Summer Secrets - Barbara Freethy [8]
Ashley shivered as she glanced at the boat, watching the men scurry back and forth, checking the sails and completing the chores necessary to settle in for the night. A strong gust of wind blew strands of her long blond hair across her face. Setting her camera bag on the dock, she knelt down and dug into her purse for an elastic band.
She should have cut her hair years ago. In fact, she considered chopping it off every six weeks, but she never quite got up the nerve. As a result, her hair dipped down to her waist. It made her look too young, and it was often tangled, but in a small way it made her feel closer to her mother. Ashley had inherited her mother's red streaks, making her more of a strawberry blonde than her sisters. But it wasn't just the color that reminded her of Nora McKenna, it was the memories of her mother brushing her hair every night, one hundred strokes exactly. Those nights had been a long time ago, but she still missed them. Sentimental tears blurred her vision.
She told herself to stop being so emotional. She was an adult now, twenty-six years old, an independent woman with a career. It was time to grow up, to stop being sensitive. Her sisters certainly didn't cry at every Hallmark commercial. They didn't wax sentimental about family moments from a lifetime ago. And she shouldn't, either.
As Ashley pulled the elastic band out of her purse, the dock rolled, and she had to put one hand down on the wood to steady herself. She made the mistake of looking at the gap between the dock and the boat, at the greenish-blue water rising up and down, up and down. The sight was mesmerizing. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't.
How many times had she stared at the water? How many times had it been her friend as she played with the dolphins and swam in the waves? Those were the times to remember, she told herself desperately. Not the other times, when the waves grew as high as skyscrapers, when the water threatened to swallow everything within its reach. Her body began to sway. She was afraid to move, afraid to get sucked into that terrible vortex where nothing ever came back.
"Ashley? Ashley? Is that you?"
She heard her name called from a great distance, but when she looked up she found a man standing right next to her. Faded blue jeans covered a pair of long, lean legs and a navy muscle T-shirt hung loosely around his waist. As her gaze traveled up his body, she told herself to look away before she got to the dimple in the chin, the slightly crooked nose broken by a football when he was twelve years old, and the sandy-colored hair streaked with blond highlights that he'd never had to pay a dime for. Unfortunately, she couldn't stop herself from meeting his gold-flecked brown eyes.
"Sean," she murmured.
"Ashley," he said, watching as she slowly got to her feet.
Even in her heels, Sean Amberson towered over her, six foot four inches of solid male. He was broader across the chest now, and his upper arms rippled with muscles honed by years of building and sailing boats. She cleared her throat, trying to calm the sudden racing of her pulse. It was bad enough the wind was blowing; now she had Sean to deal with as well. She'd known he'd come back again. His parents still lived on the island, still ran the boat-building business that would one day go to Sean. But knowing he would come home and seeing him in the flesh were two very different things.
"When did you get back?" she forced herself to ask.
"Yesterday. Did you miss me?"
"I --" Ashley shrugged helplessly. "It's been a long time."
"Almost two years since my last visit, and I think you managed to dodge me the entire week I was here."
"I don't remember."
"Sure you do. You developed a sudden and very contagious case of the flu, as I recall. Wouldn't even open your door. I had to yell at you from the hallway of your apartment building. The time before that, you claimed you had