They were both angry once he’d caught up with her, and then that anger transmuted into something else entirely-lust. The bedroom had been smoky with it.
He hadn’t thought about what he was saying or doing. He was compelled to act…taking off his clothes, telling her to take off hers. The only pause…protection! What the hell?! he’d thought. But at that point he hadn’t wanted to go into long explanations or even short recriminations.
He’d wanted Tracy. So he’d dashed for the damn things and then struggled some putting one on-condom coverage was not like riding a bike-and then it had been over and he was over her and they’d had that mind-blowing sex. Fingers entangled, bodies driving, pleasure so good.
It hadn’t fixed anything between them, they’d both known that right away, no words necessary. Then, as now, he could read her mind and she could read his. He hadn’t cared.
He cared now.
He needed to find a way to fix things between them.
Losing, losing Tracy, was no longer an option.
She tugged at his hand and he clutched it harder. Glancing down at her, he could see nothing but his reflection in those sunglass lenses and the expressionless set to her face. She was shut away from him now, he realized. Before, he’d been invisible to her. Now, she looked as if she was trying to keep herself invisible to him.
He swallowed, then gambled again. “So, come here often?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Coronado. I haven’t been here long. I could use a local guide.”
Tracy stilled. “I seem to have heard this before.”
It was close to the first thing he’d said to her at the party where they’d been introduced. Somehow he’d wangled it into an invitation to meet her on the beach the next day. Seven-year-old Bailey as chaperone. Sandcastle building as activity.
If he could get Tracy’s feet on that sand again, she’d open that door she was hiding behind. He was sure of it. Hopeful, anyway.
“C’mon,” he urged, giving her hand another small squeeze and then letting go so as not to spook her. “It’s a beautiful afternoon. We’re still playing hooky. Go for a walk on the beach with me?”
The bill of her cap ducked toward her chest, completely obscuring her face. “I’m not-”
“It’s just a walk, Trace.”
“I’m not interested in it being anything else.” There was that door again, slamming right in his face.
He’d been patient before, though, and he could be patient again. Once she got the feel of the sand between her toes, she’d let go. A little. Please.
They strolled the short blocks toward Central Beach, crossing Ocean Boulevard, which was lined with extravagant homes and mansions to reach more than a mile’s length of a wide swathe of sugary sand. He offered his hand to Tracy to climb over the tumbled boulders and rubbery ice plant that was the last barrier to the beach itself. She ignored it to scramble over them on her own.
They weren’t alone. Though the beach was wide enough-and the water cool enough in December-to prevent it from looking like a remake of an Annette and Frankie Beach Blanket Bingo movie, there were still plenty of people taking advantage of the postcard-come-to-life day.
Little kids braved the winter-chilled water, their white chubby tummies and plastic blow-up rafts screaming “tourist” even louder than a four-door sedan with Enterprise stickers. Local preteens in wetsuits, flippers, and boogie boards showed off their gymnastic skill, SoCal-style. Others with skim boards scattered the pipers and gulls as they threw the thin pieces of wood down on the wet sand and rode the retreating white water.
Young men played football. Girls in bikini bottoms and sweatshirts wiggled their toes to the beat of their iPods. Young moms toted toddlers on one hip and mesh bags of sand toys on the other. Retired couples in L. L. Bean windbreakers lifted binoculars, training them toward the Pacific’s commuter lanes, where migrating whales could be spotted heading to Mexico for the winter.
Something odd struck him. He looked over at Tracy. “There’s no one our age.”
“What?”
“Out here.” He gestured toward the clean sweep of sand around them. “Our age group is missing.”
“No…” But Tracy’s voice trailed off as she scanned the beach. Then she shrugged. “All at work, I guess.”
“Busy putting kids through college, I suppose.”
“Or busy making money for those cutesy new wives and the new families they plan to make with them.” There was a hot, bitter snap to her words. She shoved her hands in her front pockets. “Now the old wives, they’re off looking for their decimated pride and shattered expectations while scrambling to figure out how they’re going to support themselves and their children on a single income.”
He blinked, startled into stopping. “Tracy-”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice cooled as quick as it had snapped. “That was uncalled for.”
She drew her hands from her pockets and crossed her arms over her chest, closing up again like a sea anemone touched by a painful finger. Pivoting south, she started trudging down the beach in the direction of the red-peaked roofs of the Hotel del Coronado, the wind blowing the tails of her shirt around her hips.
Dan hurried to catch up. “Is that-”
“By the way, I was thinking about Christmas gifts. Bailey’s taken care of and I’ve ordered a few for Harry off the Internet. A college sweatshirt, some gift cards, but if you-”
“I don’t want to talk about Harry.”
“I found this funny battery-operated fly-zapper shaped like a tennis racket for Bailey. I’m going to put it in her stocking, though I have a feeling the first annoyance she’ll use it on is Finn.”
The old wives, they’re off looking for their decimated pride and shattered expectations while scrambling to figure out how they’re going to support themselves and their children on a single income.
Dan couldn’t get the words out of his head as he trailed behind her. The wind changed direction, flattening her shirt to her back, her shoulder blades looking suddenly so fragile. When they’d met, she’d been working at the store full-time, but he knew she’d upped her part-time hours after her first husband left.
Because it was a family business, because she’d been almost fully running it with minimal help from her parents when they’d met, Dan had assumed it wasn’t a career she’d “scrambled” to put together, but a perfect opportunity for a newly single mother.
“Did you not want to work at The Perfect Christmas?” he asked. “Was there something else you wanted to do with your life?”
Continuing to churn through the sand, she glanced over at him. “What about you? You’re the one who left a big-shot stockbroker job to join me at the store.”
But that had been easy for him. When it came to choosing between a stress-full or a Tracy-full life, taking on comanagement of The Perfect Christmas after her parents’ death had been an obvious decision. “I get more satisfaction out of the store’s customers than any of those whose portfolios I used to fatten.”
He didn’t comment on his use of the present tense. Before she might have, a Frisbee landed at her feet.
Tracy stopped, stooped, and peeled the plastic disc off the sand. Without a word, she handed it over to him.
Without a word, he took it. She couldn’t throw a beanbag, and they both knew it. He swallowed a bittersweet smile as he took aim at the shirtless young man standing downwind. What would kill him was to lose moments just like this, when two people’s shared domestic intelligence made an everyday occurrence a ritual that strengthened the relationship’s bonds.
Except for all that domestic inside dope, he didn’t know everything he should about his wife. “Is there something you’d rather have been doing all these years?”