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It didn’t take long before she’d found the perfect place to observe and sketch in her journal. Nestled among the sand dunes she watched people, quickly drawing out the scenes in her book.
Children building a sand castle.
A mother applying sunscreen to her six-year-old.
A game of beach volleyball.
They were all rough sketches that she’d fill in and color later. Drawing was something she enjoyed doing but finding time to get some drawing, or even reading, it was nearly impossible with her siblings and parents.
Suddenly a shadow passed over her pad. “That’s pretty good,” a male voice stated from where he was standing behind her. Thankfully he didn’t stand in that spot much longer, the shadow from his body moving off of her drawing.
“Thanks,” she answered, barely looking over at him even as she could tell that he was moving around to her left side.
Settling in next to her, he turned and held out a hand, “Derek Worth.”
“Anne Elliot.”
“Anne? Is your aunt Cassandra Russell?”
“Yeah. Why?” The urge to turn back to the young children and their parents playing in the waves was tempting. If he didn’t hurry up and get to the point, her scene would be gone and she’d have to sketch the rest of it from memory, filling in details that may not have really existed. Not that it really mattered, but she’d rather this stretched memory be completely factual.
It was really difficult with this shirtless male sitting next to her. The attractive guys usually gravitated towards Beth and, on occasion, Mary. It was a new experience for her to not be overlooked in favor of her sisters.
“She’s renting from my older brother.” Derek narrowed his eyes for a moment, “I think my sister-in-law, Ava, went to visit you last week.”
“That sounds about right,” Anne smiled, looking down at her paper. Even though Derek was looking at her, she couldn’t look away from her notebook. A flush was forming on her cheeks and it had nothing to do with the sun beating down on her. “My aunt didn’t tell your sister that you needed to hang out with me while we are here, did she?” she ended up asking in a whisper.
Derek started laughing. “Of course not. I didn’t even know that you were the same person until after you introduced yourself.”
“Then why did you come over and sit down next to me?”
Shrugging, he opted to watch her sketching out a dog chasing after a ball – the family she had been drawing had left the area after the youngest started throwing a tantrum – instead of answering her. Anne, opting to ignore this stranger sitting next to her, continued to draw. Although it was difficult ignoring somebody who kept looking over her shoulder as she ran a pencil over the paper.
They sat like that for over ten minutes before she asked again, “Why did you sit down next to me?”
“I was curious about what was so interesting. You looked so intense,” he admitted. “I’m not much of an artist, but it is fascinating watching people creating something out of nothing.”
Anne smiled down at her sketchbook; Derek almost missed it, except he had been watching her carefully.
“Ahhh!” he grinned, “there it is.”
Turning pink, Anne keep her eyes down as she bit her lower lip in an attempt to keep her laughter in check. “I have to go,” she whispered, closing up her book and sliding it into the bag next to her.
“Walk you back?”
“It’s ten minutes away.”
“So?” he shrugged. “We’re going in the same direction anyway.”
Rolling her eyes, Anne agreed. She had a feeling that Derek Worth wasn’t going to be so easy to escape.
