Summer Love: The Best Mistake / Impulse

She came up sputtering, dragging wet hair out of her eyes. He grinned at her and calmly continued to tread water. “It was too easy.”

She tilted her head, considering him and the distance between them. Challenge leaped into her eyes, sparked with amusement. “It won’t be the next time.”

His grin only widened. When he moved, he moved fast, streaking under and across the water like an eel. Rebecca had time for a quick squeal. Dragging in a deep breath, she kicked out. He caught her ankle, but she was ready. Unresisting, she let him pull her under. Then, instead of fighting her way back to the surface, she wrapped her arms around him and sent them both rolling in an underwater wrestling match. They were still tangled, her arms around him, her hands hooked over his shoulders, when they surfaced.

“We’re even.” She gasped for air and shook the water out of her eyes.

“How do you figure?”

“If we’d had a mat I’d have pinned you. Want to go for two out of three?”

“I might.” He felt her legs tangle with his as she kicked out lazily. “But for now I prefer this.”

He was going to kiss her again. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the slight tensing of the arm that locked them torso to torso. She wasn’t sure she was ready. More, she was afraid she was much too ready.

“Stephen?”

“Hmm?” His lips were a breath away from hers. Then he found himself underwater again, his arms empty. He should have been furious. He nearly was when he pushed to surface. She was shoulder-deep in the water, a few feet away. Her laughter rolled over him, young, delighted, unapologetic.

“It was too easy.” She managed a startled “whoops” when he struck out after her. She might have made it—she had enough of a lead—but he swam as though he’d been born in the water. Still, she was agile, and she almost managed to dodge him, but her laughter betrayed her. She gulped in water, choked, then found herself hauled up into his arms in thigh-deep water.

“I like to win.” Deciding it was useless to struggle, she pressed a hand to her heart and gasped for air. “It’s a personality flaw. Sometimes I cheat at canasta.”

“Canasta?” The last thing he could picture the slim, sexy bundle in his arms doing was spending a quiet evening playing cards.

“I can’t help myself.” Still breathless, she laid her head on his shoulder. “No willpower.”

“I find myself having the same problem.” With a careless toss, he sent her flying through the air. She hit the water bottom first.

“I guess I deserved that.” She struggled to her feet, water raining off her. “I have to sit.” Wading through the water, she headed for the gentle slope of beach. She lay, half in and half out of the water, not caring that the sand would cling to her hair and skin. When he dropped down beside her, she reached out a hand for his. “I don’t know when I’ve had a nicer day.”

He looked down to where her fingers linked with his. The gesture had been so easy, so natural. He wondered how it could both comfort and arouse. “It’s hardly over.”

“It seems like it could last forever.” She wanted it to go on and on. Blue skies and easy laughter. Cool water and endless hours. There had been a time, not so long before, when the days had dragged into nights and the nights into days. “Did you ever want to run away?”

With her hand still in his, he lay back to watch a few scattered rags of clouds drift. How long had it been, he wondered, since he’d really watched the sky? “To where?”

“Anywhere. Away from the way things are, away from what you’re afraid they’ll always be.” She closed her eyes and could see herself brewing that first cup of coffee at exactly 7:15, opening the first file at precisely 9:01. “To drop out of sight,” she murmured, “and pop up somewhere else, anywhere else, as someone completely different.”

“You can’t change who you are.”

“Oh, but you can.” Her tone suddenly urgent, she rose on her elbow. “Sometimes you have to.”

He reached up to touch the ends of her hair. “What are you running from?”

“Everything. I’m a coward.”

He looked into her eyes. They were so clear, so full of enthusiasm. “I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know me.” A flicker of regret, then uncertainty, ran across her face. “I’m not sure I want you to.”

“Don’t I?” His fingers tightened on her hair, keeping her still. “There are people and circumstances that don’t take months or years before they’re understood. I look at you and something fits into place, Rebecca. I don’t know why, but it is. I know you.” He tugged her down for the lightest, the briefest, of kisses. “And I like what I see.”

“Do you?” She smiled. “Really?”

“Do you imagine I spend the day with a woman only because I want to sleep with her?” She shrugged, and though her blush was very faint, he noticed it and was amused by it. How many women, he wondered, could kiss a man into oblivion, then blush? “Being with you, Rebecca, is a difficult pleasure.”

She chuckled and began to draw circles in the wet sand. What would he say, what would he think, if he knew what she was? Or, more accurately, what she wasn’t? It didn’t matter, she told herself. She couldn’t let it spoil what there was between them.