“Forgot you said you painted your toenails. It’s a turn-on.”
She looked down at her toes peeking out of her flip-flops, polished the pretty iridescent blue. A turn-on? Alec couldn’t possibly be flirting with her, could he? He really knew how to shut a girl up. Or knock her over. He drew his gaze away from her feet and out over the piers, while she fought to control her breathing.
“It’s busy,” Alec remarked when the others came up beside them.
Cole grunted. “Tourist season.”
Mia gave Cole a worried look that Faith pretended not to notice. After his injury, he didn’t go out in public often, and when he did, he hid the scars on his shoulder and neck. Tonight he’d worn a polo shirt, which covered most of the scars. Cole smiled and winked at Mia, letting her know he was fine. Faith pretended not to notice that, too. She’d never had that kind of unspoken bond with anyone, not even Hope.
She trailed behind the others as they made their way across the grass and to the beach. Alec fell in step beside her, watching her from the corner of his eye.
“If I buy you popcorn, will you eat it?”
Why wouldn’t her stomach calm down? “You don’t have to buy me popcorn.”
“I don’t have to do anything besides breathe and pay taxes. I want to do it.”
She fought a smile. “Yes, I’ll eat popcorn if you buy some. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ginny wanted games first, so they headed in that direction. Jake found a tent that had a ball toss, and they stopped so he could attempt to win a stuffed animal for Lacey. On his third attempt to knock down the pyramid of bottles, Faith sought a nearby bench and sat, figuring he’d be at it a while. Lacey clung to Jake’s arm, doing everything in her power to distract him. Ginny clapped and cheered him on, while Mia and Cole were involved in their own conversation.
Faith found herself laughing when Jake finally earned enough tickets to get a small stuffed animal. A dolphin, it looked like. It may as well have been roses the way Lacey responded, pulling him in for a kiss.
“Looks like you’re a people-watcher, too.” Alec sat next to her and handed over a bag of popcorn. “I can sit for hours, observing, imagining.”
“Imagining what?” She took a bite of popcorn, letting the salt and oil melt onto her tongue. If she had a weakness, popcorn was it. Usually she just air-popped some for herself at home. This was divine by comparison. She had to bite back a moan.
The others moved one tent over so Ginny could shoot water through a pine-board cutout of a clown’s mouth.
“I imagine everything. What encompasses their lives, who they go home to, their fears, desires. I get the best ideas watching people. Sometimes I just make up stuff and go with it.”
“What kinds of things do you make up? Like stories?”
She tore her gaze away from Ginny and looked at Alec. Big mistake. His black hair ruffled in the breeze, sending a scent of something purely male in her direction. One corner of his mouth tilted up in a half smile, making her pulse trip. His gray-blue eyes steadily took in her face, lingering on her mouth, before he sucked in a breath and looked away.
He cleared his throat. “Take those two over there.” He nudged his chin in the direction of a couple holding hands outside of a tent. “Her hairstyle is seriously outdated and so are her clothes. So she’s either stuck in 1985, or . . .”
Faith took his bait and settled her gaze back on him. “Or what?”
“Or she was abducted by an invasive alien life-form and just now returned to earth. Her husband missed her terribly and is happy to have her back, thus he doesn’t mention her archaic fashion sense. He was a fan of the eighties anyway. He knows the words to every Cyndi Lauper song released.”
“Very interesting.” A smile tugged at her mouth as she tilted her head. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure him out. Sometimes he looked lost and desperate. Then at other times, like now, he was charming and funny. It threw her off balance.
“You try.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Yes, you.” His voice dipped into a teasing timbre that sent shivers down her spine and caused her face to heat. “Give those two a try.”
She glanced in the direction he was indicating. A young teenager stood beside her father eating an ice-cream cone a few feet away. “He’s recently widowed or divorced. She’s a sullen teenager who wants to be close to him but it’s not cool, so she pushes him away.”
When Alec didn’t respond, she dared a glance his way.
He closed his mouth. “Okay, not to point this out, but you missed the humor mark.” He glanced at the father and daughter, who were now walking away. “What gave you that idea about them?”
Alec appeared more intrigued than irritated, so she shrugged. “The father had an indentation on the ring finger of his left hand, like he’d recently removed a wedding band. It also looked like it hurt him to smile. The daughter caught herself laughing a few times at something he said, but she quickly looked around afterward to see if anyone saw her.”
His eyes narrowed and his mouth quirked into a smile. “You’re like that Monk detective on TV. Or Psych. I’m not afraid to admit I fear what you see when you look at me.”
Before she could respond, Ginny ran over. “Can we go on the Ferris wheel now?”
The others were waiting for them at the end of the pier. Shoot. Faith hadn’t meant to hold them up. She’d been so wrapped up in Alec and his little game that she’d paid no attention to the group. Jumping to her feet, she wrapped an arm around Ginny in a brief apology before making her way to the beach.
“Slow down, Faith,” Alec said. “They’re not going to ostracize you for talking to me.”
“I shouldn’t have made them wait,” she called over her shoulder, not reducing her brisk pace until she hit the end of the pier.
“Hold up.” Alec grabbed her wrist. “We’ll meet you by the Ferris wheel,” he said to Jake. “Save us a place in line.” Over her shoulder, he watched until they were gone and then focused his attention on her. “Why do you do that? Half the time you attempt to be invisible and the other half is spent trying to measure up. They’re not looking for perfection, Faith. Just friendship. Just you, as you are.”
She stilled. It was too much. He was too much.
Just as you are.
Didn’t he know how hard those . . . nice things were to hear?
She couldn’t draw in air. The edges of her vision grayed as her heart rate accelerated. The thump, thump against her temple droned out the noise of the pier. She swayed, the sand beneath her unstable.
“Christ, breathe.” Alec cupped her cheeks and forced her to look at him. “Breathe, Faith. You’re freaking me out.”
The panicked edge in his eyes brought her back, combined with his warm palms against her cheeks, his scent of soap with a trace of . . . sandalwood? Somehow the brink of black nothingness eased away and it was just her and him. The center of her chest ached as she gasped in air.
He dropped his hands and took a step back.
People were staring.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry. Let’s just go.”
His gaze was penetrating. It stripped her bare and left her embarrassingly wanting. He missed nothing, not a single aspect of her face.
After a moment, his jaw clenched. “Were you abused? Did someone hurt you before?” The last words were spoken in a growl that raised the hair on her arm.
“No.”
She wanted to say more, to explain how new this all was, but her mouth wouldn’t work. He’d see her differently. They all would. She’d be no one again. They’d only known each other a couple of weeks, but already she was more secure with herself, branching out and taking chances.
But they didn’t know her, these people. She kept the scars hidden for a reason. Really, who wanted to be friends with someone who’d never had any?