Coming Undone

by Stephanie Tyler

  “So did I,” she said, the familiar tension creeping into her shoulder blades.

  “And I’m planning on holding you to it. But I think it’ll be easier once we figure out how to get you back into the water.”

  “I don’t know how easy it’s going to be,” said Carly.

  Hunt continued his massage of her neck, brought his cheek in to nuzzle against hers. It reminded her of their first night together, when he’d urged her to just let it go. That’s how she felt all the time…around him. And before she could stop herself, she was admitting, “It’s just that I haven’t talked about this with anyone.”

  “I’m here. And I’m willing to listen.”

  Carly stared up at him for a few seconds, into those dark green eyes with the gold flecks, and realized how used to him she’d become. Used to seeing him on her beach and in her bed, used to fitting in his arms the way she was at this moment. And when he wasn’t there in the flesh, he was in her dreams. “You’ve already done an awful lot for me, and I haven’t exactly lived up to my end of the bargain.”

  “You did tell me your fantasy,” he reminded her. “Loud and often over the last week.”

  Her cheeks warmed, nipples hardened against his chest and he noticed her response. He seemed to notice everything about her.

  “Well, that’s been my pleasure.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “So is that why you’re doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Worrying about my surfing.”

  “If you’re living with that much fear and you can’t push through it, you’re not really living. Not on your terms, anyway, and I don’t want to see that happen to you,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter. My career’s over.”

  “It does matter. It matters to me. You matter to me,” said Hunt.

  Carly really, really wanted to ask him to repeat that last part.

  “So tell me.”

  Maybe it was because she’d had some wine or because he held her so close, but she told him the story, right there in the middle of the dance floor.

  That day had been perfect. Carly was confident, perhaps overly so, since she’d been surfing Oahu for three years running, practicing as often as possible on the Pipeline.

  Getting older had no real benefits in surfing. You gained a healthy respect for the ocean, but you also had a nice dose of fear instilled in you. But on that day, there was no fear to be found.

  Carly had paddled out, away from the crowds, three deep, that formed along the shoreline. The water had been surprisingly cold, but she’d ignored the warning signs.

  I’m going to rock this one, she remembered thinking. Others before her lost a few golden opportunities, she noticed, but missed the wave runner that had been dispatched to gather up one of the women she’d surfed with in a prior tournament. Paid no attention to the ambulance sirens because nothing would touch her.

  That’s the way it had to be.

  Carly’s first ride had been amazing. She felt as if a glow surrounded her on the slow-motion flow in. She was pumped, her coach gave her the thumbs-up from across the beach and she waxed her stick and dried off, waited for her next heat.

  Time to show the young ones that experience does mean something out here.

  But on the second ride, things changed. It started out seamlessly when she mounted the board, prepared to ride her wave to victory. She was at the critical section, the wind causing a slight cross-chop, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She knew nothing but the thrill and she never saw the haymaker coming.

  That rogue wave came out of nowhere—cleaned her and the other surfer in her heat right up. And the tides collided, slammed her down, and she tumbled, her leg flailing helplessly, because the damage to her knee and thigh happened almost immediately. The riptide swirled, pulling her farther under. She hit the coral reef headfirst, blacked out, and was later told how her broken back must’ve occurred as the tide kept her defenseless body down, under the water, and pounded her mercilessly against the reef.

  The next hours were a dizzying blur. Carly’d later learn she had a concussion from where she’d taken a hit by her own board. And she’d needed stitches along her elbow where she’d sliced it on some coral when she’d been thrown to the bottom.

  Carly hated the fact that she’d been dragged out helpless before the crowds and the cameras. Thankfully, the published pictures had been tasteful, her image blurred by the paramedics surrounding her. A scary sight indeed, when she had such few memories of those moments.

  What she did remember was the pain. Strapped to the board, she remembered trying to free herself to stand and not being able to feel much below her waist. Remembered being so alone.

  One of the best parts about being wild and free was not being tied down to anyone and anything. But since then, Carly had started to realize that being tied down wasn’t such a bad thing, even as her body flushed hot at the thought of last night’s escapades. Strings didn’t always mean restrictions. She was learning that on many levels.

  “I almost drowned,” she said, because he wasn’t saying anything, just watching her carefully. Mainly, she didn’t want to be pitied. “I’ve been swimming since I could walk, because I ended up throwing myself into the pool so often that my parents were forced to give me swim lessons, or keep chasing me, fully clothed, into the pool. So that was the day I almost drowned.”

  “You never did have control over the ocean. Might’ve felt like it, but I bet you always knew it was tricky out there.”

  “I don’t like feeling out of control. Not strong.”

  “But you are strong. Maybe one of the strongest people that I know,” he said.

  She shook her head no, but he stopped her by cupping her jaw in his palm. She was forced to look into his eyes when he spoke again. “You’re strong, Carly Winters. Don’t you dare let the fact that you’ve got a little fear inside of you make you think you’re not. There are many definitions of strong.”

  “It’s more than a little fear,” she whispered.

  “And you’re so much more than the sum of your fears. You’re a survivor, and before you were a survivor, you went out and made your dreams come true. I don’t know a lot of people who can say that.”

  “That still doesn’t get me back to where I was.”

  “But you’re not going back there,” he said kindly, but with conviction. “Not in the same way. And that’s okay.”

  “I know it’s not going to be the same. But I just want back in.”

  “And I think I have something that can help.”

  “A miracle?” she muttered.

  “You can have this,” he said, handing her what looked like an ordinary woven bracelet, slightly worn and weathered with age.

  “What’s this?”

  “Some juju,” he said.

  “I don’t need voodoo. Come on.”

  “It’s not voodoo, and you’re getting mad again.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, can we have make-up sex now?” he half-joked, tucking the magic juju bracelet into his pocket.

  “Do you take juju with you when you go out on a trip for work?”

  “They’re called missions, not trips. And I take anything and everything that could possibly help, including common sense. Sometimes tricking yourself isn’t a bad thing.”

  “I don’t want to depend on anyone. Or anything. Same as you. And I don’t see you telling me about one of your personal failures,” she said.

  Carly saw some kind of emotion flash in his green eyes, something she couldn’t quite place before it was gone. “I didn’t think so,” she said when he stayed silent. She’d hit him right between the eyes on that one. Even so, she was the one whose upper-arm muscles had tensed as if preparing for a tough swim. “Have you ever been hurt, Hunt? Really hurt?”

  “Amazingly, no. But I have been shot.”

  “Most people would consider that really hurt. I consider that really hurt.”

  “I recovered. No da
mage. I can still do my job, so I don’t consider it the same thing.”

  She gave him a quick smile. “I see what you mean.”

  “Would you go back to it? If you could?”

  Carly didn’t answer. Couldn’t really. More than a job, surfing had been a love, a Zen-like experience. Okay, she couldn’t have her old career, but she needed to be out on the water, yearned to feel the waves rushing around her. She needed to regain her balance.

  It’s all about balance, Carly. Balance and control, her old coach’s mantra echoed in her ears.

  But she didn’t always mind not being in control. And spending time with Hunt had brought that home again in a way that blew her mind.

  20

  “AND THE HEADPIECES FOR the bridesmaids are absolutely fabulous,” Nicole was telling someone as Carly and Hunt made their way to the deck.

  “Why am I suddenly having visions of you in a tiara?” Hunt asked.“You’re not far off, from the rumors I’ve heard,” Carly replied. “I’m completely horrified by it, but the pageant thing runs heavily through my sister’s world, and crowns are an important aspect of it.”

  “Are there any beauty pageants in your past you want to share?”

  She laughed. “Absolutely not. However, it wasn’t for my mother’s lack of trying. Somehow, all the dresses she tried to put me in kept mysteriously disappearing or got ripped up.”

  “Why, Ms. Winters, are you telling me that you weren’t always the proper lady I see before me?” he teased, because it was good to see her smiling. After she’d told him about her accident, a weight seemed to have lifted from her. He believed that was a big help on the road to her healing.

  “Hard to imagine, I know,” she said. “But I was much more interested in playing with the boys, and not in the way your dirty mind is imagining, than walking a runway. Nicole, however, loved it. She was born to wave to the fans, and after that, my mom pretty much left me alone. In a good way.”

  “Yeah, younger siblings can do that.”

  “Did Ty get all the attention in your family?”

  “I guess you could say that,” he agreed, and turned in the direction of the sudden screams. He was the first one to make it through the crowd to the railing overlooking the beach. The first to catch sight of the swimmers waving their arms madly.

  To a casual observer, the girls were having a grand old time. Hunt knew better.

  No lifeguards were patrolling this stretch of beach, and the two girls on their boogie boards obviously didn’t understand the danger of attempting to swim out of the riptide. Instead of taking a sideways route, they continued to swim against it, trying desperately to reach the shore and panicking as they got tired.

  Carly was by Hunt’s side in a second and he knew, just knew, at any other time she would’ve been with him in a race to the water. Dress or no dress.

  “They’re in big trouble,” she said, and saw his arm grip the railing. “You’re going in?”

  “Yes. But I don’t need help out there. Just call 911,” he said as he jumped over the railing, caught the stairs two at a time even as he peeled off his tux right down to his boxer briefs.

  Good thing you decided to wear underwear today.

  Would’ve been a hell of a show for the Winters, though.

  He zipped into the water, took neat, easy strokes when he got past the surf and stayed at least ten feet to the side of the rip. The water was cold, but he was back in the familiar. He approached the girls also from the side, instructed them to get on their damned boards and stay on them. He planned on pulling them out of the riptide and to shore. Of course, they ignored everything he said and tried to grab him when he was close enough. Natural instincts. He had to yell at them to stop, and finally they did what he’d asked.

  He swam them sideways until he felt the pull of the rip ebb, and then he tugged them quickly to safety. The girls were fine, only shaken. No more than fifteen, they looked at him with that combination of awe and innocence he’d seen so many times before. And that’s when he became acutely aware that the entire party had watched him from the restaurant’s deck. In his damned boxer briefs. His strip show had obviously caught the attention of the party-goers and they’d gravitated toward the action. In fact, David was clapping and raising his glass in a toast.

  He’d get the old bastard back somehow. Payback among brothers was a bitch.

  “Great job out there,” one of the EMTs said as he handed Hunt a towel. “We’ve had about ten calls like this today. Maybe you should ride with us.”

  “I’m busy, but thanks for the offer,” he said.

  The other medic checked on the girls, and Hunt wrapped the towel around his waist and took a deep breath.

  Carly had kicked off her shoes, but stopped short of the sand. He walked over to her instead of forcing her hand, because hell, he’d caused enough trouble today. She’d told him the story, and he didn’t want to push her too far, too fast. Revealing what she had was more than he’d expected, and the fact that she’d trusted him with that secret meant something. They were getting closer. And he wasn’t sure if this stand-in thing was morphing into something neither of them had expected, but suddenly, that didn’t seem like such a problem.

  “They’re calling you a hero, you know,” she said.

  “Nothing a lifeguard couldn’t have handled.” Or you, in better times, he thought, and knew that’s why she suddenly looked so sad. He hated seeing that in her eyes, and he took her against him in a tender hug.

  She was holding his tux, which started vibrating between them. He swore softly under his breath, pulled the palm pilot from his pocket and gave it a quick look. Ah, right. The day’s not over yet. “I’ve got to go,” he told her.

  “I thought you were on vacation?”

  “It’s called leave. And I told you, it was partial leave. It means I’m still on call.”

  “I understand,” she immediately said, and although he appreciated her saying that, he knew he hadn’t confided enough for her to understand. Not really.

  Not like you shared anything about yourself.

  She hadn’t pushed that issue, and he’d focused on her and her needs, the same way she’d focused on her own needs.

  Not fair—you didn’t give her a chance to help you with anything.

  He hated it when Ty was right, hated it more that what he felt for Carly in this short time was more than he’d ever felt for anyone. Period. Maybe the experience with his men last month had left him craving more, or maybe, maybe Carly was the right woman?

  “I’m glad you were here. Really,” she said. “And you’ve blended in great today,” she continued.

  “What? You didn’t think I could handle Evan and a couple of hundred rich people?” He smirked, ran his hand through his wet hair and surveyed the crowd on the upper deck that had formed within seconds of the rescue. “They have sex in the bathroom just like the rest of us.”

  “No. Who?”

  “Yes. And I’m not sharing that information, so keep your voice down. Your parents already think I’m a bad influence on you.”

  “You are. More than you know.”

  “Then I’m doing my job right.”

  “Speaking of jobs,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you another favor.”

  “Does it involve another fantasy? Because I’m sure that I could sneak you into a private place.”

  She laughed. “It’s about the charity event.”

  “You want me to come?”

  “Could you?” she asked. “I mean, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to surf, but it would be easier if you were there.”

  He smiled because at least something good was going to come out of this mess of a relationship, or whatever it was. “I guess you could twist my arm,” he said.

  And then, when she spoke again, everything came sharply into focus. “It’s my mother, she thinks you’re coming, and I guess it would look weird if my boyfriend didn’t show for the event. And I don’t want to give her or my father any mo
re reason to compare you to Evan.”

  Right. For show, Hunt. Don’t get too attached.

  No, he’d learned that lesson well. In so many ways, he and Ty were alike, except that Ty was more honest about it. But both of them hit the open road with a ferocity that couldn’t be underestimated, and both refused to look back except to reach an occasional hand out to the other.

  You never had a reason to stick around. Still don’t.

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t want that,” he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  “Will you be gone long? I mean, do you think you’ll be back in two days?” she asked.

  He wanted to tell her that in all probability it was merely a training exercise to see how fast the team could get to base and be ready for deployment in a situation where they were scattered, but he couldn’t. For all he knew, it was a call about a mission and he wasn’t allowed to share that intel either way. All he could do was make contact for a ride and give his usual, vague answer. “I’ll be in touch when I can.” He punched in a few numbers on the beeper, waited a second and got the response he was looking for.

  Carly offered to drive him back to her place for his bike.

  “It’s okay. I’ll catch a ride.”

  “You don’t need to take a cab. Trust me, I can easily walk away from this party.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what else she could walk away from, but he didn’t. “I’m not taking a cab,” he said, then motioned to the Coast Guard cutter coming full speed ahead to the dock not far from the deck.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Good to have friends with fast boards.”

  “Comes in handy.” The cutter maneuvered along the side of the dock. One of the coasties waved to Hunt, and pointed at his towel, calling the other guys on deck to check it out.

  Yeah, they’d be talking about this one forever. But at least they’d arrived in the nick of time, since he spotted the news truck parking near the beach.

  He took advantage of the moment, figuring it was already too dramatic, movie-of-the-week worthy to not grab Carly for a long, smoldering kiss. When he broke away, she looked slightly stunned, put her hand to her lips.