Speak of the devil. Too bad he was such a handsome one, with water dripping off his well-muscled chest. It was hard to keep her mind focused on the fact he’d lied to her.
“Did you guys see my ride?” Gary asked.
“You caught a good wave,” Steven remarked, as he headed toward the surf. “Now, I have to catch a better one.”
“Yeah. It was a nice ride until I got into the soup and went down.”
Almost to the water’s edge, Steven called over his shoulder, “You coming back out?”
“In a sec.” Gary dropped his board and joined Katie, sitting sideways on the adjacent chair. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked her, his fingers pushing wet hair strands off his forehead.
“It is.” But Katie was thinking about his well-toned torso rather than the gorgeous beach. She purposefully averted her eyes from his chest, even though her sunglasses hid the direction of her gaze. At least her flush could be mistaken for a reaction from the hot summer sun. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
He grinned, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “Pick away!”
“You lied to me.”
“Moi?” With his face effecting an offended expression, he splayed his hand on his chest.
“Yes, and don’t try to deny it. You told me Steven rented a surfboard for me, and he said he knew better than to do that.”
Gary laughed. “Katie, that wasn’t a lie. I was teasing you.”
“There’s no difference.”
“Only because you’re so incredibly gullible that you believe anything I say. If you’d thought about it, you’d know Steven wouldn’t have rented a surfboard for you.” He shook his head as if he were addressing a young child. “You should’ve known I was teasing.”
“But I don’t know,” she complained. “My parents didn’t tease.”
“Surely your brothers and sisters teased. Don’t you have any siblings?”
“Only my older sister. But she died when she was nine.”
Katie was caught off guard by the sudden empathy on Gary’s face.
“I’m so sorry. That must’ve been terrible for you.” His wet hand reached out to touch her arm, sending goosebumps in every direction.
A surprising lump formed in her throat. She’d driven the painful memory from her mind, though the aftermath had changed her life forever. But it seemed like his playful mask had been ripped off his face, exposing a deeply caring and selfless soul, the kind her heart craved.
“That’s really hard.” He didn’t press for details.
His thoughtf
ul face turned toward the ocean where Steven was no doubt floundering about, making himself bait for the sharks. Katie refused to look. She found little comfort in the idea that they would spit her boss out after having a taste.
“I guess I do tease a lot,” he mumbled, still staring at the water.
“You do,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Katie. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
He sounded so contrite, her anger dissolved away. It wasn’t really Gary’s fault she hadn’t grown up in a normal home, with lots of siblings, where she would’ve learned how to handle teasing. Instead, every conversation she could remember with her parents had been a serious one. It was like growing up in a post-apocalyptic movie.
After her sister’s death, her father had done his best to prepare her for any conceivable emergency. But his focus had been on training her to avoid risk. This included rigorous swimming lessons, taking her to lifeguard proficiency by the time she was fifteen. The one time she’d rebelled against his authority, at the age of eleven, by climbing high in a maple tree, her mother had taken to bed with hysterics for twenty-four hours.
“How could you be so selfish? You could’ve died, just like Kindra,” her father had rebuked. “If you pull another stunt like this, your mother will go insane. She can’t handle it. Don’t you see that?”
Determined to protect her mother’s fragile spirit, Katie had never again bucked his strict rules. And for the most part, comfortable in her orderly life, she viewed his restrictions as sensible, rather than oppressive. Nicole, however, had been urging Katie to “loosen-up” and set her own, self-defined boundaries. Without her roommate’s influence, she’d never have found the courage to make the trip to Indigo Bay.