A VERY UN-SHAKESPEARE ROMANCE: ‘A Fake Dad Grumpy Sunshine Romantic Comedy’

A piercing scream rent the air.

Lily winced, tying her blue and white-flowered sarong in place, as she headed to the patio door to look out at their new neighbors. The tourist season was waning, so they’d been able to rent out the place next to the O’Connors’.

Sure enough, Cassidy’s arms were flailing in the air on the beach as she ran toward the ocean. Robbie had already pushed off the ground to give chase, barely missing the massive sandcastle he and his brothers were building with Reagan. Someone clearly had a flair for architecture, with the whimsical round towers and detailed turrets running between.

“It doesn’t sound like all is going well in fake Daddydom.” Sheila whistled. “This is the third time that munchkin’s gone for the waves. Lieutenant O’Connor doesn’t look too thrilled. I think you’d be the perfect treat to soothe his tangled nerves, Summer.”

She crossed her arms as she regarded her partner. “You’re seriously sticking with that name?”

Laughing, her partner cocked her hip. “You betcha. Summer Sunshine is the perfect cover name for a girl from Florida who’s a speech and language therapist in Orlando. No one would ever be suspicious of someone with a name as sweet as that. Plus, I call you Sunshine all the time, so I won’t accidentally blow our cover. It’s the perfect backstory to help us establish rapport with our subjects next door so we can ferret out what they know about Tara. We have to find her before the Kellys do, because if you’re right and she wasn’t involved, they’ll likely kill her. She won’t be able to be a material witness against the Kellys if she’s dead.”

There were plenty of other reasons they didn’t want Tara O’Connor to end up dead. Lily’s gaze tracked to the two little girls making sandcastles on the beach. No child should go through that.

“Sitting here and doing remote surveillance until Tara O’Connor maybe shows up isn’t going to break this case open. Didn’t we both go to the FBI undercover school to enhance our careers?”

Her partner’s last question was a little on the cheeky side, but it was undeniably true. Separately, they had both enrolled in the specialized school, which made them eligible for cases where going undercover was deemed necessary to gather more evidence. No one could deny the advantage it provided. When the undercover agent managed to create trust and camaraderie, intimacy even, persons of interest got more comfortable and shared things related to their case.

Having an innocuous given name for this undercover assignment couldn’t be more important. No one in their right mind would suspect Summer Sunshine of being an FBI agent, even Robbie O’Connor, who’d been a cop long enough to be suspicious to his core. Plus, she’d known people who went by some version of that name. Granted, it was only in hippie and New Age circles. Maybe that was why it bothered her, given her background.

“Fine, I’m Summer Sunshine.” She fought a frown.

“It totally suits since you’re so sweet… Now, based on my assessment of our neighbors, I’ve ruled out Tim O’Connor for an approach—too nice and steady, based on his social media, which would need a longer approach. That leaves the other two. You have a better shot cozying up to Lieutenant O’Connor with your bleeding heart background while I’m more Billie O’Connor’s type. Again, his social media tells the story. He seems like an easy come, easy go kind of guy who likes a voluptuous gal like me. They’ll be putty in our hands.” Sheila had the audacity to make kissing noises.

Lily grabbed her coconut water and drank deeply to disguise the nerves that started jumping when she thought about kissing Robbie O’Connor. So not professional and something that might not even happen. Kissing while undercover was something she’d successfully avoided so far. “Not if one of them realizes you’ve taken your cover name from two very famous movies. What if someone puts two and two together?”

Sheila gave her a gentle punch in the arm. “Oh, please. No one’s going to hear Clarice Malone, snap their fingers, and say, hey, you combined two characters from Silence of the Lambs and The Untouchables. Not even Jodie Foster or Sean Connery, God bless his soul, would pick up on that.”

“Just don’t do your Sean Connery impression. It’s not the greatest, but everyone in the FBI who hears it knows who you’re doing.”

“You’re just getting the usual undercover heebie jeebies!” Sheila half hugged her. “Come on. We should be enjoying this! It’s not every day we do undercover at the beach. Hell, I’d be enjoying myself more if I looked that good in a bikini.”

Lily suddenly wanted to wrap her blue and white-flowered sarong around herself like a towel. “It’s just a swimsuit, Sheila.” They’d had a little undercover vacation shopping spree the previous evening after their operation had been approved.

“Not on you, Sunshine,” Sheila continued. “God, I envy you. When I wear two scraps of cloth over my unmentionables, I feel like one of those blow-up dolls men buy for—”

“You look great in a bikini, which is why you’ve been undercover as a stripper,” Lily reminded her. “I’d have trouble with that role without a rack.”

“I’d kill for your cup size,” Sheila said with passion, coming to stand next to her, drinking her Starbucks, dressed in yoga pants, looking like the casual city slicker from Washington, DC who was down for a much-needed vacation with her single friend. “Heck, I’d kill for your height too. If I’d wanted to be in the Bureau before 1975, it wouldn’t have even been possible. You had to be at least five foot seven.”

“Sheila, back then your bigger problem would have been that the FBI didn’t allow women until 1972.” Her partner had a good self-esteem, but she was teased mercilessly for being five-four and “rounding out a uniform,” as more than one jerk had said out loud. Not that Lily hadn’t had things said about her, but her height of five-ten was deemed more acceptable in an organization of mostly tall men.

“One of the first female agents had the last name of Malone,” Sheila said, “so maybe I’m honoring her.”

Lily had to think back to her coursework to remember the woman’s full name. “Susan Roley Malone. Nice ploy, but I still think you were going for the Sean Connery feel.”

Her partner gave her a saucy wink. “But you’ll be wondering, which is why I’m such a good undercover agent. I get into your head.”

That made her start laughing.

“All right. I think it’s time for your approach, Miss Sunshine. You finally look less stressed from all the hoops we had to jump through to get here.”

“Nah, this one was easy.”

Normally a field office liked to be in charge of what was going on in its territory, but given that the Kelly investigation was part of a big investigation out of Boston, their office was running it. And with money from their own budget, which the local office in Charlotte loved. Buck hadn’t had to do much convincing to let them run the undercover op independently given the Charlotte office was stretched to the limit with a manhunt for the kidnapper of a six-year-old boy.

Lily prayed they would find the boy soon, because the more time passed, the worse it would be. She’d be working on high-risk cases like that if she got her promotion, and nothing motivated her more than looking for a lost child.

She surveyed the two sweet little girls she was here to protect while conducting the case. Screaming aside, both children seemed fine. Reagan was trying to console Cassidy, who was wailing against Robbie’s shoulder now, pointing at the ocean.

“You look like the kind of sweet little neighbor who would offer assistance to a screaming kid.” Sheila slurped the last of her Starbucks. “No one would know in that getup that you’d been ‘sworn’ in as an officer of the peace today.”

“Stupid to be on an investigation and not be able to exercise our police powers on something other than a straight federal crime due to being in a different state than our HQ,” Lily bandied back. “Let’s hope we don’t have to bust anyone. We just need Tara to meet them here or have them tell us where she is.” Assuming they knew and had a way to communicate. They would be looking for a phone. Likely a burner.

“Or for the Kellys to find them.” Sheila opened the glass patio door. “Not that we want that, but it would help our case. We could bust them for more than money laundering and destruction of property.”

She cracked her neck, hating that the worse this situation got, the better her career prospects would be if she resolved it. “It’s a long way from Boston for the Kellys. All right, I’m going in. Wish me luck.”

“Say hi to that cat for me.” Sheila smacked her butt playfully—so not regulation. “That tracking device on its collar saved us.”

They’d peeled off from following the O’Connors when they’d gotten onto the main road taking them into the Outer Banks. At night, there weren’t many cars on the local roads, and Lily hadn’t wanted them to get suspicious. If they’d slowed down, they might have seen the Massachusetts plates on their vehicle, and Robbie was a cop—trained to notice such things. Besides, they’d needed to find a place to stay for the night and kickstart the paperwork needed to run an operation in another state. Two days later, she and Sheila had acquired a green Ford Taurus with Carolina plates they’d rented locally along with their strategically located rental house. With their cover stories in place, she didn’t see any reason the O’Connors would suspect anything.

“You’d better get going on that yoga of yours,” she told her partner. “We want to make sure Billie notices you right away. In case you’re wrong about their types.”

“I’m not.” Sheila grabbed her new sea foam blue mat and rolled it out as they slid the patio door open and walked across its length, one bigger than Lily’s current apartment. “I think I’ll bend over so he can see my ass. People are wrong about the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. For some men it’s all about the ass.”

She didn’t dignify that with a response as she flipped her sunglasses down and trotted through the sand to the beach. God, she couldn’t fault the view. They could only speculate about why the O’Connors were in this house on the Outer Banks, but Lily was betting Tara had arranged it. From the side windows of their rental, she could see into their house, and it looked very cozy for a bunch of bachelors. Theirs was similar—a bright home full of windows and decorated with beach themes and sayings. It was shades better than the flea-infested motel she’d stayed in two months ago the last time she went undercover, and truthfully, she loved the light and the space.

Billie O’Connor caught sight of her first. She knew he was thirty-seven—one year younger than Sheila—the second of the O’Connor kids, owned two mechanic shops in Southie, and had never been married. His driving record was somehow free of speeding tickets even though he owned a number of classic hotrods.

He grinned with male appreciation the second he sighted her. He nudged Tim, who’d just turned thirty, was the seventh kid of the eight, and had surprised her by being a nurse in a retirement home. That explained the more quiet and sensitive demeanor they’d seen on his social media compared to his other brothers. Robbie was still soothing Cassidy, bouncing in place in black swim trunks that showcased a very fit physique. Many cops his age didn’t keep in shape, but it seemed he did, and honestly, it was hard not to admire his body.

“Hey, neighbor!” Billie called, bringing her attention back to him. “I saw that we had someone move in this morning, and I must have the luck of the Irish, since you look like an angel sent from heaven.”

Oh, he laid it on thick. Tim rolled his eyes while Robbie’s gaze locked with hers. She felt a blip in her stomach as their eyes met. His were a deep, piercing blue. Attraction? Okay. She could work with that. “Not an angel. I have to say that’s the best sandcastle I’ve ever seen in real life. Did you make this?”

She directed her smile toward Reagan, who was quietly watching the scene in a mermaid-colored swimsuit that shimmered in the sunlight. “Yes,” she answered shyly, tucking her chin to her shoulder, “but I had lots of help.”

Cassidy’s crying shuddered to a halt as the little girl swung her head toward her sister’s voice. Lily regarded the curly-haired cherub with the wet streaks on her cheeks. Despite looking so unhappy, she looked adorable in her pink swimsuit with purple flowers. “Oh, sweetie, you look like you’ve cried yourself out. What’s the matter?”

The little girl started whimpering immediately, turning into Robbie’s shoulder. His large hands cupped her protectively. “She might need another nap.”

“She just had a nap,” Reagan said, digging in the sand with a red plastic shovel. “And she never cries like that unless something is wrong.”

Robbie’s face darkened as he patted Cassidy’s back. “Got any ideas for cheering her up, Reagan?”

She shook her head. “I gave her my Barbie to play with and that didn’t help.”

“Maybe it’s her tummy.” Lily ventured closer, aware of Robbie’s eyes following her every move. “I’m a speech and language therapist, so I work with children a lot. What did she eat today?”

“Our favorite,” Reagan offered, jumping up and coming over, clearly past her initial shyness. “Chicken nuggets. And Cassidy ate like twenty of them.”

Robbie cleared his throat as his mouth tipped up rather adorably. “She’s exaggerating.”

She gave an answering smile, sensing he didn’t want her to think badly of him. He jostled the little girl as they watched each other. Suddenly the hot moist air seemed to steal her breath. Tough and tender—a killer combination.

“Yeah, but she stuffed them in her mouth so fast Tim had to tell her to slow down or she’d puke,” Reagan said in a rush.

“Maybe it’s just a tummy ache, then,” Lily said, sharing a conspiratorial smile with Reagan. “When one of my students has one, there’s this point I massage. Would it be all right if I showed you?”

Robbie’s brow furrowed. “Ah…”

Trust was hard for him, and she imagined his protectiveness was off the charts given the current situation. “I promise it will help her.”

“You want to feel better,” Reagan said, gently touching her sister’s little foot. “Don’t you, Cassidy? Sometimes my mom massages her tummy.”

“Well, I’m only going to massage the fleshy area between her thumb and forefinger.” She cast another glance at Robbie, knowing he was sizing her up. “But only if you feel comfortable.”

She was aware of Billie and Tim watching the scene from their place in the sand. Obviously, Robbie was the lead decision-maker here. “If you think it will help,” he said after another long look, one that made her heart race faster. Because when he looked at a person, he really looked, and she hadn’t been prepared for the intensity.

Stepping closer to take Cassidy’s hand put her near enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. She could smell the sand, the surf, and something that was all man on him. God, it was potent, so potent her belly tightened. Her gaze took in his rippled muscles before she drew herself back. “Here, sweetie. Let’s see if this will help.”

As she massaged the soft impression slowly, Cassidy studied her with big blue eyes, clearly mesmerized. Lily was aware of Robbie’s regard as well, and she hoped he couldn’t see her pulse beating in her neck. Cassidy lowered her head slowly to Robbie’s chest, and Lily had to fight off another wave of attraction as his muscles flexed from reflexively tightening his grip on her.

“She seems a little calmer,” Robbie said quietly.

“Yeah, she is.” Reagan looked at Lily with a pinch of awe in her eyes. “That’s amazing. I’ll have to remember how to do that when she has another tummy ache. She gets them a lot.”

Robbie seemed alarmed by this news as he shot Reagan a concerned look before glancing back up at Lily. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and she had to fight the urge to take a step back from him to give herself room to breathe.

“Well, we don’t want to keep you from your swim.” He cleared his throat again. “It’s good to meet you. Ah…”

She found her cheeks warming, imagining what he would think of her undercover name. “Don’t laugh, but my name is Summer. It’s a joke for all seasons, especially with the last name Sunshine. I blame my New Age parents.”

“Summer Sunshine,” Billie drawled out in his rough Boston accent as he jumped to his feet. “I couldn’t think of a better name. I’m Billie. That’s Tim, our baby brother, and this here is Reagan. The baby you just soothed is Cassidy. We’re the uncles of these two beautiful little girls. And their dad is my brother, Robbie. He’s divorced, and this is his time with the kids.”

Lily couldn’t help but notice Robbie’s tight smile at the blatant lie.

“We’re here to help,” Billie continued, clearly selling it. “He’s also deeply in need of a vacation, as you can tell. I hope we see you and your friend around.”

She made sure to smile brightly and enjoyed watching Robbie’s eyes darken. “Hard not to run into each other, being next door. Well, I hope Cassidy feels better.”

A sound like mottled gunfire sounded from Cassidy’s diaper. Tim grinned. Billie winced. Robbie’s brows flew to his hairline.

“Well, I said she would feel better…” Lily managed, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

“Acupressure for the win,” Tim said, tipping up Cassidy’s little face. “All you had was a bad case of gas. No more crying now. Right, baby girl?”

“Man, Cassidy, you had a lot of magic inside you, didn’t you?” Reagan asked, patting her tummy soothingly.

Cassidy gave a wide grin at last, drool spilling from her mouth and onto her swimsuit.

An awkward silence descended as the air swam with the smell of rotten eggs. Reagan started gagging and holding her nose, making Cassidy laugh. Billie and Robbie shifted on their bare, sand-covered feet. Embarrassment was so not in their alpha vocabulary, and honestly, Lily could never have imagined a first meeting quite like this one.

Robbie winced after sending her a chagrined smile. “Ah…we’ve got a diaper to change from the smell of it. Again, thanks for your help. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other.”

“Yes, let us know if you need anything,” Billie said, his deep voice playful. “Sugar, milk, eggs. Adult conversation. We’ll need it after another diaper changing.”

That made Summer’s mouth twitch. “I’m sure you’ll be all right. You guys look pretty tough.”

“Some days it’s a mirage,” Robbie joked half-heartedly as he held Cassidy away from his chest.

“You guys are being such babies,” Reagan said with a snort. “It’s just a diaper.”

Robbie looked to be biting the inside of his cheek when he turned back to her. “Any chance you’re a miracle worker with changing diapers too?”

She gave it a momentary thought before dismissing it. She didn’t want to look that maternal. Somehow, she didn’t think it was the right note to set with him. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine. If you need a break afterward, you know where to find me and my friend. Good luck.”

She made a strategic retreat, waving as she started walking down the beach in the other direction. Stopping to pick up a seashell, she watched as Robbie strode to the house, the little girl babbling now as she twirled the ends of his hair, wet from his earlier dip in the ocean with her.

From his rigid gait, he clearly wasn’t thrilled to be on diaper duty. All of a sudden, she found herself wondering why he and his ex-wife hadn’t had any kids. Of course there were a million reasons people didn’t have children, whether they couldn’t or didn’t want to, but he was part of a big family. Had that cured him of wanting any of his own? God, she really shouldn’t be thinking about this stuff…

“So we’re babies, huh?” Billie plucked Reagan onto his shoulders, making her cry out in delight and clutch his bald head. “Did your mom pack a gas mask? Because your sister might look all sweet, but she stinks as bad as a Southie garbage truck.”

Reagan held on laughing as Billie started jogging toward the house, catching up to his big brother. Tim followed more slowly, picking up seashells in a way that suggested he was the romantic of the bunch.

Lying back in the sun, Lily wished her mind was on how good the warm sunlight felt on her skin. But all she could think about was how downright adorable Lieutenant O’Connor was when he was joking and looking repulsed at the thought of changing a dirty diaper. She could never have learned that from studying his file. Now she had a fuller picture. He was courageous, honorable, handsome, and funny. And smart. She couldn’t forget smart.

Summer also couldn’t let herself get too attracted to him.

She was, after all, here on a job.