffed out a sigh, returning to the screen.

  “Dress style, casual. Non-smoker, social drinker, never married, no dependents. Occupation, mechanic. Hobbies include rugby, playing the guitar, reading, watching movies, and trivia. All good so far?”

  Ford nodded, then his lip curled. “God, I sound boring on paper. Like every other jackass listed.”

  “At least your profile will pass the level of a twelve-year-old’s spelling and grammar. Can’t say the same for some of these guys.”

  “Women pay attention to that stuff, huh?”

  “Betcha ass we do.” Holly clicked around a bit more. “Since you refuse to answer the more personal questions about what you’re looking for in a woman and what your ideal date is, there’s only the photo to go.”

  “I’m not refusing to tell you what my ideal date is. I’ll fill it out later,” Ford said. “I just don’t have much experience with the whole dinner and movie thing.”

  “That’s because when you eat, you’re one hundred percent focused on food.”

  “I like food.”

  “And you like movies because it means you don’t have to make conversation.”

  Ford made a shooting motion at her. “Bullseye.”

  “You’ll have to step up your game if you want to impress.”

  “Yeah.” The prospect didn’t fill him with a bunch of feel-good fuzzies. Not, say, like a quick drink in a noisy bar, a movie at the tiny theatre, and afterwards, an invitation to playtime in his bedroom where he could impress. While his conversational skills sucked, he’d better uses for his mouth that women didn’t object to.

  “Stop thinking about doing one of your tiny blondes and concentrate.”

  Ford glanced up to Holly’s frown.

  “And come over here and tell me which of these photos you want me to use—unless you’ve got a better one?” she added.

  Ford pulled a face. “Do I look like the type to have a stash of selfies on my phone?”

  “You’re the type who bitches whenever you spot a camera aimed in your direction.” She patted the couch cushion next to her. “Which is why I’ve only managed to find three photos to choose from.”

  He sat next to her, careful to keep a gap between their thighs.

  “First one I saved from the Oban News after the Thunderbirds won the tenth quiz night in a row,” she said.

  “I look half pissed.” Ford grimaced.

  “True.” Holly clicked, and a second photo appeared. “You and the guys after this year’s Waitangi Day touch rugby game, where we girls righteously kicked your sorry butts.”

  He nudged her elbow. “Gloating is beneath you.”

  “It so isn’t. What do you think?”

  “I’m covered in mud, and my eye is starting to swell from where your elbow accidentally encountered it.”

  Holly blew another raspberry. “You want me to add doesn’t take being beaten by a girl well, to your profile?”

  “What other photos have you got on that computer? Me as an eight year old, dressed up as a Jedi for Halloween? Or me at fourteen with the science fair trophy? Or maybe dressed in the hired penguin suit at the bachelor auction?”

  “Hey, I bid three-fifty on you in that tux. I’m bummed I didn’t get a photo.”

  “I’m not. Besides, any woman who wants to meet me because of a tux will get pissy when she sees the real deal.”

  “Here’s the real deal, then.”

  She clicked, and the last photo appeared, showing him dressed in his greas
e-smeared coveralls and wearing a cheesy grin, leaning against a ute part way through a clutch repair. Holly stood beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, a brightly colored gift-bag dangling from her fingers. His birthday last year, when she’d surprised him on his morning break with coffee, cake, and the latest Game of Thrones DVD. She’d insisted Ford’s dad take a photo of her and the birthday boy, and she’d wrapped an arm around his waist and leaned in with a cheesy grin of her own.

  “Best of a bad bunch,” Ford said.

  “It’s not bad. At least you’re smiling.” Then she clicked some more and the photo of the two of them cropped to just him, with only a glimpse of her dark hair draped over his shoulder.

  Without Holly in the shot, he looked like a grinning moron.

  “There, that’s better.” She clicked back to the open Kiwi Match tab and hit upload. “I just need to confirm your details, and then we wait for all the women to fight over you.”

  Tiny nerve endings prickled across Ford’s shoulders. He glanced sideways at Holly, who remained staring at the screen. If he didn’t know better, he’d think there’d been an edge in her tone. An edge ground against the green-eyed monster’s razor-sharp teeth. And if the green-eyed monster stirred at the thought of other women being interested in him, what would happen once a real woman became involved?

  Probably nothing, because if he was correct about the jealousy, maybe it simply meant they’d become reliant on each other’s friendship, and she didn’t want that to change. But it could be interesting testing the limitations of that friendship and finding out, once and for all, if there was any escape from the friendzone.

  If he even wanted to escape.

  Ford propped up his feet on Holly’s coffee table. “Hit send. This is gonna be fun.”

  ***

  Writteninthestars.com Daily Horoscope.

  Pisces.

  While honesty is the best policy with interactions with friends, sometimes tact and flattery can smooth troubled waters.

  Waves slapped against the pylons of Oban’s wharf as Holly hurried toward The Great Flat White Café for the girls’ monthly breakfast. The first ferry headed for Bluff on the mainland had left thirty minutes ago, so the wharf had emptied out. With winter in full swing, the busy season’s many watercraft anchoring in Halfmoon Bay harbour had left. Only boats owned by the hardy, year-round residents remained—including Ben’s boat, The Mollymawk, rolling restlessly in the choppy waves of a gathering southerly.