ANOTHER week, another visit.
Progress on the asset division was coming steady but slow. Without a definitive deadline looming, they’d fallen into the habit of taking mornings off to enjoy a bit of local activity—jogging on the beach, exploring the tide pools, walking the caves at the cove, or taking their coffee over to surfing hot spot Windansea…something—anything—to act as a buffer between leaving bed and hitting divorce headquarters.
Today, it was the La Jolla Open Aire Market, around which parking was always tight, so Ryan had let Claire out at the front gate while he looked for a spot. Catching sight of a woman loading her stroller into the back of her SUV half a block down Girard, Ryan waited for her to drive off and then pulled in. Not bad.
Hopping out, he jogged back to the chain-link-fence opening that led into the elementary school playground that housed the market each Sunday. Within seconds, he had Claire in sight. She would have stood out with her raven-dark ponytail, navy ball cap and authentically distressed, orange T-shirt regardless, but somehow in the last month, his internal compass had started pointing due Claire again.
Strange, the things that came back. More so, the things he’d been surprised to realize hadn’t gone away.
Closing the distance between them, he skimmed his palm over that dangerous stretch of exposed skin above the low ride of her jeans and high hem of her shirt. “Knew I’d find you here.”
Claire cast him a quick glance, her eyes bright, before returning her attention to the stand where bucket upon flower-filled bucket created a spectrum of vibrant hues, blossoms and buds that looked nearly as petal soft as the skin his fingers brushed.
“The sunflowers, I think,” she said, pointing to her selection with a satisfied smile that left Ryan wondering how it was that every male within one hundred feet hadn’t stopped to gawk. Though on second glance, more than a few actually had. He couldn’t blame them.
When Claire went for her money, he rolled his eyes, leaning in close to her ear as he stilled her hand. “Let’s call this a date, okay? Why don’t you let me buy you some flowers and a meal?”
“A date?”
He could hear the smile in her voice and knew at last he’d hit the jackpot. “Yeah. Been a while since we had one.”
Ryan exchanged a few bills for the sunburst bouquet wrapped in old news, and handed it over to Claire, who smiled up at him from beneath her lashes with what unbelievably looked like a shy blush pinkening her cheeks.
His heart turned over with a heavy thud at the sight of it.
“Thank you, Ryan.”
Damn, he could barely manage the noncommittal grunt, let alone try for words when she looked at him like that. When that pretty pink slid through his veins, warming them with something that wasn’t quite lust.
Swallowing hard, he ushered her farther into the maze of merchants, hoping that amid the artisans, farm stands and bakery stalls, she wouldn’t notice that the man beside her had gone stupid over one sweet blush.
It was just the kind of reaction he’d been doing his damnedest to avoid. But there it was. And his only consolation was that Claire would be gone tomorrow. Back to her life in New York and apart from him. For at least another two weeks.
So what if she got to him more than he’d wanted to let her. The time they spent together was a fraction of what they spent apart and regardless of whatever feelings those little smiles stirred up in him, they both knew this relationship wasn’t destined to go the distance. In all honesty, it probably only felt as good as it did because of the limits they’d imposed on it.
The paradise factor. When they were together, they were both outside their real lives. Outside their normal environment. La Jolla had always been his escape, and that’s what it was with Claire. A place where real life hadn’t invaded.
Nothing messy.
Nothing but fun.
Even if that wasn’t it, they still couldn’t get in too deep for the simple fact there wasn’t time. Slow as the progress might be, they were making it. One of these weeks, probably within the next month, the settlement would be complete and then the divorce would follow. And this time with Claire would be over.
No, he wasn’t looking forward to that day.
He glanced down at her walking beside him, captivating even at her most casual, and wondered how he’d ever thought he had a chance at defending against this.
Maybe if he’d known the effect she would have on him…no, he still would have gone to Rome to get her. Only then he wouldn’t have bothered to keep his distance; he’d have used every trick in the book to get her beneath him before they even left her suite. And then again on the jet. Definitely the jet.
One playful bump of a hip against his had his thoughts plummeting from mile high to the delighted blue eyes gazing up at him.
“This is an incredible market. So many temptations all in one place.”
“Yeah, which ones are you finding the hardest to resist?”
She pointed out several vendors, her weaknesses running the gamut from decadent pastries, to handmade soaps, hanging tapestries and everything in between. Ryan glanced around, enjoying the market with new eyes as Claire cut a slow path through the crowd until they’d passed the food court and come to an open lawn area. More stands lined the perimeter, and at the center people gathered to eat picnic style in the grass while listening to a female soloist who played the guitar and sang in a voice so melodic it begged listeners to close their eyes and lie down.
“Hungry?” he asked, getting that way himself. “You could sit and I’ll bring something back.”
Claire’s hand slipped over her stomach, and for an instant Ryan’s world screeched to a halt. Too many memories associated with that gesture for his peace of mind. But she’d merely rubbed a palm over the flat plane and shrugged. “Actually, I’m starving. What’s good here?”
A few minutes later Ryan returned balancing three flimsy trays of the best Mexican this side of the border, with a couple of waters pinned under his arm. He scanned the crowd, looking for the gorgeous brunette tucked beneath the Cubs cap she’d snagged from his closet that morning. A hoot of laughter caught his attention from the far end of the market. Before he turned, he knew.
Hula hoops.
A wide grassy expanse behind the last row of booths was dotted with females of every age, race, shape and ability. Each swiveling her hips with a smile that sparkled as brightly as the elaborately decorated hoop making its revolutions around her hips. And there in the center was Claire.
That too-small-to-begin-with T-shirt riding around her ribs. Jeans dangerously low. Arms up, her sunflowers carefully set off to the side. Her hips—God help him—moving in slow undulations that emphasized the slim strength in her belly and instantly set his body to respond. He swallowed. Hard. And walked to the edge of the hula grounds.
Claire glanced up, eyes gleaming with mirth when she caught his expression. “You like it. I know you do.”
He offered a stiff nod. “Just come and get the money out of my pocket. We’re buying it.”
Claire arched a brow and, stopping inches too close, slipped her hand into his front pocket, snickering when he glared a warning after the first graze of her fingers against him.
“You’re about two seconds from lunch going into the trash and you and your hula hoop going over my shoulder.”
“Oooh,” she teased, stroking her fingers to run the length of him again. “Big man…with all those threats.”
The tacos nearly hit the ground with the clench of his fist, but Claire, giggling wickedly, was quick on the extraction and managed to help him rebalance the trays before they were lost.
“You’re a very, very bad girl.”
Another impish wink. She knew it. Hell, she was reveling in it. “So spank me.”
Ryan’s jaw clenched tight, and the popping sound of his molars threatening to grind down to dust forced him to look away. God help him, the minute he got her alone he would.
Seated within the circle of her spectacular new hula hoop, the remnants of their lunch stacked beside her, Claire squinted into the pale blue sky above. “So why La Jolla?”
Ryan cocked his head and turned a lopsided smile her way. “You’ve seen it. I’m surprised you need to ask.”
A gentle breeze tickled her neck and ears. “No, I see how beautiful it is. But it’s not exactly part of Silicon Valley or a hotbed of investment opportunity, at least of the variety you seem drawn to. So how’d you find it?”
“A friend introduced me to the place a few years back. It’s close enough to L.A. that the drive is more than manageable, but far enough to get away from the chaos.”
Fingering a thick blade of grass, Claire asked, “Hollywood chaos?”
The barest pause and then, “Yes.”
Claire nodded, glancing away.
His actress girlfriend had brought him down here to get away from the hubbub. And he’d enjoyed it enough to build a place of his own.
What a different world he lived in. At times she wondered how she recognized him at all, except, even as different as his life had become…he was so much the same man. The man she’d fallen for too hard. Depended on too much. Treated too unfairly. The man she’d never completely gotten over—no matter what lies she’d been telling herself all this time.
“Claire—”
“I can definitely understand the draw,” she cut him off with an encompassing wave of her hand. She shouldn’t have asked about Hollywood. Didn’t want to know any more than she already did about Dahlia. Whether he’d been talking to her again. If they’d remained friends.
Teasingly, she drove the point home with a flirty wink. “If my ex didn’t have a place down here, I might consider it for myself.”
“Oh, yeah? Think you could afford it?”
She leaned conspiratorially toward him. “I’m coming into a bit of cash.”
Ryan chuckled, leaning back on his arms. “Not until we settle.”
“You in a rush?”
“No. It has to get done, but I’m not in any rush.”
Searching Ryan’s eyes, she found easy understanding in them. The warm comfort of a connection not completely dead. Softly, she answered, “Then neither am I.”
Together they stretched back into the bed of grass and, blanketed by the sun’s warm rays, listened to the midday lullaby of music and laughter mingling around them.
It might have been a half hour, or maybe only ten minutes, but briefly time and space and the weight of the world disappeared and there’d been only the contentment of drifting in the plane between sleep and wake.
Refreshed, Claire sat up, tucking her legs to one side. Ryan lay beside her, his breath coming slow and regular. Sleeping. She could see it in the relaxed lines of his chiseled face. Sense it in the quiet between them.
Her hand moved to the center of his chest, and she closed her eyes. Felt the steady thump, thump of his heart beat beneath her fingertips, wrap around her nerve endings and wind in a rhythmic pulse through her arm until his vitality mingled at the very heart of her own.
Something swelled deep inside her. Strained against the confines she’d thought to impose—thought would keep her safe. And pushed words she couldn’t say—didn’t want to acknowledge—toward her lips.
I love you.
She tamped them back, relegating them to the dark corners of her mind. The places where threadbare hopes and tattered dreams cluttered the background of her consciousness with all that might have been. Swing sets, family dinners and lives that grew together rather than apart.
Things she couldn’t have and knew better than to want.
The heat of Ryan’s hand covered her own and she jerked back to sever the connection. But he held her steady, pressed her palm into the place where she’d let it rest.
“Stay. Lie down with me again. This is too perfect to give up just yet.”
Claire nodded. It was too perfect to give up just yet. Even if it was just the fantasy that Ryan meant them, rather than a few last minutes beneath the warm sun.