Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

stiff-shouldered stride.
    Elle rose also. Her skin burned from humiliation, not heat. What did he think she was going to do, bite him? Of course, he had witnessed her letting the reins of protocol loosen a bit. And,she had been trying to trespass.
    No matter, he was in for a blunt awakening. Elle loves Noah might be carved in every tree in the schoolyard, but that didn't make the message an eternal decree. He perplexed her, that's all, and if her knees shook, the shock of seeing him again made that happen. She stalked down the beach, determined to tell him what she thought of his haughty presumption. The nerve, the gall, oh—
    She halted abruptly. Two sets of footprints cut into the sand. She shifted her gaze toward the water. Noah and Rory hunkered near the edge, heads nearly touching. Before she changed her mind, Elle settled her foot in the larger impression, heel over heel.
    The smooth tickle under the arch of her foot sent a memory roaring through her mind. Running barefoot along the acorn-studded cemetery path, yelping as a sharp stem pierced her skin. Noah had stopped and offered his lanky back. She'd accepted without thinking twice and let him piggyback her the rest of the way. Accidentally, of course, and for just a moment at most, his fingers had brushed her ankle, circling and squeezing. He'd glanced over his shoulder, and something, something blustery as a summer thunderstorm, had passed between them. Something that made him avoid her for two weeks. Two weeks of tears and tantrums because the day after the incident, she found him kissing Christabel Connery in the darkened coatroom at school.
    Elle blinked and lurched forward. She halted just behind where they crouched near the water's edge. Windswept and sun-kissed, they created an enchanting picture.
    Her hands itched to touch.
    A warning sounded, deep in her mind. Gripping her damp skirt in her fist, she leaned in, intent on telling Rory they had to leave. Now.
    "There are two ways to determine its age," Noah said, flipping a bluefish in his hand. A ring-billed gull shrieked and danced nearby, begging for the pungent morsel.
    "Deter?" Rory wiped a sandy fist beneath his nose.
    "Oh. Tell. Two ways to tell its age."
    "Is this one old? He's already dead."
    "Well, growth rings on scales, or otoliths, would tell us." He tapped Rory's ear. "Otoliths are bones in a fish's ear."
    "Fishes have ears?"
    "Of course." Noah's lips parted in a smile as he leaned closer. "Have you ever chopped down a tree and counted the rings to tell the tree's age?"
    Rory considered for a moment, nodded. "Yup, once with my uncle Caleb."
    Noah stiffened, just the tiniest bit. "These... these are the same kind of rings." He drew a circle in the sand, then another around the first. "Two circles. The fish would be two years old."
    "How old is this one?"
    Noah shrugged. "I'd need a microscope to tell."
    "Microscope? Do you have one?"
    He nodded.
    "Go get it." Rory flipped his hand toward Noah's gear.
    Laughter, deep and clear, rumbled from Noah's throat; he bent from the force of it. "No, no. At the coach house. The rest of my equipment is being delivered tomorrow. Next time, maybe."
    Rory shook his head fiercely. "We gotta check this fish. I'm afraid he might be young. A baby without a mother."
    Elle held her breath. Noah arrested his movement to throw the bluefish into the sea. He brought his arm to his side, the stiff fishtail brushing his trousers. "No mother, huh?"
    "Just like me."
    Noah swallowed, working hard to recover from his shock. "I'm sure he's a rather old fish. A grandfather, at least, by the look of him. I can take him home and check. If it will make you feel better."
    "It will," Rory assured him, leaning close to his uncle.
    They could have been father and son, two casts from the same mold. Elle sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Merciful heavens, how had Zach not realized the reason behind her fascination with his son? Her body overheated, neutralizing the nip of cool