Lindsay Longford - Dead Calm

Behind her the wave hung for a long time. Dark at the base, black in this light, its crest all white foam and shivering green glass.

He thought she hesitated as the wave came up under her. She was in the backwash. She bent her knees again, curved forward, and the wave took her, enveloped her like a careless lover. Threw her forward, sent her board spiraling up into the sky and covered her with boiling white water that splashed high into the sky.

Lunging to his feet, Finnegan scanned the distance and couldn’t see her, couldn’t find that sleek head bobbing in the water. He covered the three yards to the water without realizing he’d moved.

Surf roiled around his knees, clawed at his chest.

Far beyond him her board floated on the surge of a small wave and vanished into a trough.

He couldn’t see her anywhere in the pounding waves.

He yanked his shoes off and hurled them toward the shore behind him, struck out toward the deep. There, right between two waves, he could see her board again, could see now the wet white of her face as she crawled onto the board and slumped. Strands of heavy wet hair hid her face.

Unseen, treading water, he rose and fell on the waves, their bodies joined in the great rhythm of the gulf.

She struggled to hold onto the board, her arms trembling with effort.

Or he imagined the effort. He wasn’t sure.

Finally she brought her knees under her.

And waited again.

His eyes never leaving her, Finnegan sank beneath the water and moved slowly toward the shore behind him until his feet scraped against cold sand.

He hauled himself up the incline of the shore. Turning back, he saw her stand.

Behind her, bigger than the wave that had taken her under, a wall of water raced toward him. His throat tightened and in the roar of the waves that filled him, everything went silent. He wondered if her heart was thumping as hard as his. He yelled at her to let the damned wave pass, to wait for a smaller one, not to try this freakish thing leaping out of the Gulf.

The wind caught his shout, shredded it into nonsense.

Half crouched, arms balancing her, Sophie caught the edge of the monster and hung there, for hours it seemed, in the pre-dawn sky. Against the cold sand, his toes buzzed with the power of the wave. He could sense the thrust of the wave as it grew, its glassy green stretching, stretching, filling the horizon with shivering power.

Then, in one perfect moment, it crested, spitting white against the gray sky.

Puny against the glassy green, she rode its momentum all the way to the collapsing crash of soapy foam.

Over the surf noise, her laugh rang with triumph, a bright, bell-like sound, as she trudged to the sand with her board.

Arousal ripped through him. His skin rippled with it. He could smell it in the air, coming off him like bands of storm waves. He couldn’t even hear the surf over the roaring in his ears. His wet jeans flapped against his legs as he strode toward her. Even his fingertips thrummed with the need to—what?

Mid stride, he stopped, took a deep breath. A second one.

He forced himself to stroll toward her and was appalled at the struggle it took.

He’d been stupid.

Was being even more stupid. If he had an ounce of sense, he’d turn and run for the hills before she saw him.

But he didn’t.

Instead, water slopping at his heels, he approached her. Blowing off the Gulf, wind plastered his wet clothes to him. He should have been cold to the bone.

He wasn’t.

How could he be cold when his blood was pumping so damned hot through him? He half-expected to see steam rising from his every footstep. A pressure cooker of intensity, looking for an escape valve.

Burning even the roots of his wet hair.

He wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d swung around and seen a string of black, scorched footprints following him in the sand.

Flopped on the wet sand and facing the storm surge, she didn’t see him approaching her.

It gave him that extra second he needed.

It gave him the element of surprise he wanted.

Relief washed over him and left him feeling like a yellow-bellied coward as he pitched his voice lower than the booming waves. “Sophie.”

She leapt to her feet. The board bounced to the sand, kicked up a shell. “Finnegan? Finnegan?” She was breathing hard, her breasts lifting with her questions. “What—where did you come from? And why?” Strands of wet hair clung flatly to her head, lay against her cheek as she stared at him. “Judah. Here?”

“Yeah. Me. Here.” He stooped and picked up her board, handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said automatically, her face crumpled with confusion. She held the board close to her, and that pulse in her throat was going ninety miles an hour. “You—”

“Scared you?” He’d like to scare her, just a little, just enough to make her drop that brittle mask she wore around him. He wanted to see her without all that clever self-possession, just once.

“Scared? No, no, you startled me. That’s all. I thought no one was here.” She lifted the board, tamped it onto the sand.

“How’s your shoulder?”

He shrugged. He hadn’t thought about his stitches once since he’d arrived at the beach. “It’s okay.”

“Good. Do you need any pain meds?”

He must have made a sound.

“No, tough guy, I guess you wouldn’t. Need anything, that is.” She bounced the board hard against the sand, shifted.

“So, Finnegan, exactly how long have you been here?”

“Long enough to see you eat pie on that wave.”

She glanced toward the Gulf, gave a small, delighted smile. “Big waves for the Gulf. I hadn’t expected anything like this.” From the east behind her, light was beginning to stain the sand, tint the water a softer shade of gray. “That beast stripped my rash guard off, right over my head and arms. Gone.” She paused before turning her attention back to him. “I hit the backwash. It popped me right off. I couldn’t hold it.”

“Too bad.”

“That’s surfing for you.” She looked out at the Gulf. “You play in God’s ballpark, you pay the price.” Absently she rubbed her elbow, calm as all get-out.

Except for that pulse going like a bat out of hell.

Hair flattened against her head, she was a sleek, otter-like silhouette against the lightening gray in her shiny black neoprene. He wanted to sluice the water dripping from her hair with his hands, he wanted to slide those same hands, wet with salt water, down the smooth, shiny curves of her, he wanted to taste that tiny pulse beating like a trapped butterfly under her skin—

She glanced back at him, frowned, the little pulse beat going lickety-split. “So. You’ve been here a while.”

“I have.”

He knew the second she regained control. It was caused by a tone in his voice. Or the look on his face. But the confusion softening her face disappeared, the restless shifting back and forth ceased as she registered his comment. She narrowed her eyes. With a quick assessment, she considered his wet clothes, sopping hair, and the seaweed still clinging to his worn jeans. “Looks like you ate pie yourself.”

“Not me. You couldn’t pay me enough to go out there at this time of day. I sure do admire a shark’s efficiency, but I’m not right fond of having breakfast with them. Or being their breakfast. Didn’t you know this was feeding time, Yankee Girl?”

“Not much of a risk on this coast. Different if we were down in the Keys.”

“There’s always a risk.”

“Hey, Finnegan, life’s full of risks. Don’t you know that?” Her laugh was a ripple of sound that furred along his nerve endings and made him catch his breath.

“Remember a couple of years ago? That huge migration of sharks in the Gulf off Tampa? Hundreds of them?”