Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling

by Pamela Browning

  “Excuse me,” he said politely, taking care not to slam the door on anyone as he exited on the other side.

  By this time, Karma had climbed up onto the fountain rim, which was about two feet high. It looked to Slade as though she were planning on walking along the rim to the parking lot, since the traffic in the driveway was so congested.

  She spotted him as soon as he emerged from the limo. “I told you to go away,” she said.

  “I won’t. I can’t. I love you, Karma. I didn’t sleep with Jennifer, you have to believe me.”

  Karma, balancing carefully, began to mince along the fountain rim. She held her long skirt up with one hand. He jumped up onto the rim so he could talk to her without shouting, and at the precise moment when he could have reached out and touched her, the car keys she had been holding sailed into the pool. He saw them glittering on the bottom, too far away to fish out.

  “I dropped my keys,” she said unnecessarily.

  “I’ll get them. And then we need to talk.” He sat down on the rim and pulled his boots off. Then he swiveled around and jumped into the knee-deep water. The people watching, and there were many by this time, let out a collective gasp.

  He bent over to retrieve the keys and was stunned by a jet of water squirting into his face. The jetting water was accompanied by a clash of cymbals, and he realized that the Fountain of Dancing Waters had begun to dance. Sure enough, the bright overhead lights dimmed and softer lights in red and blue and green and a whole host of colors in between winked on below the water’s surface.

  He started to reach for the keys again, but he couldn’t see them below the frothing water. Karma, who had been watching silently, had clasped her hands in front of her chest, and her mouth had assumed the shape of the letter O. He saw Paulette and Mandi running, and they stopped in astonishment when they spotted him in the pool and Karma balanced so precariously on its rim, the colors of the lights flashing rainbowlike across her face.

  “Karma!” yelled Paulette so that Karma jerked her head around to look, losing her balance in the process. In slow motion, she toppled and fell, her gown spreading out around her like wings, her hair loosening from its clip.

  As other jets began to dance and sway all around, as the music rose into succeeding crescendos, Karma landed in Slade’s arms with a gentle “Oof!” Not one to overlook random blessings, he clasped her to his heart.

  The song blaring from the surrounding speakers was something he didn’t recognize, but it seemed to require a lot of splashing, spurting water.

  “I told you to go away,” Karma said thickly.

  He held her fast. His hair and face were wet. He didn’t care. “Never, my darling. I can explain everything.”

  “She was wearing your Diamond B Ranch shorts. Your silk underwear.”

  Out of the corners of his eyes, Slade saw Paulette and Mandi leaning over the edge of the pool. “Jennifer didn’t sleep with Slade. She’s in love with Sheldon!” Mandi hollered.

  Karma turned her head toward Mandi. Water dripped off the end of her nose. Her dress was soaked. He thought she looked wonderful.

  “What?” Karma said.

  Mandi leaned farther over the rim, and Slade hoped she wouldn’t fall in, too. He didn’t know how many wet females he could handle.

  “Sheldon! The guy her mother set her up with! And I can explain the underwear!”

  “She can explain the underwear!” Paulette echoed. “You’d better listen to this, Karma.”

  “You’d better,” Slade said, deciding that this might turn out all right after all.

  They waited for another burst of music to play itself out, and Slade had to pull Karma back behind the bank of water jets that were currently pluming and spuming. The jets were between them and Mandi, and they made it harder to hear her.

  “Karma, haven’t you ever been on a scavenger hunt?” Mandi called.

  “Sure, Scavenger hunts. You’re at a party and you get a list, and the first one who returns to the party with all the items on the list wins.”

  “Well, Sheldon took Jennifer to a party, and their list included an item of underwear from the last person you dated. In Jennifer’s case, that was Slade. So naturally she had to go to his houseboat and get a pair of underwear.”

  Karma glanced up at Slade. “Is this true?” she asked. Her mascara was running. He reached up and wiped a dribble of it away.

  “I gave her the boxers. Jennifer said she’d bring them back, but I told her to keep them, I had lots more.”

  “Jennifer and Sheldon have been together every single night,” Mandi said.

  “Oh,” Karma whispered, looking stricken.

  Slade pulled her closer. “I don’t want anyone but you for as long as I live, Karma, and as long as I love. Though I have to tell you that I get tired of rescuing you from watery places.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re my destiny, Karma. You’re my life.” With those words, it was as if she melted, all resistance draining out of her.

  She blinked at him. “I am?” Karma couldn’t believe her ears. Those were the words she had wanted to hear from him, needed to hear. They were the words that Uncle Nate had said about Aunt Sophie.

  “You are. And I’ve been thinking it over. We can get married whenever you like, go wherever you want on our honeymoon cruise.”

  She buried her face in his soggy shirtfront. “I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings about that,” she said. “I never meant to.” The pool was a cauldron of bubbles swirling around their knees.

  “I was entirely too quick to make a big deal out of it. I should have listened. I should have been more sympathetic. I hated every minute of being apart. Karma, will you come back to the houseboat with me tonight?” He smoothed her hair tenderly back from her face.

  She hiccuped. “I don’t have any dry clothes there.”

  “That’s the idea, my darling. You won’t need to wear anything at all for what I have in mind.”

  She looked up at him, her cowboy, the man of her dreams. “I like the way you think, cowboy. And I love you, Slade, with all my heart.”

  The music drew to a close with a final crash of cymbals, and he swooped Karma up into his arms. He stood there in the sudden silence, letting her drip. In the group of onlookers, someone began to clap, and soon all of them were.

  With one last effervescent flourish, the dancing waters became calm—as tranquil as Karma’s mind, as peaceful as her heart now that she had found the love of her life.

  Slade gazed down at Karma, his heart overflowing with emotion. “I don’t know what the name of that tune is, my darling, but I think from now on, it’s our song.”

  A FEW HOURS LATER, THEY LAY in bed on Toy Boat, the reflection of moonlit water shimmering across the ceiling.

  “Slade,” Karma murmured sleepily. “When did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That I was the one.” She snuggled closer, curving comfortably against his side.

  “When I got a look at those lace panties you wore to yoga class.”

  “No, be serious!” She smiled into the moonlight.

  “It might have been when you rode your bike off my dock. How could I not love somebody who loses her dress before our first date even begins?”

  “It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t a dress for that matter, it was a sari, like what I wore tonight.”

  “I like those. They peel off so easily, especially when wet.”

  “I’m not going to get a serious answer out of you, am I, Slade?”

  “Only one. And it’s that I agree to being married on the beach, since that’s what you want. As long as I don’t have to rescue you from drowning again, I mean.”

  “Oh, wonderful.” She kissed his neck, and he curved his hand around her breast.

  “Ready to go again?”

  “No,” she said. “Not until we sleep for a while.”

  “There are much nicer things to do,” he said, gathering her into his arms.

  Later, when they were about
to drowse off, Karma said, “You know when I knew you were the one?”

  “Mumphf,” he said, almost asleep.

  “It was when I saw you striding down the street wearing cowboy clothes—hat, boots, and everything. And then—”

  “Karma, go to sleep. We have to call the travel agent early in the morning and put your name on the cruise ticket.”

  “You did say that you wanted someone who was crazy about you from the very beginning. And I was.”

  He kissed her cheek. “Remind me to call the ranch in the morning. I want to make sure we can use that extra room in the pool house for your office.”

  “Paulette and I will set things up so that I only have to come to Miami Beach every few weeks. I can handle my half of Rent-a-Yenta by phone and e-mail and computer.”

  “Good, because I’ll miss you so much when you’re gone.”

  Karma slid her hand into his. “You know, Slade, I think this is the best match I ever made as a matchmaker.”

  “It’s the only match you ever made.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Good night, dearest.” He pulled her closer so that they spooned together, her back to his front.

  “And to think that I found a guy without springing for artificial nipples,” murmured Karma.

  Slade stirred, his breath fluttering warm against her neck. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing important. Good night.”

  It was the strangest thing, but as Karma drifted into sleep, she saw Aunt Sophie floating between the ceiling and the porthole beside the bed.

  “Ha!” Sophie said, which was how Karma knew that it was really her aunt. “This may be the best match you ever made, but it was the hardest match I ever made. You kept screwing things up.”

  “He was a client. I needed clients. I didn’t think it was right to want him for myself.”

  “How do you think I got your Uncle Nate?”

  “You mean—?”

  “I was supposed to find him a wife. I found him one, all right—me. And by the way, Leah Rothstein is perfect for him.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” Karma said.

  “I’ll make sure of that. In the meantime, Karma, take good care of your cowboy.”

  “Everything worked out okay in the end,” Karma murmured, her eyelids growing heavier.

  “That’s right, bubbeleh,” and Aunt Sophie smiled benignly and blew her a kiss before disappearing into a beam of moonlight.

  A Real-Thing Fling

  Pamela Browning

  “Azure,” Lee began, thinking the pretense had gone too far.

  How could she ever trust him again if he didn’t come clean about who he really was? He swore he’d never lose this woman—this smart, sexy, though a little wonky, lady.

  Azure turned on a radio in one corner of the large, mostly empty retail space. “But I wantto help. I want to do something,” she said over the loud, lively music. Then she bent and dipped her brush in the paint, and applied it to the wall with a professionalism that put Lee’s meager effort to shame.

  He liked it that Azure had a generous side, but when he glanced at his watch he realized the painters—the real ones—would be returning in a mater of minutes. There was only one thing he could do, he figured, and that was to paint as fast as possible, the sooner to get them out of there and not have his secret identity discovered.

  Plus, there was the way she was wearing those coveralls, and how they curved around Azure’s delectable derriere that made working beside her a pleasure.

  Or correction: make that behind her.

  This book is dedicated to my fellow Frog Princesses from Palm Beach High School—Lynne, Sheila, Carole, Bette Anne and Charlene. Even though I missed our Frog Festival reunion this year because I was working on this book, I was there in spirit! (Ribbit!)

  1

  Memo to Self: Get this wedding over with and fly home to Boston before freakin’ family drives me out of my skull. Mom wailing that the wedding should not be held on beach. Dad full of himself; merry Irishman kind of thing. My sister Isis couldn’t find her luggage or youngest stepson for a while (what’s new?). Sister Karma also seems to have lost something—her mind. What else could explain marrying cowboy and moving to isolated ranch on edge of Everglades? Other sister, Mary Beth, spending the year in Israel, so not here. Something to do with her rabbinical duties. Lucky Mary Beth….

  AZURE O’CONNOR TUCKED her PalmPilot into her purse and tried not to look jaded as the saffron-robed officiant who was uniting Karma and her beloved Slade in marriage began to ramble on about the glories of love. There was, Azure firmly believed, no such thing as love.

  There was infatuation. There was lust. There was—

  There was her uncle Nate, seventy-five years old or more, gazing soulfully into the eyes of the former Leah Rothstein, a woman of indeterminate age and with more than a passing acquaintance with cosmetic surgery. They had eloped a couple of months ago after his full recovery from a heart attack and were said to be blissfully happy. Azure turned her head away, unwilling to witness any more bliss than necessary on this occasion.

  “…and you may kiss the bride.” The man in the saffron robe stepped back and beamed at the bride and groom.

  Barefoot, flowers entwined in her bouncy curls, Karma turned to Slade, her eyes glowing, and Slade gathered her into his arms. Tenderly, joyfully, happily, they kissed. Tentatively at first, then with gusto.

  Azure felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into the sand of Miami Beach on her stiletto heels. She had not taken off her shoes like most of the other guests. She agreed with her outspoken mother—a beach wedding wasn’t the way to go. It involved smelly seaweed heaped everywhere, and curious uninvited gawkers, and it offended her sense of order with the chairs for guests scattered here and there, a flute player on one side, a lute player on the other, and bell ringers back on the promenade where you couldn’t even see them. Plus a wind had sprung up and was teasing her hair out of its carefully twisted chignon to blow unwelcome tendrils across her cheeks. And dammit, there must be sand in her eyes. That’s all it could be, right? She was not crying over this stupid wedding. She was not.

  Azure blinked. To her horror, a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Hoping that no one noticed this chink in her armor, she swiped at the tear angrily and repeated her mantra: There is no such thing as love, there is no such thing as love, there is no such thing….

  When her vision cleared, she noticed a guy standing amid the knot of wedding guests on the other side of the makeshift aisle, which was marked by a row of conch shells. He was staring at her intently, a bemused expression on his face.

  It was a familiar stare, that one. It held all the hope and promise of a man’s interest when he first sensed a possibility of—what? Getting laid, most likely. And she was definitely not a candidate.

  Now the happy couple, arm in arm, faced their guests in front of an ocean turned the color of amethysts in the waning afternoon light. On cue, someone released a flock of birds—doves? sea gulls?—from a wicker basket, and they swirled toward the sunset, their wings afire with iridescent pink light. Karma kissed her new husband on the cheek, and he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, too.

  Azure closed her eyes against the sight of their happiness. There’s no such thing as love, there’s—

  Her cousin Paulette stirred beside her. “That’s so romantic, isn’t it, Azure? I mean, I’ve never seen Karma look so great. She even looks smaller, don’t you think?”

  Leave it to Paulette to deliver a backhanded compliment! Anyway, Karma wasn’t big. She was tall. And beautiful, especially to Slade, which was kind of touching when you thought about it.

  Trying not to think about it, Azure turned to follow the other wedding guests down the aisle in the bridal couple’s wake. The aforenoticed man, who was a tall, sandy-haired specimen with shoulders out to here, edged those shoulders toward her. He had, Azure noticed unwillingly, an appealingly crooked grin, which was exactly w
hat you’d expect from a Lust Puppy like him.

  Adroitly maneuvering so that Paulette’s body was between them, Azure flicked a speck of sand off her tailored charcoal-gray gabardine suit, which now was beginning to seem like a questionable choice for this freewheeling wedding. The doves savoring their freedom overhead must have thought so, too, because one of them dropped a little wedding present—splat!—right onto her left lapel, where it sat quivering.

  Great, thought Azure. Karma gets married, and I get pooped on.

  Well, it could have easily been her getting married this month, if her fiancé, Charming Paco, had not absconded with a pair of boobs that just so happened to be attached to one of Azure’s best friends. She supposed that it was better to know that Charming Paco was unfaithful now rather than waiting until after the wedding. At least that’s what she’d been desperately reassuring herself for the past six months. But after a lifetime of kissing frogs in hopes that one of them would turn into a prince, she had been majorly disillusioned over the Paco defection.

  Lust Puppy was so tall that he could see her over the heads of the other guests between them. He was still trying to catch her eye, she would swear to it.

  Relentlessly broadcasting the message that she wasn’t interested in what he had to offer, Azure pressed on through the crush of wedding guests heading toward the reception at the Blue Moon Apartments a half a block or so away.

  She planned to spend as little time as possible making nice with family and friends. She could hardly wait to repair to Paulette’s tiny apartment, also at the Blue Moon, and sleep off the jet lag she had accumulated on last week’s trip back from London.

  WOULDN’T YOU KNOW THAT KARMA would choose sitar music for her reception? You couldn’t dance to it, at least not in the conventional way. You couldn’t sing along with it. Maybe sitar music was an agreeable complement to making love, but that was a moot point as far as Azure was concerned. Making love was not on her agenda for the foreseeable future. Charming Paco had soured her on men, maybe for the rest of her life.