Love on Lido Key: The Keys to His Heart, #2

By Meg West

Janie Alexander never expected to find herself widowed at age twenty-seven--nor did she ever dream she might find her second husband by fulfilling her promise to her first husband to watch the sunset every night on Lido Key. 

 

Nick Costas is just the opposite of Janie's first love.  He's dark-haired, muscled, unreserved, openhearted, and quintessentially working-class Greek.  At their initial meeting, Janie is drawn to his good looks, but also his kindness.  Nick recently lost his mother and sympathizes with Janie's descriptions of watching her husband succumb to cancer.  He alone of all her friends seems to understand grief. 

 

Janie and Nick's budding romance, however, isn't looked upon kindly by Janie's uptight former in-laws  nor by Nick's old-world family--in particular, his superstitious father and trio of sisters that Nick has dubbed "The Furies."   Janie has three strikes against her:  she's been married before.  She isn't Greek.  And she isn't Nick's former girlfriend, Daphne.  

 

As the anniversary of her first husband's death approaches, can Janie find the strength to beat off these naysayers and win Nick's heart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Champagne Book Group
• Release date: May 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781947128354

Book preview

Champagne Book Group Presents

Love on Lido Key

The Keys to His Heart, Book 2

By

Meg West

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Champagne Book Group

www.champagnebooks.com

Copyright 2018 by Meg West

ISBN 978-1-947128

April 2018

Cover Art by Abby Rose

Produced in the United States of America

Champagne Book Group P.O. Box 467 Oregon City OR 97045 USA

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not buy it, or it was not bought for your use, then please purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

For my nephew, who loved the ocean.

One

Every night Janie Alexander drove to south Lido Beach to watch the sunset. Some nights it was a bust. But most of the time the she was treated to a spectacular show, with the sky bursting into every color of the palette.

She hoisted her red sand chair out of her Fiesta and padded in her flip-flops through the sea grapes and thick grass. The dunes were studded with burrs, so she didn’t kick off her sandals until she was on the beach proper.

Tonight, the tide was low, the wind was still, and waves lapped at the shore. She unfolded her chair halfway between the dunes and the water’s edge, covered it with a striped towel, then waited for the show to begin.

She wasn’t completely alone. A trio of solitary regulars kept her company. First came an older man passing a metal detector over the sand. Janie didn’t know what he hoped to discover—a gold watch, a diamond ring?—but he never seemed to find anything. Another barefoot guy, dressed in dirty Hawaiian shorts and torn white T-shirt, brought bread crusts to feed first the seagulls and then an enormous raccoon that waddled out of the sand dunes, sending the gulls into a frenzy of flight over the water.

Lastly, on the tip of the island, always stood a salty old fisherman wearing a khaki cap and rolled waders, casting his line to catch the leaping mullet.

These were the single men who surrounded Janie. They nodded at her; she nodded at them. But they never waved or said hello. She watched them go about their business in the fading light, the way she used to when Matt had sat beside her in his matching chair. Then the sun swelled to a fiery circle that hung in the red and orange sky before it dropped to the horizon as quickly as a tennis ball released from God’s hand.

Janie pulled down her floppy hat to shield her eyes. Tonight, the sun seemed especially bright as it sank. Then she realized why. Somewhere on the dunes, maybe when she bent to pluck a burr off her ankle, she had lost the tortoiseshell sunglasses Matt had given her on her last birthday.

Panic rolled through her. Everything she saw in the world, from the abandoned pillows on his side of the bed down to every grain of sand below her feet, reminded her of Matt. But those Wayfarer sunglasses were her last link to him. He had picked them out of a catalog and had them delivered to the nurses’ station on the fourth floor of Sarasota Memorial.

Happy birthday, Janie, he told her. Take these to the beach and watch the sunset for me every night you have the chance.

It won’t be the same without you, she said.

I’ll be there even if I’m not there. And then, don’t worry, there’ll be somebody else.

I don’t want anyone else.

You’ll find him. I know it.

It had been almost a year but seemed like yesterday that Matt sat next to her in his matching chair, handing her another bottle of beer and telling her, Let’s stay a little longer and watch the stars.

The pink sky dimmed and blossomed into a blue and purple bruise. Janie gripped the arms of her chair, ready to leap up and search for her dead husband’s last gift to her, when a voice behind her asked, These your sunglasses?

Matt had been tall, thin, and pale, and his light brown hair bordered on blond. This guy was dark-skinned and dark-haired, with a roughness about his face that told Janie that no matter how closely he shaved, within half an hour he was going to look unshaven again. He had on olive-green surfer shorts and rubber fisherman’s sandals. She tried hard not to stare at his muscled bare chest as he stood over her.

Thank you. She took the sunglasses. My husband gave them to me.

The guy jutted his chin at the fisherman. He catchin’ anything tonight?

That’s not my husband.

He back at the hotel?

She heard Matt’s voice in her head: Tell him I’m home. Tell him I’m sunburned. Or just tell him the truth. My husband’s dead.

Whoa, the guy said. I’m so sorry.

Thank you. I’m just… well, he gave me these sunglasses and I… Janie stood so she could look him in the eye. Thank you for finding them.

No problem.

The wind whipped at the edge of her gauze tunic, pulling the fabric against her bikini, which she had worn just in case she grew overheated and wanted to plunge into the gulf. Are you here on vacation?

My father just moved into a retirement home off the causeway. He rubbed his shoulder. Or I guess I should say I’ve moved him. I’ve been hauling boxes of junk upstairs all day. Figured I’d come out here for a swim and cool off. He tilted his head. You been in the water?

She shook her head. I came to watch the sunset.

Beautiful tonight. I never see anything like this at home.

Where are you from?

Originally? Tarpon Springs. But now I’m based in St. Louis. You?

Baltimore, Janie said.

You an Orioles fan?

She shrugged. I don’t follow football.

The Ravens are football, he said. The Orioles are baseball.

Guess that answers your question.

Most guys Janie knew would get bent out of shape that she didn’t know her baseball from her football.

This guy just laughed. There’s a double-header on tonight, if you want to root twice for your home team.

I haven’t lived in Baltimore in a while.

You here visiting family, too?

No, I live downtown now.

Sarasota’s a nice place to hunker down, he said. Although I gotta say, there’s a lot of old people. Or maybe I’m just thinking that because I’ve been around nothing but senior citizens all day.

How long are you here for?

A week, ten days. Figured I’d help my dad get settled and enjoy the beach. But I forgot how hot Florida gets this time of year.

It’s pretty unbearable during the day, Janie said. But the nights are nice.

He stared out over the bay. The waves lapped in; the seagulls flew in formation. Doesn’t get much better than this.

This is pretty much perfection. She tried not to look at him when she said it. The pull toward his body was so strong she put on her sunglasses, sandy earpieces and all, to hide her attraction. Don’t let me keep you from your swim.

You going in yourself?

Not tonight.

You’ll be here when I come out?

I stay late every night, she said. I like to watch the stars come out.

See you in a few, then.

He stepped out of his sandals and strode down the beach straight into the water. He went under. When he came up, he rubbed his eyes and gave her a wave before striking out for deeper water.

He was a powerful swimmer—just as fast coming back in to shore as he went out. His chest hair was plastered against his skin and his swimming trunks dripped water when he returned to where she sat.

Janie handed him her towel.

Thanks. Forgot to bring one.

She was glad she still had on her sunglasses so he couldn’t see how closely she was watching him wipe his face and rub his chest and shimmy the towel against his back. The towel, striped black and gold, looked good against his olive skin.

He held out his hand. Now that I’ve dripped all over you, my name’s Nick.

She took his hand. Jane. I mean, Janie.

Only Matt had called her Janie, so she surprised herself by giving away her nickname to this stranger.

Janie, he repeated. That’s a pretty name. Kinda old-fashioned. He rubbed his hair with the towel. "My parents used to call me Nicky, except when I was in the doghouse for pestering my sisters. Then it was ‘Nicholas!’ followed by a flood of angry Greek."

Were your parents born in Greece?

Born, raised, married. Then they came here and opened a pizza joint in Tarpon Springs. You ever been to Tarpon?

Janie nodded. The first time she had come to Florida to meet Matt’s parents, her future in-laws Peg and Ed Alexander had been polite, but not especially eager to accept Janie. So Janie had savored the afternoon she and Matt had escaped from Peg-n-Ed by driving to the Greek fishing village of Tarpon Springs. There they had browsed the shell shops and watched a demonstration of sponge diving.

Afterward Matt, who was crazy for Mediterranean cuisine, had taken her to one of the dozen Greek restaurants on the docks where they sampled spanakopita bursting at the seams with spinach, grape leaves glistening with lemon juice, baba ghanoush glowing with olive oil, and bitter olives they sucked until only the hard pit remained in their mouths.

Janie stuck to a familiar entrée—moussaka—but Matt had been much more adventurous, ordering a seafood medley that consisted of tiny silver fish that looked like sardines, fried octopus, and even eels.

Was your parents’ restaurant on the docks? she asked Nick.

Hell no. The rents there are astronomical. Our place was in a strip mall off Route 19.

Did you work in the restaurant?

Did I work! You name it, I did it: bussed, washed dishes, tossed the trash. Only thing I didn’t do was wait tables. My father got my sisters, who were a lot better-looking than me, to take care of that.

A drop of water beaded on the bottom of his swim shorts and fell onto his foot. Nick was so good-looking that Janie could only imagine his sisters were gorgeous—just as dark as Nick, with thick hair, soulful eyes,