Wrecked (Sons of San Clemente Book 2) (17 page)

Zen. Hollis did remember that name. Her brother’s best friend since preschool.

“Yeah,” Kadan said. “No worries. Later.”

“You taking off? You just drove up. Thought we’d catch up. Go to Preacher’s or Duke’s? Fisherman’s?” Cole reeled off several bars popular with surfers.

“No thanks,” Kadan said.

Luke slugged Cole good naturedly in the arm. “Duh.”

“Worth a try,” Cole laughed. “But when you’re done, we’ll be at the usual spot by seven. Lane will be jamming for a bit and will be damned stoked to see you. No one’s heard from you since Hawaii, man. Freaked us all out. Jenna’s coming with some friends. Plenty to go around.”

“No thanks.” Kaden sounded tense now.

Both of the men shifted their attention from Kadan to her, and Hollis was more than aware that she had nothing on under the dress and that the dress was...well not sheer, but not exactly concealing all that much, either.

Hollis started the car.

“So, Kadan.” Cole rested his hand on the door through the open window. “The wipe out. The video was awesome. It killed. You’re a fuckin’ hero, but we were getting a bit jammed waiting for you to reappear.”

“Glad it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Luke said “But you did just slaughter that wave until you didn’t. Lane’s gonna turn that footage into something, but now he’s all 24/7 calling around to find you. He’s probably got a private detective on your David Blain.”

Kadan jerked his head in acknowledgement and nudged Hollis.

“I’ll give him a call.”

“He wants you to be the first to try the new camera before it’s for real,” Cole said.

“Glad to see the rumors of your demise were totally overrated,” Luke said. “Like anything but a Tsunami could kick your ass. Legend, man. Legend.”

Luke peeled off his wet suit the rest of the way. His body was tanned and toned and left Hollis feeling like a pervert. Was he even eighteen? She looked straight ahead. He winked at her, which she caught out of her damned too noticing peripheral vision.

He nodded at her. “Join us for drinks tonight, Hollis. First beer’s on loud mouth Cole. I can take it from there.”

He wrapped a towel around his narrow waist and then kicked off his board shorts. Oh, my God, he was naked underneath that towel and he definitely wanted her to know it. “You’ll be sick of AARP’s surf stories by tonight anyway. I can tell you a few of my own.”

Hollis didn’t know whether to laugh or be shocked.

Kadan flipped him off.

Cole and Luke laughed.

Hollis backed up, trying to keep her expression neutral.

“Sure you want to leave?” she asked. “Maybe your friends—” She broke off when he ran his fingers through her windblown hair.

“Let me think.” He mused. “You naked under me, screaming my name during your fourth orgasm, or drinking beer with two idiots I barely know who can’t keep their eyes off you or their dumb comments to themselves. Hmmmmmm. Tough one, duchess. Little help, please. What do you suggest?”

“Four?” She questioned.

“AARP, my ass,” Kadan muttered. “Make it five.”

Hollis laughed, but she didn’t feel reassured. He’d changed. Matured, maybe where as she felt depressingly the same. And had it really been a “what” that had changed him, not a “who”?

T
hey sat on the edge of the deck, watching the sunset, fingers intertwined.

“Ready to try again?” He finally asked after a long silence.

“What?” She nearly jumped out of her skin.

Was he asking if she was ready for more sex after their marathon session, or was he asking her if she wanted to try at being a couple again?

“Take the plunge.”

His clarification did nothing to settle the butterflies in her tummy.

“Wwwwhat?” He wasn’t asking her to...she could barely think the word, but he had mentioned her staying with him, committing to not leaving, to working out their problems.

He jerked his head toward the ocean.

“A swim,” he said. “Or at least a toe dip.”

“I’m good right here,” she said quickly. “And you’ll have a fight if you even think about getting beat up in the ocean. You’re ankle’s not ready for that pressure. And you’ve just started to be able to put a bit of weight on your foot with the boot. I don’t want anything to impeded your healing.”

“Noted,” he said drily, his hand spearing through her hair.

She was immediately lost. She practically melted against him.

“But for the record, I can still take you,” he said, lips against her mouth.

Could he ever. They’d barely made it to the bed when they’d come home. He hadn’t even managed to get her dress off before he’d been inside her, pinning her arms above her head and devouring her small breasts through the thin fabric of her dress.

“I can drive you up to Gran’s pool,” she said primly. “If you feel like a swim.”

“Later,” he said. “Now just walk with me to the edge.” He stood and tugged on her fingers.

“Kadan,”

“Just walk with me.” He pulled her upright. “And talk.”

So she did. Hollis stared at her bare feet in the sand and concentrated on how the last gold rays of the sun felt on her skin as they pinkened as the sun continued to sink. She loved the ocean, she repeated to herself.

“Good.”

She pressed her lips together tightly but nodded.

Breathe.

“Liar.” He laughed. “You are still a terrible liar.”

“I’m still terrible at a lot of things,” she whispered.

“Such as?” His tone was light, but she knew he was really asking.

And why should she hide from him? She thought of him as her one love. The love of her life, but she’d given up on love when she’d walked out on Kadan the last time. The final time. And now she was trying to not give up on herself.

“Did you feel—” She broke off, hating to ruin the quiet moment but things needed to be said, and if they were going to try again, which she was afraid she wanted to even though her head kept lecturing her on the definition of insanity. But if they were going to try, then she needed to be honest with him and with herself. Who she was and what she wanted, not the pleaser, so desperate for attention and love that she’d pretzel herself into any shape.

“When we were together,” she whispered, wanting to shut up and spit the words out at the same time. “Did you feel like we were in a committed relationship or was it just fun?”

Her question obviously surprised him.

“It was committed on my end.” He dropped her hand.

She felt like he took all the warmth from her body.

“But...” She thought back to all those painful years.

There’d always been so many stories, so many pictures of him celebrating a top place, either his or a friend’s. There’d always been a lot of people, a lot of beautiful women in the pictures, gazing at him, media speculation. His friends would rib him about how the women would come up with increasingly creative or daring ways to meet him. Actresses, models, musicians, rich older women, all of them wanted a “surf lesson,” or to buy him a drink or to take him out. And then there had been the sponsors. Free everything. Always a party for a winner. Always lots and lots of beautiful women. And the pictures, the online articles and blogs, the speculation. Kadan Carson, surf god, always surrounded by beautiful women and other surfers.

“I don’t want to upset you or accuse you of anything,” she said. “But to me you never seemed committed.”

“I don’t know what that would have looked like to you,” he said.

“You were always...” She wanted to explain, to define it, but it was hard to separate her more adult self from the star struck girl and young, insecure woman. Kadan had been her only, and she’d been one in a very long line. “You always had so many people around you, you were always in the center, and I always felt like I was on the sidelines.”

“I was living my life. You were living yours. Hell, Hollis. Our lives were so different. I traveled a lot and you were in school the entire time. First Stanford, then UCLA. You had a lot of studying to do, and I tried to leave you alone so you could chase that dream like I was chasing mine.”

Only it hadn’t been her dream, had it? Hollis acknowledged the simple truth. She’d enjoyed some aspects of medical school, but she’d resented how long she had to be away from him, how little she could travel with him even when his sponsors would have paid for her to go. Plus she’d been shy. It had been hard to hang out and be comfortable with so many people. Kadan had been and still was super popular. She’d resented that a little.

He’d let her chase her so called dream, but she hadn’t really wanted him to chase his.

“But you were always with so many other people,” she said softly. “I think that was a bit hard for me. How surrounded you were. And then there were so many women wanting to meet you, hang on you. Be with you.”

He shrugged. “Hollis, I don’t want to revisit this. Women come with the territory. They were available. Very. Doesn’t mean I had sex with them. But I also didn’t want to seem like some twelfth-century monk. I had an image I had to somewhat maintain.”

“So it was all show?” she asked, scarcely able to believe it. “The flirting?”

“I don’t know about show.” He took a few steps into the ocean. “I was living and loving my life. I live to surf. I enjoy my friends. I enjoy the travel, the different waves. I wasn’t worried what other people thought.”

Hollis hesitated and then followed him a little further into the water. She winced when a wave hit her shin and then sucked at her feet as it raced away from the beach.

“Were you lonely? Or happy? Did you want me to be there?”

He jammed his hands in his pocket, keeping the crutches tucked close to his body.

His face twisted. “Of course.” He bit out. “Of course I wanted you there, Hollis, but give me a fucking break. Was I supposed to beg?”

“You never even asked.”

“You knew my schedule.”

She tried to pull away, but he held on tightly.

“I wanted to be asked.”

“What? You’d miss a final to watch me crush it in Thailand or Hawaii or South Africa? Not likely. Then there was always the new quarter starting for you. You’d miss first week of classes to watch me in Australia? Was never gonna happen.”

“Were you mad?” she whispered.

It suddenly occurred to her that he must have been resentful as hell. He was a god. Revered. And the woman who supposedly loved him couldn’t miss a study session to cheer him on.

He thought about it. “I was having a blast, Hollis. I love surfing. I love competing. It’s who I am. I wished you were there for more of it, but you weren’t, and I didn’t want you to have to give up something you loved for me. My mom was always changing herself for every new guy, and I hated that. She’d kick me out when a new guy didn’t want me around. I didn’t want a woman who would do that. But, yeah, it sucked that you weren’t there.”

His words sounded angry for the first time and they hung heavy in the air. One more thing keeping them apart. So why was she trying to go back into the stupid ocean? Conquer an irrational fear that had clawed its way out of the dark emotional ooze of her life, years after it would have maybe made more sense.

“I was scared,” she said.

“Of what?”

She took a deep breath. Oh. My. God. She totally couldn’t tell him. He’d lose all respect for her.

“Of what? Dammit, Hollis, you’re like water through my fucking fingers. If we don’t communicate, we got nothing.”

“It was what I wanted. To be that girl who followed you,” she whispered. “And I didn’t want to be that woman. The one whose whole life was wrapped up in someone else, who had nothing of her own. I wanted to be my own person. I wanted you to love me for who I was.”

With the last rays of the sunset, she saw his searching gaze. She found herself holding her breath, willing him to understand, to not be totally disgusted with her.

“I did love you,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“But
I
didn’t even know who I was. I was afraid I would define myself through you, and you’d lose all respect for me.”

The words came out in a rush, and it was all she could do to stand her ground and not run off humiliated, but she was nearly thirty. A woman. A woman who loved him and who wanted a chance to make her life finally work. She wanted to face the fears and pain of the past.

“I know you’re serious,” he finally said. “But you are so far from that woman or girl or... I don’t really know what to say to that. Live through me? That fear is so far from reality, but”—his hands smoothed down her bare arms—“many fears are irrational, aren’t they?” He mused. “You were always researching everything. The weather, the storm systems. The food. The nutritional value. Learning recipes from the different cultures. Taking photographs. You were always reading. Everything. I was so damned envious. I used to have you read to me in the hotel room at night because I said I loved the sound of your voice, but, really, all the information was like the Discovery Channel and National Geographic and the History and Art Channel all rolled into one. There were a million things you could have done with your life as you followed me. A million things you could do now.”