Romance by the beach 5 EBOOK bundle

Touch Me
Tempt Me
Tease Me
Tame Me
Best Christmas Ever

Sneak Peek of Best Christmas Ever

Chapter 1
Roxie

I ran faster than I’d sprinted in years. Pumping my arms and legs, I dug my toes into the impossibly soft sand, desperate to stay in front. Reaching out with my arms, I stretched my fingers skyward. The brim of my big floppy hat flicked up, improving my view, and I was so excited about being in the lead that I began to giggle.
Giggling and running were not in my repertoire. My arms flailed, my rhythm skewed, my right big toe clipped my left ankle, and I fell forward, hitting the sand knees first. I did a somersault of Olympic proportions and face-planted with my mouth open.
Raising my head from the sand, I spat out a crunchy mouthful and groaned. My lanky arms and legs had failed me so many times I should have expected this outcome. For as long as I could remember, I’d been a klutz. My brain signals seemed to struggle to communicate along the length of my long limbs.
Glancing up the beach, Gunner dove for the Frisbee. He clutched it mid-air and flipped backward like he was a stuntman. I’d seen my share of stuntmen. and if my sixteen-year-old nephew continued developing the way he was, I could get him a job in that profession if he wanted.
The three kids turned toward me, and their hysterics capitalized on my embarrassment.
Piper skipped toward me, grinning. “You okay, Aunty Roxie?” Piper could barely speak through her giggling.
Pushing up onto my knees, I groaned as I brushed sand off my hands. “Yeah, yeah, I’m all good.” I crunched sand between my teeth and tried to spit it out. I rubbed my chin, wiping away the coarse dribble. “I did it on purpose.” I lied, nodding with conviction. “I wanted one of you three to win.”
“Told you I’d beat ya.” My nephew, Gunner, tossed the Frisbee into the sand near my knees.
I rose to my feet and dusted sand off my chest. I looked down. I was covered in so much sand I looked like a crumbed sausage. “Alrighty, who wants a swim?”
Cheering, the three kids raced to the tumbling waves and didn’t stop until they could dive into the water. Shuffling behind them, I tried to ignore the hideous scratching between my thighs as I made my way to the water. I glanced up and down the beach and was grateful it was still deserted.
After that spectacular tumble, I’d have to run the gauntlet of sniggers from the holidaymakers for the rest of the week. The small holiday park we were staying in had just thirty or so sites, and it seemed like everybody knew everybody.
Not me though, it was my first time here. Like every other year, my sister had begged me to join them on their annual Christmas holiday by the seaside. I had managed to make excuses every year, until this one.
Being single, and with my parents still on their never-ending international sojourn, I had nobody else to spend Christmas with and if my sister hadn’t insisted, I would have spent the holidays at home alone with my cat, Crazy.
After three days of non-stop activities with my sister’s kids, the idea of curling up with a book and my cat sounded absolutely perfect.
Then again, I had hoped this little escape from reality would be a nice cleansing for my soul. It probably would be if I didn’t spend nearly every waking moment surrounded by three kids. The threesome had some kind of energy superpower and could maintain high-octane activities from the moment they woke until they were forced to go to sleep at night.
I strolled into the impossibly blue water, which was as refreshing as it was beautiful. Once it was up to my thighs, I lowered beneath the surface and spent the next ten minutes trying to eradicate the sand out of all my orifices. The kids dove through the never-ending waves, laughing and giggling every time they surfaced.
Piper could keep up with her brothers any day. She was both the middle child and the only girl and despite being only nine years old, she was an expert at manipulating her two brothers so that at least one of them was always on her side. Her brothers had no idea what she was doing, and I liked to think I’d influenced that character trait in my feisty young niece.
The sun moved out from behind one of the very few clouds in the sky, and the harsh rays penetrated my flesh again. As much as I’d like to stay in the water for the rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t. My skin and the sun were not friends. If I had any more sunshine, I’d probably need cortisone injections and a couple of bottles of wine just to get me through the night.
And if I did make it through to morning without medical intervention, come tomorrow, my skin would look more hideous than some of the characters I’d helped create in the Guardians of the Tomb movie. And that was saying something; those costumes were some of my best creations.
I stood and waited until the three children had their heads above the water. “Okay kids, who wants an ice cream?”
“Me! Me! Me!” They cheered simultaneously.
I led them from the water toward our towels which were positioned in the shade of a tree that looked like it had been battling coastal breezes for decades. Within a few strides, it was apparent that I hadn’t fully removed all the sand from my body, and I walked with my legs apart in a very unsexy sand-in-my-crack crab shuffle.
I plucked my towel from the sand, shook it out, draped it across my shoulders, and stepped back into the shade. Once out of the sunshine, the temperature seemed to drop a good five degrees. A slight breeze drifting off the ocean had a lovely freshness about it, and I inhaled long and deep, enjoying the momentary silence.
“Are we getting ice creams?” A small hand slotted into mine, dragging me from my minuscule reprieve. I opened my eyes to Chase, peering up at me with his big blue eyes. The kids were relentless, and after three days, I needed a break. Even if it was for just half an hour. “How about I give you five dollars each, and you get your own ice creams?”
“Yay!” They jumped up and down like they had tadpoles in their swimmers.
I plucked twenty dollars from my pack and handed it to Gunner. “Okay, that’s five dollars for each of you, so I want five dollars change. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I eyeballed the three of them. “No messing around either.”
Squealing, the threesome raced along the beach, parallel to the shore for about a hundred feet, then they climbed the embankment and disappeared into the spindly grasses.
The silence was an instant relief.
Despite my crunchy crack situation, I billowed my towel out on the sand and plonked down in the shade. Leaning back on my hands, I closed my eyes and listened to the tumbling waves. I sighed at the serenity, folded my legs into a cross-legged position, and rolled my head from side to side, moaning at how good it felt.
Voices cut into my bliss, and scowling, I snapped my eyes open. It was the bloody Abernathy family. All six of them. In an awful repeat of each time I’d seen them over the last three days, every one of them seemed to be in verbal competition with the others for attention. They were loud and irritating as hell. And if they stopped to chat with me, I’d be stuck with Joan Abernathy for the rest of the afternoon. I learned that mistake on day one in the holiday park.
I wriggled off my towel and, crouching low, I ducked behind the tree’s trunk. Holding my breath, I spied on the family of six, desperate to see if my escape had gone unnoticed.
Yes. So far, so good.
A bird tweeted above me, and I searched for it in the tree. The foliage was sparse at the base of the tree, but it became a dense canopy a third of the way up.
It was the perfect place to hide.
I shoved my pack and hat into the scrub behind the tree and did something I hadn’t done since I was a teenager - I climbed up a tree. The dozen or so bangles on my wrists jingled with each movement, and I was certain the racket could be heard a mile away. The climb was easier than I predicted, and other than the sand in my butt threatening a painful rash, I made it up without incident.
And considering my unruly limbs, that was a triumph.
Standing on an enormous branch, I clutched a higher limb and, peering through the branches, I watched the Burton’s amble along the beach. With each step they took, they grew louder. It seemed that every word they spoke was tempered with rage.
I found myself holding my breath as they neared. I was so still I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. When they had passed right by me, I let my breath out in a big huff.
Finally, they took the same path my nephews and niece had taken to exit the sand, and then peace, my lovely friend, returned to the beach.
The tree was the perfect vantage point. I adjusted my position and sat with both legs on the same side of the branch like I was on a swing.
I scanned the beach. Not a single soul shared this paradise with me, and that’s exactly how I liked it. To my left, high up the ridge, was the old lighthouse. I’d walked the kids the three miles up to the whitewashed building on the first day I’d arrived at the holiday park, but almost the moment they reached it they wanted to leave again. We didn’t even climb to the top of the tower.
Straight ahead, far in the distance, a couple of boats headed toward each other, seemingly on a collision course. But they cruised safely past each other, one heading into the calmer waters and the other heading out to the deep sea.
To my right, the beach curved around the corner and disappeared. Beyond that was the vast blue ocean, and the distant horizon was dotted with giant ships.
I was in heaven.
A new noise crept into my bliss, and I looked over my left shoulder. The noise was someone whistling, and a few heartbeats later, I saw the source of the melody. A man stepped through the knee-high grass along the top of the ridge. By the confidence in his stride, he seemed to know exactly where he was going.
My tree.
I did a quick calculation of his advancing stride versus my ability to climb down and escape. I wouldn’t make it in time. Holding my breath and clutching the branch, I watched his approach. His head was lowered, possibly watching his step, and his Panama hat concealed his face. But I didn’t miss his physique.
Based on the sculpted torso that played peek-a-boo through his open button-up shirt, he looked after himself better than most men I knew. And being in the film industry, where almost everyone was trying to stand out from the crowd, that was a big claim.
He stepped into the shade, strolled to the front of my tree, and stood with his hands on his hips, looking out to sea.
I didn’t move. I barely breathed.
Along with chunky jewelry, hats were my thing. I liked to consider myself as a bit of a hat aficionado, and the hat this man was wearing was a statement. He hadn’t just whacked it on; this hat showed style. And class. Just like his clothing. His shirt was navy blue, dotted with tiny sailing boats; the sleeves were rolled up once or twice, revealing a hint of shapely biceps.
I guessed his age was in the late thirties, maybe early forties.
He let out a huge sigh, squatted down, and plonked his bum on the sand.
Great. Just great.
He removed his hat and ran his hands through his hair. As it tumbled back into place, I noticed a decent peppering of gray through his thick mop. Either he was older than I thought, or he was a little unfortunate. He bent forward, and when he slipped off his boat shoes and rolled up the cuffs of his chinos, I nearly groaned aloud.
Damn. He’s planning on staying a while.
Options raced through my mind like a spinning roulette wheel. . . stay where I was and remain completely still so my abundant jewelry didn’t jangle. Pretend I hadn’t noticed him arrive and act surprised when I climbed down. Or make a big show of getting down, like climbing trees was something I did every day.
Round and round, the debate went, and the whole time, he just dug his toes into the sand and flicked it away as if he had all the time in the world. I wondered where he’d come from. Definitely not the holiday park I was staying at. I would have noticed him.
Especially dressed like that. He looked to be all class, not like someone who holidayed in the cheapest form of vacation accommodation on the Gold Coast.
No, he’s come from a hotel. A fancy hotel with swim-up bars and an overpriced day spa.
Which made me even more curious about why he was here. This beach was one of the least populated on the coast. And as the beach was situated at the junction where the river met the ocean, it was a fairly long drive to get here. It was probably only promoted by word of mouth.
Fingal Beach had none of the fanfare other Gold Coast beaches had. No bikini bodies bathing in the sun on enormous towels. No golden-skinned beauties ready to spray on sunscreen for the price of a dollar. No showers, beach umbrellas, public toilets, or even surf lifesavers.
This beach was for those who wanted to escape.
Like me.
The flesh on my bum was beginning to sting, and I imagined the bumpy pattern of the bark seat embossing my flesh. I’d have an interesting design there when I finally climbed out of this tree.
My constant surveillance downward made my neck ache. And pins and needles were attacking my toes.
I had no way to tell the time, but as the sun inched through the leaves above me, I felt like I’d been in the tree for hours.
The man rubbed sand off his fingers, laced his hands behind his head, and, to my horror, he eased backward.
My breath caught. Every muscle froze. My mind screamed at me to do something.
But his eyes were closed as he let out a sigh and wriggled into position.
I held my breath and admired the handsome stranger directly below me.
Then he opened his eyes.

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