Beach-Bound, Part Three

He didn’t realize he was looking for her until he didn’t find her in the cottage. And he remembered so very little, although the more he concentrated, the more he kind of recalled.

Still, it wasn’t much. Wavy, copper-gold hair catching the firelight, then curling around him underwater as he held her in his arms. Brief illuminations of her long, lean frame as she mingled with others on the beach, every line of her a temptation. His clearest recollections were of her eyes, clear and green and wise; a dozen times he’d caught her stealing glances at him during the party and tried to catch her stare. He wouldn’t let her look away when they were submerged, when he finally got to hold her and became so lost in her gaze he forgot her name.

Except… they couldn’t possibly have gone swimming in this weather. And had she even given him her name? He didn’t remember her saying it… but she must have, because it was just there at the edge of his thoughts. A flower, like a rose. No. A field flower, something sunny and open and strong in the wind. Daisy. Yes. Her name was Daisy.

He absolutely had to find her. In fact, when he was sure she was nowhere in the cabin, he almost bolted back to the beach, reasoning – he wasn’t sure why – she must be in the sea. Which, again, was nuts.

The sensation of floating with her under the waves replayed itself and he experienced every moment of it, the darkness closing off the rest of the world, the intensifying the intimacy between them, which was thick and sweet and wild enough to break a man’s heart.

He was pretty sure she’d promised to come to him here, though. He walked to the front porch and scanned the stretch of sand leading to the water, and then examined the ocean itself. He found himself evaluating each inconsistency in the water’s surface, expecting her to appear and swim toward him… which, again, was nuts. He saw no sign of her anywhere, however. He returned to the house, rummaged for a pair sweatpants and then located the makings for coffee. One thing he knew for sure: he hadn’t imagined her. And if she didn’t come soon, he would go back out and look for her.

Errin Stevens is the author of Updrift, now available at Liquid Silver Books, Amazon, and bn.com.

 

Got invited to share a short story on the Romance Lives Forever blog site a couple of months back as part of a holiday/snow-themed thing, and want to share it here with y’all. I will post a portion of “Beachbound” for the next five days!

Beachbound, Part I

He knew where he was before he opened his eyes.

First he heard the surf, the rhythmic rush and crash of waves hitting the shore perhaps ten yards from where he lay. The fresh sea air tickled his nose and awakened him further. When he shifted, sugar sand cascaded from his hair, brushing his face as it fell to the ground beneath his cheek.

His eyelids lifted to reveal a weak December sun whose light barely penetrated the gray carpet of clouds covering what appeared to be his own private beach. Diffused and dim, the sky was still too bright for early morning; he guessed the time to be maybe ten? Perhaps closer to noon.

What was he doing here? His mind was clear, his perceptions crisp… but he could not recall the events leading to his current circumstances. He drilled his memory, encountering only blackness until a single image surfaced like the too-brief revelation of a dark landscape by a flash of lightning. A party in someone’s backyard… no, on the beach, at night. There was a fire and laughing; and strange, beautiful women drifted around him and several other guys, everyone a stranger. The women were extraordinary – their eyes, their skin, their hair – every feature, every movement fascinated him. He and the other men examined them hungrily, riveted. He felt like a predator hunting the one he would choose… but then maybe he and the others were prey, there for one of them to select. His mind shuttered and the picture disappeared.

He decided to work his situation backwards instead, to search for tangibles in what he could see and understand at the moment. He was on his back with his face turned toward the ocean, and he was blanketed under an enormous pile of seaweed. Which he supposed he appreciated since he would otherwise be dead from hypothermia. He started to disentangle his arms, and then quickly tucked them back into his body for warmth, and because he apparently needed to make a stronger inventory before he acted as he didn’t seem to be wearing anything underneath all this kelp. This was a significant problem he wasn’t sure he could solve – it felt like it might actually snow – and he peered up the beach. He had an insubstantial memory of parking his car in a lot possibly located just to the north. He calculated the time it would take him to traverse the half-mile stretch and immediately abandoned the idea. He wasn’t sure the lot was even there, and in any case, he’d never make it in this cold.

He lifted his head as high as the weight of his cocoon allowed and noticed markings in the sand next to him. Someone had left him a note.

Seth – Go to the house over the berm.

An arrow pointed behind him and he followed it to see where it indicated. He glimpsed the roofline of a simple, heretofore unnoticed shack, a brown-shake Cape Cod perched on the otherwise bleak landscape, not too far from where he was. Seth fought his way out of his nest and sprinted to the cottage.

 

Errin Stevens is the author of Updrift, now available at Liquid Silver Books, Amazon, and bn.com.