“Would you mind walking to the beach with me, Mr. Wolford?” Linley asked as they left the little restaurant in the souk. “I would like to see it one last time before I leave.”
Patrick followed her through the crowd and down the narrow flight of steps leading to the Moroccan shoreline. “Don’t you ever get tired of moving around all the time?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I think it’s all terribly exciting.”
To the north, the beach lay deserted. Patrick and Linley walked across the hot, camel colored sand until they found a suitable spot midway between the walls of Rabat and the blue Atlantic.
“Here,” Patrick said, taking off his jacket and placing it across the sand.
Linley smiled at him and took a seat on the cool white flannel. “Thank you.”
Ever the gentleman, Patrick sat on the sand.
“I love beaches,” she said. “They are always my favorite places.”
“Beaches are very dirty. All sorts people in the same water together…along with God knows what.”
“You worry too much.”
He bit back a smile. “Funny, my sister tells me the same thing. She says it drives her insane.”
“I think it’s charming.”
Patrick stopped trying to hold back his smile and let it sweep across his face. Linley grew warm in its wake, but blamed that on the sun instead of the handsome gentleman and his dimpled grin. Searching for something to take the weight off the moment, she reached beneath her skirts and tugged down her stockings.
“What are you doing?” Patrick asked, staring at everything except the pink skin of her thin little ankles.
“Taking off my shoes,” Linley said, slipping them and the stockings off. “The sand feels marvelous between my toes.” For good measure, she gave them a wiggle. Warm bronze sand sifted through her toes as if through an hourglass. “Won’t you give it a try?”
“No, thank you.”
“Why?” she asked. “Do you have an extra toe, or a wart, or something hideously wrong with your feet?”
Patrick snorted a laugh. “My feet are fine, I assure you.”
“Well, you certainly can’t get in the water with your stockings…”
“We’re getting in the water?”
Linley finished balling up her stockings and shoved them inside her shoes before standing up. “I am. But only up to my ankles.” She gathered her skirt into her hand and padded down the sand to the edge of the water, squealing as a wave swirled around her bare feet. “Come on!” She called to him, urging him to join her.
He shook his head.
Linley called again, but Patrick still would not budge. After one wave too many soaked the hem of her skirt, she ran back up the beach and plopped down beside him, breathless. “That was fun!”
Patrick shielded his eyes from the blast of sand that followed close behind her. “I’ll bet.”
“Years from now, you’ll wish you had done it,” Linley said. “It could have been one of those real moments of life—one where you knew in that exact instant you were totally and perfectly alive.”
“That is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard.”
She shrugged. “All this from a man who’s afraid to take off his shoes and socks…”
“I am not afraid.”
“It’s alright to be afraid some of the time,” Linley continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “But you cannot be afraid all of the time.”
“I said I am not afraid.” To prove it, Patrick jerked at the laces of his tan leather oxfords. He wrestled his feet out of the shoes, pulled off his socks, and dropped them both down onto the sand. “See!”
She clapped with mock pride. “Very good. I am proud of you.” With that, she picked up his left shoe and chucked it toward the ocean. It fell short of the water but landed the wet sand with a plop.
Patrick grappled for the other one, but Linley sent it flying in the direction of its mate. “Those were very expensive!” he cried.
“You can get them back when we’re finished,” Linley said. “Besides, you strike me as the sort of fellow who owns more than one pair of shoes at a time.”
“It is the principle of the matter,” he said, frowning. “You can’t go around pitching people’s good footwear into the Atlantic.”
“Are they your favorite?”
“As a matter of fact,” Patrick said, “They are.”
Linley stood up, releasing a fresh barrage of sand into Patrick’s face. “I’m sorry. I’ll go get them.”
“No, it’s fine. Sit down.”
She looked down at him, the salty wind blowing her skirt around her ankles. “Are you sure?”
“Please,” he said, patting the ground.
Linley sat. Once she settled herself back onto the flannel jacket, Patrick snatched both of her shoes and slung them as close to his own as he could get them.
“Hey!”
He couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the look of open-mouthed shock on her face. “Now we are even.”
“You snake! You had me feeling really awful.”