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THE MORNING WAS ALREADY hot and humid—too muggy for this early in the summer—and Phil was sweating a half hour later when he went back to the shop to fill up his travel mug with more coffee.
He stopped for a few minutes to chat with old Carl Henner, who’d moved to town when he retired and hung out at local businesses most of the day.
He was returning to the pier with his coffee when he jerked to a stop.
Rebecca. Standing no more than ten feet away from him. Her back was to him as she snapped a few photos of the bay with her phone. She wore another pair of shorts that made the most of her firm, round ass and tanned legs. Her hair was in a ponytail, tied with an elastic thing today rather than a scarf.
Every muscle in his body tightened at the sight of her. His heart started to hammer in his chest.
She lowered her phone and turned around, jerking to a stop exactly as he had earlier when her eyes landed on him.
They stared at each other for a long moment, and Phil tried to fight a pull in the vicinity of his chest, some kind of compulsion that dragged him toward her.
“I thought you came here in the evenings,” she said at last. Her voice wasn’t loud, but there was an edge of both resentment and defensiveness in it that immediately raised Phil’s hackles.
“You really assume I keep the exact same schedule every day?” He did, but there was no way she could know that.
“I don’t know. Why are you here again?”
He frowned as he stepped closer. “I don’t have to justify my presence to you. I’ve been here a lot longer than you. This is where I live.”
“I’m not expecting you to justify anything to me.” She was angry now too. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes flashing. “I just wondered if you really hung around fishing all day long like an old man.”
“Hanging around fishing is my job. I co-own that store and restaurant.” He nodded back toward the shop, pleased he had something to show for the years they’d been apart.
She blinked, some of her anger fading in her surprise. She’d always been like that. She wasn’t an angry person. It took a lot to rile her up, and even then she was easily diverted by other emotions. “Really?”
“You think I’d stand here and lie to you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know you anymore.”
“Then there’d be no reason for me to lie to you about what I’m doing. You think I have any interest in impressing you?”
He did want to impress her. He could feel the impulse niggling in his head, even as he told himself it didn’t matter at all what she thought of him.
He didn’t want to feel that way though.
He didn’t want to care so much about someone he’d long since left behind.
He wanted to go back to his relaxed, even-tempered life where nothing pushed him too far or went too deep or hurt him too much. He’d shaped his life that way on purpose, and he couldn’t fight the swell of resentment that Rebecca had shown up out of the blue and taken it away from him.
“So you’re here at the pier all day?” she asked, a different expression on her face.
He’d always been able to read her, and he could see what she was thinking right now. She was confused and disappointed and hoping for a time during the day when she could come out this way without accidentally running into him.
If he was smart, he would give her a time—any time—and then make sure he wasn’t around then for the next week or two, however long she was in town. He could manage it, and it was the only way of maintaining control over his feelings.
He needed to just tell her he wasn’t around at lunchtime, when he normally left to do errands or work out. Then he’d be safe. They’d avoid each other.
Lunchtime.
Tell her.
Now.
“I work here. I’m around all the time,” he said.
Her mouth and jaw tightened. “Well, I’m in that house for the next two weeks.” She nodded with her head toward a small, expensive vacation rental a few houses down from the pier. “When I walk, I’m going to end up here.”
“You can walk in the other direction.”
Her shoulders stiffened. Clearly his cold voice had angered her. “I’m allowed to walk in any direction I want. You think I’m supposed to curtail my vacation just because you happen to work here?”
“I didn’t tell you to curtail anything. I merely suggested if you didn’t want to see me, then you could avoid it.”
“I don’t want to see you.”
“Then walk in the other direction.”
“You asshole,” she hissed. “I’m not going make things easy for you. I’ll show up here whenever I want.”
“And I’ll be here.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t care enough about you to keep me from doing what I want to do.”
***
YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE about Stranded on the Beach here.