Read Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) for Free Online

water against her feet.
    Maybe he did realize.
    The boys rose, Noah's hand clasping his nephew's shoulder, Rory making no move to shrug away. When they turned to find her directly behind them, Noah took a deliberate step back, Rory an excited step forward.
    "Miss Ellie, we got a grandfather! I'll tell you how old later." He waved the fish close enough for her to get a good whiff. She didn't know how old it was, but it had been dead a long time.
    Pasting a smile on her face, she ruffled Rory's hair. "We'd better go. Your father will pitch a fit if we sail home in the dark."
    "Do you want me to take him?"
    "I'm quite capable of getting a child home, Professor." She grabbed Rory's hand and tugged him behind her. Halting at the food-scattered tablecloth, she began to repack the basket.
    She heard him step behind her. "I only meant—"
    "I know what you meant. I always know what you mean." She shoved to her feet. Rory stood to the side, jabbing a broken conch shell in the sand.
    Noah sighed and blinked eyes so pale the edges dissolved into white. His left eyelid drooped, resisting a return to its previous position. "You'd better go. Before it gets dark."
    A sick shot of remorse replaced her fury. Caleb's fist had done permanent damage. "Yes, I've—I've got to get back," she said, stepping forward. "Come on, Rory."
    Rory waved, oblivious to the tension crowding the air. "The micrascrap, Uncle Noah. I'll see you tomorrow."
    Noah's shoulders slumped as he recorded their brisk departure. He felt tangled in knots, an absolute snarl. He had a nephew, he thought, and experienced the first wave of love in ten years.
    But, dear God, what had happened to Rory's mother?
    He glanced down the endless stretch of ivory shore, bewildered and forlorn. Kneading the ache in his neck, he retraced his path. Footprints somewhere along here. He stopped. The larger held another impression. Noah traced the toes, dabs in the sand the size of a dime, and circled the firm imprint of a heel.
    He had looked back while squatting near the water's edge and watched Elle place her foot in something. At first, he thought she had pricked her sole on a pin shell. Then, the look on her face as she stared at the ground, frightened or confused, maybe even excited, cranked an idea through his mind. A fantastical idea. Impractical and silly.
    Perfectly, typically Elle Beaumont.
    He outlined the mark of a feminine arch, drew his hand back when his fingers started to tingle.
    Elle's fascination with him had never made sense. Summer heat and winter frost, they were disparate beings. He'd loathed her heedless nature, her inattentive squirming, her frivolous chatter. Laughing during church service, talking during school lessons. Tardy for everything. Most of the time, looking like a tomcat had spit her from its mouth.
    How had she found anything to admire in someone as dissimilar?
    Their differences, and his often blatant disregard, did not mean he had ignored her. Elle made it impossible not to notice. Sneaking into his bedroom, stolen apples crammed under her skirt; telling dirty jokes while perched atop a shell slab in the burying ground; gawking at him so often that Christabel Connery carved Elle loves Noah into every tree in the schoolyard.
    At twelve, her antics had embarrassed him. By sixteen, however, he had come full circle. Disconcerted in an adolescent way, yet speculating, for the first time. Why her eyes flashed in that impassioned way whenever she looked at him, what he had done to warrant the attention, and, if he remembered correctly, what he could do with it. After all, how many times had he seen her crawling out or dropping off? Landing at his feet or in his arms. Skirt billowed around her knees, a bare ankle, or bony shoulder flashing.
    A healthy young man could only take so much.
    He tipped his head toward the sky, calculating. The sun sat low, a flaming ball coloring the water cherry. Still enough light to cross the pass, but he would check on Elle and Rory