Page 36 of Changed Plan

I’ve barely put the car in park when she says, “So, what’s her name?”

Holy shit. She really is just like Mom.

“Whose name?”

“Don’t even try that. You would hardly talk to me while you were stuck in the airport, just quick answers, and then you were so anxious to get off the phone. I know you were with a woman. Is she your girlfriend?”

I didn’t mean to treat her that way. What an asshole.

“Her name is Darby. No, she is not my girlfriend. We just met.”

“Do you want her to be your girlfriend?”

“Honestly? I think I might.”

“Did you ask her?”

And there’s the fourteen-year-old. “No. I don’t know her well enough to ask her to be my girlfriend.”

“Well, you know her well enough that she was in your hotel room, so I’m guessing you’re definitely not strangers at this point.”

She hops out of the car and heads for the beach.

Okay, I am so not ready to have this type of conversation with her.

I follow her down to the beach, but something in the breeze catches my eye.

15

Darby

Beach Hair

Isensesomeoneencroachingfromthe right, so I lower my book and turn to see what’s happening. His face is hidden from me because he’s walking backwards, pulling a chair through the sand, but I’d recognize that back anywhere. And that hair.

He doesn’t say a word, just continues rearranging the beach furniture as he brings a second chair over and plants an umbrella between them. The girl who’s been watching him from the other side picks up the small table he’s left behind and brings it over. She places it in front of their umbrella. And then she walks right up to me and says, “Hi, Darby.”

“Hello, Izzie. It’s nice to meet you.”

Zane sits in the chair he’s placed next to me, but Izzie gives him an emphatic, “Uh-uh.” She pumps her thumb skyward.

Her big brother gets up and moves to the chair on the end. She immediately settles into the one between us. Zane waves at me as if we’re separated by an ocean rather than a petite girl with a very big presence.

I’ve known her less than a minute, and already I can tell she’s exactly as he described her.

“Did you drop a tracking device in my bag before you left the room this morning?”

“Finding you here was completely fortuitous.”

Izzie rolls her head toward me and says, “He talks like a nerd, but he’s actually cool.”

Zane sits forward and lowers his sunglasses so I can see him roll his eyes at her comment. “I saw your hair blowing in the wind.”

“You recognized me by the back of my head?”

“Of course I did.”

A young man approaches and tells Zane, “Sir, you’re not supposed to move the chairs and stuff. We’re supposed to do that for you.”

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