Life Is A Beach (Mills & Boon Silhouette): Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling

by Pamela Browning

  “I love you. You should know that by now.”

  “Should I? When you’re backing off like this?”

  Karma fought the tears that stung the back of her eyelids. This was going wrong, all wrong. “I’m not backing off. All I’m saying is that I’m not comfortable with this whirlwind of a courtship.”

  “I’m not comfortable with a woman who doubts her love for me. Oh, God, Karma, don’t turn on the tears. I can’t stand it.”

  She couldn’t help her quick retort. “So I should hide my emotions because it makes you uncomfortable? I expected honesty in this relationship, Slade.”

  He threw his arms out in a gesture of helplessness, but what she really wanted was for him to wrap those arms around her. He made no move to do so. Instead he blew out a breath, ruffling the hair that fell so endearingly over his forehead. “All right, Karma. Give me honesty.”

  “Maybe—maybe we need to spend some time apart. Maybe going at it hot and heavy has obscured our true relationship.” The words popped out before she had a chance to think them over, which she knew was one of her failings—but he had demanded honesty.

  “Karma, I—”

  “I think I should go back to Miami Beach for a while. That will give both of us time to think things over.”

  “There’s nothing for me to think over. I’m totally in love with you, Karma, and I want us to be married as soon as possible.” He took her shoulders in his hands and gazed deep into her eyes. Then he kissed her, and her arms went around him to hold him close. She must be crazy to suggest being apart, she thought. She must be out of her mind.

  He released her. “I’ll drive you back to Miami Beach tomorrow, and you can take as long as you like to figure things out. If you still want a long engagement, we can discuss it later.”

  “Later?” The word came out in a squeak.

  “Not too much later, I hope.” He said this with a wry grin, then became more serious. “I’ll be here waiting for you when you’re ready to come back.”

  This hadn’t gone at all the way Karma had planned. She had expected a careful, measured response to her voiced apprehensions. She had expected thoughtfulness and understanding. But now she realized with some bewilderment that she had wounded Slade’s pride and that by giving her an easy out, he thought he was accommodating to her needs.

  She considered trying one more time to explain how she felt, but she sensed that Slade wasn’t ready to hear it. So she only turned back toward the Suburban, blinking so that her tears would not fall.

  Slade walked slightly behind her, and she didn’t dare turn around to look at him. She didn’t think she could bear his crushed expression, the anguish in his eyes.

  She sat stiffly beside Slade on the ride back to the house, not talking and staring resolutely out the window on her side of the car. When he pulled up in front of the house, she climbed down and hurried inside. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She had the feeling that she had ruined everything by speaking her mind.

  She had hoped to reach her room without having to talk to anyone, but as she crossed the hallway to the stairs, Josefina ran out of the kitchen clutching the phone in her hand. “A call for you, Karma,” she said.

  Since they talked often, Karma wasn’t surprised to hear her cousin’s voice. At first she intended to tell Paulette that she’d call her back later, but she was arrested by Paulette’s distraught tone.

  “Karma, oh, you have to come home. It’s Uncle Nate—he’s had a heart attack!”

  IT WAS LATE THAT NIGHT before she and Slade arrived in Miami Beach after a tense ride in from the Glades. At the hospital, Karma was allowed to see her uncle right away, and the first thing she did was to send Paulette home for a good night’s sleep. Paulette had been with Nate since he’d checked in, and she looked exhausted. Then Karma, after Slade left for the houseboat, sat holding Nate’s hand until morning.

  Her uncle was hooked up to tubes and bags and bottles, and his face looked pale and wan under his suntan. But when he woke up, he had enough energy to greet her the same way he always did.

  “Vus machts du, bubbeleh?”

  “How are you doing, Uncle Nate?” she said, enunciating loudly into his hearing aid.

  “Getting better,” he said, and the attending physician told Karma when he made his regular rounds that morning that he expected Uncle Nate to make a full recovery.

  She called Slade to report the good news, and he sounded as glad as she felt.

  “And how about you? How are you holding up?”

  “Fine,” Karma said, though she wasn’t so sure. She missed Slade terribly.

  “If you need me, call me,” he said firmly.

  “I thought you were going back to the ranch.”

  “Not now. Not with Nate so sick.”

  She knew he wasn’t staying in Miami Beach for her uncle’s sake but for hers, but she still had a bleak feeling when she thought of the rift between them. But there was no time to dwell on what had gone wrong even though she was awash in regrets that she hadn’t planned her approach more carefully.

  By the third day, Nate’s friends were allowed to visit, and Mrs. Rothstein was the first to show up. Paulette happened to be in the room when the woman arrived surrounded by a cloud of Shalimar cologne, and with a meaningful glance, she pulled Karma out into the hall.

  “I think we’d better give Uncle Nate and Mrs. Rothstein some privacy,” Paulette said in an undertone. “Under the circumstances.”

  Karma, who always took the all-night shift, napping in a recliner while her uncle slept, was feeling as wrung out as an old dishrag, and she didn’t understand. “Circumstances?” she repeated. “What circumstances?”

  Paulette moved closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “When Uncle Nate had the heart attack, he was in Mrs. Rothstein’s bed!”

  “You don’t mean it,” Karma said in astonishment.

  Paulette grinned. “Yes. And it was Mrs. Rothstein who called the medics and made sure he got to the hospital.”

  “I knew he was seeing her,” Karma said slowly. “But I didn’t know he was—”

  “Shh,” said Paulette, putting on a smile. “Here she comes.”

  As Karma drove Paulette’s car back to the Blue Moon, she kept having to wipe a grin off her face, and she was thinking, Why, Uncle Nate, you old rake!

  Karma usually slept all day and then went back to relieve Paulette around dinner time. When she woke up late that afternoon, she noticed the answering machine’s light blinking and found a message from Slade.

  “Call me,” he said. “I miss you.”

  When she called, Slade answered right away. After inquiring about Nate’s progress, he asked how she was.

  “I’m tired. Too little sleep and too much stress.”

  “Poor darling. This has been hard on you.”

  “And on Paulette.”

  “If you feel that you can take a night off, I’d like to take you to dinner,” Slade said.

  She longed to see him. She really did. But she couldn’t leave Uncle Nate. “I can’t just yet. I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Your uncle needs you. I know that.”

  Not as much as he needs Mrs. Rothstein, evidently, she thought, but she wouldn’t feel comfortable telling Slade about that.

  “You don’t mind if I call you every day, do you?” Slade asked.

  “No, of course not. I like it.”

  “Have you had time to think about—well, what you wanted to think about?”

  “I still want a longer engagement.”

  “I think we can work this out,” he said. “But not if we never see each other.”

  Karma bit her lip, knowing that he was right. “When Uncle Nate gets out of the hospital, we’ll talk. In the meantime, I meant it when I said you might want to go back to the ranch.”

  “I’m not leaving, Karma. I love you and I miss you and I’m not going to let you get away.” She was glad to hear a note of humor in his voice
, and she smiled into the phone.

  “As if I want to,” she said warmly.

  “I’ll hold that thought, dearest,” he replied.

  Mrs. Rothstein was at the hospital when Karma arrived that evening, and Uncle Nate was sitting up and laughing.

  “My, you look so much better,” Karma told him. He grinned happily. “From your mouth to God’s ears.”

  “Have you been out of bed this morning?”

  “Twice, dear. Leah helped me. It’s easy when she’s around—she tickles my funnybone.”

  Mrs. Rothstein said, “I’d like to tickle a little more than that, Nate,” which made Nate laugh raucously and caused Karma to flush with embarrassment.

  “Are you sure you’re supposed to be laughing so hard?” Karma asked him. “Won’t you dislodge a tube or something?”

  “No, I’m getting along much better, and they let me eat some of Lee-Lee’s chicken soup. That’s the best medicine so far.”

  “I’ve got even better medicine for you when you’re well enough,” Mrs. Rothstein said encouragingly, and there was no mistaking what she meant.

  Fortunately, at that moment Paulette stepped back into the room. “I’m leaving, Karma. Oh, hello, Mrs. Rothstein. It’s good to see you.”

  “And you.” Mrs. Rothstein nodded cordially, and Karma had to admit that the woman was attractive. She would have been beautiful no matter what her age, which was upwards of seventy, though you wouldn’t know it from her figure, which was svelte, or her skin, which was tan, or her face, which was tucked and nipped in all the right places.

  Karma followed Paulette into the hall. “If you could, Paulette, would you mind returning the Rent-a-Yenta phone calls that the answering machine has picked up? I didn’t have time before I left.”

  “Sure. Oh, and by the way, I have a message from Goldy. She wants to know if you want her to read your tarot. I think she’s gotten wind of a rift between you and Slade.”

  “How would she find that out? Did you tell her?”

  “No, of course not. She must have read it in the cards.”

  “The cards should have told her that it’s not a rift, exactly, it’s only a time out that hasn’t turned out to be what I thought it would be. Slade refuses to go back to the ranch. And with Uncle Nate so sick—” She lifted her shoulders and let them fall.

  Paulette grinned. “So maybe you’d better have your tarot read after all, Karma. It wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Tell Goldy to read the cards for our esteemed uncle instead. I’ll take a chance on being able to sort things out with Slade after Uncle Nate goes home. And that won’t be a moment too soon for Lee-Lee in there.”

  Paulette burst out laughing. “Aren’t they great together?”

  “Absolutely, only why does she only show up when I’m here? Why aren’t you treated to the sights and sounds of two septuagenarians in love?”

  “Mrs. Rothstein can only be here at night. During the day she runs a food bank.” Paulette shrugged. “You’re just lucky, I guess. See you, Karma.” With a wave of her hand, Paulette was off and running.

  Karma had already resigned herself to an evening with her uncle and Mrs. Rothstein. She had to admit that their banter was cute, even clever, but as she listened, Karma felt like odd man out. She realized that she could have probably ducked out for a couple of hours every night, but she knew that Aunt Sophie, if she were alive, would have been there around the clock looking after Nate. As grateful as she was for what her aunt had done for her, Karma could do no less.

  But one thing that Aunt Sophie wouldn’t have had to put up with was the cooing of the two lovebirds, who even now were stealing kisses every time Karma turned her head.

  Karma managed to turn her head as often as possible in an attempt to be helpful, but she had an idea that it was going to be a very long night.

  “DON’T WORRY ABOUT A THING, dear,” Mrs. Rothstein said briskly a few days later as Karma settled Nate on the couch in front of the TV in his apartment. “I’ve found someone to take my place at the food bank, and I’m happy to look after him. I think I’ll make my blintzes for lunch, Nate, what do you think?”

  Uncle Nate, his eyes dancing, reached over and took her hand. “Anything you want, Lee-Lee. Only you’d better use low-fat sour cream. Doctor’s orders.”

  “You see, Karma? Your uncle’s going to be fine, just fine.”

  Karma wasn’t worried about leaving her uncle in Mrs. Rothstein’s capable hands, which were all too eager, she thought, to find their way back to parts of Uncle Nate’s anatomy that Karma didn’t want to think about. After slightly more than a week in the hospital, Nate was eager for his life to get back to normal. Karma could only hope that normal wouldn’t kill him next time.

  “So are you and that cowboy of yours going to see each other tonight?” her uncle asked.

  “Mmm, I don’t know,” she hedged, although she planned to call him later to tell him that Nate had gone home.

  “Slade told me on the phone when you were at the ranch that he was going to buy you a big diamond as soon as you two came back to Miami Beach.”

  “I think the diamond ring might be slightly premature,” Karma said. She hadn’t mentioned the current state of affairs to her uncle, knowing that it would only worry him.

  “Premature?” scoffed Nate. “You’re engaged to be married! Get a big diamond, Karma. You deserve it, and your cowboy wants to buy it for you. He told me at least two carats.”

  She decided to go along goodhumoredly with this line of discussion. “Two carats? What would I do with a two-carat diamond, Uncle Nate?”

  “Wear it as a proud symbol of the man’s love for you, bubbeleh.” He laughed, sounding exactly like his old self.

  She bent and kissed his forehead. “Dear Uncle Nate, what would I do without you?” she said fondly.

  He grinned. “Fortunately, Karma, you do not have to find that out yet.”

  Mrs. Rothstein walked her to the door. “Now I mean it, Karma. Don’t worry. And come for dinner this weekend, why don’t you? Bring Slade.”

  “I’ll let you know. Thanks for letting me use your car, Uncle Nate.”

  “No problem. I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Rothstein.”

  “Leah. That’s what you should call me, dear.” She hugged Karma in farewell.

  At least Mrs. Rothstein hadn’t insisted on being called Lee-Lee, Karma thought with amusement.

  She drove Nate’s car back to the Blue Moon, where she parked it under a poinciana tree beside Paulette’s little Volkswagen bug.

  “Hi, Karma,” said Goldy as she walked through the lobby. “How’s Nate?”

  Karma stopped to chat for a moment. “Uncle Nate is doing well,” she told Goldy.

  “Paulette told me you wanted me to read the tarot for him,” Goldy said with a hint of archness in her expression.

  “And what did the cards predict?”

  Goldy set aside her knitting and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Let me put it this way, Karma. Nate won’t need to sign on with Rent-a-Yenta to find the perfect mate.”

  “You don’t mean—you aren’t saying—?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Rothstein. They’re going to tie the knot, wait and see.”

  Somehow Karma wasn’t surprised, but she was delighted. “That’s wonderful, Goldy.”

  “I think so too. Your uncle is a fine man, and he doesn’t have to be lonely anymore.”

  “I know, and I’m happy for him. By the way, have you seen Paulette today?”

  “She went over to the Rent-a-Yenta office earlier. She said she’d be back soon.”

  “Oh, okay. See you later, Goldy.” Karma ran up the stairs, light on her feet. She thought maybe she’d fix lunch for Paulette, who had been working hard at Rent-a-Yenta without asking for so much as a paycheck. Business was picking up. Paulette, amazingly, had signed up twelve new clients while Karma was at the ranch, which was more than Karma had signed up in two months.

  O
n her own floor, she burst through the door from the stairwell into the hall and almost mowed Jennifer down.

  “Karma! I was looking for you. I put a certificate for a free ear piercing under your door. The special will be over soon, and since it’s two for the price of one, I thought you and Paulette could come together.”

  “I’ll ask Paulette,” Karma said, taking in Jennifer’s Outrageous Outfit Of The Day, which consisted of a scarlet exercise bra, much too tight, and silk boxer shorts, white with a black design that consisted of—of the Diamond B Ranch brand?

  What?

  No. It wasn’t possible.

  Karma squinted at the shorts, hoping that her eyesight was failing. But there was nothing wrong with her vision. The design on those shorts was unmistakably a diamond shape enclosing a letter B, the Diamond B Ranch brand. She had seen those boxers before. On Slade Braddock.

  Karma went numb even as she spoke. “Um, Jennifer,” she said.

  Jennifer, snapping her fingers in time to the rhythm of her chewing gum, tried to brush past, but Karma adroitly blocked her way.

  “I really have to go, Karma, I’m running late for the Dolphins’ cheerleader tryout practice. I’m trying out, did I tell you? Wow!” She bounced and executed a dance step in her pristine white sneakers.

  “Before you go, would you mind telling me where you got those shorts? Those very distinctive shorts?” Karma was hoping that Jennifer would tell her that she had bought them at a Salvation Army store, though she was sure that was the last place Jennifer would shop. She was hoping that Jennifer would say that the shorts were a factory outlet store bargain, though she didn’t know of any that sold silk underwear imprinted with the Diamond B brand.

  Jennifer reached down and fingered the fabric. “These? They’re Slade’s. See you, Karma.” She pushed past Karma and through the door to the stairwell, letting it slam behind her. The sound reverberated through the long hallway like a shot.

  Which Karma felt as though it penetrated her heart.

  Karma couldn’t think. She couldn’t feel. She couldn’t do anything but let herself into her apartment and stand staring woodenly at the tiny wedge of seascape on the other side of the sliding glass door. The ocean seemed flat and one-dimensional, and the apartment where she usually felt so comfortable was oppressive. Jennifer and Slade, she thought, her mind refusing to move past their names. Jennifer and Slade. She didn’t want to believe it. But she had to believe it, considering the proof.