Free Larissa Learns to Breathe by Ruby Laska Page A

conservative twist, and applied neutral makeup, forgoing her contacts for tortoise-shell glasses. She’d put on a narrow gray skirt and a navy blue blouse and, for luck, her mother’s pearls. In a nod to the island’s terrain, she put her high heels into a canvas bag she found in the kitchen and wore her flats.
    â€œWell…I guess you can come if you want, as long as you understand I’m going to tell Tommy that I told you to stay behind,” she said, straightening. Bluebell didn’t seem to have any problem with that, and trotted along beside her, glancing up occasionally in companionable silence.
    The footpath wound along the edge of the island, the cliffs gradually rising up over the ocean. After walking for five minutes, Larissa seemed to have reached the highest point of the bluff, and she carefully picked her way along a little path to a rock outcropping over the sapphire ocean. Larissa glanced back at the beach, a patch of sparkling white far behind her. And there! The little stone cottage where she and Tommy…she blushed fiercely at the memory.
    Where he had first suggested she sleep, she amended quickly. There would be time, later, to go over the other memories, the hours this morning when she’d allowed herself to forget, just for a little while, who she was and what she’d done, all the mistakes and missteps and misjudgments that had led her here, into the arms of a man who would never have given her a second look back in the real world. When she’d let go of her second guesses and judgments and contingency plans and just let herself feel…
    It had been out of character indeed, but maybe it was just the salt air and the sound of the waves and the… ha . Larissa shook her head impatiently. She knew damn well what it had been: magic . And now, staring down at the little cottage, she wished that she had stayed there last night. When in her life would she have such an opportunity again? Oh, she’d get another job, she’d reinvent herself again, she’d work hard, and in time there would be another beach vacation. Maybe even another boyfriend.
    But there would never be another stone stargazing hut. And there would never be another Tommy.
    She looked longingly at the path leading down from the cliff to the narrow strip of sand along the edge. It was wide enough to walk barefoot along it. The sand would be cold, but Larissa longed to dip her toes into the water one more time before she boarded the ferry for Key Grande, and began her journey back to New York City, to the life she thought she’d left behind.
    She glanced at her watch. She still had ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. And these things were always late to begin, weren’t they? Besides, it would be best to be the last to arrive; she hoped to keep the awkward small talk to a minimum. With any luck at all she could go first, make her apologies and duck out before they got into the rest of the agenda. Maybe Tommy would offer to walk her out; maybe she could give him one of her business cards and—but no, better to end things cleanly. Beach bum sun gods didn’t end up in The Big Apple too often, she’d wager. And it would be a long time before she showed her face this far south again.
    Barefoot in the sand it would be.
    Bluebell barked as she began to descend the steep rock face, picking her way back and forth along the switchbacks and holding on to vines and cracks in the rock for support. “Don’t worry, Bluebell,” she called. “I’ll be out of your fur in no time.”
    But the dog raced back and forth, barking, more and more urgently. It finally occurred to Larissa why, about half way down, when her foot slipped and she nearly tumbled over the edge. “You’re worried about me?”
    And for good reason, too, Larissa had to admit. The final stretch of the path was no more than a ledge, and now that she was standing on it, she had her