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Grant looked at Bea, and Bea looked at Grant.She casually raised one shoulder, the sparkly dark blue fabric catching an errant ray of evening light.“I like red wine.”
He burst out laughing and accepted the glass Julie handed to him.“I do too,” he said, grinning at his sister.“And don’t worry, Jules.I ate on the way over.”
She gave him a death glare, then picked up an oven mitt and swatted him with it.“You—males—you—can—leave.”She tossed the oven mitt down and looked at Bea.“We’d have a perfectly enjoyable dinner without them.”
“Oh, honey, tell me about it.I have a monthly Supper Club, and it’s heavenly.”Her eyes sparkled like diamonds and stars and sequins.“Everyone helps with the dishes without being asked.There’s no oil, and no crazy cats, and no one eyeing the food and trying to sneak it before it’s time to eat.”
Julie poured the wine and handed the glass to Bea.“I need a Supper Club.”She gave Grant another glare, to which he lifted both hands in surrender.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You literally just said you ate on the way over.”Julie linked her arm through Bea’s and started for the sliding door that led into the backyard.“We’re going to drink our wine out here.Someone come get me when everything is ready.”
With that, the two of them left, and neither of them looked back—not even Bea.Grant chuckled and turned to his niece and nephew.“All right, guys.Cream?”He looked at Daria, and she nodded.“Toys?”
“Yes, sir,” Dylan said.“Then Mama lets me use the knife to cut bread.”
Grant checked with Daria, who nodded silently, and Grant sent up a prayer that his nephew wouldn’t slice off his fingers while under his watch.“All right.Let’s do this.”Just then, the shower started, and relief rushed through Grant.
In truth, this was about how things went during dinner at Julie’s, and he wasn’t expecting anything different.He loved them, and they’d always kept the door open for him, and fifteen minutes later, when Decker had returned from the shower, and Randall had promised to try to talk softly, Grant slid open the back door and said, “All right, Jules.Bea.Dinner’s ready.”
He smiled at both of them, and Bea met him first.She squeezed his hand and went inside, leaving him alone with Julie on the deck.It only took two seconds for her to communicate everything she thought about Bea to Grant, but she still stopped in front of him and said, “She’s wonderful.”
She scanned him to his shoes and back to his scalp.“Not sure what she sees in you, but she says she likes you, so.”She patted his chest.“Guess we’ll keep you around.”She stepped inside while Grant struggled to come up with an adequate response.
“You’re letting in the flies,” Randall bellowed, and Grant got back inside before he started another World War over insects.
The silence inthe car sounded like heaven to Grant, and he didn’t dare break it as he drove Bea back toward the beach cottage.She didn’t say anything either, the blue light of her cellphone illuminating the lower half of her face.
She looked entertained and happy, and Grant figured she was probably texting her friends back in Texas.One lung pinched, telling him he didn’t want to be the topic of conversation for her Supper Club ladies.The other one kept breathing fine, because of course she should tell her friends about his fun-loving sister and the delicious Lowcountry Boil and peach tarts they’d eaten tonight.
He didn’t want to take her from her friends.He didn’t want to force her to choose between him and them.He didn’t mind that she had a life outside of their relationship—in fact, he thought that was probably healthy.Not only that, but she had three children, her parents, and her siblings she needed to stay in touch with too.
No, Grant didn’t pretend that he would be the center of Bea’s universe.Quite the opposite.She felt like the sun to him, pulling him in with her gravitational personality and amazingness.He’dorbit aroundher, not the other way around.
He pulled into the dirt drive in front of the beach cottage and put the car in park.He turned it off, which indicated he might stay awhile.Bea wouldn’t even look up from her phone, and Grant draped his hand lazily over the steering wheel, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
She didn’t seem to be typing at the speed of light.No, scrolling.“What are you looking at?”he asked.
Bea brought her head up, her eyes blinking, probably from moving from something bright to something not.Their eyes met, and Grant sucked in a breath as quietly as he could.She was simply so beautiful, and the attraction between them popped and foamed and sizzled.
He’d learned a lot about her in the past week, as they’d spent hours and hours together.He’d enjoyed meeting and getting to know Lauren too, and they’d both showed him pictures of the other women in their Supper Club.
She hadn’t told her children about this relationship yet, and Grant certainly didn’t expect her to.She only had one more full day on Hilton Head, and while she’d said she was thinking about coming back after she went to Austin, she hadn’t confirmed it.
He knew about her parents, her siblings, her children.She’d shared her whole love list with him, and it screamed Bea and made him smile, even now.
She held up her phone and turned it toward him.“I was looking at this place to rent, but it’s booked.”Bea pushed the device closer to him, clearly wanting him to take it.“Maybe you can help me.”
Grant took the phone, but he couldn’t focus on the bright and dark and Bea at the same time.“Why would I—?”He cut off at the sight of his beach house at the top of her phone.His heartbeat thundered through his chest, and his mouth turned to sand.He tried to swallow, but such an impossibility only made him feel like he might suffocate.
“It has such great reviews,” she said airily.“I mean, I enjoyed it on my first stay here on Hilton Head.”Shetsked the way Grant’s grandmother did when he’d been naughty.“It’s a shame it’s booked.I suppose I can find another spot to stay.”
Grant looked up from her phone then, not sure why he’d been staring at it for so long.He knew the amenities at his own beach cottage.“Bea,” he managed to say, a thick lump still lodged in his throat.
Their eyes met again, the light shining from the beach cottage and her phone illuminating both of them.“I’ve decided,” Bea said, her voice strong and steady but not loud.“I’m going to come back after I finish with Meredith in Austin.”
She was going to come back to him.
