“Oh, no. I was stretching my arm.” She smiled at him and threaded their arms, making sure he wouldn’t look in Simon’s direction. “Shall we?”
Over the next few minutes, they reached the furthest part of the Pancake Rocks outcrop, with unparalleled views of the turbulent ocean. Shanna had seen Simon following them one more time, but then suddenly, her wrist yanked.
She pouted, yanking forward. He thought he could control this date, huh?
She’d been used to the occasional tug by now—it happened here and there when one went to the bathroom while the other forgot to move closer, or Simon parked the car and went to thehotel lobby, forgetting they had to go together. But now, as she yanked again, her wrist firmly held back.
She couldn’t move.
“Something wrong?” Nick asked.
Shanna tugged again; it may have given in an inch, but no more. What the hell was Simon doing? Hugging a tree so she couldn’t yank him forward?
This was below even childish.
“Give me a second.” She flashed Nick a sorry smile and marched back down the path, hands clenched into fists.Nowhe had decided to be the jealous husband? He wanted this bond undone. He wanted nothing to do with her.He said he did not want to go on a date.
“Simon!” she hissed, looking around the bushes. Where was he? “Simon! Stop it, right now!”
Her wrist had stopped tugging, so he wasn’t moving further away. She paused at the highest point of the path, where the bushes had cleared, offering a view of the rocks on both sides—the open ocean on one and the ragged crevice of the blowhole on the other.
She was just about to turn, begging forgiveness from Nick and unloading it onto Simon later … and then, her heart froze.
A part of the fence that had been perfectly fine minutes earlier, when she’d walked by, had collapsed outward.
And down into the ocean.
Chapter 12
Shanna stomped over to the dining table and leaned on it, fixing Gran with a determined stare. “So. JJ said he liked me, but when I asked him out today, he was like, ‘I was kidding, I’d never go out with you.’ What’s wrong with him?”
“Did you ask him in front of his friends?”
“Yes.”
“Those friends were other boys his age?”
“Yes.”
Gran sighed. “It’s not you, dear. It’s men. Whether they’re teenagers or grown-ups, they’ll always behave like absolute idiots around women they like.”
***
“Simon!” Shanna rushed to the gap in the fence, her heart dropping into her stomach. This was all her fault, wasn’t it? Why did her stupid accident curse keep going after Simon?
Please, tell me he’s holding on.At the fence, the cliff dropped straight into the foaming, gray-blue water. He had to be within a hundred feet of her—but he could be down there, injured, drowning—
With a fear that almost stopped her from looking, Shanna peeked over the fence.
On a narrow shelf about two feet below lay Simon, squirming as he held his foot.
“Simon.” This time, his name was a breath of relief.
“I think I sprained my ankle,” he squeezed out. “I don’t even know how it happened. I was walking and …”
“Iknow.” She couldn’t even be angry with him for glowering at her throughout the date. As long as he was alive and decently well, everything was fine.
Nick caught up with them. “What happened?”
