“Sure, you might to want to leave those fancy shoes on the sand and hike up that dress for the climb.” He leads me to the steps of the lifeguard tower. “But first,” he reaches out, his hands warm and strong, hard on my wrists and pulls me into his embrace. I recognize the look. The sudden darkening of gold in those deep eyes before his clever hands run up my body and his mouth covers mine. I feel a shiver starting along my spine where he lays his hands. I’m weightless, floating above the sand, yet I feel every plane and line as his body presses against mine. It has been a long time since I’ve been held like this, and tonight I feel as though I’d ridden to the top of a crest and weakness floods me. “I’ve missed you so much, Elle.” He breathes. Oh, I still affect him.
The dark of night has intensified; stars appear brighter in the sky, the wind died, and the sound of the sea a steady heartbeat in the distance. The moon sails overhead and around us the night shimmers with the echo of magic. And that is enough.
Weathered by the elements the lifeguard tower stands in need of paint, splinters stick out of the ragged wood planking. We climb up and sit on the small deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
“I was a lifeguard at a resort in Mexico for a while.” Vic says, pulling me into the warmth of his chest. “Really, I bet the girls loved you.”
“It was the most boring job I’ve ever had, hot, lonely
and just dull.”
“Did you ever save anyone?”
“I swam out a few times with the surfboard because
some stupid idiot over-estimated his swimming ability, usually aided by the help of too much alcohol.” “Very glamorous.” I say, snuggling closer as the cool air blows in from the ocean.
“Here, you’re shivering.” He takes off his tuxedo jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. The bad girl in me thinks;; I won’t mind him shedding a few more of those clothes. God, is he gorgeous and in my
defense…… it’s been …ummm….a while.
“Warm?” He asks, leaning over to kiss my forehead.
“Mmmm, very cozy.” Our eyes lock, as silence settles around us, time enough for a warm flush to ignite my blood. I see my reaction reflected in his eyes.
“So are you ready to talk?” He kisses the back of my neck. I moan softly
“Nooo, not just yet.” I catch my breath as he nibbles a sensitive spot below my ear. “I rather you continued with what you’re doing. And I’m getting some very suggestive ideas.” I giggle.
“That’s fine with me.” He murmurs. “Maybe you should tell me some of those suggestive thoughts.” His hand wanders up and down the length of my body.
“Oh no, once we start……as you remember restraint was not our strong point.” I sigh. “I’m not sure this flimsy lifeguard station is strong enough.”
“I bet we wouldn’t be the first ones to give it a try.” His hand moves up to the swell of my breast. “It would be my happiest memory of lifeguarding.”
“Mmmmm, maybe,” I purr under the attention of his hands, his fingers caressing my nipple though the fabric of my dress. “First,” I whisper, reason overcoming desire. “I have a few questions.”
“Sure, fire away.” He breathes into my ear as his hand slips under the fabric of my dress, moving in slow lazy circles.
I swallow and close my eyes, trying to keep my head above the tide of yearning snaking through my body. “Vic, are you married, engaged, in a serious relationship?” I manage to choke out as waves of heated desire shoot through me. “I need a few answers before this goes any farther.”
“Whoa! Okay, serious stuff,” he sits back, rubbing his chin with long fingers as he contemplates his answer. “I was married, about fifteen years ago. I met Sophia DeLong on a movie set in Mexico, she was the leading lady. I had a small role in the movie. What can I say but she was Spanish, beautiful and passionate. The sparks between us ignited into an explosive relationship. But that was it, once the initial desire waned; we fought like cats and dogs. It only lasted for about five years, and that was because of Hanna.”
“Who is Hanna?”
“Sophia and I have a daughter named Hanna, who is thirteen going on thirty, much to her mother’s and my dismay. She is a great kid, but still a teenage girl with way too many adult ideas.”
“Teenage girls can be a handful.” My finger toys with the button stud on his shirt. “I’m glad you have a child. I can’t imagine life without my children.”
“Hanna is the light of my life, which she knows and uses shamelessly against me to get her way. But Sophia and I have a pact that all major decisions have to go through both of us. Usually one of us is strong enough to be the disciplinarian.” He nibbles on my ear. “How many children do you have?”
“Two, You met Lani, and my son, Trey, who is eighteen and will be starting college in two weeks.”
“Your husband?”
“Jack died almost two years ago of a heart attack.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“I miss him. But you know, maybe its destiny, we found each other. I feel like Jack had a hand in this…it would be so like him up there playing the good angel, meddling around in people’s lives.”
“Who knows, I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago.”
“So you have no serious commitment to anyone?”
“No, honestly, there is no one special in my life at the moment.” He grasps my hand squeezing it tightly. “And truth be told, Elle, I never stopped loving you.”
Good God! My mind spins with the enormity of what he just said. I squeak out, “Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, they say you never forget your first love, maybe it was the tragic way we were separated.” He shrugs;; a wry smile crosses his face. “Who knows?”
“Vic, maybe after all these years, we’ve changed, and life has gone on. Was losing our baby and being separated a trial of some kind? Maybe it’s too late.”
“I hope not, I have no intention of letting you go.” He tightens his hold on me. “You need to tell me the whole story, Elle. What happened?”
I sigh, and lean into him, gazing at the halo of the moon, conjuring up the past. “They took me to a home for wayward girls. It was run by the nastiest bunch of nuns that ever walked the face of the earth.” I burrow my head into his chest, seeking comfort from the past. “I haven’t stepped foot in a Catholic Church since I left that place. It was a walled fortress, made of brick and stone. We were made to work all day to atone for our sins and locked away in our single rooms at night. I would wake up with nightmares, crying for you to come, but they ignored my tears saying I should pray and find solace in the Lord.”
“Jesus, I didn’t think places like that existed, even thirty years ago.”
“Oh, Helen did her homework; she found a home for unwed mothers that served as a prison in disguise.”
His voice catches, “I’m so sorry, Elle.”
I continue on, wanting to purge the pain, and put the past behind us. After the baby was born, they signed the adoption papers because I was under age. I never even held our son.”
Vic shakes his head in disbelief. “Damn it...”
“After they took me home, I waited for you. And one day the phone rang, it was your aunt telling me you died in a motorcycle accident.”
“My aunt? None of my aunts speak English,” he shakes his head in disbelief. “That son of a bitch, he must have put Mariposa up to it, his mistress. She would do anything for him. Of course, he paid her well.” Vic curses, “That deceitful old bastard, the lengths he’d go to get his way.”
“Well, it worked. I got off the phone, went upstairs to my bedroom, wouldn’t eat, drink or speak to anybody. I died inside.”
“Oh, Elle,” Vic murmurs, his body rocks me slowly back and forth, aching to dissipate the pain.
“After about two weeks, my father and Helen tried to place me in a mental institution because I was so depressed.” I peek up at his face and smile. “Actually, this is my favorite part of the awful story. Just
picture this, Gran and Burt storm the house with Gran banishing her cane. She holds my father and Helen at bay, calling them every curse word in the English language while Burt abducts me from my bedroom. He carried me down the stairs and out the door, while Gran threatened if anyone tried to stop them, there would be hell to pay.”
Vic chuckles “I can just see the two of them. Burt isn’t very big, but he is strong and wiry.”
“Burt passed away about two years ago.”
“Oh, no! God, I would love to see him again.”
“He had a massive heart attack. He was finishing up a nature program with a school group. It was a beautiful day; he had his dog by his side and one of his best friends with him. It was how he would have wanted to go.” “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I miss him terribly; Gran passed away six years ago and then Jack. Those are gaps in my heart that will never be filled.”
Vic nods sympathetically.
“Anyway, Burt carried me to the upstairs bedroom of Gran’s house. They opened the windows to fresh air and sunshine, filled the room with wildflowers, read my favorite books, cooked foods to entice my appetite and repeated over and over how much they loved me. They wouldn’t let me go, basically, forcing me back to life.”
“Thank God,” he says with a grateful half smile on his face.
“I was helpless to fight off the power of their love. They showed me life was worth living. Burt even brought a collie puppy home, knowing I needed something to love. Eventually, I went away to college, got a teaching degree, married Jack and had two children. I owe them my life.”
“They were special people.”
“Gran was opinionated, and cursed like a truck driver,” I remember fondly. “And Burt was a creature of the forest; but their hearts were filled with pure goodness.”
“And so here we are,” Vic muses, “By the grace of God and the love of a few special people.”
Overcome by the emotional turbulence of the evening, we doze in each other arms, content, wrapped in the presence of love reclaimed, until I’m rudely awakened.....
Chapter 29 Give Me Back My Manolo’s “Well, well, well . Looky, what we have here, Joe.” A sneering voice followed by a blinding beam of light comes from below the lifeguard station. Vic mumbles an oath as he sits up shielding his eyes from the light.
“Looks like a pair of lovers got lost on the beach. That’s what it looks like to me,” answers a man hidden in the dark. The figures of two men come into view as the one holding the flashlight explores the lifeguard tower.
“I think they need help finding their way home. Don’t you?”
“Dressed real fancy.”
“Pretty lady, look at those boobs sticking out of her
dress.” Vic growls a warning. “Gentlemen, I think we’re capable of finding our way home without your assistance.” He moves putting himself between me and the men on the beach. “I suggest you move along.”
“Not until we help ourselves to your wallet and the lady’s purse.” A slightly built man who appears to be Asian chortles in the pale moonlight. He pulls a knife out of his pocket, a press of a button and out flashes a switchblade. The knife gleams in the meager moonlight.
I stifle a scream clutchi ng Vic’s jacket. I feel his body tense under my grasp. He eases himself over to the edge of the tower, poised to launch in my defense.
“Elle, let go of me,” he hisses.
I tighten my grip. “They look dangerous.” “Listen to the smart lady, buddy , and no one will get hurt.” The man with the knife warns. “Toss down your wallet and the purse.”
“Gentlemen, there is a small fortune lying at your feet.” Stalling for time, Vic points to my shoes tossed in the sand. “Those fancy shoes are probably worth $500 bucks.”
“Absolutely not!” I protest. “Those are not my shoes ; they have to be returned to the costume department tomorrow. Lani could lose her job!”
“Elle, quiet! I’ll get you new shoes.” “But they have to be the same ones ,” I hiss in an admonitory voice.
“Shhhh,” he cautions me. “No shoes are worth getting killed over.” Spoken like a man I fume, sometimes they don’t appreciate the finer things in life…like pretty shoes. I watch in regret as the stocky man bends over picking up the stilettos.
“Why aren’t these pretty little bling-bling slippers.” He holds a shoe up, glittering in the moonlight. Just as I feel Vic tense to hurl himself at the one holding the switchblade from behind the lifeguard tower comes a voice edged in steel, “I would leave those pretty little shoes just where you found them, my friends.”
“What the hell?” says the smaller man, and swings his flashlight in the direction of the voice. Standing there in all of his six foot three, muscle bound, flaming russet hair, Celtic warrior glory was…..Ike, holding a hand gun pointed at the two vandals. I choke back a sob of relief. As strong as Vic may appear, there were two of them and only one of us; because you can count on me to be worthless. Hand to hand combat, not high on my list of talents, I’ve been reduced to tears by a broken nail.
“These good folks are friends of mine.” Ike gestures down the beach with the gun. “I think the two of you had better high tail it out of here. I would hate to hurt anyone, dark beach, no witnesses. Who’s to know? Two drifters left for dead.”
He holds the gun up slightly higher and tenses as if to take aim. “It would be such a shame, probably not worth an investigation, especially with your past criminal records. I presume you boys have a rap sheet a mile long. Am I right?”
“Okay, okay, we’re going, ease up on the gun, mister.”
“Not until the two of you scum bags are out of my sight. Now run before I change my mind and start shooting.”
With the threat echoing in their ears, the two men start running down the beach, one trips falling down in the sand. Ike shines a flashlight on their retreating backs. “Good riddance, you trash.”
While his eyes are trained on the beach to pick up any suspicious movement, Ike calls out to Vic, “Hey buddy, I suggest you and the little lady get off this beach before we have any more friendly visits. Why don’t you head up to the boardwalk, there is a restaurant where you can wait while I go back and get the car.”
“Thank God, you were following us, Ike.” Vic jumps down from the lifeguard tower and lifts me onto the sand. “I owe you one, man. It has been a long time since I’ve done any street fighting.”
Ike chuckles, “The day I start cashing in your debt, I can retire on a private island with a harem of woman.”
“In your dreams, Vic retorts.
“Yeah, probably more like a nightmare, all them women squabbling over me, give a guy a headache.” He sheathes the gun in a holster strapped to his back. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Vic nods. “Elle, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, my knees still shaking. “But a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, food, lights, people…safety, would be very welcome right about now.” I reach down to pick up my Manolo Bandiks from the sand. “My Manolos,” I wail in disbelief, holding up one silver shoe twinkling in the moonlight. “He took my shoe. That rotten bum stole my shoe! What in the world is he going to do with one shoe? That’s just spiteful!”
“Sorry, sweetheart, we’ll get you a new pair.” Vic says, tugging at my hand trying to move me down the beach. “But we need to get out of here, before they decide to come back for the other one.”
Ike scrutinizes the lonely strip of beach. “I’ll walk along with you to the boardwalk;; it’s about a half mile back. Just to make sure there are no more surprise visitors then I’ll double back and get the car.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Vic claps Ike on the shoulder. Under the light of the moon a silent language of friendship passes between them, a kinship closer than most brothers.
…
Overlooking the Pacific Ocean is The Blue Mer, an upscale restaurant, specializing in sea air and overpriced cuisine. Being late,
the usual sunset crowd has thinned, leaving Vic and I the privacy of a dimly lit corner booth. The waiter barely raises his eyebrows at our request for a pepperoni pizza and beer. Not the usual fare in this swanky bistro, but reminds us of summer nights in the Adirondacks, where Mac bribed the local pizzeria into delivering pizza and beer to camp. The food arrives, tasting wonderful, warm and rich with a hint of heat from the spicy pepperoni. The cold beer and pizza satisfy one craving, but another craving is not satisfied with food….
Desire tingles though my body, all the tension of the day seeking a channel, straining against him, wanting more. A hunger held in check, the longing, the lust……the electricity, if visible, would be an intense red haze around and between us, mounting into sweet, sweet desire.
“Elle, we need to leave. We’re starting to attract attention, and the paparazzi are soon to follow.” Vic says as his teeth catch the tender lobe of my ear.
“Yes, yes, yes.” I breathe into his cheek, his voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart and the roar of lust coursing through my body.
Ike discreetly pulls the limousine up to the restaurant entrance and we fall into the privacy of the backseat. Not losing a beat, the petting and fondling becomes erotic. In a daze, I can’t help thinking if the girls back home could see me. Oh my goodness, I’ve still got it! Yes! I’m making out with one of the hottest men in Hollywood, my long lost boyfriend……and after almost two years, I’m finally going to get Lucky!
“I think we should wait.” Vic’s lips find mine for a deep tongue probing kiss.
Wait….what! I almost bite off his tongue.
“What did you just say?!” My ears must be playing tricks. Did he just say…wait? Wait for what! My body is on fire, every nerve in my being screaming for his touch and he says: Wait. You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve waited thirty years for him.
Vic heaves a sigh, pushing away from me. “I don’t know how to say this, but I think it’s best if we wait….before we make love.”
“Why?” I croak like a lovesick frog.
“Trust me, I want to make love to you more than anything in the world, but I don’t know if it’s safe.” His hand brushes the hair back from my face as he peers into my eyes.
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