Free Return to the Beach House by Georgia Bockoven Page B

bite. “It’s a good thing I don’t live here. I could wind up as round as I am tall without giving it a second thought.”
    Kyle laughed. “My kind of woman.”
    She couldn’t remember the last time she’d blushed. “So you like your women plump.”
    “I like a woman who isn’t obsessed with how she looks.” He offered to refill her wineglass, but she declined, and he put the bottle back into the basket without taking any for himself.
    They finished their lunch, ending with strawberries the size of lemons that had been dipped in melted sugar. The crisp, translucent outer layer was a window into the perfectly formed and perfectly ripe strawberry inside. Alison looked at the exquisitely simple creation, was tempted, but was also convinced she didn’t have room for one more bite of anything.
    Until Kyle bit into the strawberry and she saw the look on his face.

Chapter 7
    “Well?” Grace said, waiting for Christopher to move his saddle and helmet from the front seat to the back of the truck.
    “Okay—it was a good hamburger.”
    She climbed in the cab and snapped her seat belt. “Just good ?”
    Christopher laughed. “Better than good.”
    “Try this on for size: ‘Grace, that was the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten. And those fries? To die for. Then there was the olallieberry milk shake. I’ve never had a milk—’ ”
    “Enough,” Christopher said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ve never had a meal as good as the one I just had.” For good measure, he winked and added, “And the company was almost as good.”
    Grace stuck out her tongue. She’d spent half the night wondering if she’d made a mistake trading surf lessons for riding lessons. It was a lot of time to spend with someone she didn’t know, especially someone she didn’t have a clue if she’d like when she did get to know him. She was good at getting herself into these situations, bad at getting herself out.
    Christopher started the truck. “Where’s your car?”
    “I had my dad drop me off.” What if she and Christopher wound up hating each other, and his grandmother said something negative about her to Julia?
    He reached across her to open the glove box and pulled out a hand-drawn map. “How are you at navigating?”
    “If I’d been with Columbus, he would have found China.”
    “Just so you know, I’m not interested in going to China.” He handed her the paper. “See what you can do with this.”
    She recognized streets from all the running she’d done in the hills behind Watsonville when she was on the cross-country track team. “Okay, I know where we’re going.”
    “And how to get there?”
    “One way or another.”
    “You do remember we have a two-thirty lesson.”
    “I thought you were going to teach me.”
    “They insisted on handling the basic stuff at the stable, but I’ll take over when we’re on the trail.” He stopped at the curb and fanned his hands out from the steering wheel. “Which way?”
    She pointed toward the stoplight. “We’re going to go south on 101 for a couple of miles and then get off on Sea Cliff Drive.”
    Grace felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach. All her life, or at least all that she could remember, she’d imagined herself horseback riding. First on a unicorn, then on a palomino, and then when she came to live with Andrew and Cheryl, on a gleaming black horse with a perfect white star on its forehead running along the beach. She’d come to believe the dream was so impossible that she’d never told anyone, not even her sister Rebecca. And now here she was, headed for her first up-close-and-personal meeting with a horse. How was she going to keep from acting like a kid who’d been told there was no Santa Claus only to wake up Christmas morning with a dozen presents under the tree?
    “You need to get in the other lane,” Grace said, forcing herself back into the present.
    Christopher changed lanes, turned, and merged onto the highway. “Mind if