She’d seen Lucas naked. She’d seen him in motion. She’d seen him naked and in very dirty motion.
She’d never seen him sprint full tilt through the water’s edge, then pivot to catch the ball Adam lofted over the other team’s players, right into Lucas’s arms. As he caught the ball, one of the young Marines tackled Lucas, pile driving him back into the waves, but Lucas surfaced with the ball in one hand outstretched. He waggled it as the other man came up. Adam whooped, and the soaked Marine said something that made Lucas laugh out loud, then extend his hand to pull the kid to his feet.
“Are you sleeping with him yet?”
Alana startled, and felt heat sweep into her face.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You didn’t say anything in your e-mails.”
“It hasn’t been going on long,” Alana said. “I’m a private person, and he respects that. Or maybe it just suits him to not get involved.”
Marissa tipped back her bottle of beer. “You leave when?”
“As soon as we get home. Back to Walkers Ford, that is.”
Marissa didn’t say anything else. The game came to an end when the players started to lose the ball in the twilight sky. Everyone settled in beach chairs around the fire, Adam’s fingers possessively linked with Marissa’s. Alana tried to unobtrusively save a space for Lucas, but two guys settled in on either side of her and spent the rest of the night fetching her drinks, making sure she had enough to eat.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“The ceremony starts at sunset,” Marissa said lazily. “It’s pretty simple. The hotel takes care of everything. We show up, get married, and then do this again.”
Alana thought about the freight train of planning on two continents going into Freddie’s impending nuptials, about her role in all of that.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“We’re going rock climbing,” Adam said. “We’ll be back in the afternoon. Plenty of time to get ready.”
Garrett, sitting next to Alana, nudged her with his elbow. “You going to miss me while I’m gone?”
“I’ll try to keep myself busy,” she said mildly.
Across the fire, Lucas’s face grew more and more expressionless.
? ? ?
“OH EIGHT HUNDRED in the lobby,” Nate said. “We’ll pick up the gear on the way out of town.”
Lucas gave him a nod, then slid his key card into the lock on his own door. First order of business was a shower. Six hours on the beach and Lucas had sand in places his doctor hadn’t seen. He didn’t relish waking up in a gritty bed. It was late. Alana had left the beach party half an hour earlier, laughing off an invitation to walk her to her room. Just in case.
Just in case Garrett wanted to get laid. A quiet word from Nate ended the pursuit, for now. He knew how guys like that thought; he’d been one, a lifetime ago. A woman was an easy mark at a wedding. A beach wedding at sunset with a romantic story like Adam and Marissa’s? Candy from a baby.
Garrett didn’t know Alana. She was many things, but an easy mark wasn’t one of them. Complicated, stubborn, single-minded, capable.
His.
Except she wasn’t, or so his mind said. His body, as he stripped and got into the shower, said something entirely different. His body said he’d spent all day watching the woman in his bed laugh and talk with everyone but him. He leaned his head against the tiled wall and let water course over his back. The strength of the emotion, jealousy and anger and a blood-hot lust, washed through him with an intensity that left him breathless. This wasn’t like him. Feeling this much. Caring so intensely, about anyone, anything.
You used to care like this.
And now I remember why I stopped. It fucking hurts. Not the pain. The longing.
He twisted the dial to cold, because a case of blue balls was better than taking a step down the slippery slope, but all he got for his trouble was wave after wave of goose bumps. He thought about Alana, about the way her hair looked slicked back from her face after she got out of the ocean, the way it dried in tangled sections around her face, the pink on her cheekbones and her lips from sun and salt spray and laughter.
He thought about her two floors up, alone in a room with a big bed.
Don’t go there. Don’t think that. She’s sleeping.
She’s leaving. This is the perfect time for you to just let it go.
Funny how the brain churned until it found a rational explanation. She was leaving. They’d go back to Walkers Ford, and she’d pack up her sedan and leave town forever. So why not take one more night?
Because you’re angry and hurt, and it’s been a long goddamn time since you felt anything, let alone anything that powerful. You’re out of practice.
One more night . . .