Almost Wonderful

by Christie Ridgway

  Time passed. Minutes? Hours?

  Bitzer’s vision was better than hers because he let out a burst of a bark before she could detect any sign of Caleb or kayak. Then she saw them both, and as the dog took off down the steps, so did she, racing through the soft sand, damp sand, wet sand, until the water rushed over her toes. Even then she didn’t stop. Instead, she kept on going, until the skirt of her sundress was drenched and plastered against her thighs. Caleb was calling to her, saying something, but she couldn’t make out the words because she was laughing and crying and now she was actually swimming toward him.

  Her hands clutched the side of the kayak and he was smiling down at her—the man she loved was alive and smiling at her!—all the while shaking his head. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

  The explanation stuck in her throat. So she attempted clambering into the watercraft. It took two tries, the second one aided by Caleb and also—she decided to just go with the wild thought—the supportive hands of the merpeople she fancied just might be watching out for her after all.

  She fell against the sun-warmed man, winding cold arms around his neck and pressing wet kisses to his handsome face. His own arms closed tightly about her. “I told you I’d be back,” he said, soothing her with his big hands. “I told you.”

  “I didn’t believe,” she said. “I didn’t believe in anything.”

  They were floating on the water, the cove’s bay cradling them with a gentle rhythm. “I know,” Caleb said, holding her away a little so he could look into her eyes. “Because you’d lost this.”

  Then he held up the necklace she’d given Peter. The heart-shaped shard of abalone shell gleamed in the sunlight, its dark, pearlized rainbow both beautiful and mysterious. Like life. Like love.

  Meg gasped. “Where did you get it?” she asked, staring as it swung gently from Caleb’s hand.

  “It was another part of that dream. Peter showed it to me, Meg. He showed me where he’d stashed it that day, and told me it was way past time for you to have it back.”

  She gave her head a little shake. “No—” But then she remembered that she believed in love now, and was that any less a strange and wondrous miracle than a dream filled with portents or a man surviving critical surgery and near-death? Her hand reached out, her fingers closed over the abalone shell.

  Caleb released the thong it was strung upon.

  Letting her lashes fall, Meg cradled the shell in her palm as if it was something precious. In her mind’s eye she saw Peter standing on the beach, saw his brilliant grin, saw him take his young lover by the hand. The girl clasped his fingers, then threw a happy smile over her shoulder at Meg as the two turned to stroll along the sand stretching endlessly in front of them.

  And this time, finally, forever, Meg really let them go—both Peter and her younger self. Goodbye, she thought, squeezing the shell to cement that last, sweet vision of the pair. Farewell.

  Then she lifted her lashes and turned her gaze to Caleb. “This was Starr’s heart.”

  He nodded. “Yours again.”

  “No,” Meg said. “Though I’ve kept it deep under wraps, I actually have—had—my own.”

  Caleb’s brows came together. “‘Had?’”

  “So I think I’ll return this one to the merfolk whose it was in the first place.” With that, Meg held her arm over the side of the kayak and let the necklace fall. It drifted atop the water for a few moments, and then it started to sink beneath the ocean. Maybe it was her long-suppressed imagination coming alive again, her old belief in magic, but she could swear she saw the slim, pale fingers of a mermaid reach up to close around the shell and then disappear.

  Warm hands cupped her shoulders. Caleb turned Meg to face him. “‘Had?’” he demanded again, his expression serious.

  “It’s yours now,” she confessed, her voice a little hoarse with emotion. “I’m in love with you, Caleb, and when you get me, my heart is part of the package.”

  His eyes searched hers. Then he smiled, and it was the sun breaking through the fog. “You love me,” he said, the smile turning even brighter. “You really do.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” she teased.

  “It already has,” he murmured against her mouth, the kiss at first a promise that quickly turned to passionate intent. Then the kayak’s rocking rhythm was no longer so gentle. Almost unseated, they were forced to come up for air.

  The merfolk urging them to dry land? A joyful bark turned their attention to the beach. Bitzer was there, pacing impatiently, as if he was eager to be part of their happiness.

  Caleb slanted a look at Meg as he fished for the paddle that had dropped to the bottom of the craft. “Well, my love? What next?”

  “Forward,” she directed with a grin. “We have a dog on shore. And a forever just waiting to get started.”

  # # #

  Dear Reader:

  Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the first book in the Almost series. Meg and Caleb have made peace with the past and are walking into a bright future together.

  Continue on to read some information about the real-life place that inspired the fictional Crescent Cove as well as some photos of the area. If you want to hear my audio introduction to the story and your device does not support audio, you can find the mp3 file in which I talk about the book at my website, www.christieridgway.com.

  Interested in sharing your thoughts about Meg and Caleb’s romance with other readers? I hope you’ll leave a review for the book here and look for the rest in the series: ALMOST ALWAYS, ALMOST EVERYTHING, and ALMOST PARADISE, coming soon.

  To not miss out on new Christie Ridgway releases and to get other information about upcoming books and specials, sign up for my my newsletter. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or visit my website.

  I’ve also included here an excerpt of LIGHT MY FIRE (Rock Royalty Book 1) and TAKE ME TENDER (Billionaire’s Beach Book 1).

  All the best!

  Christie Ridgway

  Excerpt – LIGHT MY FIRE

  Rock Royalty Book 1

  © Copyright 2014 Christie Ridgway

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Chapter One

  The children of America's premier rock band learned early to sleep through anything. Late night jam sessions, liquor (and worse) -fueled arguments, raucous parties raging from dark to dawn that were peppered with wild laughter, breaking glass, and the squishy thud of fists against skin. At twenty-four, Cilla Maddox had not lost that skill, though she'd recently come to view it as something less than a gift.

  Still, she didn't stir from her curled position on the edge of the king-sized bed when a tall, broad figure entered the room in the middle of the night. No streetlights disturbed the darkness this deep in Laurel Canyon and the newcomer found the bed only by deduction. When, at his sixth cautious step, his shin met an immoveable object, he dropped the motorcycle boots and duffel bag he carried to the plush carpet and took a leap of faith by tipping his long body forward. Finding firm mattress and feathery pillow, he instantly fell into sleep.

  Hours later, Cilla came awake to the sound of birds tweeting and chirping their odes to another Southern California morning as they flitted through the shrubbery and tall eucalyptus trees that grew inside and outside the canyon compound where she'd grown up. Eyes closed, she breathed in the country-scented air, such a surprise when the famous Hollywood Boulevard and its twin in notoriety, the Sunset Strip, were less than a mile away. Flopping to her back, she stretched to her full five-feet, five inches. Then she pushed her arms overhead and swept them back down until her fingertips met—

  Something solid. Warm. Alive.

  On a gasp, her eyes flew open and her head whipped right. She yanked her hand from a man's heavy shoulder to press it against her thrashing heart.

  As it continued to beat wildly against her ribs, she stared at her bedmate. Though his body was plastered to the mattress belly-down, his face was turned toward hers and it only took another instant to realize he was no
stranger. But recognition didn't calm the overactive organ in her chest that continued sending blood sprinting through her body.

  She blinked, just to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. They apparently had told the truth, she decided. After years of adolescent fantasies, she was actually sharing a bed with him. With Renford Colson.

  No mistake, it was her teenage fantasy man. His glossy black hair that tangled nearly to his shoulders. His days'-old stubble of beard that made his mouth look softer, fuller, more kissable if that was even possible. Those were his spiky lashes resting against his sharp-angled face.

  Yet...was he really here? To make herself believe it, she mouthed his name. Ren.

  As if he heard the silent syllable, his eyes flipped open.

  She started, their distinctive color—a silvered green, just like eucalyptus leaves—jolting her to the marrow.

  Dark brows met over his straight nose and she watched the drowsiness seep from him as his gaze sharpened. "Priss?"

  She frowned. He was the only one to call her that nickname and it had annoyed her since she was old enough to understand it telegraphed something about the way he viewed her. "Excessively proper," she remembered reading in the dictionary. "Prim."

  "Cilla." Her voice sounded morning-husky as she made the correction.

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. "Priscilla."

  Ugh. That was worse. To her mind, Priscilla was the name of some old-fashioned china doll that was deemed too nice to play with and so grew dusty on a high, forgotten closet shelf. As the youngest "princess" of rock royalty (an article in Rolling Stone had described the nine collective children of the Velvet Lemons in just such terms), she'd often been overlooked. Likely Ren hadn't given her a single thought in the nine years since she'd last seen him.

  "Why are you here?" she asked, sitting up.

  His gaze dropped from her face to the size XL T-shirt she wore, an authentic Byrds concert souvenir, one of the several such clothing items she'd collected (read: purloined from her careless father) during her lifetime. "Priss," Ren remarked with a note of mild surprise, "you've grown up."

  Grown-ups didn't react to the red flush they could feel crawling over their skin. Grown-ups didn't check out their chest to determine if it was a modest B-cup that led him to such a conclusion. So ignoring both compulsions, she repeated her question. "Why are you here?"

  "Couple reasons." Ren flipped over then jackknifed on the mattress to face her. Both palms rubbed over his eyes and down his cheeks, his beard making a scratchy sound. He'd fallen asleep in his worn jeans and wrinkled dress shirt. On the floor near him were a pair of battered boots and a leather bag, both as black as his hair. His hands went to the buttons marching down his chest.

  She swallowed. "What are you doing?"

  "I've been wearing this damn thing for—Christ, who knows?—it's got to be a couple of days. However long it took me to get here from Russia with a fucking long layover in Paris."

  Her gaze didn't leave his nimble fingers as they continued unbuttoning to reveal a stark white undershirt beneath. "You didn't stop off in London?" That was where he was based. Ren had started as a roadie for the band, then moved into concert tour planning and security. When he'd left the employ of the Velvet Lemons, he'd set up shop across the pond and continued doing the same thing—just not for their fathers' band.

  Cilla couldn't blame him for that. The three Lemons might as well have been named the Odd Ducks. They'd achieved superstardom in the 1970s and when they were nearing forty, somehow decided they wanted more than sex, riches, and scandalous reputations. Each had produced three kids before declaring their paternal urges satisfied. No mothers came attached to the children they'd fathered. They'd been bought off or wandered off and as long as Cilla could remember the nine rock progeny had spent their childhoods in the expansive Laurel Canyon compound that consisted of three separate houses and then this smaller cottage where she and Ren had chosen to sleep.

  Inspecting the hand-tied quilt covering the bed, Cilla ran her fingers over the psychedelic-inspired design. "You know about Gwen?" she asked, referring to Guinevere Moon, an original Velvet Lemons groupie who'd been the closest to a mother figure the band's offspring ever had. This had been her house.

  "Of course," Ren replied. "I couldn't get here for the memorial service, but I came as soon as I was able to make arrangements for my replacement."

  As head fixer for some other band's tour, Cilla supposed. "Her real name was Donna Carp," she said, her heart squeezing to think that the spiral-curled, caftan-wearing gentle soul was now gone. "Gwen's, that is."

  There was a short silence, then Ren laughed. "Baby, you didn't think she really had Guinevere Moon on her birth certificate?"

  Mortification spread heat over Cilla's face once more. Okay, so she had. "Thanks for thinking I'm a fool," she said, glancing up to glare at him.

  The spit in her mouth dried.

  Ren had tossed his shirt over the side of the bed and then stripped free of the undershirt he'd worn too. Beneath that...

  He was cut. Ripped. His abs were perfectly defined above the waistband of his jeans. His pecs were slabs of thick muscle that drew the eye to broad shoulders that led to arms that were sinew, bone, and more muscle. Over his left pectoral began a primitive-yet-elegant tribal tattoo that swirled in black ink over the cap of his shoulder to reach as far as his elbow. Though most of his forearm was unmarked, on his wrist was a lone, stylized half-curve. She stared at it and then his long fingers, unwilling to let her gaze wander back to that beautiful chest.

  She'd been fifteen when she'd last seen him. He'd been twenty-two. Then, she'd only dreamed of his kisses, chaste kisses at that, and hadn't wondered about his body or his hands or what he could do to a woman with them.

  It was what consumed her thoughts now.

  That, and how they were sharing a bed.

  Galvanized by that fact, she leaped from beneath the covers, her bare feet landing on the carpet. The overlarge shirt swung around her body, the hem tickling the top of her thighs. With Ren's gaze on her, her attempt at escape seemed a foolhardy choice. Suddenly her legs felt too naked, and she was acutely aware of what was under her tee—just a scrap of lacey panties. In another not-so-suave move, she swiftly re-inserted herself under the quilt and between the warm sheets, pulling them high to conceal more of herself. "It's, uh, cold out there," she said, by way of explanation. Her breathless state made her voice sound reedy.

  Ren's expression had gone blank and his thoughts were impossible to interpret. Staring at her, he ran a palm along his stubbled jaw. "You cut your hair, Priss."

  Her fingers flew to the bobbed ends. She still wasn't accustomed to how the dark blond stuff curled and waved now that eighteen inches of weight had been taken from its length.

  "I thought you'd vowed never to take scissors to it," he continued.

  He remembered that? She shrugged. "Like you said, I've grown up." The haircut hadn't been her idea, though, and a wave of humiliation at the memory of it washed over her.

  Ren's gaze narrowed. "Priss..."

  "Cilla."

  "Cilla, then. Something wrong? Something bothering you?"

  A lot was bothering her. Up to and including the fact that her old longing for Renford Colson was not dead, but just hibernating until the day his hot body arrived on the doorstep. Now her hormones were stirring and she felt oddly out-of-sorts and unfamiliarly ravenous. Not unlike the California black bears, she figured, that would emerge from their hollow trees and mountain caves in a few short weeks.

  "It's been a lousy month or so," she said. He couldn't doubt that. "Gwen's passing, the wild circus the Lemons made of her memorial service before they rushed back out on tour, and then there's the Beck situation."

  "Beck?" Ren frowned. "What about Beck?"

  The Velvet Lemons' drummer had named his three kids, Beck, Walsh, and Reed—all boys—after musicians he admired: Jeff Beck, Joe Walsh, and Lou Reed. Ren's father had given all three of his prog
eny, two boys and a girl—Renford, Payne, and Campbell— the surnames of their long-gone mothers. Cilla never got a straight answer from her own dad. She figured he didn't remember why he'd picked out Priscilla, or why he'd chosen Brody and Bing for her twin older brothers.

  She took in a breath, stalling. Beck was the oldest of the nine and Ren was the next closest in age. How would he take the news? "He's missing. Nobody told you that?"

  Ren went still. "I don't have regular communication with anyone."

  The princes and princesses of rock royalty had scattered as each came of age, but she hadn't realized how out of touch Ren had been. "You don't talk to Payne or Campbell?"

  Ren was shaking his head. "Not very often."

  "Beck hasn't been in steady contact with Walsh or Reed either. That's why we don't really know exactly how long he's been missing."

  "Missing," Ren repeated.

  "He took a freelance assignment to do a long piece on the Nile for one of the nature magazines. About nine months ago. No one has heard from him since."

  "Hell."

  "His dad and the magazine put feelers out, though it's not clear whether Beck is actually lost or merely following the story. It just seems weird that he's been silent for so long."

  Ren relaxed, and ran his hand through his hair, giving Cilla another glimpse of that interesting, incomplete-looking tattoo on his wrist. "I'm sure Beck's fine."

  Cilla wished she had his certainty. "I hope you're right."

  "I am." He half-turned to punch the pillows behind him then settled back, crossing his arms over that magnificent chest. His biceps bulged.

  Gathering the covers closer, Cilla pretended she didn't notice them. "So...you're just, uh, passing through on your way back to London?"