“Did you order enough?” he asked, looking from his full plate to her disappearing selection of sliced fruit.
She lifted a dripping piece of pineapple to her mouth. “Mm-hmm. This is perfection on a plate.”
They were each sipping a second cup of coffee as their waiter cleared away the remnants of their breakfasts. Leaving the oversized chairs was going to take a dedication to exertion neither appeared inclined to initiate.
Daniel broke the comfortable silence. “What would you like to do? Would you like to explore the beach some more?”
“We could stay here and wait for them to start serving lunch,” she suggested.
“I’d be okay with that.”
More quiet grins and sips of coffee.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what?” he asked, slightly startled.
“Yes, I’d love to walk the beach, but I’d like to put on my bathing suit first.”
“Then let’s do that.”
Anna gathered up the gift wrappings and her journal and tucked everything into the woven shoulder bag purchased the day before at the resort’s well-stocked boutique. Daniel stood, moved her chair, and left his hand on her lower back as they strolled toward the stairwell.
They paused outside her door.
“May I come in?” he asked.
She felt for her key card, finding it sandwiched between two pages of her book. Her body flushed, releasing a light mist of sweat over every inch of skin. Last night, she’d felt emboldened by their reunion and disappointed when Daniel didn’t follow her into her room.
Today? Today, the caution she’d tossed to the wind greeted her—arms crossed and one foot toe-tapping—when she opened the door to her room.
“Sure.”
She grabbed her bathing suit and an oversized, button-down shirt in beachy blue-and-white stripes and stepped into the bathroom to change and brush her teeth. Adjusting her breasts into the built-in cups of the one-piece, she paused. Daniel was on the phone with someone. She couldn’t hear much more than a low murmur. He ended the call when she entered the sitting area of her suite.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“My assistant had a question about a job I’m due to begin when I get back.”
“Do you ever get to shut your phone off when you’re on vacation?”
Daniel shrugged. “Not unless—and until—every client has been seen to. I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t in the middle of at least two or three major projects.”
His smile went tight. Anna stepped over to him and looped her arms around his waist. Now that she’d had some practice, she liked how her curves molded into a man’s hardness, especially in the belly area. And the chest. Daniel had a light spray of dark brown and silver chest hair, which matched the hair on his head and he smelled…expensive. He was a handsome, elegant man, and her body was beginning to connect memories of their long ago naked playtimes with the more mature person in her room.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, a surprised flash in his eyes.
“I’m remembering the Daniel I knew and getting to know the Daniel in front of me.” She wanted to be honest and not hide anything she found pleasing. Or distressing, or confusing.
“And?” A twinkle lit his eyes again.
“I think you’ve aged really well. And I think we’re in danger of not saying the things we both want to say. Like before.”
He nodded his agreement, drawing her into a full body hug and resting his cheek against her head. “How do you suggest we begin?”
“Let’s go to the beach. It’s easier for me to talk when there’s lots of space around.”
“I like that idea.”
Once their feet hit the sand, she was ready to dig in into the timeline of events that brought them together. She slung her bag over one shoulder and across her body and found Daniel’s hand as she asked her most pressing question, the one he hadn’t fully answered in either their emails or phone calls.
“So, what inspired you to track me down and send that email?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Daniel tugged at her to stop. He spread out his beach towel and invited her to sit. He unzipped his linen pants and stepped out, careful to not drop anything out of the pockets.
Anna planted her hands in the sand behind her, ready to stay in place and on topic. “I’ve thought about you, throughout my life, but never to the degree I felt compelled to track you down and see you again, Danny. I mean, I couldn’t think that way when I was married, and after Gary died, a big part of me shut down, I was focused on grieving. And making it through one day at a time. It didn’t occur to me to look for another man to be with, let alone look for you.”
Between Elaine’s gifts and Liam’s, she might have become emboldened to look for Daniel once her fling with the younger man was over. She’d never know.
He adjusted his new Panama hat and leaned back on his elbows, one finger flicking out to toy with the pieces of sea glass adorning her new bracelet. His legs were already tanned, his leg hair perfectly distributed over his thighs and calves.
“The short answer,” he began, “is I wanted to know if I had made a mistake by not pursuing you more when we were in school together.”
His admission startled her. There was nothing in their last goodbye, the summer after he graduated, that spoke of future…anything. Not that she could recall. “How would your life have been different?” she asked. “I mean…I’m not sure what I mean.”
Daniel pondered the endless ocean in front of them. “I might have become a father, for one thing.”
“Has that question never come up in the relationships you’ve had?”
“It’s come up in most every single one of them, to some extent.”
“And you’ve always said no?”
He stopped fiddling with her bracelet. “The first time the question of becoming a father ever came up, I wasn’t given the opportunity to answer.”
“What do you mean?”
Daniel paused for an entire set of waves, twelve or fourteen by Anna’s
