Mariah Stewart - On Sunset Beach

She smiled. She’d deliberately cut the amount of garlic the recipe called for, figuring that you don’t overgarlic the sauce when you’re planning a big night.

And she was planning a big night. She’d thought over Ellie’s words a hundred times since Sunday, and she knew her friend was right. She had been overthinking, overanalyzing whatever it was that was going on between her and Ford. She needed to get out of the way and just let the relationship go where it was going to go. Whichever way that might be, she was ready for it.

But just in case, she’d left most of the garlic out of the yogurt sauce.

They finished the manti and Carly served the dessert—round scoops of ricotta topped with a sugary syrup, and while it wasn’t authentic, she added a few fresh blueberries to the bowls for color.

“I hope you won’t get upset if I’m still sitting here in the morning,” Ford said after he’d finished every last bite. “I don’t think I’ll be able to move until maybe Friday afternoon.”

“Too bad. I was thinking a little walk around the block might be in order.” She began to clear the table.

“Got a crane or some other piece of heavy equipment to get me out of the chair?”

She laughed and finished her beer. It had been the perfect accompaniment to the dinner.

“Come on.” She reached out a hand to pull him up, and he pulled her onto his lap.

“We could just stay right here.” He nuzzled her neck.

“I need to walk it off. I’m not used to eating so much at one sitting.” She ran her fingers through his dark hair, something she’d wanted to do since the first night she met him. It was thick and silky and felt exactly the way she thought it would.

“All right.” His hands on her waist, he lifted her and set her on her feet, then stood. “We’ll go for a walk.”

He glanced at the stack of dishes, pots, and pans on the counter and in the sink. “Still no dishwasher?”

“Still looking at ’er.”

“I’ll help you when we get back.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” She tugged at his hand. “In the meantime …” She pointed to the door.

They went out through the side porch and, hand in hand, walked together for several blocks, shoulders and elbows occasionally bumping, to the end of Hudson Street. The sun had set and the streetlights had come on and cast a hazy glow at the intersection.

“Did you deliberately choose this route so that you could check up on the carriage house?” He pointed straight ahead.

“No. I thought we were just sort of ambling along.”

They turned onto Old St. Mary’s Church Road and he headed across the street.

“Ever walk down to the river?” he asked as he led her down the driveway.

“No.”

“You mean to tell me you come here every day and you’ve never sat on the riverbank?”

She shook her head and he said, “Shame on you.”

They walked past the carriage house, picking their way carefully in the dark around the back of the building all the way to the river’s edge. Ford lowered himself to sit on the ground and pulled her down next to him.

“See what you’ve been missing?” he asked.

She looked across the river to the woods on the other side, barely visible in the faint moonlight.

“This used to be a favorite place of mine when I was a kid. One time Mr. Enright—Curtis—came to our school and gave us a talk about St. Dennis’s history, how before and during the Civil War, there’d been more than one stop on the Underground Railroad. This place used to be one of them. There was a tunnel from an old outbuilding that used to be over there …” He pointed across the lawn—to a house that stood at the corner of Hudson. “That house is gone now, and the old shed is, too, but the story made for some powerful images in my head. They used to say that if you were real quiet, at night the ghosts of the runaways would come up the embankment. I used to steal over here sometimes and sit in the dark and wait for the ghosts to show up.”

“Did they?” She rested back against him, and he put his arm around her.

“Nope. Still waiting.” His smile was wistful. “There are three huge rocks down there right at the riverbank. Those were the landmarks the runaways looked for when they came up the river. Mr. Enright told us how they’d see the rocks, and jump out of whatever boat or barge they were on, hop onto the rocks, and they knew they were safe. I think one of the reasons he gave the property to the town was so that all of it—not just the grand house—but the stories would not be forgotten.” He leaned back on one elbow on the grass and stared out at the river, and Carly could imagine him as a young boy coming here, sitting quietly in the grass, hoping to see the ghostly procession from the river to the shed.

She lay down next to him, and he pulled her to him, then kissed her, gently at first. His lips were soft as they grazed against hers, barely touching her. He nipped at her bottom lip, then kissed her again, full mouth to full mouth, his tongue seeking hers as the kiss deepened into a hot duel. She felt her body reach out for his, the longing for him growing with every second. There was no overthinking, no analyzing what to do. She fell onto her back and brought him with her, his weight on her hips. His hands were on her waist, on her face, on her breasts, and she rose with the sensation that flooded through her. His mouth trailed along her throat to the top of her shirt, his breath hot on her skin, his teeth on the top button of her shirt. With one hand, she began to release each button, his mouth following each inch of skin as far as her breasts. He took first one, then the other in his mouth, his tongue slipping under the soft lace of her bra, torturing her until she unfastened the hook at the back. She arched her back to him, silently demanding that he take more as a soft moan escaped her lips.

His hand ran the length of her thigh and up under her skirt, slipped under her panties, and caressed her until she wanted to scream. She tugged at his belt, her hand lowering to feel the length of him.

“Carly …?” he whispered.

“Yes. Yes.”

He rose on one elbow, and she heard the crinkling of the foil wrapper that he’d removed from his pocket. A moment later, he was above her, and she wrapped her legs around his, raised her hips, and pulled him closer. She could feel him just there, at the entrance to her body, and wanted only to feel him inside. When he slid into her, she exhaled a moan so soft that even she barely heard it. With her hips setting the rhythm, they moved together in the dark toward an explosion of sensation that left them both rocked to the core.

He lay with his head on her breast, his breathing still erratic, his hands holding hers next to her head. She tried to force a normal amount of air into her lungs, tried to ignore the pounding of her heart. She wondered if he could hear it.

“Your heart is beating like a kettledrum,” he whispered.

So okay, he heard it.

“Ummmm” was the best she could do at the moment.

A few moments later, when she felt she could trust her voice, she said, “Tell me that wasn’t your boyhood fantasy.”

“What, making love with a beautiful woman on a perfect summer night while the stars were twinkling and the river flowed quietly by?” He raised his head and smiled down at her. “Ya think?”

She laughed softly and looked around. “I wonder if they were watching.”

“The ghosts?” He glanced over to the spot where the old shed was rumored to have stood. “If they were, they got an eyeful.”

She pulled him back to rest against her again, closed her eyes, and listened to the night sounds. A loud group of kids passing by the mansion reminded her that they weren’t the only people out and about. She startled and he laughed.

“Relax. We’re about two hundred yards from the street, and it’s pitch-black out here.”

“Two hundred yards? That doesn’t sound like much.”

“Think the length of two football fields.”

Still, she felt uneasy, so he sat up and began to rearrange first her clothes then his own. She watched him try to button her shirt, then laughed and told him, “I’ll do it. You take care of your own business.”

Carly put herself back together and sat, staring at the pale strips of the river that were outlined by the moon’s light. When Ford finished dressing, he held her face in his hands and asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m glad I wore a skirt …”

They walked back to the house lazily, and once they were back inside, he helped her turn off the lights, lock the doors, and then, without need of discussion, followed her down the hall to her bedroom.

“We lived out one of your fantasies,” she told him as she backed into the room and kicked off her sandals. “Now let’s try one of mine …”

CARLY awoke in the morning, a smile on her face.