Spring Break Secret by Holly Rayner
Tom
Dinner ended, the wine glasses emptied, and the waiter brought the check—but Tom realized that he didn’t want the evening to end. So he suggested a walk on the beach, given the location of their restaurant. To his delight, Louisa accepted, and they started strolling down the sand, their easygoing conversation continuing on.
Tom asked Louisa about the turtle he remembered meeting at the conservation center all those years ago, and she was happy to report that Mr. Leatherback was still alive and well.
“He gets so many treats these days,” Louisa said, “now that Ellen is running Eco Scouts out of the center. The kids would do just about anything for the opportunity to hand him a piece of raw fish and watch him slurp it down. So she uses it as a reward for doing the yuckiest tasks, like cleaning out the filters on the jellyfish tank or scraping the boat hull for invasive barnacles.”
“Lucky me,” Tom joked, “all I had to do was impress a cute girl who invited me in.”
“Maybe I’ll have you retroactively pay your debts,” Louisa said. “Gotta do some chores around the conservation center now that you’re back in town.”
Tom grimaced. “It’s been ten years. I’m sure that debt has accrued a ton of interest. I’ll have to move into the jellyfish tank and become their full-time butler.”
Louisa laughed. “Nah, they’d sting you. I’m sure Ellen will let you off with just some barnacle scraping. We don’t worry so much about that business stuff—debts, interest, blah blah blah.”
“Clearly Mr. Leatherback never went to business school. He would have had a hard time if he didn’t understand compounding interest.”
“I doubt Mr. Leatherback is a good candidate for business school, but perhaps some of his friends might be interested. How many ocean reptiles were in your classes?”
“None,” Tom replied, “unless you count this one awful professor I had. He must have been a billion years old, and all his tests were impossible. I heard he made Nick cry one time during office hours, but Nick denies it to this day.”
“Nick!” Louisa’s voice lit up with recognition. “I remember him! Your friend who got so badly sunburned. Are you still in touch?”
“More than that. He’s the COO at Palmco. We went into business together after graduating.”
“And he’s still your best friend?”
Tom nodded. “It’s been great working with someone I get along with. Plus, he’s always had such a huge passion for the work, which helps sometimes.”
Louisa sounded like she was choosing her next words quite carefully. “Times like…when you’re not feeling so passionate about it?”
“I guess.” Tom kicked at a wet bundle of seaweed as they passed it by. “I mean, I grew up always being expected to take over for my dad. Nick, he was just some kid with a dream of being an entrepreneur someday and running his own business.”
“So he’s living his dream,” Louisa said.
Tom could hear the question implicit in her tone: was he, also, living his dream?
Tom didn’t really know what to say, so instead he pointed out a gaggle of spindly legged shorebirds running around nearby. Louisa told him that they were La Vega Sandpipers, and liked to come out at dusk to dig for clams in the wet sand.
“Is that what they’re doing, with their little feet?”
“Yep. See the way they’re scratching a few times before they peck down? That’s how they get clams. They catch the clams when they’re small enough that they can be eaten whole, even with their shell. The birds just digest the shells in their stomach acid.”
“Yum,” Tom said sarcastically.
“You should see about having that dish at your new resort’s restaurant,” Louisa said. “Clams served La Vega Sandpiper style. Let people just crunch right through the shells.”
“I’d get sued into oblivion,” Tom said. “All it takes is the first chipped tooth, and that’s it.”
“Hm. Well, back to the culinary drawing board, I guess.”
Louisa and Tom walked a while further, letting their conversation fall into a companionable lull. The sun was setting over the water, and there was no one else out on the beach, leaving Tom and Louisa all to themselves. The only sounds were the endless murmuring rush of the ocean waves and the shorebirds cawing to each other.
Soon, Tom’s hand found Louisa’s, and they walked hand in hand, content in one another’s presence. Tom could feel his affections for her rushing back, just as strong as they had been when he was a young man renting a beach house with his friends. It wasn’t just finding out that they had a child together—even if there was nothing tying him to Louisa anymore, he still would have fallen for her all over again like this.
He liked her conversation, her steady stream of insight into the wildlife around them. He liked her passion, her commitment to her beliefs and the animals she served. He even had to admit that he admired her gumption, lying to his secretary and wheedling her way into a meeting with him.
If he had heard about that happening to any other CEO, he would have been impressed by the activist’s cleverness. Now, it just added to his feelings for Louisa, who was just as sharp-witted as he remembered her.
And just as lovely. There were more freckles on her sun-kissed face after ten years of working out on the ocean, and a few more lines around her green eyes, but those only made her more beautiful in Tom’s eyes.
Tom realized that he had slowed to a stop, lost in his wandering thoughts. Louisa tugged his arm as she continued walking. Then she turned to him, one eyebrow raised as if wondering what was wrong.
When their eyes met, it was as if the past ten years had never happened, the decade’s stretch of time eclipsed by the rush of emotion pulling them toward each other. In an instant, Louisa’s lips met Tom’s, and they were entwined in each other’s arms. She smelled like salt air and sunscreen and a slight floral perfume, just like he remembered. Her red hair was silky soft under his fingers as he ran his hands through her hair, and her body was warm against his chest as she pressed herself close, one hand clinging to the fabric of his shirt.
They finally pulled away, both breathless, Louisa’s eyes sparkling in the moonlight.
“I should probably get home soon,” Louisa said, biting her lip. “I need to get Rei to bed, and everything.”
“Of course.” Tom dipped down to peck a light kiss on her nose. “But I’d love to see you again. Can we have lunch tomorrow?”
Tom realized after he spoke that he had no idea whether he was actually free for lunch tomorrow. But he didn’t care. Even if he had to cancel on someone, or ask his secretary to move things around, he’d rather be there to see Louisa. Suddenly, his packed schedule seemed less and less important than getting to know and reconnect with the mother of his child, the woman he had spent so many nights thinking about over the past ten years.
“Sure,” Louisa said. “It’s a date.”