She pulled her phone from the neoprene holster around her bicep and called Desiree, who was meeting her at a house three miles up the beach. Rubi got her voice mail and left a message.
“I’m going to be about ten minutes late. Other Realtors don’t seem to think calling ahead to show a house is important, and I got waylaid. On my way now via a run on the beach. ”She shoved the phone back into her armband and shook out her arms, trying to relax. Trying to put the day behind her. At least a dozen unannounced showings of the house. Twelve solid hours of coding the NSA’s clandestine tracking program. A banana, cup of yogurt, and granola later, she needed a break. And some adult human companionship. But Lexi was working late, then taking Jax to dinner with a client. So Rubi was alone. Like she’d been alone the night before.
Wes’s sudden absence made her realize just how much she’d come to depend on him—for companionship, comfort, camaraderie, and, yes, entertainment. She hadn’t laughed since he’d left. It hadn’t even been a full forty-eight hours since Wes had been gone, and she was lost.
“I really need some friends,” she told the empty stretch of pristine shoreline alight in sunset colors of yellow and orange. “The kind I can hang with outside of sex clubs. Maybe I should get a life while I’m at it. And a hobby. And ice cream. ”
She continued down the shoreline, her feet striking the wet sand in a steady pace she knew by feel would pump out an eight-minute mile. She was in the mood for about eighteen eight-minute miles tonight. Or eight Sexy Bitches. Or eight Valium. Because she couldn’t get that terror-inducing, “I just…love you,” out of her damn head.
“Bastard,” she muttered.
Her body had been in a constant state of flight since then, her adrenaline ebbing and flowing, dragging her up and down like an angry ocean.
Rubi picked up her pace, deliberately forcing her mind to focus on her body—and only her body—for three miles, until her phone beeped. Slowing her pace, Rubi scanned the cliffs on this stretch of the beach, and the homes beyond as she glanced at her screen. The map program had alerted her to the home for sale, which, according to her phone, lay at the top of those three-hundred rickety wooden stairs traversing the cliff face.
She breathed quickly, trying to catch her breath as she double-checked her map. The house was listed for a little under eight million, so she hadn’t expected a supreme on-the-sand property, but… “You’ve got to be kidding me. ”
Evidently, her map had no sense of humor.
“Rubi,” a voice called from above. She glanced up and spotted her Realtor, Desiree Boyd, waving down at her from a deck on the cliff. “Come on up. ”
Rubi squinted at the stairs, at Desiree, at Rodie, and back. “This week just keeps getting better. ”
Out of curiosity, Rubi counted the stairs as she followed Rodie up, holding her arms at his sides to make sure he didn’t veer and fall off. Only a hundred and twenty-six stairs. She was always overestimating—the way she was overestimating this issue with Wes. Surely, she was.
“Okay. ” Desiree held up a hand to Rubi, her pretty Asian face holding a smile filled with promise. “I know it’s not on the sand, but…” She opened her arms to the ocean at Rubi’s back. “It’s definitely got the view. ”
Rubi turned, hands on hips and out of breath from the stairs. Yes, a view of the ocean. An endless, flat expanse of blue. Other than the color, there was nothing interesting. No sand, no people, no waves against the beach.
Her stomach slid lower. She’d seen two other houses earlier in the day, one way, way, way over her price range at twenty-three million and another priced at nine million. She’d liked those about as much as she liked this. But she didn’t want to be an unappreciative downer, so she said, “Beautiful. ”
“Take a look inside,” Desiree suggested, already starting that direction.
Rubi brushed off Rodie’s paws before he walked in, and they strolled around the four-thousand-square-foot home. “This is straight out of the Brady Bunch era. ”
Desiree’s heels paused in their click across the pitted, dark wooden floors. Ancient wooden floors. “You’re not old enough to know that. ”
“Neither are you,” she said, turning in a slow circle. “I watched a lot of TV reruns when I was a kid. Okay, I’ve seen enough. Call me when you find something different. ”
She trotted down the steps again with Desiree calling, “Rubi, there’s not a lot on the market in your price range right now. ”
“I understand, but this isn’t going to work. ” At the bottom of the steps, she paused and glanced up at Desiree. Offering on her father’s house again was on the tip of her tongue, but her hurt, her anger, and her spite kept it in. “Thanks, D. ”
Rubi picked up her run toward home. Against her arm, her phone buzzed. She glanced down and found a text from Wes. Rubi ignored it and focused on the waves. On the scenery. On the sunset. On her dog playing in the water.
She named everything she was grateful for, one of the earliest habits she’d developed for self-soothing. She’d been doing it as far back as her memory stretched. And some days, many more days as a child, her greatest gratitude was for the day’s end.
“I love the beach. I love working for myself. I love making my own schedule,” she said between breaths as she ran. “I love Rodie. I love Lexi. I love Jax. I love…” Wes. “I love Renegades. I love programming apps. I love this weather. I love…” Wes.
She did love Wes; that wasn’t new. She’d shared her gratefulness for him in her life since she’d met him nearly two months before. But now—I love Wes as a friend, the same way I love Jax—felt different. It felt like more. And she just didn’t know what to do with that. She’d never loved a man. Hugely believed she wasn’t capable of loving a man.
And here Wes was, imbedded in her chest. Her mind. He’d somehow slipped in when she hadn’t noticed, and now her feelings for him were growing like a seed planted in fertile earth. A streak of terror heated her belly. But her phone pulled her focus off the discomfort with a reminder chirp for the unread message.
“Dammit. ” She slowed to a walk, pulled the phone from its case on her bicep, and tapped the message. “He pokes at me even when he’s thousands of miles away. ”
WES: Something to feel good about. Meet Wyatt.
Breathing quickly, stomach tight, she tapped the attachment, and a video played. The setting was a generic hospital room. A man lay in the center of a single bed—strapped into the rig. Rubi immediately recognized the metal strip down the sides of his leg, the black straps around both. Something hitched in Rubi’s chest—surprise, awe, excitement—something unfamiliar but good. Laughter and chatter sounded in the background as if the room was filled with people, though she couldn’t see anyone but the man who had to be Wyatt.