Secrets in the Sand by Carolyn Brown

            She opted for the elevator that time, then kicked the unlocked door open with her foot and set her luggage on the floor. She opened the door to the bathroom and turned on the hot water, shucked out of her clothes, and took a long shower to ease the tension out of her muscles. When she finished, she wrapped herself in a big white towel and collapsed on top of the white duvet that covered the second queen-size bed and sighed. She propped up on both pillows and grabbed her cell phone to call Patty, but she changed her mind and tossed the phone to the other side of the bed. This was supposed to be a vacation, and she’d vowed on the plane that she would not call Conrad Oil once in the five days she planned to stay in Florida—instead of the two weeks her friends had expected her to be away.

            She closed her eyes but couldn’t sleep, so she got out of bed and opened one of her suitcases. She’d packed too much, but she had never been on a personal vacation and wasn’t sure what she might need. She found her bright-red bathing suit, a white terry cover-up, and a pair of white leather thong sandals.

            “I didn’t come to the beach to hole up in a room,” she declared. “Maybe that hunky beach bum who looks like Kenny Chesney is out there waiting for me.”

            She smiled as she imagined a tale to entertain the girls about a gorgeous man she’d met on the beach.

            She had the doorknob in her hand and was about to turn it when a loud knock on the other side startled her. She jerked the door open to find a tanned young man with a smile that would make Patty swoon holding a gorgeous flower arrangement in his hands.

            “Delivery for Miss Conrad,” he said and handed her a crystal vase with a dozen red roses interspersed with white baby’s breath. “Have a nice day now and don’t forget your sunblock. Fair as you are, you’d burn in an hour on a day like this.”

            “Those girls!” Angel sighed as she set the flowers on the bar separating the living area from the kitchen. Then she opened the envelope attached to the red satin bow around the vase.

            Yesterday, today, forever. The card wasn’t signed.

            “Well,” she said aloud. “Allie always was one for mystery. Probably trying to make me think there’s someone here who’s after my heart. Maybe he’ll be a dark-eyed, gorgeous model who can wiggle out of a tight Speedo so fast he’ll make my head swim.” She picked up her tube of sunblock, threw it into her beach bag, stopped long enough to inhale the fragrance of the roses, and headed out the door to the beach.

            Once there, Angel dropped her bag on the warm sand and took out an oversize towel. This end of the beach was quiet, and the sand was as fine and white as granulated sugar. She sat down on the towel and scooped up a handful, letting it slip through her fingers. Then she remembered the delivery boy’s warning and dusted the fine grains from her hands, slid her sheer cover-up off her shoulders, and smoothed sunblock cream over her arms and legs.

            A picture of the two entwined hearts she had drawn in the sand at the edge of Pennington Creek in Tishomingo ten years ago popped into her mind. Using her finger, she drew two hearts in the sand beside her beach towel. This time they weren’t even touching.

            She rolled over on her stomach and took one of the romance novels out of her bag. A picture of a handsome cowboy in tight jeans and a gaudy western shirt decorated the front. A woman with improbably deep cleavage was draped over his arm, and the smoldering look in his eyes promised the reader a love story beyond all expectations. Patty probably didn’t even know the author and had picked it for the cover art. But whether the author could write or not didn’t matter one bit to Angela. She intended to read the book from prologue to epilogue and enjoy every overheated page just to keep the thoughts of Clancy at bay.

            ***

            Clancy changed into swimming trunks and put on a tank top and a pair of sandals. He threw a towel over his shoulder, took a deep breath, and started toward the beach. He had planned to just take a walk and clear his mind. He’d been able to get a room in the same hotel, found out which room Angel was in, and deliberately booked his room in the second tower on the third floor. He hadn’t expected to see Angel so quickly. He hadn’t even figured out how to approach her, but there she was, wearing a red two-piece bathing suit, a floppy straw hat, and huge sunglasses, propped up on her elbows reading a paperback book. But he would have known her if she’d been decked out in a gunnysack tied up in the middle with a length of twine. A young man strolled past her, and Clancy could tell by his posturing and the way he slowed down that if she had looked up, the guy would’ve started a conversation, but she seemed to be oblivious to everything except the book.

            “I guess there’s no time like the present,” he whispered as he flipped his towel out right beside her and sat on it, looking out over the ocean.