by Emily King
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Other Books by Emily King
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Synopsis
On the crowded sandy beaches of southern California, newly minted lifeguard Amy Bergen has her hands full keeping the beachgoers safe. She loves her job and knows she made the right decision to finally pursue her childhood dream. The problem is—she’s still the busy owner and manager of a luxury auto dealership. And with so many roles to juggle, finding time to date seems like one more complication…until she meets Sarah.
When Midwestern transplant and middle school teacher Sarah Wagner sees Amy on duty at the beach, she is immediately drawn to her. But so are a lot of other women. And after a rocky first encounter, Sarah isn’t sure Amy is truly the kind of woman she is looking to date. But with Amy, desire just might win out…
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Other Bella Books by Emily King
Cracking Love
Acknowledgments
A thank you to Bella Books and to my readers. Also, a thank you to Ann Roberts and to Medora MacDougall.
About the Author
Emily King grew up in one of the many farming towns in California’s central valley. She attended pharmacy school in southern California and practiced pharmacy for a number of years. She has also worked in farming and now writes fiction. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking with the bounty of food found at the local farmers’ market, reading, getting in a good workout, and catering to the whims of her cat.
Copyright © 2019 by Emily King
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
First Bella Books Edition 2019
eBook released 2019
Editor: Medora MacDougall
Cover Designer: Judith Fellows
ISBN: 978-1-64247-070-3
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Chapter One
As Sarah Wagner bent to collect a discarded bottle cap from the sand of South Coast Beach with her garden-gloved hand, she caught sight of a dark shape partially covered by a tangle of seaweed. With a startled cry, she jumped back, instinctively realizing it was a sea animal of some sort and might be dangerous.
“What is it? What happened?” Justin Morgan called to her as he rushed over.
Sarah pointed at the wide, flat shape in the sand. It wasn’t moving, and her fright turned to concern. She set down her Earth Day trash-collecting bucket and walked a little closer. Flies were buzzing in the area but dispersed at her approach.
Justin set down his own bucket and joined her in front of the animal.
They peered down at it. “It’s dead, isn’t it? Poor thing.”
Justin nodded. “Yes, it looks like it’s been here a while. It looks like a stingray.”
“A stingray?” Sarah repeated. She knew what those were, having seen pictures of them at some point in her life, but she had never seen one in the flesh. Animals with two broad, flat fins that let them almost fly through the water weren’t something she had encountered growing up in Iowa.
“Yeah, a stingray,” Justin said. “A young one, from the size of it. I wonder what happened to it that it washed up on shore. Maybe a predator got hold of it and injured it.” Justin was a southern California and South Coast Beach native and clearly knew something about marine life. Bending down, he carefully reached out with one of his rose-patterned, garden-gloved hands and moved the seaweed aside. The rest of the creature was revealed, including a long thin tail.
“Oh, cool, look at that!” a young male voice said. Sarah and Justin turned to see a trio of high school-aged boys approaching. They held buckets and wore gloves and appeared to be Earth Day participants too.
“It is cool, isn’t it?” Justin said. “But it’s a stingray, so be careful.” He began telling the boys about it, the teacher in him coming out. Like Sarah, he taught at South Coast Beach Middle School, so these high schoolers weren’t their students, but it was great to be around kids of any age who were interested in learning. Sarah listened as Justin finished cautioning them about its stinging mechanism and venom, now very glad that she hadn’t inadvertently stepped on that part of it.
“Where’s its mouth?” one of the boys asked.
“Underneath. Let me get something so I can turn it over, and I’ll show you.”
Another of the boys picked up a nearby piece of driftwood and handed it to Justin. “Here’s a stick.”
The shrill sound of a whistle cut through the air. A brunette in red athletic pants and jacket raced toward them, waving her hands as if to tell them to stop what they were doing. She must be one of the SCB lifeguards; she had official-looking emblems on her clothes and was coming from the direction of one of the lifeguard towers that dotted the beach.
“Don’t touch that!” the lifeguard’s voice carried across the sand. Her arms and legs pumped as she ran toward them. Sarah watched her fit figure approach, rapt. It was too bad the morning was cloudy and brisk; she could just imagine how amazing she would look running in warm weather attire, like shorts and a tight T-shirt or maybe even only a swimsuit. Sarah offered a smile as the lifeguard neared.
She stopped before them, her sunglasses-covered gaze stern. Sarah stopped smiling.
“I’ll take that stick, please.” She all but grabbed it from Justin.
Justin frowned. “Hey, take it easy. They only wanted to see…”
“So, you were going to poke at it? Don’t you know stingrays can be dangerous?”
“Yes, but—”
“Enough said.” She ushered everyone back from the stingray and then surveyed the assembled group. “Did anyone get stung or otherwise injured?”
The kids shook their heads and answered, “No.”
“Good.” She cast an accusatory look at Justin and Sarah. “We want everyone to stay safe. If you see anything else potentially dangerous like this during Earth Day, or any other day for that matter, please just m
ark the area and alert one of us so we can remove it.”
It was clear she was dismissing everyone so that she could take care of her tasks. The kids murmured agreement and wandered away, and Justin moved away too. Sarah started to follow, but hesitated and then stepped forward. “You didn’t let him finish what he was saying. Those kids were interested, and he’s a teacher.”
“Oh? What does he teach?”
Sarah paused. “That doesn’t matter.”
The lifeguard folded her arms across her tall, strong-looking body and again fixed her with that stern gaze. “So, not biology or anything like that?”
“English,” Sarah admitted. She didn’t bother mentioning that she was a teacher, too, since she didn’t teach something the lifeguard would find relevant either. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know about stingrays,” she quickly added.
The lifeguard shook her head.
“He was going to show them—” Sarah stopped herself from explaining and sighed. The lifeguard wasn’t going to listen right now. Some people were just stubborn. Stubborn, but seriously hot. Sarah had the sudden urge to run her hands through her soft-looking, short, sable brown hair, pull her closer, and kiss her. But that was crazy. Sarah didn’t get urges like that with complete strangers. She hadn’t even felt so strongly about Robin, her last girlfriend.
The lifeguard seemed to be regarding her more closely now, but it was hard to tell with her eyes hidden behind those sunglasses. “Next time, let a lifeguard handle it. I don’t want anyone getting hurt on my watch.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. At least the lifeguard was stubborn for a reason. It was probably stressful keeping an eye on so many beachgoers. Or maybe she was just having a bad day.
Sarah turned and left to catch up with Justin. But she couldn’t resist one glance back. Pleasantly surprised to catch the lifeguard’s gaze, Sarah tried offering her a smile again. This time, she returned the smile.
Amy Bergen watched the curvaceous blonde catch up to the guy she was with and sighed. No matter how attractive some of the participants were, Earth Day was going to be a long one if they let their curiosity get the best of them while combing the beach for trash. Even though picking up litter seemed straightforward, it wasn’t without risk. The volunteers were instructed at the beginning of the day not to touch hazardous items and instead mark the area for professional pickup, but they sometimes couldn’t resist and ended up getting injured and requiring first aid or more. There was always someone who found something dangerous, such as that stingray or a used condom or even medical waste like a syringe with an attached needle. She and the other lifeguards regularly removed dangerous objects from the beach, but it was hard to get it all. She felt fortunate to have reached this group in time to avert an incident.
Although she had managed to prevent anyone from getting injured, Amy wished she hadn’t spoken so sharply to them; they clearly meant well since they had come to participate in the beach cleanup. It was just that lots of people coming to a hazardous scene only made preventing injury more challenging. She had wanted to break up the group before a larger crowd gathered. And she was worried about what they intended to do with that stick. In her experience, people with sticks usually got up to no good at the beach. She may have slightly misjudged the level of danger in this situation, but as a new lifeguard she wasn’t taking any chances.
Having completed the removal of the stingray, she walked back to her tower to watch her area of the beach and ocean for other potential problems. Her assigned zone was clear right now and her thoughts returned to the woman.
What the woman had said about the kids being interested echoed in her mind. She was right; this had been a missed opportunity to teach them. As someone who had participated in the SCB junior lifeguard program as a kid and who had recently applied to become an instructor in the same program, she was going to have to do better than this. She was out of practice that was all. She had spent too much time in the business world ordering people around—and too much time away from the lifeguard program while she toiled in the family business as owner and manager of a luxury auto dealership. She would do better next time out here.
Curious as to where the blonde was now, she picked up her binoculars. She and the guy she was with had been heading toward the pier. Adjusting the binoculars, she took a peek out of her assigned zone to see what they were doing.
After spotting them, she watched for a moment. They walked slowly, scanning the sand, searching for debris. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to be finding anything else that was potentially dangerous. Amy let her eyes linger on the attractive woman. Her golden hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, revealing her pretty face, and her body was exactly the right amount of curvy in all the right places.
Reminding herself that she was here to work, not scope out women, Amy pulled her gaze away and turned her binoculars back to her zone.
After spending the rest of the morning collecting trash, Sarah and Justin took their buckets to the Earth Day garbage drop-off area at the pier.
“Ms. Wagner!” A young voice called.
Sarah turned, searching for the source of the excited cry. She recognized an approaching girl as one of her seventh-graders. “Hi, Hannah!” Sarah smiled at her student, an energetic girl who wore her light brown hair center parted with French-braided pigtails on each side.
“Hi, Ms. Wagner! We’re collecting trash, too!” Hannah held up a bucket.
“Hi,” said the man accompanying her, a dark-haired and fit-looking guy of about thirty. He gave Sarah an easy smile, setting down his own bucket. “I’m Hannah’s uncle, Peter Grandin.” He removed his trash-collecting glove and extended his hand.
Sarah removed her glove as well and shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Sarah Wagner.”
“Hannah tells me you’re one of her teachers.”
“Yes, she’s in my pre-algebra class. She’s a good student.” Sarah smiled at Hannah, who beamed at the praise.
“That’s wonderful.” Peter patted Hannah’s shoulder.
From the corner of her eye, Sarah noticed Justin practically vibrating at the prospect of meeting Peter. Clearly, he had recovered from the chastising they had received earlier. Since he was part of the reason they’d gotten in trouble, though, Sarah couldn’t resist prolonging his wait for an introduction to the hunky guy in front of him by presenting him to Hannah first.
“Hannah, this is my friend, Mr. Morgan, one of the English teachers at our school.”
“Hi, Mr. Morgan,” Hannah said. “I have Ms. Smith for English.”
Justin returned her greeting and shook her hand, smiling. He then looked at Sarah expectantly.
Unable to delay any longer, Sarah introduced him to Peter.
“Hello.” Peter shook Justin’s hand. “So, you teach English?”
“Yes,” Justin said, smiling. “Seventh and eighth grade. What do you do?”
“Uncle Peter’s a lifeguard!” Hannah interjected.
“Oh, mm-hm,” Justin said, sounding very interested and taking the opportunity to sweep his gaze over Peter. “And are you here in your official capacity today?” he asked with a flirtatious tilt of his head.
“No, I’m off today. Just spending the day with Hannah and helping clean up the beach,” Peter replied. Sarah had the feeling Justin was wasting his efforts with him, because he wasn’t showing anything other than friendly interest. It looked like neither she nor Justin was going to have much luck finding a date today. Not that finding dates was the goal of Earth Day, but Sarah had been open to the idea and she knew Justin had been too.
“Ms. Wagner?” Hannah spoke. “Are you and Mr. Morgan doing the Fun Run next month?”
Sarah glanced at Justin, hoping he would tell her what that was, but he was still busy trying to assess the effect of his charms on Peter. She turned back to Hannah. “What’s the Fun Run?”
Peter spoke first. “It’s one of the fundraisers for the SCB junior lifeguard program. Hannah’s going to try ou
t for the program this year.”
“Good for you, Hannah,” Sarah said. “I’d be glad to do the Fun Run.” An image of the gorgeous, running lifeguard from this morning popped into her mind. Would she be there, too? Sarah would welcome another chance to meet her, especially under the friendlier circumstances of a fundraiser.
“I’d be glad to do the Fun Run, too,” Justin said.
“Cool.” Hannah grinned at them.
“How far is it?” Sarah asked.
“Five kilometers.”
Sarah couldn’t hold back a small grimace at realizing the distance was three miles. She was fit to an extent, but it was from riding her bicycle along the local bike paths, not jogging.
“It’s on the beach,” Hannah added.
“That sounds good,” Justin said.
“It will be,” Hannah enthused. “It’s going to raise a lot of money. Uncle Peter helps run the junior lifeguard program. If I get into it, I get to jump off the pier at the end!”
“Really?” Sarah asked in surprise. The SCB pier was a very tall pier as well as one of the longest on the West Coast.
Peter nodded. “All of the junior lifeguards get to jump off the pier, if they’d like to. But the main goal of the program is to teach kids water safety skills. We instruct kids in a variety of lifeguarding skills, everything from different aquatic skills to rescue skills to first aid. The program involves both teamwork and leadership and a lot of physical conditioning. We’re expecting about a thousand students this year.”
“Wow,” Sarah said. If it was that many students, there were probably a lot of other kids from SCB Middle School participating.
“And do the students graduate to become lifeguards?” Justin asked.
“No, not yet. The program does help prepare them for that, though. Some students do the program for fun, and others do the program to develop and practice lifeguarding skills. If being a lifeguard is something they’re interested in, they still have to wait until they’re old enough and then go through lifeguard tryouts. But those are much, much harder.”
