Page 76 of Dr. CEO (The Doctors)

“I’ll paddle. Today. For you.”

The sand turns colder and wet and hard. It feels like I’m walking through wet cement. “Is this quicksand?” I’m slightly concerned at the way our feet are sinking so quickly with every step we take.

“Just regular sand,” he says. He doesn’t look worried—like he’s definitely not concerned our lives could be endangered at any second. I guess I should trust him. He’s spent more time on beaches than I have, not that the bar is especially high.

I pause and glance down at my feet. Shells lie like confetti around us, smooth black rocks jutting out of the sand like they could be sleeping animals, napping on the ridged sand. “It’s like someone has drawn this.” I drop Vincent’s hand, bend and trace the ridges with my fingertip. I stand and turn, looking out to where the sand meets the waves and the water meets the sky. “It’s like someone designed this entire landscape to be completely perfect.”

I glance back at Vincent, who’s looking at me just the same way I’m looking at…everything.

“I think they did,” he says.

“Who did? God?”

“The universe. Nature. Time.”

To think I almost didn’t come here and see all this with my own eyes. It’s one thing to see things on a screen, but it’s a bargain-bin version of the solid gold reality. The salt breeze, the slippery wet stones, the cry of the gulls overhead, all set to the soundtrack of the waves inhaling and exhaling, constant as time itself. I needed to be here for it all to sink into my soul.

“I’m so lucky to be here.” I’m always grateful to be at Crompton. There’s not a day goes by that I take my life there for granted, but this…this is wonderful too.

Vincent wraps his arms around me, connecting us from head to toe. We both stare out at the waves. “I’m so lucky to be here.” He kisses me on the head and then we head out the few feet to the start of the water. I’m wearing a sundress that comes to my knees, but Vincent has his jeans rolled up to just above his ankle.

“Should we skinny dip?” I ask.

“Ask me again when you feel the frigid temperature.”

I laugh. “It might be fun.”

“I’ll take you to the Med or better, the Cayman Islands. Then we can skinny dip.”

My heart spins the same time as my stomach twists. The Med? The Cayman Islands? I’ve never gotten on a plane before the helicopter trip the other day. I suppose that’s Vincent’s life, always jetting from one place to another. He’s so completely different from me, I’m not sure how we ended up here together. But I can’t be sorry for as long as it lasts.

The water doesn’t feel too cold at first. We step forward just as it’s sweeping away from us, leaving behind a thin sheet of water I tap with my toes before it finally disappears too.

“Watch out.” Vincent pulls me back as a large wave approaches. It crashes a couple of meters in front of us, but the water races toward us faster and higher than the last one did. This one comes up to mid-calf and it’s chillier than I expected.

“You’re going to get wet,” I say, smiling giddily at Vincent.

He shrugs. “Worth it to watch you smile like this.”

I hold his gaze and feel the water rising up to my knees. Vincent’s jeans are wet, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Careful, you’ll have me swooning.” I’m not going to tell him so, but Vincent makes a semi-regular habit of making me swoon. He’s so thoughtful. So kind. So good.

“That’s the thing, Kate. There’s something about you that makes me want to be anything but careful.”

He bends and picks something up from the sand. “Here,” he says, handing me a smooth gray stone. “You should have a memento from your first trip to the beach.”

I take the stone and glance at my palm. Somehow its dark grey edges have been shaped into a heart and white shards of quartz, like lightning bolts, stretch across it, buried into the stone like it was only meant to stay for a moment but never left. “Did you plant this here?” I ask.

“I just found it, but it’s beautiful.” He looks at me, and the weight of meaning folds around my shoulders like a cloak.

I turn to him and lift up on my tiptoes. He graciously bends so I can kiss him. The waves push and pull beneath us as we slide our lips and tongues together in a kiss that seems more earnest, more important than everything that’s come before. I can taste the sea on his skin, feel the salt in his hair. It’s like he and this place are a symbol of the world outside of Crompton, of a life beyond the one I’ve been so content to live until now.

This man…what brought him into my life? The universe? Nature? Time?

Whatever it was, I’m grateful.

THIRTY-ONE

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