At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,29
himself moving a step closer to her. "Any chance you'll be at Joann's party tomorrow night?"
Gracie shook her head. "I'm on late shift tomorrow but I'll be thinking about you."
"You're invited too," Joey said to Noah. "You can bring someone if you want." He looked from Gracie to Noah then shrugged. "Or not. Whatever."
If the invitation made Gracie uncomfortable, she gave no sign of it.
Noah followed Gracie across the parking lot and out onto the beach. The tide was low, exposing the rounded backs of rocks that had been around long before the Chases or anyone else discovered Idle Point. It was what he liked most about the beach; the fact that it belonged to nobody but itself.
"Be careful," Gracie called over her shoulder. "The rocks are slippery."
"Yeah," he said. "I've noticed." Twice he'd almost landed on his ass.
Not Gracie. Her bare feet gripped the rocks as she walked like she was born to it. A brisk wind was blowing in from the ocean and her slender body bent into it like a willow. No missteps, no awkwardness. She didn't spill a drop of lemonade. He wanted to stop in his tracks and just watch her move. The idea made him feel hot with embarrassment and something else, something deeply unsettling, that he couldn't identify. Or maybe he didn't want to. He never thought things like that. A girl was pretty or not. She had a great bod or she didn't. She was fun to be around or a total drag. He'd never wanted to stop time so he could watch a girl walk in the sunshine.
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Gracie found them a spot on a boulder halfway between Andy's Shack and the water.
"Here?" Noah asked. He didn't sound very enthusiastic about it.
"Sure," she said, settling down on the leeward side. "If we're quiet and don't disturb them, the seagulls will land near us and crack open clams and mussels while we eat."
"That's a good thing?"
She grinned up at him. "I think so." Funny how she felt more sure of herself here on the beach than she'd felt just minutes ago in the parking lot. "I love low tide," she said as he sat down next to her. "It's like watching the ocean reveal all of her secrets."
"All I see is dead fish."
"I see dead fish too, but there's so much more if you know where to look." She caught herself and shook her head. "Sorry. Like you really want to know my thoughts on low tide at Idle Point."
"Maybe I do," he said and there was something in his tone of voice that made her heartbeat leap forward. "I don't know a whole lot about low tide at Idle Point."
His voice was deep and the sound of it made her feel the way she did on nights when the moon was high. A little wild. A little crazy. Not at all like her careful, cautious self. She'd never felt this way before and it scared her. She'd seen enough of life to know what kind of trouble a girl could get into if she let herself follow her emotions. Her father was like that, making decisions spurred by demons she'd never understood. She'd watched him bring home one wife after another, searching in vain for the happiness he'd known with her mother.
But she wasn't her father. Her feet were planted firmly on the rocky shoreline of Idle Point. She wasn't about to let her life take her by surprise. She had plans for her future and she knew how to make her dreams come true. She also knew she should take a giant step away from Noah Chase right now but she couldn't move. Or maybe it was that she wouldn't move. Not while the boy she'd loved since she was five and a half years old was only inches away from her.
He asked questions about the docks and the fishing and she found herself telling him more than he ever wanted to know about the history of lighthouses. He even remembered Sam the Cat, then laughed when Gracie told him her official name was now Samantha the Dowager Queen of Idle Point
"You love it here," he said.
"It's my home."
"It's my home too," he said, "but I don't feel much of anything for it."
"Big surprise." She took a sip of lemonade. "You haven't really lived here since we were in kindergarten."
"Remember when you used to come home with me after school? I wanted to show you my stuff but—"