Hidden

by Selena Laurence

  I laughed nervously, feeling like more than just my skin was exposed under his scrutiny. “Wow, yourself,” I answered.

  “Uh, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “So, surfing. Let’s learn how to surf. Come here,” he directed.

  I walked down and stood next to him, with the surfboard on my other side.

  “Tell me what you’ve learned already.”

  “I know how to paddle out, and I know how to pop up, but I’m never able to stand for more than about three seconds.” I squinted out at the water, as the sun reflected off the surface in bright chunks.

  “That, we can solve. It’s all about your technique when you pop up on the board. If you get your feet planted right and have a solid stance from the get-go then it won’t be as hard to maintain your position while you ride the wave.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “We’re gonna start right here on the beach,” he said, as he pointed to the board. “Lay down on your stomach and show me how you pop up.” I did as he instructed, Jack using the opportunity to lick my face while I was down and defenseless. His dog breath assaulted my nose, mixing with the musty odor of the sand, and propelled me to do the popup as quickly as possible. I pushed up on my arms like Raoul had taught me and then bent my knees and brought my legs underneath me until I was crouching on the board.

  “Alright,” Nick said, scratching his head and looking from my legs to the board and back again. “We’re going to do a little experiment, because I have a feeling about something.”

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “You’ll see.” He smiled at me. “Just come over here for a minute.”

  He led me away from the board and up the beach a ways where there weren’t as many people. Then he took my shoulders and positioned me in front of him, my back to his chest. “Now,” he said as he leaned his mouth next to my ear, his breath warm as it danced over the sensitive skin of my neck and earlobe. “I want you to close your eyes.”

  I looked back at him over my shoulder. “Is this some sort of weird visualizing thing, because I can promise you that picturing myself out on the waves isn’t going to make me a better surfer,” I huffed.

  “Now, now.” He laughed as he gently pushed my chin so that I was facing away from him again. “No visualizing. Although you’re wrong, it will make you a better surfer. No, I want you to close your eyes and trust me, Lyndsey. Can you do that? Trust me?” he whispered, his warm fingers stroking lightly up and down over my shoulders.

  I sighed, and it was a release of so much more than breath, it was a release of pain and want and loneliness, and I didn’t want his hands ever to stop moving over my skin. “Yes.” I can trust you.

  “Good, then keep your eyes closed, and march forward.”

  My eyes sprung open and I looked behind me at him again. “What? March?”

  Nick rolled his eyes and pursed his lips. “I thought we were building trust here, Goldilocks. Remember?”

  “Okay, sorry. Can we start over again?” I asked, hoping he’d rub my shoulders more—mostly I just wanted that part.

  He didn’t answer, but stepped even closer to me, placed his hands right where I wanted them and pressing a gentle kiss on the side of my neck while he glided his hands down my arms. I shivered and closed my eyes.

  “Are they closed?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “Alright, on three, march forward. One, two, three.”

  I left the secure feeling of Nick’s hands on me and stepped out into what seemed like a vast unknown. I wasn’t sure how far I was supposed to go, but he said to trust him, and I wanted to, I really, really wanted to. Each step I took I felt the grains of sand rub against my bare feet, and a tiny bit of vertigo spun through my head as my body weight shifted from side to side while I marched. There was a mild breeze blowing from my left, and I could hear Nick talking to Jack behind me. I went about twenty steps out and Nick said, “Okay, stop right there.”

  “Can I open my eyes?”

  “Yes,” he answered, right next to me now. I opened them and found myself standing with my right side to his chest. He was looking down at me grinning like he’d just learned the juiciest gossip in Hollywood.

  “What’s so funny?” I squinted up at him.

  “I was right.”

  “About what?”

  “You’re goofy-footed,” he announced triumphantly.

  Damn, now I had to crush his little guy heart and tell him he was wrong. “No, I’m right-footed, always have been.”

  “Nope, you’ve always thought you were, probably because you’re right-handed, and you’ve gotten comfortable acting right-footed, but you’re actually left-footed.”

  I raised one eyebrow at him.

  He laughed. “Look, there’s only one real way to find out which foot is dominant and it’s not by seeing which foot you automatically put forward when you pop up. It’s by marching blind, like you just did. If you start to drift clockwise—which you did—it means that your left side is stronger and is trying to direct you. Now that we know what’s really going on, I’m going to teach you to pop up goofy-footed, with the correct stance, and you’re going to be surfing like a pro by this afternoon.”

  I spent the next hour practicing popping up on the beach, while Jack made friends with some little boys and a tennis ball. Nick was super patient, and stuck with me as I did it over and over until he declared it was perfect. The whole process probably would have taken half as long if he hadn’t kept running his long fingers over my calves as he adjusted my legs, or stood with his gorgeous chest pressed against my back while he made me move through the stance with him. He was such a distraction, I found myself having to work really hard to concentrate on what he was saying, rather than just sinking into the feeling of him against me.

  Finally, he told me I had it, and convinced me we needed to eat lunch before we went out on the water. He walked me to a more secluded section of beach, then told me to stay put and wait for him. I sat down and watched the waves come in and out, my mind straying to how amazing it was to be sitting here at all, much less waiting for a really hot guy to bring me lunch. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about how great Nick was, but it was so hard to keep up the mental gymnastics, I let them rest for a moment.

  I thought about the feel of his warm, rough hands on my skin, the look of his smile as he watched me, the sound of his voice as it whispered instructions in my ear. I shouldn’t be, I couldn’t be, but in reality I was falling for Nick Carlisle, and it was going to hurt so damn much when I had to send him away.

  Nick

  I jogged back to the parking lot and got my wallet and the two blankets and umbrella I always kept in my truck. Jack was with me the whole time, since I’d told Lyndsey I’d get him a drink of water while I got us lunch. I hit the beachside hot dog stand and the surf shop to rent a longboard for Lyndsey. Then I dragged everything back to where I’d left her, Jack trotting along, tongue lolling out of his mouth, fur on his face soaking from the doggy water fountain I’d showed him.

  “Wow,” she said as I walked up buried under all the stuff I’d collected. I handed her the drink tray with the bag of food sitting on top of it, then set the rented surfboard down next to mine, and finally, spread out the blankets and opened the beach umbrella.

  “Where did you get all of this stuff?” she asked and laughed at my struggles with the umbrella. She took the bag off the tray, looking warily at the greasy spots that were already soaking through the paper.

  I eventually popped the umbrella into position and dug it into the sand. “It’s magic,” I answered, winking at her. “That and a big truck full of beach stuff.”

  “Well, I guess I’m a pretty lucky girl to have met up with you,” she said while she began digging through the bag of food and taking items out to lay them on the blankets we now sat on. The salty smell of the hot dogs drifted toward me and I realized that I was damn near starving.

  “That’s what I’ve been saying, but you wouldn’t just tak
e my word for it, would you?” I told her, dousing a hot dog with mustard from one of the little plastic packets. “Oh, man, you’re not a vegetarian or anything, are you?” I asked, as I watched her survey the hot dogs, sweet potato fries and sodas.

  She looked up as if she’d been a million miles away. “Oh! No, no, I love hot dogs! This is . . . well, it’s kind of perfect.” She smiled the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen on a woman, and my heart did this little dance in my chest that had me feeling short of breath for a minute.

  “One of the few memories I have of my dad is when he took me to a minor league baseball game when I was about four,” she said. “We had hot dogs and orange sodas. I got to wear a glove, and it was just me and my dad, all afternoon. I’ve always loved hot dogs since then.”

  I took a bite of my hot dog, catching a bunch of mustard with my tongue before it dripped off onto my leg. “So, your parents split up when you were young?” I asked.

  She popped a fry in her mouth and chewed for a moment. “Yeah, I was five. He stuck around for a bit, you know, coming and picking me up to go for ice cream on a Saturday afternoon or whatever, but that didn’t last long, and then one day I asked when dad was coming by again and my mom told me he’d moved out of town. I cried for days. He hadn’t even said goodbye.”

  I watched her as she picked up her hot dog and started to nibble on the end. I tried really hard not to let my mind make the associations it wanted to as her full lips wound their way around the end. “Sounds like maybe you were better off without him,” I said bluntly. “Maybe it doesn’t seem that way to you though.” She bit down on her lunch, and I flinched.

  Lyndsey looked thoughtful for a moment as she chewed. “No, you’re probably right. I wish I’d realized that when I was younger though, I think I might have kept from making some really stupid mistakes if I hadn’t always been looking for some guy to replace my dad.”

  “So, you’re not in the market for a daddy substitute anymore?” I asked, preparing a second dog with mustard and relish.

  She smiled as she shook her head, her mouth too full of food to answer me.

  “Well, that’s good.” I smiled back at her, wiggling my eyebrows up and down. “Because I feel anything but fatherly toward you.”

  Lyndsey

  I sat and watched Nick down three hot dogs, a huge bag full of fries, and a large soda. The boy could eat, there was no doubt. What I couldn’t figure out was where it all went. He was solid muscle, not a scrap of fat on him anywhere, and while he was preoccupied with his food, I got to have my visual fill of all those muscles without him noticing. I surveyed everything from the curve of his shoulder muscle where it met up with his biceps, to the V that ran along each side of his torso and disappeared into his board shorts. Who knew junk food on the beach could be so good for my soul?

  As he finished, and I lamented my lost moment of voyeurism, I cleaned up the trash and called Jack over to get the crumbs that were left on the blanket. Nick stopped me when I got up to go to the trash cans.

  “Nope. I hosted this little soiree, and I’ll clean up,” he said as he took the crumpled, oily paper out of my hands.

  “Usually the one who didn’t provide the food cleans up though.”

  “Not on my watch, and besides, you need to reserve your strength for going out on the water,” he said as he walked over to a trash can and dumped everything, the cups making a clunking sound as they hit the can’s empty bottom.

  “You know, you really don’t need to spend even more time on this, I’m sure you’ve got other things to do today.”

  “Actually, no.” He grinned at me, walking back to where I stood. “You’re not going to weasel out of this, Goldilocks. You have a perfect pop-up and now you’re going to prove that you can ride it in the water.”

  I shook my head and crossed my arms. “Seriously, Nick, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. Raoul spent an entire day trying to get me up on that damn board and as patient as he is, even he finally got frustrated. He was cranky as hell for two days afterwards and said that I was the worst surfing student he’d ever seen.”

  Nick just laughed and leaned in as he reached me. He touched his forehead to mine and said, “I’m your teacher now, and I won’t let you fail. Get that mutt of yours and let’s hit the water.” He strode away to where he’d parked the boards and picked them both up, Jack running alongside him the whole way. I smiled and followed them down to the water.

  After we reviewed all the basics, Nick put Jack’s leash on him and took him out into the waves. Jack barked and jumped around, but when they finally got deep enough for him to be lifted off of his feet he started paddling like mad, and Nick swam alongside of him, holding his leash and encouraging him. Jack’s little nose was aimed at the sky, and his ears fanned out around him in the water like feathers. A few minutes later they turned around and swam back to shore, Nick shouting words of encouragement to Jack the whole way. As soon as he landed Jack ran to me and shook like a fiend, covering me in water and sand.

  Nick walked up laughing. “See?” he asked. “I told you he’d be a natural. You think we can all go out together now?”

  I wiped off the worst of the water on my face and scowled at Jack. “That was unnecessary, mister,” I scolded. I looked up at Nick who was obviously amused, and sighed, “Alright, let’s head out.”

  We spent about an hour in the water, with Nick coaching me as I practiced without waves, and Jack swam around. Whenever Jack got tired Nick would hoist him up on one of the boards and Jack was able to stand up on them in the calm water by the time Nick took him back to shore.

  The water was cold at first, but as my body adjusted, I could feel the brush of water plants and churning sand against my legs. I also noticed the currents as the waves came rolling under us. The power of the water as it ebbed and flowed underneath me was soothing, and I forgot everything but the sensation of it against my body.

  We ended the surf lessons with Nick telling me to go out and catch a wave on my own. I was terrified and couldn’t believe he would do that to me after being so supportive and patient all day. “I’m going to what?” I screeched when he first told me the plan.

  “Go on out there and catch a wave,” he answered.

  “Are you crazy?” I persisted. “You’re not coming with me? How can you do that? I’m going to drown or get eaten by a shark or something and you’ll be standing here on the beach watching.”

  He laughed and put his hand at the nape of my neck as he drew me in closer. “Goldilocks,” he murmured. “You’re going to do great, and as much as I like the idea of being out there with you, someone’s got to take care of Jack here, and you can do this on your own. I promise.” Then he pulled me up against him suddenly and gave me a quick, hard kiss on the mouth. “Now get out there and show me how you surf.”

  I was so shocked by the kiss that I simply blinked at him and stood there still able to feel the scratchiness of his stubble on my chin. He cocked his head at me, looking through his sunglasses. “Go on,” he said, like he was shooing a little kid out the door.

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I was speechless, whether with anger or surprise or something else altogether I couldn’t tell, so I turned around and walked over to the board he’d rented for me and marched out to the water.

  By the time I’d paddled halfway out I was livid. He’d not only sent me to a certain death, but he’d laughed about it and then kissed me? What an arrogant, insensitive jerk. How could I have thought he was sweet? It just proved, once again, that I had no sense when it came to men. I should be locked away on an island of only women for my own good.

  These angry thoughts were swirling through my head when I noticed that I was out far enough to catch the waves before they broke. I maneuvered my board into position and lay on my stomach watching and waiting while I seethed. A wave came toward me and I held my breath, chanting Nick is a jerk, in my head. Instinct told me when to pop up and I steadied myself for a moment before I stood
all the way up. Suddenly, I was floating, whizzing along, mist flying past my face, the roar of the ocean all around me.

  The sun dimmed slightly, and I realized that there was a small wall of water next to me. I gasped, and then I felt the bottom drop out from under me, my stomach lurched, and my board wobbled dangerously beneath my feet. I dropped to my knees, grabbed the edges of the board, and quickly lay back down on my stomach, coasting along a bit further on the current before I saw the beach coming at me fast. I rolled off the board and swam in closer before I put my legs under me, feeling the ocean floor rise up to meet me.

  Stumbling out of the water, I leaned down and unhooked the board from the safety strap around my ankle. Before I knew what was happening Nick was there, lifting me up in his arms and shouting.

  “You did it!” he hollered. “You fucking rocked it, Lyndsey! That was the greatest first run I’ve ever seen.” He set me back down and held on to my upper arms as he leaned back and looked down at my face. I grinned.

  “I did it, didn’t I?” I asked, amazed by the whole thing.

  “Hell yes, you did!” He sounded like a proud father. “I told you you’d be great. You’re a natural.”

  I laughed. “Oh my God, I really did it. I really did it!” I squealed, jumping up and down. Nick grabbed me and swung me around again. When he stopped spinning I was breathless. He looked at me as he slowly slid me down his body back to earth. When my feet touched the sand he kissed me softly on the lips.

  It was nothing like the kiss he’d given me before I went out on the water. This one was slow and sweet and full of unsaid things. I felt my pulse skyrocket and his hands slipped lower on my hips as he pulled me closer. I felt his bare chest pressed against my nearly bare one, and the butterflies in my stomach went wild, having little butterfly seizures all over the place. Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. Nick pulled away and certain parts of my anatomy screamed, “Wait! Come back!”