Setting Sail

By Allie Boniface

Prequel to the Cocktail Cruise Series! >/b>
When real estate agent Jason McClintock discovers his billionaire client’s latest target is the historic diner owned and run by his high school crush, Pearl DeVane, things get more than a little complicated. Does forging a successful career mean giving up everything from his past, including the only woman to ever steal his heart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allie Boniface
• Release date: Feb 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311959393

Allie Boniface

Allie Boniface is the USA Today best-selling author of over a dozen novels, including the Cocktail Cruise, Hometown Heroes, Whispering Pines, and Drake Isle series. Her books are set in small towns and feature emotional, sensual romance with relatable characters you'll fall in love with.Allie currently lives in a small town in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York with her husband and their two furry felines. When she isn't teaching high school and community college English, she likes to travel, lose herself in great music, or go for a run and think about her next story. Take some time to browse around Allie's website, check out new and upcoming releases, and sign up for her newsletter to get a FREE read right away. You'll get all the news about releases before everyone else, along with free stories available ONLY to subscribers. See you in virtual romance-land!

Book preview

Prequel to the Cocktail Cruise Series

This is a work of fiction . Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Setting Sail

COPYRIGHT (c) 2015 by Allie Boniface

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

Cover Art by Wicked Smart Designs

Edited by Hot Tree Editing

Visit the author at www.allieboniface.com

Published in the United States of America

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Prologue – Ten Years Ago

Jace squinted at the neon letters at the end of the block. Dolly’s Diner beckoned them with its smell of greasy home-fries and coffee strong enough to walk on its own two legs. Good thing, too, because he was starving. It seemed like about a hundred years since he’d received his diploma earlier that afternoon and joined his buddies for a barbecue on the beach.

Beside him, Bryce stumbled as they crossed from the beach to the wide, empty avenue running parallel to the ocean. In the distance, a few wisps of bonfire smoke snaked up toward the sky. He belched loudly. You all see Loni Hammond tonight? Damn.

Toby steadied his friend as they passed the condos that lined The Esplanade. Yeah, we saw her. Saw her turn you down.

Screw you. Coulda had her if I wanted to. Bryce slung one arm around each of his buddies.

Sure you could’ve. Jace grinned.

Jus’ told her I couldn’t desert you two. Not on graduation night, anyway. Bryce led the way down the sidewalk toward Dolly’s, his voice drifting off as he looked up at the blinking red and blue sign. How many times you think we’ve come here in the last four years? A hundred?

Toby pulled open the door. Something like that. Bright light spilled onto the dark sidewalk, and a rush of air conditioning bit their cheeks. June in Florida promised hot and humid and never let anyone down. C’mon. I need coffee.

Despite the late hour, a handful of people sat at the counter, eating everything from eggs to apple pie to open-face steak sandwiches. A couple of guys who looked like truck drivers sat in a booth by the antiquated jukebox, their hands wrapped around coffee mugs. More wrinkled-faced men hunched over plates at the counter. A trio of overly made-up twenty-somethings giggled drunkenly around a table near the window. Pretty typical night at Dolly’s Diner. Jace, Toby, and Bryce fell into three vinyl-covered chairs near the narrow hallway which led to the restrooms.

The table was wiped clean, no napkins or silverware, and just two plastic menus wedged between the salt and pepper shakers. Geraldo stood behind the grill, spatula in hand, eyes on a yellow and white mess of frying eggs. Gino piled plates into a bin and backed his way into the kitchen. Dolly DeVane herself stood behind the counter, filling the coffee pot.

Well, hello there. Didn’t think I’d see y’all tonight, she said as she walked over.

Toby rested his arms on the table. Why not? We come here every Friday.

She crooked a brow. It’s your high school graduation.

Bryce wrapped an arm around the middle-aged woman’s waist. Aw, Dolly. You’d miss us if we didn’t stop by.

She smiled and shook her head. So you having the usual?

They all nodded.

Three coffees and three steak sandwiches coming up. She tucked her pencil behind her ear.

Thanks, Dolly. Jace shoved back his chair and headed for the men’s room. Be right back, he told the guys.

He walked down the dim hallway, eyeing the black and white photos which lined it. Dolly’s had been a fixture in the neighborhood since the early 1930s.

Hollywood stars, politicians, even a few members of foreign royalty had eaten there over the years. Pretty cool. He reached the men’s room and pushed on the door, but it only moved a few inches. The bulb at that end of the hall had burned out, so he couldn’t see much. He knocked, then tried again. This time the door shoved back, and a body full of curves and smelling like the ocean emerged. Long hair fell over her shoulders as she wheeled a mop bucket ahead of her.

Sorry, she said. Didn’t think there’d be anyone back here.

Jace’s cheeks went hot, and he stuck his hands in his back pockets. Hey, Pearl.

She steered the bucket toward the exit door. Hey, yourself.

It’s Jace. McClintock.

Dolly’s sixteen-year-old niece looked over her shoulder. I know who it is. She smiled, then ducked her chin.

Two years behind them in school, Pearl DeVane had the reputation of being one of the smartest girls at Venice High. In Jace’s opinion, she was also one of the hottest. She never wore revealing clothes or heavy makeup. She rarely partied. In fact, most of the time he’d seen her outside of school, she was at the diner, mopping floors or helping Dolly cook or sometimes sitting with her nose in a book if it was slow. But she had brains, bright blue eyes, caramel-colored hair and a smile that lit up the room. If he’d ever had the balls, he would’ve asked her out.

What are you doing here? she asked. She leaned against the wall beside him, and her perfume came to him again, a combination of sea water and flowers. Didn’t you guys graduate tonight?

Mmhmm. He couldn’t stop looking at her mouth, at her silhouette in the shadows. She wore dark shorts and a plain collared shirt with the diner logo over one breast, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered what she had on. Without warning, he turned rock-hard, and he hoped she wouldn’t glance down and see the way his shorts tented.

And you came to the diner to celebrate? She smiled, and a tiny gap appeared between her two front teeth. Had he ever noticed it? Had he ever stood this close to her before? They’d had one class together the year before, biology or chemistry or something. She’d sat in the front row, and he’d spent most of the year wanting to scratch the itch in the middle of her shoulder blades whenever her fingers wandered back to reach for it.

Shouldn’t you be having a big party with your friends, family, aunts and uncles and extended cousins and all that?

But Jace didn’t have the kind of family who celebrated high school graduations. He barely had family at all. We had our own party, me an’ Toby an’ Bryce, down on the beach.

Ah. She cocked her head. Sounds like fun.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for her, slipping an arm around her waist before he knew what it was doing. He pulled her into him, snug against his chest. Before she could say anything else, his other hand went to the back of her head. He tugged her hair the tiniest bit, enough that her chin lifted and her breath caught. That close, even in the shadows, he could see her eyes darken with pleasure.

Without the couple of beers he’d consumed earlier that night, and probably without the heady abandon of being a fresh high school graduate, he wouldn’t have had the balls to do what he did next. But in the shadows of a diner hallway at two in the morning, woozy from the late night and Pearl’s perfume, there wasn’t a thing stopping him. Jace bent down and kissed her. His tongue teased open her lips, and his thumb stroked the underside of her chin. Soft, pliant, delicious under his touch. For a second, the small sober part of his brain wondered if she’d stop him.

She didn’t.

Her tongue met his, equally curious and seeking, and her hands snaked around him. He moved his lips to her cheek, then her neck, then the soft spot below her ear. She trembled under his touch.

Pearl? Dolly’s voice echoed down the hall. You finish the bathrooms?

His eyes flew open. Pearl looked up at him, her own eyes glinting with laughter. We got caught. Her hands made their way from around his neck to her own front pockets.

Just about, she called back.

Shit, was Jace’s first thought. I don’t even know if she has a boyfriend.

Probably shouldn’t have done that since I’m leaving in the morning, was his second.

CHAPTER 1

Present Day

MCCLINTOCK. JACE ANSWERED his cell phone on the first ring.

You there yet?

He swung the Mercedes into a tight parking spot at the end of The Esplanade. Just arriving.

I’ve got two meetings back to back this afternoon. Evans will be here at six to hear your report. You’ll be back by then?

I should be. He climbed from the car and straightened his suit. The heavy Florida air swallowed him up at once, and perspiration broke out across the back of his neck. Damn August humidity. Shouldn’t take me more than a half-hour . I’m just laying the groundwork.

Be savvy. She’s said no to three other agents.

I’m always savvy. Jace crossed the street as traffic stopped at the light. That’s why you hired me, right?

Marshall Reagan, owner of the biggest commercial real estate firm in Tampa, chuckled. Damn straight. First time I’m letting you out on your own, though, so make me proud.

Jace intended to do just that. He knew what was riding on this deal: not only a role in developing one of the hottest properties on Florida’s Gulf Coast, but a promotion and a corner