Riding the Wave (2 page)

B
y afternoon, Avalon had
almost
been able to forget the strange swirl of thoughts Tanner’s reappearance had resurrected. Almost.

Walking into the WavePro offices blew that one out of the water.

Nestled in an anonymous complex barely redeemed by its beach-adjacent location, WavePro looked like any other set of stucco California offices.

The walls were covered with giant prints of surfing shots. Some of them front-lit, full-color, some of them artsy black-and-white portraits.

At least half of them were of Tanner.

His rugged, gorgeous face looked down at her from almost every angle.

Tugging at the cross-body strap of her camera bag, she sat on a cloth-covered couch. Her gaze drifted back to the shot of Tanner on the far wall. She couldn’t help it. Another dead-on color composition. He stared directly into the camera, his bright blue eyes looking into hers. The scar cutting up from his mouth toward his left cheek
was a faint line. Mostly it was the wicked tilt of his eyebrow that got to her.

Christ, she had to shake this. She wasn’t a gawky fourteen-year-old drooling after her best friend’s older brother anymore. Jumping Tanner’s bones now could lead to major huge awkwardness come the next family Christmas.

There was no way she was repaying Sage and Eileen back like that. Along with Hank, they’d been her sole support when she’d been a teenager.
Gee, thanks for making sure I didn’t end up knocked up at fifteen and working two part-time jobs to make ends meet. For repayment, mind if I bang the prodigal son?

Besides, when he wasn’t wearing that come-hitherish look he’d given her at the end of their chat, she remembered her annoyance all over again. Back to how much she owed the Wright family—when he’d cut tail and run. Never bothered to come home, not until his own dad was
dead.
The asshole. She didn’t sleep with assholes.

Not even if they had six-packs worthy of national advertising. Not even if they could drop a rail so sick the front of the wave carved
itself
.

He was still the one who’d left. For years. He might set himself up as some sort of conquering hero, flying Sage and Eileen in for a month in Hawaii here and there. He wasn’t the one who’d been here, who’d held their hands and given them hugs when Hank had died. Who’d taken care of all the stupid paperwork and told Eileen that no, it didn’t really matter whether Hank’s coffin had brass handles or silver.

Bitterness rose up in her chest like zaps from a jellyfish. She shoved it back down again just as quickly.

That solved that tingly girl bits problem, didn’t it? If
she ever started thinking about his mouth too much, all she had to do was remind herself of his near-shithead status. Easy peasy.

“Miss Knox.” The voice belonged to an older man standing in the open double doorway. Though silver streaked his hair, he still carried the deep tan of a longtime surfer. The founder of the company, Frank Wakowski.

At his side was a taller man with golden blond hair and an expression that said he’d rather lick paint than meet with Avalon. He sneered down his nose. A fresh-faced brunette wearing a pencil skirt and button-down shirt stood next to him. The man and the brunette seemed like intentional opposites in everything, down to attitude. Even their hair was on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

The hand Avalon held out was probably damp with sweat. “Mr. Wakowski, I’m honored to be here,” she said as they shook. “WavePro is a huge name.”

“We’ve worked hard to get where we are.” His genial features spread in an open smile. “And I’ve heard you’re quite the hard worker too.”

Sudden nerves spiked her heartbeat up into her mouth with a heavy pulse. She’d racked her brain, but the only reason she could come up with for such a meeting was an opportunity. The fact that they’d asked for this meeting meant Mr. Crankyface could suck it.

She and Mr. Wakowski made small talk as they made their way into a standard-issue conference room. At least the version of Tanner in this room barely poked out of a heavy barrel, the entire right side of the image layered over with WavePro advertising.

Avalon knotted her hands beneath the pale oak conference table and did her best to modulate her voice so
it didn’t shake. She hated being nervous, but hated looking nervous even more.

The tall man had been introduced as Walt Palmer. He leaned forward with his elbows on the edge of the table. “Miss Knox, to be frank, you’ve never worked at the level we’re asking for.”

She lifted her brows. “To be frank, you’re the ones who asked me here. Someone here must think I’m good enough.”

Mr. Wakowski chuckled. “That’d be me. I’ve been seeing your shots frequently in smaller publications and online. There’s an appealing element. I’m not entirely sure if the promise can be fulfilled, but we want something different.”

“We wanted Scott, but it fell through.”

The young woman, Ms. Harmon, seemed to be the in-house attorney. She lifted a single finger. “To be fair, it fell through because he bombed out in Tahiti and has since checked into rehab. We’re lucky to have escaped that commitment, considering his lack of reliability.”

Palmer’s mouth pinched. “He might be unreliable, but he’s good.”

That certainly took care of the nerves. Avalon leaned back in her seat, hooking one thumb in the open end of her camera bag. She never went anywhere without the thing. The canvas and Velcro had become her friend and confidant in a lot of ways, along with the equipment within. She looked Mr. Wakowski straight in the eye. “If your assistant is done insulting me, perhaps you can get on to the offer.”

“We want you to work with Tanner Wright for the entirety of his time in San Sebastian. His homecoming.” Mr. Wakowski tapped his index fingers together as he
stared intently at her. “Honestly, yes, we had another photographer planned. It fell through. So we’ve decided to offer you the opportunity.”

Opportunity
was definitely the word. “Commercial or feature?”

Ms. Harmon laid her hand flat on a folder that likely held the contracts and pushed it forward a few inches. “Both, hopefully.”

“If Tanner wins this competition, he’ll sew up the World Championship,” said Mr. Wakowski. “Back in his hometown for the first time. The publicity is inherently positive.”

Nervousness sank deeper into Avalon’s bones, but this time a thrill of excitement ran alongside it. “Me. You want me to photograph Tanner Wright for the next four weeks.”

“We do.”

“He and I are friends, but not follow-around-constantly-level friends.”

“We have a publicity clause in our contract with Tanner,” Mr. Wakowski said calmly. “We’ll invoke it if necessary.”

The tall man’s lips pressed into a thin smile. “Between the level of access WavePro gets and your personal connection, we expect plenty of good shots.”

Oh crap, she wasn’t sure if she could even do it. Their meeting this morning had been slightly volatile. Not to mention there were other worries. How she’d be perceived. She’d worked ridiculously hard trying to find her place in what was so very much a man’s field. Was she willing to take a leg up because of her connections?

Hell yes, she was. She’d known plenty of men who’d gotten their break because they grew up surfing with the right people. She’d worry about the perception later.

This was big enough to make her career.

She stuck her hand across the table. “You’ve got yourselves a photographer.”

Mr. Wakowski broke into a wide grin. He stood and took her hand, giving it a sturdy shake. “You’re not going to regret this, Avalon.”

Everything went rapidly after that, particularly the discussion of terms. Afterward, Palmer fled the room as if he were in danger of catching something nasty. Avalon held her hand out. “May I have the contracts, Ms. Harmon?”

“Please, call me Beth.”

“Beth. I hope you don’t mind me having the paperwork checked by my attorney.”

Beth had sweet brown eyes that danced when she laughed. “Oh, I promise I’m not offended. I might think less of you if you didn’t, for that matter. But everything’s on the up-and-up. If you ask me, it’s those surfer boys you need to watch out for.”

•   •   •

The Wrights’ place had been Avalon’s second home for close to a decade even before she’d officially moved in. Most of the value in the tall, narrow beach house was in the location. For two kids and lots of random drop-ins all the time, the place was a little small.

But whenever Avalon kicked off her flip-flops at the front door and cool Spanish tiles hit the bottoms of her feet, she knew she could relax and let down her shields in a way she couldn’t anywhere else. She put her camera bag on the couch, but not before pulling out her Canon. She loved the beat-up beast of a camera. “I’m home,” she called. Her voice echoed through the narrow living room, then out the opened French doors on the far end of the kitchen.

Sage stuck her head out over the stairway railing above Avalon’s head. “Get up here.”

“Nice to see you too,” she teased even as she skipped up the stairs. “Sure, my meeting went
awesome.
You’re so nice to ask.”

When she got up to the landing, where three rooms spidered out, there was no one there. Just the plain yellow walls adorned only by cobalt blue glasswork that Eileen had done herself during the “off hours” she had when she wasn’t working at the family-owned surf shop, Wright Break.

As a role model, Eileen Wright was really something to live up to.

Sage’s door squeaked open on the left, and the blonde reached out to grab Avalon. Next thing Avalon knew, Sage had dragged her over to the window.

“Look. Just look,” Sage said in a near squeal, her delicate features jumping with excitement. It was hard sometimes to believe that Tanner and Sage came from the same stock. Where he was blunt-nosed and hard-jawed, his sister was all sweetness and beauty and looked like Eileen. The way Tanner took after Hank had made it all the more awful to watch their split.

Avalon obediently looked out the window. Though a canopy of green star jasmine half concealed them, she could see Eileen on the back patio in her favorite spot. She was curled into her padded papasan chair, a holdover from faded hippie days. The only difference was the person sprawled across a lounge chair next to her.

Tanner.

A crumpled mess of emotions turned over in Avalon’s chest. Part wonder, to see him in the Wright family home again. Part excitement, to realize she’d been handed an
a-freaking-mazing opportunity, all because she knew him.

And, yeah, part turn-on too, because Tanner was one fine specimen of man. He wore the same cargo shorts and slim, hugging T-shirt that he’d had on this morning at the beach. His legs were spread in a negligent sprawl and the way he had his arms crossed over his chest only made the T-shirt draw more snug over his shoulders. His hair looked spikier than this morning, as if he’d found some time to dip in the water before coming over.

Of course. Tanner always took the long way home, it seemed like.

Avalon flat-out didn’t get it. If she’d ever been born part of a solid family like this one, there would be nothing in the world that would make her walk away. “How long’s he been here?”

“About three hours. Rang the doorbell like he was a door-to-door salesman or some other kind of bullshit. I could choke him.” Sage touched her fingertips to the glass in a move that looked way more sisterly than her words sounded.

“You didn’t though.”

“Nope. Of course not.” She sighed, turned away from the window, and flopped across the bed—a little juvenile for a twenty-six-year-old woman. Sage scrubbed the heels of her hands across her eyes. “God forbid we scare him off. Mom’s already planning a party though.”

Sage used to have her own apartment, but that changed after her dad’s death. Even though Avalon had already been living there, Sage moved back in to help her mom either shut down the surf store or sell it so she could retire—and to be near when Eileen needed her. As a result, the walls of Sage’s room were still papered
with magazine cutouts of fellow surfers and bands from her high school years—and hand-drawn sketches of the surfboards that she shaped for a living.

Avalon couldn’t help but pick out the shots of Tanner. She couldn’t get away from the man and she’d be even closer to him during the next four weeks. One way or the other she’d have to get over herself. “That’s your mom, though. Any excuse for having people over.”

“And cooking. God forbid anyone might go home hungry.” Sage rolled her eyes but it was obvious she didn’t mean it. Even being in Sage’s presence was relaxing. Lots of calm and sunshine, all stemming from a happy, internal place.

Avalon envied that happy place so damn bad. Half the time she felt like she was scrambling to keep up, and the rest of the time she wanted to collapse. She straddled the desk chair and fiddled with her camera for a second.

She had to look up from under her lashes to ask. It didn’t feel like her place, and yet she couldn’t leave it be, either. “Are you gonna ask?”

“Ask what?”

God, that was Sage. Able to let any slight or problem go. “Are you going to ask Tanner what happened with your dad?”