Arrest (A Disarm Novel) (26 page)

The lonely seagull caught my eye as I jogged, and I followed it along the water’s edge, picking up speed to keep up. Eventually the bird turned to the horizon, its silhouette dark against the brilliant orange and blue Monterey sunrise. I stopped to catch my breath, the view of the ocean before me stealing the air from my lungs.

I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the wind, tasting the ocean breeze on my tongue. I gazed back out at the sea, and saw a lone figure out on the water, sitting on his surfboard and biding his time. When a large wave rolled by, he caught it and leapt onto his board effortlessly, crouching down as the ocean carried him along. He took a few rapid steps to the front of his board, looking as if he was just floating above the waves, then cantered back to the center. He rode the wave to the shore, standing tall until his board finally sank under the water.

He paddled back out again to wait for another wave, traversing the ocean as if it were nothing but air. I watched him, mesmerized, as he caught another wave and flawlessly sailed back to the shore.

“Hi there!” he called out. It was only after he said it again that I realized he was talking to me.

“Oh, hi,” I said, watching as he tucked the board under his arm and ambled closer. It was only when he was a few feet away that I noticed he towered over my five foot, ten inch frame. I took in his full-body wetsuit, appreciating how it accented the slim hips that led up to his wide shoulders.

“A little early for a morning run, isn’t it?” he asked with a smile in his eyes.

“A little cold for surfing, isn’t it?” I countered, raising an eyebrow as I sent a teasing look down to his crotch.

He grinned, and if I thought the sunrise took my breath away, this smile inflated me with a strange buoyant feeling. I smiled back, unable to help myself. “Not gonna lie, it’s pretty cold,” he said. “There’s definitely some shrinkage going on.”

I burst out laughing, taken aback by his crude kind of charm, the kind I liked best. “Well, your board is plenty long enough to make up for it.”

His eyes widened, and suddenly he was laughing along with me. “You know what they say about men with longboards . . .” he said, standing his surfboard upright beside him.

“No, what?”

“That we have plenty of wood to wax.”

I let myself go as we dissolved into a fit of laughter. It felt good, laughing with this stranger. It was the first time in years I actually felt light and without a care.

He held out a hand, his dark brown eyes trained on me. “I’m Neal.”

“Julie,” I said, surprised to find his hands warm. I took a moment to look him over, from his wavy light brown hair tinged with gold to his straight and narrow nose, and to his boyish smile that curled up at the ends. “Have you been surfing all your life?” I asked, hoping to extend our time together.

“Yeah, for the most part. I grew up by the ocean actually. You can say salt water runs through my veins.” He ran his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back.

“I understand. I love it here.”

“Where do you live?”

“I’m actually from out of town. Dallas.”

“I’m just visiting for a few days myself. Born in San Diego but have lived all over.”

It was only then that I noticed the sun had already risen. I glanced down at my watch and gasped. I’d been at the beach for almost two hours. “I have to go.”

“It was nice meeting you, Julie,” he said, flashing me that smile that was making me wish I didn’t have anywhere else to be.

“I’ll be back tomorrow for another run. Maybe I’ll see you again before you leave.”

“I’d really like that,” he said, shooting me a look that warmed me from the inside.

—

I made it back to the Shermans’ house in ten minutes, parking the rental car in their driveway. My son, Will, and I were in town for Elsie and Henry’s wedding and were staying with my would-have-been in-laws the entire weekend. I’d offered to get a hotel but they wouldn’t hear of it, telling me that I was family even if my son was the only one technically related to them.

I sometimes still wondered what would have been if Jason hadn’t died in Afghanistan and we’d gotten married. I would certainly be a different woman today if I’d had Elodie Sherman, and her daughter, in my life for the past several years.

I’d be a lot less lonely, that’s for sure.

I found Elodie in the kitchen, pouring pancake batter onto a griddle. “Good run?” she asked, turning her attention to the scrambled eggs.

“Kind of chilly, but good,” I said, walking around the island counter. “Do you need some help?”

“I think I’ve got everything under control,” she said, and handed me a mug that had an Air Force logo on it. “Help yourself to some coffee.”

“Oh, me too, please.” Elsie came around the corner wearing jeans and a top, her hair in a messy bun. She grabbed a mug from the cabinet and playfully hip checked me out of the way.

“And where have you been, young lady?” I asked with a wink. “Sneaking out to see a boy?”

Elodie sighed dramatically. “You and Henry live together and are getting married tomorrow. You couldn’t even go a few hours without seeing him?”

Elsie laughed, her cheeks taking on a pink tint. “I just went to say hi,” she said, hiding her face behind the mug.

“I’ll go wake up Will,” Elodie said, shaking her head at her daughter. “You two set the table.”

When we were alone, I turned to Elsie and said, “He’s not going anywhere. You
know
that.”

She cocked her head, the easy smile gone. “I know, but I just had to make sure,” she said, taking the stack of plates to the table. “I woke up this morning and for one second, I thought I was back to when he was in Korea and I was trying to live without him. I had a bit of a moment.” She laughed nervously, trying to ease the tension in the room.

I hadn’t known Elsie for long, but I’d immediately felt a bond with her from the moment we met. Even after his death, Jason had somehow managed to bring this beautiful, flawed, wonderful woman in my life. And for that, I was grateful. “I hear it’s perfectly normal to freak out right before the wedding.”

“Did you?”

I thought back to my own wedding to Kyle, to those final seconds before I walked around the corner to face the entire church. I’d known that I didn’t love the man standing at the end of the aisle, at least, not the way he loved me. “No. I didn’t freak out. But that’s because I had already accepted that I was making a mistake.”

She nodded distractedly, pinching at her lip. “But even if Henry and I were already married, it’s not like a ring on his finger will keep him from leavi—”

“Elsie,” I said, cutting her off. I grabbed her by the shoulders and peered at her face. “Henry is not going anywhere, I promise you. That man regretted every day that he was without you.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “I know. I trust him.”

“You two are going to live happily ever after. I just know it.”

“I hope so.” A moment later, her eyes narrowed and the smile on her face transformed to something more calculating. “Henry told me there’d be a few eligible bachelors at the wedding . . .”

I backed away. “Oh no, you are
not
going to fix me up.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“When was the last time you even had a date?”

“A while, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be fixed up.” When she opened her mouth to argue, I cut her off. “I’ve already met someone anyway.”

“What? Who? Where?”

Though I hadn’t been thinking of him, the guy on the beach came to mind. “I met him at the beach. You wouldn’t know him.”

“Bring him to the wedding.”

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“He’s from out of town. If anything were to happen between us, I want no strings attached.”

“You’re not going to find love if you never give the guy your phone number.”

“I don’t want love. I just want a quick—”

I stopped just as Elodie came back in the kitchen with my sleepy-looking son in tow. “This kid sleeps like the dead,” she announced.

“Just like his dad,” Elsie and I said in unison then. A second later, our eyes met in horror after realizing we’d just made a dead joke about someone who was, well, dead.

“I have lots of things in common with dad, huh?” Will asked, breaking the awkward tension in the room with his excitement.

“Yeah you do,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Let’s go sit down and see if you eat like him too.”

—

After spending the day running errands and making decorations for the wedding, we all walked down the street to have the rehearsal dinner at the Logans’ house.

Henry had only told me briefly about his childhood, but I found his parents pleasant enough, if a little aloof. They were the complete opposite of my own parents, who had loved each other with a destructive fire, fighting and making up then fighting some more until it destroyed them both.

I’d figured out long ago, as they lowered my father into the ground, that I didn’t need that kind of passion in my life, that I would be perfectly happy as long as I kept my heart guarded.

I suppose I owed my parents some gratitude because that lesson was the reason why I was able to survive the death of Jason at all.

June Gray is a daydreamer who, at the age of ten, penned a short story inspired by a Judy Blume novel and has been unable to stop writing since. She loves to tell stories that titillate and enrage, that break the reader’s heart and put it back together again.

Her fairy-tale life has been lived on four different continents—most recently, in a two-hundred-forty-year-old castle in rural Germany owned by a graf, a German noble. She was born in the Philippines, raised in Australia, and now calls the United States home. She can currently be found enjoying the shores of Miami with her husband, two daughters, and a miniature schnauzer.

Visit the author at authorjunegray.com or facebook.com/author junegray.