“Heya,” she said back, stretching her long legs out in front of her and distracting him even further with the sight of all that tanned, sleek flesh.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, reaching into the cooler for a bottle of iced tea. The elusive scent of strawberries briefly triumphed over the suntan lotion emanating from the baking bodies next to them, then disappeared like a mirage. He peered deeper into the cooler. No strawberries.
“I’m not sure they’re worth that much,” Beka said, flashing him a pale imitation of her typical grin.
“Really, what were you thinking?”
She tilted her head down the beach at Tito and his mom. “Just that they’re good people.”
“They are,” Marcus agreed. He’d been drawn to the boy since the day they met. The military shrink would probably say it had something to do with losing his brother at an age not much older than Tito was now, and maybe that was part of it. But he respected the way the kid was handling a tough situation; he didn’t wallow in self-pity, tried to keep a positive attitude, and worried more about his mother than he did himself. Not bad for someone who hadn’t even hit puberty yet.
Beka stole Marcus’s iced tea and held the cold bottle against her neck, letting droplets of condensation trickle down into her cleavage. He shifted slightly, his denim cutoffs suddenly tighter. Luckily, Beka was still gazing out at the water and didn’t seem to notice the effect she was having on him. Of course, she never did. Clearly, the intense physical attraction was all on his side. Just as well, really, under the circumstances, although it was hard not to feel a twinge of disappointed male ego.
He grabbed another iced tea for himself and they sat there for a moment in companionable silence.
“You’re good people too,” Beka said after a minute. “I think what you’re doing for them is really terrific. I know you’ve already got your hands full dealing with your dad’s illness and the boat and everything. It’s nice of you to take the time to treat them to a day at the beach. Poor Candace looks like she hasn’t done anything fun in ages, and Tito is having a blast.”
“Good people, huh?” Marcus felt the edge of his mouth curving up in a smile and forced it back, giving Beka an exaggerated scowl instead as she turned to look at him. “I thought you considered me to be cranky and unpleasant. I believe the term ‘stick-up-the-butt’ might have been used.”
She snorted. “You’ve got to admit, we got off to a rocky start. But you’re kind of growing on me.”
The smile slid out despite his best intentions. “Yeah, you’re kind of growing on me too.”
Marcus could see that Tito and Candace were getting ready to head back to the blanket, and he had a sudden urge to make this rare moment of détente last a little longer.
“Are you planning to come out and dive tomorrow?” he asked. “We’re pulling out of dock at dawn. My da has a feeling that the fish will be running near the spot you usually go in, so it’s no trouble if you want to tag along.”
She shrugged one tanned shoulder. “I’m not finding what I’m looking for at the depth I’ve been diving. I’m going to have to go quite a bit deeper the next time, and that means a longer dive, since I’ll have to come back up slowly to compensate. Is that going to be a problem?”
Only for his nerves, waiting for her to come back up from the dark and treacherous depths of the ocean. “No, not at all. As long as I can be back on board in time to help them pull in the nets when they’re done, the guys and my da should be able to manage the rest without me.”
He watched Tito’s progress out of the corner of one eye, trying to gauge how much time he had left before the other two rejoined them.
“Uh, do you have any plans for tomorrow evening?” He braced himself to hear her say she was going out with that guy Kesh again; it seemed like he was always around these days. Staking out his territory, which just happened to include Beka, apparently.
“Nothing definite,” she said. “Why?”
“It’s no big deal, but a couple of the guys I knew from high school asked me to meet them in Santa Carmelita tomorrow night. There’s some sort of barbeque on the beach, with fireworks and stuff, and they’ve been asking me to get together and do something since I got back, so I really couldn’t say no.” He took a deep breath. “The thing is, I’m not great with crowds these days, and explosions, well, they make me kind of edgy. I thought if you went with me, it would help remind me that I wasn’t in Afghanistan anymore.”