Page 94 of Somebody's Watching Me
“Why haven’t I done this before?” She tapped him with a single finger. “Let me down.”
Setting her gently on the sand, he gripped her hand. “Good?”
Taking the landscape in, Annabeth inhaled and exhaled.
Once.
Twice.
“Good.”
On this side of the dunes, the sand gave the appearance of freshly fallen snow, and with the midday sun shining brightly overhead, the new highlights in Annabeth’s hair framed her face. Another victory, she’d gone to a hairdresser last month to have her hair professionally done for the first time. It had been a whole event with her mother and brother coming along for support.
Before she could say no, he pulled the burner phone from his pocket and snapped a photo of her smiling at the horizon. “Beautiful.”
“Oh my God.” She shaded the screen with her hand to see the picture. “I’m a mess.”
“My beautiful mess.”
Thunder rolled around in the distance, and she frowned at the clouds coming in. “We have about ten minutes.”
Being a Texas native, bizarre shifts in weather were no big deal. But here, the entire area could go from tornado activity to perfectly sunny and peaceful in under a second.
“Come on.” Annabeth tugged his hand. “I want to see how far I can go before it rains.”
Toeing off their shoes and socks, they took a few steps, leaving the coarser sand around the dunes to bury their feet in the powder white.
“Oh, I forgot it squeaked!” Annabeth halted abruptly, jamming her foot deeper into the sand.
Rowan had never thought about it. “I guess it does.”
“I remember this.” Annabeth’s bottom lip quivered as she stared down at her wiggling toes. “I remember him.”
“Who?”
She didn’t answer, only stared at the sand. Beginning to get concerned, Rowan debated on what to do. Did he grab her and haul ass to the bookshop or give whatever was happening here a chance to blow over?
“Rowan?”
Ah, crap. She was crying.
“I’m here.”
“I can remember him.” Her chest pumped as she regulated her breathing. “I never can, but that silly squeak reminded me of when we visited the beach. We flew kites, and… and…” Gulping for air, she let out a strangled laugh. “Samuel chased Evie with a crab, and it got caught in her hair.”
The words were racing out of her, and Rowan’s concern grew. “Annabeth, tell me you’re okay.”
“We stayed until sunset.” Lost in her memories, she couldn’t hear him. The past rising to meet her right here among the dunes. “Abe stompedon the sandcastle CeCe and I made, but my dad… my dad rebuilt the whole thing.” Hysterically laughing, she stomped her foot, creating a rapid succession of squeaks. “Sand is nothing but a bunch of combined minerals, but not this stuff. Feel it!”
She kicked a batch at him, the white splashing against his black pants. “It’s quartz! White sand like this is unique because it’s ninety-nine percent quartz. My dad taught me that.” Choking on tears springing forth from somewhere deep and broken inside her, she nodded at the gulf waters ahead, her excited shouts dropping to a whisper. “My dad taught me that. I-I remember.”
Afraid he might have pushed her too far, Rowan placed a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “It’s time to go back.”
“No, not yet.” Straightening her shoulders, she regained her composure. “We’re going to the water.”
Clouds crawled overhead. Dark and ominous, they swept low in the sky, threatening to let loose. “The rain is coming.”
“So?” Marching ahead, she pulled him with her. “No lightning, no problem.”
