Secrets in the Sand by Carolyn Brown

            “Are you ready?”

            She nodded and picked up her purse. He escorted her to the elevator and out to a silver Cadillac where he opened the door for her. Then he whistled as he walked around the car and settled in behind the wheel. He plugged his phone into a jack and tapped the screen. The Judds began singing one of the songs that her band had performed at the alumni reunion. “They aren’t as good as you are,” he said as he backed the car out and started driving east toward the restaurant where he had made reservations.

            “Oh, sure,” she argued. “The Judds are in Nashville making millions, and I’ve sold my bus and broken up my band. You’ve got rocks for brains if you think I’m that good.”

            “Then I’ve got rocks for brains. You’re making millions, too, and they still can’t sing as well as you. Remember when you used to harmonize with whoever was on the radio in my Camaro? I remembered that when I looked up there at that stage. You were standing there like an angel appearing out of a cloud of smoke. Lord, I thought I’d die when I realized it was you. When you hopped up there on the table in front of me, my mouth felt like it was plumb full of cotton. I wanted to say something, but words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Why didn’t you give us all some advance notice of what you’ve accomplished?” he asked.

            “I didn’t need to advertise my success to all those people who never thought I’d amount to anything. Come on, Clancy. I was poor, but I wasn’t dumb—except when it came to you,” she told him. “Now where’s this restaurant? I always get hungry when I’m around water very long. You know, I think this sunblock lotion really does work. I’m not burned at all,” she rambled on, changing the subject.

            Clancy pulled the car up to a restaurant with an awning in front. He handed a valet the keys and opened the door for Angela. “I figured you’d marry Billy Joe. You should have seen my face when I read that he was gay. Goes to show how much I knew, huh?”

            The waiter showed them to a table for two on a wharf overlooking the water. A salty breeze blew the linen tablecloths and caused the candles, set down in deep crystal sconces, to flicker.

            “Nice place,” she commented when the waiter brought two tall glasses of iced tea and left with their orders. He ordered the steak and shrimp special, and she ordered a crab salad, with a side order of fried clams and shrimp with red sauce.

            “Best I could do on short notice. I’ll see if I can come up with something a little more elaborate for tomorrow night. There’s a dinner cruise aboard a ship that goes out to Shell Island, but it was fully booked tonight. We can go another time. Takes most of the afternoon, then we’ll eat dinner and spend an hour on an island before we return. Sounded kind of romantic. Then there’s another restaurant the clerk said was good that I thought we’d try too. Unless, of course, you want to decide…”

            Angel looked out at the setting sun’s reflection on the water and thought she could probably come to this place every night for two weeks. Even if Clancy decided where they would eat every night, they’d probably still get on their separate airplanes to go back to Oklahoma. If at the end of their time Clancy Morgan asked her to go to Tishomingo and eat at the Dairy Queen in front of all his hometown friends, she would be really impressed.

            “Surprise me,” Angel said without looking at him. Two dolphins arched up out of the ocean and made graceful dives back into the water. “Did you see that?” she gasped. “It was absolutely beautiful.”

            ***

            “Not as beautiful as you,” he said honestly, having a hard time taking his eyes from her bare shoulders and graceful neck. He would love to nuzzle in the softness below her ear, but he knew it would take several days before he could even begin to think in terms of a physical relationship, no matter how badly he wanted to feel her warmth next to him. Hell, he might finish two weeks of heartache and long, cold showers, then fly back to Oklahoma without a single kiss. The only thing Patty had promised was two weeks; she hadn’t seemed to be promising any miracle.

            “You’re blind,” Angel snorted.

            Clancy looked like he might reach across the table to touch her hand but then drew back.

            Angel turned her head back to the sunset and the water. What would they talk about for two whole weeks? Clancy wondered.

            He would be content just to spend time with her, but she deserved a vacation. They’d shared something special ten years ago, but how could two adults build even a temporary relationship on the past?