Walking on Sea Glass

by Julie Carobini

  Anne’s … kin? Dr. Acero knew Beau’s wife? And he thought that she and Liddy were … that they somehow looked alike?

  Lucy slapped him harder this time. “Oh, Papa, she does not. Where do you get those thoughts?”

  He shrugged. “All I’m saying is that Liddy and Anne—God rest her soul—could pass for cousins. Both lookers … although she was a brunette.”

  A lull settled between them. Liddy gave him a vague smile and turned her attention back to the game. She didn’t bother mentioning that she, too, was a brunette. It’s no surprise that Peter thought she was a blonde—the only hair that could be seen peeking out beneath the baseball cap had been bleached. If she were to yank that hat off her head, they’d all see the truth: a close-cropped covering of soft, loam-colored hair. Then she’d have a whole new story to tell them.

  But at this moment, she’d rather keep quiet the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Later that day, after they’d eaten their fill, teamed up in a variety of team sports like horseshoes and croquet—not to mention Beau’s shirtless game of flag football—and fulfilled some obligatory networking requirements, they walked back to Liddy’s place. She’d planned to throw together a light dinner for them, but Beau suggested they head back to the beach and watch the sunset. So while he carried a couple of low-slung chairs out to the sand, she traipsed behind him, holding a basket of towels and two bottles of Perrier.

  They watched the surf in near silence, the sun having moved closer to the sea, yet still offering plenty of warmth.

  “I could sit here all night,” Beau said.

  “Yeah?”

  “With you to keep me warm, that is.”

  “Aw, I hope you don’t say that to all the beach girls …”

  He laughed. “Well, not all of them.”

  “Nice.”

  Beau laughed again. “Seriously, Liddy, we’re lucky people to live here. When I was a kid growing up in Colorado, I used to watch the Rose Parade on TV and I couldn’t believe that somewhere in the world the sun was shining. I always told my parents that someday, I would move there.”

  “And you did.”

  “Yes. For a kid who hadn’t seen the ocean for the first twelve years of his life, it still astounds me that I can see it every day now.”

  “Ever think of living here?”

  Beau glanced at Liddy, his brows raised.

  “I mean, here, down by the beach.”

  “What are you saying? I do live by the beach.”

  “Okay, but you’re like, what, five or six miles inland?”

  Beau shook his head, laughing. “Honey, when you’ve grown up in rural Colorado, the entire state of California is on the beach!”

  “Okay, okay. Laugh all you want, hotshot. I was just wondering …”

  He hooked an arm around her neck. “I forgive you.”

  She gasped in mock disapproval and attempted to pull away from him, but he cinched her closer.

  “I’m seriously glad you spent the day with me today.”

  She stopped, her heartbeat erratic. “Yeah?”

  His eyes crinkled at their corners. “Yeah.”

  “You had so many admirers at that picnic,” she started. “You must help a lot of people.”

  He released his grip and sat back. “I try. It’s not hard to, really, when you have respect for the people you’re working for. Some people think of marketing as a four-letter word, but it’s really just coming up with the best way to connect people with someone who can help them. Hard to do these days with so much noise in the world. But when that happens? It’s the best definition of a win-win situation.”

  “And you can pay your rent.”

  He smiled and gazed at her. “And I can pay my rent.” He cleared his throat. “Or mortgage soon, hopefully.”

  “Oh, had no idea you were planning to move.”

  “Just started looking.”

  “And … do you have a place in mind … that you’d like to buy, I mean?”

  “The general area, yes.”

  “Anywhere I know?”

  “Not around here, but if you want, sometime I’ll take you by the area I’m considering.”

  She blushed. Of course she wanted to see the kind of house Beau was thinking of buying—if it was even a house, could be a condo for all she knew—but she didn’t want him to think she was prying into his life. Into his future.

  And … what did he mean not around here? Hadn’t Beau just shown her how fully ensconced he was in this community? In his business? Surely he couldn’t be thinking of relocating.

  “Sure. Why not.” She tried to sound as nonchalant as she could. “Although, I hate to break this to you, but people living in, say, Bakersfield, don’t actually believe theirs is a beach community.”

  “Ha. True. But don’t worry your pretty little head.” He plunked a kiss on her nose, as if they’d known each other for years and this kind of banter was normal for them. “It’s not that far from here. In fact, it’s close to where I live now.”

  “But not at the beach.”

  He shrugged. “Close enough. I’m not in a huge hurry, though. Still looking around, taking my time. When the right place comes along, I’ll know it.”

  She’d noticed this about him. Beau wasn’t a guy in a hurry. He’d taken his time asking her out, for instance. And when he had finally asked her—that Wednesday night after church—he’d had to work himself up to it. Or so it seemed to her. And he hadn’t actually considered it a date. That moniker had been saved for their first “official” date—as he called it—several weeks later.

  She could hear Meg’s voice in her head. Why are you in such a hurry?

  Truthfully, she didn’t know. In some ways it felt like she’d been wasting time over the past few years. Her marriage to Shawn had never felt right, even on her wedding day. But she was so young and for reasons that only a shrink could someday reveal to her, she had become attached to him. She specifically remembered being nineteen years old and holding a mental debate in her mind over whether she should go through with it. In the end, she had decided that if she didn’t marry Shawn, there would be no one else.

  Looking back, that would not have been the worst-case scenario.

  “You look pretty far away, Liddy.”

  She blinked. He was speaking to her, his forehead tense. Had he said something and she’d not responded?

  “You ready to go in?” he asked. “Are you tired?”

  Or maybe … he was concerned. Like the woman from her doctor’s office who she’d run into at the picnic today, the one who’d seemed quite surprised by the progress of her recovery. The thought brought her to the present, and the very real MRI appointment she would be going to later this week. She wanted to erase the snapshot of her calendar from her mind.

  It occurred to Liddy then that maybe she was in a hurry to find the right guy and settle down for the same reason that Beau appeared not to be: fear of the unknown.

  The sun had not yet set, and she shook her head at Beau’s question, determined not to let the sudden onset of doldrums spoil a perfectly pleasant day. “Sorry about that. No, not yet. Let’s wait a few more minutes. Until the sun goes down.”

  He took his towel and wrapped it around her shoulders, then kept one arm lazily about her. “You got it.”

  The golden globe grazed the surface of the sea.

  “Beau?”

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Dr. Acero said that I reminded him of someone.”

  “Really?”

  The sun’s descent had accelerated, its rays disappearing into the ocean. Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t brought up the subject.

  Beau broke into her thoughts. “Who did Doc say you reminded him of?”

  She swallowed back her hesitation and cut him a look. “He said … he said that I look like your wife.”

  * * *

  Beau hadn’t laughed that hard in … well, not in a while. Dr. Acero’s comment that Liddy looked like Anne’s �
��kin” was strangely comical to him. There were some things you just didn’t speak about in professional company, such as politics, religion, and oh, yes, the idea that a guy’s date looks like his late wife.

  He had laughed out loud again, the sound nearly swallowed up by a resounding wave. Acero was a good guy. Sadly, the man probably didn’t really remember what Anne looked like—he hadn’t seen her more than twice, if that.

  Liddy’s reaction to Beau’s take on the incident puzzled him, though. She hadn’t looked angry, exactly, more like shocked. Or perplexed.

  “It’s not true,” he’d said to her, hoping to quell the good doctor’s curious pronouncement and its obvious effect on Liddy.

  She shrugged. “Wonder why he said it then.”

  “Who knows? Maybe just to make conversation.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “He also thought I was a blonde.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Beau had made the quip with a smile on his face, but she’d slugged him anyway, with a force that surprised him. Of course, he’d known all along that she was a brunette; he’d noticed her before word of her illness had spread like wildfire through the church. And he’d been privy to seeing her up close—without that hat. He’d removed it the night of their official date, and she had not offered an ounce of protest when he’d let it drop to the ground behind them.

  Now that he sat in front of his flat screen, his feet up on the scuffed coffee table, a heady reality faced him. No, Liddy didn’t remind him of Anne. Not really. He missed his wife more than he admitted openly. He thought of her more than he could say.

  But with Liddy, something altogether new was forming, and taking hold far faster than his comfort zone allowed. And this was the reason he had talked her into watching the sunset tonight. They had already spent a full day in the sun, and truthfully, he would have preferred staying inside.

  But he couldn’t trust himself. Not as a man, and not with her. His heart and body had already tried to take over once where she was concerned, but when the heat of the moment had passed, he wondered how wise that would have been.

  And so, while she puttered around her kitchen in her bare feet, tempting him after hours of beach play with that slip of fabric molding itself to her, he’d spun her around.

  Her eyelashes fluttered. “What are you doing?”

  He leaned in for a kiss. Just a quick one. Then pulled back. “Let’s go sit on the beach.”

  She had looked momentarily stunned, and even then he wondered if she was tired. Even if she hadn’t had surgery a couple of months ago, she should have been tired.

  But he hadn’t relented. Still felt guilty about that.

  “C’mon. I’ll take the beach chairs and you grab the drinks,” he had replied. “I won’t make you talk to another soul, I promise.”

  She nodded her head, a tiny smile forming. “Okay, sure. Let’s do it.” She was a beach girl, after all.

  Now, as he sat in the comfort of his own living room reliving the day, he grabbed the remote and released a sigh into the silence. He pointed it at the screen, and pressed “off.” His mind might not be able to rest much, but his body needed the sleep.

  Chapter 16

  She arrived at work mid-morning Tuesday to find Trace sitting behind the concierge desk, filing her nails. Trace looked up. “Something’s different.”

  It was true. On her way in, Liddy had slipped in to see Missy at Shear Dreams.

  “It’s about time you let me lop off that blonde hair,” Missy had said.

  “I was hoping for something a little less drastic sounding.”

  Missy laughed. “I just meant that you have enough hair here on the other side that I think I can match it all up.”

  By the time she left her hairdresser’s place, all trace of curls had been removed. In its place soft, dark hair covered her head, so short that if she were to go without a hat—which she was not yet prepared to do—she might have been able to join the military and skip the boot camp haircut.

  Trace peered at her. “You cut your hair. Either that or you pinned up the blonde curls.”

  “No, I cut it. Wanted to see how it would look with both sides the same length.”

  “And?”

  “It looks short.”

  Trace cracked up. “I’m guessing you had a good weekend?”

  Flush with all the memories, the good and the strange, Liddy nodded and answered, “Great weekend, yes.” She slipped her purse into a drawer, snapping a look at it to make sure she had pulled the zipper closed.

  She sat down, rolled forward in her desk chair, and glanced around. For a Monday, the hotel remained eerily quiet. Usually the inn would be bustling with guests checking out about now and needing directions or last-minute reservations for various types of guided tours before heading on to their next destinations. Today, however, the lobby was quieter than a classroom full of students taking their SATs.

  “Good,” Trace said, dropping her emery board into a drawer. “ ’Cause you look pretty tired.”

  “Do I?” She hoped her response sounded surprised enough. Truth was, she was exhausted. Liddy woke up so tired that her feet hurt. How could that be so after being curled up, dreaming of romantic sunsets, for eight-plus hours? A slight bout of dizziness had also caught her by surprise this morning, so she’d taken an anti-seizure pill with her coffee—just for good measure.

  Trace surveyed her with narrowed eyes as if not quite buying Liddy’s casual reply. “Just be careful,” she replied. “We can’t have any relapses, okay?”

  The phone rang, and Liddy reached to answer it. She gave Trace an apologetic little smile and said, “Good morning, concierge desk, this is Liddy.”

  The next hour or so dragged until Housekeeping arrived in full force to, as the supervisor Clarice announced, give the place some “extra sparkle.”

  “Shoulda thought of that years ago,” Trace sniffed. “There’s more dust under that bell desk than a hoarder’s garage.”

  Liddy opened her mouth to point out the irony in her treasure-hunting friend’s words, but shut it quickly.

  Meg breezed in through the double front doors, wearing a perfectly fitted dark chocolate suit with touches of cheetah in all the right places: on the cuffs, lining the pocket flaps—even a folded cheetah hanky peeked from her breast pocket.

  A catcall sliced the air, followed by a couple of dorky high-fives over at the bell desk.

  “Shoot,” Liddy said when her pal approached. “If I weren’t straight, I’d make a pass at you.”

  “You’re such a loser.”

  Liddy smiled. “Love you, too.”

  “Is he here yet?”

  “He who?”

  Meg eyed her from beneath thick, straight bangs. She licked her pink-frosted lips and darted a look around.

  Liddy tilted her head to the side. “Did you get a haircut?” She almost added “too.”

  Meg swung her gaze back to Liddy, her forehead wrinkled. “Does it look all right?” she whispered.

  “It’s actually perfect for you. I love the way it frames your teardrop face without hiding it, you know?”

  Meg let out an aggravated sound.

  “Is there something wrong? Who are you looking for?”

  “Jack … is in town today. I received an early morning call that he wanted me here for a meeting. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Jack?”

  “Jackson Riley, VP.”

  “He’s coming in today? Oh … no wonder Housekeeping is all over this place.”

  Meg scowled. “I guess I’m early. Darn it.”

  Liddy hadn’t seen Meg so antsy before. Well, not since they were in high school and the prom king ditched the queen for her and made a big show of it and … oh! “He’s the guy you dated last year!”

  Meg grabbed Liddy’s arm, her grip like a vise. She yanked her forward until their faces were inches apart, and hissed into her face. “You did not just say that!”

  “Ouch.”

  It was all mak
ing sense to her now. When Liddy still lived in the desert, Meg had met someone special—although she had been oddly evasive about the man. Before Liddy had the chance to meet him, though, the relationship had fizzled, and except for a few vague comments, Meg had not brought him up again—even when prodded.

  And now at least one of the reasons was clear: she still had feelings for him. Liddy was certain of it. You can’t know a person for most of her life, including the teenage years, and not know when your friend’s heart hung in tatters. For the past several years, Meg had become the epitome of professional, much to Liddy’s surprise and admiration, with perhaps a bit of envy thrown in. But the way she had said Jackson’s name moments ago—or better yet, “Jack’s” name—the more Meg reminded Liddy of her old self.

  And she wondered. If Liddy had not followed Meg to the coast, would she have ever learned the identity of her best friend’s old flame, namely, Jackson Riley, the hotel management company’s vice president?

  Hans sidled up behind her friend. “Hey there, Meg. Going to a party?”

  Liddy gave the man a daggered look. “What are you saying, Hans? She’s dressed to take over this place.”

  Meg, having collected herself, shot her an expression of gratitude.

  Hans gave her a grim smile. “Hopefully she won’t start with my job.”

  “I think you’re safe,” Meg said, now looking more composed than when she had approached the desk. “For now.”

  Nervous laughter sounded all around as a phone rang in the distance.

  It rang again.

  Hans nodded toward the desk. “I think someone’s purse is ringing.”

  Liddy looked at Meg, then at Hans. “Sorry.” She opened the drawer and pulled her phone out of her purse, chagrined that she’d forgotten to switch it off earlier. She looked up to say, “I have to take this,” but Meg and Hans had their heads together, no doubt comparing notes over the VP’s impending arrival.

  “Liddy Buckle?” the caller asked. “This is City Hospital calling about your MRI appointment on Wednesday.”