I shake my head and return my focus to the man in front of me. “Okay, Sean, how are you feeling?”
He’s shaking a little as he bobs in the water with me, but the ocean is pretty calm today. Maybe a little too calm to get any good surfing in, but it’s perfect for his first time. “I’m feeling pretty good,” he says, his voice bouncing with nervous excitement.
We spent half an hour practicing his take off on the beach, and he’s been paddling around for a good fifteen minutes to get the hang of moving around on his board. If he’s going to try surfing, now’s as good a time as any.
“Ready to try to hit a wave?” I ask, almost hoping he says no so I can have an excuse to stay out here a little longer. The shop will be open for a few more hours, until the sun goes down, but I’ve got Brody behind the counter. I don’t have any other lessons today, which means there’s nothing holding me back from heading to the bakery and making sure Meg hasn’t murdered Georgie with a cake knife. She wasn’t happy when I left, and I don’t think her anger was entirely directed at me.
I probably shouldn’t have left Georgie there on her own.
“I’m ready!” Sean says with a lot more enthusiasm than I expect, given his hesitation so far. Then again, the guy did jump at the chance to move his lesson to today after I bailed on him yesterday, so he has probably been wanting to learn for a while.
I walk him through the process of getting out to the point where the waves are starting to break, telling him how to feel the waves and know when he needs to start paddling. “You’re going to miss a lot of the waves,” I warn him. “And even if you get up, you’re bound to fall. A lot. Just make sure you fall away from the beach so you don’t get hit with your board.”
He’s got a foam board, so it’s less dangerous than my fiberglass, but I’d still prefer he avoid getting whacked in the head if he falls forward instead of back. When I started teaching lessons as a teen, one of my first students got knocked unconscious by his board, and I’d never been so terrified in my life. The guy was fine in the end, but I’ve been more cautious ever since.
We get in position and face the beach, looking behind us for the next good wave.
“This could be it,” I tell Sean, grinning when he gets in the perfect position. “Okay, start paddling when I tell you, and as soon as you feel your momentum pick up with the wave, stand up. Ready? Go!”
He paddles wildly but doesn’t get up in time to catch the wave. He seems okay about the mistake and simply gets back in position, a little more eagerness in his face.
It takes three more tries before he catches a good one and gets up on his feet, and he rides a few yards before tumbling sideways.
“That was awesome!” I tell him when I reach him. I help him back onto his board, and we get into position again. “Do you feel how you need to balance?”
“I think so.”
After another forty minutes, we head back to shore, and Sean tells me he’s going to recommend me to all his friends the next time they come to Willow Cove on vacation. I smile and thank him, chatting for a few more minutes as I stow his board and help him out of his wetsuit, but I know I’ll never see him again. I rarely do. There have been a couple of people over the years who come back, either for a refresher lesson or to say hi, but outside of the rich folk who have permanent summer houses here, Willow Cove tends to be a one and done destination.
I’m fine with that. Summers get crazy as it is, and the last time I interacted with a regular visitor, I got my heart broken.
With Sean gone, I return to the shop and grab my phone from behind the counter to check my messages, chuckling when I see several texts from Coop asking if Georgie and I have killed each other yet. I’m not going to bother gracing him with a response, especially because I watched him fly off with some tourists not long ago so he’ll be plenty busy for a while.
I know he’s not happy about my decision to agree to Georgie’s plan, but I really hope he eventually remembers that it’s more helpful for me to have his support than blanket criticism. What’s done is done.
“Hey, King,” Brody says as he finishes straightening the wall of snorkel masks for purchase, “I just heard from Lacey, and it sounds like she’s coming back to Willow Cove after all. You’re still wanting another instructor, right?”
I grin as a bit of stress trickles away. “Yes! I would love to have her back for the summer.” I have two other instructors, including Brody, but I was worried we wouldn’t be able to handle everything on our own. Lacey had other plans for her summer between semesters, leaving us one teacher short. Last summer we could barely cover demand for surf lessons with the four of us, and I’m expecting this year to be the same. Having Lacey on the team will keep us from getting overwhelmed. “I’ll send her a text,” I tell Brody and then look around the shop, searching for something to do.
Next week won’t be this quiet, and I should take advantage of this free time while I have it. I’ve set up an appointment with the estate attorney, Mr. Vanderman, but it’s not until three days from now. That’s three days we’ll need to be convincing so he has no reason to think this marriage is a sham.
His wife was in the bakery when Georgie first came into town, which means she witnessed my cold greeting. That’s not going to do us any favors.
“So what’s with the suit?” Brody asks. He comes behind the counter with me, nodding toward the suit I left hanging in the back office. “Going to a funeral or something after work?”
I laugh. Kind of feels like it. “Actually…” Since he’s going to find out eventually, I might as well throw it out there before he hears some convoluted version of my out-of-the-blue wedding. “I sort of got married this morning.”
Brody blinks. Glances at the suit, then at my hand, and back to my face. “How do you sort of get married?”
“I did get married.” I curl my fingers into fists and make a note to talk to Georgie about finding some rings. Apparently our bare hands are feeding everyone’s doubt. “I know it feels like it came out of nowhere, but it didn’t.”
Frowning, Brody grabs a stool and settles himself down, like he’s too confused to stand anymore. “But you weren’t dating anyone. Were you?”
“Technically, no, but—”
“Was it some sort of bet? A dare? Does she need a green card?”
“Whoa.” I hold my hands up, unable to stop the grin that spreads across my face even though my smile seems to confuse Brody just as much as the whole marriage idea. “It’s nothing like that.” Okay, so it’s something like that, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Georgie and I go way back, and we recently reconnected.” That’s a phrase I’m going to get tired of really fast.
At nineteen, Brody would have been too young to ever know Georgie in connection with me back then, but I do know he’s been a longtime fan of Kingston’s Bakery. In fact, Bill’s the one who told me I should hire him when Brody turned sixteen because Brody had been hanging around the bakery for years in between surf runs.
Curious, I ask, “Do you remember about ten years ago a girl who worked at Kingston’s during the summer? She had really curly brown hair and made the best cookies.”
Brody thinks about my question for a moment, and then his eyes light up. “Oh yeah! I thought she was cute.”
I frown. “She was like eight years older than you.”
Shrugging, Brody grabs a rag and starts wiping down the counter. “Still thought she was hot.”
“That’s my wife you’re talking about,” I grumble.
Thankfully, he looks properly chagrined as he looks over at me and turns bright red. “Oh. But wait, that means she’s back in town?”
My response is a mere growl.
“I just mean is she at the bakery again? I haven’t had her cookies in so long.”
Sighing, I nod. “Yeah, she’s back at the bakery. She’ll be running it now so I can spend more time here.”
