Sea of Love (Love in Bloom: The Bradens, Book 4) Contemporary Romance by Melissa Foster

were with his family? Should she?
    As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “Will you still be my date tomorrow?”
    When he smiled, Lacy’s pulse ratcheted up a notch again. “Are you sure?”
    Dane stopped walking and touched her cheek. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my whole life.”
    He stepped closer, and the memory of his kiss brought a smile to her lips.
    “Lace, I’m happier than I have been in a very long time,” Dane said.
    OhGodohGodohGod! “Me too.” Me too? What the hell is wrong with me?
    “Then, it’s a date.”
    They stopped to retrieve their shoes. Dane slipped his fingers into the straps of her heels, then picked up his dress shoes and carried them in one hand, never letting go of her hand with the other.
    Once inside, the lights of the inn were too bright, the hardwood floors smooth beneath her bare feet. Lacy held tight to Dane’s hand, not wanting the night to end. The middle-aged woman behind the counter smiled as they passed, and Lacy wondered if she could tell what they’d just done. She reached up to touch her hair, startled when she felt the mass of frizz that her corkscrew curls had morphed into. What was I thinking? She cringed at the thought of what she must look like. They took the stairs up to the second floor, passing a mirror that hung on the wall. She turned away, embarrassed, and made a mental note to be sure she looked great tomorrow.
    Standing before the door to her room, she felt her nerves tighten again. Should she invite him in? Would he want to come in? She dug through her purse for her room key.
    “I had a really nice time tonight,” Dane said.
    Lacy bit the inside of her mouth, afraid to lift her eyes and meet his. She wanted to kiss him again so badly that she didn’t trust herself. “Mm-hmm.”
    “You’re meeting your sisters in the morning, right?”
    She’d already forgotten. She grabbed her key card and fumbled with inserting it into the slot. “Yeah.”
    He nodded, and Lacy saw a question in the narrowing of his eyes and the nod of his head. He took the key card from her hand and unlocked the door.
    “After you meet Danica and Kaylie, since we don’t have to meet everyone until around four o’clock, maybe we can go for a sail,” Dane suggested.
    “On the boat you’re staying on?” Dane had borrowed one of Treat’s sailboats to live on while he was on the Cape. He’d lived on boats for so many years, he’d told Lacy that he missed the feel of the water beneath him when he was on dry land.
    “No. That one is in Chatham already. He has two other beauties. I’m staying at the inn tonight.”
    Here? Please don’t go .
    Dane pushed open the door and stepped closer to Lacy.
    “I want nothing more than to come inside and hold you in my arms until we both fall asleep, but I’m worried I’ll smother you,” he said.
    She reached for his waist. “Smother me, please.”

    Chapter Six
    “I CAN’T SEE how you’d expect anything else.” Kaylie wore a peach tank top and white shorts. Her blond hair cascaded in waves over her shoulders, one side tucked behind her ear. She lowered her big brown sunglasses and spoke to Lacy while looking over the rim of the frames. “I mean, you guys lusted after each other for more than a year. It’s only natural for you to end up doing the dirty on the beach.”
    Lacy and her sisters sat around a small wooden table on the patio of the Bookstore Restaurant, sipping coffee and nibbling on croissants.
    “I feel a little like I don’t know where we go next,” Lacy admitted.
    Danica set down her coffee mug and adjusted her sunglasses against the bright morning glare. “Lacy, you’ve had one-night stands before. Does this feel like that?”
    Lacy sighed. “No, definitely not. To be honest, afterward it felt kind of natural, like we’d been dating forever, but you know how that goes. I’m still in that afterglow stage. The God, he’s too good to be true haze.” She looked toward the beach, thinking of