Chapter One #3
“Yes, ma’am, I am. I wanted a quiet place where I could unwind, and this seems like it’s going to be good for that,” he answered.
“But I only arrived a couple of hours ago. Every bone in my body was stiff from a very long drive, so I came straight out here and did a long run. My first opinion of the place is that by the end of the week, I could be ready to relocate here or never come back. Time will tell.”
“I’m in the same boat. I might come back every year or never return, depending on how everything shakes out,” she said. “What is it about the sound of the ocean that is so peaceful?”
“Scientists say that it’s because we all started out in water,” Spencer answered. “We sloshed around in our mother’s womb for nine months before we were thrown out into the world.”
Monica liked that answer. The last guy she had gone out with only wanted to talk about his vintage car and his high school years when he was the quarterback on a football team in El Paso.
She was so bored by the end of the evening that she faked a text message from her sister and told him she had to leave in a hurry.
He offered to take her home, but she insisted on getting a cab.
“I have a little sound machine that goes everywhere with me,” Spencer said. “It can either give me a rainstorm, the ocean noise, or a babbling creek. I won’t need it tonight. I can slide my balcony door open and hear the real thing. That and the salt air should put me right to sleep.”
“I brought mine with me, too,” Monica told him. “And I’m on the fourth floor. No danger of anyone climbing up that high. So I plan to leave the balcony door open a crack, also.”
Spencer flashed a brilliant smile toward her. “Well, Miz Monica, it looks like we have something in common. We both have a sound machine, like the sound of the ocean waves, and seafood.”
Monica had not come to Florida looking for a fling.
She was not her older sister who declared that sex was sex and had nothing to do with love or respect.
But maybe she should be more like her and have a vacation that would produce memories to made her smile every time she heard the ocean waves on her sound machine.
I dare you. Fiona’s voice popped into her head. Live dangerously.
Spencer picked up a shell and handed it to her. Sparks flitted around Monica when their fingers brushed against each other. Whether her sister dared her or not, sex was not just sex in her books. A little bit of love, or at the very least, a little respect and friendship should go with it.
She shot a smile his way. “Thank you. My first souvenir.”
“You have a lovely smile.”
“Is that a pickup line?”
“No, ma’am, just an observation. If I had pickup lines, they would be super rusty. I married my high school sweetheart after we finished college. We were together almost thirteen years when she left me.” Spencer’s tone sounded like he wasn’t over the pain yet.
Why did his wife leave him? Monica wondered.
Was he controlling or abusive? Had he dated since the divorce?
Monica did not want to be a rebound woman.
She bit back a giggle. Nothing serious could come in just one week.
Probably only one dinner. Just once in her life, she wanted to have a fabulous story about a handsome man she met on the beach to tell her assistant and maybe even Fiona.
She began a virtual narrative that, like all romances, began with once upon a time.
Once upon a time, a sexy man met a plain woman and swept her off her feet. They spent a lovely week together, and he went east and she went west, never to meet again. But the woman had a little seashell that reminded her of a love that she never forgot.
Yeah, right. Fiona’s voice popped into her head. That will happen when cows fly.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Spencer said.
“They would cost you a lot more than that,” she joked.
“How much more?”
“Dinner tonight is a start,” she flirted.
If the dinner date turned into a fling, no one would ever have to know. At the end of the week, she would go home, back to her job that she really did love, and every few years she would drag out the memories.
It could even be a friendship, not a relationship, she told herself as she wiped a grain of sand from the shell.
Spencer stood up and brushed away the sand that the wind had blown onto his bathing suit. “The sound of the waves added to a six-hour drive is making me sleepy. I’m going to my room for a nap. I’ll knock on your door at seven.”
“I’ll be ready.” Monica pulled her romance book out of her tote bag and rolled over on her stomach to read for an hour.
The sun was sliding toward the far horizon when she woke up.
She didn’t remember laying the book aside or even closing her eyes.
She covered a yawn with the back of her hand and was amazed at how relaxed she had to have been to fall asleep like that.
It had to be yet another good sign that she made the right choice to come to the beach.
She sat up so quickly that half a dozen sandpipers scratching in the sand took off running so fast that their little legs were nothing more than a blur.
Orange, pink, and a dash of purple reflected in the water, giving her a breathtaking picture, and then she remembered that she had a dinner date.
She checked the time and found that she had less than an hour to get ready.
She stuffed the blanket and book in her tote bag and jogged across the sand to her room.
Spencer took a quick shower, shaved, and then stretched out on his bed for a nap. He left the sliding door open in the living area so he could hear the waves, but sleep didn’t happen. He kept thinking of Monica, and the tiny bursts of sparks he felt when their fingertips brushed against each other.
He blamed it on the ocean and attributed the chemistry between them to the excitement of getting to know someone new. He slung his legs over the side of the bed and checked the time. Thirty minutes until it was time to see if Monica opened her door, or if she had decided against going out with him.
His phone rang, and he moaned when he saw his ex-wife’s picture on the screen. If he didn’t answer, she would keep calling and ruin his evening with Monica. “Hello, Zoe.”
“Where are you?” Her voice cut through the air like a machete going through soft butter.
“I’m on vacation,” he answered. “Why are you calling?”
“I packed my bags and left my husband. I want to come home to you.” Her tone had changed to a whine that he recognized from the past.
Had she called six months ago, he would have been thrilled to hear her say those words, but something had changed.
Now, he knew that he would never take her back, even if she shed tears.
He realized at that very moment that he had finished the stages of grief.
The last one on the list was acceptance, and just hearing her tone let him know he didn’t even want to talk to her, much less live with her again.
“That ship sailed a long time ago.” Chains had been removed from his heart. He could move forward now, and he loved the freedom.
“Please, Spencer. I’m sorry for everything,” she sobbed.
“I’ve moved on, and so did you. Go home to your folks or spend some time at your brother’s house. A marriage is built on trust. After what you said to me when you walked out, I couldn’t ever trust you again.”
The sobbing stopped and her tone turned bitter. “You are a bastard.”
“I have never seen the marriage license, but I’m pretty sure my parents were married. Good luck with whatever you decide, but us being back together is not an option, and won’t ever be.”
“Go to hell,” she said, and the screen went dark.
“I don’t know what hell is like, but I’m pretty sure I’m getting a taste of heaven right here,” he said as he slipped his feet into his cowboy boots and started up the stairs. At exactly seven o’clock, he knocked on the door marked 414.