keep that to yourself?” he demanded. “In most circles it’s considered unmanly to like meat well-done.”
She smiled again. “You’re plenty manly.” Without thinking, she glanced up.
He was grinning, his expression amused, but as their gazes held, his smile died away.
Skye felt another surge of that breathless, uncomfortable anxiety, and a rush of goose bumps shivered across her skin.
The song ended. Gage dropped his hands. The loss of contact didn’t calm her jangling nerves and they continued to stand on the dance floor, staring at each other.
A long moment passed, and then Gage shook his head with a wry laugh. “I suppose it’s past time to regret that you know so many of my secrets.”
Skye didn’t answer either way, though she understood his concern. To her mind, it was imperative he stay ignorant of hers.
CHAPTER TWO
GAGE GOT A GOOD NIGHT’S sleep, despite or perhaps because of the jet lag brought on by seventy-nine hundred miles of travel. Upon waking to a sun-bright room, he leaned over and clicked off the bedside lamp. It was his new habit to sleep with a light on like a three-year-old, but he wasn’t going to try weaning himself for a while.
After dressing in cargo pants and a T-shirt that was probably older than his own thirty-one years, he rummaged through the groceries he’d stashed in the kitchen. Finding an apple, he polished it against his thigh and then took it with him as he stepped through the sliding glass door that led from the living room onto the deck facing the ocean.
No. 9 was the best beach house in the cove. At least he’d always thought so. They’d come here for a decade of summers, and it didn’t appear as if much—or anything—about it had changed. Dark brown shingles covered the two-story structure, and the trim around the doors and windows was still painted a bluish-green. It was situated at the southern end of the cove, cozied up to a bluff that pushed into the ocean. The trails snaking up the cliff’s rocky side told Gage that daredevils likely still used it as a jumping-off place, just as he and Griffin had when they were kids.
The ocean called to him, so he crossed the deck and jogged down the steps leading to the sand. The stuff under his bare feet was the consistency of cornmeal, and he continued through it until the grains were wet and moisture sucked at his soles. Then, with his apple held in the grip of his teeth, he bent to roll his pant legs above the ankle.
Even prepared as he was, he cursed as the first rush of water reached his naked toes. Shit! It was cold, at least initially, even during high summer in Southern California. Another small wave folded over his feet and he flinched, just like one of the out-of-state tourists who came to California with only images of Baywatch reruns or old Gidget movies in mind. Hollywood magic hid the goose bumps, so they were startled by their first experience with Pacific temperatures.
As his toes went numb, Gage continued strolling up the deserted beach, sloshing through the shallow outreach of the surf, breathing in the fresh, wet-smelling air as he munched on his Granny Smith. He had no particular purpose in mind, no intent beyond enjoying the sun on the top of his head and his shoulders, the endless sound of the waves, the precious sense of freedom. There’d been times he’d doubted whether he’d get the chance to experience them again.
Though it was early enough that he had to share the sand with no one other than seagulls and sandpipers, when he reached the midpoint of the cove, he found himself strolling toward a cottage painted a mossy-green with blush-colored trim. Like Beach House No. 9, it was larger than the others in the enclave and had a small side yard. There, he saw a figure on her knees tending a flower bed—Skye, in long pants, long sleeves and a battered, narrow-brimmed canvas fishing hat. Gage realized she’d been his destination all along.
Not as surprised as he might be, he continued forward, then started whistling in order to alert her to his presence. No point in scaring the bejesus out of her a second time. Still, he saw her stiffen as he cast a shadow over her small patch of grass.
“It’s ironic that our song is about a beach that belongs to an altogether different state,” he observed.
“We have a song?” She glanced up, shielding her face with the shelf of her hand.
In the shade created by the gesture, he couldn’t make out much about her heavily lashed eyes. But he’d noted their color last night—deepwater green, with a band of amber circling the pupil—while they’d danced. He whistled a few more bars of “White Sandy Beach of Hawai’i.”
She shrugged, and her overlarge sweatshirt slid off her shoulder to reveal a pale pink bra strap. “The cove has plenty of experience acting as a stand-in.”
“I remember.” His gaze fixed on that hint of bare flesh, though he didn’t know why the delicate slope of skin-over-bone so fascinated him. “Silent movies were filmed here.”
Her hand fell and she went back to weeding, her head bent so he could no longer see her pretty face. She had classic-beauty bones, wide-spaced eyes, a delicate nose and a soft yet serious mouth. A long tail of hair streamed down her back, the sun finding random gold and red threads in the dark mass. “If you’re interested, we now have a room dedicated to Sunrise Pictures with lots of memorabilia on display,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s connected to the art gallery beside Captain Crow’s. You can take a look anytime, but you’ll have to get the key from me or from Maureen, who manages the gallery. We keep the door locked since the trouble we had there last month.”
Gage frowned. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“We caught someone vandalizing the place.”
He dropped to her level, resting on his haunches. “Jesus, Skye. Are you all right? What happened?”
“A small group of us—Teague, and two of the women who were staying at No. 9—surprised an intruder when we decided on an impromptu tour. One of them got a bump on the head when he pushed past us.”
“Did you get a good look at whoever it was?”
“No. We called the police, but the man was dressed in dark clothes and wore a ski mask—like he’d been at a casting call for thief of the week.”
Gage took a seat on the grass, rubbing his stubbled cheek with his palm. “What do the police think? It seems just...damn disturbing that anything dangerous would happen here.”
She sent him a quick, unfathomable glance. “My sentiments exactly. The police have no idea about...about anything.”
“Huh.” He directed his gaze down the beach. No. 9 was a fifteen-minute walk from here; he could sprint it in half that. “You need something, you know where I am.”
She shrugged. “Thanks, but I’m used to handling things on my own. Keeping the cove going is all on me, now that Mom and Dad have moved permanently to Provence. And I wrote you that my sister, Starr, is living in San Francisco.”
“I remember her from when we were kids,” Gage mused. “Starr. Starr and Skye. Such unusual names.”
“Unusual spellings, too,” Skye said, shaking her head. “It was Dad’s idea to add the extra r and the unnecessary e. He thought they looked weightier
