Ahead in the Heat

by Lorelie Brown

  Chapter 23

  Annie had dashed upstairs again to put her bikini top back on, but she’d been incredibly fast about it. Prompt in a way that felt intentional. She was clearing the way for Sean to do whatever he needed to do. Annie was a hella cool girl.

  Unfortunately, as soon as the back door shut behind her, Sean felt as closed in as if a barreled wave had slammed down on his head.

  His hands curled into fists as he watched her walk down the back steps to the water. She perched a pair of sunglasses on her nose. Knockoffs. He wondered if he could switch them out without her noticing for a pair of the Heuers that had shown up on his doorstep a few weeks ago. Or more particularly, without her protesting too vehemently.

  Probably not. She’d look good in the expensive frames, though.

  Sean sighed and turned his gaze back toward the living room. He should get this over with.

  Ackerman had seated himself on the couch and was waiting patiently with his elbows balanced on his knees. He hopped up with a smile as Sean reentered. “I appreciate this. I have to admit, I didn’t think you were going to give me an interview at all.” He withdrew a slender silver recorder from his pocket. “Do you mind if I use this?”

  “I mind.” Sean dropped into a chair and waved toward the sofa. “But you can sit again if you like. Make yourself at home. Comfortable, even.”

  Ackerman sat, but he’d apparently realized this wasn’t going to be as easy a conversation as he’d momentarily convinced himself. “I see.”

  Sean should have offered the guy a drink, even just a glass of water. That would have been polite. The thing a normal person would do.

  Sean wasn’t normal. “Why are you here, Paul?”

  “First off, let me say I’m really stoked that you seem to know who I am.” Paul had a nice, anonymous smile. “I’ve followed your career for a long time. You’re not getting half the points you should. It’s practically robbery.”

  Flattery wasn’t going to get this guy anywhere. “That’s not an answer.”

  “I want to do a sixty-minute feature on you.”

  “Out of the goodness of your heart?” Sean lifted his eyebrows. “Out of nowhere? I’m middle of the pack. I do well enough, and I make enough, but a feature on me isn’t going to have any traction.” Not unless they knew too much.

  Not unless it could get juicy.

  If Ackerman had figured out what had really happened when Sean’s mother died, things could ratchet way past juicy to scandalous. Nothing sold better than a scandal. Sean’s fingertips tingled. This . . . This was not going to end well.

  Ackerman tried changing the topic. “I was really surprised to find you at home in the middle of the afternoon. Thought I’d have to camp out on your doorstep until you came in from the beach. Surf must not be up!” he said with a laugh.

  Sean hooked his thumbs in his pockets and stretched his legs out. “Actually, it’s kicking out there. A storm off Hawaii will be pushing in six-footers in about an hour.”

  “Have you been out yet today?”

  This part, Sean had absolutely zero problem talking about. He put on one of his best smiles. “Yeah. Had my first postinjury surf this morning. Took a lot of warming up, but it’s been great.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Ackerman leaned forward. Brown hair fell across his forehead. “It’d be a real shame if you got knocked off the ’CT for something like this.”

  “I’d agree.”

  “I know this wasn’t the first time you were injured, but the damage seemed to be longer lasting. Was this time scarier?”

  Sean took a long, slow breath. There wasn’t anything to it. He really was just doing his job, and for that alone, Sean should drink a big glass of shut-the-fuck-up. Except he knew where this conversation would finish eventually.

  And yeah, it got there. Once Ackerman had exhausted his surfing and recovery questions, he eventually leaned back to rest against the soft couch. His gaze dropped, but then he looked back at Sean. Assessing.

  Sean braced himself. The hard stuff was coming. Impatience rode him like a grom trying his first real trick. The faster they got this over with, the faster Sean could shut him down.

  “So,” Paul said, drawing the word out slowly, “I’ve done some preliminary research on you.”

  “I expected as much.”

  “I couldn’t find any proof that you’d graduated from your high school.”

  “I’d rather not talk about that.”

  Ackerman slipped a small black notebook from his back pocket and flipped it open. “We’re still talking a matter of record here, Sean.”

  “Then check records. I’m not talking about it.” He was made of ice. Except ice would melt in the parts of the ocean he liked. “Look, I think I’ve proven over the last forty-five minutes that I’m amenable to giving interviews. That’s fine. But there’s no reason you need my past history. It’s just that. Past and history. Agree to leave them there and you can come back with a recorder. With a camera. Fucking hell, with five cameras if you want. I’ll let you tag me around.” Sean pushed to his feet. “But it’s all stuff of the here and now. I’m not going back.”

  “Mr. Westin, I’m not trying to fuck you over. This isn’t going to be some hack-job piece.”

  Sean plastered a smile on his face. “Then you won’t have any problem agreeing to my parameters.”

  Ackerman stood to match Sean. His pleasant face pinched. “Look . . .” He sighed. “You’re not the only source I can go to. I mean, you’re the best, of course. I’d like to get it right from you. But if you’re not willing to talk, I—I’ll do what I need to.”

  “You’ve already got a source, don’t you?” Sean’s eyes narrowed at the same time something painful pulsed in his temple. “Who is it?”

  Ackerman’s head shook. “Sorry. I can’t tell you.”

  Immediately, Sean went mentally careening through the very, very short list of people who might know enough to give any sort of interview. His uncle Theo had been the one to clear up the arson charges and pay off the fire department for its outlay. But Theo was family, and he was pretty well-off too. There was no paycheck large enough to sway him. He’d never gotten married or had kids, so there was nothing in that direction. Sean’s mother had isolated herself because of the very nature of her disease. Nothing there. And Sean had never told a soul.

  After all, when a person burned down his childhood home at age eighteen, it wasn’t something he went around bragging about.

  “What you have is innuendo at best. Maybe some speculation.”

  “I know you finished out school in a private institution, under your uncle’s custody.”

  Sean flashed hot, then completely cold. His stomach lurched. That was supposed to be completely expunged, along with the record he had never quite gotten. It was all supposed to be cleared up. “Get out of my house. Now.”

  “Talk with me, Sean. Let me have access and this doesn’t have to go painfully.”

  “If you’re not gone in ten seconds, I’ll have to call the cops.”

  Ackerman looked back at him steadily and for probably longer than five seconds, Sean wondered if the other man would try to call his bluff. Ackerman gave a small nod and let himself out.

  Sean puked in the downstairs bathroom.

  No dwelling. No looking back. His stomach was more settled after he managed to brush his teeth, so that was all that counted.

  Doing what he had to do didn’t make him a bad person.

  The litany was all that had gotten him through at first. When he’d been so damn young, and so damn scared.

  Before he’d had the pro circuit and the World Championship Tour.

  He wasn’t sure whether Annie would still be waiting for him. She could have gone around the outside of the house to her car, since her keys had been shoved in her pocket.

  He s
tepped out the back door, trying to keep it cool. He scooped his sunglasses out of a pocket and popped them on against the arrowing glare of the setting sun.

  “Over here.” Annie was sitting on the hot, powdery sand. “Did he bleed you dry?”

  “Not this time.” And Jesus, when he spoke to her, his chest filled with that light feeling of relief. He hadn’t actually believed she’d still be there. Not when it came down to it. “Tried to.”

  People weren’t there for him. Maybe they said they would be, or maybe they intended to be, but when the shit hit the fan, Sean had learned that a man usually had to make his own way in the world and only rely on himself. He’d been damn good at it, at least.

  He sank to the beach beside her. The waves really had started to kick, as the reports had said to expect. He couldn’t surf the current conditions, not yet. But he would, and soon. And he’d be back on top of his game.

  He’d move forward. Not back.

  “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a shady place like this?” He flashed a grin at Annie. It was a lie of a smile, but maybe she didn’t know that, because she cocked a grin at him with enough fire that it could have been used to light a seashore bonfire.

  Her smile was the kind of thing used to call rescue ships to stranded boaters. She laughed at him. “Shady? Did you just call beachside at San Sebastian shady? This is probably the safest place in the world. Or close. Besides, I’m always protected.”

  He chuckled. “Right. Could you take down a carjacker?”

  “I’ve had some self-defense courses,” she said with such serene understatement that he suddenly wondered.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Martial arts?”

  “I’m a black belt in judo.” She leaned back on her hands. “What do you think about that?”

  “Hot as fuck. Come here.” He scooped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her toward him. Closer and closer, but he stopped when his mouth was only an inch from hers. “Thanks for staying. That really sucked.” It was an understatement, but it was all he could manage to say. At least for now, when his heart was still slamming with such sickly force.

  “You know what doesn’t suck?” She’d twisted most of her hair up in a knot at the back of her head, but heavy tresses had broken free to frame her eyes and cheeks. Because making sure he had the space he needed had been more important than making herself look pretty. Even now, she was giving him that space by not asking him unanswerable questions.

  It didn’t hurt that she was already gorgeous. And Sean couldn’t wrap his head around what she was willing to do for him. “What doesn’t suck?”

  “Kissing me. You should do that. Often.” She lifted her mouth the full distance to his, and the kiss she placed on his lips was like a gift. Soft. Tender. Something they hadn’t shared before.

  He returned it, making as many silent promises as he knew how to word.

  It wasn’t much. He was too ruined to keep going long. But in the time between here and loss, she’d get everything he had to give.

  Chapter 24

  “If I asked you to take care of things around here for about a week, would you ask me a hundred questions about why, or would you just do it?” Annie blurted out the question in one breath. Her stomach was taking flips an X-Gamer would be proud of.

  Her mom paused while plaiting a length of safety rope. She tilted her head to the side. Her hair was long enough that it slipped off her shoulder in a dark stream and onto the tabletop where she was working. “Hmm. Let me think about that.” She tapped a finger across her lips, but then rolled her eyes at Annie. “Ask a hundred questions, of course. What kind of mother do you think I am?”

  “A loving, sweet mother who wants the best for her child, but who understands that sometimes an adult woman needs to be autonomous and trusted in her choices?”

  Denise opened her mouth as if she’d respond, but then slumped. Her hands fell into her lap. “Well, fuck.”

  “Great!” Annie chirruped. “I’ll give you all the keys and we’ll go over the basics tomorrow.”

  With that, she tried her best to slip right back out the kitchen door, but Denise was having none of it. “Wait just a minute, young lady.”

  She paused with one hand on the doorjamb. “Yes, my loving and supportive mother?”

  “Get your ass back in here.” She pushed aside the safety rope from the tabletop. “And bring us tea.”

  “I don’t drink tea.”

  Denise grinned. “Fine. Bring me tea and you can have some of that awful-for-you diet soda. When you get cancer long before your time, I’ll cry at your grave.”

  “No one has definitively tied aspartame to cancer deaths.” Still, she felt a little twinge as she cracked open the cap of her soda. Her mom was certainly good at putting the maternal guilt trip on a girl.

  Lucky for Annie, Denise had been a fairly balanced mother. She’d given support the best she could, and her best was often amazing. So when she finally had a cup of tea curled in her hands and looked at Annie in that particular way, Annie melted. She didn’t really have a choice.

  “It’s that Sean Westin, isn’t it?” Denise didn’t accuse, didn’t say it any way that felt negative. Just words. Just a question.

  So why did Annie cringe inside? Her stomach twisted. “Yeah, Mom.”

  “Do I get to know if you’ll be in town or farther afield?”

  Annie folded her hands in her lap. Her index finger found a soft spot in the jeans material stretched across her knees. She picked, worrying at the worn spot until she could feel the sharp edge of her nail on her own skin. “I’ll be in Fiji.”

  “Jesus, Annie.” Her mom said it softly. “You weren’t going to tell me that you were going to another country? That’s not like you. I’d expected you to say something like San Diego.”

  “San Diego’s nice,” she said weakly.

  Her mother made a show of dipping her head and angling her ear toward Annie. “It’s nice, but . . .”

  She sighed. “But Fiji is where the next ASP World Championship Tour event is being held.”

  “You’re following that man to an island in the middle of the ocean.”

  She felt her mouth turn mulish. Practically sullen. “You say that as if I’m planning to stay there. It’s just a vacation, Mom. When was the last time I took one of those?”

  “Don’t look at me, missy. I’ve been telling you to take some time off for about four years now.” She curled her hands around the white-and-blue tea mug and leaned forward. “But I meant San Diego!”

  “What’s with you and San Diego, anyway?”

  “Your dad won’t go with me to this little bungalow that we could rent, and it’s perfect. I’ve even been planning to sign him up for a sailing lesson, and you know he’s always wanted that. But he won’t agree.” Denise’s mouth twisted into a little pout that looked about as familiar as it felt.

  At least Annie always knew she came by her stubbornness honestly. She was just like her mom. Besides, Dad wouldn’t agree to Denise’s newest trip idea because he’d already planned, picked, and paid for a really freaking similar vacation to Santa Barbara for their thirtieth anniversary. He and Denise were bound together for life, in that way little girls dreamed of. Annie had had those same sorts of dreams when she’d been young. She’d played with a piece of lace over her hair as a veil.

  She wasn’t sure when those dreams had faded away. The first chunk had disappeared when she faced the world of pro surfing. There was no way to be with someone who meant something to you when you were on the ’CT. But then another chunk had faded when she’d dealt with Terry and the aftermath of that night.

  “I like him. I like Sean.” Even as she said the words, she was qualifying them in her mind. She liked him, but they weren’t going to last. She liked him, but he had issues. She liked him, but she had issues.

  There was no fore
ver for them.

  “Are you considering surfing Cloudbreak?”

  “Oh God, no,” Annie exclaimed, jerking backward. “What in the name of God? Why would you think that?”

  Cloudbreak was a beautiful wave a mile away from Tavarua, Fiji. Surfers had to take a boat ride to get out there, but they were rewarded with heavy barrels and clean swells if they made it. Except there was a stretch known as the shish kebabs because it was that easy to get skewered on the reefs. The ASP competition would be at that wave and at another break off the mainland of Fiji. It was going to be difficult enough to watch Sean surf it with the full extent of his injury and recovery as plain as his MRI reports. Cloudbreak could kill men, much less reinjure their shoulders.

  Not only would it be incredibly packed, and most likely officially roped off for pro surfers only, but there was the overwhelming fact that Annie wasn’t ready. Even though she’d once been an excellent surfer who could have handled it ten years ago. That was then. This was now. She wasn’t dumb enough to think otherwise. “Jeez, Mom. No way. I’ll surf something on my terms, probably a beach break. Not Cloudbreak. Sheesh.”

  Denise put both hands up. “I worry. I’m sorry if that was a dumb question. It’s bad enough to think of you breaking an arm on your backyard ramps. Throw in a thirty-foot wave on the other side of the globe and I get a little irrational.”

  As if speaking of the ramps made them awaken, a familiar sound came from the backyard. The swooping, steady whirr of wheels on wood. Annie and her mother exchanged a look, then glanced at the door in tandem.

  Denise stood, her hands flat on the kitchen table. “Were you . . . ?”

  “Waiting on anyone?” Annie shook her head and took half a second to scoop her hair into a ponytail. She had the sudden impulse to have it out of her eyes.

  She thought about grabbing the Taser she had locked in a cabinet next to the stove, but she realized that would be ridiculous. Someone who was out to cause trouble would be either pounding on doors or sneaking around, not stopping for a late-evening skating session.