with Bill, but when Bill wasn’t looking, her eyes were glued to Anthony. That didn’t even make sense. “Okay, assuming that you’re right—possibly. Then why’s she wasting her time with Bill?”
Catherine moved her head, and her hair fell across her shoulder, following the blue fabric of her bathing suit, stroking along the curve of her breast. Daniel immediately looked back at Chelsea and Bill.
“She doesn’t want to be alone, and she doesn’t think Anthony will like her enough. Most people will latch onto anything rather than learn how to be by themselves.”
“I didn’t think that could be taught.” He’d spent the last seven years alone and didn’t have too many problems with it.
“I think so. It’s a good thing to be comfortable with yourself, knowing what you’re capable of, and what you’re not. You don’t have to waste so much time faking your way through life. Sometimes faking is worth the effort, but most of the time it’s not.”
The quiet voice of reason. Daniel liked her even more. “You do this for a living?”
“No, not even close,” she said, laughing.
“So how come you know so much?” he asked, because she had noticed details he missed. Coming from an accountant, that was just sad.
“Like you said, people are easy to peg.”
He looked at her again, checking for the details he might have missed. She surprised him, but in a good way. It wasn’t that he was antisocial, it was mostly that everyone he met was chock-full of filler conversations that contributed absolutely nothing to anything—or so he thought. Yet here he was, having a filler conversation that contributed absolutely nothing to any thing…or did it?
Catherine’s theory explained a lot. Why Warren in the office took off every Thursday for drinks after work with Thom, when he couldn’t stand the guy. Why Kim went to lunch with Madeline on Fridays, which was about the stupidest thing ever, since Madeline had taken Kim’s job as operations manager. How hard was it to eat alone?
“You have needy friends like that, too?” he asked curiously.
“One friend who keeps seeing her ex, who makes her miserable.” She leaned forward, her hair brushing over her shoulder again, down her breast. This time Daniel looked for a long minute before glancing away.
“Maybe she loves him,” he said, his voice rough. The heat was getting to him, making him light-headed, his skin hot.
She slipped up her sunglasses, her feet digging under the sand until they were completely covered. “She doesn’t love him. She doesn’t even like him.”
“People are strange,” he said, looking away from her, focusing on the waves until his brain righted itself.
“Got that right,” she agreed.
Their conversation drifted on from there, moving from one nothing topic to another, but he definitely liked this. As they talked, the sun shifted in the sky. Daniel leaned back in the chair, relishing the warmth of the rays that reflected off the water. All in all, it was definitely good. Definitely.
Eventually the conversation dwindled, and the silence fell, perfectly balanced to the soothing ebb and flow of the whitecapped sea.
Catherine watched the waves lap up onto the beach, and then cleared her throat. “You’re welcome to sleep here if you’d like.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in and Daniel’s brows shot up at the invitation, in shock, and more than a little fear. She couldn’t have noticed. When it came to hiding things, Daniel was an expert.
Then Catherine glanced in his direction, caught his deer-in-the-headlights look and laughed, a gurgling hiccup of noise.
“Not that way,” she told him. “We have a bunch of rooms, and I don’t play volleyball, or much else. Your brothers would never have to know.”
He sighed, a great explosion of breath. One bullet dodged.
“Nothing to be afraid of. I promise,” she said, and he believed her. The offer was beyond tempting. Her beach house was a shining beacon of serenity compared to the reality show next door. As if God knew and was laughing, one of the lawyers pulled out a karaoke machine and cranked up the volume, singing bad Bob Dylan at the top of his lungs.
“I don’t know. That’d be a big imposition on a stranger,” he said, but he heard the longing in his own voice.
Pleeb.
“I’m actually not that strange,” she answered seriously, which cemented his decision. Anything was better than ten thousand drunken choruses of “Just Like a Woman.”
“You sure you don’t mind?” he asked, not that he was going to let her back out now. She was promising him an escape from more late-night skinny-dipping and the now-permanent ridge in his back where the deck chair slats had eaten into it.
She shook her head, her hair falling again, and this time he didn’t look at all. “I’m sure. I draw a lot out here, so if all you want to do is sit by the beach and stare into the sun, it’s not going to bother me at all.”
“You draw?” he asked curiously.
“Not well,” she answered, pulling her sunglasses back over her eyes, but not before he saw the uncertainty flicker in them.
“Still, it’s something,” he said, trying to reassure her. She looked as if she needed reassurance.
“What do you do?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“Exciting,” she murmured.
Daniel managed a half smile. “Don’t lie.”
She looked at him, black lenses hiding her eyes. “Actually, it suits you.”
“Most people say that as an insult.”
“No, you’re very quiet and thorough and intense. I think those would be good qualities for an accountant to have.”
She sounded completely serious. “Still, boring is boring.”
“Ha. Not likely,” she said so skeptically that he had to look at her twice.
“What do you do?” he asked, thinking that if she thought accounting was exciting, her job must be a complete snoozer.
“Art appraisal.”
Not a snoozer, not even close. “Now see, that’s exciting.”
“Yeah,” she agreed happily. “It usually is. We discovered a lost Picasso last year.”
“Now that’s much better than accounting.”
“But you love it, don’t you?”
Daniel didn’t try to lie. Truthfully, he did love his job. The world needed accountants, like they needed scientists and garbage collectors. “I’m not designed to do anything else. There’s a balance to accounting. Very exacting, very precise. No room for error. At the end of the day, you know exactly where you stand.”
She smiled then, and he noticed that she had a nice smile. A full lower lip, and even white teeth that hinted at years in braces.
“Why do your brothers want you at the Hamptons?” she asked.
“To have fun.”
Catherine laughed. She had a nice laugh, too. Almost hesitant until she got into it and then the sound made him smile and want to laugh along with her, but he didn’t. “I shouldn’t laugh,” she said, putting a hand over her mouth.
“No, really, I think you should.”
“So you’re going to have a miserable time and prove them wrong, aren’t you?”
“It hasn’t been bad,” he answered honestly. Since he’d