Chapter 9
What the Tide Brings Back
Marissa returned barefoot.
Nathan noticed that first, absurdly. Dane carried her sandals in one hand as he helped guide the tender back to the stern.
Her feet were dusted with black sand, her hair wind-tangled, the blanket slipping from both shoulders now.
She looked chilled and glowing and very far from the woman who had stood beside him at the marina uncertain whether the evening was a good surprise.
Dane tied the tender with quick, quiet knots, then stepped aside so Nathan could help his wife aboard.
Nathan reached down.
Marissa took his hand.
For a moment, suspended between tender and deck, she belonged to gravity and trust. Then she stepped up, and Nathan drew her close. She smelled of salt, night air, and something mineral from the black sand.
"Hi," she said.
The simplicity of it nearly broke him.
"Hi."
"Are you okay?"
"I think so. Are you?"
She nodded. "Yes."
Dane climbed aboard behind her and set her sandals neatly near the bench.
"The beach passed inspection," he said.
Marissa smiled. "It did."
Nathan looked between them, hungry for clues and ashamed of his hunger.
Dane must have seen it, because he moved toward the helm. "I'll check the anchor. Take a minute."
Again, space. Always space at exactly the moment Nathan both needed and resented it.
Marissa sat on the bench and patted the cushion beside her. Nathan sat. The lantern between them made her eyes look darker.
"Tell me," he said.
"About the beach?"
"About whatever you want me to know."
She looked down at her sandy feet. "He showed me the tide pools. There were little silver fish trapped until the water comes back in. He said they survive by trusting the tide."
"Of course he did."
She laughed softly. "Yes. He has a line for everything."
"Did he touch you?"
The question escaped before he could dress it in elegance.
Marissa did not flinch. "My hand. My elbow. My waist once, when I slipped near the rocks."
Nathan swallowed.
"Did you want him to?"
Her answer came slowly. "I liked that he could have and didn't."
That was worse than yes, because Nathan understood it.
"Did you talk about me?" he asked.
"Yes."
"What did you say?"
She looked at him with tenderness that made the truth more dangerous. "That you were braver than you think. And more frightened than you admit."
Nathan laughed once, quietly. "Accurate."
"He said fear isn't a warning by itself. Sometimes it's just the body noticing a threshold."
"He really does have a line for everything."
"I know." She smiled, then grew serious. "He also asked what I wanted from tonight. Not what you wanted. Not what he wanted. Me."
Nathan's chest tightened. "And what did you say?"
Marissa looked toward the beach. "I said I wanted to feel desired without having to apologize for it."
The words struck him clean.
"You should never have had to apologize," he said.
"I know. But sometimes a woman apologizes without saying the words. She makes herself easier to love by becoming less inconvenient to want."
Nathan turned the stem of his empty glass between his fingers. "Did I make you do that?"
"Not on purpose."
That hurt more because it was fair.
He reached for her hand. She let him take it.
"I don't want you smaller," he said.
"Then don't only want me when I'm easy."
He nodded. "I'm trying."
"I know. That's why I'm still here."
Dane returned from the bow, but stopped several steps away when he saw them talking. Marissa noticed and did not release Nathan's hand.
"Captain," she called softly.
Dane approached.
Nathan felt the title in her mouth, formal and intimate all at once.
"Yes?"
"Nathan asked what I wanted from tonight."
Dane looked at Nathan. "And?"
Marissa answered before Nathan could. "I want to dance."
Nathan blinked. "Dance?"
"Here," she said. "On deck. Under the moon. With both of you watching me remember myself."
Dane's gaze moved to Nathan, waiting.
Nathan felt laughter rise in him, not because it was funny but because relief sometimes wore strange clothes.
"I can handle dancing," he said.
Marissa stood. "Can you?"
The challenge was gentle. It was also exact.
Dane turned up the music.
A slow song filled the cove, all low guitar and brushed drums. Marissa stepped into the open space near the stern. She did not perform, not at first. She simply moved the way the boat moved, swaying with the water, her bare feet soundless on the deck.
Nathan watched from the bench.
Dane watched from near the helm.
Marissa closed her eyes and smiled.
Nathan understood then that the night had never been about whether another man wanted his wife. Men had wanted her before. Men would want her again. The night was about whether Nathan could bear the full light of her being wanted without asking her to dim it for his comfort.
The answer was not simple.
But as she opened her eyes and looked first at Dane, then at him, Nathan knew he wanted to learn.