Page 13 of Nothing to Do

He pulled her back and must have crouched because he murmured above her ear. “Your boss would let you do this at work?”

Her skirt was still in her fist, but with the other hand, she touched his wrist. “My boss isn’t here.”

“No one is here.”

That bassy truth vibrated through her. Why did his voice get deeper like that?

Relaxing the weight of her head, her cheek made contact with his hand just above hers when she pushed up her shoulder.

“Don’t you feel better?” she asked. “Out here, in the air, surrounded by life.”

“I sure feel something.”

Were those words for her? Closing her eyes, she inhaled through her nose. Her head went back, bumping against him, but he didn’t retreat. If it was up to her, they would stay out there all day. But, sigh, that wasn’t possible. She couldn’t ask him about getting back to work and then not even let the guy eat lunch.

“I’ll need a vacation after this,” she said, patting his wrist, then easing his arm away to head back to shore.

“Where are you going now?”

“The Mediterranean,” she said without looking back.

As she walked up the beach, sand stuck to her feet. That was okay, the grains would fall off as her legs dried. Still holding her skirt at her hip, she got as far as the wall, and then… huh. It was higher than she’d thought, would she be able to reach it? With greenery all around the rest of the building, getting back without footwear might be difficult.

“Didn’t think about that, did you?” Zane said, coming to her side.

She grabbed his shoulder. “You can give me a boost.”

Laughing again, he bent down to offer her a foothold. “Here to help.”

Slipping her foot into his linked fingers, she whooped when he did as she asked and boosted her up. He was strong. Damn, the guy was maybe too capable. Her skirt dropped, probably over his head, as she grabbed the wall and hauled herself up onto it.

“Got it?” he called out.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

On her knees, she brushed her hands together, catching her breath. It took him seconds to not only get onto the wall, butover it. She was still kneeling there when he returned to his seat and raised a large plate of food.

“Lunch is here.” He picked up a bottle of wine next. “Sure you don’t want some?”

“We had sake yesterday and never got back to our work,” she said, climbing off the wall to go to her chaise. Sitting on the side, she curled her legs beside her. “You think people will get mad if I get the chaise sandy?”

With two glasses in one hand, he used the other to pour the wine. “No. No one will get mad at you, Wanderer.” Holding the glasses toward her, he let her take one and put the wine back on the table. “You want to drink to something? Your imaginings?”

Smiling, she held her glass to his. “I say we drink to the possibilities. To everything that came before us and to everything that will come after.”

“That’s a lot of possibilities,” he said, touching his glass to hers. They drank and he pushed the plate toward her. “You see it all. See the good in everything.”

“I try to be optimistic,” she said, picking up a bruschetta. “It’s better than the alternative.”

“So I have a question for you,” he said. He hadn’t even looked at the food. Her mouth was full, so all she could do was raise her brows and nod. “Why aren’t you married?”

Swallowing the mouthful, she put the rest of the bruschetta on the edge of the plate. “I’m twenty-seven, think I’d count as a spinster?”

He laughed. “That’s not what I was… You seem like the kind of woman who’d attract men like flies.”

“To dung?”

Another laugh. “Or to light. That’s what you are, Thea. You’re light. You light up everything around you.”

---