Chapter Five
The feel of Sam’s massive, muscled frame pressing her into the sand was so foreign, so unexpected, so deliciously welcome, that it took Sheri a few beats to ask the obvious question.
“Um, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Is there a reason you just tackled me?”
He sat up and straightened his dark sunglasses, pausing to brush sand off her arm as he scowled down the beach at an old man sweeping a metal detector along the edge of the water. She watched him stare at the guy for a few beats before he turned back to her.
“Sorry about that,” he said, brushing more sand off her shoulder. “I thought you were headed for the water, and I had to stop you. It hasn’t been very long since you ate breakfast, and I don’t want you to get leg cramps and drown.”
She struggled to sit up, feeling oddly disappointed not to have his body pressed against hers anymore. Was she out of her mind? Was he?
“You’re nuts,” she said at last. “But thank you. I guess. You know that’s an old wives’ tale, right?”
“What’s that?” he asked, still watching the guy with the metal detector.
“That thing they used to tell kids about how they shouldn’t go in the water after eating or they’ll get cramps and drown. I looked it up on Snopes.com once when I was researching all these things I needed to prepare for in raising two boys so close to the beach, and I learned that’s not true. Doctors say that doesn’t really happen.”
“Huh,” he said. “Sorry. Here, let me help you up.”
He jumped to his feet, surprisingly graceful for such a big guy. He reached down and hoisted her to her feet, dusting more sand off her elbow, her stomach, her hip, the back pocket of her shorts. As his hand made contact with her backside through the thin fabric of her shorts, she gasped and pressed against him ever so slightly, craving more.
“Sorry about that,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides and looking a bit like a naughty schoolboy. “Just being thorough.”
“I appreciate it,” she said, wishing she’d managed to cover her whole body in sand like a cinnamon-sugar doughnut so he could spend the whole day dusting her off. “So you must’ve been a defensive lineman?”
“What?”
“When you played football with Mac. That was quite a tackle you just pulled.” She smiled to show she was teasing, but he looked mildly horrified.
“Right,” he said. “Turn around.” He maneuvered her the other way and dusted some more sand off her right thigh. She shivered and glanced back at the little canopy where Jeffrey and Jackson slept like the dead.
“Wow, the boys conked out fast,” she said. “I expected them to be amped up about the water and sand and birds. Maybe they’re still too young for this.”
A normal mother would have known that. Would have instinctively realized the appropriate age to bring small children to the beach with visions of making sand castles and gleefully tossing Cheerios to birds on the beach. Clearly, she had a lot to learn.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
She turned back to him. Even behind his dark sunglasses, she could tell he was studying her. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No, why?”
“You had a funny look on your face just then.”
Sheri sighed. “Have you ever worried you’re not cut out for the job you thought you were destined to do?”
She expected him to laugh or shore her up with encouraging platitudes, but instead, he nodded. “Plenty of times.”
“How did you handle it?”
“Not as well as I could have.”
She nodded, surprised by his frank answer. “I have a confession.”
“Oh?”
“I’m switching back to disposable diapers.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s your idea of a confession? I thought you were going to tell me you club baby seals.”
She smiled and gave a little shrug. “Ask my Mommy and Me group which is worse and I think they’d say the diapers.”
“You need new friends.”
“Maybe. I’m still new in town, so maybe I’ll find a mothers’ group that enjoys seal clubbing.” She reached across him for her beach tote, and felt his whole body tense as her breast brushed his arm through her T-shirt. “I guess now’s the best time to read, huh? While the boys are sleeping.”
She pulled a romance novel out of her bag and rested it on the corner of her beach towel. She hesitated, glancing at Sam. “This is my first time in public in a bathing suit since they were born.”
“Would you like me to—uh—avert my eyes?”
She laughed. “Not unless you want to. I won’t take offense either way. Two good things about going through a lousy divorce right after giving birth? Stress melts off a lot of the baby weight,” she said, tugging her T-shirt over head. “And discovering there are tougher things in life than a few extra pounds makes you stop giving a damn about the rest.”
Sheri set her T-shirt aside and glanced at him. His dark glasses made it tough to tell where he was looking, but she sensed he was keeping his gaze trained on her face. She knew she should probably feel self-conscious about stretch marks or her less-than-perfect muscle tone, but the sun felt so good on her skin. She closed her eyes and breathed in the ocean air and the faint scent of plumeria from the tree behind them. A whisper of breeze tickled her hair and made her nipples pucker beneath her turquoise tankini top.
“Good God.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He shook his head and looked away, his expression chagrined behind the dark glasses. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
Sheri laughed as something warm and liquid spread through her limbs, and she knew it wasn’t just the sunlight making her skin prickle pleasantly. She wriggled out of her shorts and folded them neatly, setting them aside. “Last week a guy whistled at me when I walked by a construction site and I was so thrilled I actually called Kelli to tell her,” she said. “At this point in my life, I’m not even going to pretend to take offense at being ogled by a man.”
Sam nodded, his expression stoic and his eyes still hidden behind the dark sunglasses. “In that case, I have to say you look f*cking amazing.” He glanced back at the twins asleep in the canopy. “Sorry guys.”
She laughed again and resisted the urge to toss her hair like a supermodel. “I doubt they took offense, and neither did I.”
“Seriously, you’re hotter now than you were in college in that white bikini with the little strings that tied here and—”
“God, I’d forgotten that bikini. How on earth do you remember that when I can’t even remember meeting you?” She shook her head as she heard her own words replay in her mind. “Sorry, I hope that’s not rude.”
“No ruder than me ogling you in a bikini,” he said. “Then or now.”
“Then we’re even.” Sheri picked up her book, unashamed of the bodice-ripping cover. “Thanks, Sam.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She flopped over onto her stomach, resting her chin on her folded T-shirt. She’d only read two paragraphs when she felt the gentle stroke of his fingers in the small of her back.
She turned to look at him, holding her breath in hopes he wouldn’t stop.
“Sunscreen,” he said. “And sand. You had a big gob of it stuck to you, and I didn’t want you to end up burned in some weird shape.”
Her skin tingled where his fingers had brushed against her, and she prayed for gobs of sunscreen decorating every inch of her flesh so he’d have a reason to touch her and touch her and touch her again.
No, she scolded herself. Don’t go there. You’re a new mom with a new job and a new divorce, and the last thing you need is a distraction like this.
No matter how delicious the distraction might be.