They turned their backs to the ocean and regarded the mountains behind the jumble of masts in the harbor.
“Would you like to live on a boat like that?” Nate asked her.
“No way!”
“Why not? You love the ocean.”
“I wouldn’t want to live on it, though. I’m…afraid of it.” She peeked at him through her lashes as if she was embarrassed.
“Afraid of it?”
She turned to him. “Yeah. It’s so huge. And deep. It’s like it’s…endless. I like to look at it from afar but I’m kind of scared of it.” She paused. “One time I was out on a boat with my family, whale watching with a guy my dad knew. We got off course. We were so far out you couldn’t even see the shore and there were no other boats around.”
He watched her with fond amusement. “Was it stormy?”
“No.” She shook her head and her cheeks pinkened a little more. “It was fine. It was a beautiful day. But I panicked when I couldn’t see anything but water. I don’t know why. Everyone thought it was funny, but I was terrified.”
“Ah.” He put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her.
“I felt like we were lost,” she said. “It’s so huge and endless, you could get lost so easily.”
“You can get lost anywhere.” You could get lost in life.
Their eyes met. “I know.”
Nate dragged his gaze away from her and back out to the ocean. “Kind of funny how all my pictures are of water.”
“But it’s calm water. I don’t know how you do that. Your pictures make me feel…I don’t know…soothed. Like the ocean is scary but it’s calming, too.”
“I use a really long exposure,” he murmured. “It smoothes out all the little ripples and waves on the water. Of course, I do wait until it’s very calm. Sometimes I wait days for the right conditions.”
“You’re very patient.”
“I guess.”
“Not like me.”
He grinned, hugged her gather. “No, definitely not like you, Miss I-Want-It-Now.”
She cuddled into him and smiled. He liked that she didn’t take herself too seriously.
“I guess we should head back,” he said, regret sliding through him.
It took them longer to get home than they’d anticipated and Derek was already there, for a change.
“Where the hell were you?” he asked, irritation drawing his brows together.
“We went for a bike ride.” Krissa smiled down at her water-splotched sweater. “We walked out on the Breakwater and it was so fun! The waves were huge. And we went to the zoo.”
“The zoo?” Derek looked from Krissa to Nate. “Well.”
Krissa glanced up and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Derek shook his head and scowled.
She studied him for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll go change and then make dinner.”
She started to walk away. “Krissa. Wait.” Nate stopped her. She turned and looked at him, brows raised.
“Don’t just walk away.”
Her eyes flickered. “What do you mean?”
Nate took a step toward her, stopped. “I mean, Derek is clearly pissed off about something. Make him tell you what it is.”
She licked her lips, eyes darting between him and Derek. Nate, too, shot a glance Derek’s way. His scowl had deepened. Then her eyes came back to Nate. “I don’t want to,” she whispered.
“I know.”
Their gaze held and he willed her to stand up to her husband, to not let him get away with acting like an asshole for no reason.
Krissa turned to Derek. “Okay. I’ll ask again. What’s wrong?”
He said nothing. His jaw tightened.
“Oh, Derek.” Her shoulders relaxed and she went over to him, put her hands on his waist. “Just tell me. Are you mad at me about something? Because I wasn’t here with dinner ready when you got home?”
Derek looked away, shoved a hand into his hair. “No. Yes. I sound like a spoiled idiot.”
“Yes, you do.” She kissed his jaw. “Are you mad because Nate and I went out together?”
“That too.”
“We just went for a bike ride.”
“I know. I’m a jerk. You two can go have fun if you want. Although…when do you ever get any work done these days?”
She sighed. “I’ll do some work tonight for a few hours.”
Nate held in a groan. She’d been doing so well there. “Is that what you’d planned to do Krissa?”
She turned to him. She studied him. “Yes,” she finally said. “That’s what I’d planned. I need to get the proposal done.”
“Okay.” He didn’t want her doing it just because Derek thought she should. He wanted her to tell him she’d manage her work herself, but then, Nate was the one who’d gotten her into this, so maybe expecting her to stand up to Derek wasn’t fair.
“I dragged her with me, Derek,” he said. “She didn’t want to come. I thought it would be good for her—for both of us—to get out and get our minds off…you know.”
Derek nodded. He kissed Krissa’s forehead. “You’re right, Nate. I’m sorry. I guess I just felt left out. I was sitting in meetings all afternoon while you two were out having fun. But I’m glad you did.”
Nate saw Krissa inhale a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She gave them both a quick smile. “Okay, now I’m going to get changed.”
He was sorry he’d pushed her. But then, not really so sorry.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Krissa’d convinced him to go to the gallery showing in L.A. He’d rented a car, which gave him much more freedom to come and go as he wanted. Not that he had much to do. Driving during the day wasn’t a problem, but at night his eyes were still too sensitive to the oncoming headlights of cars and he obviously couldn’t wear dark glasses at night.
He’d gotten out and around town, visited some old friends and some old haunts, checked out some photography stores and galleries.
But the day before he was to leave for L.A., Krissa came to find him in the basement work-out room, where he bench-pressed ever increasing weights. He’d put on weight from eating Krissa’s cooking, and felt more like his old self physically. He’d fully recovered from the botulism, other than his goddamn eyes.
“I just did the ovulation test,” she announced, her brows drawn together over her small nose. “I’m supposed to ovulate in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”
“Oh. Great.”
“No, it’s not great. You’re going away. Just when we need to…uh…”
“Oh, yeah. Damn.” He lowered the weight and stared at her. “Well, I wasn’t that enthusiastic about going anyway.”
“But you should go. I said that before.” Her pretty mouth pouted and he could see her thinking.
“Well, then, the other option is you come with me.”
She tilted her head to one side. “I guess I could. I don’t have client meetings or anything until Monday next week. But what about Derek?”
“He should come too.”
“If we’re going to…”
He nodded. “Check with him, then.”
“We can talk about it tonight when he’s home.”
But Derek said he couldn’t take off for two days to go to L.A. “I’ve got things scheduled that I can’t move. I’m about to close a huge sale. I need to be here.”
“Oh.” Nate could read the disappointment on Krissa’s expressive face, her eyes cast down, mouth dipping at the corners.
“But you two go,” Derek said.
Krissa’s head shot up. “Really?”
The three of them all looked at each other for a long moment as they each weighed the implication of that. Krissa looked from Derek to Nate and back. Nate watched her, then looked at Derek.
Derek nodded. “Yeah. Go. Do what you have to do. It’s fine.”