“Impossible.” Todd laughed. “I don’t live in a cave, Abby. I have seen you perform.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I can learn a routine, execute it perfectly, then walk behind the curtain, trip over a chair, and knock down the entire set. Splat. Dead bodies.”
He probably assumed I was exaggerating, because he laughed again.
Up ahead, directly in our path, a group of about eight teenagers was gathered in a circle, inconsiderately blocking the entire sidewalk. The boys were showing off their surfboards; the girls were posturing and posing.
The worst.
I barely had time to gasp before every muscle in my body clamped down and went into petrifaction mode.
One lone Frisbee dude on the beach was one thing, but a swarm of autograph seekers could easily escalate into pandemonium. It had happened to me so many times. Please, not today.
The split second after my reaction, I felt Todd grab my arm.
“This way,” he directed under his breath, swiftly guiding us around a different corner, leading me down a narrow alley between two stores.
My heart hammered behind my ears when we stopped, sheltered between a pair of turquoise Dumpsters.
“Are you okay?” he asked, leveling his face to mine so we were eye to eye.
I swallowed, surprised at how startled I still felt. I knew my face was drained of color, because it suddenly felt ice cold.
Todd watched me, his expression a little alarmed at whatever he was seeing. Slowly I peeked over my shoulder; no one had followed us.
“Here,” he said, pointing through the alley. “This is a short cut, anyway.” He took my arm, prompting me to walk. As we started off, he looked over his own shoulder as those kids sauntered loudly past the mouth of the alley, oblivious to us. Something like annoyed suspicion flashed in his eyes, but then his expression changed into something more hostile, mirroring looks I’d seen on Shugger when I was under siege.
Armored car is right. I exhaled again, feeling very looked-after.
“Sounds like yours was pretty different than my high school experience.” Todd spoke conversationally as we fled the scene. “We traveled.” His hand was still gripping my elbow. “I was the habitual new kid for most of my life, always having to leave my friends just when I made some. But my family is close and we stuck together, so it wasn’t all bad.”
“Where did you go to high school?” I asked, more than happy to think about something other than crazy fans or the sick feeling in my stomach whenever I thought about leaving tomorrow.
“It was in San Sebastian, actually.”
My eyes moved up and to the left, picturing a detailed map of southern Europe.
“I graduated early and they have a different academic system than here in the States,” he said.
My mind flipped through the geography book in my head. Between Spain and France. The Pyrenees. Spain’s port resort, beaches and hills. Hemingway wrote about it.
Todd went on. “I was only seventeen at graduation. Barely eighteen when I entered Annapolis. I was luckier than my sisters, though. Jessica attended three schools, her last year.”
I groaned sympathetically. “I would’ve hated that.”
“She did,” Todd confirmed as we cut through a parking lot behind Town Square.
“So, how’d you do in school?” I asked. A gust of summery wind hit us head on. “You must’ve done pretty well, for Annapolis to take you.”
“Tolerably, but like I said, it was a different system.”
“Ha! Mister Modest,” I joked, wrangling my hair that blew in the wind. “You were valedictorian of your high school, weren’t you?”
“No,” he said. “There’s no such thing in Europe. But I was asked to give the commencement speech at graduation. They were probably just indulging my American heritage, though.”
I stopped in my tracks, holding the ends of my hair in two pigtails. “Are you serious?”
Todd looked back at me. He seemed confused by my question.
“You gave the commencement speech for San Sebastian?” I let this information roll around in my head for a second. “What do they speak there, Spanish?”
“Mostly. A type of Spanish called Castellano.” The way he pronounced the word made my stomach do a somersault. “But a small percentage still speaks Basque. I gave my speech in Basque.”
“Of course you did.” I snorted. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Plenty,” he replied, deadpan.
I lifted my chin and let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Over achiever!”
He gave me a sideways glance. “You’re one to talk.”
I blinked a few times, wide-eyed.
Now he was hooting with sarcasm, actually slapping his thigh. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t it you who retired from competitive ballet at fifteen and then just happened to find yourself succeeding in one of the most cutthroat businesses around? And let’s not forget your photographic memory and—”
“Well you.” I cut him off. “You’re just, ya know . . .” I was trying to sound accusatory, but the way he was grinning made me lose my thought. “You’re all . . . perfect.”
Todd frowned at me, but a moment later, he brushed it off with a chuckle. “Naw. I’m just as flawed and depraved as any other hot-blooded man.” He looked me in the eyes, all intense and beseeching. “Stick around long enough, and I promise you’ll find that out.”
The singing from my pocket started up, disturbing us again. I exhaled, annoyed at the never-ending parade of interruptions. “You answer it,” I said, passing Todd my musical cell.
He stared at it for a second then put it to his ear. “Abby’s phone.”
I snickered at his authoritative tone.
He narrowed his eyes, looking confused as he listened. “Hello? Is anyone—” He flinched, holding the phone away from his head. I heard Molly’s screechy voice. She was freaking out. “Umm, maybe you should . . .” He handed the phone back.
“Molly.” I laughed. “Hellooo. I’m right here.”
“Abby? Crikey!” She panted. “Whadoyou . . . Howthee . . . Whowas—” Her panic suddenly dropped off. “Oohhh . . . Was that him, then?”
I smiled. “Mm-hmm.”
“Put him back on.”
Clearing my throat first, I passed the phone over.
“Hello, again.” Todd listened for a few seconds. “Hmm, that’s very—” She cut him off. “Oh, yeah, I agree. Yes, well, but I don’t think that’s something—” Cut off again. He laughed. “Oh, uh.” His eyebrows pulled together. “Let me think— Leo— Yes, that’s right. How did—” More laughing. “I do. Perfectly. Right. Yes, and, uh, ciao to you, too.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and passed the phone back. “She wants you now.”
“Okay, Molly.” I spoke down the line. “This is the last time you’ll be calling today. You can say exactly three words to me, so make them good.”
Molly didn’t hesitate. “You’re marrying him.”
We crept along the side of Cherry Pie Place, just like yesterday. But this time, all the windows and window shades were wide open, a shiny black Range Rover sat in the driveway, and a blue-and-white-striped awning was pitched over the back patio. The scent of a very recent steak cooked on a grill made me worry.
“Todd,” I whispered, “someone’s home.”
“Shhh—stay close to me.” He took my hand and pulled until I was right at his back, practically hugging him from behind. “Just in case.” He somehow managed to smell even better than yesterday.
That same dog barked at us through the fence. Todd stopped and slid his fingers through the space between the boards, letting the dog sniff his hand. After a friendly nose pat, we continued in silence until we reached the end of the boardwalk.
“Feel like swimming?” Todd smiled, eyeing me. “You’re certainly dressed for it again.”
“I don’t think so.” I squinted at him. “I’ve already been in. I think my hair’s had all the
salt water it can handle.”
Four or five groups of sunbathers were out on the beach, but evidently no one belonging to the white house behind us. A dark-haired young woman stretched out on an orange beach chair waved to Todd. He waved back but tried to mask it from me by running his fingers through his hair.
“Who’s your friend?” I asked, hoping I sounded more teasing than jealous.
“Becky,” he said with a shrug, looking the other way. “Or Becca. I don’t really know.”
Sure.
We kicked off our shoes and walked out to the short breakers, where fewer people were around. The dazzling blue water was shallow and as flat as glass, one of those postcard days the “Redneck Riviera” is famous for.
I waded out until the water was almost up to my knees, stinging a tiny scrape on my shin inflicted by little John-John earlier that day. Todd remained behind me, sitting on the damp sand.
When a boat pulling a skier sped by, I waved my hands over my head. The driver waved back and honked the horn. Behind them, a pair of gray pelicans dove in the water. One came up with a yellow striped fish hanging halfway out of its beak. I laughed and turned around. Todd was shading his eyes with both hands. I walked to where he sat, my body blocking the sun from his face. “Why are you just sitting here?”
“Why not?”
“The water feels great.” I splashed him at little. “Don’t you ever swim?”
He yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “I swam this morning before the sun was up.”
“Alone?” Ha-ha. Just checking.
He nodded.
“You must not have slept for very long.”
He looked out at the water. “I didn’t sleep at all, actually.”
“Bad heartburn?”
He squinted up at me, giving me an accusatory look, as if his not sleeping was somehow my fault. “It was something like heartburn.”
My stomach made a happy little flip, so I plopped down on the watery sand right next to him. We sat shoulder to shoulder, our legs out in front of us, toes teasing the spraying waves.
“I have pretty bad insomnia,” I said. “I have for years. Nightmares, too, sometimes.” I stretched my arms above my head. “But not last night. I slept like a baby.”
“I’m glad. You must’ve really needed it.”
A flock of seagulls were off to the left of us, picking and scavenging at the scraps of a leftover picnic. A little boy with a stick ran into the flock, scattering the birds. Todd was watching the seagulls squeaking and squawking as they flew over the water. I was watching him.
Almost automatically, I reached out and touched his cheek with my pinkie, right below his dimple. “You got a little sunburned yesterday,” I pointed out, moving my hand up to finger a strand of his hair. His eyes slowly closed. “Todd?” I whispered.
“Hmmm?”
I sighed and bit my lip. “I don’t want to leave tomorrow, but—”
He turned his face my way, not having very far to lean in, and kissed me once, sweet and slow—a breeze off the ocean—almost like he was asking permission. He opened his eyes to look at me.
Permission granted, Lieutenant.
When we kissed again, it was totally different. He scooted closer, his warm hands on either side of my neck. The pressure of his fingers under my hair was solid and strong, yet always gentle. When his lips parted, I got dizzy, like he might positively absorb me. For a second I feared I might be swooning like those silly ladies in Jane Austen novels.
“That was rude of me to interrupt,” he whispered, his lips on the corner of my mouth. “But I’m not about to make this decision easy for you.”
How he managed to string together so many coherent words was beyond me; I couldn’t even remember what day it was. His fingers combed through my hair, and I caught a flash of his green eyes as they flickered open.
Before I had time to reply to his faux apology, his left arm had me around the waist and his right hand clamped under my knees, swinging me around so my legs draped across his lap. After I exhaled a surprised gasp, my lips crashed against his again. He pulled me against him tight; I could feel his heart racing in time with mine.
“Relax,” he whispered on my cheek. “I’m not the one who’s leaving.”
That’s when I noticed my grip around his neck was probably a little too tight. I did relax, but I didn’t slow down.
The tide came in, shallow waves bubbled over our feet, as all the while screaming skyrockets blasted off around my head. Mental Fourth of July!
“Abby.” Todd’s voice was hushed as he drew away, our foreheads touching. “I’ve been doing some thinking.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Shut up, please.” He chuckled. “I’m trying to say something important, and you’re not . . .” He reached back to unlock my hands from his neck. “You’re not making it easy for me.”
My hands were suddenly on my lap and Todd was looking away.
Uh-oh. I sat back.
“I don’t want to be a confusion to you,” he began half-heartedly, his emerald eyes following a pair of jet-skiers spinning doughnuts. “You said yesterday that your life is complicated. I don’t want to add to that. I know how important you are to your people. I know they want you back. But I have to admit something while I still have the chance.” He didn’t go on right away and I waited as he stared down at the sand. “I thought about you all night,” he continued. “I feel like a teenager with a crush I can’t shake.” When he looked up, my heart pounded expectantly. “I didn’t think I could feel that way again. After only one day, Abby.”
“I know,” I said. He pretty much just summed up how I’d been feeling, too. Totally crazy.
“If you stay,” he continued, “starting something would be far too easy. I’m halfway there.” He didn’t go on, but paused to draw a pattern in the sand with one finger. “Last night I was even planning things we could do together over the summer.” He laughed softly, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Can you imagine?”
I could.
When he looked at me, his crooked smile shattered my heart. “So I think the prudent thing would be if we just . . .” He sliced his hand through the air in a slow, cutting motion. “Stop.”
Before I had the chance to fully take that in, a sharp shock of pain shot through me. The top half of my body jolted forward.
“What’s wrong?” Todd asked. He looked horrified. “Are you sick?”
I wasn’t sure yet. All I knew was—it hurt. “I don’t know,” I gasped, looking at my feet in the wet sand where the acute pain originated. It was a ginormous orange crab, claw clamped on my big toe.
And I screamed bloody murder—“Get it off! Get it off!!”—as I hysterically kicked both legs out in front of me.
Todd grabbed my flailing limbs. “Stop moving!” he shouted over my hysterics. “She’ll fix deeper if you try to shake her off.” His grip on me tightened like an iron clamp. “Hold still, Abby. Now!”
Fearing that he’d resort to punching me out to get me to comply, I yielded.
He pinned down my legs with one hand, quickly prying the claws open with the other, and then he tossed the cruel crustacean down the beach all in a matter of seconds. Panting in time, we silently watched as it disappeared into the water.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His hand was dripping with blood.
“Is that mine or yours?” I gulped, staring at the small pools of crimson against the white sand.
“Both, I think.”
The line of the horizon tilted to the side, and my head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I found it weird how the waves sounded fainter, yet the whooshing wind seemed louder than ever.
“Hey, look at me. Look. At. Me.”
I pushed my focus toward the voice.
Todd was staring at my face, looking anxious. He rolled his eyes. “Okay, let’s go.”
I felt my body leaving the sand as he picked me up, cradling me to his chest. I closed my eyes�
�half in pain, half in immense, delicious, womanly pleasure—while he began walking us away from the water.
“Are you taking me to your store?” I asked, trying to ignore the pulsating throbs in my foot.
“I live closer.”
“Isn’t the Square across the—”
“Hush!” he snapped, shifting my weight in his arms. “If you’re really injured, act like it.”
“I am.” I opened my eyes. “But where—”
“Yes, Abby, the Square is across the street.” His grip around me changed; yeah, it was definitely more like a hug now. “But I live right here.”
“Right where?”
He was heading straight toward the white house with the blue-striped awning.
{chapter 13}
“ACT NATURALLY”
Todd carried me all the way up the boardwalk stairs, through the wooden gate that separated the beach from his backyard, under that striped awning, past a gas grill, and up to the sliding glass door of Cherry Pie Place, the black lab padding beside us the whole way.
With his hands otherwise occupied, I slid open the door.
“Welcome to chez Camford. Sammy, here.” The first part was offered to me as Todd knelt down to semi-gently deposit me on a leather couch. The second comment was to the frisky pooch licking the side of his face in an affectionate homecoming. Todd snickered and stroked its head, murmuring his own greeting. I never thought I would be jealous of a pet.
“Sam!” Todd chirped in excitement to his dog, who, in turn, froze and tilted its ears, watching its master intently. Todd cocked his head about an inch. “Shark!” The dog turned and bounded through the open sliding glass door. Todd stood up and shut the door behind him.
“You didn’t have to put him out.”
“Yes, I did,” Todd said, wiping off the side of his face with a grin. “Otherwise, you’d be next to get the tongue bath. And Sam’s a she.”
“Sam?” I asked, leaning forward to look at the dog through the glass. She appeared to be chasing a butterfly in a circle.
Abby Road Page 13