"And living in a place no one would expect to find you," she suggested. "I love Ocean Shores, but it's not fancy, especially with our barely working air-conditioning units. Grayson said he's going to get all those replaced, which won't be soon enough. One advantage of having the owner living in the building."
"I'll bet he has a number of ideas for improvement."
"He does. And enough cash to execute them. But I think he's being careful. He knows how important it is to Lexie and Josie that he maintain the charm of the building. Anyway, I am curious why you felt Ocean Shores was the right place."
"I'm more well-known in Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Florida, all the places where country music is big. Southern California felt like a good place to go to get away from it all. And I like the beach. I always wanted to live by the ocean, so it seemed like the right move. Clay's connection to Josie and her willingness to allow me to pay her under one name and live by another was the tipping point."
She was very glad that the connection had happened and also aware of how long the odds were that they would have met otherwise.
"How was your shift?" Jax asked, changing the subject. "Any excitement?"
"A lot more than I usually have on a Tuesday night, unfortunately. There was a three-car crash caused by a drunk driver on the coastal highway. Fortunately, no fatalities but some serious injuries. A teen fell off the back of a running truck while performing some social media stunt. That idiot will luckily get to live to talk about it and hopefully won't be so stupid in the future."
He smiled. "What else?"
"A man fell off a ladder while apparently going against his wife's request that he not try to change the lighting on their roof. She was yelling her head off about how he never listens to her, and he's too old to climb up there, and who the hell does he think he is? He's an accountant, not a lighting expert."
"That sounds about right," he said with a laugh. "My grandfather was always climbing up on the roof after it was safe and smart for him to do so." He paused. "Was that it?"
"A woman got her hand stuck in a glass jar, literally a candy jar," she added, flashing him a smile. "Apparently, she had a secret stash of chocolate that her kids and husband were not supposed to know about. But now she's been outed as a chocaholic."
"Your job sounds amazing. You really get to see people as they are, don't you?"
"Sometimes I see too much of some people. We have a frequent flyer who does not like clothes, and that's always fun. Anyway, last night everyone survived, which meant it was a good shift."
"Did you sleep at all?"
"I got a ninety-minute nap around four in the morning."
"How are you so energetic?" he asked, giving her a questioning look. "Did you throw back some energy drinks on the way home?"
"No. I'm still operating off adrenaline, and I'm also hungry. Thanks for going with me. Everyone else I know is at work." She paused, seeing an odd expression move across his face at her words. She'd obviously just reminded him he had no job anymore. She wanted to know more about his plans, but he was a little like a skittish horse. She had to move carefully, or he'd bolt. "I'm glad you didn’t leave," she added.
"I haven't decided what I want to do yet."
"What do you do? I mean, for hobbies, for fun?" she asked, hoping he might continue to open up about things that weren't triggering to him.
"Fun?" he echoed, as if that word was foreign to him.
"Yes, fun. Movies, sports, books… I won't say music. But you know what I mean. If you want to have a relaxing day doing nothing related to your profession, what would you do?"
"I'd go for a hike, maybe do some fishing."
"Fishing, huh? Ocean or lake?"
"I've never fished on the ocean, but I wouldn't mind having that experience. I've always fished in a lake."
"Where did you grow up?"
"A small town in Nebraska. It didn't have much of anything, but it did have a lake filled with fish. I'd go out early mornings and late at night, trying to catch anything I could with a rod I got from my grandfather. He ran the campground at one end of the lake. It was full in the summer and ghostly quiet in the winter."
"Which did you like better? Summer tourists or winter quiet?"
"Summer tourists. They could be a pain in the ass, but they brought an energy that wasn't there otherwise. Where did you grow up?"
"All over. Since my father was in the military, we moved whenever he got a new post. We lived in South Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Northern California, and we even spent a year in Germany."
"Do you speak German?"
