The Surfer Solution

by Cathy Yardley

  He nodded. Then he looked at Mrs. Tilson, who was taking in the whole interchange with a sort of sharp interest. “Hope you had fun,” he said.

  “Allison? Go along without me,” she said, causing Sean’s heart to fall a little. “Mr. Gilroy here will make sure I get back all right.”

  Sean sighed. He wondered if this was going to be Allison’s way of telling him to back off… the family connection, like a mafia don in Chanel, warning him away from the golden goddaughter.

  “Aunt Claire?” Allison looked surprised by this announcement, and Sean felt a little cheered.

  “Go on, Allison. I’m not a toddler,” Mrs. Tilson said.

  Obviously baffled, Allison pressed a kiss on Mrs. Tilson’s cheek, then looked at Sean. For a second, he almost leaned down and kissed her cheek. Instead, he smiled at her, winking.

  She smiled, blushed and fled.

  He sighed, watching her head down his stairway and walk out Then he turned to Mrs. Tilson. “I’m sorry. You had questions?”

  “Just one,” she said. “What in the world are you waiting for?”

  He stared at her. “Pardon?”

  “You’re quite evidently enamored of my goddaughter,” she said, her words completely no-nonsense and businesslike. “So what are you waiting for?”

  He let out a bark of laughter, “How about the fact that her eighty-four-year-old godmother was right there with us the entire time?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He blinked at her. “I don’t know. I would’ve felt a little weird putting the moves on Allison with you there, Mrs. Tilson.”

  She made a puckered little face at that one. “I did not say put the moves on her. Good grief. Are you crazy?”

  “I’m starting to wonder,” he responded dryly.

  “I’m simply saying, you could’ve shown that you were interested in her. You could have asked her if she was busy the following weekend, maybe. Asked her out to dinner.” She glared at him. “Kept it completely gentlemanly.”

  He was being told off by an irate octogenarian, who was then instructing him on how best to court and/or woo her goddaughter. Hell had basically frozen over.

  “Listen, as much as I appreciate it, I don’t really need dating advice, Mrs. T,” he said patiently. He sighed. “Besides, I get the feeling she’s busy this weekend.”

  “Allison is busy every weekend,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “That’s her whole problem. She thinks work is the answer to everything.” Her eyes were bright, intense. “I think you could be very good for her.”

  Sean smiled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “You don’t have the full vote yet. I think she needs someone a bit more… how should I say this?”

  He winced. Oh, I don’t know. Rich? Sophisticated? Classy?

  “Proactive,” she said with a nod of her head.

  “Proactive?” he echoed.

  “You’re not going to get my goddaughter to go out with you if you just sit there and wait for her to throw herself at you. She only does that sort of thing for business.” She sniffed. “Not that I can blame her. But the fact is, you’re going to have to jar her out of that way of life of hers. She’s driving herself to an early grave with all that work.”

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do.” This had to be one of the weirdest conversations on record, he thought with a rueful grin.

  She got up and headed toward the door, and he moved to accompany her to her house. Then she turned, frowning so fiercely that he paused, startled.

  “Although I must say,” she said in dire tones, “you might want to watch it with that putting the moves on business.”

  “Right,” he said, and damn it if he wasn’t blushing.

       

  FOR MAYBE THE FIRST TIME in her life, she wished that her Aunt Claire owned a wet suit.

  Allison gritted her teeth as she paddled on her board, feeling Sean’s presence by her side. It was reassuring, of course—she didn’t know what the heck she was doing—but at the same time, she seemed hyperaware of the feeling of his hand on her back, or stroking her side gently, just guiding her. There was absolutely, positively nothing sexually charged about any of the touches. He’d even say the least flirtatious and most sexually uninspiring instructions, such as “you’re looking like a dead fish, come on, Ally, paddle.” So she knew the guy had nothing more on his mind than getting her amateur butt to stand up on her surfboard.

  “Pop up, now, just like you practiced,” Sean said. And then gave an offhand stroke of her back that she felt through the layer of neoprene like his hand was an iron.

  She took a deep breath, then popped up. And for a second, just a second, she was standing, the wave moving underneath her.

  “I’m standing!” She felt adrenaline rush through her system, and for a second, there was no work, no confusion about Sean...no nothing but the board, the wave and her. “I’m—”

  Whoosh.

  She choked on a mouthful of saltwater as she submerged, covering her face as Sean showed her so the board wouldn’t whack her. She was underwater for a while, it felt like, as the wave rolled her. She finally surfaced, spluttering and shivering.

  “You did it!” He walked up to her, laughter and happiness in his voice.

  “I really did it,” she said, slicking her hair back with one hand while she rode herd on her board with the other. “I did it!”

  “This calls for a celebration,” Sean said. “How about a coffee? Your lips are turning blue.”

  “Coffee.” She chanted the word like a prayer. “You read my mind. But can I...”

  She paused when he frowned at her.

  “Just one more time? I loved the feel of that.”

  A strange look crossed his face...and for a second, the heat from his blue eyes made the chill of the water seem nonexistent as it scorched her down to her toes.

  “Okay, one more time. But you’re sunk,” he said. “Once you learn to love surfing, you won’t know how you survived without it.” He looked away from her, and she wondered if she imagined the look that passed between them.

  Minutes later she carried the board out, putting it down on the surf. “So...where are we getting coffee?”

  “There’s a coffee place, local, in Redondo,” he said. “It’s close.”

  She’d parked her Jag right behind his beat-up pickup truck. Abruptly, she noticed a problem. “Uh...I have to go up to...” She looked around. “Where can I change out of my wet suit?”

  He looked at her, puzzled. She realized that after most of her lessons, he’d stayed in and surfed, or on karaoke night, they hadn’t been parked near each other at all. “What do you normally do?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I put a bunch of towels on the seat, over a seat cover. Don’t want to ruin the leather or anything.” She paused. “Wait, what do you do?”

  He grinned. “Um, normally people just use towels. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  She laughed nervously. She glanced around. The water was cold enough to scare off all but the locals, and the tide was wrong for the true surfers. There wasn’t anybody around, only the odd car driving by. She felt strangely, deliciously naughty.

  “Okay,” she said. “Maybe you could keep a lookout for me.”

  “Actually, I can hold up your towel for you, if you want,” he suggested.

  She felt her heart start pounding against her rib cage. “Um...I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she sputtered. “I went to junior-high gym class. After that, all girls can change clothes completely showing no more than one square inch of flesh between their neck and their knees.”

  “Really?” He smiled, and she felt like a gibbering idiot. “You know, I’ve always wondered about that.” He crossed his arms.

  “What, you’re going to watch me?” she squeaked.

  “With a claim like that? You think I’d want to miss it?” She swallowed, hard, then grabbed her towel a
nd her dry clothes, propping them on the trunk of her car. She became aware of his curious eyes. She wondered if it was entirely appropriate, then blushed.

  What are you? A schoolmarm?

  Deliberately, she wiggled out of her wet suit, something she’d been practicing at home. Left in only her two-piece bathing suit, she shivered as the cold air hit her wet skin. Any thought of being possibly sexy immediately left her head, although she had her embarrassment to keep her warm. She pulled the sweatshirt over her head, then maneuvered the top piece off a la Flashdance. He gave her a golf clap. “I knew girls could do that,” he said. “You sure you don’t want me to hold a towel over your… over the bottom part?”

  She did go ahead and blush on that one. “Um...possibly...” She glanced at her jeans. Then she realized... he’d have to be very close to her to hold the towel to shield her. “NO. No. That’s fine. I can manage.”

  “Okay,” he said, crossing his arms. “Just trying to be gentlemanly.”

  “Thanks,” she muttered, then wrapped the towel around her like a sarong. She took a deep breath, then stripped off the wet bikini bottoms, putting on dry underwear carefully.

  For one brief, breath-stealing moment, the towel almost came loose. She finally tugged her jeans on, taking off the towel with a flourish. “Ta dah!”

  He whistled appreciatively. “Good job.”

  “So, shall we go?”

  “Gotta get into dry clothes myself,” he rumbled.

  She surveyed his wet suit. “Oh.” She smiled wryly. “Need help?”

  He looked at her... that heated look, part two.

  “Actually, yes.”

  She cleared her throat. “Come on. It can’t be that tough to get your towel around you. I bet you do this all the time.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t usually have help readily available,” he said. “And you offered.”

  She put her arms behind her back, like a small child who’s been warned about a very hot oven. And Sean was, let’s face it, one hot oven.

  “Chicken,” he whispered, and she felt it like a kiss on the small of her back. She jolted, as if goosed. “Well, fine. If I’ve got to do this by myself, you might want to look away.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, determined to give as good as she got. “If you got to watch me through that embarrassment, I get to watch you.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  He wrapped the towel around his waist, and then methodically unzipped the wet suit, peeling it off to the waist.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  She’d never seen him without his shirt before. He was cut like a diamond, all rippling muscles and tanned skin, even in the winter. He looked like the volleyball scene in Top Gun. He looked good enough to eat.

  She swallowed, hard. Then she noticed he was readjusting the towel around what he’d just peeled off. “Just like a man,” she said with a slight quaver in her voice.

  He glanced up from his concentrated effort on the towel. “How’s that?”

  “You’re making it much more difficult.” It was easier to rib him. “Why didn’t you just take the wet suit off, then just cover the bathing suit with the towel, instead of trying to take everything off altogether? Honestly.”

  He had turned away from her, showing her a truly gorgeous back. At that statement, however, he glanced over his shoulder, the bangs of his hair falling rakishly over his very amused eyes. “Honey, I’m a real surfer.”

  “So that means you do everything the hard way?”

  “No,” he said patiently, and his grin was downright wicked. “It means I don’t wear a bathing suit under my wet suit, sweetie.”

  “You—”

  She abruptly took in the fact that he was taking off his wet suit...and from there, it was just one thin layer of terry cloth between her and his... and...

  The towel fell loose, and he caught it, but not before she got a tantalizing glimpse of a few inches of backside, and that perfect cut of muscles from his abdomen down to his...

  She shut her eyes as if she were going to be turned into a pillar of salt. Her rapid breathing had nothing to do with panic, she knew, and everything to do with that man.

  What happened to not thinking of him inappropriately? she chastised herself. Of course, it wasn’t her fault that he was a true surfer.

  “It’s safe now,” he said, and she opened her eyes to find him a few inches in front of her. He was grinning, and his eyes held none of the mind-bending heat that they’d displayed just a few minutes ago.

  “Just show me where we need to go,” she said. “I’m dying for some coffee.”

  He laughed as he went back to his truck, and all she could think of was his soft, caressing statement.

  Chicken.

  She thought about what would’ve happened if he’d held tier towel... or she’d held his. Arms around each other. Practically naked.

  Chicken?

  You 're damn right I am.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SEAN HEARD OZ COME IN through the store’s back door, and he braced himself for the confrontation he was about to embark on. As a rule, Oz didn’t like talking about much of anything serious, especially not the business. This fact had gotten them into a whole lot of trouble a few years ago when it turned out Oz had been miscommunicating with the accountant, and the taxes had been filed incorrectly. Oz had never really recovered from that flub, and the shop had suffered from it, Sean knew. Instead of being more open, Oz had gotten even more secretive about how the business was run— and how it was doing. Which only made Sean more concerned.

  He knew his friends were telling him to give up on the business. He had basically been working as a clerk for the past, what, sixteen years. A lot of that had been loyalty to Oz, he knew, and because of that, he wasn’t going to give up the shop without discussing it. He knew how stressed out Oz was. He wasn’t going to compound the situation by leaving in the lurch the man who was in many ways like a father to him.

  Oz walked in, in a hooded sweatshirt that said Surf Bum on it, and a pair of jeans. He had a cup of coffee in his left hand and the local Manhattan Beach paper in his right.

  “Morning, Oz,” Sean said.

  Oz grunted in return. “I’ll be in the office if anybody needs me.”

  It was ten o’clock in the morning, they’d just opened and it was the winter season. Sean sighed, and then walked with purpose to the door frame of the small office.

  Oz was behind his desk, the paper already opened. He looked up. “What? Is there a problem?”

  Sean gritted his teeth for a second, then dived in. “You tell me. Is there a problem with the shop?”

  Oz stared at him for a second. “Sean, I told you at Thanksgiving, I’ve been going through some stuff lately...”

  “How bad is it?” Sean felt badly, pinning him down like this, but there wasn’t any other way.

  Oz sighed, sitting up and crossing his arms. “I haven’t had enough coffee for this conversation,” he groused.

  “Then drink fast, because we’re having it.”

  Oz looked at him, as if trying to find even a scrap of leniency, but for once Sean wasn’t going to back down for the sake of Oz’s comfort.

  Reluctantly, Oz took a few gulps of coffee, then sighed again. “At this point, the shop’s barely breaking even. The economy’s been bad, you know that. And the neighborhood’s changed. We’ve got all these bougie shops all over the place... Victoria’s Secret on the opposite comer, for Christ’s sake, Sean. The tattoo parlor got replaced by an Urban Outfitters.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Sean argued. “The shops they’ve put in? Those are the shops that people who spend lots of money go into.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not surfers, apparently,” Oz said. “And they haven’t been spending money in here.”

  “We could change that.” Sean went back to the counter grabbed the notes he’d written out. “And before you ask, here’s how. I’ve been thinking about it since Thanksgiving.

&
nbsp; Oz looked at the notes, a bewildered expression crossing his face. “Holy cow. I didn’t know you—” He stopped in hi; tracks. “Well, I should’ve known you were capable of this. You were always a smart kid.”

  “I love the surf shop,” Sean said. “And I really think we can turn things around. Just doing half the stuff I’ve suggested would make a difference.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll work extra. I’ll try it myself. You don’t have to do a thing. If the shop doesn’t make any more money, then you can go ahead and sell it. But if it does...” Sean paused. “If it does tell me you’ll keep the place open.”

  Oz sighed heavily, sounding like a growling bear. “I wasn’t going to ask you how to save the shop.”

  Sean stilled. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean... hell, even if we were doing gangbusters...” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I should’ve told you. I’m going to sell the shop regardless. I knew how freaked out you were just from my telling you to move out, and I was hoping there’d be an easier way.” His weathered face looker mournful. “I’m really sorry, Sean.”

  Sean felt numb. He’d worked so hard.

  His friends had told him, hadn’t they? Warned him? Seen this coming in a way he’d refused to?

  Oz stood up, clapping Sean on the shoulder. “It’s just getting to be too much for me. Hell, I’m getting to old. And it’s too much business. Any joy I had for this place is long gone. Now I don’t even have a retirement, Sean,” he said, a note of pleading in his voice. “If I sell the shop, then I do get a retirement. If I didn’t have that, I’d keep it open and you could work here forever.”

  Sean swallowed thickly. “Thanks.”

  “But you know? You’re in your thirties, Sean. You’ve been working here since you were sixteen years old. It’s time you tried something different. You’re cut out for a lot more than this.”

  Sean wished, desperately wished, that people would stop saying that to him. He might deserve more than the surf shop, but it was all he’d ever wanted.

  “So, when are you planning on selling it?” Sean’s voice was even, almost mechanical.