Hearts at Seaside (Sweet with Heat: Seaside Summers Book 3) Read online

  “Oh, thank goodness. I didn’t think my coworker would lead me astray. I guess I’ll go get my key.”

  She turned to leave and—holy mackerel—her bikini bottom was a thong. A thin piece of floss between two perfect buttcheeks. How had he missed that?

  It was all he could do not to drool. “Nice suit,” he mumbled.

  She looked over her shoulder. “Thanks! I saw the Thong Thursday flyer and thought, why not? I bought this suit when we were overseas and wore it there once. I brought it with me, but I never would have had the guts to wear it here, until I saw that you guys had an actual day for one.” She waved and disappeared up the steps to her apartment.

  Jamie spun around and scanned the bulletin board where the pool rules were posted. A blue flyer had been tacked front and center: JOIN US FOR THONG THURSDAY!

  Thank you, Bella.

  Jamie jogged up to Bella’s cottage. The screen door was open.

  “Bella?” Bella Abbascia owned the cottage across from the apartment Jessica was renting. She was the resident prankster. Her favorite person to play tricks on was Theresa Ottoline, the Seaside property manager. Theresa oversaw the homeowner association guidelines for the community—including the pool rules, which included a rule that clearly stated, No thongs on women or Speedos on men.

  Bella’s fiancé, Caden Grant, walked out of the bedroom in his police officer uniform. “Hey, Jamie. Come on in.”

  Jamie stepped inside. “Hi. I wanted to thank your fiancée for Thong Thursday.”

  Caden shook his head. “She did it, huh?”

  “Heck, yes, she did it, and…” Jamie looked out the window at the big house where Jessica was renting. The house was owned by Theresa. The apartment Jessica rented had a separate entrance on the second floor.

  “Did you see the new tenant? Jessica Ayers?” He whistled. “Hotter than Hades.”

  “I saw her sitting on her deck the other night when I pulled in, but I haven’t met her. Bella’s over at Amy’s with the girls.”

  Evan, Caden’s mini-me teenage son, walked out of his bedroom. Evan was almost seventeen, and this year he’d cropped his chestnut hair short, like his father’s. Over the year he’d grown to six two. His square jaw and cleft chin, also like Caden’s, had lost all but the faintest trace of the boy he’d been two years earlier.

  “Dude. You went running without me?” Evan, Caden, and their other buddy, Kurt Remington, whose fiancée, Leanna Bray, owned the cottage behind Bella and Caden, sometimes ran with Jamie in the mornings.

  “Sorry, Ev. Vera wanted to get a jump on the day, so I went early.”

  “That’s okay.” Evan glanced out the window in the kitchen and looked down by the pool, where Jessica was spreading a towel out on a lounge chair. “I was gonna go for a run, but if it’s Thong Thursday, I think I’ll go for a swim instead, then head over to TGG for the afternoon.” Evan had worked with Jamie for one summer, learning how to program computers, and he’d been working part-time at TGG, The Geeky Guys, ever since.

  Jamie set a narrow-eyed stare on Evan.

  “What?” Evan laughed.

  “Behave,” Jamie said, before walking out the door and across the gravel road to Amy’s cottage. Now I’m jealous of a kid?

  He glanced at the pool, tempted to put on his own suit and head down for a gawk and a swim. Instead, he headed across the gravel road to Amy Maples’s cottage.

  “Hi, Jamie. Just in time for coffee.” Amy handed him a mug over the railing of her deck.

  “Thanks.”

  Jenna Ward, a big-busted brunette, and Bella, a tall, mouthy blonde, followed Amy out of her cottage. They wore sundresses over their bathing suits, their typical Cape attire. The Seaside cottages had been in their families for years, and Jamie had grown up spending summers with the girls and Leanna Bray, who owned the cottage beside Vera’s, and Tony Black, who owned the cottage on the other side of Leanna’s.

  “Come on up here, big boy.” Bella waved him onto the deck and pulled out a chair.

  “I owe you big-time, Bella.” He sat beside her and placed his coffee on the glass table.

  “Most people do,” she teased.

  “I know I do.” Jenna had recently gotten engaged to Pete Lacroux, a local boat craftsman, who also handled maintenance for Seaside—and had been the object of Jenna’s secret crush for years. Bella and Amy had secretly broken things in Jenna’s cottage for several summers without Jenna knowing, to ensure that she and Pete would have reasons to be thrown together.

  “Thong Thursday?” Jamie shook his head. “You are a goddess, Bella.”

  She patted her thick blond hair. “Thank you for noticing.”

  “Leanna is going to be so mad at you for doing that,” Jenna said. “She doesn’t think our men need to see butt floss on any of us.” Leanna ran a jam-making business out of Kurt’s bay-side property.

  Bella swatted the air. “She’s staying at their bay house for a few days. She’ll miss it completely.” The lower Cape was a narrow peninsula that sprawled between Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The cottages were located between the two bodies of water, and both Kurt and Pete owned property on the bay. Caden and Bella had a house on a street around the corner from the bay, and all three couples spent most of their summers at Seaside and the rest of the year at their other homes.

  Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats had really taken off in the last two years, and since her business was run from a cottage on their bay property, she was spending more and more time there.

  “I’m sure Tony won’t complain,” Amy said with an eye roll that could have rocked the deck. Tony Black was a professional surfer and a motivational speaker, and Amy had been hot for him for about as long as Jenna had been lusting after Pete, but Tony had never made a move toward taking their relationship to the next level. Jamie didn’t get it. He’d seen Tony eyeing Amy, and Tony took care of her like she was his girlfriend. Amy was hot, smart, and obviously interested—Tony was a big, burly guy with a good head on his shoulders. They’d make a great pair.

  “Speaking of Tony, I saw him leave early this morning. He’s spending the day at the ocean.” Jamie sipped his coffee.

  “Good, then maybe he’ll miss the thong show, too.” Amy leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “Did you guys see the chick renting Theresa’s condo?”

  “All I know is that she’s smokin’ hot and she doesn’t talk much.” Jenna was busy resituating the top of her sundress, pulled tightly across her enormous breasts.

  “I don’t know what her deal is,” Bella said. “But she was yelling at her phone the other day.”

  “You mean yelling on her phone,” Jenna corrected her.

  “No, I mean at. She was staring at it, smacking it, and yelling at it.” Bella made a cuckoo motion with her finger beside her head.

  Nothing new here from the girls. A little jealousy over the new hot chick. Jamie picked up his coffee mug. “Mind if I bring this back later? I have to get going. I’m running into Hyannis to pick up a few things. You guys need anything?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  “You’re willingly going to miss Thong Thursday?” Bella put her hand to his forehead. “You must be ill.”

  No kidding. “One look at my butt in a thong and she’ll be chasing me around the complex. I wouldn’t want to subject you three ladies to that. It could get ugly.” He smiled with the tease.

  “Ha! Yeah, right. Like you’d ever wear a thong.” Jenna threw her head back with a loud laugh. “Are you guys coming to Vera’s concert tonight?” Vera had played the violin professionally when she was younger, and this summer a group of older Wellfleet residents had put together a string quartet and invited Vera to play. They never saw much of a crowd, but it got her out of the house and playing for an audience again, which she enjoyed.

  “I wouldn’t miss Vera’s concert,” Amy said.

  “Bella and I are going over together because Caden’s taking someone’s shift and Pete’s hanging with his father tonigh
t, working on a boat. I’ll ask Sky if she wants to come, too.” Sky was Pete’s sister. She’d come to the Cape last summer to run their father’s hardware store while he was in rehab, and she’d never gone back to New York other than to pack up her things. Now sober for almost a year, their father helped Pete with his boat-refinishing business.

  “Vera will be glad to hear it, and she loves Pete’s sister.” He glanced down at the pool, then headed for his cottage.

  “Wanna bet who’s gonna bang the new chick? Tony or Jamie?” Jenna’s voice trailed behind him.

  Jamie slowed to hear the answer.

  A crack of hand on skin told him that Amy had shut Jenna up with a friendly swat.

  (End of Sneak Peek)

  To continue reading, buy SUNSETS AT SEASIDE

  Sign up for Addison’s Sweet with Heat newsletter to be notified of the next release.

  www.Addisoncole.com/Newsletter

  More Books By The Author

  Sweet with Heat: Seaside Summers

  (Includes future publications)

  Read, Write, Love at Seaside

  Dreaming at Seaside

  Hearts at Seaside

  Sunsets at Seaside

  Secrets at Seaside

  Nights at Seaside

  Embrace at Seaside

  Seized by Love at Seaside

  Lovers at Seaside

  Whispers at Seaside

  Stand Alone Women’s Fiction Novels

  by Melissa Foster (Addison Cole’s steamy alter ego)

  The following titles may include some harsh language

  Chasing Amanda (mystery/suspense)

  Come Back to Me (mystery/suspense)

  Have No Shame (historical fiction/romance)

  Megan’s Way (literary fiction)

  Traces of Kara (psychological thriller)

  Where Petals Fall (suspense)

  Watermelon Jam

  1 three-pound seedless watermelon*

  2 1.75-ounce packages of powdered pectin

  8 cups white cane sugar

  2 tablespoons lemon juice

  Before starting the jam, boil the jars and lids in large saucepan so when you fill them they won’t break from the heat of the jam. Scoop out three pounds of seedless watermelon and place in blender. Finely chop the watermelon so that there are still small chunks. Place the watermelon in an 8-quart saucepan and bring to a boil; then add the pectin slowly. Keep stirring so that nothing sticks to the bottom. Bring it back to a boil and add the sugar very slowly so that you don’t drop the temperature of the mix too fast. Bring back to a boil for 1 minute and then fill your (already hot) jars. After filling the jars, turn them upside down for 5 minutes and then back upright. This will seal the jars. This recipe will fill 10 eight-ounce mason jars.

  It might take a large watermelon to get three pounds of fruit, so look for the largest one you can find.

  Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats are available from www.AlsBackwoodsBerrie.com, Amazon, and other retailers.

  Acknowledgments

  Spending summers on the Cape for what seems like forever has brought a whole new level of enjoyment when writing. With each book, I get to revisit my favorite place on earth and bring it to life for you. I hope you enjoy the antics of the Seaside crew, and to answer many readers’ questions, the Seaside community is a fictional one. Any similarities between the Seaside community in the series and real Cape communities are coincidental. You can look forward to reading more about Dane Braden and Lacy Snow’s love story in future Sweet with Heat novels.

  I’d like to thank Charles “Bud” Dougherty for helping me with all things boat related. Thank you for sharing your insurmountable knowledge and your excitement for nautical life. As always, you are a joy to chat with. I have taken fictional liberties in my story. Any and all errors are my own.

  Tremendous gratitude to my editorial team: Kristen Weber, Penina Lopez, Elaini Caruso, Juliette Hill, Marlene Engel, Lynn Mullan, and Justinn Harrison. Thank you, Elizabeth Mackey, for creating the perfect covers for the Sweet with Heat series and bringing my imagery to life.

  And a special thanks goes to Al Chisholm of Al’s Backwoods Berries, my partner in the creation of Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats and the best jam maker around. If you’re in Wellfleet during the summer, you can find Al and Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats at the flea market, or visit his website noted on the recipe page in this book. Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats are also available on Amazon.

  Last but never least, thank you to my supportive husband and family, who encourage me in every way and make my writing possible.

  Meet Addison

  Addison Cole is the sweet alter ego of New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Melissa Foster. She enjoys writing humorous, and deeply emotional, contemporary romance without explicit sex scenes or harsh language. Addison spends her summers on Cape Cod, where she dreams up wonderful love stories in her house overlooking Cape Cod Bay.

  Visit Addison on her website or chat with her on social media. Addison enjoys discussing her books with book clubs and reader groups and welcomes an invitation to your event.

  Addison’s books are available in paperback, digital, and audio formats.

  www.AddisonCole.com

  facebook.com/AddisonColeAuthor