Sam took a good look at her. She’d known Lorissa twenty-odd years, since kindergarten. Together, they’d already been through so much: Lorissa’s parents’ nasty divorce, her mother’s suicide when they’d been twelve, and a close friend’s overdose at age thirteen. Then Sam losing her parents in a car wreck on the night of their eighth-grade graduation. Between them they’d racked up more mileage on the road of life than most others their age.
And they’d survived, each in her own way. Lorissa had stayed with her father and his new wife, trying junior college in San Diego but deciding higher learning wasn’t for her. Now, she drew caricatures on the beach and was good enough to make a decent living at the local weekend Malibu craft fairs. She supplemented this income by serving weekdays at Wild Cherries—when she wasn’t busy surfing.
As for Sam, she’d gone to live with Red, her mother’s beach-bum brother, who’d had no more idea of what to do with a hurting kid than how to cope with his own grief. The car accident that had killed her parents had been her father’s fault and by the time the dust had settled years later, Sam was left with little money. She’d already begun working at Red’s place, Wild Cherries. Happy enough to have her friends, she’d lived in the moment—surfing in the mornings, working a shift for cranky uncle Red in the afternoons…an easy career choice.
During the few times she let herself think too much, she remembered her motto: Enjoy every little thing as it happens, appreciate all of it. She repeated that mantra often, because she knew that if she ever acknowledged all she’d been through, she’d drown. As a coping mechanism, it had worked.
And as the years passed, little changed. Red retired, and Sam scrimped, saved and went into debt to buy the business from him. Now, at twenty-six, things were good. Maybe she didn’t often engage her emotions, but she didn’t want to. She recognized that about herself and was smart enough to know she couldn’t even skim that pool; it simply went too deep.
Like Sam, Lorissa also had commitment issues. For her to date a man more than once was rare, much less admit she really liked him. “You sure about this Cole guy?” Sam asked Lorissa now. “You know how rich guys are. They’re like the too-good-looking ones—they always turn out to be jerks.”
“Not this one.” Lorissa’s smile was earnest. “Please, Sam. Just one little date. Just one short night out of your life—”
“Yeah.” She was still shocked at Lorissa’s willingness to fall for Cole. “Fine.”
“—It won’t be so bad, and you can call me from your cell phone every few minutes. If you need me, I’ll come up with a way to rescue you, I promise. I—”
“I said fine.”
“I’ll give you—”
“Lor, honey, I’ll do it.”
Lorissa blinked and gave a slow, relieved smile. “Really?”
“But I swear to you, if he’s got hair plugs or garlic breath or tries to cop a feel, I’m outta there.”
Lorissa beamed. “Deal.”
Great. Deal. Sam turned away from the café and looked at the ocean. Four- to five-footers pounded the surf. A jogger made his way down the sand, along with a few other stragglers. For a hot late August evening, the place was quiet. “Let’s go for a swim.”
Lorissa checked her watch, something she rarely did. In fact, Sam couldn’t believe she was even wearing a watch. “I’ve got an hour before I’m catching up with Cole.”
“You’ve been late since the day you were born. Why the sudden concern with being on time?”
“I’m meeting his parents.”
Sam did a double take. Parents? That sounded…real, and she suddenly took this whole thing more seriously. “Hasn’t it only been a week?”
“Yes, but it seems like a lifetime,” Lorissa said with a dreamy sigh.
As they walked to the water, Sam got all protective. “What does he do again?”
“He’s in marketing.”
“Marketing.” How…vague. Her bikini was already under her sundress as usual, which she stripped off and Lorissa did the same.
“You’re going to love him, I promise,” Lorissa said.
Sam would see about that. Privately, she was already prepared to hate the guy who’d captured her best friend’s heart. He’d better treat her right, or she’d—
“Which reminds me…” Lorissa grimaced. “There’s sort of a stipulation about your date.”
“Stipulation?”
“The guy is a client of Cole’s, as well as a friend. The deal is you go with him to some big fancy charity event—”
“Whoa. Dressing up?”
“Yes, dressing up. You make nice at the charity dinner and auction, and you can’t talk to the press.”
“Who is this guy?” Sam pictured some smarmy, overly sophisticated businessman gone Hollywood.
“Just remember, rich.”
“Great.”
“So you agree to the terms? The no talking to the press thing?” Lorissa shot her a worried look. “Since you’ve never been fond of the press anyway, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Tomorrow night was going to be one long exercise in patience. Not that Sam had anything against dating. The opposite, actually. She enjoyed going out and meeting men.
But a guy she hadn’t picked, laying down rules…it all just went against the grain somehow. And yet, there Lorissa stood in her yellow bikini and hopeful expression, so Sam offered a weak smile. “No problem.”
Lorissa’s grin was brilliant. “I owe you one.”
“Yeah. Remember that.”
And in perfect sync, they plunged from the still-warm sand into the oncoming wave.
THE NEXT EVENING, Sam was floating on her back between swells, watching the glorious sun touch its bottom tip on the ocean, that lovely time between day and night, when the birds and stars strained for equal time against a dusky sky. The air was still and hot as the soothingly chilly water lapped over her.
Sam figured she could float out here the rest of the evening and never tire of it.
“Sam!”
Damn. Lorissa had found her, and probably just in time for her date. Given the volume of swearing over the roar of the waves, she had precious little time left before her date showed up but she stretched out in the water, trying to swim her doubts away. She didn’t often have worries, or so she liked to think, but today she had one big one.
She wished she hadn’t agreed to the date. She’d rather be catching the Bewitched marathon in her pj’s, eating at will. She knew she had the makings for her newest creation—Fritos smashed into cheddar cheese on French bread. She’d melt it over the stove and happily stuff her face—
“Samantha Anne O’Ryan, get your ass out of the water!”
With a sigh, she flipped over and rode a wave in, beaching herself. Flopping onto her back on the hot sand, she shoved her long, blond hair from her eyes and grinned up at a serious-looking Lorissa. “Hey.”
Lorissa put her hands on her hips and studied Sam grimly. “I am not amused.”
“So I’m running a little late.”
“Run late on your own night.”
“I have ten minutes before he’s due to pick me up.”
“He’s