Risky Moves

“Hi.” She sat on the old felled log he’d been using as a seat. It had been on this beach for as long as he remembered.

“Hi.”

“There’s room for two.”

The fire wasn’t going anywhere. He edged backward until he was perched on the log. Half buried in the sand, it was weathered gray and smooth, all but a few stubborn shreds of bark worn off by countless numbers of beach bums.

“Want a beer?” she said, tilting her bottle.

“I’ve got one, thanks.” He reached for it, tucked out of the way in a fork of the log’s broken branches.

The tension between them seemed unbearable. What had happened to his long resolve to treat her as just another of his brother’s admirers? It had worked for years, keeping them from exchanging more than the average meaningless chitchat. And stopping him from touching her, except for the occasional quick hug hello or a casual brush of the shoulders or hands or hips.

Had Zack’s marriage ripped away the chains?

No. Adam’s limbs wouldn’t feel so heavy and his reactions so slow if that were the case.

The electric shock zinging through his veins he could ignore if he kept trying.

Julia looped her arms around her knees. “I can’t help thinking that Zack should be here,” she said softly, keeping their conversation to themselves among the more raucous back-and-forth of the others.

“I miss him, too.”

“He’s always been the leader of this crowd.” She scanned the circle of good friends, laughing and talking in the warm, radiant glow of the fire. “Even with most of us married or moved away, busy with careers and children, we’ll always be close. That’s what’s so special about small towns.”

“Is that why you chose to live in Quimby permanently?”

She glanced at him, then quickly away. “Sure. Partly.”

He didn’t press. He never did—not with Julia. It wouldn’t do him any good to know the answers.

Arm’s length, he thought. A safe distance. Even though he could feel her, sitting beside him so blamelessly, their legs not quite touching. Her cheek was rosy in the firelight, the smooth sweep of her ponytail honey gold threaded with a rich amber brown. He’d never stopped wanting to touch her hair. Her face. Her throat. Her breasts.

“I was surprised that Zack came back,” he said, “after all the trouble with Laurel and the wedding that wasn’t.” His brother was a good subject to keep between them.

“Oh, no. Zack belongs here.”

“Not like me.”

Someone had brought a CD player. Fred jumped up and shook his rump—and his beer gut—in an attempt to get Allie to dance around the fire with him. Jeering, she pelted him with corn chips. Through all the noise, Zack heard Julia’s quick intake of breath.

“How can you say that?” She leaned closer, looking him full in the face with her hand on his knee. “You belong here as much as anyone.”

“I’m no Zack.”

She gave a mystified shake of the head. “So what?”

He shrugged. Put that way, he sounded like an idiot. “All I meant was—Zack is more prominent. The leader, like you said. No one would miss me if I stayed away permanently.”

Julia lifted her hand off his knee. “I guess not.”

Oh.

She took a long drink of the beer, even though he knew she wasn’t crazy about the taste. Dabbed her lips with the edge of her sleeve. To show she was aware that he was watching, she gave him a bland smile, deliberately saying nothing more.

He got the point. One, quit whining. Two, don’t ask for ego reinforcement from the one woman who had particular reason to notice when he was gone. Even though she couldn’t admit it, Julia was as aware of him as he was of her. And that was plenty. Each time he returned home, he scrutinized every detail about her. When they were together, he was continually aware of where she was in proximity to him, who she was talking to, of her every laugh and gesture and smile. He could close his eyes and identify her by smell. Clean and fresh with a hint of sunny lavender. Never cloying.

Better for him to stay away, he thought, feeling desire stirring his gut.

Always the same attraction—and the same conclusion.

“I suppose you’ll be leaving soon,” she said casually.

He’d been in Idaho far too long—a stay enforced by his accident and slow recovery. As much as he enjoyed the state’s rugged outdoor life—the beautiful but treacherous mountains and rivers—he usually craved new experiences before too long. But this past year had been different. Idle and faced with too much time to think, he’d found himself longing not for unseen vistas but for the rolling hills and open farmland of Quimby, his humble hometown.

But that was only because the unknown was out of reach to him now.

Had to be.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” he confessed.

Julia showed her surprise. “Oh, pfft. Adam Brody always has somewhere to go.”

“No job.” Over the years, he’d worked a variety of jobs, from tree surgeon to river guide to sky dive instructor to construction. All of them physical and beyond his present capabilities. “Gave up my lease.” First time in his life he’d had a lease—an experience he didn’t plan to repeat. “All my meager possessions are packed in the back of my Jeep.”

“A sleeping bag, a tent, a mountain bike and a kayak,” she said. “A pair of hiking boots and enough rock-climbing equipment to scale the Manhattan skyline.”

“That about sums it up.” He tilted his head and drained the beer, thinking of two possessions she’d missed—the cane that Zack had kept replacing each time Adam snapped one in frustration and the worn photo that was always buttoned in one of his shirts or jacket pockets. He kept the first under the car seat for the rare times he needed it. The second was Julia on her eighteenth birthday.

“Then you’re free to stay for a while.” Was that hope in her voice or was he imagining it?

“I wasn’t planning on more than a few days.”

“Long enough to teach me to rock climb?”

He sent her a slanted smile. “Kinda hoped you’d forgotten about that.”

“Nope. I’ve penciled you into my date book, smack dab between an estate-tax seminar and the Holliwells’ open house.”

She was kidding. He was sure she was kidding.

Gwendolyn Case came around, passing out hot dogs. Adam took two and chose a twin-pronged stick to roast them on. “You’re looking really good,” Gwen said, lingering.

“You, too, Gwen.” The buxom bridesmaid had put jeans on under her formal dress and bunched the skirts at her waist, strapping them in with a belt. Snagging the bridal bouquet had made her bolder than ever—despite her interest in the admiral, she’d been making a game of sizing up the available choices over the bonfire. Adam’s response was perfunctory at best. To him, Gwen would always be the brassy, bossy baby-sitter who’d once wrestled him out of a tree and sat on him till he’d promised not to climb it again.

“Chuck’s looking hungry,” Julia said.

Gwen spun around, lighting up when she saw that Chuck Cheswick, who was as big as a bear and twice as ravenous, had already finished his third hot dog.