Delicious Do-Over (6 page)

This wasn’t her room.

She stared up at the muted gray sky.

Her heart jumped, and then she remembered. They’d had a picnic on the beach, and she’d dozed. But hadn’t it been dark already?

She turned her head and faced Rick just as he opened his eyes, a slow lazy smile lifting the corners of his mouth. The lumpy blanket turned out to be his arm, which he curled around her.

“Mornin’,” he murmured and pulled her toward him.

“Good morning.” She smiled back, briefly closing her eyes when his ill-aimed kiss landed half on her cheek and partly on her eyelid. A second later his words sunk in. “Morning? No, it can’t be.” She pushed away, scrambled to a sitting position and scanned the hazy gray horizon.

Coming from behind, there were voices, too distant to be distinct. She remembered now. That’s what had awoken her.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw two men carrying surfboards under their arms, still a good way down the beach but headed toward them.

“Is it really morning?” she asked, panicked.

Rick unhurriedly sat up and squinted at the water. “Nice swells.”

“Oh, my God.” She rubbed her gritty eyes. How could she have been so stupid, so inconsiderate? Mia and Shelby had probably contacted search-and-rescue by now. She had to get back to the hotel, call them, let them know she was all right.

“I must’ve dozed off after you.” He arched backward, stretching out his arms.

“I have to—” She broke off, and stared at the breadth of his shoulders and chest, at the definition of muscle along his forearms, the bunching of his biceps before they disappeared under the T-shirt sleeve. The man had been carved out of bronze, and no one could convince her otherwise.

“I’m sorry, Jill, what did—” He stopped, stricken for a second, and then gave her a wry grin. “Hey, you’ve been Jill in my head for six years. I get a pass until Lindsey sticks.”

Unsettled, she tugged at the hem of her shirt. He’d been thinking of her for six years? No, in the light of day the idea was absurd. She couldn’t have made that big of an impression on him, not even as the adventurous Jill. A man like Rick probably had more women interested in him than he knew what to do with.

Naturally Lindsey had thought about him over the years. In the beginning, after she’d returned to NYU to finish her senior year, a night hadn’t gone by without her reliving those hours on the beach. The obsession only stopped because she’d feared she would flunk every one of her finals if she didn’t get more sleep. But then, she’d never had an orgasm before Rick.

She cleared her throat. “I forgot what we were saying.”

He agilely got to his feet, extended her a hand. “I have an idea.”

She let him pull her up while she fixated on his long lean fingers, remembering where they’d been last night. Oh, God. She felt warm suddenly. Not a blush, or maybe it was, but this time her whole body was involved. The sense memory of convulsing at his touch had her squeezing her thighs together.

Her nipples tightened, and he obviously knew it. He was staring at them.

“Someone’s coming,” she said, and bent to scoop up one of the towels.

“Just a couple of surfers.”

“We should go.”

“Yep.” He picked up the mat and rolled it up.

“My friends are going to kill me.”

“Why? You texted them last night.”

She could hear the voices coming closer, and her anxiety level rose. It wasn’t as if she and Rick had been caught doing anything wrong. “I told them we were eating on the beach, not that I was staying out all night,” she said.

He grinned. “I bet they figured it out.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the other towel, hastily folding it in half. She hated the sudden awkwardness that came over her. A shrink would probably blame her parents. Sometimes she did, too. Except both her brothers had grown up in the same oppressively strict, never-say-the-word-
sex
household as she had, and they didn’t seem to have problems expressing themselves.

In fact, her older brother, Brian, had rebelled in the opposite direction. He’d become a father at seventeen. Lindsey had been more astonished than her puritanical parents. She’d been almost eighteen before she even kissed a boy.

Looking past her at the strangers, Rick smiled and lifted his chin in greeting. He said something about the waves she didn’t understand, but the two men apparently did since they responded in kind.

Courtesy dictated that she at least acknowledge them. She turned, saw that they were older teenagers who were walking along the water’s edge. She smiled, but they didn’t seem to notice her. The lanky blond boy stared openly at Rick, and even in the shadowy dawn light, she could see admiration on his face.

“Hey,” he said, “I saw you out there in December when Sunset was breaking at thirteen.”

The shorter, stockier boy grinned, his teeth white against his dark round face. “You were awesome, dude.” He flashed him a hand sign using his extended thumb and little finger. “When are we gonna see you at the Triple Crown?”

Rick shrugged. “Maybe next year.”

“C’mon, brah, you said that last February in Surfer,” the shorter one said, pausing for Rick’s response.

The taller boy kept walking. “Let’s go, Skeet.” He gestured with a nod to Rick. “See ya, dude.”

“You guys have a good one,” Rick said, and started draining the cooler.

Lindsey sensed that the second boy had finally moved on, but her gaze was on Rick. “Do you know them?”

He shook his head. “The colas are still cold. Want one?” He popped open a can. “At least until we can get some coffee.”

“Thanks.” She took a sip, her dry icky mouth feeling instantly better. “Sorry, I don’t have time for coffee.”

He’d opened a can for himself, did a visual sweep of the area, then balanced the soda on top of the cooler. “We have to hurry.”

Quickly, she gathered the mat and towels, while he hefted the cooler. Glad as she was that he understood her need to return to the hotel, she was a bit annoyed with his sudden rush to be rid of her.

She followed him, finding the sand more difficult to walk in than she had last night, but seriously glad her lagging allowed her to shove a couple of old mints from her purse into her mouth. They didn’t speak until they got to the Jeep, and he’d thrown everything in a messy heap in the back.

After they’d both climbed in, he quickly buckled himself up, waited for her to get settled and said, “Ready?” at the same time he started to reverse.

“I guess I’d better be.”

His gaze flicked to her, and he smiled. “We’re probably too late but it’s worth a try.”

“Too late for what?” she asked, and grabbed the dashboard when he rolled through a stop sign and accelerated onto the highway, heading away from Waikiki. “Uh, the hotel is in the other direction.”

“We’ll get there eventually.”

“No, Rick, my friends, you don’t understand—”

“You go back this early you’ll only wake them up. Text them. If they’re worried because you aren’t back yet, they’ll check their phones.”

She considered his argument, then dug out her phone. Mia and Shelby were going to think she’d lost her mind. No messages. They obviously weren’t too worried. “So where are we going?”

“To catch the sunrise.”

“Wouldn’t that be on the other side of the island?”

“It is.”

The sky had begun to lighten before they’d left the beach. “We’re too late,” she said.

“It’s still dawn. The sun won’t come up off the water for another half hour.”

She thought for a minute. “I guess they are separate events.”

Rick smiled. “Ever see a sunrise, a real sunrise?”

“I’m not usually up that early,” she said dryly. “No, I take that back.” Lindsey had a flash of memory that hadn’t surfaced in years. “I was young, maybe eight or nine. My family had just moved to Florida, and we were staying in a motel until my mom found a house to rent.” She sighed. “Boy, did I get a whipping that day.”

“Why?” He briefly took his gaze from the road and shot her a troubled look.

“So did my brothers,” she said defensively, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. It was embarrassing to think about how quick her father was to get out his belt. “None of us had seen the ocean before and—” She shrugged. “The point is, I did get to see the sun rising over the water. It was amazing. I can’t believe I forgot that until now.”

Rick was quiet for a long uncomfortable stretch, then he said, “I can’t see you as a problem child.”

“Me? Are you kidding? I was Saint Lindsey. My older brother still calls me that sometimes.”

“Did you get hit often?”

“No.” She hated that he would have a misguided impression of her childhood. “Only one other time, and no surprise, I was being disciplined for an incident that involved my brothers.” Normally she wouldn’t elaborate on something so personal, but when she saw disbelief in the grim set of his jaw, she added, “My parents were both very strict. I abided by their rules, did what they expected of me so I was fine. My brothers not so much.”

“Define strict.”

She took a deep breath. “Well, they didn’t send me to boarding school, or anything like that. Although that wouldn’t have been too tragic,” she added absently. “At least I would’ve gotten to stay in one place.”

“I remember you saying that you’d moved around a lot. That’s gotta be tough on a kid,” he said, reaching over to rub her thigh.

She laid her hand on top of his, amazed at how much longer his fingers were. “It’s hard to make friends. I ended up staying home and studying a lot.”

“What about dating? The boys must have been pounding down your front door.”

Lindsey snorted. “Sure. I had them taking numbers.”

They came up on a sharp curve, and he moved his hand to down shift. “Come on, admit it. You left a trail of broken hearts after every move.”

“Ah, you’re sweet,” she said with a laugh, and lightly stroked his cheek. The rough feel of his unshaven jaw made the tips of her fingers tingle.

“Sweet? Hell, I’m serious.” He looked at her, but was forced to return his attention to the tricky twists in the road.

“I was always quiet and shy, definitely not the cheerleader type. Much more studious.” She wanted to touch him again, wanted him to touch her, but she understood that he needed to concentrate on his driving. “It didn’t matter. I doubt my father would have allowed me to date.”

“When?”

“Ever.” She laughed. “I’m exaggerating. I had two dates during my senior year.”

Rick frowned. “That’s it?”

“It was no big deal. Really, I was—” She cut herself short, wisely nipping the admission that she’d been half-afraid of boys. Partly the fault of her parents, but her brothers’ relentless teasing had something to do with her having believed the worst of the opposite sex. “I had a perfectly fine childhood.”

He slid her a speculative look, and then shook his head. “I’m not judging.”

“Um, yes, you are. But it’s okay. I suppose we all judge to some degree when faced with an experience different from our own.”

A conciliatory smile curved his mouth. “I thought you were an accountant.”

“And an armchair psychiatrist when I see an opening.”

He chuckled. “Good to know. I’ll watch myself.”

She smiled wryly. “Guess I should’ve reserved that comment until after I got the scoop on your family.”

“Hey, I’m an open book.”

She waited expectantly, her patience soon slipping. “Well?”

He lifted a shoulder. “We’re a typical, boring family. I have two older brothers, a sister who is younger than me. My dad is a pharmacist, my mom works part-time at my nieces and nephews’ elementary school.”

“Do you all get along?”

“Pretty much, except when it comes to football. My idiot brothers like the Cowboys.”

Lindsey laughed.

Rick cocked a brow at her. “Don’t tell me you’re a Cowboys fan.”

“I’ve never thought about it.”

He gave her an exaggerated look of surprise. “Not a football fan?”

“Is that a deal breaker?”

He pretended to give the matter serious thought. “We’re coming up on baseball season. I can forgive and forget.”

Her inflated sigh of relief earned her a smile that could’ve melted butter, and when she sighed again, it was a whisper-soft sound muffled by the engine, meant with all her heart.

She’d be gone before the season even started.

The irritating thought came out of nowhere and was quickly squashed. This was only her second day in Hawaii. That kind of musing wasn’t allowed. Her gaze drifted to his hands, to the long tan fingers wrapped around the steering wheel. He was busy navigating the turns in the road, and she treated herself to an uninterrupted sizing-up of his windblown hair, his strong profile, the way his thigh muscles flexed when he put in the clutch. Even in the dim light of dawn he took her breath away.