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“Yeah. Actually, I came over to check on you. Sandy and Daniel said you had an accident on the water,” he said.
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Wow, word travels fast around here.”
Her attitude didn’t faze him. “It does. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Hannah snapped, yanking a cup off the stack next to the fountain machine. “Of course I am. It was just a fall. It’s surfing—it happens.”
Luke noticed the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over.
“Here, let’s take a second,” Luke said softly, going behind the counter. “Is there a place to sit in the back?”
For a moment he worried that Hannah wasn’t going to do it, that she’d suck it up and move through her day despite the burden on her shoulders. But her posture slumped and she nodded.
“Yeah, outside if you don’t mind sitting on a crate.” She sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand.
She led him outside and he rested his hand on her shoulder. Once they sat down, he pulled her into a quick hug. She still smelled like the sea, salty and fresh, and leaned against him for a solid second.
“It must have been scary for you,” Luke said, letting his hand fall back into his lap.
“It was. I thought I was going to drown or run out of energy while trying to swim back to shore.” She sniffed and let out a shuddering breath. “The water just came over me so fast. I’ve been surfing so many times and nothing like that has ever happened to me. And then I was so panicked that I just became even more irrational and started worrying about being eaten by a shark or something. ”
A tear fell over her cheek and she wiped it away.
“And… then…” She paused, pulling herself together. “I mean, I’m grateful that Michael saved me. It would be stupid not to be grateful. But… I don’t know.”
He waited for her to gather her thoughts.
“I mean, I thought it might mean something, you know?” She sighed and looked up at the sky. “But it didn’t. I think he was just being nice. I don’t know. I really am shaken, I guess.”
“I don’t blame you,” Luke said, even as his heart deflated.
She had gotten into an accident that could have seriously injured her and she was worried about what Michael thought. Luke didn’t find that silly, of course. It just showed that she had serious feelings for the pro surfer. He had feelings that were just as intense. Namely for her.
Luke wasn’t sure how to address that, or if he even should. He felt something for Hannah, a crush, maybe, but his feelings weren’t important. She had gone through something terrifying. So instead, he focused on the real issue at hand: how she felt.
He let her gather herself, the slow trickle of tears coming from her eyes coming to a stop.
“I’m grateful that you’re okay,” Luke said once she was more or less back to normal. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay?”
Hannah finally smiled at him, though it was watery.
“Thanks, Luke. I really appreciate your kindness and concern,” she said. “It means a lot.”
“It’s no problem at all.”
“I should get back to work.” Hannah stood and so did Luke. “See you around.”
“See you.”
Luke headed out without his soda, giving Hannah one more glance over his shoulder before he left.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Have fun, sweetheart!” Caitlin said to Pearl, planting a kiss on her forehead.
“Bye!” Pearl rushed off to be with her friends, hardly giving Caitlin a second glance. Caitlin smiled—she was so glad that the days of Pearl crying when she got dropped off at daycare were over, though leaving her daughter still pulled at her heartstrings. She was growing up so fast, as cliché as it sounded.
Caitlin hopped back into her car and drove off toward the restaurant, taking a deep breath and letting it out. She usually did some work at home before going in, but today she wanted to go in early to meet him in the middle. The restaurant really did take a lot of work, so she thought that coming in with him in the morning to work together would be a great start.
