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wave.
                  She was a little too far ahead to get the best of it, but Derek watched with pride as she paddled furiously until the wave caught up with her. Instinctively, she stopped paddling and gripped the sides of her board, riding the wave in and even turning, just to the left, so that he could see the surprised smile on her gorgeous face. If he didn’t know any better, watching those long, pale limbs and wet hair and glistening skin and grinning face, Sage might have been a teenager.
                  She paddled back out, breathless and excited. “Great job,” he said earnestly.
                  “Yeah?” she said, catching her breath even as she peered past him to spot the next wave. Before he could reply, she had bent to her board and was once again paddling furiously.
                  He chuckled to himself, watching her firm, ripe rump glisten in the sun, her bikini having shifted just so to reveal the glory of her left cheek in its near entirety.
                  “Jesus,” he murmured to himself as she instinctively waited for the wave to catch up with her this time and, catching it more fully, rode it longer and turned sooner, enjoying the curling crest even if she was riding it like a—no, no, she stood, wobbly and uncertain, but she stood just the same!
                  He could see her body tense as she stood, hunched over, until at last she tumbled in the ocean froth but, man… standing on her second try. Well, almost standing.
                  He was clapping, genuinely and loudly, when at last she paddled back out. “Nice job!” he said and, for once, she didn’t reply with snark or sarcasm.
                  “Yeah?” she gushed, rushing her board up to face him and, as they faced each other, side by side, clinging to his board for safe keeping.
                  “Very nice.”
                  “I’m gonna try to stand up the whole time,” she gushed, pushing away from his board.
                  “Get it,” he encouraged as, once again, she raced off. And again and again and again.
                  Sage took to surfing with a dogged, if not natural, talent and, nearly an hour later, had stood up at least a dozen times. Winded, her shoulders starting to redden with the sun, she paddled back, clearly spent.
                  “Can we grab some conch fritters and draft beers now?” she asked in a pitiful voice, making him laugh out loud and slap his board.
                  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said. Sage rewarded him with a smile and Derek let her paddle back just in front of him so he could enjoy the view
    .

Chapter Nine
     
                  Sage sipped her beer, listening to the distant sound of the ocean, hardly believing that, after thirty-two years, she had finally conquered those smashing, crashing, thrashing waves.
                  “I love that look,” Derek murmured, quietly, as if not wanting to spoil her reverie.
                  She turned to him with a warm smile, his face tan and a little salt from the ocean still clinging to his cheek. “What look?” she asked dreamily, her body, mind and soul so at ease she might have even been dreaming the entire moment.
                  “That ‘I just caught a wave for the first time’ look,” he explained, raising his own beer for a toast.
                  She clinked glasses and narrowed her eyes. “That would be an ‘I just caught over two dozen waves for the first time’ look, mister, and don’t you forget it!”
                  They laughed, heartily, and she sipped her drink, lazily. He was right, though; there was no feeling quite like sitting in a soft, low Adirondack chair, skin tight and warm from too much sun, salt still drying on her skin from a beach