Page 25 of Shy Girl
“Not anymore,” I said.
He shook his head. “She’s grown up a lot.”
“What are you talking about?”
Grady tilted his head toward her. “Dagny Taylor, right? She went to school with us.”
“Shut up.”
He rolled his eyes. “Man, you have always beensoblind. She was younger, but definitely in high school. I remember her stutter. She didn’t say much. I think we took auto tech together.”
Dagny taking auto didn’t surprise me much. The wooden pallet furniture made it clear she was a woman that loved to piece things together and work with her hands. But Grady knowing her from school threw me for a loop. He couldn’t be serious. If Dagny went to school with us, I would have remembered.
Or . . . maybe not.
Bonehead was the best description for me during that time of my life. Her amused response to Grady’s mother setting me up with every bridesmaid on the island suddenly made a lot more sense. Plus, Grady had a mind like a steel trap. If he remembered her, then so it was.
Weird.
All this time, Dagny had known me better than I knew her. Something about that made me uneasy. What had I missed all these years? Dagny had been around . . . always. How had I not noticed her?
Grady clapped me on the shoulder. “Now that you’ve thoroughly embarrassed yourself, I can’t wait to hear how it goes when you confess you didn’t remember her. Hey, did you see Victoria yet?”
“No.”
He clucked. “Good luck, man. She’s on the prowl.”
“For me?”
His eyes widened. “For a man. Her date ditched and she doesn't like being anywhere alone.” He glanced to his watch, sighed, and called, “Hey baby. We better get going. We have to meet up with the coordinator about the dinner, remember?”
Helene turned, the picture of grace, and stepped up to his side with a smile so warm I would have assumed they’d been separated for weeks. Grady put an arm around her waist, and, watching the two of them, I couldn’t remember why Vikram protested relationships so much.
“See you in an hour?” Helene asked me.
I nodded. “We’ll be there.”
“Right on the beach.” Grady stepped back, his fingers entwined with Helene’s. “Open seating and bar, so we’ll see you there. Oh, and take a shower, dude. You stink.”
Any news of Victoria shook me up, but knowing she was on the hunt made it even worse.
In my very fortunate life, I’d survived avalanches, cliff jumping, and a really stupid stunt where I rode a crappy old rug down a church steeple, but I’d also been a deputy for almost ten years. Despite all that life experience, Victoria still scared the crap out of me.
There was something unnerving about the subterfuge that lay behind her thick veneer of courtesy and sincerity. Really, she wasn’t sincere. But somehow, she managed to make herselffeelsincere.
Once Helene and Grady left, I sniffed my shirt. Did I really stink? Probably. Planes never smelled good. The fresh air blowing in distracted me from thoughts of a shower, however. When I looked up to see Dagny standing at the edge of the balcony, everything disappeared from my brain except for her. She had a way of doing that. Whether it was the casual way her body leaned into the wind, the delighted smile on her face, or the quiet way she seemed to watch everything. Her brown hair fluttered behind her again, and I had to crush another wave of attraction. It drew my thoughts back to what Grady said.
How could I havenotnoticed her in high school?
Beyond her glittered the sapphire ocean, ringed in turquoise around a perfect beach that called to me.
Forget the shower.
Dagny and I needed to talk.
Dagny glanced over with a warm smile when I stepped up next to her, careful to keep a foot of distance between us. When her gaze returned to the ocean, I noticed a line in her forehead that hadn’t been there before. She seemed . . . distracted. Maybe just deep in thought. For several minutes, we stood in the breeze off the water and I tried to imagine another time when I’d seen something so perfectly calm.
“So,” I drawled. “You went to high school with us?”
