Wrecked (Sons of San Clemente Book 2)

by Sinclair Jayne

  “We’ve been found out,” he said, surveying the crowd of about twenty people.

  The grill had been lit. Someone was grilling fish and shrimp. Hollis had already tossed a large salad and skewered veggies to be added to the grill, but it was past eleven and her eyes were nearly too heavy to keep open.

  “You really had some of my comics stenciled on your boards?” she demanded, not letting it go. “I never noticed, and I waxed a lot of boards for you.”

  He stared out at the beach, at the crashing waves that were always louder at night, and Hollis thought, more ominous.

  “I did it after you left,” he finally said. “The last time.”

  “But you wanted me to leave,” she said, her voice a soft whisper.

  Hell, he hadn’t wanted her to leave. It had been like having a limb ripped off. But he hadn’t been able to live with her either. She wouldn’t travel with him, but then would be sad that he was so often gone. She had avoided the big media social events, but then would be angry when he would go and be photographed with a lot of fans, many of them women. And always the questions about where he was, what he was doing while she’d been away at school. He’d never grilled her, but yeah, it beat him up that she was so unavailable, moving further and further away from him until he had nothing to hold on to.

  How could he make this time different?

  “It’s weird.” She drew circles on his chest. “I only felt connected to you when we were alone, but tonight I don’t feel so lost even though there are people here. I feel part of everything but also like we are on own little island.”

  “A very crowded island. Do you think they’d notice if we went inside?” he asked, finally, his low voice teased her cheek.

  “No,” she said softly. “But let’s stay here a bit.”

  “Not what I had in mind for my evening.”

  “Still...” She kissed his mouth.

  He caught her hips and pulled her against him so she could feel what he really wanted to do.

  “I love holding you like this.” He growled in her ear as his hands spanned her hips.

  She nibbled along his jawline. “Behave,” she said. “We are playing host.”

  “Not a game I want to play,” he whispered against her mouth. Hollis sighed and relaxed against him. His blood surged in hope. “A few steps, and we can lock everyone the hell out. They’ll be fine without us.”

  “I was going to get you a shrimp and veggie skewer,” she said. “Keep your stamina up.”

  “My stamina is fine, obviously.”

  She grinned and he caught his breath. She looked so beautiful in the moonlight with a little bit of the yellow, orange glow from the beach fire pit dancing off her pale creamy skin.

  “Trust me.” She stood up, ran her fingers through his hair. “You’ll need all that game you’re promising me later.”

  “Promise?”

  But she was gone. He watched her walk across the deck. She took a plate and scooped out some salad. He sat up. He should be happy. She was trying to mix with his friends. Playing hostess, not running off. Hollis had always been like water running through his fingers.

  He picked up his crutches, but tried to put more weight on his boot like the physical therapist had suggested. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had just a couple of days ago, but that could be the tequila talking. Still, he’d never needed this much recoup time. He’d been playing it safe. Probably babying himself because he wanted to keep Hollis close. He couldn’t hobble around forever. Lane was probably right. He was getting soft.

  He intended to make it across the deck to Hollis, but he should have known that would be a near impossible gambit. Three steps and he was surrounded. Questions about his accident, opinions about the storm that had hit Hawaii and was predicted to kick up some killer sets by tomorrow, and two Huntington Beach surfers barely in their twenties who were making a run for one of his records.

  He usually enjoyed these nights. Talking smack. Eating local food, everyone bringing something. Tonight he was wishing that he’d had a little more time alone with Hollis. He continued to move towards the grill, but Hollis emerged from the line with a veggie skewer and a sweet potato and fish taco.

  “Share?” He held out the taco so she took a bite from one end, and he finished it off.

  “Now, let’s go inside.”

  Like that was really going to happen. More people showed up. Friends. Sort of. And friends of friends. Kadan found himself caught up in conversations. He tried to keep Hollis at his side, but they kept getting interrupted, separated. He was pulled away into a new conversation and he would catch sight of her, chatting, a distant look on her face. Or she’d be bringing out another platter of veggie kebobs. Or salad. Or salsa. He could hear the whir of her blender.

  And then she was gone. Off the deck. Kadan excused himself. Checked inside. No Hollis. Walked back on the deck. Her absence was a hole in his gut, empty, throbbing, icy.

  “You seen Hollis?” He interrupted Zen.

  “What?”

  “Hollis.” He turned around and demanded of Lane.

  Lane rolled his eyes. “Told you,” he said, then he jerked his head toward the beach. “Just a girl, huh?” He taunted. “She took a walk. Probably going for a swim.”

  Kadan pivoted toward the ocean, just a surging expanse of black.

  Shit, it was past midnight. The waves were choppy, the first push of the storm. Now he was the one getting panic attacks. He swung himself off the deck and hobbled towards the water. He saw her standing on the edge of the waves and he felt his heart rate kick down a notch. Until she pulled off her T-shirt and shimmied out of her cutoff shorts. She was so graceful; his eyes noticed that even as his brain screamed at him to run. But of course he couldn’t. She dropped her clothes in the sand.

  White bikini. She glowed like a moon beam. Ethereal.

  She seemed frozen, part of a painting. And then, squaring her shoulders as if facing a firing squad, she began to walk into the ocean. His yell was swallowed by the roar of the waves.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Her teeth chattered compulsively and her breath was shallow. She could do this. She would not be ruled by fear anymore. Hollis closed her eyes and ducked under a wave. She could feel herself churned about, lifted and then dropped, and then instinct took over. She stretched out flat, allowed her limbs to unlock and then struck out in freestyle, arms and legs working synchronously. She turned her head to the side and breathed.

  The moonlight on the black water was gorgeous and terrifying so she squeezed her eyes shut again and continued to swim out. She’d go parallel in a bit, but right now she just wanted to get some distance from the shore as if that were what she needed to escape in order to be reborn. Stronger. Resilient. Confident. A dreamer.

  Fifty yards more, she told herself. And then she would roll over and back stroke parallel to the beach. She used to do that with Holland when they were kids. Race out and then swim parallel to the beach, allow the tide to bring them slowly back in. Once they’d been caught in a rip and they’d floated, allowing it to swing them around into another cove. She remembered that as long as they didn’t panic, eventually they’d get tossed out of it. So she’d sung pop songs and clung to Health’s hand.

  She rolled over so that she could look at the stars and opened her mouth to sing a Grace Potter song about love and loss and stars. And then she was grabbed. She went under, struggled and choked when she swallowed water.

  “Hollis, Hollis.” Kadan grabbed her arms hard. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He looked like a vengeful god. He shook her. “Talk to me.”

  She stared at him, her mind a blank. It was as if time went fluid, flowed around her. She was nineteen again, racing him into the ocean, swimming, happy, laughing. And then she was in the present, weighted down by sorrow and fear. And Kadan was still here. He was still hers. And he had come after her this time.

  “Swimming,” she whispered. “I’m swimming.”

  Th
ey rose up with a wave and gently dropped down in the swell. Hollis didn’t want to know how far she’d swum out. She couldn’t quite catch her breath so she stared into his eyes, black in the midnight, his face stamped with tension.

  “You scared me.” He held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. “I was afraid that you, that you—” He couldn’t even speak the words he’d wanted to say.

  She searched his worried face. He’d noticed she’d left and come after her. She treaded water for the both of them, careful of her legs so that she wouldn’t bump his injury.

  His dark scrutiny burned over her and Hollis felt herself settle. She smoothed his lips with her thumb.

  “Sorry,” she said. For scaring him. Or being so afraid of everything for most of her life. “I wanted—” She broke off, not sure how to explain.

  “We have to talk if we are going to have anything,” he said.

  She smiled. So Kadan. Direct and commanding even though he’d just thrown himself into a situation where he was taking a huge chance that he could lose control of it all in an instant. His crutches could have been sucked into the ocean. They should probably head back to shore, but no, this was perfect. The water was cold, but it made her so alert, hyperaware of everything. The bite of his hands spanning her waist. The press of his chest against hers.

  “I wanted to match you,” she said finally.

  “I don’t know what that means.” His eyes searched hers.

  “To not let my fears hold me back. To choose my life how I want to live it.”

  “That’s what the swim was?” he said. “I thought it was I-can-finally-get-rid-of-this-asshole-by-giving-him-a-heart-attack.”

  She laughed. Kissed him. Laughed again. Their breath mingled.

  “I didn’t even think of that,” she said and kissed him again.

  She ran her fingers through his slick hair. Even soaking wet, it still started to curl a bit around his face. This was so familiar to her. Holding him in the embrace of the ocean. Like time hadn’t passed at all, but had plucked her from someplace else and delivered her home where she belonged. Home was Kadan, she marveled, thinking how happy she’d been with him. Content. No pretending.

  “I never ever want to get rid of you,” she said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Kadan?”

  “I think I can breathe again.”

  “I believe I said no swimming in the ocean,” she said, worry creeping in.

  He grinned. So Kadan. Arrogant and amused. So what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it? He seemed to be asking. Well, he’d find out later.

  “You’re not my physical therapist anymore. You handed me off.”

  She bit her bottom lip, trying to think of a come back.

  He groaned and kissed her again, his mouth going hungry, deepening the kiss and letting his hands play over her body as he molded her closer. Despite the chill of the water, she found herself heating up.

  “Unfair advantage,” he whispered against her lips. “You know that drives me crazy.”

  “I’m just getting started.” Hollis let her hands slide from his shoulders to move lower. “If you promise not to behave, I’ll show you.”

  His laugh rang out in the moonlit dark.

  “I love you, Kadan,” she said quietly. “I’ve loved you always. That’s never changed, ever.”

  He sighed. “I know,” he said, touching her lip. “It’s the same for me, Hollis. I loved you from the beginning. Even when you were gone I loved you. I always wanted you to come back when you were ready.”

  “I’m ready.”

  This time her voice rang with certainty.

  “No more running,” she promised. “Unless I’m running with you.”

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  Hollis ran her fingers over the spiral spines of several notebooks. She pulled one off a shelf and sat with it on her lap. She should open it, but it was like everything else in the past that still had the power to scare her.

  But she wasn’t going to live like that any more.

  She sank down on one of Kadan’s woven rugs and opened one of the notebooks. For a minute she closed her eyes and savored the sun cutting through the window. The marine layer of grey fog was finally burning off. Then she started skimming through the pages. She’d been a melodramatic teen. More sarcastic than she remembered. With a dry humor. She laughed. It was embarrassing yet impressive at the same time, Manga type drawings skewing several of the popular girls at her school, who had doled out fashion advice while wearing next to nothing but a lot of make up. She hadn’t remembered having such a sharp wit. Or so much resentment. She continued to flip through the pages of her drawings. Parodies of middle school first, then bigger stories, more fantastic. Then the surf stories. The Sons of San Clemente that bordered on superhero status as they progressed.

  “Crush much,” Hollis muttered.

  If her parents had paid attention to her “hobby”, they would probably have sent her to into serious counseling. How had she managed to fill all these notebooks and still get such good grades? Had she had any friends at all or had she just sat on the beach watching Kadan and his buddies surf?

  “I knew I should have hired packers, little slacker.” Kadan entered the room, no longer on crutches, but still in a boot.

  He’d had two of his pins removed so he could flex his ankle a bit more.

  “No. No. I’ve been packing. I can’t believe you kept these. I would have chucked them in recycling.”

  “Sacrilege, according to Lane.”

  Hollis looked up from the page. “He’s as crazy as you are,” she said. “I still think he’s joking or does he owe you a favor? He can’t really want me to try to come up with storylines and characters for a world surf adventure game.”

  Kadan made a derisive sound, even as he reached down and ran his fingers through her hair, pulling it out of its pony tail.

  “Like that guy would do anything for me. Did you go up to Newport Beach for a meeting?”

  Hollis closed the sketch book and put it reverently into a moving box. “Yeah. I felt so old.” She groaned. “Everyone there looked like a teenager.”

  “He assures me everyone has a college degree,” Kadan said solemnly, which caused Hollis to look at him suspiciously. “So you’ll fit right in.”

  She put more notebooks into the box. “I know I don’t have an art degree,” she said. “But I feel weird talking about storyboarding like I know something.”

  “You’re doing it,” he said. “Not studying it. You also agreed that we would get a dog but you don’t have a degree in zoology or veterinary medicine.”

  “Ha ha,” she said. “You giving up surfing for a career in comedy?”

  She stood up and brushed the hair out of his eyes. Kissed the corner of his mouth.

  “The conference room is amazing,” she told him. “More your scene than mine. It’s more like a school gym with rock climbing walls, some huge boulders, and a ropes course and everyone was sitting on yoga balls. Well, not really sitting, rolling around. Everyone seems to have ADHD. Bouncing around. Talking all animatedly in non sequiturs.”

  “Can you work from home?”

  She laughed. “I thought you approved of my self-improvement plan where I challenge myself to try things that sometimes make me uncomfortable and to try to be more social.”

  “I never asked for that one,” he said, pulling her close and nuzzling her neck.

  She sighed as he licked along her earlobe and kissed a path along her hairline. She melted into him a little bit more.

  “Mmmmmmm. I definitely think you should work from home. I don’t need Lane or some twenty-something’s eyes walking all over you every day.”

  “I thought I was the too possessive one,” she said. “It’s a large strike against me, ah—” She caught her breath when he touched a particularly sensitive spot.

  “You are perfect,” he said. “I was a jerk. Lane reminded me all about it at length.” He cupped her breasts. �
��I love the way you feel,” he whispered.

  “I can tell.”

  “Kadan?” she asked after a long moment where he explored her body with his hands until she was liquid with need. “We are supposed to be packing.”

  “Taking a break.”

  “Do you regret selling your house?” she asked. “It happened so fast. The first weekend you put in on the market.”

  She could feel him shrug.

  “But you haven’t even started looking for another place and the buyer wants to have a quick close so they can be in here before the end of summer. My grandma’s going to come back probably this fall at least to check the progress on her house. Where will you go?”

  “Wherever you are,” he said.

  “But this house is beautiful.”

  “Single guy’s house. Not a family house. I want us to pick something together.”

  “Kadan,” she whispered. “I don’t have any money for a house. And my credit’s going to be ruined for a long time. Seven years at least.”

  She felt him stiffen behind her and not in the good way. His hands stilled on her shoulders.

  “Kadan?” She felt a jolt of adrenalin and turned around.

  He looked serious and a little nervous. Weird. She moistened her lips. She’d never seen him look so uncomfortable. Kadan was always relaxed and appeared easygoing even when he was balancing on his most focused, competitive edge.

  “I have not been completely open with you,” he said. “And it won’t happen again, but you were being unreasonable, and before you get too pissed off, which I probably deserve, but...”

  “Unreasonable?” she demanded.

  “In my opinion, but this affects me, too. Us. As a family, and I want us to be a family and so I wanted to start off right, and I thought that you might not be so pissed off if we were getting married.”

  Hollis stared at him. She counted to ten, waiting for everything to become really clear like it did in a book or a movie, but there was no dramatic build up in the music to explain.

  “Are you telling me...are you asking me...are you thinking about getting married because I’m in debt?” She finally managed.