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“Even so. Could the group bring our children out one afternoon, you think? We could picnic on the beach.”
“Yes, of course. I’ve been so wrapped in my own self that I didn’t think to offer. We could plan it once the water warms up and turtle season is over.”
Stormy showed her the kinds of toys to search out and buy and explained how best to clean and repair them. Sandy left with a hundred dollars of Stormy’s cache and a plan to work the Jacksonville Beach yard sales along A1A.
By the middle of the week, there was a subtle truce in the household. Stormy had installed her reclaimed television in the den, once her dad’s home office, for the children, which left Tully free use of the one in the family room. She had paid the water bill and stocked the pantry.
On Thursday, Tully worked late. Nina asked to borrow the car to take the boys for haircuts and to the movies. Offhandedly, she invited Liane.
The child looked at her mother. “You think Tyler might come over today?”
“I doubt it, sweetheart”Today or any other day, she added silently.
Liane pursed her lips. “Then I guess I’ll go to the movies.”
Nina ushered the children out, and Stormy found herself home alone and at loose ends. She tried watching a television talk show, but neither her mind nor her body would sit still. She went into the garage to sort toys. The task soon palled. It wasn’t that her interest in a livelihood evaporated, but that it got submerged in her curiosity about Tyler. She felt like a pullet wondering where the fox was lurking.
Outside, the sun blazed, drowning the coast in golden warmth. Barefoot, Stormy went for a walk on the beach, hoping that the gentle sounds of the waves washing ashore would cleanse her mind of Tyler. But the sea was eerily calm. Even the squawking seagulls that swooped and skimmed the air around her were more an irritation than a distraction.
She arrived back at the dune walk just as preoccupied as when she had left and irritably hosed the sand off her feet at the spigot at the edge of the deck.
“Anyone ever tell you that you have magnificent feet?”
Stormy jerked upright, and the hose in her hand jerked with her. Water spurted in a perfect arc to drench Tyler’s jeans. He yelped and leapt away.
“Serves you right for sneaking up on me,” she said with a tremor in her voice as light as fluttering moth wings. She turned away, ostensibly to shut off the spigot, but more so that Tyler would not see the joy leap across her features. Her interest in him was almost like pain.
She didn’t want to reveal that, either.
He was busy pulling keys, change, and bits of paper out of his soggy pants and putting them on the patio table, the activity accompanied by much muttering and a string of epithets. “The hell I was sneaking. If you hadn’t been so engrossed in yourself, you’d have seen me arrive.”
“I suppose you should come on inside. We can toss your jeans into the dryer.” She couldn’t repress a giggle at his sodden dishevelment.
“If this is so funny, how come I’m not laughing?” he asked grimly.
“Let’s wait until you’re stripped down. Might be something funny in that.”
“Wrong. When I strip in front of a woman, I guarantee you, she isn’t laughing.”
“Oh?” Stormy managed lightly as she led him into the washroom, yanked a towel from a shelf, and held it out to him. “What would this mythical woman be doing? Displaying pity? Faking arousal?”
A gleam settled in his eyes. He began to unzip his jeans. “I’ll tell you what—I’ll show you.”
With a stalwart display of utter contempt, Stormy dropped the towel at his feet and retreated. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She needed to put her chaotic emotions into some sort of order and school her features into a semblance of indifference. Fat chance when, in a moment or two, she’d be seeing him half-naked—and she knew she wouldn’t be laughing.
She heard the dryer start. Good. At least he hadn’t handed over his pants, expecting her to dry them.
Then he stepped into the kitchen. She gulped. The towel was wrapped snugly about his waist, leaving a lot of powerful, well-muscled leg revealed. Stormy indulged herself in one stray, lingering glance, then snapped her gaze up and kept it above his waist.
“Want something to drink?” she asked. At his nod, she began opening cans of soda and pouring them over ice.
He sat on a stool in the breakfast nook and watched her. When she finally sat across from him, he took a long swallow of his drink, then put the glass down and eyed her gravely. “I want you to tell me something. And I want the truth.”
“You already know everything about me,” she complained. “And I don’t know a thing about you.”
“Oh, hell. I was born. I grew up. I was in the service. I got out of the service. I married; I divorced. I have a brother, a mother, a father.”
