Lady's Man

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  OK, Gram, point made—again—not all things unexpected felt bad and some surprises felt quite nice. If you’re up there still trying to prove your point, you can stop now.

  It didn’t occur to her to call for Lady and Lady didn’t come.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll watch your dog until you get back,” he called after her.

  Startled at having forgotten Lady, Annie spun around, walking backward, marveling at how Lady had taken to him so quickly. She was on her back squirming happily while he rubbed her belly.

  Like children, Dogs had very good instincts when it came to people. If Lady really liked him, he was probably A-OK. “Don’t let her out of your sight, alright?”

  He gave her a spirited captain’s wave. “She’ll be fine. Don’t forget your bathing suit.”

  “Alright!”

  “Watch where you’re going!”

  Annie whirled about and grazed her cheek on the back deck column. Yelping, she ducked around it, hurrying inside, her pride injured slightly more than her cheek.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Upstairs, in the bathroom, Annie stared in the mirror, contemplating whether to put a little rouge on her cheeks. In the end, she decided against it, realizing it would take far more than a little make-up to cover up the blossoming bruise. Anyway, it was just a boat ride, right?

  Right.

  Precisely thirty minutes later, by her watch, wearing shorts and a shirt over her suit, she hurried down to the dock to where Jamie was removing the mooring line. Lady was already settled into the boat wearing a life vest.

  He was polite enough not to mention the glowing red mark on her cheek, but his gaze lingered there.

  Annie pretended not to notice. “You already had a dog vest? I didn’t even think about that!”

  “I have gear for all walks of life,” he revealed and bent to retrieve one lying at his feet. He tossed it over to Annie. “Remember how to put one on?”

  Annie caught it. “Yeah, sure.”

  But her cheeks warmed as she wrestled with the vest, trying to find the right holes for her arms. Fortunately, if she was blushing, he probably couldn’t tell.

  He watched for a moment, and then smiling just a bit, stopped what he was doing to come to her aid.

  “It’s been awhile,” she offered sheepishly.

  “Figured.”

  He finished snapping her in and brushed a finger across her cheek, so lightly that it sent a tingle down Annie’s spine.

  The sun was beginning to go down, turning the horizon a coral pink and casting a warm dusky glow on the wetlands. It was the perfect camouflage for her bruise. “Lovely afternoon for a boat ride, huh?”

  “Sure is!” He studied the sky the way a sailor might, deliberately and thoroughly. A brown pelican touched down on the end of the pier and then took off again, apparently not quite at ease with her canine audience despite that Lady merely eyed it with interest. “Those are on the endangered species list,” he said, gesturing toward the fleeing bird.

  “No kidding?” She watched it fly over the salt marsh, scoping the wetlands for dinner. It was hard to imagine that something so threatened could appear so untroubled.

  Even the breeze in this place was lazy, warm and gentle and it seemed somehow the pace of her life had slowed to the span of a single heartbeat. She sighed, feeling an unexpected sense of easiness that she hadn’t experienced since she was a child.

  Had she really been on Folly Beach only a few hours?

  Lady sat patiently in the boat, watching her human companions with a certain canine understanding.

  Jamie picked up a set of oars that were lying on the dock. “Let’s not keep my date waiting,” he teased.

  Annie nodded and turned to join Lady.

  The tide had come in since this morning, lifting the little dory nearly to deck level and Annie stepped in with confidence only to shriek in surprise. It happened so fast. The boat flipped. She heard Jamie shout her name as she and Lady both went tumbling into the river, dispatching a furor of protesting birds from the surrounding marshland.

  Luckily, the water wasn’t deep.

  Spewing muddy water from her mouth, Annie found her footing and instinctively reached for Lady who was splashing about awkwardly. She peered up at Jamie, mortified, until she saw the look on his face.

  Morphing quickly from alarm to a look of pained restraint, he was trying desperately not to laugh.

  Standing waist-deep in the river, cradling her thrashing dog in her muddy arms, Annie couldn’t quite hold back a peal of horrified laughter.

  As though she’d given him permission, laughter exploded from his lips.

  Giggling a little in consternation, Annie waded with Lady to the side of the dock, and with Jamie’s help, lifted and pushed Lady up out of the water. Once on the dock, Lady shook herself vigorously, eyeing Annie distrustfully and waddled out of reach.

  “First time on a boat?”

  Annie smirked. “How’d you guess?”

  He busted out laughing again and Annie couldn’t blame him. Shoulders shaking with mirth, he hauled her out of the water and she considered shaking off a layer of muck as Lady had done, but yanked off her soggy T-shirt instead. “That was incredibly painful!”

  “Are you hurt?”

  Annie smirked. “Just my pride.”

  Lady stood a safe distance away, peering at her dubiously and shaking off periodically.

  Jamie’s laughter subsided, although he couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off his face … until Annie squirmed out of her wet shorts. “Whoa!” His brows shot up. “I mean … wow, you look … nice.”

  Their gazes met over the unexpected compliment.

  Judging by Lady’s matted hair, Annie couldn’t imagine looking more unkempt than she did at the moment. She had mud on her arms and legs, mud between her toes, and she was pretty sure she was as deep a crimson as the color of her bikini. But he was being serious. The twinkle remained in his eyes, but she recognized a serious compliment when she heard one. Her brows twitched in surprise. “Thanks.”

  Abruptly, he began to laugh again, apparently coming to his senses.

  “Sorry! I’m sorry. How ‘bout we leave the boating for another day and head to the beach to rinse you off?”

  Annie smirked. “Yeah … didn’t think you’d want me in the house like this. Sorry for spoiling your date with my dog.”

  “On the contrary, you made my night,” he reassured her.

  He hauled the little dory out to hose down later and together they walked to the beach with Lady ambling sullenly behind them, more at Jamie’s side than Annie’s, but Annie wasn’t particularly displeased by that fact at the moment.

  As the sun disappeared to the West, the color of the sky deepened to crimson and plum. Annie was certain she couldn’t have planned a lovelier evening for a first dip in the ocean. The breeze was balmy, the sand warm and Jamie’s presence was strangely comforting. Not that anything would happen, she reasoned, but if anything were to happen, she somehow sensed he was the right guy to have at your side.

  On the beach, the warm sand felt glorious between her toes. Annie could barely contain her joy. She called Lady to her side. Lady peered up at her grudgingly and stayed exactly where she was. “I think you’ve won over my dog,” she told him.

  He responded with a crooked smile. “One down, one to go.”

  Before Annie could even register what he’d said, he exclaimed, “Check this out.” He stopped and faced Lady, slapping his hands to his knees before turning and sprinting out to the water.

  Lady hunkered down playfully and barked and then bolted after him. Annie watched as her dog chased him into the surf and for a long moment, stood observing in amazement. She thought about joining them, but a lifetime of prudence buried her toes into the sand.

  At the management office, she’d picked up a newspaper with a headline that read, “Declaration of War Alert.” The article was about the Portuguese Man of War lurking in Charleston waters—blue bottle jellyfish w
ith stinging tentacles that “hang as long as a tree is high.” She really didn’t relish the thought of encountering one of those …

  Lady swam after Jamie completely without fear.

  As Annie watched, he spun around and waited for Lady to reach him and then enveloped her within his arms, praising her generously. Even once he held her, Lady continued to paddle instinctively, reciprocating his affection with eager attempts to lick his chin.

  You can’t always wait for the perfect time, her grandmother’s voice coached from the grave. Sometimes you have to jump, Annie.

  She had an overwhelming desire to be part of the moment.

  And she was filthy. I mean, really, did she plan to just walk the beach looking like a sand monster?

  “Just do it,” Annie whispered to herself, and for once she didn’t think about what she was doing. She took a deep breath, banished all thought from her head and sprinted in to join them.

  It was the most fun she’d had since she was a child.

  They spent about an hour frolicking in the surf. And to Annie’s relief, she didn’t spot a single Man of War, not even amid the clump of sargassum weed that wrapped itself around her ankle.

  Jamie taught her how to find sand dollars and showed her where loggerhead turtles laid their eggs. Known nests were marked, but apparently, one loggerhead mommy had braved the tourist-infested shoreline to deposit her brood along a rejected spot on the beach. The lowering sun cast a cheerless light on fresh tracks that marched straight from the sea to a mound in the sand and then back to the ocean, but the turtle itself was nowhere to be found.

  Carefully, Jamie uncovered the loggerhead nest so she could see the multitude of golf-ball sized eggs.

  “Wow, talk about sibling rivalry!” Annie remarked.

  He eyed her curiously. “Spoken like an only child.”

  Annie wondered how he could possibly know that about her, but before she could ask, he added, “It takes about thirty or so years for them to get the maternal itch, but when they do, they travel back to nest on the beach where they were hatched.”

  “Like salmon?”

  “Yeah, I guess … like salmon.”

  Lady sniffed at the nest and Jamie covered the eggs back up with sand. “Folks ’round here try to keep the beach as dark as possible at night.” He winked at her. “Mood lighting, if you will. And sometimes they have to come in and move the eggs to a new location to keep them safe from the tide. There’s so much erosion out here it really doesn’t take a natural disaster but last year hurricane Irene washed out about ten or so nests out to sea. When they get to this point, every last egg counts.”

  Annie watched him carefully pat down the sand. “The mother doesn’t take care of them?”

  He got up to grab a piece of orange tape from a nearby nest and picked up a stick, tying the tape around the tip like a warning flag, watching her while he tied it. “Nah, she lays her eggs and then heads back out to sea, leaving others to deal with them.” He planted the flag alongside the mound. “We just missed her. They don’t usually wander in until after dark. I’m sure someone’s already called, but I’ll call the turtle watch when we get home.”

  Annie stared at the nest, feeling a strange stirring of emotion.

  “Don’t look so sad!” he said. “They’ve been carrying on like this for a good hundred and seventy five million years and trust me, they get a lotta lovin’ from folks ’round here.”

  They left the nest and walked on down the beach, but Annie couldn’t quite shake the feeling of melancholy after uncovering the turtle nest. She chalked it up to the task still had at hand, but some part of her knew it was something more.

  Lady stayed close to Jamie’s side as they walked along the beach. Annie was sure she was responding to that alpha male vibe Jamie put off without even trying.

  Unlike the stretch of sand they’d just left, the west shore was teeming with children—all of them scurrying around, looking for shells, splashing in the water and yelling at their parents to come look at treasures deposited at their feet by the sea.

  “They call this spot the Washout,” he told her as they reached what appeared to be just that—a washed out road and the abrupt end of a row of houses. He stood for a moment, surveying the ocean. “Some serious surfing goes on right here.” For a moment, Annie completely lost his attention to the ocean. “Too crowded to today.”

  “You’re a surfer?”

  He nodded. “I do a little.” He caught himself and amended, “Actually, it’s the main reason I’m here, so I guess you’d say I do it as often as I can. Not sure why I thought this weekend would be any good for it though.” He peered down at Annie, seeming to study her a long moment. “Sometimes you have to go with your gut … know what I mean?”

  Annie really didn’t. Her inner voice was only good for “I told you sos.” But she nodded anyway and sat down on the sand, squinting up at him. “My grandmother was really big on living by her internal compass.”

  Lady plopped herself down at Annie’s side, scenting the salt air.

  Jamie sat down next to her. “Unlike you?”

  Annie’s brows drew together. “Why would you even say that?”

  “People don’t usually preach to the choir,” he offered. He slid his hand beneath his shirt and pulled it up to swipe at his mouth. “Were you close to her?”

  “My gram? Very. She raised me. My mother and father divorced when I was nine. Mom died when I was ten. I didn’t know my dad much at all, but he was around, I guess. My grandmother moved to Nashville to be with me, but I think she did it hoping my father would turn his attention from trying to become the next Hank Williams long enough to get to know his kid.”

  “And did he ever?

  Annie picked up a tiny shell, inspected it and then tossed it away. “Nope.”

  He nodded and asked point blank. “When did your grandmother pass on?”

  He was a little too intuitive maybe.

  Annie averted her gaze. “About six months ago.” As comfortable as she might be feeling around him, there were some things she didn’t want to share. She changed the subject. “Anyway … so why do they call this the Washout?”

  He turned again to look out to sea. “Unfortunately, that’s not a pretty story. Right here where we’re sitting there used to be a row of houses … Hurricane Hugo swept them all away, along with the road … pretty much as effortlessly as Irene did with those turtle eggs. Afterward, the landscape changed dramatically … but it makes for great surfing when the wind is good.”

  Restless, Lady got up and nosed around in the sand at Jamie’s feet.

  “So how long have you been coming here to surf?”

  “All my life. I grew up here.” For a moment, he seemed to consider her, as though contemplating what more to say. And then he stated very matter of fact, “Mine was one of those houses Hugo washed out to sea.”

  Annie’s brows shot up. “And you bought another here? Seems …” She wanted to say stupid, but she thought better of it. “Reckless.”

  Again he contemplated her, but Annie couldn’t read the thoughts behind those unsettling blue eyes. After a moment, he offered, “I have quite a few properties actually. Life is all about risks, Annie. Sometimes it requires you to jump.”

  Annie’s heart jumped at hearing her grandmother’s words come out of his mouth.

  He was still looking at her. “I guess I’m a lot like those sea turtles,” he proposed. “No matter how far I go, I always need to come home.” He chuckled. “Anyway, if I own a few houses, the odds are better of snagging one before it’s rented out.”

  Annie realized he was ribbing her but her head was swarming with questions. How old was he? Could he possibly have known her grandmother? Where was the house her grandmother had lived in? Could it have sat here, too … on the Washout? Was this where Annie should spread her grandmother’s ashes instead of from the dock? “Does the name Marion Greaves mean anything to you?”

  Jamie thought about it a moment, then shoo
k his head. “Not that I can recall.” He picked up a small bit of debris and tossed it into the surf. Lady scurried after it, sniffing at the water where it landed. She nosed it, trying to pick it up when the tide ebbed and then recoiled as it sloshed back in, smacking her in the nose.

  “My grandmother lived on Folly most of her life,” Annie revealed, her eyes stinging a bit … maybe from the salt breeze. “She always talked about coming back … but never did.”

  “Where exactly did she live? Do you know?”

  Annie shrugged and stood, feeling suddenly extremely bare and self-conscious about her skimpy swimsuit. “Not sure. Hey … it’s getting a little nippy out here. Should we go?”

  He didn’t budge. He just sat there peering up at her, his dirty blond hair ruffling in the breeze.

  Annie fidgeted uncomfortably, brushing sand from her palm onto her thigh.

  “Only if you’ll agree to join me for dinner tonight?”

  She rubbed her arms self-consciously, watching Lady. “Oh, I don’t know …”

  “Come on … you owe me. It’s the least you can do since you finagled me out of a week’s worth of rent.”

  Annie opened her mouth to protest. He was joking, of course—she could see the twinkle in his eyes—but the truth was that he had cheated himself when he’d decided to come to Folly for the Fourth. But he was letting her stay in the house for free and a meal was pretty cheap payback. “What about Lady?”

  “She can come too … this is Folly. Nobody minds … and I know just the place. Like oysters?”

  “Yeah …”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “You’ve had them before, right?”

  Annie laughed. “More often than I’ve been on boats,” she assured and lifted a brow. “So you found a way to make me a third wheel after all?”

  He stood finally, grinning down at her.

  The wind whipped her hair into her face and he reached out to brush it away, but didn’t actually touch her. “I think it’s the other way around at this point … I’d say Lady’s a bit of a third wheel. Think she’ll mind?”

  Annie felt confused by the unfamiliar sensation of intimacy. She laughed a little uncomfortably. “Why don’t you ask her … she’s practically on your rear.”