Strawberry Lace Read online

  “Have a nice day,” said the attendant.

  “You bet.” He put the car into gear and headed down a narrow asphalt road to the parking lot. In front of them a ridge of high sand dunes blocked their view of the water.

  “I really appreciate this invitation,” Chelsea said, after he parked and they got out. “It’s a great beach day. For May, at least.”

  “My thoughts precisely.” Jeff grinned at her over the top of the car. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

  Chelsea felt her cheeks go warm. She leaned into the car and retrieved her tote bag while Jeff went around and unlocked the trunk. He lifted out a small cooler and a folded green plaid blanket. “Oh,” he said suddenly, “I almost forgot.” He straightened and fixed her with a solemn look. “I have a message for you from Mrs. Winter.”

  Chapter Four

  Message?” Chelsea struggled to keep her voice cool. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  He shrugged and closed the trunk. “She wants to talk with you. Tomorrow morning at ten. Privately.”

  Something was wrong. Muriel Winter wasn’t the type to request private interviews with the help unless there were problems. Jeff had obviously told his mother about her comments and she intended to cancel the arrangements; another catering service would be hired for the Independence Day party. Chelsea felt a rush of anger. Why hadn’t he said something earlier? Why drive all the way out to the beach before he dropped his bomb? She tightened her grip on her tote bag.

  “Do you know what she wants to talk about?”

  “How would I know? I’m just the gardener.”

  She saw the glint in his dark eyes, the quirk of his mouth, and knew he was playing with her, that he’d go on playing with her all afternoon unless she said something. It was the most distinctly uncomfortable feeling she’d had in months.

  She took a deep breath. She should just tell him that she knew who he was and take the consequences. Maybe he’d be moved by her honesty.

  “Jeff . . .” She stepped toward him and found herself startlingly close as he moved in her direction simultaneously. She placed her free hand on the car to steady herself.

  “Don’t you think we’d better go find a good spot on the beach?” He brushed past her and headed up a gravel walkway toward the dunes. He walked fast, his muscular legs taking him quickly up the slope. She stared after him for a minute. Had he guessed what she was going to say? Had he deliberately avoided hearing her confession? She ran to catch up with him, but didn’t reach him until she’d climbed to the top of the steep dune.

  “Look at those breakers.” He pointed down the dune toward the long, gray beach and the ocean beyond. “Do you bodysurf?”

  She shook her head and tried again to catch her breath, but before she could speak, he was jogging down the side of the dune. Chelsea followed, grateful for the hat that shielded her eyes from the sharp glare of sunlight on the water. Rolling toward them in tall, whitecapped waves, the ocean stretched to the horizon. Straight ahead and connected to the beach by a narrow sandbar was a small island, rising out of the water like the brown and green back of an enormous sea creature. The beach stretched in both directions as far as she could see. It was largely empty; only a few people were there, spread out on blankets and towels. A couple of children were building a sand castle at the water’s edge. A blue and white beach umbrella shielded a small mesh playpen holding a sleeping child. In the distance to her right, two men threw a football back and forth.

  Jeff had already spread out the blanket and was stripping off his shirt when she reached him. He handed her a bottle of sun-block lotion. “Would you mind doing my back?”

  “Sure.” Chelsea squirted the thick white lotion into her palm and started spreading it on the muscular back Jeff presented. As her hand slid over his tanned skin, an odd little jolt of electricity ran through her fingers and up her arm to her shoulder.

  Stop that, she told herself. The weird excitement she felt didn’t make any sense. Hadn’t she spread sun block on Stuart’s back a thousand times? And wasn’t this man someone she clearly didn’t like? The kind of man who would let her go on believing a lie, who would exploit her ignorance for all it was worth? He was Muriel Winter’s son, all right; that was as clear as day.

  “There. All done.” She pushed away the peculiar yearning and handed him back the bottle.

  “Thanks. Now it’s your turn.” He was smiling down at her again.

  He looks like a Greek god, she thought reflexively, and then pushed that thought away too. She shook her head. “It’s not necessary. I’m fine.”

  “Are you kidding? Your skin is so fair it’s almost translucent. Come on, take off your shirt.” When she didn’t move, he reached out and tugged her shirttail out of her shorts.

  “Hey!” She twisted away from him. “I can take off my own shirt, thank you very much.”

  “Good. Then do it. I want to get this stuff on you before you start blistering right before my eyes.”

  Acutely aware of his scrutiny, she skimmed off her shirt and slipped quickly out of her shorts, then turned her back to him. A moment later she felt his hands on her shoulders, cool and slippery, caressing her arms and back. He worked slowly, as if savoring the texture of her skin. She felt hot, electric shivers at the nape of her neck. Her back tingled under his hands. The sensation of heat increased, spread down her spine, through her whole body. She realized with a jolt of surprise that she was becoming sexually aroused.

  She stepped quickly away from him. “Thanks.” She opened her tote bag to hide her acute consternation.

  “But I’m not finished.” He was holding the bottle, smiling at her with those dark, wicked eyes and that incredible dimple.

  “That’s okay.” She fished out her towel and wrapped it around her. Her whole body was on fire.

  He capped the bottle and dropped it onto the blanket. His mouth looked like it was having a hard time holding in a laugh. He glanced over his shoulder at the water and rubbed his hands together. “How about a bodysurfing lesson?”

  “You’re kidding. It’s only the third week in May. The water’s freezing!”

  He raised one dark eyebrow. “I thought you were a native Mainer.”

  “I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m demented.”

  He laughed. “Come on. It’s not bad once you get in.”

  “No thanks. You go ahead. I’ll catch a few rays.” She sat down on the blanket.

  “Okay. But you don’t know what you’re missing.” And then he was running down the sand to the water. Chelsea watched him, measuring his athletic stride with her eyes. She could tell that he was powerful; he was probably one of those rich men who took expensive vitamins and worked out at a health club every day. You didn’t get a body like that without a lot of investment. Why did she have such a strong reaction to his touch, though? Why did his dark eyes disturb her so deeply? She lay down on the blanket abruptly, so she wouldn’t have to see his muscular sprint into the surf.

  He came back, drenched and exhilarated, his taut body raining drops down on the blanket, his hair lying in dark strands across his forehead. He toweled off, standing over her, his legs braced apart in the warm sand.

  “I think you’d better let me finish putting sun block on you, Chelsea. You’ve already got a red stripe across your lower back.”

  “Do I? Oh, damn!” Chelsea reached for the bottle of sun block, but he was already pouring some into his hand. “Lie back down,” he commanded.

  She did as he said, and felt his hand on the small of her back, stroking slowly and smoothly toward her buttocks. The same erotic sensation overwhelmed her, and it was all she could do not to moan.

  “Want me to do your legs too? They look a little fiery.”

  “No thanks. I can do them myself.” She sat up and took the bottle from him, squirted lotion quickly into her palm and massaged the backs of her thighs and calves. He watched her for a minute and then stretched out beside her on the blanket. “Just let me know when you want tha
t bodysurfing lesson.” He closed his eyes.

  She found herself staring down at him, admiring his pectoral muscles and the rugged contour of his jaw. He was utterly handsome, the kind of man most women would die for. She wished that Judy Pierce, her old high school nemesis, would come walking by and see her now. She’d probably say something snotty like, “Oh, I didn’t recognize you, Chels. You’ve lost so much weight.” And then she’d start flirting with Jeff. But the next morning the news would be all over town that Chelsea Adams had finally snared herself a very sexy man.

  She reminded herself sharply that she wasn’t interested in a relationship with Jeff Blaine. The whole reason she was here, the reason she’d come to the beach with him in the first place, was to straighten things out before they got more complicated than they already were. She had to convince him that she really had nothing at all against his mother, even if her best friend had been engaged to Brandon.

  She took a deep breath and stared out to sea, trying to collect her thoughts. She couldn’t just blurt everything right out. People in Jeff’s world were very smooth and careful in how they presented things. She’d have to engage him in conversation first, talk about something neutral like gardening or some detail of her job. Then lead him gradually into a discussion of the events of that morning. She shifted on her hips to face him.

  “Jeff? I was wondering about the best way to prune rosebushes.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t even open his eyes to look at her. She watched the slow rise and fall of his chest. It occurred to her that he was sleeping.

  “Jeff?” She touched his arm, very lightly, near the elbow.

  He didn’t respond.

  She sighed, He was asleep. So much for her wonderful plans. She’d have to put them on hold until he woke up. She glanced down the beach, where the rollers were washing up on the sand. Her body was warm from the sun; it would feel good to cool her feet in the surf. She noted that people were walking along the sandbar out to the island. She got to her feet, found her terry cover-up in her duffel bag, slipped it on and started down the beach.

  It was enjoyable to walk; moving seemed to clear her head. She headed out to the island, relishing the coolness of the damp sand on her bare feet. The tide had made little eddies in the sand, so that in places it was packed into hard ridges, like the rib cage of some huge skeleton. She watched a woman point out the phenomenon to her young child. The small, red-haired boy, in bright blue bathing trunks that sagged to his knees, squatted at her feet and poked his finger repeatedly into the ridges. Another child was scrambling up and down a large rock that was partially submerged in the gray sand. Chelsea bent and picked up a long rope of brown seaweed. It was loaded with periwinkles. The tiny snail-like creatures were clinging to the underside of the slick, rubbery leaves. She dropped it at the water’s edge, watched a tongue of surf lick it back into the ocean. A light gust of wind caught her hair and spun it across her face. She laughed, pushed it behind her ears and jogged lightly across the rest of the sandbar to the island.

  She’d been to this beach only once before, as a child, when both her parents were still alive. She and Lori had begged to go out to the island, and their father had taken them while their mother sunbathed on the beach. They had skipped and danced all the way out, but when it came time to go back over the sandbar, both girls had claimed their legs were too tired. So their father had given them each piggy back rides, alternating the girls on his broad shoulders all the way back to their blanket.

  Chelsea smiled fondly at the memory. Her father had been such a strong man, the rock of the world to his daughters’ young eyes. Who could have guessed that he would die of a heart attack in his thirty-seventh year? His death had shattered their lives, yet when the girls turned to their distraught mother for comfort, she had nothing to offer. She had neither the strength nor the resilience of their father. All she would talk about was how she needed a man, how a woman had to be in love to be alive. Her grief left her weak, vulnerable to impulse. When she told them, only six months later, that she’d fallen in love and was going to be married, both girls were more relieved than anything else.

  Chelsea reached the island and started up the rocky path to the top. She watched her step; it was early in the season and her feet were still too tender to challenge barnacles and sharp stones, not to mention the bits of broken glass and inevitable litter of tourists.

  At the top of the island she gazed out at the open sea. There were a few sailboats plying the dark blue water, and farther out, a trawler. She wondered if Stuart was still out on the water; probably he was finished hauling for the day, unless he’d had better luck than usual. She wished she were spending the afternoon with him, rather than trying to figure out how to placate the Winter family for her faux pas. She picked her way down the far side of the island, toward a depression she’d spotted in the rock. It looked like a perfect place to rest, out of the direct path of the wind, but in the comforting sun.

  Chelsea settled into the rock basin, which was almost like a cup of granite and noted with pleasure that the rock had been sun-warmed to a pleasant temperature. The sound of surf lapping the granite rocks below her was like a lullaby. She closed her eyes and lay back, stretched out her legs. It was the last thing she knew until a sudden torrent of water drenched her.

  Chelsea yelled and jumped to her feet. Even before her sight had cleared from the bleary vision of sleep, she knew what had happened. The tide had come in while she slept, and a huge wave had broken over the rock where she lay. She scrambled to the top of the island, away from the precarious spot. What she saw as she looked back toward the mainland beach jolted her. She gasped, a sharp intake of cold salt air. The sandbar was covered with water. And the tide was still coming in.

  She ran down the rocky hillside, ignoring the jagged outcroppings of granite under her bare feet. At the water’s edge she hesitated. The beach’s expanse was radically diminished and the sand itself was deserted. She must have slept for well over two hours. The spot where Jeff had laid out their blanket was now underwater. Where was Jeff? There was no sign of him, or anyone else, except for a small group of people walking along the dunes in the far distance.

  She felt the first jostle of fear, a tiny gnawing sensation in the small of her back. She took a deep breath to calm herself and studied the water in front of her, trying to gauge its depth. It roiled and eddied, splashing up little whitecaps. The chances were it wasn’t very deep. Probably she’d be able to wade across. At its deepest, the sea would likely only come up to her calves.

  She stepped tentatively into the water. It swirled over her feet and around her ankles. It was numbingly cold, but that was to be expected this time of the year. The water off the Maine coast was never tepid, even in the hottest days of summer. She took another deep breath and started walking, driving through the water with a long, powerful stride. It splashed over her feet and up against her legs, but it wasn’t deep. She fixed her gaze on the shore, three hundred yards away. She’d make it easily. She had to.

  It wasn’t until she was in the middle of the submerged sandbar, halfway between the island and the beach, that she felt the undertow. She was up to her knees in freezing water, and the first surge caught her unprepared. It came from behind, a sudden, hard shove, like a huge bar of steel sweeping through the water. She stumbled, swayed, and just managed to recover her balance. She continued walking, more slowly, carefully planting each foot in the sand, bracing her legs for stability.

  The second surge hit even harder. She staggered, fell, caught herself with her hands and scrambled quickly to her feet. She knew—growing up on the coast, she’d been told a thousand times—that panic was her worst enemy. The ocean wasn’t something you could fight. You had to work with it to survive. But all her training, all her years of knowledge, disappeared in the sudden flash of heat in her brain. Panic seized her, shredded her ability to think, drove her frantically toward the shore. She had only one thought: to get to the beach. She started running.
r />   Immediately, another rip attacked her, pushing her sideways. This time her legs went out from under her and she struggled desperately to find purchase in the sand underfoot. But it seemed to have disappeared, as if, in that one rush of water, the whole sandbar had been torn out from under her and driven into the sea. She opened her mouth to scream, and water swirled into it. She choked, coughed, spit, gulped for air. Her arms and legs thrashed wildly, fighting to keep her afloat, to find something to hang onto. A wave broke over her head. She was pressed down rapidly into the swirling, green tide. Something flashed behind her eyes and she was flung backward. A bright pain blossomed on the side of her head. She flailed again and emerged suddenly into air, gasping. Her vision blurred; she shook her head to focus, her arms and legs still beating the water frantically.

  But what she saw, when her sight finally cleared, made her chest clench and her legs lock into long, useless poles. The riptide was pulling her back toward the island, straight into a jagged wall of granite. Within seconds she would be smashed against the rocks by the relentless power of the undertow.

  Chapter Five

  Chelsea saw the doughnut-shaped life preserver sail through the air and land a few feet from her. But it lay there rocking for a full minute before she came to herself enough to realize what it was. She struggled toward it, kicking with her numb legs, reaching desperately with her frozen hands. Finally, she managed to grab it. Only then did she turn clumsily to see where it had come from.

  Jeff Blaine, all six feet of him, was standing in the bow. of a small skiff, shouting orders.

  She gaped at him, her mind blank.

  “Hang on!” he shouted. “I’m pulling you in!”

  She clutched the life preserver and felt herself moving rapidly over the top of the water. Moments later she was being hauled aboard the boat, Jeff’s powerful arms enveloping her rib cage, his legs braced in the rocking boat for balance. She coughed and shivered, pressed the whole length of her body against him just for warmth and the desperate need to touch something solid.