Page 20 of Love At The Shore
“That would be awesome.”
“You got it.” He winked.
Her face went hot for some weird reason. She swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Seriously, why was she so warm all of a sudden?
He nodded, turned down the music with a few taps on his cell phone and headed back to the game.
“Great. Thanks.” Well, that was a million times easier than she thought it would be.
A player on the other side of the net tossed the ball into the air, preparing to serve. “Four-four!” he yelled.
Instead of watching the ball, Lucas shot Jenna a cheeky grin. “What? Too loud?”
She mirrored his volume knob signal. “Little bit.”
“We’ll keep it down.” The ball whizzed past his head.
Jenna couldn’t help but laugh. As she made her way back over the dune, she could have sworn she felt Lucas’s gaze on her back, as warm as the summer sun.
But she refused to look. She was probably imagining things, anyway. Just because they were finally getting along didn’t mean he thought of her as anyone but the cranky lady who’d moved in next door.
Correction: the crankymomwho’d moved in next door.
Lucas was only being polite. He tolerated her kids about as well as she tolerated his slacker surfer lifestyle. And nothing was more important in the world to Jenna than Nick and Ally.
Whatever he thought about her, he kindly kept the noise to a minimum for the rest of the afternoon. Once Jenna could hear herself think, she managed to make some actual progress on her manuscript. After a few intense timed writing sprints, she had a shiny new chapter under her belt. She just wished she could come up with a solid ending to the story. That major detail was still eluding her.
When at last she’d written ten pages—ten!—she couldn’t wait to pick up the kids. She considered a few potential endings as she steered the car along the sand-swept road to the beach camp. The trip was a slow crawl through summer, island traffic, but she arrived just as Nick, Ally and the other campers were making their way from the shore to the camp’s wooden deck with beach towels wrapped around their slim shoulders and popsicles in their hands. On the way home, Ally gushed about the new turtle nest they’d discovered high up on the dunes and the tracks the mama turtle had left in the sand—deep trenches winding from the shore to the nest and back out to sea again.
While the kids showered and changed into fresh clothes, Jenna set three place settings on the picnic table out on the deck. Then she fired up the grill for steaks, Nick’s favorite. By the time the kids were ready, she’d managed to add fresh-squeezed lemonade, salad, veggies and cold sliced watermelon. The perfect summer spread.
“Here’s to my beach warriors and a fantastic summer at camp.” Jenna raised her glass.
“How long is it again?” Nick stared down at his plate.
Jenna frowned. He’d been awfully quiet since he’d trudged to the car after camp with his damp towel slung around his neck. She’d thought he was simply tired after a busy day in the pool and at the beach, content to let Ally dominate the conversation. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Can we cheers now?” Ally’s glass of lemonade hovered above the table.
Jenna tapped hers against it. “Yes. Cheers!”
Nick clinked his glass too, but instead of taking a sip, he sat staring over Jenna’s shoulder toward the shore. “Maybe I should just learn to surf instead.”
This was new. He’d talked about nothing but swim team for the past year and a half. His heart had been set on making the qualifying time at the trial at the end of summer, so he’d be prepared going into tryouts for the school swim team in the fall.
Worry gnawed at Jenna as she dished salad onto his plate. “Why would you want to do that? We don’t normally live near the beach.”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. Our neighbor does it.”
So this was about Lucas. Of course. Why hadn’t she seen it coming?
She glanced over her shoulder to follow Nick’s gaze. Sure enough, Lucas was making his way over the dune with a surfboard tucked under his arm. He was wearing his wetsuit and flip-flops. Again.
No wonder Nick had started looking at him as if he was some kind of hero. His life was one big beach volleyball game. As nice as it seemed, it wasn’t exactly realistic. Or responsible.
