And Then Forever Read Online Free

heard Darcy laugh, that deep, rolling laugh of hers that slid through a man like butter, and he shifted on the stool to watch her.
    She was talking over her shoulder to a customer as she walked toward the kitchen, her hips sashaying in cutoff denim shorts and scuffed cowboy boots. She had on a double layer of skinny strapped tank tops, white over hot pink, yet the satin edge of her pink bra still peeked out from beneath the criss-crossed straps. It was sexy and sassy, and something so outside the realm of the world where Kincaid traveled that it sent a hot rush of desire through his veins. He wondered if she still had the belly ring, if it would still lure him like a bee to the petals of a flower. She was all wrong for him—she always had been and always would—and maybe that was part of why he still wanted Darcy as much today as he had when he was nineteen.
    She’d barely glanced his way. He wasn’t sure if she even recognized him. Though, given the way things had ended between them, he couldn’t blame her for acting like he was a stranger. He had been the one in love back then, he realized later, because Darcy had ended their relationship as quickly and coldly as ripping off a bandage. Everything she’d said, all the promises they had made had evaporated the day he got that note telling him it was over.
    Didn’t matter. He wasn’t back for her. He was back for a second chance. Not for him, but for someone else, someone who needed it far more than Kincaid.
    Whit slipped onto the stool beside Kincaid and signaled to the bartender for a glass of water. Kincaid had always liked Whit, who was like a second father to pretty much every young person on Fortune’s Island. He’d known Whit most of his life, back in the years when Whit had worked part time for Kincaid’s father, then later, when Kincaid had made The Love Shack his second home over that long, hot, lazy summer.
    Of all the people in the world that Kincaid had on speed dial, Whit was the only one that Kincaid knew he could ask a favor of, and Whit would say yes without hesitation, without a question and without judgment. So when Kincaid had needed help, there’d been no question who he would call.
    “So, you still interested?” Whit said.
    Kincaid nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”
    Whit paused a moment. He stared at his crossed hands, measuring his words before he spoke them. “You sure about this?”
    Kincaid grasped the beer bottle. It was hard and solid and real in his palms. “No. But that doesn’t matter.”
    “Your father—“
    “No longer runs my life. I’m too old for that.” Not to say his father wouldn’t do what he could to make Kincaid’s life miserable, because that was pretty much Edgar Foster’s number-one job these days. Didn’t matter. Kincaid could take it. His little sister, Abby, was not so strong, and Kincaid aimed to do what he could to protect her. Fortune’s Island wasn’t far enough from Edgar’s reach, but it was where Abby wanted to be, and right now, that was all that mattered.
    Whit dropped a key on the bar. “The place is nothing fancy, but it’s clean.”
    And off the radar. Not far enough off for Kincaid’s liking, but no matter how much he had argued with Abby, she had insisted that Fortune’s Island was where she wanted to be. “Thanks, Whit.”
    “Anytime.”
    Kincaid curled his hand around the key. “How can I repay you?”
    Whit waved that off. “No need. We’re square.”
    Darcy walked by just then, her hips swaying to the beat on the jukebox, her hair swinging like a golden sea along her shoulders. The cowboy boots ended just below her knees, exposing a long, creamy expanse of flesh up to her denim shorts. Kincaid’s chest tightened.
    He knew what it felt like to run his hands down those legs. To have her curve into him and say his name in that low, dark whisper. To feel her tremble beneath him, like the low rumblings of a volcano, with that heavy, hot promise in the air of an explosion to