Riptide (Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances Book 2) Read online

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  It had been a long day at the surf shop. I puffed the long blonde strand of hair that had escaped my French braid out of my eyes and squinted at the Billabong East of Eden shoebox. The size on it was difficult to read from where it sat on the wall mounted shelf a couple of feet above me. “Dammit,” I huffed, wishing I had my readers with me so I could see the small print better. “I knew it. Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “It’s a nine not an eight.” Going up on the tips of my toes on the very top of the ladder, I reshuffled the two troublesome boxes, moving the size eight below the size nine. I cursed Lincoln Savage under my breath. With him and my friend out of town to promote their new song for the Donovan Blaine film, I labored alone on the ladder rearranging inventory all day. It was his brilliant idea to group all of the shoes together by size instead of by brand, style and then size. Simone should have left things the old way, the right way, the way it had been when I had owned the surf shop.

  Ravenous from reorganizing all day with frighteningly few customers to interrupt my dusty toil, I fantasized about a huge Hodad’s burger. I would scarf it down on the walk home. Once there, I would slink quietly upstairs to my room for a long hot shower. Since my mom and dad lounged together on the sofa most evenings watching the television, I would have to be stealthy to avoid another uncomfortable discussion about how badly I had mishandled my life by quitting my high paying Roxy job and returning to Ocean Beach. A revised version of the speech they had given me when I had run away from OB all those years ago.

  The bell to the shop jingled, distracting me from my daydream.

  “Welcome to Mona’s,” I chirped, lowering my feet back into the bed of my flip flops and retracting my outstretched arm. “If there’s anything you need…” I began, attempting to swivel around on my precarious perch. “I’d be happy to….” The stepladder didn’t cooperate, rocking side to side beneath me. “Ahhh!” I cried. The traitorous ladder went one way, and I went the other, flapping my arms like a seagull caught in a violent gale. The scalloped hem of my Rip Curl strapless white top fluttered as the ground rushed up to meet me. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for impact.

  Only…it never came.

  Someone caught me.

  Someone solid.

  Someone strong.

  Chapter Three

  Karen

  I latched onto the steely arms that banded me and opened my eyes to the one who had a history of softening my falls.

  Ramon Martinez.

  Though it had been ages since I had last seen him, my reaction was much the same as it had been the last time we had been alone together.

  My thoughts scattered.

  My throat burned.

  And that familiar hollow yearning echoed inside the long-abandoned chambers of my broken heart.

  Held by him almost like a lover, I searched his features relearning them all. Same tumbled black curls. Same strong nose and stubborn jaw. Same arresting gaze, his eyes the color of dark chocolate, another weakness of mine. His skin seemed a deeper bronze. Maybe a couple of new lines around his eyes. But they only made him look more interesting. More intriguing.

  “Karen.” Ramon spoke my name firmly, his visage fierce like some Aztec warrior. His expression tightened as I continued to stare at him silently. “Are you hurt?” Concern narrowed thickly lashed sinfully dark eyes.

  I shook my head, but apparently he wasn’t convinced. His examining gaze slid over me, starting at my feet. I wiggled my toes realizing my flip flops were gone, jettisoned somewhere during my plummet from the ladder. His perusal lingered on the length of my legs before it passed over my narrow hips and my favorite pair of frayed cutoffs that hung indecently low. His gaze continued north and came to a brief halt at my chest. My breasts swelled beneath my top as if he had actually shaped them in his hands. My nipples hardened. A warm surge swept through my body, an electrical current sparked by the heat of my desire. How little it took to bring those desires for Ramon Martinez roaring back to life.

  “Everything looks…fine.” His voice scraped like sandpaper on a rough piece of timber. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. The tendons on either side of his neck drew visibly taut. He returned his piercing gaze to mine crumbling my thoughts. “You’re sure you’re ok?”

  “No…I mean yes.” I couldn’t focus. He held me in thrall. I begged my brain to reboot, but it was as uncooperative as the ladder had been.

  “Just in shock from the fall or perhaps from seeing me,” he guessed.

  “Yes, exactly,” I breathed. “It’s been a while.” Every time the shop bell had jingled since I returned to OB, I had tensed wondering if it might be him. But I had let down my guard after Simone had informed me that Ramon had gone to Hawaii with Diesel.

  “I’m glad that’s all it is. I’m surprised to see you, too. Surprised to catch you.” His biceps bulged beneath my fingertips as his arms tightened around me. “It’s not safe for you to be up on a ladder when no one is around.” His expression sharpened, revealing his displeasure.

  “You shaved your beard,” I blurted, ignoring the reprimand, my attention diverted by the rugged planes of his handsome face and his sculpted lips. Oh, those luscious lips that curved up at the edges even when he wasn’t smiling. It had been something of a crime that the scruffy beard he had worn during the last Grammys had concealed them.

  “I can’t even begin to guess what that has to do with your safety.” He arched a disapproving brow. “Karen, you could have been seriously injured.” I might be easily sidetracked, but he certainly wasn’t.

  “Maybe,” I allowed. “But…”

  “No maybe about it, if I hadn’t been here.” He frowned, his lips turning down at the edges. “Where’s Simone?”

  “In LA with Linc and Ash.” My skin felt feverishly hot everywhere his touched mine. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. My pulse roared through my veins. Other parts of me awoke, reminding me that it had been a long, long time since I’d had sex. “I’m just helping her out while they’re doing PR stuff for the Blaine film. They’re hoping their song being in the movie will help promote Outside, their new record label.” I blathered inanely about things I’m sure he already knew, my tongue as out of control as my libido. His handsome face. His lean body. His strong arms. I wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to experience all of those things in a more intimate way. I found myself wishing he would do wild, wicked things to me like I had watched him do to the groupies over the years.

  Those musings should have given me pause. I should have gotten on my proverbial surfboard and cutback hard. But I didn’t because I had grown accustomed to living in yesterday as if it were some idyllic Eden. Forever Eve, my Adam gone now, Ramon remained, as he always would be, the forbidden fruit. As that sobering wave of self-awareness crashed over me, I should have insisted he put me down, but I found myself burrowing closer to him instead.

  “I didn’t know you were back in town.” I tried to find a neutral topic.

  “I could say the same thing about you.” His voice dropped a sexy octave lower.

  Was he holding me tighter? Was he caught in the same rip current of longing? Could he possibly feel the same desperate desire? A few times over the years I thought he might have. Most times I just didn’t know. I wet my parched lips. His chocolatey rich gaze dipped to them.

  “Hey, surfer girl,” he whispered. That simple endearment spoken with a hint of his Latino flare was all it took to fully awaken the passionate woman I had once been. How easily he summoned her. How pathetically predictable.

  Had he lowered his head? His mouth seemed closer. His warm breath bathed my lips. I crushed the front of his shirt in my hands, not to push him away, but to draw him nearer.

  “Ramon,” I sighed. “Please…don’t…” Don’t stop, I had been about to say, but he set me down so fast my head spun. I wobbled on unsteady legs as my bare feet hit the cold floor. He stepped away, giving me his back and putting several feet of distance between us. It wo
uld take more than that amount of meager space to keep my heart from seeking his. It would take more than the length of time that we had been apart. It would take more than I could ever allow him to know. My eyes burned as I stared at the stiff line of his spine and the forbidding width of his muscular shoulders. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and I knew his jaw would be tense if I could see his face. Humiliation set my cheeks on fire. I realized that even now, even though this was nearly an exact replay of the past, I still wanted to ask. I still wanted to beg. I still wanted…him.

  Unable to resist Ramon Martinez yet again.

  I had wanted him the first time I had met him when I had been only nineteen. I had wanted him when I had been married to his best friend. I wanted him even now though I knew Dominic’s specter would always stand between us to make what I wanted always wrong for me.

  I pressed my lips together, swallowing back the words. If I voiced my deepest desire I would drive him off again. Three years of nothing but chance encounters that made my heart shrivel and plunged my soul into a suffocating slumber.

  I couldn’t do it anymore.

  “I’m sorry.” I reached my decision as I watched him rake back a handful of unruly curls. His spine seemed to snap even straighter before he let me off the hook.

  “It’s ok.”

  “It’s not. It’s my fault.” I could douse the lust. I could. If I tried really hard. It was my heart that would be tricky. “I just…” I trailed off finding it difficult to speak. The pressure of tears built behind my eyes as I crammed all of the feelings back inside their customary closet. “It won’t happen again. I’ll promise if you want me to. Only don’t go. Don’t shut me out again.”

  * * *

  Ramon

  “Karen,” I began, keeping my gaze on the storefront window, tracing the etched glass that spelled ‘Mona’s’ with my eyes when I would much rather have traced every single one of her sexy curves instead. Holding her had been heaven and hell. It had brought back so many memories. If I turned around and looked at her, I would say things I should never say. Express feelings I knew she would never accept. I would gather her close without the excuse of rescuing her from a fall. I would kiss those sweet raspberry flavored lips of hers. I would coax. I would seduce. I would coerce her into more. And that would be a mistake because she would only end up hating herself and resenting me. “You’re better off with me out of your life,” I concluded. The barbed words ripped away flesh, bone and pieces of my heart from the center of my chest.

  “You’re wrong,” she whispered. “You couldn’t be more wrong.” She spoke the rebuttal succinctly, but her tone was off, making me wonder what her words really meant.

  “How do you figure that?” I turned. The raw emotion in her expression seemed to reflect my own. The glassy sheen in her eyes gave me pause, but I powered through my reaction to soothe her and said what needed to be said. “When it’s like this.” I gestured back and forth between us. I wanted her so badly my hands were shaking. Three fucking years and not a thing had changed. “When I touch you, your pulse races beneath my fingertips. When I glide my hands over your curves, I can feel you shudder. When I hold you, you arch your body into mine. Your mind might be thinking one thing, but those reactions say something else.” She twisted her hands together, cheeks blooming pink beneath her golden tan. “Do you seriously expect me to ignore all those cues?” How could I when she was at the center of every fantasy? “You have no clue the number of inappropriate thoughts going through my mind right now. If you did, you wouldn’t want me anywhere near you.”

  Her expressive eyes grew large. Antique gold in color, several shades darker than her blonde hair, they opened into the soul of a woman I found impossible to resist.

  “Don’t look at me as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.” I might not have put into words exactly how I had felt back then, but she knew. The attraction between us was undeniable. I had sent her away once because of it, and it had nearly ruined me. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.” My tone was sharp. I had never liked the idea that maybe the feelings on her side weren’t as strong as mine when my desire for her was like a summer wildfire.

  “You know I haven’t,” she whispered. “I remember it all. I remember every single conversation, every confidence we shared. The support we gave each other. You were my best friend, even more than you were his before the end.” Her eyes swam in hurt and confusion, shadows darkening the hue from antique gold to burnished bronze. “But when I needed you most, you abandoned me. How could you do that? After you promised you would always be there for me?”

  “I couldn’t stay afterward. You know why.” My expression masked the turmoil inside of me. Discovering my absence back then had caused her pain rather than relief was an unexpected revelation.

  “No, I don’t know,” she fired right back. “Not really. I made up excuses for you, mostly to make myself feel better. I was so empty after Dominic died. So devastated when…” She crumpled. The burden of what she didn’t say, what she had lost, seemed to break her in two, right down the center of her slender but resilient frame. She lifted her chin. Arms stiffened at her sides. Fingers curled into her palms. A single tear escaped, sliding down her sun kissed cheek and disappearing into her braided hair. “You never came to the hospital.” Her expression battered me like the turbulent surf I had watched her tirelessly attempt to tame on many a stormy day. “You never came to the apartment like everyone else did after the funeral. I want you to tell me why.”

  Actually, I had been at the hospital. I had arrived in time to overhear Karen’s words to Simone. Words I had tried to outrun. Culpability I couldn’t escape. Truth that had obliterated the secret hope I had nurtured for us. I didn’t see any reason to retrace those steps. They always led to the same dead end. “Do you really want to revisit the past, Karen? Isn’t it healthier to let things be? To move forward the best we can? There’s no remedy to reverse time. Nothing can change what’s already happened.”

  “Would you change it if you could?” she whispered softly.

  “Hell, yes.” So many wrongs I would make right.

  “All of it?” she asked, leveling me with a vulnerable look. “Even the parts between you and me?”

  I nodded. Why was she insisting on that clarification? Why resurrect everything? Of course I would change what happened between us. If only I had acted differently from the beginning or wised up sooner. But it was too late now. She would never accept me. My admission seemed to make her disintegrate. I moved toward her. Picking her up when she fell to pieces was a habit I couldn’t seem to break.

  “Don’t.” She lifted her hands and waved them in front of her body as if my comfort were suddenly a danger to be warded off. “I asked. You answered…truthfully. Thank you for your honesty.” She gave me a smile that wobbled. “It’s just that sometimes the truth stings a bit.”

  “Yes it does,” I agreed, though the truth from her lips all those years ago had done much more than that. It had buried a dream. Patch wasn’t the only one who had been laid to rest. A big part of me, the better half, who I was when I was with her, had died, too. The old guilt resurfacing, I shifted on my feet. I raked my fingers through my hair, staring at her and trying to summon the will to end things between us for good. But I had banished myself once from her after the funeral. Considering what she had said to Simone, I had assumed that had been the way she had wanted it. But doing it had felt like I had severed a part of my soul. Seeing her again, holding her in my arms, I knew I couldn’t do it a second time.

  Chapter Four

  Karen

  “I assume you stopped by the shop for a reason.” I tucked a couple of loose strands of hair behind my ears and pasted on what I hoped was a neutral expression. Inside, I felt brittle. The cenotaph I had constructed to the past was as tenuous as a sandcastle built too close to the incoming tide. I tried to convince myself that it was better this way. Better to know the truth. Best to accept that I had been a burden he had be
en relieved to be rid of. “Were you looking for Simone?” Salt stung my eyes. Bitterness burned my throat. Time couldn’t heal my wounds. It only periodically pulled at their edges. “Or were you looking to buy something?” I buried the new hurt deep and ducked behind the Tiki hut styled cashier’s desk. I needed a buffer between us.

  His gaze searching, a shadow darkened Ramon’s eyes as he stared at me, but it was fleeting. There for a moment, then gone, like a cloud passing in front of the sun. “I broke a leash. I need to replace it.” His voice was gentle now. Could he sense how easily I could shatter? “I came by yesterday, but you were already closed.”

  “Sorry. I locked the door a couple of minutes early.” It had been a slow day, just like today, and I had wanted to spend more time with my dad. He had been pretty clear lately, and I didn’t want to miss any more of those good days than I absolutely had to. Even for Simone. Even for the shop that I l had always loved.

  “No worries. I’m glad you’re here right now,” he stated enigmatically, his gaze steady. Did he mean more with that statement? I wanted to believe he was pleased that I had returned to Ocean Beach. But after his candor a moment earlier, I feared that much of what I thought I perceived about him was only projection.

  “I’m glad to be back,” I offered, holding his gaze. “I missed OB.” Missed my mom and dad. My friends. The surf. Him. Him. Always him.