Page 84 of Courting Gossip (Courting)
The ocean before him looked calm as it lapped lazily against the shoreline. One lone fishing boat puttered along, coming in for the day. The pace of life was different here. Slower, calmer. The pressure cooker had stopped rocking. With the sun setting, it didn’t take long before he spotted her heading back along the beach. She came around a curve of the shoreline, and he immediately knew it was her. Only Jenny walked like that.
He sat up straighter in his chair. As she came closer, he got a better look at what she was wearing, and he nearly swallowed his tongue. She was in a bikini – and it was purple.
‘Holy shit,’ he whispered.
The thing fit her like a glove. The top wasn’t big enough to cover all of her curves, and shejiggled. She’d tied a sarong low on her waist, but the breeze made it billow, giving teasing glimpses of her legs and a skimpy bikini bottom with string ties at the sides. His heart began to pump a tattoo against his ribcage. Her hair streamed out behind her like flames dancing in the wind. Her hips swung, and he saw a gold chain glint around her waist.
The woman was so naturally sensuous, he didn’t think she understood the power she held over men. Over him.
He rose from his chair when she started up towards the house. She was halfway there before she spotted him. Her footsteps stopped, and he saw her toes dig into the sand.
She pushed back her sunglasses. ‘What are you doing here, Brody?’
‘Hiding again, Jenny?’
‘I’m done hiding.’
She seemed to be done with a lot of things. ‘I heard that we’d broken up. I thought we should talk about that.’
‘We didn’t break up. We’d have to be together to do that.’ She pushed down her sarong when it flipped up to her hip. ‘I merely ended our agreement.’
‘Why? I thought things were going well.’
‘Well,’ she muttered. She pushed away a strand of hair that had blown into her face and looked away.
He braced his hand against the white column at the top of the steps. He was fighting the urge to walk down the steps and just pull her into his arms. ‘What happened, Jenny? I thought we agreed to celebrate tonight.’
‘We are not celebrating. You protectedher.’
Maggie. She didn’t have to spell it out, but she didn’t understand. ‘I didn’t protect her. I silenced her.’
‘Same difference to me.’ She folded her arms under her breasts and shrugged. ‘You shut her down. The gossip should stop now. There’s no need for us to continue with our arrangement.’
No reason? He could tick off about a thousand without even trying.
He drummed his fingers against the column. ‘If you want out, we need to get into it first.’
With the sun setting behind them, dusk settled onto the beach quickly. The ocean turned darker, and a few lights came on up and down the beach. ‘Are we going to fight out here, or are you going to let me in?’
She was stewing over his perceived betrayal, Brody could see it. A day at the beach hadn’t calmed her down. Steam nearly poured from her ears, but she marched up the steps and stormed by him. She opened the sliding glass door, and the green flash of the sunset came from her eyes. ‘You want to get into it? Fine by me.’
‘You know I fight dirty,’ he warned her before he stepped inside. And this was one fight he was determined to win. He wasn’t going to let her go easily.
‘Yeah? Well, I’m a redhead. Bring it on, Spin Master. I dare you.’
