"My plate will be clearer. We could moor up in a cove for lunch, maybe go ashore and backpack around for the day."
Her hand stilled, frozen like her blanked face. "Go boating to relax and take my mind off of Owens and my pathetic employment situation?"
"To spend time together. If that's okay."
Slack jawed for a painfully long second, she blinked fast. "Yeah, I think it is. As a matter of fact I'm sure it is." Her grin widened. "Although this time it's my turn to bring the food."
He liked the idea of her feeding him, him feeding her back, on the bow of his boat in the middle of the summer in a secluded bay where they could soak up the sun and each other....
Time to pull his mind off that fantasy, awesome though it was. And what was he doing having summer thoughts, months away? What had happened to taking things with Nikki one day at a time?>She'd looked forward to this outing since Carson called her yesterday and asked her to lunch. His invitation had quickly distracted her from the disappointment of learning the surveillance cameras at the school had been angled wrong to catch any helpful information about the vandalism to her little track.
The planked path forked, one way snaking to the back bar and marina, the other route leading to the front entrance of the restaurant where she was not going on a date. Just meeting Carson at Beachcombers for a meal to help joggle more memories free. Regardless, thanks to a new set of tires on her Ranger providing transportation, she now stood outside Beachcombers.
She tromped up the steps to the sprawling wraparound porch that usually buzzed with conversation from the diners, but sported only sparse smokers in the cooler climate. Her stomach cramped with nerves, even more from the prospect of seeing Carson.
Pushing through the heavy door, she searched the crush of people in the wide hallway, a waiting area complete with gift shop stalls and cubbies. She weaved through the melee, the lunch crowd mirroring the weekend gang, but with a subdued workday air.
For the first time, she noticed the wide age range. She'd always been so focused on her friends—and yeah, the fly-boys—she hadn't noticed how many retirees frequented the place, as well. Were they around on the weekends, too? She would have to pay closer attention.
Flipping her wrist, she glanced at her Minnie Mouse watch. The second hand clicked past Minnie's glove.
Fifteen minutes early.
So much for appearing blasé. But she wasn't into game playing this go-round. She would be herself, totally—mast climbing, sarcophagus building, notoriously early Nikki Price.
Still no sign of Carson, but any number of crises at the squadron could have delayed him. She refused to turn into a quivering mass. He wouldn't be that important to her ever again.
Still, nerves whipped around in her stomach faster than Minnie's second hand. Nikki fidgeted with the new gift shop items filling shelves along the waiting area walls—handpainted T-shirts, seashell ornaments with Charleston's historic Rainbow Row inked
in miniature. She mentally filed away craft ideas for her classroom during local history week. Her gaze settled on glazed sand dollars sporting a sticker of a C-17—the cargo plane flown by Carson.
Sheesh. Everything didn't have to be about Carson. Her dad and countless friends flew that same craft.
"May I help you with something?"
Nikki jolted and looked over her shoulder to find Beachcombers' proprietor, Claire McDermott. "Did you design these?"
Claire neatened the hanging racks of stenciled canvas bags in perfect descending order of largest to smallest. "My sister Starr did. I do most of the cooking, but we're short staffed out front today, so here I am. Our other sister handles the bookkeeping." She straightened her apron on curvy h*ps Nikki had finally given up on ever developing by the end of high school. "It's a family effort we hope will pay off."
"From the crush today, it sure seems so."
No wonder Carson with his lack of family connection ate here so often, even moored his boat in the area. She wondered if that might be why he'd spent time with her before, because she came with a family. And man that sucked, wondering if you were liked because of your parents and brother. Or if he preferred curvy types like Claire.
Nikki stomped down feelings and thoughts that too closely resembled the insecure idiot she'd been over Carson months before. The present carried enough problems.
She could see the questions in Claire's eyes that she was too polite to ask about what happened a week ago. The woman had to be frustrated at even the least association with the scandal.. .yet the place was buzzing with activity. Sometimes bad press could be better for business than no press at all.
Claire's attention shifted beyond her. Bustling around the counter with brisk efficiency, she passed Nikki a pamphlet. "Here's a list of our upcoming performers in the bar, and don't miss the discount coupons on the bottom."
The woman disappeared into the milling customers, emerging on the other side near two men who seemed familiar...
Nikki shook her hands loose trying to relax for a memory to shimmer free. The shorter man wore a backward baseball cap and sports jersey. The other man loomed taller and burly in a plaid shirt.
The image gelled in her brain. Both men had met up with Carson that night out in the parking lot. Ball-cap dude, she didn't know. But the man in the plaid shirt was Bo Rokowsky's brother-in-law. What was the guy's name? Vic something-or-another.
A tingling started up her spine, a shift in the air, an awareness that Carson had arrived even though she hadn't seen him yet and no, no, no she didn't want that kind of surreal connection.
Maybe the feeling was—