Chapter 13
ADELAIDE
The beach at this hour is criminal.
I’m standing in front of the French doors with my coffee, and the sun is just cresting low over the water. Gold and pale pink, the waves sparkling in the light, the sand still dark and damp from the tide pulling back. Not a cloud in the sky. I take a photo and send it to Chris.
Hawaii says good morning. Whispering Grove currently winning anything?
I like sending them, these small proof-of-life dispatches, because it feels like keeping a thread pulled tight between us even when I’m too far away to say the thing I actually want to say.
When I ran away from Whispering Grove from all the bullying, Chris and I grew apart, and I regret that, so I’m making an effort to keep those communications lines more open.
I sip the coffee, lean against the railing, and let the breeze flutter through my hair.
With the house behind me and the beach in front, three men who showed up like they were placed specifically at the exact moment I needed them most swirl through my thoughts.
And last night, on the way back from the luau, North’s face in the torchlight when we were close enough that I could have just tilted my head and kissed him… it was magical.
I press my lips together and feel the low, warm pulse of that memory settle somewhere in my chest.
Would it have been so bad? I giggle at myself alone on the deck, because that is apparently who I am now.
Then I notice someone in the water. I squint.
There’s a figure out past the break, riding a wave.
It’s definitely a him, and he takes it all the way to the shallows, then paddles back out.
I watch the way he glides over the surface.
Light brown hair plastered back from the water.
Tanned arms working in clean, even strokes.
Ace.
I stand there telling myself I’m just finishing my coffee, unable to peel my gaze off him.
Then I head inside to get changed. The red bikini is doing exactly what I knew it would do when I packed it, which is to make me stand in front of the bathroom mirror and say out loud, “Girl, you’re so transparent.”
Instead of arguing with myself, I grab the spare board leaning against the wall where I spotted it yesterday and leave before I convince myself to chicken out.
The sand is cool and slightly damp between my toes, and the air is salty and floral from the trees along the fence line. I rush to the water and wade in.
It’s cold enough to make me catch my breath and then immediately feels perfect, the way ocean water always does once your body adjusts and decides to stop being dramatic about it.
I belly onto the board and start paddling out, working against the incoming sets, ducking under one wave with the board, then another, the cool rush of water over my back, the salt in my mouth when I come up.
I’m out past the break, sitting up on my knees, pushing my hair off my face, when I see a huge dark shape moving under the surface. Close. Too close. Very, very—
I lose my balance and the board in a second, and next thing I know, I’m falling into the water, panic strangling my chest. Frantically, I kick to the surface, reaching for my board.
I get a mouthful of ocean as the wave that’s been building decides now is the time to crash over me.
I’m dunked under, my feet kicking and my mind imagining a shark biting them.
I come up sputtering and already scrambling for the board’s leash when I hear him laughing.
“It’s just a turtle,” Ace says.
I stick my head under the water, eyes open. Four feet below me, making its slow majestic way across the volcanic-pebbled seafloor, is a green sea turtle approximately the size of a coffee table. It glances up at me with one ancient eye and keeps swimming away.
I come back up, gasping for air. “Okay, he startled me,” I say to Ace, who is still grinning.
“He got me earlier too.” He reaches out and steadies my board. “Came up right next to me. Nearly went over.”
“And you didn’t warn me?”
“He’d gone by the time you came out.” He tips his head, those green-gold eyes warm in the morning light, and I absolutely don’t let myself think about how good he looks right now.
Wet hair pushed back. Board under him. Bare chest already golden from the sun, dripping with water.
Completely unfair. “Were you watching me?”
I pull myself back onto my board and sit up on my heels. “I was watching the waves.”
“From the deck.”
“I live here temporarily. I’m allowed to observe my surroundings.”
His mouth curves. “For how long?”
“Long enough to notice the wave pattern.” I push my hair back again. “Which was excellent, for the record.”
That grin appears, the one that destroyed me on the plane and has only gotten worse since. “I saw you come out,” he says. His gaze drifts over me, slow enough to make heat gather low in my stomach. “Was wondering how long before you joined me.”
“I was always coming out. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Sure.” He nods toward the horizon where a set is building. “Want to head out a little? Smoother past the first break.”
I lie on my stomach on the board, and we paddle side by side for a minute, the water slipping cool and blue around us. I watch the strength in his arms in my peripheral vision and tell myself I’m studying his technique, which is a lie so obvious it should embarrass me more than it does.
“So,” he says.
“So.”
“We could talk about the plane.”
I keep my eyes on the horizon. “We could.”
“Or,” he says, voice going lower, “we could keep circling it until one of us gives in.”
I pinch my lips to the side, knowing I couldn’t run from it much longer. “Option two sounds easier.”
“I spent weeks looking for you.”
“You mentioned that,” I say softly, but my pulse is in my throat now. Part of me wants to ask how hard he looked, where he went, whether he was disappointed every time it wasn’t me.
He sits up on his board, straddling it, and the sight of him has me paying attention. Sun on his skin. Water beading and sliding down his chest. The hard line of his stomach. The quiet confidence of a man who knows exactly what kind of effect he has and isn’t above using it.
I quickly divert my attention to the water instead as I sit up as well.
“You left while I was sleeping,” he says.
“You looked peaceful, and I didn’t want to bother you.”
“I was going to ask for your number.”
“I know.” I pick at the edge of my traction pad. “That’s kind of why I left.”
He studies me for a second, the full weight of his attention, his patience, is far too intimate for open water this early in the morning. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you know how I work.” I finally glance at him. “I knew if you asked, I’d say yes. And then I’d have your number in my phone, and I’d want to use it, but I came here to be on my own for a while. I’d never be able to leave you alone.”
His eyes hold mine. “Too late for that?”
My pulse skips. “You say things like that on purpose to make me swoon.”
“Yeah,” he says with an insanely handsome grin, not even pretending otherwise. “Mostly because I like what happens to your face when I do.”
That is outrageous, yet also accurate.
I look away before he can see too much, but it’s useless. A flush is climbing my neck, the heat spreading through me while he sits there on the water, staring at me like temptation built itself a surfboard.
He lets me have the silence for half a second, then says, “You really think disappearing was better than finding out what might’ve happened if you’d stayed?”
I swallow. “Safer.”
“For who?”
I don’t answer, because that’s the problem, isn’t it?
I still don’t know. But then I finally lift my attention to him properly, to the jaw and the eyes and the water running down everything, and I feel the familiar pull in my chest that I’ve been pointedly ignoring since Seattle. “You make it so hard to be around you.”
He tips his head back and laughs, real and easy, and my stomach is already fluttering with those butterflies that don’t leave me alone.
“I hated waking up and discovering you were gone,” he says, quieter now. His eyes stay on the horizon, but I watch the tension in his face, the set of his mouth, the way his shoulders hold a little too still.
“I like you,” I say, because apparently once I start telling the truth, it comes out all at once. “On the plane, I liked you more than I’ve liked anyone in a long time, and it scared me. So I panicked. And yes, leaving was stupid. I know that.”
“It was a little stupid,” he says softly.
I huff a laugh. “Thank you for your compassion.”
His mouth curves. “I’m being gentle.”
That doesn’t help. “But now I have real trouble following me,” I say, the humor dropping out of my voice. “And I don’t want to be the woman who ruins someone’s life because she couldn’t keep her mess to herself.”
His eyes stay on me this time. “So you do know who’s after you?”
My stomach tightens, and I glance away first. “I’m not too sure.” Then I fall silent, and we both float on the gorgeous water that has us bobbing along. He doesn’t say anything either, so I change tactics. “How did you learn the fire thing? Last night. The dancing. The knives.”
He stares at me for a second, then laughs. “You just swerved so hard I got whiplash.”
“I’m excellent at that. It’s one of my best qualities.”
“We’re coming back to it.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.” He stretches his arms behind him and rolls one shoulder. “Luca wanted to learn first. Got obsessive about the fire and knife dancing. Then North and I got dragged in. Now it’s part of the show.”
“You were both incredible at it.”
His gaze comes back to me, slower this time. “You were screaming for us. I saw it, and I fucking loved it.”
A blush runs up my cheeks. “I was supporting the arts.”
He’s suddenly staring at my mouth, then my throat, and lower for one shameless second before he looks back up. “Go on.”
“Go on what?”