Okay. She smiled. The beach.
Izzy was down at the car in the prescribed ten minutes, after scrambling into a sundress, throwing her braids up into a big topknot, and grabbing the flip-flops she’d bought this week—she couldn’t keep going everywhere in her ballet flats.
Beau shook his head at her as he unlocked the car. “I still can’t believe you haven’t been to the beach since you’ve been here,” he said. “You’ve taken the car a few times, where have you gone?”
Izzy put her seat belt on. She hadn’t realized Beau had paid such close attention to her comings and goings.
“Oh, just shopping. To the stationery store, to buy the notebooks and pens. And then also…when I packed to come to California a few weeks ago, I thought I was going to be here for four days for a work conference, not…”
“Not move in with a recluse for weeks on end and teach him how to write a book?” Beau grinned at her as he pulled out into the street.
Izzy laughed. “That’s not exactly how I would have put it, but yes, as you can imagine, I needed to buy a few things.” She couldn’t believe she’d been here for so long already. She couldn’t believe she only had two weeks left.
Once they were on the way down the hill, she turned to Beau. She’d been holding this in since they left the library.
“That thing you started writing was actually fun to write, huh?”
He sighed, but she could see the smile in his eyes. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard me say that. Now you’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
She elbowed him. “That’s not true! I’m just…glad. That’s all.”
He looked over at her for a second and then back to the road in front of him. “I’m glad, too,” he said.
They got to the beach less than ten minutes later. She hadn’t realized how close it was; a beach seemed like something you had to travel to get to, not like a trip to the grocery store.
They pulled into a parking space, and she started to follow Beau. But instead of walking down toward the beach, he turned and went in the other direction.
“Where are we going?”
He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You’ll see.”
Beau walked into one of the shops, just off the beach.
“Hi, guys,” he said to the people working there. “I need to rent a wet suit that will work for her.” He pointed at Izzy. “And a surfboard for her, too.”
Izzy took a step back and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
He suddenly had a very wide grin on his face. “Now it’s my turn to teach you something. Surprise: You’re getting surfing lessons today, Izzy.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Surfing lessons? But I don’t…That sounds…”
He ignored her and turned back to the woman with a long blond ponytail working at the shop. “Oh, and she needs a swimsuit. She can change in the back, right?”
The blond woman was already beckoning to Izzy. “Oh totally, yeah. Come on back and try stuff on.”
Izzy looked up at Beau. He was still smiling, but that challenging look from the first day was back in his eyes. And she reacted the same way she had then.
“Fine, I’ll do this. But if I fall off the surfboard and drown, Marta is going to kill you, you realize that, right? It’ll make so much extra work for her if she has to hire a new assistant.”
He just laughed at her. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Izzy walked into the back, wondering why she’d agreed to do this. She didn’t even know if they had her size in this place, despite how certain the blond surfer had looked. This looked like the kind of place with lots of bikinis for people who were size 0, 2, maybe 4, not any kind of swimsuit for someone who was size 12. But no, she found a one-piece in the back that fit her, and it was bright pink, not boring black.
She pulled the wet suit on over the swimsuit and went out to meet Beau. She felt ridiculous, but she’d told Beau she’d do this, so now she had to.
He was also in a wet suit. Unfortunately, he did not look at all ridiculous in it. He looked strong, and powerful, and…She had to look away.
“Did you rent a wet suit for yourself, too?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “I brought mine along.” He gestured at the bag at his feet. “My surfboard is a little big for you, though. I thought you should learn on something easier.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You planned this from the beginning?” She’d thought he’d just had the idea when they got to the beach.
He laughed as he took the surfboard from the blond woman. “I am capable of planning ahead, you know.”
She hadn’t really expected that he’d plan ahead for her.
He turned down toward the beach. “And see, now you have a swimsuit,” he said. “I still can’t believe you made it two weeks here without one.”
She gestured back at the shop. “Don’t I need to pay for this?”
He waved a hand at her. “I got it. This was my idea, after all.”
She started to argue with him, but she could tell from the look on his face there was no point. “Thanks,” she said.
He ignored that and picked up the surfboard. “You ready for this?”
She looked out at the ocean and watched the waves crashing in to shore. They seemed…violent. She eyed the surfboard Beau was holding.
“Not exactly,” she said. She was supposed to balance on that? On top of the ocean?
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m going to hold you to that promise,” she said.
He just grinned. It suddenly hit her, as the sun glinted in his hair, that there was such a difference in Beau between that first day and now. Then, when he’d laughed, there’d been no joy or fun in it. Or in him. But now…now as he walked down the beach with her, surfboard under his arm, his smile was real. She liked it. She liked him.
He dropped the surfboard down on the sand, not quite at the edge of the water. “Okay. Now stand on it,” he said.
She glanced down at the surfboard, then back up at him. “Just…stand on it?”
He nodded. “Just stand on it, right in the middle. You’re just getting comfortable on it now.”
“Okay. Like this?” She stepped on the board. It sort of wobbled back and forth, and she had to catch herself. Now she knew why he’d wanted her to do this for the first time on the sand and not in the water. She absolutely would have fallen off right away.
Granted, she still probably would.
“See how it moves?” he asked. “It will do that even more in the water, that’s why we started here. Now, here’s how to stand on it when you’re surfing.”
He demonstrated the stance, one foot in front of the other, his body spread out in a bit of a crouch.
She tried to imitate him. He looked at her, a slight frown on his face.
“Good, that’s good,” he said. Hmm, she didn’t believe him. “Except…” Ahh, see, she knew there would be an “except.” “Not quite so tense in the upper body. Maybe try relaxing your shoulders a little?”
She tried to make her shoulders go down, but she could tell from his face it wasn’t really working.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me in the past few weeks,” she said, “but I’m not that good at relaxing, okay?”
He just looked at her, and they both burst out laughing. “I have noticed that, actually,” he said. “But then, we may have that in common.”
She shook her head. “I thought we did, but you’re apparently much better at it than I am.”
He was still smiling. “Just on a surfboard, and that’s only because I’ve been doing it for a long time. Come here.” He motioned her over toward him. “Turn around.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he laughed. “I’m not trying to trick you. Just turn around.”
She turned and stood with her back to him. Two weeks ago—even a week ago—she wouldn’t have done this. But everything felt different now than it had then.
She felt him step closer to her. “If you’re tensed up like this, you won’t be able to move with the waves.”
She stared out at the ocean. “I’m not so sure that’s possible.”
They were so close that she could feel his laughter rumble through him.
“Here,” he said. He put his hands on her shoulders and then almost immediately dropped them. “Is this okay? I mean, if you don’t want me to—”
“It’s okay,” she said.
His hands dropped back down, each one gripping one of her shoulders firmly. “Okay. Here, let’s see if this will help.” He held on to her shoulders and shook her side to side, back and forth, until she couldn’t stop giggling.
“What are you doing?” she managed to say.
He stopped and nudged her over to the board. “Try it again.”
She got back up on the board and turned to face him, trying to stand the way he’d stood before. He smiled and nodded at her.
“There we go. That’s better. Now, lie down on your stomach, with your feet really close together in back.”