Barefoot at Sunset (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 1) (10 page)

He gave her a look. “Beats the
Macarena
, nineties baby.”

“But we had timeless classics like
Livin’ La Vida Loca.
And
Believe
by Cher.”

“Case made,” he insisted, bending toward the sand to slide his hand over her calf, the thin material of her slacks giving him a chance to feel a feminine curve.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off your sandals so you’ll walk on the beach and get sand between your toes. We have to come up with a list of songs for tomorrow that we can discuss with this choreographer guy.”

She lifted her foot to help him slip one shoe off and toed the other one. “Did you get another sign from your late wife or something?” she asked.

He stood slowly, shaking his head. “No, why would you ask?”

“Because you’re all into the dance contest, like you really care about winning. Thought maybe they mentioned your song or something and you thought it was a woo-woo message.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, fighting a smile. “I do believe you are mocking me
again
.”

“I do believe I am. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, honest.” She took the sandals from him.

“But you think it’s a—what would you call it?—a
load of hooey
.”

She smiled at the echo of her own words. “What I think is that your signs are coincidences and wishful thinking brought on by warm memories of days gone by. It’s incredibly sweet that you think your late wife is whispering directions, but I honestly don’t think it works that way.”

Not worth arguing with a jaded pragmatist. He knew when Julia sent him messages, and that was all that mattered. “To answer your question, there were no signs from beyond, but the whole committee is so excited about it, and it’s the highlight of the reunion.” He leaned his body into hers. “And I like my partner.

So let’s count our blessings that I wasn’t in your decade, because then we’d be dancing to Britney Spears or Boyz II Men, whoever the hell they are.”

“Whoever…” She choked and kicked the sand as they stepped on it. “God, now you sound old.”

He took her hand, as much out of desire as habit now. No, mostly out of desire. Her fingers were strong but small, and so soft.

“I may sound old, but I don’t feel it.” Not out here in the moonlight with a pretty woman and a warm buzz from a perfectly enjoyable evening. “And, by the way, compliments on your acting skills.”

“So you said at dinner. And speaking of dinner,” she added, “what’s the deal with Beth and Ken? She was so interested in him and then ran off like a scared rabbit.”

“I don’t know, but he can’t think straight where she’s involved.” A warm, comfortable feeling settled over Mark. It had been a long time since he did a post-mortem on party gossip with a woman.

“Couldn’t help but notice. Did they go to high school together?”

He laughed. “I think so. He doesn’t say much, but I can tell he’s amped when she’s around. That’s why I brought him over.”

“He’s
amped
?” She jabbed him playfully with an elbow. “Hey, Mark, 1986 is calling. They want their expressions back.”

“Nobody says that anymore?”

She just laughed. “Not sure anyone
did
say it.”

“Anyway, I was doing a good deed for a friend, like you’re doing a good deed for me. Which worked, by the way, since not one person cornered me, offered sympathy, tried to introduce me to a single woman, or slipped me a phone number.” He pulled her a little closer, fighting the temptation to kiss the top of her head in gratitude.

“Well, lucky you, because I got cornered, and good.”

“By who?”

“Lacey Walker.”

He slowed. “Why would Lacey corner you?”

She didn’t answer right away but sighed softly. “She saw me check in. Knew I got turned away. And had some security guy check out your villa…and I was already inside.”

“What?” He stopped walking. “Oh God, Emma. What did you say?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but it was a big, fat cake of lies that I iced with butter cream bullshit and stuck in a candle of distracting suck up for good measure.”

“Damn.” He lifted her hand and grabbed it between both of his. “Sorry for the embarrassment.”

She gave a charming laugh, looking up at him so that the moonlight made her eyes look like sparkling topaz. “Are you always this kind and caring?”

His brows furrowed at the compliment. “You’re doing me a huge favor and, honestly, I should have thought that through. Of course they have security cameras behind the front desk.”

“I think we’re fine,” she assured him. “And we were interrupted by another member of the Mark Solomon Fan Club.”

“Stop,” he said. “There is no such thing.”

“Don’t go all modest on me,” she teased. “I heard enough about the captain of the football team, valedictorian, most likely to succeed, and winner of a full scholarship to the University of Miami that I signed up to be the next president of that fan club.”

He gave another grunt and looked at the night sky. “Let me put that all in perspective for you, Emma. The football team was three and eleven my senior year, the competition was not tough academically, I was a big mouth with a lot of friends who voted on those things, and the full scholarship was not free. It was ROTC, and I left college and went straight into Desert Storm.”

“All that and he’s humble, ladies and gentleman.”

The compliment, as subtle and slightly underhanded as most of those he got from her, warmed anyway. “Just honest,” he said.

She leaned into him, silently telling him she liked that, too. “So you fought in…the first Gulf War?”

“I went to Saudi Arabia after college graduation in 1991. Air Force. A captain when I left.” He looked out to the water, wondering if he should tell her the war might have been hell for a lot of soldiers, but being away from his young wife had been the worst part. “I didn’t see much action, so please don’t think of me as a hero. That was a quick war, and I worked in satellite communications. When I got out, I got a job with a small tech firm in Melbourne, Florida, over on the east coast. But the real fun was…”
Working with Julia.
Again, he hesitated to say it, though.

“Being married?” she suggested for him.

He couldn’t help stroking the slender, soft fingers he held. Talking to her was so
easy
. “Yeah, and building Seeking Soulmates. We were living in this crappy house, but it was on the beach, and every night I’d come home from work, and she’d read the letters that had come in from all these torn-up people with broken hearts, and we’d write the responses.” An old punch of grief hit him, not with much force, more like a soft tap on the shoulder from an old friend.

“You would write them, too?” she asked, surprised.

“No one knew, of course. But it was…fun.” Mostly because he and Julia would drink cheap beer and toast to what a solid, happy marriage they had compared to the rest of the world. “Anyway, my tech skills were building, and soon enough, I turned her business into something profitable on this little-known avenue of technology at the time called the Internet.”

“Wow.” She rubbed her arm a little.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, I just got chills. That’s a great story. What a wonderful life you had together.”

“Until I didn’t,” he said quietly.

This time, she squeezed his hand. “Of course,” she said, and he could have kissed her for not saying she was sorry. She had, earlier, which was polite.

But she knew no one was to blame for cancer or chemo killing his wife. It just happened.

“And you have carried on remarkably,” she added.

“I have carried on,” he corrected. “Once I sold the company and then LoveInc went public, I had enough money to live well for the rest of my life. That’s when I dedicated every waking moment to chasing speed, jumping out of planes, hanging off rocks, and gliding through the air on nylon wings. Or as you called it, escaping and risking my life.”

“The way you describe your life, it’s not adventure or escape. It sounds like a death wish to me.”

He closed his eyes and slowed his step. “Not a
wish
,” he said. “But I…” He couldn’t finish. She’d never understand.

“But you don’t care if you die, because you think she’ll be there waiting for you on the other side.”

Or maybe she
could
understand. “It’s just that I’ve already known true happiness and have accepted the fact that no other emotion will come close. And since I’ll never feel the bone-deep bliss of that kind of love again, why not get that thrill falling from twenty thousand feet and hoping the chute opens? If it doesn’t, then…”

“Then you’d be out of your misery,” she said softly.

Right. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Because I’m right?” she asked.

“Let me put it this way,” he said. “I wouldn’t welcome death but it doesn’t scare me. Nothing scares me.”

“Lucky you. So many things scare me.”

“So you’ve said.” He stroked her cheek and brushed some hair back, letting the silky strands slide through his fingers, nearly sighing at how good it felt. “What, besides kissing me, scares you?”

“Oh, some really dumb things.”

“Name one.”

She cocked her head to think. “Oh, let’s see. One of my worst fears is making a left turn across three lanes of traffic with no light.”

He laughed. “You’re just in the wrong car. Drive my Porsche Carrera and you’ll scream across those lanes.”

“I’m no fan of heights, either. Especially bridges. I didn’t even like that causeway that gets on this island.”

“I jumped off that causeway a hundred times when I was a teenager.”

Her jaw dropped. “There could be sharks in that water!”

“Don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.” He tickled her earlobe with his thumb. “What else, fraidycat?”

“Biscuit cans.”

He thought for a second, then barked a laugh. “Like breakfast biscuits?”

“You know, those kind that come in a tube that you have to slam against the edge of the counter?” She drew back and held her hand out, miming the act of thwacking a canister. “I’m always sure they’re going to pop all over me.”

He tossed his head back and laughed from his belly. “And champagne, too?”

“Of course. I never open the bottle.”

“I’ll open them for you.” He pulled her a little closer, barely aware that he’d wrapped one arm around her waist. Well, not barely. He was fully aware of the warmth of her body close to his and the bow of her back under his hand. Completely aware of the sweet floral scent that hung over her and how pretty her mouth was when she laughed at herself, which she did a lot.

“Is that it?” he asked. “No other freakish fears?”

She thought about it. “You know, the usual. Closed shower curtains, escalators, stray dogs, huge flocks of birds, entering an empty house at night.”

He cracked up. “Those are usual? What deep, dark childhood horror caused these fears?”

“I don’t know. Well, I guess some of them I do. I had a car accident when I was sixteen, the week I got my license.”

“Making a left turn?” he guessed.

“Across three lanes of traffic. No injuries, except my psyche.” She gazed up at him. “Are you always this awesome and intuitive?”

“I just don’t want to make it onto your list of fears. Markphobia would be debilitating.”

Her breath caught again, but not with a laugh. This time, it was the soft intake of breath as she looked up at him. “Truth be told, I
am
a little scared of you.”

“Uh-oh. I’m right up there with closed shower curtains and biscuit cans and stray dogs.”

But she didn’t smile. “Am I supposed to feel that fear after those three kisses?”

“Maybe we need more. This case seems serious.” He lowered his head, half expecting her to jerk out of his arms, make a joke, change the subject, but…she didn’t.

Instead, she met his kiss and slightly arched her back. Her lips opened and invited him deeper, the warm, wet, sweet kiss somehow both tentative and anxious. Their lips met like they’d been created to do this and only this, opening enough to invite each other’s tongue to touch.

He flattened his hands on the small of her back, easing her into him, feeling his body already respond, part of him—the lower part—wanting to press harder against her. But way up in his brain, he knew that would send her skittering away.

Still, he had to feel more, had to stroke her back and let their tongues touch and twist, and give in to a little groan of pleasure when all his blood rumbled and his body heated to life.

Finally, they mutually broke the kiss, with exquisite reluctance.

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his chin with a sigh. “See?” she whispered. “Terrifying.”

He laughed softly, wrapping his arms all the way around her. “Like free soloing up the side of a two-thousand-foot vertical granite wall.”

She dropped her head back. “Free soloing…like no harnesses or clips?”

“Not a single one.”