Page 13 of The Art of Loving Lacy
Once inside, the lights of the inn were too bright, the hardwood floors smooth beneath her bare feet. Lacy held tight to Dane’s hand, not wanting the night to end. The middle-aged woman behind the counter smiled as they passed, and Lacy wondered if she could tell what they’d just done. She reached up to touch her hair, startled when she felt the mass of frizz that her corkscrew curls had morphed into.What was I thinking?She cringed at the thought of what she must look like. They took the stairs up to the second floor, passing a mirror that hung on the wall. She turned away, embarrassed, and made a mental note to be sure she looked great tomorrow.
Standing before the door to her room, she felt her nerves tighten again. Should she invite him in? Would he want to come in? She dug through her purse for her room key.
“I had a really nice time tonight,” Dane said.
Lacy bit the inside of her mouth, afraid to lift her eyes and meet his. She wanted to kiss him again so badly that she didn’t trust herself. “Mm-hmm.”
“You’re meeting your sisters in the morning, right?”
She’d already forgotten. She grabbed her key card and fumbled with inserting it into the slot. “Yeah.”
He nodded, and Lacy saw a question in the narrowing of his eyes and the nod of his head. He took the key card from her hand and unlocked the door.
“After you meet Danica and Kaylie, since we don’t have to meet everyone until around four o’clock, maybe we can go for a sail,” Dane suggested.
“On the boat you’re staying on?” Dane had borrowed one of Treat’s sailboats to live on while he was on the Cape. He’d lived on boats for so many years, he’d told Lacy that he missed the feel of the water beneath him when he was on dry land.
“No. That one is in Chatham already. He has two other beauties. I’m staying at the inn tonight.”
Here? Please don’t go.
Dane pushed open the door and stepped closer to Lacy.
“I want nothing more than to come inside and hold you in my arms until we both fall asleep, but I’m worried I’ll smother you,” he said.
She reached for his waist. “Smother me, please.”
Chapter Six
“I CAN’T SEE how you’d expect anything else.” Kaylie wore a peach tank top and white shorts. Her blond hair cascaded in waves over her shoulders, one side tucked behind her ear. She lowered her big brown sunglasses and spoke to Lacy while looking over the rim of the frames. “I mean, you guys lusted after each other for more than a year. It’s only natural for you to end up doing the dirty on the beach.”
Lacy and her sisters sat around a small wooden table on the patio of the Bookstore Restaurant, sipping coffee and nibbling on croissants.
“I feel a little like I don’t know where we go next,” Lacy admitted.
Danica set down her coffee mug and adjusted her sunglasses against the bright morning glare. “Lacy, you’ve had one-night stands before. Does this feel like that?”
Lacy sighed. “No, definitely not. To be honest, afterward it felt kind of natural, like we’d been dating forever, but you know how that goes. I’m still in that afterglow stage. Theholy cow, he’s too good to be truehaze.” She looked toward the beach, thinking of their incredible night together and how they’d made love into the wee hours of the morning. His every touch had been filled with a heated combination of tenderness and sheer, masculine sexuality. She felt a flush warm her cheeks and tucked the memory away.
“The real question is, what do you want from this? Women always let the guys decide, and really, it’s just as much up to us.” Danica nodded toward the beach across the street. “Weren’t you worried about being seen?” Her dark curls were secured with an elastic band at the base of her neck, and as she turned toward Lacy, a few sprang free just behind her ear.
“We were up on the dunes. I worried, but only for a second.” Lacy thought about how quickly she’d fallen into Dane’s arms and how badly she’d wanted him. She had to tamp down her desire if she was ever going to be able to evaluate what their relationship was—or could be. She was used to sizing up clients, figuring out what they wanted, where they needed to be, and then getting them there. Relationships weren’t that different from clients. The problem was, with clients she had a data sheet, a starting place. She knew their goals before they’d even met. With Dane, the data sheet was only partially complete and the goals were muddled with desire.
“He’s so nice, and a gentleman, and great at…you know…but what can really come of us when he travels all the time?” Lacy had been thinking about Dane all night. He hadn’t promised her the world or even hinted at anything more than what she knew they were—two people who were attracted to each other—but who knew where that might go. “He touched my scar,” Lacy said quietly.
“Oh, gosh. I totally forgot about that.” Danica leaned across the table and touched Lacy’s hand. “I never put two and two together on that front.”
“Wait. You went snorkeling in Nassau, so how afraid of sharks can you really be, and why should your scar matter?” Kaylie finished her coffee and sat back in her chair.
“But snorkeling was in shallow water, and you guys were all around me. To be honest, I’ve thought about it all night, and I realized that I’ve pretty much kept things within my comfort zone when it comes to open water.” Lacy touched her thigh. “I think I realize why my mom used to keep me so busy with day trips during the summers. We were always running to museums and going to the pool. We lived two hours from here. You’d think we’d have come to the beach at some point, but we never did. Even when she brought me here for an occasional weekend, we never went to the ocean.”
Danica squeezed her hand. “Lacy, whatever your mom did, she did because she loves you, and if she felt you needed to be away from the ocean, then maybe you really were afraid of sharks after the incident. It makes sense, but you’ve never tested it as an adult. Maybe you’re not really afraid of them, but you’ve been taught to think you are.”
Lacy squinted in the direction of the beach.Am I afraid of sharks?“I have these memories of being petrified after the incident, but I can’t remember even thinking about it much in the years since. It was so long ago.”
Danica looked at Kaylie. Kaylie slipped off her sunglasses and said softly, “Lacy, if there’s one thing I learned from Danica, it’s that sometimes we hide our fears even from ourselves.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” Lacy rubbed her temples. “Really, this is all kind of silly. We’re seeing each other today, but he hasn’t even said anything about after that.”And I can’t stop thinking about it.
