AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, I’m not belly-dancing in front of Bessie,” she quipped.
“What?” Bessie’s eyes rounded and held surprise. “What does that mean?”
“Have you seen your dance moves?” Sage grinned at her, hoping to get across the message that she was teasing. “She’ll make me look bad.”
Bessie caught on, and her expression softened. She smiled and said, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Did you know that Sage took a hula hooping class in Texas once? No one could beat her.”
Sage laughed, because that had been a good time.
“The woman has mad hips.” Bessie looked up as Oliver joined her, and he kissed her quickly on the mouth. “You made it.”
“Barely,” he said, throwing a dark look toward the entrance to the ferry. “Apparently, this thing is going to be full-full, and they almost didn’t let me on.”
“Mad hips, huh?” Ty murmured in Sage’s ear, sending a shiver all the way down to her tailbone.
She snuggled into him despite the evening heat, and soon enough, as the ferry started to cut through the water from Hilton Head Island to Carter’s Cove, the breeze coming off the ocean cooled her.
Once there, they queued up to get a ride on a golf cart of all things, from the ferry station to a beautiful, beachside inn that practically glowed in the sunset. “This is gorgeous,” she said as she took in the magnificent building that seemed to grow right out of the sand.
The windows glinted like gold, and the palms looked like they didn’t get beaten up by wind or storms. The golf cart took them through a circle drive, where two men in suits were directing people where to go.
“We’re here for the luau,” Ty said as he disembarked from the golf cart.
“To your left, sir,” the man said, indicating with his white-gloved hand the path that had been marked by a sign and a tiki torch. “Around to the beach, then straight ahead.” He smiled and moved to the next party, and Sage put her hand in Ty’s as they started to walk.
Tonight, he’d dressed down, and she felt like they were a perfect pair. Her, in her flowered maxi dress and him in a pair of khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “Where’d you get that shirt?” she asked him now, as her sandaled feet moved from concrete to another semi-moving surface: sand.
He grinned at her. “Believe it or not, I own it.”
“Did you thrift it?” she teased, because it did not look new.
“I bought it new,” he said. “About twenty years ago, right when I moved to Hilton Head permanently.” He laughed, the sound flying up into the evening sky and making the colors in it seem deeper, more meaningful. “I suppose I thought I’d wear it on weekends.”
“Did you?”
“Not even once.”
“So now you pull it out for luaus,” she said.
“That’s right.” The path widened, and Oliver and Bessie caught up to them. Oliver too wore proper beach attire with a pair of navy shorts and a short-sleeved white shirt. If he’d open another couple of buttons at his throat, he’d be the picture of sexy male walking the beach.
Bessie wore a palm-tree top and jean shorts, and Sage liked how they all somehow had interpreted the theme of tonight without having to communicate about it. Music met her ears, and Sage got transported right to the tropics with the steel drum beat, and the high-pitched ukulele, and the Hawaiian singing.
She gripped Ty’s hand tighter, sure this adventure tonight would be the best one they’d shared yet.
* * *
An hour later,Sage tipped her head back and laughed as Ty caught her around the waist. He laughed with her and brought her closer, both of them in bare feet in the shifting sand. “You think that’s what makes a movie good?” he teased. “If the hero is worth cheering for?”
“Absolutely,” she said as she leveled her gaze at him. “If I don’t want him to get the girl, why am I watching?”
He grinned and grinned at her, and she couldn’t stop herself from doing it back. The moment sobered, and Sage fiddled with the collar on his loud-print shirt. “Thank you for this,” she said. “It’s been—” She glanced around at the other couples dancing by firelight.
Torches burned on the sand every several feet, and the waiters and waitresses cleared away the dinner dishes. Dessert had already started to be set, and she couldn’t wait to taste it.
“Magical,” she said.
Ty brought her a little closer, saying nothing, and Sage’s heartbeat picked up speed.
