Life Is A Beach (Mills & Boon Silhouette): Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling (9 page)

He turned back toward the Blue Moon when she did and wondered what she would do if he kissed her again. He decided not to chance it. “I believe I feel my chakra becoming unblocked,” he said, not believing that he was actually speaking these words that flowed so easily from his lips. “I feel a certain—a certain—” He struggled to think of something that would convince her that he was making progress.

“A certain letting go?” Karma supplied.

He grinned and punched a fist into his opposite hand. “That’s it! A ‘letting go’!”

“Maybe it
is
working. Maybe you are getting better. Backbends are good for releasing emotion.”

She walked on, a frown marring her features. “You’ll have to keep doing yoga. It will help you dramatically.”

Maybe his muscles would stop screaming out in agony by next Tuesday night, maybe he’d be able to twist himself into a damned backbend—a real one this time, not a weak imitation.

“I
should practice,” he said. “Other than backbends, I’m not sure what poses would be best, though, so perhaps you could help me.”

“No funny business if I do,” she said firmly.

“What do you mean, funny business?” he replied, all innocence.

“Kissing me,” she said. “Becoming unduly familiar.”

“Now wait a minute. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.”

“If I’m going to find you the wife you want, you can’t sully the process,” Karma said in a reasoning tone.

He didn’t know what to say to that. The kind of wife he wanted had slipped his mind. The sweet, delicate little Southern-belle type didn’t seem so desirable anymore. He knew he should ask when he could view some videos of female Rent-a-Yenta clients. He knew he should be more eager to make contact with other women. He ought to be encouraged by the thought of having a date with Jennifer. And yet when he stole a glance over at Karma walking along beside him, when he took in that curly blond mass of hair and those breasts straining against the cotton of her blouse, when he thought about what had been revealed through those lace panties when her leggings split—well,
she
was the one he wanted to know more about.
She
was the one for him.

At least for the short term.

When they reached the boardwalk, he stopped to pull on his boots. As if against her better judgment, she waited for him.

“How about if I pick you up Thursday afternoon at three to scatter your aunt’s ashes?” he asked, taking the bold approach.

She looked down at her bare feet. “I don’t know if I can be ready by three. I have work to do in the office.”

“Three-thirty, then.”

“Well, only if you learn how to motor that boat.”

“I’ll learn.” Slade finished pulling on the boots and stood up. At the moment that he was ready to slide his arms around her, she stepped up on the boardwalk. It
was an evasion, but he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

“Not so fast,” he said, the words coming out more gruffly than he had intended. He grabbed her wrist, the handiest thing to grab, and twisted her around. His heart was thumping against his ribs as he pulled her close. He’d bet his last dollar that her heart was hammering, too.

“Slade,” she said, the word more of an assent than a denial. And then he kissed her thoroughly, liking the way her head was on a parallel with his because of the increased height standing on the boardwalk gave her. If she were tiny, like the woman he’d come here to find, kissing her wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying. As it was, when he opened his eyes they were gazing directly into hers. He liked what he saw there because it wasn’t anger or defiance or anything but a kind of hushed acceptance of what was and maybe could be.

He released her reluctantly and dug a paper out of his back pocket. “I brought you my psychological profile,” he said. “It, um, may give you clues to my emotional identity.” He wasn’t sure what an emotional identity was, exactly, but it was the kind of term Karma would use.

She merely stared at him, then took the sheet of paper from his hand. It quivered a bit, and not entirely from the ocean breeze.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and then she was off, scampering up the boardwalk like a runaway heifer.

All in all, he thought jubilantly as he headed for the parking lot, the evening had gone tolerably well. Except for yoga class, and even that had had its redeeming features.

Like lace panties that left little to the imagination.

H
E KNOCKED ON
K
ARMA’S DOOR
at three-thirty on Thursday afternoon. She opened it, clutching a flyswatter in one hand.

“I’m chasing a palmetto bug,” she said, leaving the door
open and taking off into the tiny kitchen, which he could see courtesy of a pass-through to the living room.

He closed the door. “I learned how to run the boat,” he called after her. His words were followed by a loud
Splat!

“Good,” she said distractedly. “Damn! I missed it.”

“Didn’t I hear something about an exterminator service around here?”

“Yes, which is personified by a guy named Geofredo. He’s tried his best, and now the exterminating is up to me. The thing about palmetto bugs is that you can’t treat them nicely. One becomes two, which become four, and pretty soon you’ve got a bunch. It used to be against my core beliefs to kill anything, but I’ve had a change of heart.” She flicked the flyswatter back and forth.

“Why?”

“Because this particular roach and his kinfolk were waving their feelers at Aunt Sophie’s bucket,” Karma said, angling her head toward it. The bucket sat on top of the refrigerator amid a tangle of dish towels, a blender base, a potato ricer and a tape deck.

“Fear not. Bwana will hunt down palmetto bug. Bwana will kill.”

Karma shook her head. “Thanks, but this is my fight. If he’d only show his face, I’d nail him.”

“I think I see him poking out from under the baseboard.” The palmetto bug—an enormous one—scurried across the kitchen floor, straight toward Karma.

“Eek!”
she squealed, backing fast and furiously until the back of her knees hit the couch. She rallied, feinted, and swung the flyswatter down hard.

“Dead,” she pronounced solemnly. She scooted the carcass out the sliding glass door with one foot. “How about some lunch?”

He rocked back on his heels. “It’s not the most appetizing idea at the moment. Anyway, it’s a little late for lunch.”

“Call
it an early supper if you like. I haven’t eaten because I’ve been busy trying to balance my checkbook all day.” She went into the kitchen and began shoving pots around on the stove. “I’ve made linguine,” she called over her shoulder. “With shrimp sauce.”

He noticed with bemusement that she had set the table with turquoise-blue place mats and yellow plastic plates. There were napkin rings that looked like carved fish painted red and pink, and she’d stuck a branch laden with white oleander blooms into an old wine jug. The effect was, well, interesting.

He sat down at the table, and she bore a huge platter of pasta into the little dining area. While he was waiting for her to pour iced tea, he had a chance to look around the apartment. Furniture consisted of what appeared to be flea-market finds, but it was a creative mix. An old couch had a fringed silk shawl thrown artistically across the back, and a shelf on one wall held bottles and jars in jeweled colors, which were lit from within by tiny Christmas tree lights. A coir rug was underfoot, and his sharp eyes didn’t miss the fact that the binding was ripped in the corner behind the rocking chair that almost, but not quite, hid the imperfection from view.

“Nice place,” Slade said. He meant it. It looked comfortable and reflected Karma’s personality.

“Thanks. I hit a dozen yard and garage sales when I arrived here. I didn’t move much down from Connecticut with me since I wasn’t sure I’d stay.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged and sat down across from him. “I didn’t know if I could make a go of the business. I still don’t. There’s so much to do that I hardly have time for anything but work.”

She passed him the linguine, and he helped himself. “As busy as you are, you wouldn’t have had to provide food,” he said.

“It’s the least I can do when you’re going to so much trouble for me.”

As she tucked into the food, he studied her. She was wearing a knit short-sleeved polo shirt, yellow, and navy-blue shorts, and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She looked wholesome, like a camp counselor, but her expression was decidedly businesslike. Taking his cue from her, he concentrated on eating and making small talk, which turned out to be enjoyable enough. He told her that her bike had been retrieved from the bottom of the bay, and she seemed relieved. She was even grateful when he told her that he’d asked the marina manager’s son to make sure it was rideable and to fix it if it was not. They talked about her uncle, who seemed special to her. It occurred to him as he helped her clear the table that he was really enjoying her company.

By the time Karma climbed into the Suburban beside him clutching the bucket of her aunt’s ashes firmly between her breasts, Slade had already planned what they would do when they returned from their task. They’d have a late dinner on the houseboat, then a walk in the moonlight alongside the bay and perhaps a nightcap before he took her home. And maybe, if he got megalucky, he wouldn’t have to take her home. There was plenty of room in the master stateroom’s bed for two people.

The runabout, fourteen feet long, was painted in the houseboat’s colors and had been given the cutesy name of
Toy Boat’s Toy,
which was no doubt the idea of Mack’s wife Renee. Karma smiled when she saw the name lettered on the stern, though, and then she spotted her bike, which he had propped against one of the pilings near the houseboat’s mooring.

“The bike looks fine,” she said, giving it a quick once-over before climbing down the ladder to the runabout. “Maybe I’ll ride it home.”

Maybe not,
Slade thought involuntarily as he steadied the
runabout. After the romantic evening he’d planned, she might want to rethink things.

Phifer had shown him how to start a cold outboard, for which Slade was grateful since his knowledge of boats was sadly limited. Phifer had also loaned him charts and had given him instructions about where to go. As Slade, feeling optimistic about the afternoon and evening to follow, aimed the runabout’s bow toward Key Biscayne, Karma settled herself and her aunt’s ashes in the middle of the boat facing him.

There were a number of boats on the bay, as usual. Karma angled her head so that the sun’s rays fell more evenly on her features, and Slade made himself concentrate on working the throttle as they chugged past Key Biscayne and out into open water.

Once there, Karma shaded her eyes with her hand to squint into the distance as he consulted the marine chart in his lap. “How far do you think we need to go?” she asked.

“Phifer told me to watch for a certain buoy, and when we get past it, that would be a good place for the ceremony.”

Karma seemed disconcerted. “I didn’t think of having a ceremony. I don’t know what to say. Let me give it some thought, okay?”

They rode in silence; how long they went without speaking, Slade lost track. “There’s the buoy,” he said after a time, pointing ahead and levering back on the throttle. Beyond the buoy lay deep channels, marked by their indigo color.

Karma stared at the cardboard bucket at her feet as he jockeyed around the buoy and cut the throttle. The boat drifted on gentle swells in the sudden silence. Slade waited to see how she would handle this.

“Aunt
Sophie wasn’t at all religious, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t say something—well, ceremonial—about her,” Karma said.

“I think you should.”

She seemed to be thinking. Finally she clasped her hands in her lap and said, “I want to talk about Aunt Sophie’s life.”

“Fine with me.” Slade was captivated by the animation of her expressions, the slight crinkling of her forehead. The way she tucked the tip of her tongue between her lips before she spoke. The tilt of her head as she waited for his replies. He was enchanted by Karma, everything about her, all of her.

“Well,” Karma said finally. “My aunt Sophie was born in Brooklyn, and she thought she’d grow up to work in a sweatshop like her own mother. But when the neighborhood yenta was arranging the marriage of her eldest brother, Sophie became fascinated by what the matchmaker did, by the magic she wrought in people’s lives. Sophie tagged along after the woman, annoying her at first, then making herself useful, and finally absorbing every facet of the business. And when the old yenta died, it was Sophie who took over. She was too young, people said. She needed seasoning before she could be entrusted with such serious business.

“‘Ha!’ Sophie told them. ‘It’s not the years that make a good yenta! It’s what’s in the heart.’ So she proceeded to make some very fine matches for the people in the neighborhood, and soon the talk died down. But she herself didn’t marry.

“‘What kind of yenta are you?’ people used to ask. ‘If you were a good one, you’d find your own self a husband.’ Aunt Sophie said, ‘Ha! When a good husband comes along, I will marry him.’ She didn’t meet my uncle Nate until she was thirty-four, which was old in those days to marry. He was a button salesman, and he had never been married, either. It was an extremely happy union for both of them, though they always wished they’d had children.

“Aunt
Sophie took an interest in her clients, always telling them that they were like her children. ‘But you don’t know what it is to have children,’ people said. ‘Ha!’ Aunt Sophie told them, ‘it’s what’s in the heart that ties you to children, and these clients of mine are in my heart.’

“Then, when she knew she was dying, she told Uncle Nate that she wanted to give me Rent-a-Yenta. ‘Karma is in my heart,’ she told him, and later she told me that too. Giving me Rent-a-Yenta was a loving act, the nicest thing anyone ever did for me. I will never forget it, and I will never, ever forget her. And sometimes I feel that she’s right beside me, guiding me as I try to make Rent-a-Yenta my own.”