Free Barefoot in White (Barefoot Bay Brides) by Roxanne St. Claire

first time I saw you was in the dorm lounge at three in the morning, your nose in a John Steinbeck novel.”
    He smiled. “I remember. You walked past me three times in one hour.”
    She felt the embarrassed burn of a busted stalker. “So what made you decide to try writing?” she asked quickly.
    “For one thing, I’m bored as hell.” They paused at the intersection and then wordlessly agreed to walk toward the small park along the water’s edge. “I miss active duty.”
    “When can you go back?”
    He didn’t answer right away, eating some ice cream. “Not sure I will.”
    “What’s the deciding factor?”
    He tapped his left ear. “When the surgery works. I’m treating my ear with corticosteroids and time. If I passed the test I took last week, I can go back in for training and deployment. But, truth be told, SEAL standards are high, and I may never see deployment again.”
    She could hear a world of hurt in that admission, but didn’t want to ruin the moment by dwelling on it. “Well, it’s good you have the writing to keep your mind off it.” She added a teasing elbow. “And other things, like dinner dates.”
    He laughed. “The best part about last night was how caught up in the story I got. I didn’t have as much of that stuck feeling that’s been killing me for the past few weeks. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wish I knew what happened, so I could bottle and drink it every day. Something broke the dam.”
    “Salt air?”
    “Nah, I’m living a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean, and there’s plenty of salt air there.”
    “Time change?”
    “Obviously not looking at the clock.” At an empty bench, they sat down, facing the wide body of water that separated the island from the mainland, dotted with a dozen pleasure craft and jet skiers on this sunny April afternoon.
    They didn’t talk for a moment, taking in the view, the treat, the companionship. Then Willow felt his gaze on her and not the cobalt water.
    “What?”
    “I was just thinking that I know who you reminded me of yesterday on the beach.”
    “I reminded you of me ,” she said. “And if anyone should be throwing around apologies, it’s me for not being straight from the moment I recognized you.”
    “That’s true,” he agreed heartily. “We’re definitely even. When did you recognize me, exactly?”
    “As soon as I saw your face.”
    “Which took a long while, as I recall.”
    She laughed at the tease. “Your singing—and other things—rendered me, um, speechless.”
    He leaned into her. “I’ll buy that excuse for when I wasn’t dressed. But what about after, when you knew I hadn’t recognized you? Why not say something then?”
    She opened her mouth to make a quip, change the topic, or brush off the truth. But something about the question in his eyes stopped her. “I told you, Willie Zatarain no longer exists. I really didn’t want to go through the whole ‘oh, wow, you’re so different’ business. And, for what it’s worth, I was about to tell you when Misty showed up.”
    “I would have figured it out, though. Especially when I realized how much you look like your mother.”
    She almost choked on her sugar cone. “I do not,” she corrected him. “I favor my father, without the long hair, tattoos, and road-worn face.”
    He regarded her for a moment, the scrutiny making her uncomfortable. “You have prominent cheekbones, that little cleft in your chin, and eyes that never stay the same color for five minutes. I think you look more like the woman on the magazine covers than the man on the album covers.”
    She had to change the subject. “So, what do you think of this sweet little island I’ve adopted as my home?”
    “It’s pretty.” He nodded to the water. “Not too touristy, considering the location.”
    “That is changing with the resort up in Barefoot Bay and a new minor league baseball stadium coming in next year. Still, I love it. When Gussie and Ari and I arrived here to preview