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‘I hate soda,’ she said, ‘and my marshmallows always fall into the fire.’
Her name she kept to herself. Her mother’s memorial service had been all over the local papers and if she told him that she was Genevieve Bliss, the flirtatious mood would shatter.
It felt like a lifetime since she’d smiled, since she’d been treated with anything other than kid gloves, let alone flirted with and, choosing not to be that ‘poor girl’ whose mother had died of a fever in a Central American jungle, she took her cue from him.
‘Red is good enough and, like you, I’m too old for this party.’
He looked at her for a moment then with what might have been a shrug said, ‘In that case, Red, can I tempt you to a decent bottle of wine and I’m sure to have something a little more substantial than marshmallows in the fridge?’
‘You have a fridge?’ She lifted a disbelieving brow and he laughed.
‘I not only have a fridge,’ he said, ‘I have a cabin just down the beach.’
‘What about the party?’
He looked across at the young people sitting around in groups, chatting, drinking soda. One or two were dancing to music that reached them as little more than a bass beat. He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘If they need me, they know where to find me.’
Could this be real? She was being invited by a world-famous yachtsman, a man whose face and ripped body had appeared on countless magazine covers, to have supper with him in a cabin on the beach?
Sensing her own hesitation, he said, ‘I’m not hitting on you, Scout’s honour.’
He sounded serious, but his eyes were telling a different story, his mouth was temptingly close and she was overwhelmed by a reckless need to be held, to be warm again.
‘How disappointing,’ she said, and his sweater slipped from her shoulders as she hooked her free hand around the back of his head. For a moment neither of them moved and then, as she closed her eyes, he kissed her.
