Pushing free, she ran across the street, heading for the beach. She needed the cool night air, the clarity the pounding surf would give her, the wide open space.

“Red?”

She kept going. It wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done, racing away from one of the very people she wanted to prove herself to, but the minute her feet hit the sand she kicked off her sandals and kept running, hard and fast, not looking back, trying desperately not to look back.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Joe stared after Summer, not so far gone in his own miserable evening that he hadn’t seen the shine of tears in her eyes, or the hitch of panic in her breathing.

It was none of his business. She was none of his business. And so telling himself, he took another step toward the front door of Creative Interiors II, then stopped. “Ah, hell.” Turning around, he caught a fleeting glance of her racing into the night as if the devil himself were on her heels. She wore a soft white sundress over her tanned skin, the material gleaming beneath the moonlight as she kicked up her heels, never slowing.

Not his problem.

And yet he didn’t go inside. He stood there talking himself out of making yet another mistake in a long series of such mistakes he was getting so proficient at making.

“Idiot,” he muttered, and crossed the street to the beach. He stepped onto the sand, kicked off his shoes. “First a jerk, now an idiot.”

He’d kept up with his physical training even though technically he was no longer fighting fires. He ran in the mornings, several miles a day when he could manage the time, and hated every sweaty, struggling minute of it. But he had to really kick it in gear to match Summer’s long-legged even stride.

The dark beach was deserted except for the occasional other crazy person out running. After about a mile, she slowed, thank God, and then came to a sudden halt, breathing like a misused racehorse, head down, feet in the water as a wave lapped her toes.

Joe came to a halt besides her and let the cool water hit his feet as well while he bent over and tried to catch his breath.

“You’re a better runner than you used to be,” she said.

He had to laugh between gulping gasps for air. “That’s what happens when you drop seventy-five pounds.”

She tilted her head and looked at him in the moonlight. The waves crashed onto the shore but other than that, the night felt quiet. Like the calm before a storm.

“I never thought of you as overweight,” she murmured.

“If that’s true, you were the only one who didn’t.”

“I liked you just as you were.”