Riding the Wave (3 page)

Sage shook her head. A sheaf of hair slid over her shoulder as she rolled onto her tummy. “No. Not my business. It’s past now.”

Avalon snapped off a couple pictures. Sage barely blinked. The random picture taking was routine between the two of them. Part of Avalon’s way of framing the world in more understandable ways.

Because she didn’t get it. If her brother had been gone . . . She’d have to know why.

She wasn’t sure at all if she’d be able to keep her mouth shut while spending the next month with Tanner.

Jesus. Suddenly, something made her sit up straight. It was possible he didn’t even know yet. He hadn’t said anything this morning. As if it weren’t enough that she’d tagged around his family for close to a decade, now she’d be shadowing him personally.

She might have to tell him herself.

T
anner had always liked his mom’s back patio. The entire space was probably only twelve feet by twelve before the garage and alley cut it off, but his mom had a special touch for making it cozy. She’d squeezed in a couple chairs, eked out some plants and grass that didn’t mind the high walls and getting only an hour of sunshine a day. Next to being out on the water, it was one of his favorite places in the world.

So the quiet burn of tears that had threatened when he’d stepped out onto the flagstones wasn’t a surprise. He’d easily managed to choke them back.

His dad had been such a fucking dillhole. To put all this harmony at risk, and to put Tanner in the position of losing it. All the while, he got to look like a good guy, while Tanner was the ego-filled surf boy who wouldn’t come home.

No one had ever known how much he missed the quiet moments spent with his mom in this space.

Eileen reached out and tapped his forearm. She kept doing that all the time, finding reasons to touch or pat him. Push his hair back out of his eyes. Once he’d thought
she was two seconds from licking her thumb and rubbing his cheek.

He didn’t mind, not really. It couldn’t last long, but being with his mom again . . . It made him a little warm and fuzzy on the inside.

“Is there anyone in particular that you want me to invite for Friday?” she asked.

“Not really.” Anyone he added to the guest list would be another set of eyes to stare and wonder where the hell he’d been. The weight ate at him. “If you’ve got a question, go ahead and ask, Mom.”

“Do you have a girlfriend, sugar?” Amusement glowed from her still-smooth skin. His mom wasn’t exactly over-the-hill, but a bit of silver paled out her honey-blond hair.

“No,” he said, but he couldn’t help the little chuckle that worked through him. Mothers were always the same, no matter what other drama swirled around them. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m out of here.”

Her easy smile drooped a little. “So soon?”

“I’ve been visiting for hours now.” He pushed out of his chair, but then leaned down to brush a kiss over her temple. “Besides, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Her throat worked over a swallow. The corners of her mouth managed to push up again, but a certain wavering quality took over. He didn’t like it. For a second, she looked almost old. Sickening guilt churned through him, that he could make her look like that.

But he shoved it down again as quickly. She’d look even worse if she knew the truth.

“Promise?” she asked, her voice light on the surface. Darkened blue eyes gave her away.

“Promise.”

That easily, things were better. Maybe he’d actually be able to make it all work. To balance everything.

He couldn’t afford to let all this family stuff take the fins out from under his board. Too much rode on the upcoming contest. He needed his head in the game.

On the front walk, he was slipping his sunglasses on when the door opened behind him. For half a second, he thought it would be Sage, wanting a word when their mom couldn’t hear. But when he turned, Avalon stood on the front stoop.

She looked entirely different from the way she had at the beach, but in a way she was still the same. Her hair had been dried and maybe even styled somehow so that her bangs weren’t just pushed out of the way. A thick fringe grazed above eyes that looked greener than they had this morning as well.

The biggest change was the fact that she was wearing way more clothes. The red bikini halter top was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a disappointingly respectable blouse. Not even a hint of cleavage. At least her skirt showed off a couple solid inches of smooth thigh above her knees.

Slender fingers hooked into her dark gray bag. “We should talk.”

“I think we did that this morning.”

Her soft-looking mouth quirked. “Something’s come up.”

It was weird as hell, looking at this version of Avalon and mentally layering it over the version he used to know: thin, wiry, and way too young. But that version was long gone, and he pushed the memory away. This was Avalon now. She was the one he had before him. Ignoring the past was what he was good at, after all.

“Do you mind if we don’t go back inside?” Being in what had been his father’s house had been bad enough. He’d had to employ intentional tunnel vision to make it past all the photographs and framed covers and his father’s trophies. All the things that said what an awesome guy Hank was. No way could he do it again so soon.

She shrugged. “No worries. C’mon, we’ll walk up the block to Manna’s.”

“Where?”

She struck out walking while she laughed at him. “I keep thinking of you as a local. But that’s not quite right anymore, is it?”

He let her draw even before he started moving. She smelled like coconut and toasted sun and everything good he remembered about California girls. Plus, underneath it, something different. Something tastier that called right to the bottom of him, made him want to lick and suck. And bite. “No, I don’t think it is. I . . . I don’t think I’m a local anywhere right now.”

She slanted a sideways look at him. The cross-strap of her messenger-style camera bag did delicious things to her tits, lifting them and pressing the cotton of her blouse against them. “That’s got to be one of the saddest things I’ve heard in forever.”

“Didn’t mean it to be sad. Just is.” He didn’t have to measure his steps to walk alongside her. She moved with ferocity of purpose, intent and quick. Though her legs had to be shorter, she clipped along too fast for it to be a problem. “Don’t feel bad for me.”

“Oh, I don’t.” She grinned. A quick flick tossed her shoulder-length hair over her shoulder. Now that it wasn’t soaking wet, the sun picked out red strands to caress. “Not in the least.”

“Nice. You’re real sweet—you know that?”

“You can’t have it both ways, dude.” She turned her face up toward the sun for a second. When he’d spotted her on her board, she’d been like that too. A true sun worshipper, probably. He couldn’t blame her. He had the same instinct. Get to some water and sun and the rest of it would all shake out. “If you don’t want me to pity you, you shouldn’t get your panties in a twist when I don’t.”

“When you put it that way.” He gently pushed his shoulder into hers. Not hard. Not enough to toss her off balance, but enough so that he felt that skin again. She was everything bright and soft. “So what makes it so sad, then?”

“This,” she breathed. Her hands found the back pockets of her skirt, thrusting her shoulders back.

They’d come to the end of the road, where it dead-ended in sand and a footpath tracked through the reedy plants staking their claim at the very edge of the beach. Cars and trucks squeezed in where they could. The heat of the crystal-clear summer day meant the entire expanse of beach, all the way to the ocean, was a sea of people. Dark hair, brightly colored swimsuits, tan-and-blue sun umbrellas. All of it covered the pale sand.

Some surfers bitched and moaned about San Sebastian. Said it was too crowded, too commercial. Tourists flocked in from miles around to fill out the small town. Tanner had always loved the contrast. In the morning, he could claim waves that ranked among the best in the world. In the afternoon, it’d all be handed over to inlanders so they could get a taste of wildness.

“You gave up all this. Apparently for nothing, if you don’t have a home.” Something sad darkened her eyes
into a stormy color. “I could maybe get it if you’d chosen something else instead. But . . . nothing?”

Yeah, thanks. Like he needed any reminder of how bad the last few years had sucked. Of the kind of choices he’d been left with. Words burned his throat but he choked them down. She didn’t deserve to take the lashings from all the tension he carried.

He’d have to do something soon to work off the buzz riding his skin. Maybe he’d grab a board and hit the water, if he could get through the crowds. And the freaking tide was out too, now that he thought about it.

He’d have to find another outlet. He couldn’t help the track his gaze took toward Avalon. She’d be a spicy little armful—if she had any intention of giving him the time of day.

Though she had been the one who wanted to talk to him. Maybe she had more illicit purposes after all.

He couldn’t help the little spike of amusement. Yeah, right. He was starting to believe his own hype. Too much more of that, and he’d be Jack Crews. And as useless a surfer too. He and Jack had made about the same amount of money through the years—lots of it. But Jack’s attitude had suffered. “C’mon,” he said, shaking free of his own head. That was a dangerous place to be too long. “Where are we headed?”

“This way.” She turned south, then led the way down the beach about a hundred yards to a beach café slash bar. The door they pushed through was weathered to look like driftwood and the interior was cool and dark. The entire west wall was nothing but banks of open glass doors. Dark wood fans swirled air around in a lazy effort to add to the salt-tangy sea breeze.

There were tables outside, all of them crowded with
pasty white or lobster red tourists who clutched frothy drinks. The tables inside were half empty, as if it were a sin to come to the beach and not get all the sunstroke possible. At the far end, a nest of tables had been pushed together and seats dragged up. All of them were occupied by surfers.

Tanner recognized many of them, including James Montcrief, and so did Avalon from the way she smiled and waved. In fact, there was Jack Crews sitting at the head of the tables, as if Tanner’s very thought of him had drawn the man. He forced his mouth into a smile and gave two tips of his fingers.

“Avalon, sweetheart, why’re you keeping such shitty company?” Jack called. His eyes were narrow, but Tanner had heard plenty of chicks coo and giggle over him. He pushed his seat back and patted a knee. “You know I’ll always make room for you.”

“Like she wants to fight through your hordes,” provided James. It was surprising to see him in town, since he’d left the World Championship circuit behind to become a free surfer. He must have been visiting Beth Harmon, his fiancée.

“Sorry, Jack,” she answered. “We’ve got business to discuss. But maybe if you behave yourself I’ll grace you with my presence later.”

Business, did they? That certainly put an end to anything he’d been supposing. Probably had something to do with the way she’d been asking about WavePro earlier that morning.

“If anyone can keep me on my toes, it’s you,” Jack said with a grin. His teeth were so white, he’d probably had a recent bleach treatment.

Tanner didn’t hate the guy, but he didn’t understand
him, either. Jack seemed to go out of his way to court inlanders and kiss publicity ass. He drank too much, partied too hard, and he’d lost freaking heats in important competitions because he’d been hungover. Absolutely unprepared. But his sponsors never let him go because he drew attention.

Considering Tanner had spent the last nine years garnering the least possible attention he could get away with, all so no one would ask him about his dad, he couldn’t comprehend.

“But please,” said another voice out of the crowd, this one low and lilting with the slightest touch of a foreign tongue. “Do think about coming back. We could use your sort of pretty around.”

A cold freeze trickled down Tanner’s spine in direct opposition to the hot air on his skin. Even worse, Avalon’s cheeks pinked with a blush. He didn’t need to look for the speaker, but he did anyway. He couldn’t help it.

Three seats down from Jack, separated by a dreadlocked, burned-out surfer stereotype and a bright-faced noob, sat Mako Wright.

His father’s bastard.

W
hen Avalon had been thirteen, after the Wright family had practically adopted her but before she’d managed to break all the old ties of her life, she’d been at a beach bonfire that had gone very, very wrong. Too much alcohol and a too hefty sprinkling of skinheads had led to trouble once the hour got late. The air crackled with the very taste of violence, something sharp and bitter as everyone stared down enemies. Avalon had wrapped her hands around a red plastic cup and huddled into her hoodie, hoping no one would notice her before her ride was ready to go home. When an accidentally spilled drink led to a fistfight, which turned into a near riot, she’d run all the way home—a mile and a half in the dark.

In the shady bar, the air took on that same crackle. Bad sign.

Beside her, Tanner somehow bulked out without moving. She’d been standing and walking beside him for almost fifteen minutes, but until that moment she hadn’t felt small. Suddenly, it was all she could think of. That he had probably twice the weight on her, all of it thick muscles. Not that any of that threat was pointed at her.

Instead, it was toward the man who’d spoken. He had high cheekbones and dark eyes with a slant that whispered of far-off waves. His mouth, too, was delicate in a way that most men couldn’t pull off. Not him, though. He was all subtle intention and dark focus. On her.

She swallowed. She smiled.

“Okay, well . . .” Her voice trailed off. Tanner’s arm had the consistency of concrete. His muscles were locked about as rigidly as possible. “Jack, everyone, thanks for the invite, but we’ll be . . . See ya.”

Hauling Tanner into a corner booth took all the subtle force she could muster. And she still could only move him because he eventually decided to
be
moved.

She ought to have been annoyed. Manly power shows had never been her style.

Instead something wicked and dark lit within her. It felt like cresting the top of a huge slab, waiting for the heavy weight of the wave to snatch her up.

She intentionally wedged him in so that his back was to the tables filled with surfers, then squeezed in next to him. If she’d sat across, she wouldn’t have been able to resist looking. Wondering what the hell had set him off.

His dad had been a blusterer. Lots of complaining, a little bit of stomping around. But Tanner seemed to be the exact opposite. All quiet burn. Her fingers literally itched to have her camera. The sharp line of his jaw would photograph so freaking perfectly, even in the dim light. Her thumb rubbed across the latch of her messenger-style camera bag. But it’d probably be a bad idea.

“Do I get to know what your problem is?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s easy enough.”

Rolling her eyes, she waved down the waitress. They
turned over as easily as prom dates, so Avalon didn’t know this one’s name. But she had quite the rack, wrapped up in a pink twist of fabric.

Avalon checked automatically to see if Tanner had noticed. Not that it made any sense—and hell, with what the waitress was sporting, she had looked too.

Tanner still stared straight ahead, as if willing himself to keep his gaze away from the table of surfers.

The bleached blond waitress smiled and it turned her otherwise vacant features pleasant. “What can I get you?”

“Just a Corona. Tanner?”

“Iced tea. Thanks.”

The waitress bounced away with a nod.

Avalon fiddled with a cocktail napkin. “Tea?”

“I’m on my training regimen. Strictly limited alcohol.”

The party behind them broke up, and Jack and James called a farewell to both of them. Avalon twisted in the booth to say good-bye, but Tanner only raised a hand over his head in an abrupt farewell. When the rest of the noisy group tumbled out the door, he deflated a few inches into the leather bench.

He blew out a noisy breath. “Sorry.”

“I’m assuming you’ve got some problem with that dude?”

His mouth tweaked in something that approached a smile. The scar over his mouth leached white. “You could say that.”

“But that’s all you’ll say, I’m guessing.” She ought to have moved around the horseshoe-shaped bench to the other side of the table. There was no reason for her to be within touching distance of him. But she stayed.

He smelled like salt and man. Something that made her want to nuzzle.

When the waitress arrived with drinks, he smiled at her. Avalon spotted tension at his temples. The tiny fluting around his eyes that wasn’t quite called wrinkles. When the blonde walked away, he kept looking in her direction, but Avalon didn’t get the idea he was ogling her. More like avoiding looking directly at Avalon.

She wrapped her hands around the damp bottle. “You don’t have to say anything, of course. You owe me no explanations. But I’m here to listen.”

That got him to look at her. It went all the way down inside her, as if he were looking for a specific answer. “Tell me one thing, Avalon.”

She swallowed past a mouth that felt as dry as if she’d swallowed a handful of sand. “Sure.”

“Are you oh so eager and ready to listen because you want to . . . or because that’s what you’ve always done with my family? Your role, let’s say.”

She flinched the tiniest bit, the tendons inside her elbows jumping. No matter how closely she searched his face, she couldn’t see any meanness in it. A certain level of curiosity, she supposed. Maybe a bright flash of hope in the anticipating part of his lips.

There had only been a couple times in her life when she’d felt like she stood at such an easily delineated crossroad. One had been when she’d held two college acceptance letters and decided intentionally to stay near the Wrights so they didn’t forget about her. The other had been when she’d looked at her college boyfriend and intentionally accepted the fact that he would always be too nervous to try surfing, even for her. At that moment, she’d accepted that he wasn’t Tanner and never would be.

Her heart thrummed into overdrive. “Because I want to.”

His lips lifted into a genuine smile. “Yeah? That’s all right.”

She ducked his gaze, looking at her beer, and she wasn’t the gaze-ducking type. Easier to keep her fluttering girly bits in line if she wasn’t looking at him. But crap, it wasn’t even as easy as all that. “You should know something.”

“That doesn’t sound promising.”

She couldn’t help a little laugh at that. “Totally depends on your definition.”

“My definition includes not being able to take you out for dinner tonight.”

“You’re kind of slick, aren’t you?” She didn’t want to admit what that line had done to her. Made her slippery and needy. “You know, I remember when you were nineteen and home after your first summer on the circuit. Didn’t you have a crush on Amanda Hanterny? She shot you down.”

“Ouch.” He pinched his features into mock chagrin. “She said she wanted a boyfriend who’d be able to take her to prom. Thanks for bringing that one up.”

“Yeah, your ego doesn’t seem like it needs any stroking. Anyway. Issue. Us.”

“There’s an us already?” He took a lock of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. Though he wasn’t touching any other part of her, a shiver slid over her collarbone. “I think I should be careful around you.”

“Hush already.” She was really going to have to spit this out before Mr. Slick got going too hard. “I’ve been hired by WavePro to do a spread on you. I thought you should hear it from me first.”

He tugged lightly on the chunk of her hair. A tingle spread over her scalp and she had to swallow hard. Her legs pressed together against the sudden ache between her thighs, until her knees ground bone on bone.

“A photo shoot shouldn’t be that big a deal. We’ll take some pictures, and then you’ll let me take you to dinner. As payment, I’ll get to pick the restaurant.”

Oh, this was not going to go over well. Tanner had never really been known to revel in the spotlight. “No, you don’t understand. They want full access. I’m to be with you pretty much twenty-four-seven until the Pro.”

“No way,” he said automatically. He dropped the lock of her hair as quickly as if it had turned into a jellyfish stinger, and slipped so far away from her that he was practically on the other side of the booth.

“I wanted to be the one to tell you. I didn’t want you to think I’d gone behind your back or anything. They came to me.”

“You know what everyone’s going to say about why, right?”

Bile burned through her chest. Everyone was going to say that—the boys’ club of the surf world in action. But it didn’t matter. She’d make sure it didn’t, not when they saw the photos that resulted.

“I don’t care.” She pulled her Canon out of her bag like a medieval warrior pulling out a sword. Rather than beheading dragons, she laid it carefully on the highly polished table. Tanner was no Arthur anyhow. “If I wasn’t friends with the family, everyone would say I got the gig because I was sleeping with you.”

“But we both know that’s not true.” His voice was as silky as a spider web and as sticky. She wanted to be on
him. With him. “If you and I were sleeping together, there’d be no forgetting that.”

She rolled her eyes a tiny bit. “With that ego, you are entirely your father’s son. How the hell could you stop talking to him when he was practically
you
?”

That was apparently the entirely wrong thing to say. He surged up from the booth, a muscle sharply carved in the side of his jaw. After peeling bills off a thick wad, he tossed down money to cover their drinks. “You’ll do what you need to, and I’ll do what my contract says I have to. But don’t think you’ll get any special consideration. I’m not talking about him.”

“Tanner, I’m—” But before she could finish the sentence, he turned away like some sort of petulant teenager. Huffing an annoyed breath, she crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in the booth. The only person who got to treat her like she was nothing was her mother, and even that was a close call. She injected all the saccharine sweetness she could muster into her voice. “I’ll drop by your place in the morning. Don’t worry—Mr. Wakowski gave me the address.”

He stopped short. Even the backs of his calves pulled into a sharp shelf of divided muscle. She could tuck a pencil under that rivet. The sunglasses he tugged from his cargo pocket were expensive, with a dragon emblem on the side and likely comped. All the top surfers got gear and clothing for free. He might not like his notoriety, but he sure benefited from it.

The slow pivot he did was all show. One more thing he was certainly good at, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

She snapped off a handful of pictures, the whir of the
lens like a subtle raspberry at him. He wanted to play at being as mercurial as the ocean before a storm, fine. She could be as much of an ass in return.

“There’s one thing
you
ought to know,” he said. His voice was a quiet purr, half threat, half promise that would forever go unexplored, at least with her. “Hank Wright was no god. There are things you don’t know about him.”

“And you do? You’re the one who was gone. You don’t want me to ask, fine.” She stood as well. No way was she finishing this conversation from such a disadvantage, staring up at him. She’d never been much of one for doormatting. Her camera dangled, strap wound loosely around her wrist. She lifted it with a smile that felt only mean. Snapped off a couple more shots. “But I’m the one who was here. The whole time. So unless you’re prepared to spill about the dark and dirty? You don’t also get to rub it in my face.”

Out of nowhere, the wrinkles across his forehead cleared. He grinned. She didn’t want to admit how much she liked the shape of his eyes, the darker sweep of his brows above them. “It’s a damned shame,” he said.

She swallowed down her sudden confusion. It was so much easier to be annoyed. “What’s that?”

He leaned down and brushed a kiss across her mouth, too short to be much more than a tease. She didn’t even get a taste of him, and sure didn’t get any more than the shock of a tingle. “That we won’t get to follow up on this. Not anymore.”