The Treasure Man. Pamela Browning
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to her form, delineating every curve. When she half turned toward him, he swallowed, wishing that he didn’t have such a ready response to this woman. For her part, she seemed totally unaware of her electrifying effect on him as she bent to pluck something from the water.
“This is a wonderful example of sea glass,” she said, holding it toward him. The breeze blew a few drops of dripping water onto his warm forearm. In the palm of her hand was a slim half-moon shape, slightly curved, its color as delicate as a lilac petal.
“It’s almost the same shade as your eyes,” he blurted, and the look she gave him indicated an awareness that hadn’t been there before. An awareness of—what?
Her fingers closed over the shard, and he stared at her from behind his sunglasses, overcome with regret that they had become so sexually aware of each other in such a short time. He needed someone he could talk with, hang out with, maybe who would like to take in a movie occasionally. He most certainly didn’t need the complication of a woman and all the accompanying hassles.
“Dinner,” she said, aiming a coquettish grin at him. He was convinced that she didn’t mean to flirt. Those glances, the sparkle in her eyes, that sinuous walk meant nothing.
“Right,” he replied.
She waded out of the water, and Ben was relieved when she disappeared beyond the dunes. She might not realize her effect on him, but he certainly did, and he was wary of starting anything with her.
On the other hand, why not go for it?
Because you can’t care about her in any meaningful way, he told himself. That should have been sufficient reason, but as he watched her progress toward the inn, it wasn’t at all.
CHLOE WAS GLAD Ben had accepted her dinner invitation, which she had half expected him to refuse. He had a way of keeping a his distance, like a lot of loners, and the loner species of male wasn’t one that she wanted to cultivate. Certainly he was polite enough, and today they’d established a personal connection when he’d revealed something about his troubled youth.
“I wouldn’t be alone, even without him,” she said to Butch, who bounded out of the nearby stand of Australian pines and met her at the spigot near the bottom of the porch stairs, where she’d stopped to wash the sand off her feet. “I’d have you, wouldn’t I?” She shook the water off and dried her feet on a towel.
Butch, after allowing himself to be petted, led her into the house, tail high. He jockeyed into position near his food dish for a handout, so she relented and gave him the leftover tuna that she’d saved from last night.
“I can’t figure out how you manage in that fur coat of yours,” she said to Butch. “This weather is so hot, even for me.” She headed for the shower, her second of the day.
Afterward, she slipped into a clean sleeveless blouse and comfortable khaki shorts, and went to put the barbecue together. She’d noticed the pieces strewn around the back porch earlier. With a good deal of effort, she managed to insert the legs into their slots on the bottom of the grill pan but couldn’t figure out how to get the rack to fit evenly on top.
Butch sat on the back porch railing, all but rolling his eyes at her clumsiness. “I’ve already broken a fingernail, not that it matters, and this stupid thing doesn’t fit,” she fumed as she fussed this way and that with the rack.
“Can I help?”
Ben strolled with unhurried ease out of the long shadows bordering the house. He wore pale blue jeans with a white shirt open at the throat, Top-Siders with no socks, and his hair was freshly washed and blown dry. He’d shaved off the beard stubble, which revealed his strong jaw and made him look five years younger. This put her in mind of the night she’d first met him all those years ago. She’d found him incredibly handsome, and he’d been completely uninterested in a gangly teenager with a Texas accent.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d check it out,” Chloe said matter-of-factly, gesturing toward the barbecue. “I need to wash my hands.”
“Here, you can take these into the kitchen when you go,” he said, thrusting a dish in her direction. It held two Idaho potatoes, already baked.
“They’re cooked,” Chloe said in surprise.
“They’ll be even more so before we eat them. What’s the matter with the grill?”
“The thing that holds the meat doesn’t fit on top,” she said. She was on her way through the door to the kitchen when her cell phone rang. She balanced the dish with the potatoes in one hand as she yanked it out of her pocket, hoping the call would be good news about Tara.
“This is Patrice DesJardin calling,” said a pleasant voice. “Is this Chloe?”
“Yes, it is,” Chloe said, setting the potatoes on the wicker porch table before sinking onto the swing. It gave a disconcerting wobble, and she stood up quickly. The grommet, or whatever it was that held the chain on the back of the swing, was loose, threatening to dump anyone who sat on it.
Ben turned at the sound of the swing smacking against the railing and frowned.
Patrice said, “I remember meeting you at the Frangipani Inn a couple of years ago. We had a delightful time.”
Chloe recalled that day well. Tayloe had made orangeade and egg salad sandwiches for lunch, and they’d listened long into the night as Patrice and Tayloe reminisced about their college days when they’d been roommates.
“It was fun,” Chloe said, unsure how to segue into a sales spiel about her jewelry. Patrice could be a great help to her, since her boutique on Palm Beach’s famed Worth Avenue was patronized by the rich and famous whose interest or lack of interest in Chloe’s designs could either make or break her budding venture.
“Tell me about this exciting new direction of yours,” Patrice said warmly, and that made it easy.
With the phone to her ear, Chloe wandered into the house, followed by Ben, who disappeared down the hall to the annex. “It all started right here on this beach,” Chloe told Patrice, going on to relate how the lovely colors of sea glass had always fascinated her. “After I made my first pendant, so many people complimented me that I designed more and more, realizing in the process that I didn’t want to do anything else.”
“I’d love to see what you do,” Patrice said. “The jewelry sounds like something that my customers might really like.” Before they hung up, they agreed on a day and a time when Chloe would drive to Palm Beach.
Ben emerged from the annex as Chloe clicked off her phone.
“You seem much more cheerful than you did a few minutes ago,” he observed as Chloe followed him outside.
She leaned back against the railing, watching as, with a variety of tools, he attacked the swing and the chain that held it. “That was Gwynne’s godmother. She invited me to show her my designs. Patrice is key to my plan, so I’m very happy about it.” And relieved, though she didn’t add that.
“Good for you.” Ben finished his work with the swing and gave it an experimental push before chucking the tools into a corner. “I brought a different rack that should fit. That one—” he nodded toward the rack responsible for Chloe’s broken fingernail “—belongs to another barbecue that got thrown away. I recall something about it.”
Chloe lowered herself to the top step as Ben dumped charcoal into the barbecue and doused it with charcoal lighter. “You must have lived at Frangipani Inn for quite a while,” she observed.
“In spells, every now and then,” he said.
She digested this, wondering if he was being intentionally vague. She well remembered how suddenly, that year she’d fallen in love with him, he’d disappeared from the inn. She’d heard rumors that Ben was still working at Sea Search. Someone ran into him on the beach but learned nothing about where he was living. In the fall, when Chloe was back in Farish, Gwynne had written that Ben was married. The news had devastated Chloe.