Page 42 of The Bride Bet
She looked over her shoulder. “What?”
He was already closing the laptop. “The walk. How long?”
Something lifted in her chest. “An hour, maybe. Depending on how I feel.”
He looked at the closed laptop. He looked at the phone. He looked at her.
“Screw it,” he said. “Work can wait a while longer.”
She smiled before she could help it and turned back to the door before he could see how happy he’d just made her.
The path through the dune grass was narrow and sandy and took them down to the beach in single file, Nate just behind her.Abruptly, the sand opened out and the ocean was right there, the waves rolling in steadily.
They walked without a plan. Jasmine kept to the firmer sand near the waterline and let the sound of it settle over her. Her hips felt better in the open air. They usually did. Movement helped on the good days, which this was turning into.
Nate walked beside her with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking out at the water. He’d left his phone inside, she’d noticed. And been surprised by.
“Your grandmother,” she said. “Did she come here a lot?”
“Every summer.” He looked out at the horizon. “She used to swim in the mornings regardless of the temperature. She said cold water was good for the soul.”
“Was she right?”
“Probably.” He glanced sideways at her. “I’ve never tested it.”
She looked at the waves breaking white near her feet. The water came in and foamed around the edges of her shoes, and she stepped back, but not quite fast enough, and the cold soaked through one sock immediately.
“Oh, that’s freezing,” she said.
“I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me anything. You just implied it smugly.”
He laughed out loud. The next wave came in larger than the last and caught them both, and Jasmine shrieked at the cold of it and jumped back, which sent water splashing up onto both of them.
“That was your fault,” he said with a grin, looking down at his wet jeans.
“That was the ocean’s fault.”
“You jumped into me.”
“I was surprised.” She kicked a wave of water in his direction. “That’s for being smug about it.”
He looked at the water she’d sent at his shoes, and then he splashed directly toward her. Screaming, she ran two steps up the sand and came back and sent an enormous splash back at him. At this point they were both laughing and soaked to the knees and completely undignified about it. Jasmine couldn’t have said exactly when the laughing took over from everything else, but at some point it did, fully and completely, the kind of laughing that didn’t leave room for anything else.
She stopped eventually, breathless, cold water seeping through both socks now, her hair pulled loose by the wind. Nate was standing a few feet away, looking equally ridiculous and not even slightly bothered about it.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt like this. Just happy. Plain and solid and real, standing on a cold beach with wet feet, laughing with a man she used to avoid and now couldn’t stop thinking about.
She looked at the ocean, wide and gray and going on forever.
And then she turned back to him and smiled. The wind came in off the water and the waves kept breaking, and for a little while that was all there was.
CHAPTER 23
NATE
The sunset painted the beach in a kaleidoscope of bright colors. Standing on the deck, hands in his pockets, Nate breathed in the salty air. It was their last night at the beach house, and he’d never dreaded leaving a place so much.
