In the slowly gathering twilight of the summer evening, there was something haunting and magical about the dress she wore. As promised, it dipped low in the front, highlighting her abundant feminine curves. Capped sleeves ended in wide ribbons of silk that matched the panels of the skirt below, seeming to flow around her as if the dress were a living thing. The length of the skirt gave the illusion of modesty, until she took a step forward and the panels parted and swirled, revealing long swaths of shapely leg.
The fabric itself was a watercolor swirl of yellow and gold and amber, and a few hues he didn’t even have a name for, like the sunrise on a foggy day. It set off perfectly the glorious glossy fall of her blond hair, which flowed loose and shimmering over her shoulders and down her back. The only adornment she wore was a simple gold necklace in the shape of a dragon, and the matching earrings he’d noticed the first day he’d seen her. He’d thought then that she was some miraculous sea creature. Now, he thought she was a goddess. Much too good for a mere mortal like him—but man, was he going to have fun showing her off.
“You’re staring,” Beka said, a tiny wrinkle appearing between her brows. “Is it too much? I could go change.”
“Don’t you dare,” Marcus breathed. “You look incredible. I was just trying to figure out if I should charge people just for the privilege of being on the same beach with you.”
“Oh. Uh, thanks, I guess.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Beka was at a loss for words. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she’d been worried about what he thought. But this was Beka; so clearly that wasn’t true.
“Shall we go?” he asked, gesturing toward his Jeep. “I’m sorry I don’t have a carriage that does justice to that dress, but I wasn’t expecting Cinderella.”
Beka laughed and patted Chewie on the head before heading toward the car. “I’m more like the fairy godmother than I am Cinderella, but that’s okay—I’m not in the mood for Prince Charming tonight anyway.”
Take that, handsome Irish surfer guy. Marcus felt an unaccustomed trickle of happiness swirl around his heart like the way Beka’s dress eddied and flowed over the ground. Her hand felt warm in his as he helped her into the passenger side.
“That’s good,” he said. “Since I am neither a prince nor charming. But I’ll do my best to be a little less crabby than usual.”
“That’s what I was hoping for,” she said with a laugh, “Prince Hardly Crabby At All. Dude, this is going to be a great night.”
*
AND IT WAS. Marcus hadn’t expected much more than to just get through the experience; show up, be as sociable as he could manage, pretend to still have something in common with guys he hadn’t seen since he was a teenager, try not to make an ass out of himself in front of Beka, eat some food, drink a beer or two, and go home.
So far, none of it had gone the way he’d expected, except for the eating and the beer. Maybe Beka’s magical dress had turned him into Cinderella, because he was actually having a ball. Even the crowds weren’t bothering him as much as he’d thought they would, probably because he was too busy watching Beka to pay much attention to anyone else.
His old high school friends turned out to still be pretty nice guys, all married to attractive and pleasant women who went out of their way to try and make him welcome in what was obviously a tight-knit group. He’d worried that he wouldn’t have much in common with the men, since their lives had taken a much different path than his. He was fairly certain that none of them had ever killed an enemy in battle and watched the life seep out of his body.
But everyone else was happy to keep the conversation going, occasionally stopping to ask him a question about his father’s health or what it felt like to be back after all these years. Those he mostly sidestepped, so as not to bring down the mood. Still, it was more fun than he’d expected to hang out on the beach and eat decent barbeque with a cold beer in his hand and Beka by his side, making him look good merely by being there.
If he was going to be completely honest with himself, Beka was most of the reason why the evening was going so well. She’d already charmed all of his friends and their wives, and subtly filled in the spaces in the conversation when he couldn’t think of an acceptable answer to things like, “So, how are you and your father getting along these days?” One of the women recognized her from a craft fair where Beka sold her jewelry every year, and that got them chatting about all sorts of female-centric topics that Marcus eventually tuned out.