Page 70 of Worth the Trip

“Take ’em off.”

“I just bought these.”

“Put ’em beside mine.”

“You don’t know somebody won’t steal them.”

“Ain’t nobody walk this far for your shoes.”

I stared at him.

He didn’t come closer.

Didn’t reach for me.

Just stood ankle-deep in the Gulf, waiting to see what I decided.

I slipped off my sandals.

The sand held the last warmth of afternoon beneath my feet, and the first rush of water around my ankles was cold enough to make me inhale.

Landon looked entirely too satisfied. “See?”

“I’m alive.”

“Barely.”

“Dramatic.”

“Says the woman who issued a security assessment over sandals.”

We wandered along the shoreline without deciding how far we were going. Some steps brought our shoulders together. Others left space between them. The sun lowered slowly, turning the Gulf gold and coral in stretches.

At some point, I stopped thinking about the shop.

Not intentionally.

I simply realized I hadn’t thought about it.

That felt different.

“The beach does something to my brain,” I said.

“What?”

“Makes it stop talking.”

Landon looked toward the water.

“Then we ain’t gotta talk.”

So we didn’t.

For several minutes, we walked with nothing between us but wind and water.

A wave shifted the sand beneath my foot, and the back of my hand brushed his.

Landon turned his palm upward.