Savannah by the Sea

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  He looked at me sympathetically. “Yep, my new friend. I do believe you’re hopelessly in love.”

  “You two are so silly.” I laughed. They really were cute and crazy little things.“I couldn’t love him. I’m absolutely certain there is no way I could love Joshua North.”

  “Love will do things for you and to you that nothing else will,” Lucy said, eyeing Manuel.

  Manuel responded,“Yes, it will. Thankfully.”

  I stood up. I needed to go. I really did. These were sweet people, but the heat had no doubt triggered early onset dementia. “Well, I’m so sorry to interrupt your lunch.”

  “No bother whatsoever. I’m glad we could be your lookouts.”

  “Oh, thanks for that. I’m really sorry.”

  Manuel looked up. “You’re no bother, Savannah. You helped me. We helped you. Enjoy your day.”

  I tucked the chair back under their table and walked away. The loathsome love bugs alighted on my shirt. I flicked them off.“Get a room!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Luck seemed to be stalking me like a cat stalks a rat. I do hope I didn’t just refer to myself as a rat. I heard the laughter of boys before I slammed into their bodies. That was one of the consequences of looking down instead of up. A big one caught me and apologized quickly. I looked up to see his blue eyes catch my own.“I’m sorry, Miss. We weren’t paying any attention.”

  One of the guys with him turned around, and we saw each other simultaneously. “Savannah!” Joshua announced. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  “No way,” the green-eyed smasher responded. “You two know each other?”

  “Yeah, yeah . . .” Joshua hesitated, obviously still stunned at seeing me. “Savannah and I work together at the Chronicle.” He just looked at me and smiled as if he forgot his friends were around.

  I looked down and spotted some sand on my flip-flop and tried to wipe it off with the toe of my other shoe. “Well, Savannah . . .” Mr. Blue eyes said, wrapping his arm around me, “tell us all you know about Mr. North.”

  I laughed.

  Joshua pulled his arm off me.“Leave her alone, Mark.” Mark released me and stood back to be introduced. “Okay, Savannah. This is Mark Greene, this is Brady Fletcher, this is Hank Davis, and this”—he flung his arm toward the even taller guy at the end of the line—“is Johnny Deal.” Johnny smiled from ear to ear. “These, Savannah, are my best friends in the whole world.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, gentlemen.” I offered a smile in return as I retrieved my hand from the last handshake.

  “So, Miss Savannah,” Johnny said, fitting me nicely underneath his arm, “can Joshua really write? I mean, we just can’t imagine it.”

  I turned to look back at Joshua. Torture would be sweeter. “He’s actually a very fine writer.”

  “A fine writer, huh?” Johnny chided.“Imagine that, fellas, our Joshua, a fine writer.”

  Joshua’s face flushed. I’d never seen him do that before. Few things ever embarrassed this man. Amazing what friends could do to a person. “Okay, fellas, that’s enough. Go to your little surf shop, and I’ll meet you on the beach in a few minutes.”

  Johnny smiled again. “I do believe we have just been given the brush-off, gentlemen.”

  “I believe you would be exactly right,” Mark said.“Savannah, a pleasure to meet you. Please do not wreak havoc on our dear friend here. We know women have a way of doing that to him.”

  Yes,we certainly did do that, didn’t we? “Then I’ll be ever so gentle,” I assured them.

  They turned to leave, only after Johnny had kissed my hand and declared the entire “run-in” to have been a pleasure.

  That left Joshua and me to stare uncomfortably at each other. After all, the last time I had seen him, he was playing tongue aerobics with a woman who,“sitty-uppy” or not,was unequivocally a bleached blonde. “Charming,” I finally offered to break the silence.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, still finding it hard to believe we had accidentally ended up at the same place.

  “Working. And you?” I couldn’t wait to hear this.

  “For a wedding, actually. This is the first time my friends and I have seen each other in a couple years.”

  “Friends, huh?”

  He frowned.“Yeah, friends.”

  I looked into his dark eyes. It was clear he wanted to talk, but I didn’t have it in me to be gracious. I didn’t want to know the life story of his friends. “Well, I really need to get going.” I turned to head in the direction of big hats and beach fodder. How exciting.

  He grabbed my arm.“Why are you in such a hurry? Where are you headed, anyway?”

  “My parents and Paige and . . . uh, your friend Amber are all waiting for me on the beach.” I turned my attention to the empty wine cartons outside the back door of Bud & Alley’s kitchen.

  “Ooh,Amber’s here.” He rubbed his curly black head.

  “Yes,Amber’s here. So, if you don’t want to run into her, you might better avoid me.”

  “Well, you could come hang out with us for a while. You would love it.” His dark eyes started to dance. They did that whenever he had come up with a new idea or some witty comment.“ The guys would love it. And we have some other friends there who would love to meet you as well.”

  I raised my right eyebrow. I couldn’t help it. The man was either deficient or unbelievable. Who could be certain? “No, thank you. I’ve met enough of your friends.”

  He frowned again.“That’s really rude. My friends were nothing but kind to you, Savannah. You know, you really can be a royal little twit.”

  My mouth dropped open. How could this man be so self-righteous? I wasn’t the one who was kissing all over some other man one morning and then inviting Joshua to come meet my friends as if he were today’s prize. I paused before I spoke. Two intertwined teenagers passed by oblivious to our presence.“I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. So maybe my friends don’t drive Saabs or live in mansions, but they’re some of the nicest, most enjoyable people you would ever meet. You know, maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe there really isn’t anything in you but pettiness.” And with that he turned to leave.

  “How dare you say all of those things and walk away,” I said, flopping over to him. I noticed a few people staring. I had no idea why drama always seemed to find me in public places. I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the center of the public area to a covered walkway that connected the two Seaside shopping areas. “This has nothing to do with the quality of your friends,but everything to do with your . . . your little rendezvous this morning.”

  He really did look at me then as if I were from Kookooville. “My what?”

  “Oh, please. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw you today swapping spit with some little blonde on the beach. And now you want to prance me over to your friends like I’m today’s lucky number. Well, I’m through being lucky!” He stared at me. “Well, anyway, I don’t think so, mister. I have a little more pride in myself then that.” I straightened my wrap just to make sure he got the picture.

  He smirked at me. I hated when he smirked at me. “So you saw me this morning, huh?”

  “Yes, I saw you this morning,” I said, whispering as a man in some scary-looking attempt at shorts passed us talking on his cell phone.

  “You were spying on me?”

  I turned my gaze back to Joshua. “What?” I huffed. “No, I was not spying on you. I was walking on a public beach,watching you make a public spectacle of yourself.”

  “You saw me kiss another girl?”

  “Are we playing Jeopardy? You know exactly what I saw.”

  “You are so . . . so . . .” He shook his head and laughed irritatingly. “Absolutely . . . beautiful.”

  “So what? Did you hear what I just said?!”

  “Yes, I heard you.And I realize it bugged you. It bugged you bad.” He stepped closer to me.

  “You need to b
ack up, mister.”

  He inched closer again. “What you saw was a simple hello kiss between two college buddies who haven’t seen each other in two years.”

  “I saw more than college buddies. That was . . .well . . . it was downright inappropriate.” I held my hand out against his firm,T-shirt-clad, expansive chest. A rather nice chest, actually.

  “Inappropriate? It was a peck.”

  “Not from my standpoint.”

  “Your standpoint lacks perspective. Your standpoint saw what you wanted to see, not what actually happened. It was a simple kiss. But, yes, you’re right.”

  I had forgotten why I should be right.“About what?”

  “About us being more than friends. At one time we were more than college buddies. In fact, Celeste and I were a couple.”

  “Celeste? What a name for a beach swinger.”

  “Savannah. Just stop it. She is a wonderful girl who I dated for a year and a half actually. Until we broke up and she fell in love with my best friend and roommate, Mark. And now they’re one week shy of getting married. And that’s why we’re all here. For the wedding. Her wedding. A wedding she just got in town for yesterday. This morning was the first time we had seen each other in two years.”

  “Married, huh?” I scoffed as the kitchen of Bud and Alley’s penetrated the breezeway with their aromas and sounds.

  “Yeah, married.” He moved my hand out of his way. “So things aren’t what they had seemed, now, are they?” He moved in a little closer.

  I backed up, feeling the stucco wall come into contact with my bare back. The shade from the trellis overhead and the building across the breezeway removed the sun from my face. “I guess not,” I said, refusing to remove my eyes from his. He looked at me in a different way. Deeply. Confusingly. Scaringly. I know it’s not a word, but it fits here. And I knew what he was going to do. He had toyed with me before, but he wasn’t toying with me this time.“I guess I should—”

  He put his finger over my lips.“You should say nothing. You talk way too much as it is.”

  “You think?” And with those words the softest lips this side of creation touched mine in a way they had never been touched before. True, Grant had kissed them on multiple occasions. But they had never been kissed like this before. Passionate, yet gentle. Strong, yet tender. Territorial yet perfectly free. And I kissed his back. It was the only polite thing to do.

  He leaned back, and I rested my head against the wall. I couldn’t open my eyes. I was officially paralyzed.“Savannah?”

  I still didn’t open them.“Huh?”

  He laughed.“You okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He laughed again.“Are you sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You can talk now.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, excuse us.” I heard Manuel’s voice and opened my eyes. Hoot-owl style.

  I laughed awkwardly. Okay, pathetically.“Um, oh, hi. Uh . . . how are you . . . um, um . . .”

  Lucy giggled. “Hi,” she said, extending her hand to Joshua. “I’m Lucy, and this is my husband, Manuel.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, that’s right, Lucy and Manuel, and this is . . . um, this is . . . um . . .”

  “Joshua North. And it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He extended his hand as well.

  “Well,we’ll let you two get back to your, um . . . discussion,” Manuel said politely.

  “Yes . . . our discussion. We were discussing how hot it is . . .” I said, fanning myself rapidly. That was stupid. Because they left giggling.

  “Okay. Look,” he said, turning my head north. “See that house over there? The one on the beach?”

  “What? Proteus?”

  “That’s where we’re staying. Mark’s parents rented it for the week for us guys. Everyone will be there tonight for a cookout at seven, and I would love for you to come.” He spoke the last line slowly to make sure I understood.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I ran my hands through my hair hastily. “I’ve got a really busy schedule. I’m here to work, and I can’t really be fooling around . . . I mean, I can’t be slacking off.”

  “You can’t work all the time.” He smiled and leaned over to kiss me once more. I leaned my head hard against the stucco.This one was slightly more awkward.

  “This took too long, Savannah.”

  I didn’t speak. Imagine that.

  “Tonight,” he said, turning in the direction his friends had gone.

  “Don’t wait by the door.”

  He smiled anyway. And I watched his curls disappear. I leaned back against the wall to catch my breath. A soft gray cat came and rubbed against my leg. I looked down in time to meet her eyes. She made it clear she had observed the entire episode.

  The love bugs flittered and attached to the pink bow on my bathing-suit top. I scooped them up and sent them back to flight. “You cute little things, you!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Savannah, baby, what’s wrong with you?” Mother asked as she looked up from her Southern Living. The woman couldn’t get away from her roots. Either of them, the Southern kind or the ones on her head.Truth be told, her roots could be the real reason she was wearing a hat. Since she had gone back to her “natural” dark brown, she was having a little trouble—dare I say it—hiding the gray.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Why in the world would you think something’s wrong? My stars, can’t a girl go to the ladies’ room? I can’t swim for thirty minutes, so I wasted them before I went in the—”

  Paige got up to rescue me. “Ooh, Savannah, let’s get in the water. I’m simply sweltering.”

  Her use of the phrase “simply sweltering” was an obvious clue she was trying to save me from myself.

  “Let’s go.”

  “There’s something seriously wrong with that child,” my mother said to the snoring princess on one side of her and the bespectacled bookworm on the other. I looked back to see Dad lower his glasses and raise his right eyebrow at me. I turned away immediately. That man could hone in on things quicker than Paige could hone in on the smell of nacho cheese.

  We waded through the water, speaking from the sides of our mouths, trying not to talk above a whisper. Waves were incapable of completely concealing sheer exhilaration. I shifted my straps to make sure I didn’t get marks.

  “What gives?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You leave to pee and you come back humming ‘The Way He Makes Me Feel’ from Yentl.And we are probably the only two people in the world who think Yentl was Barbra Streisand’s best piece of work.”

  “It’s my favorite movie,” I said, splashing water across my chest.“What are you doing spying on me anyway?”

  “I don’t have to spy on you, Savannah. I can read you like a book.”

  I laughed.“Oh, well, that’s not saying much. This from a girl who hasn’t read a book since junior high.”

  “Maybe so, but you’ve tortured me with every song on that sound track since junior high, missy, and you’ve never hummed that song. Plus, your lovely MAC lip gloss in the shade of Entice is now efficiently smudged all around your mouth. And unless you’ve spent the last thirty minutes licking your lips free of your mama’s chicken salad, I’d say sister’s been swapping spit with someone. And since you are so obsessed with where Joshua North is at any given moment, I would say that you just laid one on him. How is that for how well I know you?”

  My jaw came unhinged. I started to scream at her knowledge. But a wave nearly swept us back to shore, and we both came up sputtering. I didn’t answer until we safely made our way through two more onslaughts and were able to ride the perfect little swells that come before the waves.

  “Just so you’ll know you don’t know everything, he kissed me.”

  “Oh, excuse me.” She laid her hand mockingly across her chest.“I knew it!” she screamed loud enough for them to hear in Tampa. Vicky’s head perked behind her magazine, and Dad smiled a sly little smile.

  “S
hut up, you crazy woman! Do you want Victoria Phillips to know that I just kissed the man who referred to her as ‘Vicky’ in the first article he wrote for the paper? She has disdained him ever since. And do you want Amber to know that her only remaining hope for the throne has been dashed by the friend who just stole Mr. Husband United States of America?”

  “What about the woman you saw him kissing just this morning? It was his sister, wasn’t it? It’s always their sister.When they write stuff like this in novels. They always make it the sister.”

  “An old girlfriend.”

  “Ooh. Don’t you wish this had been a novel?”

  “An old girlfriend who’s marrying one of his best friends this weekend.”

  “So it wasn’t as elaborate a kiss as you remember, huh?”

  “It looked like it. It looked like two people intensely in love. Enraptured with each other’s presence. As if they were the only two who existed this side of creation.”

  “Okay, enough drama.”

  “Okay, you want the truth. I felt like I was going to puke.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It was perfect,” I said, shifting my straps again to avoid prolonged exposure in one place.

  “Puking?”

  “No, loo-loo, the kiss. Focus. It was soft and yet strong.”

  Paige’s eyes glazed over. “All that?”

  “All that.”

  “Not like Grant?”

  I thought of that for a moment. I had fought so hard to keep Grant. Even gave it one last-lamentable-ditch effort. But I failed. And even though Joshua had known all along that I was only after Grant so I wouldn’t lose him to someone else, I wouldn’t admit the truth to myself.“No, not like Grant. Grant’s kisses were always kind of mushy and pure. This held things in it I’ve never felt before.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, really! I felt things I’ve never felt before . . .Well, I take that back. I’m not sure what I felt. It was just weird.”

  She wrapped her arm around my shoulder while we bobbed like two bobble heads in the surf.“I know.”

  “You know it was weird?”

  “No, I know you’re weird.” She nodded toward the beauties on the beach. “Can you disguise your glee for the rest of the afternoon?”