by Amie Denman
“Don’t you think it’s dangerous walking around with no shoes? I thought you were a guy who erred on the side of safety.”
“I am,” Brady said. “But I’m cooling down my feet in the ocean for a few minutes before I go eat something I’ll regret later. Would you like to join me?”
“With the regret?”
He shook his head and smiled at her as he stood framed in the door. She was still in the driver’s seat, key in hand. While he waited for her answer, he took off his nametag and put it in his pocket. He wore navy-blue shorts and a red Cape Pursuit Trolley Company T-shirt, the uniform of the summer trolley staff. He propped a foot on the lower step of her trolley and untied one shoe, removed it and then did the same with the other. He stuffed his socks into the shoes and untucked his shirt.
“You look like a tourist now,” Kate said.
“Thank you. Your turn.”
This was starting to feel personal, which usually made alarm bells ring in Kate’s head. Getting personally involved with someone else was the first loop in a long series of ties.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she said, hoping he would take the hint and step away from her door.
“I’ll wait.” He walked over to a bench near the trolley office where he could get a clear view of the ocean.
Kate’s relief driver, who would take the late shift, hopped on, clipboard in hand, and Kate handed him the keys. She offered to help him with the checklist on the clipboard, but he turned her down. She took off her nametag and untucked her shirt, enjoying the feeling of freedom that came with it. Kate crossed the narrow parking lot and sat on the bench with Brady.
“You’re still wearing shoes,” he observed.
“I have to clock out, and the floor in the office is sticky.”
Brady handed her his company identification card. “Would you swipe mine, too?”
She took the card and headed into the small office. Kate swiped hers first and then Brady’s, and then took a closer look at his card. There was a picture, and he was smiling. Of course. The man seemed to have a permanent smile. It was one of the things she had noticed about him first. What did people notice about her first?
In addition to the picture, the card had his name and his birth date, which also doubled as the employee number. Brady had a birthday later this summer, she noticed. He’d be twenty-five a few months before she turned the same age in November. It was a personal detail she didn’t have a right to know, but he had handed her the card without reservation.
When Kate returned to the bench, Brady held out his large hand, palm up, and she laid the card in it while being careful not to touch him. He was like one of those beautiful desserts behind glass at a bakery. So tempting, but so not good for her. She was afraid to even take a close look for fear of being drawn in.
She should leave her shoes on and walk herself right over to her car. She glanced at Brady, but he wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was staring at the ocean’s edge, tension radiating from his body. “Do you hear that?” he asked.
She directed her gaze toward the ocean and listened. Someone was screaming and she thought she heard the word help.
Brady was off the bench and running before she could answer his question. Kate peeled off her shoes and socks and left them next to his, and then she raced across the sand right behind him. There was no way she could catch him, as his legs ate up the distance faster than a train, but then he suddenly stopped.
Kate bumped into him and knocked them both over. Brady sprawled on the sand, hand over his chest, laughing. Kate scrambled up. “What happened?”
“False alarm. I realized when I got close that it was just kids goofing around, yelling for help but they were fine.” Brady sat up, still breathing heavily. “I hate it when people do that, but my brother and I acted like fools, too, when we were kids.”
Kate sank to the sand next to him. “I haven’t run that fast in a long time.”
“Or knocked anyone over?”
She laughed. “That, either.”
Brady leaned back on his elbows. “Now that we’re both shoeless and I’m suddenly starving, should we go to the Kick Off festival? We deserve a treat.”
Kate shoved around a little hill of sand with her fingers and let the sand slide between them. It felt cool and refreshing and the sunset streaked the water pretty colors. It was as if someone had packaged a summer evening, and for a brief moment she wanted to stay in Cape Pursuit and keep the summer exactly as it was.
She shook off that unexpected thought and tried for a casual tone. “Why not?” she said, even though seeing Brady’s handsome face right next to her reminded her of all the reasons why she shouldn’t.
CHAPTER SIX
HIS HEART STILL raced and his limbs vibrated from adrenaline from that cry of help that had him racing across the sand. His brain had registered it as a false alarm but it took his feet a while to get the message and slow down. Being barreled over from behind by Kate was almost the last thing he expected. Was she planning to help somehow? He didn’t doubt her bravery, but she was also a person who didn’t get involved in other people’s lives. At least, she had been the previous summer, but something about her seemed a little...softer...this summer.
“I heard people talking about french fries half the day and then I had to smell all the ones tourists brought on the trolley with them,” Kate said.
“So, no to the fries?”
Kate laughed and gave him a little tap on the upper arm. “Yes to the fries. It’s been killing me all day. And we might as well start with the food trucks in the park and then work our way down to the mermaid statue on the boardwalk. That’s where the homemade ice cream vendor is set up, according to about two hundred people who got on my trolley talking about it.”
Brady liked the sound of this plan. Given the crowds, lines and distance from the park to the other end of the boardwalk, he could count on at least two hours of Kate’s time.
“You’re a fast runner,” Kate said.
“Only in short sprints,” Brady admitted as they picked up their shoes and then walked the length of beach to the park entrance. “I like playing basketball, but if I tried to run a mile straight, I’d probably need an ambulance.”
“I like hiking,” Kate said without elaboration. A clue to the mysterious hidden life of Kate Price?
“Was that what you were doing in forty-seven states?” he asked.
“Forty-five.”
“Close enough.”
“I hiked when I could, but a lot of my time was spent behind the wheel.”
Brady was tempted to take her hand. They both carried their shoes as they walked the beach, but he planned to find a bench when they got to the grassy park and put his shoes back on.
“Don’t tell me you’ve driven a trolley across the United States and back, narrating all the attractions along the way,” he said.
Kate turned to him with a smile. “Worse. I was driving a freight truck.”
“Filled with flowers? Is that why you hate flowers?”
“The flowers were a different job. That was three years ago in New York City. You can’t believe how many flowers get delivered to weddings and funerals every day. And the smell clings to you no matter how long you stand in the shower and try to wash it off.”
“Flower smell can’t be that bad,” Brady commented.
They entered the park and Brady motioned toward a bench where they sat side by side, almost touching, and pulled on their socks and shoes.
“I like wildflowers,” Kate said. “But the hothouse ones bother me. They’re grown to perfection in little glass-walled prisons, and when they are just about to be perfect, chop,” she said, mimicking scissors with her hands. “Chopped and shipped. Heck of a way to live and die.”
Brady was afraid to say anything aloud, but he believed he might be getting a glimpse in
to Kate Price that left him with more questions than answers.
Kate popped up. “Fry truck,” she said, pointing. She started walking and Brady had to finish tying his shoe and catch up with her. He slipped into line next to Kate, hoping she might resume telling him about her experiences driving freight and flowers and hiking. She was fascinating, but elusive, like a beautiful butterfly you couldn’t catch.
“It’s a better deal if we get the large and split it,” she said, her attention focused on the menu on the side of the food truck. A woman with a large order of steaming fries left the window and walked past them.
“Now I’m dying,” Brady said. “We could cut in line.”
Kate laughed and looked up at him. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“No, I wouldn’t. But it’s tempting.”
“I thought I would never look at another french fry after driving a truck all over the country for a year,” Kate said. “Fast food is lousy, but sometimes it was the only choice.”
“What did you deliver in your truck?”
“Anything. I worked for a freight company after I got my commercial driver’s license. I thought it would be a great way to see the country. And it was,” she said as she moved up a space in line, “but that company got bought out by a hazardous materials shipper, and I thought that was my sign to move on.”
They made it to the window and ordered the large carton of fries.
“I delivered pizzas for a few months when I was a senior in high school,” Brady said.
“Did you get tired of the pizza smell lingering on you?”
“Not really. I love pizza. But the car I was using got... Well, it wasn’t available any longer, so I had to give it up.”
He’d almost told her about his mother’s boyfriend at that time who ended up taking off with the ancient beat-up car his mother had somehow acquired. He and Noah had learned to drive and taken their license tests in that car. Brady had been almost eighteen and Noah was sixteen when they got their licenses together, taking advantage of the one car their mother had managed to hold on to. Brady had vowed he’d buy a new one with a part-time job, but the money was always needed for something else—like a decent winter coat for his mother and school supplies for his brother.
Even though he had stopped talking, Kate was focused on him as if he was explaining something in great detail. She was watching his face, and he was afraid he’d revealed too much.
“You must have really liked that car,” she said with a faint attempt at a smile. “Or the pizza.”
Brady swallowed and brought back his usual cheerful expression. “Mostly the pizza.” It was a beautiful summer evening, and he was with a woman who intensified his belief that finding someone to be with and put down roots with was the path to happiness. He wasn’t going to spoil the mood by telling Kate that his mother had drifted aimlessly when he and his brother were growing up. Only now that he and Noah were grown up and their mother had developed a chronic heart condition did she settle in one place—with her sister, who was kind enough to take her into her home in a Florida trailer park.
It wasn’t a dream life for his mother, but it was better than her previous existence...even though he’d wanted to believe he and his brother brought her some happiness all those difficult years. If she’d only had a solid home, it would have been so much easier for all of them to be happy.
“Large fry,” the teen at the window said, and Kate practically leaped forward to grab her order before anyone else did.
“Bench or walk?” Brady asked.
Kate ate a fry and offered the carton to Brady. “We could walk,” she said. “I’d like to hear the band on the boardwalk and see what’s in all the festival tents down by the mermaid statue.”
Brady liked the idea of walking the beach with Kate, even though each step would bring them closer to their destination and the end of the night with her. Just being with her felt like a bonus because he hadn’t expected her to return to Cape Pursuit for another summer, and he hadn’t expected her to agree to a night out with him. He shouldn’t get his hopes up, but...
Kate stopped by a vendor with bottles of soda and water in giant ice chests. She handed over a five-dollar bill and grabbed an orange soda. “I’m buying,” she said to Brady as she pointed to the ice chest. He selected a bottle of water and tucked it under his elbow so he could open it with his free hand while still holding the fries. Kate smiled at him and took a handful of fries and then continued walking along the crowded boardwalk. Families, groups of friends and lovers holding hands wandered along the ocean, no one seeming to be in a hurry.
A boy on a skateboard zipped in front of Kate and she stopped short, throwing up her hands as he nearly knocked her over. During the split second her hands were in the air, a seagull swept down and stole the french fry clutched between her fingers. A woman near them shrieked in surprise, but Kate laughed and turned to watch the seagull flying away. Brady wanted to chase down the skateboarder and give him a lecture about safety, but Kate was unharmed and smiling broadly.
“Lucky bird,” she said.
“Because he got a fry?” Brady asked.
Kate shook her head. “No. Because he can fly. That must be amazing to have freedom like that and be able to take off anytime and anywhere you want.”
Brady shuddered and worked the cap off his bottle, one-handed, for another cold drink.
“You don’t like birds?” Kate asked.
“I’m not crazy about flying,” he admitted.
“Did you have a bad experience on a flight?”
“No. No experience at all. I’m just not sure I’d like the feeling of leaving the ground,” he said. “I don’t mind feeling the earth under my feet.”
“You’ve never flown?” she asked. Her tone implied that he’d never lived, and it reminded him how different they were.
He’d been lucky to get a ride to school growing up, and since then he’d relied on a nice sturdy pickup truck, a fire truck or the fireboat to get him where he needed to be. “I never flew as a kid, and I haven’t had any reason to since. I’ve been on a few nice vacations, but you can drive to a lot of places pretty easily from the Virginia shore.”
Kate unscrewed her bottle of orange soda and took a long sip as they continued walking the boardwalk. Just ahead, there were food vendors mixed with carts selling souvenirs and glow sticks. Loud music from a band set up on the beach emanated from just ahead, and most of the people on the boardwalk seemed to be heading toward it.
“Did you fly a lot when you were a kid?” Brady asked. Was that part of her obsession with staying on the move and part of her reason for wanting to be a flight attendant?
Kate laughed. “Never. I stayed in one place, went to one school, and my childhood bedroom was still painted the same color the last time I went home.”
To Brady, that sounded like a wonderful way to spend a childhood, but Kate’s tone and expression made it clear that she didn’t think so. They paused at the painted railing that divided the boardwalk from the beach and listened to the band. It was a loud mix of drums and electronic/techno music. Brady wouldn’t have tuned his pickup’s radio to music like that, but he was willing to listen to it just to be with Kate. People on the beach were dancing and the crowd continued to grow as he stood side by side with Kate and fought the desire to slip an arm around her. It would make a perfect evening even better if he could just feel her against his side and let her long hair tickle his arm when the ocean breeze stirred her dark locks.
When the song finally ended after ten minutes of what sounded to Brady like the same thing over and over, Kate stretched up and her lips brushed his ear. “I don’t love this music,” she said. “Do you?”
Brady smiled and shook his head, delighted at the feeling of her lips on his ear and the sudden camaraderie he shared with Kate.
“Want to move along?” she asked. Her hand was
on his upper arm as she balanced herself with the crowd jostling around her. Brady nodded and surrendered to his feelings as he slipped a protective arm around her. She didn’t resist, and they moved away from the people and noise.
As soon as they got to a darker and more secluded part of the boardwalk, Brady removed his arm, knowing he didn’t have a good excuse or any right to touch Kate, no matter how much he wanted to pull her close and feel the night air whispering over them both. As soon as he broke the contact between them, Kate glanced up quickly. Was she disappointed? Relieved?
Brady cleared his throat. “Are you glad you came back for the summer?”
“Very,” she said quickly.
Was she trying to tell him something?
“I love nights like this, and the smell of the ocean at night. I’m making a nice salary, and it’s really going to help this fall,” she added.
Brady stopped walking. Kate took another half step and then stopped also, turning to face him. A few people walked past, but their section of the boardwalk was quiet and Brady didn’t feel bad taking up the middle of the walkway. He needed to ask Kate for clarification, needed to know if there was anything left in her heart from the previous summer. “Are those the only reasons you’re glad to be in Cape Pursuit?” he asked.
Kate looked out to the ocean, and Brady imagined she was thinking about flight, as she always seemed to be. He’d gone too far, and he was probably going to pay for it. To his surprise, though, he saw her shake her head slowly from side to side in the dim light. “It’s nice seeing you,” she said, her voice low and inviting.
Brady’s chest constricted and he willed himself to be calm—something he had practiced while suiting up on the way to a fire or other emergency call. He could breathe deeply, focus and deal with life and death matters while watching out for himself and his partners on the department. He could handle a conversation with a lovely woman under the inky postsunset sky without making a fool of himself or blundering irredeemably.
“Summer is only about a hundred days long,” he began, reaching for a rational argument for why she might consider spending her time with him. “And we’ve already used up a few weeks,” he continued, “but there’s a lot left.”
