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“In a while.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced around. “Doesn’t this strike you as what purgatory would be like?”
Shifting his gaze, he could see what she meant. In the minutes they’d been talking, the fog had thickened until he couldn’t make out any features of the landscape. Even the ocean was obscured and the only way he knew its direction was from the muted sound of the surf. “This is the kind of weather that shipwrecks sailors,” he said. “It’s why foghorns and lighthouses were invented, so that their vessels wouldn’t crash on rocky shores.”
Lilly shivered. “What if you were in open ocean?”
“These days they have GPS and all kinds of instrumentation. But before that, they were at the mercy of the weather.”
“I don’t like to be at the mercy of anything,” Lilly said. “Or anyone.”
He suspected she’d revealed more than she knew. “Chalk off playing old-time pirate from your bucket list then,” he said lightly.
“Yeah.” She dug a bare toe in the sand. Her nails were polished in a bright, sparkly pink. Just like a fairy would wear, he thought, surprised by the whimsy she inspired in him. He was mostly a numbers guy too, after all.
“Here’s the thing,” Lilly suddenly said, looking away. “I have a terrible sense of direction.”
She confessed it quickly, then glanced up to see his reaction. Clearly she hated revealing her vulnerabilities.
“Lilly,” he said, taking in the mist enshrouding them, then shifting his focus back to her. “Are you lost?”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, chin jutting up. “I’m just a bit, a tiny bit, unsure how to get back.”
“Head south,” he said.
She looked at him like he’d suggested she strip off her clothes and make a bonfire out of them. Hmm…tempting…
Shaking the thought from his head, he cleared his throat. “Keep the ocean on your right.”
“How do I find the ocean in this soup?”
Her aggrieved tone had him grinning again. “Okay, okay, sugar. I’ll walk you home like the good Boy Scout my mama always wanted me to be.”
Her relief was evident in her lack of protest. Taking her by the shoulder, he turned her around and nudged her forward. “This way.”
She was quiet for a few minutes as they ambled back, shoulder-to-shoulder. “I really appreciate the escort, Alec. You’re not so bad you know.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Maybe it seems as if I’m holding you responsible for Jacob’s defection, and I’m not, truly, but…”
But she needed something to use as a wedge between them. “I get it.”
She cleared her throat. “If we happened to run into each other over the next few days, that probably wouldn’t be so terrible. We can be friendly, right?”
Hmm. There was a note in her voice he just couldn’t place. It took him a minute to identify it as loneliness, with a little melancholy thrown in. “No luck in cheering up Audra?” he guessed.
Lilly shook her head, her wavy hair bouncing. The fog seemed to make the stuff curlier. “She keeps telling me to go off and have fun. Knowing she’s hurting, how can I do that?”
A struggle went on inside himself. Should he? Shouldn’t he? “With an invitation you can’t refuse,” he heard himself say.
She glanced up, clearly puzzled. “What kind of invitation?”
He stared down into her upturned face, so damn pretty. But it was those glimpses of her vulnerability that got to him as much as her potent physical appeal. Face it, he was a sucker for Lilly Durand, the whole package—her curling hair, her steadfast nature, her sexy little sparkly painted toes.
His hand caught hers, because it was impossible not to want to touch her. They’d reached the resort, and he tugged her toward the path leading from the beach to the lobby. “It’s not old-time pirate fun, but you could join my family on the whale watching boat tour we have planned for later today.”
The hand he held stayed trustingly in his, a coup. She looked over her shoulder at the soupy weather. “In this stuff?”
“It’s forecasted to clear off. And think about this—when you get back to shore, you’ll have something to talk to Audra about besides the perfidy of men.”
