9. Jace #2
I grin, keeping my arm right where it is because letting go feels like losing something I didn’t know I needed. “She keeps me honest. Best thing that ever happened to me, even if she fights me on it daily.”
Sadie’s fingers tighten on my shirt for a beat. When the women look away she whispers without moving her lips much, “You’re enjoying this far too much, Hawthorne.”
I murmur back, my mouth close to her ear so only she hears, “Just doing the job. But I’m not going to lie. You feel good right here.”
She doesn’t pull away. If anything she settles a fraction closer.
The women keep talking, inviting us officially, giving us the details for tomorrow night.
I keep my arm around Sadie the whole time, my thumb tracing lazy circles on her side without even meaning to.
Every touch sends another spark through me.
I’m supposed to be listening for useful intel.
Instead I’m cataloging the way she laughs at Brooke’s story about the regatta disaster, the way her serious edges soften in the sun, the way she fits against me like she was made for it.
When the women finally pack up with promises to see us at the club, they leave us with matching knowing smiles. The second they’re out of earshot Sadie turns in my arm and looks up at me.
“You can let go now,” she says, but her voice is softer than usual, almost teasing.
I loosen my hold but don’t drop my hand completely. “Had to sell it. They bought the whole happy-couple thing.”
“You were very convincing.” She steps back, but her eyes flick down my body for a split second before she catches herself. Color rises in her cheeks that has nothing to do with the sun. “And you’re impossible to stay mad at when you’re being charming on purpose.”
“Part of the service,” I say, but my voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. The attraction is sitting between us now, thick and obvious. I want to pull her back in. I want to see if she would let me kiss her right here on this beach with the waves crashing and the lighthouse watching.
Instead I drop my hand and we stand there for a second, the space between us charged. Sadie clears her throat and looks out at the water.
“We should stay a while. Make it look natural.”
“Good idea.”
She moves toward the shallows and I follow after her, scanning the beach, looking for any signs of a threat.
Up on the dry sand near the dune line, maybe forty yards out, a guy stands with a camera and a lens long enough to shoot the moon.
Nothing strange about that on a beach this pretty.
Tourists photograph the water, the boats, the lighthouse down the point.
Except this guy isn't aimed at any of that.
The lens is angled low and left, tracking the shallows.
Tracking us.
I keep splashing. I laugh at something Sadie says and let my body stay loose while everything behind my ribs goes cold and quiet.
Khaki shorts, dark polo, ball cap pulled down, sneakers instead of sandals.
Nobody wears sneakers to shoot beach scenery.
He's been there a while too. There's a drink sweating in the sand next to his foot and no towel, no bag, no chair.
A man with a two-thousand-dollar lens and nothing to sit on.
"Stay here a second," I tell Sadie, keeping my voice easy. "I think I see somebody I know."
Her eyes flick past me and find him almost as fast as I did. Smart girl. The fun drains out of her face. "Jace."
"Probably nothing. Shallow water, lots of people around you. Don't move."
I come out of the surf, shaking water off, just a guy heading back to his towel.
Ten yards in, I change the angle and walk straight at him.
The lens drops. He doesn't wave, doesn't call out some line about the great light this morning, doesn't do any of the things an innocent man does.
He turns and walks fast toward the public lot, cap brim down, camera hugged to his chest like a football.
"Hey, buddy," I call, friendly as a golden retriever. "Get any good shots?"
He doesn't answer. Doesn't run either, which tells me he's done this before. Running gets remembered. By the time I reach the edge of the lot he's swinging into a gray sedan, rental sticker on the bumper, plate angled away, and pulling out with the unhurried speed of a man who practices leaving.
I stand there and let him go. Chasing a car through a crowded beach lot in board shorts gets me nothing except attention we can't afford. But I burn the details in. Height, build, the sedan, the brim of that cap. If I see any piece of him again, I'll know it.
When I walk back, Sadie's out of the water, arms crossed over her cover-up, watching me with those serious teacher eyes that see too much.
"Friend of yours?" she asks.
"Turns out I didn't know him after all." I pick up the umbrella and start breaking it down, keeping my movements lazy for anyone watching. "Probably some creep photographing women on the beach. World's full of them."
"You don't believe that."
I look at her, and I think about lying better. Then I think about how she reached for my hand at the grocery store when it counted, how she worked Melissa and Brooke like a pro twenty minutes ago. She's not a package I'm transporting. She's a partner, whether I planned it or not.
"No," I say quietly. "I don't. So we're going to pack up, smile, take the long way home, and I'm going to make some calls. And tomorrow night at the club we stick close. Closer than close."
She holds my gaze, chin up, steady even though I can see her pulse jumping at her throat. "Okay."
That's it. Just okay. No panic, no argument, no demanding answers I don't have. Something in my chest tightens hard enough to hurt.
When we finally load up and head back to the Jeep the sun is higher and the beach is fuller. I keep scanning faces the whole way.