If only he knew …
“Do you realize how many people will benefit because you were willing to take a chance?”
“Don’t make me sound like a hero. I’m not.”
He grinned. “Modest, too.”
I flicked some sand at him, hoping to get us off this subject. His eyes narrowed. Then, he leaned over and shook his mass of dark hair. Water drops flew everywhere, catching me in the face. I threw up my hands and squealed.
“I’m sorry, did I get you wet?” he said, all false innocence and fluttering lashes.
“Fiend,” I said, but my smile faded after a few moments. Silence hung between us, filled with the repetitive roar of waves, voices of the scattered tourists enjoying the early October sun, and the expectant hush of things left unsaid. I’d yet to explain to Hunter the reasons behind the panic-struck phone call that had summoned him to my side.
He hadn’t pressured me, but it was only a matter of time. I couldn’t expect someone to drive across five states at the drop of a hat without rewarding him with some kind of feasible explanation. The problem was—in my case, the truth sounded less feasible than the most fantastical lie.
“Are you sure your parents are okay with this?” I swept my arms wide to indicate him, me, us, Virginia Beach. All of it.
I saw his broad shoulders stiffen, watched his toes shovel into the sand. He averted his gaze. So apparently I wasn’t the only one hiding something. That probably shouldn’t have made me feel better, but in a perverse way, it did. “Do they not know you’re here?”
A shadow passed over his expression, but it was chased away an instant later by his smile. “Oh, they know. They told me that I should come help you. As a matter of fact—and don’t take this wrong—but when I told Mom about the first time I saw you at Dairy Queen, she encouraged me to get to know you, make new friends.” His smile eased into a wide, off-center grin. “Not that I needed any encouragement.”
Warmth blossomed beneath my ribs. I remembered that day when he’d walked into the Dairy Queen while I’d been there with some other girls. Something about his easygoing demeanor and searching gaze had pulled me in instantly, but I’d never realized he’d felt the same.
I stood and skipped a few feet forward to where the sea lapped at the shore. Stooping down, I cupped my hands and scooped up a handful of frigid water, careful to keep my back to Hunter so he couldn’t spot my growing grin. The next instant, I whirled.
“Catch!” I said, flinging the water at Hunter.
He sputtered when the water unexpectedly hit his face, and the sight of his shock—open mouth, wide eyes—was so comical, I giggled. I backed up, skipping and dancing away.
“Oh, you’re in for it now,” he mock-growled, jumping to his feet with that same lithe grace I remembered. With his low-slung board shorts and his wet hair glistening in waves around his neck, he looked like a beach bum. My gaze skimmed his bare chest and I swallowed. Make that god. Beach god.
I backed away down the shore and he raced toward me, kicking up water at my legs. We exchanged splashes, laughing like toddlers, and then he grabbed my hand and pretended to drag me toward the oncoming waves. He stopped before we went too deep, and we stood there together, allowing the foamy white ocean to swirl over our ankles.
The water, the sun beating down, the drag of the tide. All of it flitted through my mind, reminding me of … something. Before I knew what I was doing, I was spinning in a circle, twirling with my arms outstretched. Feeling the wet sand squish between my toes.
Twirling, in the sand. Another niggle. A pinch, in a corner of my mind.
I remembered this joy, this gladness.
The next instant, it was gone.
I felt a tug at my hair, and opened my eyes. Hunter’s face was only a few inches away. I inhaled salt and sweat, sandalwood and a hint of sunscreen. “Don’t worry about looking too cool or anything,” he teased. But his wink suggested approval of my beach antics.
He stepped closer, until our toes touched beneath a tiny hill of sand. The instant shock of awareness intensified when he bent forward, his breath tickling my ear, triggering my heart to pound harder. A slow, steady warmth traveled through my body, from my head to my arms, all the way down to my tingling toes. I yearned for his nearness in a way that I longed for nothing else. Maybe that was the reason I’d called him. Grief and fear had nearly dragged me under, and in the past, Hunter had been one of my only sources of comfort.
“Sorry,” I said, struggling to keep my tone light.
“Don’t be. You’re just … you.”
I turned my head, gazing off into the distance. Just me? And who might that be?
In a stroke of irony that thankfully only I could see, red words blinked to life in my head, accompanied by an all-too-familiar digitized voice. My voice.
Apparently the universe’s way of reminding me of exactly who—no, what—I was.
Threat detected: 4.52 mi.
I froze. Four and a half miles? What the—
Two jets, due west.
I whirled, searching the air for a sign of them.
“What are you looking at?” Hunter asked, cupping a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun.
There.
“Jets.”
“There’s a huge naval base in Virginia Beach, isn’t there? Cool.”
Not cool. Not cool at all. My hands tightened as images from the past deluged me, with crystal-clear precision. Suburbans, men with guns. An airplane filled with soldiers, transporting Mom and me to a secret compound. Tiny, barren holding cells. The salt-and-pepper hair of General Holland, and the smug satisfaction that oozed from him when he issued the order to have me terminated.
Mom. Bleeding out after being shot on Holland’s command. By one of Holland’s men.
The gasp-clench of loss wrenched my chest and almost doubled me over, reminding me that Mom was gone. Dead. Murdered by a madman under the guise of defending his country.
I’d never see her smile at me again. Never hear her voice. Never tell her that I loved her.
“I wonder what kind they are?” he said, snapping me out of the dark place.
I didn’t answer, because just then, something moved within my eyes. I actually felt my pupils contract. A thin layer slid open, accompanied by a subtle clicking that only I could hear.
Zoom: Activated.
Another click, and the planes enlarged to fill my field of vision, like I’d fired up a pair of high-tech binoculars. The images grew and grew in size, until I could capture enough detail to place them.
F/A-18 military jets.
A 3-D schematic of the jets burst to life before me, rotating to show me all sides.
Red letters blinked behind my eyes:
Presently unarmed—drill mode likely
“Not sure,” I murmured, turning away in relief. But as the weight drained from my limbs, a heavy certainty filled my heart. The planes served as a forceful reminder that this carefree beach time with Hunter was coming to an end. No matter how hard I tried to push reality away, it kept sweeping back over me, as surely as the tide rolled in.
And like the rhythmic cycle of the tide, two names repeated themselves, over and over again.
Richard Grady. Sarah. Names that had slipped from Mom’s lips not long before she’d died. I was most confused by Sarah.
“You always were