Jude’s smile was one hundred percent smug male. “Hungry?”
“You set this all up for me?”
“Who else?”
She should smack him for that, should feel outraged that he’d staged this whole cheesy seduction when he knew good and well all he had to do was ask and she’d go to bed with him. But she couldn’t find the outrage. She dug deep within herself and all she came up with was humbled wonder, especially when his smile started to slip and worry furrowed his brow.
“You don’t like it.”
“No. I mean, yes. Of course I do. It’s…it’s lovely. And…sweet. So very sweet.”
His smile returned, all dazzle and boyish excitement. He entwined his fingers through hers and pulled her toward the picnic. He sat her down on the blanket, dropped his pack on a jutting rock a few feet away, and joined her under the umbrella.
“What would you like?” he asked as he opened the cooler. “I know you hate tomatoes so I avoided ordering anything with them, but other than that, I was guessing. We have some melon pieces, trail mix, a couple different kinds of sandwiches, some pasta salad—oh, that looks good.” He picked up the plastic container and shook it. “I’ll have some of this. We also have wine. White. Sorry, not your favorite but it’s easier to keep wine chilled out here than at room temperature so I—”
Libby reached across all of the containers and plastic-wrapped packages of food, placed her hand over his, and gave his fingers a light squeeze. “Thank you.”
Such insufficient words for the overwhelming affection she suddenly felt toward him, but they would have to do because she couldn’t think of any others. Or at least none that wouldn’t ruin the moment.
She had to be careful. Affection was a slippery slope. One wrong step and she’d fall headlong into love with this man again and she refused to take that risk a second time. Even though, in moments like this, it seemed like a perfect idea, a real-life happily ever after…
She twisted her cover identity’s simple wedding band around on her finger. It wasn’t real. None of this was. She just had to keep reminding herself—
“Fuck!”
Libby jumped and stared in wide-eyed shock as Jude scrambled backwards, his hand flailing around behind him for something to grab. Fearing the worst, she searched for the cause of his outburst and found it in the form of a little long-legged spider crawling across the blanket. She looked at him. Then at the spider. Then at him again. And she burst out laughing.
“Seriously?” She cupped her hands around the little thing before he could crush it like he so obviously wanted to. “You’ll pick up a giant lizard without a second’s thought, but you’re afraid of the itsy bitsy spider?”
“You’re afraid of a gentle lizard,” he shot back, “but you’ll pick up a killer spider?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Killer spider,” she scoffed. “It’s harmless!”
“Yeah, right. Tell that to me when it bites you and I have to swim your dying ass to the nearest hospital.”
Shaking her head, she stood with the spider still clasped in her palms. “I’ll let it go.”
“Way down the beach.” He pointed. “I mean waaaay down.”
“Wuss.”
“Hey, did I cast stones when I had to save you from the iguana?”
“No, but that doesn’t make you any less of a wuss.” She left him and let the spider go on a tree branch fifty yards away. When she got back, Jude handed her a glass of wine and wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“All right, Mr. Nature Lover,” she said after a moment of awkward silence. “Want to tell me what that was about?”
He took great care in pouring his own glass, but still wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I feel ridiculous.”
“You should.” And she probably shouldn’t take so much delight in the fact that his ears had turned bright red, but…honestly, it was adorable. She would have dialed down her teasing if he wasn’t laughing at himself right along with her. “You screamed like a little girl.”
“Bullshit.” He finally looked up with an expression of mock horror. “It was a manly scream.”
“Very manly,” she said and patted his hand.
“All right, you got me. I have a small phobia when it comes to spiders.” He removed her hand from his and pointed to an oblong scar on the back of his right hand between his thumb and forefinger. Indented like a shallow crater and puckered around the edges, she remembered she used to rub her thumb over that scar whenever they held hands.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You told me one of his brothers bit you during a fight.”
“It was a better story than getting bit by a spider when I was eight and having a bad reaction,” he admitted. “I ended up in the hospital for a week with the skin on my hand split open to the bone.”
She winced at that gruesome mental image. For an eight year old, it must have been terrifying. “What kind of spider does that much damage?”
“The doctors thought it was a Brown Recluse, but we never found the spider to know for sure. Ever since…” He shuddered. “No thanks. I’ll take my chances with iguanas over spiders any day.”
“Fair enough,” she said with a smile and sipped her wine. “I’ll be your spider slayer if you keep all reptiles far away from me.”
He reached over their picnic to shake her hand. “Deal. Now dig in. I have more planned for today.”
“I can’t wait.” She’d meant it as a sarcastic remark, but it hadn’t come out sounding like one and it was the truth—she was intrigued to see what he had up his sleeve next.
She watched him dig into the pasta salad with relish and decided on some of the melon slices to go with her own sandwich. As she ate, she mused over how little she actually knew about the man seated across from her attacking his lunch with all the grace of a ravenous animal. She’d dated him for a whole year and she’d never known about his spider phobia. Made her wonder what else she didn’t know about him.
He finished eating before she was even half way through her sandwich and lounged back on one elbow, his wine glass still in hand. He released a contented sigh and stared out over the ocean. “I could sit here all day.”
She followed his gaze over the glittering stretch of paradise laid out before them like a feast for their eyes alone. “It’s so quiet here. Peaceful.”
“Mmm.”
“I can almost pretend I really am on vacation instead of hiding out from some crazy stalker.”
“No.” He held up a finger. “We’re not discussing that. We are on vacation today.”
“Thank you.”
“Why you thanking me? This is all purely for selfish reasons. I was going stir crazy and needed out of that house.”
“I think we both needed this. I mean, we fought over a sock like an old married couple.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she could recall them, but Jude seemed not to notice how awkward those words were. Or maybe he just chose to ignore it.
Ignoring it worked for her. She gulped the rest of her wine. Yes, ignoring worked just fine for her.
In a surge, Jude sat up and started packing his garbage into the picnic basket.
“Where are you going?” she asked when he stood and grabbed his pack.
“The dock.”
“What about all this?” She waved a hand at the remnants of their picnic.
“The charter company will clean it all up. It’s what they do.” He held out a hand and wiggled his fingers. “So how about it? Ready for our next adventure?”
“Probably not.” She popped one more slice of melon in her mouth before accepting his hand. “But someone has to keep you out of trouble.”
And there it was, that quick, rabble-inducing grin again. “Aw, babe,” he said and pulled her to her feet. “Impossible task. Trouble and me, we go way back.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You want me to balance on that?” Standing on the dock in her swimsuit with her a
rms crossed over her chest, Libby stared at the rented paddleboard like it was a cousin of her dreaded iguana. “Um, no. I don’t think so. Have you met me? I trip over my own feet on a daily basis.”
Jude laughed. She was adorable when she stared at him like he was insane. “It’ll be fun.”
“Says the man who thinks near death experiences are fun.”
“C’mon, have I steered you wrong yet?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it after a second without uttering a sound. “No. And I wish I could say otherwise, dammit.” She eyed the board again. “Is it safe?”
“You stood up in a moving car on the highway,” he reminded her. “You got this.”
When she didn’t move, he jumped into the water and pulled himself up onto the board, which was much longer and wider than a surfboard and easier to balance on. He held out a hand. “Trust me.”
“Never.”
Ouch. But, yeah, nothing less than he deserved. “You can sit in front and relax. I’ll do the paddling.”
She glanced around the deserted beach. “Do I have any other choice?”
“Well, you could sit here by yourself for four hours until I reach the rental place and have them send a boat back.”
“Like I said, do I have a choice?” She set her hand in his and stepped off the dock with all the grace of a dropped rock. The board flipped and she landed in the water with a shriek. Jude laughed so hard he sucked in a lungful of water when he went under and came up coughing.
“Not funny.” She splashed him. “You said it was safe.”
“It is, but you can’t jump on the board like you’re pole vaulting.” He swam over to her and tugged the rope attached to his ankle, dragging the board close. “Climb on.”
“How?”
“Like you would pull yourself out of a swimming pool. Use your legs. I’ll keep it steady. Once you get up there, lay flat on your stomach.” He bit the inside of his cheek as he watched her struggle. He should probably swim around and give her a helping boost, but…nah. He kind of liked the view from this angle. Her swimsuit top slipped low as she struggled to pull herself up with her arms, giving him a tantalizing peek-a-boo glimpse of her nipple. He wondered how she’d react if he leaned across the board, shoved aside the triangle of black fabric, and sucked that rosy bud into his mouth. She’d probably slap him, but damn would it be worth it. He’d just about convinced himself to do it when she finally managed to get up on her belly.
She looked good lying there like that, her bare back and legs glistening in the sun as she tried to catch her breath.
“Wow,” she breathed and finally lifted her head. “I’m out of shape.”
Not from where he stood. You ask him, those two dimples in her back at the base of her spine all but begged for exploration by his lips and tongue.
“Uh…Jude?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and willed his half-mast erection to play nice. “Yeah, sorry. Hold on to the board. It’s going to shake a little.” With a lot less struggle, he climbed on and positioned himself on his knees, one of each side of her waist.
“You made that look too easy,” she accused.
Easy. Right. Except he underestimated how difficult sitting in this position was going to be. If he leaned back, even a little, his balls brushed the sweet curve of her ass and every muscle in his body clenched in anticipation.
Okay. They had to get to prime water before he exploded. He maneuvered over to the dock, grabbed his pack and the paddle. He looped the pack across his back then started paddling in a steady rhythm, moving them away from the choppy water by the dock. Once they were far enough into the calm of the bay, he slowed to a stop and used his weight to steady the board.
“Go ahead and sit up now. Slowly.”
She sat up, cross-legged, and he climbed to his feet behind her.
She glanced back. “Am I supposed to stand?”
“Only if you want to.”
She bit her lower lip and he thought she might take the risk. In the end, she didn’t. In typical Libby fashion, she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Your loss.” He dug the paddle into the water, propelling them toward the nearby mangrove tunnels. He had to duck under the first low hanging branch, but then the branches stretched into a green canopy overhead. Gnarled mangrove roots framed the narrow channel and the only noise came from the slosh of his paddle and the distant call of a bird.
“Are there crocodiles in here?” Libby whispered.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s a valid question. I can’t see through the water anymore. Don’t they hide in places like this?”
Jude stopped paddling and released a frustrated breath. “I already told you crocs aren’t usually found this far south. Besides, you’re missing the whole point of this.”
Tilting her head back, she stared up at him with real confusion. “What point? Are you trying to get us eaten?”
“Libs.” He knelt down and balanced the paddle across his knees. She let out a little gasp and gripped the sides of the board as it swayed with his movement.
“I want to go back.”
“In a minute.” He rubbed her shoulders, felt the hard knots of tension bunched there and worked them out with his thumbs. “Relax. Look around. What do you see?”
“What do I see? Those creepy, twisted trees you see in swamps and horror movies. Dark water, and who knows what’s swimming under us right now. I see a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing away up ahead. We’re probably both going to get eaten alive, if not by the crocodiles hiding under those trees then by the damn bugs. And I bet there a spiders here. That little one was one thing, but if we run into anything bigger, you’re on your own, pal.”
His Libby, always a pessimist. He leaned in close, putting his lips next to her ear. “You know what I see? I see life. Beautiful, mysterious, and sometimes frightening life. There are so many ugly places and people in this world, I’ve learned you have to grab hold of the places like this, the moments like this, and cherish them.”
Chapter Eighteen
Libby turned her head and found his lips less than an inch from hers. Stunned, she studied his face. His eyes were so serious and a little sad and she wondered why she’d never noticed that sorrow in him before. Maybe he was just that good at hiding under a gloss of devil-may-care attitude. Or maybe she’d never really looked. Probably more like it. At one time, the wildness in him had thrilled her and she hadn’t wanted him to be anything else but the irreverent bad boy that her father disapproved of.
“My God,” she whispered. “Who are you?”
Confusion carved grooves in his forehead. “I’m…me.”
“No you’re not. Not the Jude I knew. That Jude wouldn’t care about…” She waved a hand at the scenery, at a loss for words. “Well, any of this. What happened to you to make you change so much?”
“Oh.” His shoulders slumped, but then he met her gaze straight on and she saw a flicker of something there. Hope? Fear? Maybe an anxious combination of both. “I’m the same guy I’ve always been, Libby.”
“Then I barely knew you. That whole year, you might as well have been a stranger to me.” The realization lodged a hard lump in her throat. “It never would have worked between us.”
“Probably not,” he agreed.
“Did you know that when you proposed to me?”
“I knew you only saw part of me, the part I projected, but I was okay with that. I’m used to being that man and could have kept on being him for you. I’ve been playing the part most of my life anyway.”
“But…” She couldn’t wrap her mind around any of this. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Because that’s what was expected of me from my brothers, my classmates, my teachers, my superior officers… Jude, the wild child. The perpetual fuck-up.”
“And you never wanted to prove them wrong?”
“I tried for a while, but in school, if I made good grades, the teachers accused me of cheating. Whenever I tried
to help my brothers around home, I always managed to screw shit up. In the Marines, my superiors—your father—labeled me as a problem from day one and never gave me a shot to prove otherwise. So I stopped trying and let everybody see what they wanted to see.”
“Including me.”
“Yes. Including you.”
She turned away. Stared at the mangroves and their tumble of roots disappearing into the water, almost like they were tiptoeing through the marshlands. She supposed, if she really looked, if she blocked out her fear of the potential threats hiding here, it was kind of beautiful in the same way that Jude was beautiful. Wild, complicated, dangerous—and yet somehow alluring.
She burned to ask him why he’d ended their relationship in the way he had. If he’d wanted out, why hadn’t he just walked away? Why had he felt the need to crush her heart into dust first? And so publicly, in front of all of her friends.
Now in this secluded tunnel, miles away from her real life, would be the time to ask if there ever was one, but she couldn’t bring herself to form the words. They lodged in her throat. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she could bare to hear the answer. “Can we get out of here, please?”
“Yeah. Sure.” The board wobbled underneath her as he gained his feet with a fluid grace she envied. The paddle made a soft sound as it dipped into the water and pushed them forward. She watched the mangroves pass overhead in silence, jumping at every little splash against the mangled roots, terrified of a wayward crocodile making them into lunch despite his reassurances.
Jude didn’t seem worried. In fact, he was so calm and more relaxed than she had ever seen him. Peaceful. He paddled at an even, steady rhythm, slower than she would have liked, and took in their surroundings with a smile quirking his lips. She found herself watching him more than the scenery.
Eight years ago, she had convinced herself she loved him. If she was honest, under all of the hurt, part of her still felt that way. Except what did she really know about him? He’d all but admitted that the man she knew and once loved was a fantasy version of himself, so who was the real Jude? This one, so serene and carefree, who enjoyed the outdoors? The player who cheated on her with a well-endowed brunette two days after he proposed? Or the man who had asked her to marry him with so much emotion that it still choked her up to think about that night?
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