‘I didn’t want to hinder her efforts. I told her you were a lost cause but she doesn’t believe anyone is.’ She stopped and blinked into the sun. ‘I guess that’s nice really.’
‘Rare, I’d say.’
‘Me too,’ said Lucy continuing on to the shore.
They walked in silence until the waves threatened to lap Oliver’s shoes and he stopped.
Lucy looked down at his feet. ‘Be careful you don’t ruin your lovely Italian leather shoes,’ she teased.
‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘Because I’m going nowhere near the sea. I’m not dressed for it.’
She grinned. The men she’d grown up around had all been gung-ho macho men who didn’t care how they looked or what they ate or drank. Their needs were basic. But not this man. His needs were much greater. He had a reverence for beauty and for the finer things in life which she’d never encountered before in a man. It interested her. Challenged her. She liked that.
‘You’re looking at me strangely,’ he said, his lips curving into a smile as he watched her.
She basked under the heat of that smile. With only a brief break in eye contact she pulled her dress over her head and tossed it to him. He adeptly caught it just before it fell into the water. Leaving her standing only in her white bikini.
‘You come prepared.’ His smile broadened.
‘Always,’ she said, before turning her back on him and wading out into deeper water until she could dive into its cool depths. She needed to cool down, because being with Oliver was sending her blood temperature sky high.
* * *
Oliver stood on the damp sand, holding Lucy’s dress and watching her disappear under the tossing waves. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the sight of her long, lean body barely covered by the small bikini.
All Kate’s talk of community and her attempts to draw him into family warmth were appreciated but left him cold. But this — Lucy diving cleanly into the water — affected him in a way nothing else could. It touched something in him he’d forgotten he still had.
She was at one with the world. The sun and sky and sea and clean air were all around. And despite what he’d said about his shoes, he could feel the shallow waves washing over his feet.
It was like when he was sailing. He hadn’t thought of it in years — his grandmother waving from the shore as he took a boat out alone, the quiet lift in his chest, the sense of space and possibility. He felt a flicker of it now, unexpected and familiar all at once.
Lucy surfaced and struck out in a strong freestyle, her blonde hair blending with the surf.
White horses. The old childhood image rose unbidden — the wind skimming the tops of waves so they looked like wild horses charging the shore. He watched one crest roll in and found himself blinking hard.
And in that moment he realised that, even if he could never fully understand community, he could understand this place. It had slipped past his defences before he’d even noticed.
And so, it seemed, had she.
Chapter Thirteen
‘I needed that,’ said Lucy as she waded back to shore.
She stopped when she saw the state of Oliver’s trousers and shoes — both soaked — and the expression on his face.
‘Everything OK?’ she asked lightly, shaking her hair of excess water.
‘Fine,’ he said too quickly, handing her dress back. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
She studied him. ‘Because your Italian shoes are ruined and you look like you’ve seen something supernatural. And I’m assuming that wasn’t me in a bikini.’
His mouth finally curved. ‘Oh, you should have seen my face when you took the dress off. I may have forgotten how to breathe.’
She laughed as they walked across the sand. ‘I’m glad I missed that. Doesn’t sound attractive at all. Would’ve ruined the image.’
‘So you think I’m attractive?’
She didn’t look at him. ‘I think you’re needy.’
