Stranded on the Beach Read online

  With a sigh, she stood up and turned to walk away.

  She was supposed to be on vacation. To get rest. To feel better. Mooning over the boy who hadn’t wanted her enough to stay wasn’t the way to do that.

  A gust of wind picked up just then and whipped her hair back. She had it tied loosely with a scarf, but the scarf got caught in the breeze and blew right out of her hair.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, when she made a grab for it and missed. It kept blowing over toward the silent man, still fishing.

  He turned around just in time to snatch the scarf as it blew toward him.

  She was about to give him an automatic thank-you, but the words died on her lips.

  This man didn’t just remind her of Phil Matheson from the back.

  This man was Phil Matheson.

  With his amber brown eyes and his high cheekbones and the little cleft in his chin.

  Phil.

  Standing right there in front of her.

  Her mouth dropped open as she froze. She had no idea how this was happening. Phil had walked out on her—on his family, on everyone—when he was just nineteen. His father and her father had gotten into a huge fight that had led to a bitter feud that couldn’t be resolved. Their entire community had been pulled into the conflict, everyone taking sides, and the friendships the girls had always had with the Matheson boys had been irrevocably torn apart.

  It had been worse for Rebecca and Phil. They’d been a lot more than friends.

  Rebecca had thought they were in love. Whatever Phil had felt for her, however, hadn’t been strong enough to withstand their families’ conflict. They’d broken up, and he’d moved out of town for good. When their fathers died two years later—both men died in the same tragic accident—Phil had come back for two days for the funeral. He hadn’t even spoken to her, and she hadn’t seen him since.

  When the truth about the feud finally came out a few years ago, Rebecca had been heartbroken to discover that her father had been mostly to blame. He’d made some bad mistakes. He’d hurt a lot of people—including Phil’s family.

  So Rebecca couldn’t blame Phil for resenting her father. But she hadn’t been to blame. She hadn’t even known what her father had done. And Phil had still walked out on her and everyone else in his life, offering her nothing but an impossible choice if she’d wanted them to stay together.

  She hadn’t deserved that.

  A long time ago, she’d figured out the truth. The only answer that made sense of his leaving. Phil hadn’t loved her the way she’d loved him. And he hadn’t been the man she’d believed him to be if he could leave everyone important to him behind and never look back.

  She’d had no idea where he’d been all these years, but evidently he had been here.

  On the Eastern Shore. On a fishing pier just before sunset.

  He was holding her scarf in his hands and staring at her in a daze.

  He was just as shocked to see her as she was to see him.

  All her old feelings for him had risen up in a rush, making her chest hurt, making her breathing ragged. She put a hand over her heart and tried to make her voice work.

  Phil managed before she did. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  She just stared at him. Confused by his tone. Confused by everything.

  “I asked you what you’re doing here.” He sounded angry.

  Angry.

  At her.

  Everyone who knew Rebecca would testify that she was a nice person by nature. People called her sweet. Gentle. A girl in high school who’d been jealous of Rebecca’s dating Phil had always called her spineless.

  But she wasn’t spineless, and his resentful tone hit her hard, rousing a long-sleeping wave of indignation.

  “What am I doing here? What do you think? I’m on vacation, and this is a public pier. I’m not trespassing on your private property.”

  His eyes were searching her face with a strange urgency, but he held on to his scowl. “But why here?”

  “Why—” She cut off the words as she realized what he was implying. What he thought. She clenched her hands at her sides. “I didn’t come here on purpose to stalk you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had no idea where you were. You dropped off the planet as far as everyone back home is concerned. And if I’d known you were here, I would have stayed as far away as possible.”

  His eyes narrowed. The sun was very low now, casting streams of orange light onto the water, onto the pier, onto Phil’s tanned skin and golden hair. For a moment he was so stunningly handsome she couldn’t take a full breath. “Then how did you end up here?” he asked, that same implied accusation in his tone.

  If she’d been a violent person, she might have slapped him or scratched his eyes out. She’d never been violent. She’d never even been loud. But she’d also rarely been as angry as she was now.

  She’d never done anything bad to Phil. Anything. She’d only ever loved him. Her father had hurt his family, and she could understand lingering bitterness. But he shouldn’t blame her for what her father had done.

  He shouldn’t, but evidently he did.

  “I told you. I’m on vacation. You’re the last person in the world I ever expected to see here. I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s a good thing I didn’t come here wanting to find you,” she said, her voice so cool it was almost unrecognizable. “Because if I had, I’d have had to admit defeat. There’s obviously nothing of who you used to be left in who you are now.”

  She was almost shocked at herself for the lucid and cutting retort, and she punctuated it by turning her back to him and walking away.

  She moved quickly, but he wasn’t trying to follow her.

  He’d actually believed she’d come here on purpose to hook up with him again.

  The idea mortified and infuriated her, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.

  He’d always been kind and good-natured—at least she’d always thought he was. They’d started dating when she was sixteen and he was seventeen. She’d known him all her life, but she’d always only thought of him as the son of her father’s friend until that year in high school. He’d started to talk to her at lunch period and after school. He’d had this sweet, funny way of approaching her, as if he thought she was special but didn’t want to make a big deal about it. He’d made her laugh. He’d really seemed to listen when she talked. He’d loved all the food she cooked for him. They’d dated until the summer after she’d graduated high school. She’d been dreaming of his proposing after a year or two of college, but then everything fell apart.

  He obviously wasn’t the same person anymore.

  Neither was she.

  She might still be quiet, but she wasn’t a pushover. And she wasn’t going to let him make her feel bad about herself.

  She returned to her beach house, and the first thing she did was call up her sister on the stupid flip phone she’d been given for emergencies.

  This definitely counted as an emergency.

  Laura picked up with a friendly greeting.

  Rebecca was almost growling as she said, “Damn it, Laura. You did this on purpose.”

  Two

  PHIL MATHESON FILLED up a travel mug with coffee the next morning and was walking out the door when he paused next to his old pine dresser.

  He picked up a soft blue scarf and fingered it idly.

  There was no reason for him to have held on to it. It obviously wasn’t expensive, and Rebecca wasn’t likely to ever ask for it back. But after he’d caught it blowing in the wind on the pier yesterday, he’d brought it with him and laid it down on his dresser.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  And why did she have to still be so gorgeous, so full of a hidden fire he’d always sensed beneath her mild surface.

  He’d known that fire was there back in high school, even though the rest of the town had assumed she was nothing but sweet and quiet. He’d felt something warm, life-giving, compelling in her, and he’d inte
ntionally pursued it.

  Seven years had passed now. More than enough time for him to forget her, move on, find something else to fill his heart and mind.

  But the moment he’d seen her again, standing on the pier in her shorts and windblown hair, he’d seen, known, experienced all that old fire again.

  And he’d wanted it as much as he had before.

  It was honestly a little annoying.

  He’d created a new life for himself. It was his. The bay, the quiet beach, the quaint towns, the slow rhythm of days here on the Eastern Shore.

  They were his.

  If he’d wanted to be reminded of his previous life and get slammed with all these old feelings, he could have gone back home. His past and all he’d left behind weren’t supposed to materialize in front of him one evening in the form of one small pretty blonde.

  He dropped the scarf back on the dresser and walked outside. He’d lived in this run-down studio apartment since he’d moved to town seven years ago. It was the second floor of a small building on the outskirts of town. Beneath him was a storage unit the owner used for boating and beach equipment, and out the west-facing windows he could see the Chesapeake Bay.

  He rode his bike into town and ended up at the seafood restaurant and fishing shop he co-owned with a friend. He’d stumbled into the business five years ago the way he stumbled through life now. The opportunity had fallen into his lap. His friend Larry was responsible for the restaurant and all the financial aspects of the business. All Phil had to bring was his expertise in fishing and some basic skills in sales.

  Mostly he just hung around, talking to tourists and locals about fishing and occasionally giving private lessons.

  He wasn’t ever going to get rich doing this, but he didn’t want to get rich.

  He just wanted to live his life without hurting again, trying too much, feeling too deeply.

  He’d managed.

  For a lot of years, he’d managed.

  And he would keep managing as long as Rebecca didn’t show up in his world again.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  It wasn’t even seven in the morning yet when he opened the shop and got out his fishing gear. In the mornings, he had to staff the store so he couldn’t go all the way out on the pier. He greeted a couple of retired guys who came every morning to fish, and then he took a position on the pier close enough to get back to the shop if a customer happened to stop in.

  The few expensive fishing rods he kept were all locked behind glass, and the chance of being robbed for some tackle or bait was negligible.

  As he cast his line, he wondered if Rebecca would appear again this evening.

  She’d said she was renting a house nearby.

  It was too big a coincidence to believe, but she’d clearly been as shocked as he had yesterday. She hadn’t known he was living here.

  Someone else must be responsible for her presence here.

  THE MORNING WAS ALREADY hot and humid—too muggy for this early in the summer—and Phil was sweating a half hour later when he went back to the shop to fill up his travel mug with more coffee.

  He stopped for a few minutes to chat with old Carl Henner, who’d moved to town when he retired and hung out at local businesses most of the day.

  He was returning to the pier with his coffee when he jerked to a stop.

  Rebecca. Standing no more than ten feet away from him. Her back was to him as she snapped a few photos of the bay with her phone. She wore another pair of shorts that made the most of her firm, round ass and tanned legs. Her hair was in a ponytail, tied with an elastic thing today rather than a scarf.

  Every muscle in his body tightened at the sight of her. His heart started to hammer in his chest.

  She lowered her phone and turned around, jerking to a stop exactly as he had earlier when her eyes landed on him.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, and Phil tried to fight a pull in the vicinity of his chest, some kind of compulsion that dragged him toward her.

  “I thought you came here in the evenings,” she said at last. Her voice wasn’t loud, but there was an edge of both resentment and defensiveness in it that immediately raised Phil’s hackles.

  “You really assume I keep the exact same schedule every day?” He did, but there was no way she could know that.

  “I don’t know. Why are you here again?”

  He frowned as he stepped closer. “I don’t have to justify my presence to you. I’ve been here a lot longer than you. This is where I live.”

  “I’m not expecting you to justify anything to me.” She was angry now too. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes flashing. “I just wondered if you really hung around fishing all day long like an old man.”

  “Hanging around fishing is my job. I co-own that store and restaurant.” He nodded back toward the shop, pleased he had something to show for the years they’d been apart.

  She blinked, some of her anger fading in her surprise. She’d always been like that. She wasn’t an angry person. It took a lot to rile her up, and even then she was easily diverted by other emotions. “Really?”

  “You think I’d stand here and lie to you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know you anymore.”

  “Then there’d be no reason for me to lie to you about what I’m doing. You think I have any interest in impressing you?”

  He did want to impress her. He could feel the impulse niggling in his head, even as he told himself it didn’t matter at all what she thought of him.

  He didn’t want to feel that way though.

  He didn’t want to care so much about someone he’d long since left behind.

  He wanted to go back to his relaxed, even-tempered life where nothing pushed him too far or went too deep or hurt him too much. He’d shaped his life that way on purpose, and he couldn’t fight the swell of resentment that Rebecca had shown up out of the blue and taken it away from him.

  “So you’re here at the pier all day?” she asked, a different expression on her face.

  He’d always been able to read her, and he could see what she was thinking right now. She was confused and disappointed and hoping for a time during the day when she could come out this way without accidentally running into him.

  If he was smart, he would give her a time—any time—and then make sure he wasn’t around then for the next week or two, however long she was in town. He could manage it, and it was the only way of maintaining control over his feelings.

  He needed to just tell her he wasn’t around at lunchtime, when he normally left to do errands or work out. Then he’d be safe. They’d avoid each other.

  Lunchtime.

  Tell her.

  Now.

  “I work here. I’m around all the time,” he said.

  Her mouth and jaw tightened. “Well, I’m in that house for the next two weeks.” She nodded with her head toward a small, expensive vacation rental a few houses down from the pier. “When I walk, I’m going to end up here.”

  “You can walk in the other direction.”

  Her shoulders stiffened. Clearly his cold voice had angered her. “I’m allowed to walk in any direction I want. You think I’m supposed to curtail my vacation just because you happen to work here?”

  “I didn’t tell you to curtail anything. I merely suggested if you didn’t want to see me, then you could avoid it.”

  “I don’t want to see you.”

  “Then walk in the other direction.”

  “You asshole,” she hissed. “I’m not going to make things easy for you. I’ll show up here whenever I want.”

  “And I’ll be here.”

  “That’s fine with me. I don’t care enough about you to keep me from doing what I want to do.”

  The only time he’d ever seen her this angry was when they’d broken up. She’d been hurt—really hurt—but she’d also been furious, denouncing him for letting their families come between them and for not understanding what love really was.

/>   Time hadn’t healed over the rift for her, any more than it had for him.

  “You think I do care?” he said. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”

  “Then I will. I’m going to come every single day.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.” She was glaring at him, her small body tense, motionless. The sun was higher in the sky now, and it cast beams of warm light on her tanned skin, her golden hair. She glowed beautifully, vibrantly.

  And Phil was hit by the strongest wave of attraction he’d ever experienced.

  In his life.

  It slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet. His eyes glazed over. His mind whirled. His body tensed up. His groin hardened.

  There was nothing in the world he could do to stop the feeling. He wanted her so much he could barely stay on his feet.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Rebecca demanded.

  Phil gulped, trying to pull himself together. He couldn’t let her see, let her know. That would be a humiliation too far. Acutely aware of the fact that he was more than halfway erect—from nothing more than that irrational attraction—he shifted from foot to foot and tried to breathe out his physical response. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “Then why do you look like you’ve been punched in the gut?” Her eyes were scanning his face and body now.

  It wouldn’t take her long to figure it out.

  He scowled at her and made himself move, walking away from her quickly, toward the pier, without saying anything else.

  “I’m not going to stay away,” she called out to his back.

  “I don’t give a damn what you do.”

  He was satisfied that he sounded bad-tempered but not overwhelmed with lust. He took his position again and exhaled deeply when he saw her striding away, continuing the walk she’d started earlier.

  This wasn’t good.

  It wasn’t good at all.

  She was evidently going to be here for two weeks. And she wasn’t going to stay away from the pier.

  He was going to have to see her again. Maybe a lot. And he couldn’t avoid her without backing down from her implicit challenge.