Life Is A Beach (Mills & Boon Silhouette): Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling (12 page)

“Yes?” He fixed her with a no-nonsense gaze like he did with one of the horses when it got out of line.

“Maybe we could compromise.”

“What do you suggest?”

She walked over to where he stood and placed herself directly in front of him. “You go out with Jennifer tomorrow night, and I leave with you for Okeechobee City on Saturday morning.”

He stared at her. “You know, you really drive a tough bargain.”

“It’s a fair one, I think.”

He sighed. The thought of squiring Jennifer around Miami Beach was unappealing, but perhaps she’d agree to go home early. And as a result, he’d get Karma where he wanted her—on his turf back home where she could see what he was really all about.

“All right,” he said unenthusiastically. “I’ll go out with Jennifer. Not because I want to, you understand.”

“I understand,” she said heavily.

He afforded her a curt nod and watched as she walked back into the bedroom. He should have felt as if he’d won something, but he couldn’t when he felt as if he’d had to pay too high a price.

K
ARMA MADE HERSELF
as comfortable as she could on one side of the double bed. She’d cocooned herself in the afghan because the spread and the sheets on the bed smelled musty and felt damp. She wished that they would be rescued soon. She wished the storm hadn’t forced them to take shelter in Stiltsville.

She wished she hadn’t made love with Slade Braddock.

No, that wasn’t true. What she really wished was that she hadn’t fallen
in
love with Slade Braddock, and that was a different thing altogether.

They were a mismatch, that’s for sure. He was a cowboy,
and she was a city girl at heart. He liked small women, and she wasn’t. He wanted a wife, and she wasn’t a candidate. Their lifestyles were so different, and how would they ever reconcile those differences? Why, he ate meat. He raised beef and sold it, for Pete’s sake! He was a nice guy, and he was sexy—but it didn’t take a couple of degrees in psychology to know that he wasn’t for her.

Feeling depressed about the whole thing, she rolled over on her other side and pillowed her head on her hands. She must have dozed because the next thing she knew, Slade was sitting on the bed beside her and offering her a cup of hot tea.

“I thought you might be cold,” he said.

This thoughtfulness so endeared him to her that she could only stare.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his forehead pleating into a frown.

She pushed herself to a sitting position and accepted the cup from him. The tea tasted good, warmed her from the inside out.

“Mind if I stay here?” he asked.

She gestured toward the pillow on the unoccupied side of the bed. “Feel free,” she said.

He plumped the pillow a few times and lay down beside her.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“After midnight.”

She sighed. “A long time until morning.”

“The storm seems to be on the wane.”

“Any signs of boats out there?”

“No.”

“We might as well get a good night’s sleep.”

“Right.”

“You can stay here if you like.”

“I was
planning to.” He turned toward her. “I’m glad you’re going to Okeechobee with me. My folks will think you’re wonderful.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Once I find me a wife, they’re going to retire to a little house in town, enjoy life.”

Karma pictured a gray-haired couple, the man with a paunch, the woman’s hair pulled into a bun. With her unconventional background, Karma would have little in common with such people. What would they talk about? What could
they
like about
her?

“I’m not the kind of wife they’d want for you.”

“You don’t know that.” He seemed pretty sure of himself.

“Anyway, maybe you’ll like Jennifer better. Maybe you’ll invite
her
to go to Okeechobee.”

“Not a chance,” was his flat reply. “Jennifer wouldn’t know the front end of a horse from the rear, and she probably doesn’t have any interest in birds.”

Karma greeted this statement with silence, but Slade seemed oblivious to her withdrawal, talking enthusiastically about Abner the alligator and his horse, Lightning, and something about barrels that Karma became too sleepy to follow.

She fell asleep with her head pillowed on Slade’s broad shoulder, thinking that she had been a fool to agree to go to Okeechobee with him but oddly excited about the prospect anyway.

M
ORNING. SOMEONE SNORING
softly beside her.

Snoring? Karma sat upright and edged away from the man who slept on the other half of the bed. His hair was rumpled, and his mouth hung slightly open. Dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin, but even so, Karma still thought he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life.

It was Friday morning. He was supposed to take Jennifer out tonight.

Putting the thought out of her mind, she slid out from under the afghan and padded lightly to the window. Dawn
was tunneling experimental fingers of light through a heavy fog. At least it wasn’t storming anymore.

“Karma?”

She turned to find that Slade had sat up and was stretching. “How does it look out there?”

“Like we’re inside a wad of cotton.”

He got up and joined her. “Well,” he said philosophically, “once the fog burns off, we’ll start seeing some boats. Rescue can’t be far away.”

This statement was punctuated by the growl of Karma’s stomach. She blushed, embarrassed. “We don’t have any food,” she said glumly.

“Maybe there’s another rice cake somewhere. I’ll look.”

While Slade methodically went through the kitchen cabinets, Karma picked up the towels off the floor where they had made love last night. This morning she could hardly avoid the fact that she had acted reckless and wanton. What if she had made a fool of herself? It would have been far better, she thought with crystal clear hindsight, to let him lead the way.

“No more rice cakes, but I found a package of peanuts.” He poured half of them into his hand and handed the rest to her.

She sat in a chair and huddled down into the afghan. She began to eat the peanuts.

“Karma,” Slade said, watching her as he spoke. “I really like you. A lot.”

Fortunately her mouth was full, and she didn’t have to speak. She didn’t know what she would have said.

“I want you to know that I’m glad we ended up in Stiltsville. I’m glad we made love last night. I’m glad—”

She never learned what else Slade Braddock might be glad about because they heard an approaching boat motor outside. They exchanged a startled look and ran to the nearest window, where a boat was closing in through the remaining shreds of fog.

In a matter of seconds, they had thrown open the door
and were outside on the deck shouting and waving their arms at a Coast Guard cutter like two people in the latter stages of dementia. Someone on the boat hallooed back, and in a few minutes, a couple of Coast Guardsmen were climbing the makeshift ladder.

“Looks like we’ve been rescued,” Karma said brightly, mostly because Slade was looking sad.

He pinned her with a meaningful and way-too-serious look. “I meant what I said in there. I’m glad this happened.”

Her heart took a little leap and started to beat faster. The truth was that she was glad, too. But she wouldn’t tell Slade. At least not yet.

T
HE
C
OAST
G
UARD CUTTER
delivered them to the Sunchaser Marina with
Toy Boat’s Toy
in tow, a phrase that Karma tried to say really fast, which made Slade look more cheerful though he couldn’t say it any better than she could.

Phifer came running over as soon as he saw them disembarking from the Coast Guard boat, and he and Slade got into a lively discussion about the weather.

“I’ve got to take Karma home,” Slade told Phifer, but by that time, Karma was checking her bicycle tires to see if they had enough air.

“I don’t want a ride home,” Karma said, straightening and taking hold of the handlebars.

“Don’t be silly. Of course I’m giving you a ride.”

But Karma adamantly refused. “I need some space,” she said. “I need some time.”

“You’ve got until tomorrow morning when we go to the ranch.”

She groaned. “Don’t remind me.” Now that they were away from Stiltsville, going to the ranch loomed as a major ordeal.

“You’ll love the Glades, you’ll see.”

Karma drew
a deep breath. “Don’t forget to pick Jennifer up at seven tonight.”

“The only reason I’m going is that I promised. After what happened between you and me at the stilt house—”

“Nothing happened, Slade.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I was there when it didn’t.”

“Goodbye, Slade.” She started walking her bike up the dock, but she knew that he watched her as she passed the marina office. She heard Phifer say grudgingly, “At least she’s walking her bike this time, not riding it. It’s against the rules to ride a bike on the dock you know. Against the rules.” She couldn’t hear Slade’s reply.

As Karma cycled back to the Blue Moon, she mulled over the past twenty-four hours. She felt terrible that she had made love with a client; she felt happy that it had been Slade. She felt sad that she had been given the task to scatter Aunt Sophie’s ashes; she felt happy that Slade had been with her. She felt sad that—

Well, she didn’t feel as sad about any of it as she should. She mostly felt happy that she and Slade had been together for such a long time.

“I don’t want to fall in love with him,” she said out loud, so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t realize that a stoop-shouldered little old lady on a bus bench heard her.

“Well, you don’t have to fall in love with anyone if you don’t want to,” the little old lady hollered after her, and all the rest of the way to the Blue Moon, Karma made sure that she didn’t voice any of her thoughts out loud. But she wasn’t sure she’d had any choice in falling in love with Slade Braddock. It had just happened, and now she had to figure out what to do about it.

“I guess
you and Slade had a good time last night,” Goldy ventured when Karma walked into the lobby pushing her bike. Karma could tell that it wasn’t lost on Goldy that her hair had dried stiff from the salt water and that her clothes were still damp, but she kept walking and wheeled the bike into the storage room where she kept it.

“Jennifer says she has a date with him tonight,” Goldy called after her, clearly fishing for information.

At that, Karma slammed the closet door and backtracked to Goldy’s counter. “That’s true.”

“Jennifer won’t like to know that you’re dating Slade Braddock.”

“We’re not dating,” Karma said, immediately on the defensive.

“That’s not what my tarot says. Either you’re dating now or you will be soon,” Goldy said with satisfaction, waving a careless hand over the cards spread on her desk.

“Listen, Goldy.” Karma made invisible circles on the counter top with an index finger.

“Yes?”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that prediction to Jennifer.”

“I wasn’t going to. He doesn’t look like her type.” Goldy resumed laying out tarot cards, and Karma started up the stairs.

At the second floor landing there was a clatter from above, and Jennifer and Mandi hove into view. Jennifer was wearing a magenta-sequined bandeau and matching miniskirt with an orange denim jeans jacket thrown over her shoulders. Mandi was resplendent in a lizard-print Lycra sheath worn with crystal-beaded platform shoes and was chatting on her cell phone as she descended the stairs.

“Oh, hi, Karma,” Jennifer said. Mandi gave her a halfhearted wave.

“Hello,” Karma replied, not feeling positive about this encounter. She needed a shampoo and a shower, and, under Mandi and Jennifer’s scrutiny, she felt like she’d recently been keel-hauled and looked it.

“Did you tell Slade about our date? He hasn’t called me.” Jennifer smiled, and her prominent bicuspids, though perfectly capped, gave her a slightly predatory look.

“He will,” Karma said wearily. “I promise.”

“I’m going to suggest going to hear Shemp,” Jennifer
said, naming the new band playing at the nightclub down the street.

Karma didn’t want to know where Slade and Jennifer were going on their date. “That’s nice. Now if you’ll excuse me—” She tried to brush past this Dim Duo, but they didn’t move aside.

Mandi clicked off her phone. It was scary to watch up close as a thought sprang into her mind. “Jen and I are going shopping. You really should come with us, Karma. Looks like you could use some new clothes.” Mandi popped a green Tic-Tac into her mouth and rolled it around on her tongue, which also became green. In a weird way, it complemented her Lizard Lady outfit.

“Some other time,” Karma said. She pushed past them, and as she started up the next flight of stairs, she heard Mandi say, “Sounds like Karma woke up on the wrong side of an empty bed this morning,” and Jennifer tittered.

If they only knew,
Karma thought, her cheeks pinkening as the two of them continued on to the lobby.

At her apartment, she showered and, inspired by the clothes Jennifer and Mandi had been wearing, changed into shocking pink slacks and a navy-blue bustier with a sheer white blouse worn over it for effect.

“You look nice,” Goldy observed when Karma tried to sneak past her on her way out to tell Nate that she’d completed her mission of scattering Aunt Sophie’s ashes. “I don’t think you should dress so—um,
colorfully—
when you meet Slade’s parents, though.”

Karma skidded to a stop. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I’m going to meet his parents.”

Goldy held up her tarot deck. “These told me.”

“Well, don’t let them tell anyone else,” Karma said.

“I
wouldn’t, Karma, you know that. When you meet his parents, why don’t you wear your pretty linen sundress? I’ve only seen you wear it once.”

“You don’t think my vintage sixties caftans are appropriate? You wear them.”

“
I’m
not going to meet a man’s parents. The linen dress is safe, Karma. That’s all I’m saying.”