After she’d seen Nick at the beach yesterday, she’d almost packed the car and headed out in the wee hours, certain Nick had called Ted and that her former fiancé, his family and probably her mother would soon arrive and attempt to bully her into marrying Ted.
She’d climbed out of bed and started packing, when she suddenly stopped as two thoughts struck her simultaneously.
One: she wasn’t some princess in feudal times. No one could force her to marry anybody.
Two: The rust bucket currently in her parking space had barely coughed and choked its way to Carlsbad from Long Beach. There was no way it was going to take her very far.
She sat down on the bed as the truth hit her.
It was time to stop trying so hard to please everyone in her life. Maybe it was time she started trying to please herself.
So, she’d waited for the Carnarvons to make their move. All morning, she’d rehearsed what she’d say. Annihilating speeches warred with reasonable attempts to explain that she had been mistaken in thinking she loved Ted. She did not.
She did not love the man she’d planned to marry. She loved the man she’d believed he was. The man she’d wanted him to be.
But he wasn’t that man.
She was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t the woman Ted had believed her to be, either.
Through the waves of hurt and betrayal another emotion rolled in, a sense of relief that caught her by surprise.
When had she realized that she didn’t want to marry Ted?
Was it when she discovered he’d hired a private detective to prove she was loyal?
No. She believed the realization had come when Nick had challenged her until she’d voiced opinions she’d been suppressing.
The moment she realized she wanted to kiss a man who was a complete stranger.
She’d waited at home with her phone beside her all this morning, fairly confident that detective Nick knew perfectly well where she was staying and had passed that information to the Carnarvons. Not only that, but her cell number was on the lesson sign-up form. She was only a hundred miles from LA. She wondered who the family would send. Ted himself? Her mother? Ted’s formidable father who would demand she return to marry his son? She didn’t know or care who showed up. She was ready. She was keyed up, rehearsed, so caffeinated that she felt like a live wire.
No one knocked on the door.
The only call to her cell number was Mike telling her he’d scheduled her for two lessons today.
As noon approached, she wondered. Was it possible Nick was telling the truth?
Could it be possible that he wasn’t working for the Carnarvons? He was here because of the attraction, the connection that had sparked at dinner.
She’d arrived at one for their lesson, half-surprised to find him there with his beginner board and a smile of appreciation.
Now here he stood, gazing at her in that intense way so she felt the sizzle heat her blood. She wasn’t an engaged woman now. She was single.
Free.
Available.
Their gazes locked and held as he stepped closer, pushing his way through the surf. She didn’t move, or step back or attempt to stop him.
What she did was drop her gaze to that beautiful mouth that was coming closer and slowly closer.
Her eyes drifted shut as he finally closed the distance between them, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.
She tasted salt, felt the slight roughness of stubble, wrapped her arms around him and gave herself over to the moment.
He felt so solid. Through the black wetsuit she felt the strength in his body. He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, making her wonder how she could have contemplated living her whole life without ever kissing this man.
As he deepened the kiss she felt herself opening to him.
Neither of them noticed the wave. The perfect surfing wave that had been building for hundreds of miles out at sea, stealthily sliding below the surface ready to rise up and crest, offering the sweetest ride to a surfer who was in the right spot, waiting.
And if the surfer wasn’t on their board, ready to jump to their feet and ride the wave, if they were instead standing thigh deep in the surf kissing, then that wave was going to crash into them, swamping over their heads and knocking the pair of them off their feet.
Kate came up coughing and spluttering wondering how she could have been so crazy as to stand in the surf kissing her student, the man who had caused her to break her engagement.
He came up a moment later, coughing and laughing, his eyes alight.
“I’d say you knocked me off my feet.”
“We should get back,” she said, feeling suddenly out of her depth on every level.
“Okay,” he said, grabbing his board and lifting it so he could carry it more easily. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You have other plans?”
“No. But the last time I had dinner with you things didn’t turn out so well.”
“I’d say they worked out really well. You don’t want to marry Ted.”
“I don’t—“
“It’s only dinner. You have to eat.”
She shook her head.
“Tell you what. I’ll be eating at Mancini’s.” Mancini’s was an Italian restaurant with an ocean view and great food. “I’ll make a reservation for seven tonight. If you get hungry you’ll know where to find me.”
Then he turned back. “That was a good lesson. Same time tomorrow?”
She hesitated, then, still tasting him on her lips, nodded.