Page 59 of Ghost Note

With a sigh, he looked down into my eyes again, and his body relaxed. “It really matters to you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” Danny hitched my bag up farther onto his shoulder, and he ran his tongue over his bottom lip, making the muscles in his jawline twitch. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Daisy, yeah.”

I sighed, too, the weight I lost on that exhale a relief. “Thank you.”

“But you have to promise me something in return.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll help me clear it out. I loved Gran, and I knew her fairly well, but I’ve been gone a while, and I’ve got a feeling I’ll need you to tell me what I need to keep and what can be thrown away. After all,” he raised a brow, “you seem to know what’s important more than I do.”

“Are you bribing me into spending more time with you?”

“One hundred percent.”

“You’ve no shame.”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” I grumbled, copying his frustrated tone when he’d agreed to my terms. “But I’m doing this under duress. I don’t see why you can’t call Brodie in to help you.”

“Brodie hasn’t been back to Hope Cove in about seven years. You know that.”

“Dammit.” If Danny hadn’t been there, I was pretty sure I would have stamped my foot in frustration. I was losing traction with him, and my feet were now on icy ground, slipping and sliding all over the place, but always in the general direction of the only guy to ever break my heart. We were a car crash waiting to happen, and not even I, the victim, could look away.

“I don’t like you, Danny Silver,” I said without any conviction whatsoever.

He laughed softly and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Keep telling yourself that, Zee. I’m starting to find it cute.” He began to guide me towards the steps, and he glanced over the edge when we reached them, scoping out the surroundings. “It looks clear to me. I’ll go first.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as eggs is eggs.” Danny grinned.

“Now I know you’re trying to get on my nerves.”

With a sexy chuckle that shouldn’t have made my knees go weak, Danny offered me a wink and a shrug before he climbed over the edge and began to descend the stairs.

“Stop saying that,” I warned as I strutted towards him wearing nothing but the red lifeguard swimsuit I had to wear whenever I was on duty. Danny was in the water, while I cleared up after everyone else had left—the pool now closed for the day. “It drives me crazy.”

“What? Why?” He laughed, shaking the water out of his hair before he ran both hands over it and dropped his arms over the ledge to prop his chin on. He looked up at me through those big green eyes that were my weakness, desperate to win me over.

“As sure as eggs is eggs,” I mocked. “Why can’t you just say you’re certain? You’re sure. You’re positive.”

“Because I don’t fucking want to.” He laughed. “I like that saying.” Danny jumped up out of the water, pressing all his body weight onto his arms and making the ever-growing muscles in them pop. The water dripped from his tanned skin, making me stop in my tracks and just take him in. “If you’ve got a problem with it, Daisy, you should come over here and whisper it to me with a kiss.”

“You fight so, so dirty,” I moaned, unable to stop myself from closing the distance and crouching down in front of him. I pinched his chin between my finger and thumb. “Remind me why I love you so much?”

“Because we belong together.”

“I thought you had plans to conquer the world, one guitar gig at a time.”

“There’s no rule to say I can’t do that with my girl by my side.”

---