LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t hear that annoying honking of a car horn out front as the neighbor’s teenage daughter’s boyfriend liked to do when he picked her up for school.

      There were no sounds of Sesame Street in the background.

      All he could hear was…nothing. Blessed silence.

      For a full five minutes, Zach luxuriated in the peace and quiet that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed. And when the five minutes were up, he felt intense guilt that he felt any joy.

      He missed his kids with all his heart and soul, but a part of him admitted this moment of quiet was very nice.

      “Not that I’ll ever admit it to you, Luce,” he muttered as he tossed the covers back and got out of bed. “You’d gloat too much about how right you were in talking me into taking this trip.”

      A little while later as he ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant, he looked for Ginna. Unfortunately he didn’t see the now familiar figure. His food didn’t taste as good as it had the previous night, which he put down to the lack of company.

      An hour later, as he walked along the beach, he kept a lookout for Ginna but still didn’t see her.

      “If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably start thinking she was nothing more than a dream last night,” he muttered, seeing a variety of bikini-clad women but none that resembled one particular woman.

      Then he heard a laugh-filled scream from somewhere out in the water.

      At first, he thought of all those shark movies, then he realized the owner of the scream was not being attacked by any sea monster, but merely battling the waves and straining to remain upright on a sailboard. She was quickly losing the battle as the sail went one way and she went the other. He waited, watching the spot where she’d fallen. She seemed to pop up out of the water.

      “Hi!” she yelled, waving in his direction.

      He waited at the water’s edge as she swam toward him.

      “I just learned sailboards and I aren’t a good match,” she said, walking up the sand a little ways. She snatched up a towel and rubbed her face, then blotted her hair. She combed the unruly strands back from her face with her fingers. “Have you ever been on one?”

      “Not recently.” He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Her bronze-colored one-piece suit covered the essentials and definitely wasn’t as revealing as the barely-there bikinis he noticed other women wearing. But it sure caught his attention. Even with wet hair streaming down her back and no makeup, she looked lovely. She also had the grace to make fun of herself.

      “Well, that was my last time,” she declared. “The next time I might get dumped a lot farther out.”

      Zach looked down the beach to where a hotel employee oversaw the sailboarders. He was in the midst of instructing a guest.

      “Be fun to get out there again,” he said. “I haven’t done it in years.”

      “Go for it,” she urged. “Show me how it’s done.” She laid her towel back down on the sand. “I’ll even sit here and cheer you on.”

      “I’m not trying any fancy moves,” he warned her. “I’ll probably be lucky I don’t fall off and break something important.”

      “Then I’ll go with you to the emergency room and mop your fevered brow,” she cooed.

      Zach grinned. “As good as your offer is, I hope you don’t mind if I try to avoid that kind of trip.” He left his belongings behind before he headed down the beach.

      Ginna noticed she wasn’t the only woman watching Zach’s progress. He didn’t have the chiseled body that comes from long hours at the gym. But his lean athletic build told her he didn’t spend all his time in an office, either.

      A man wearing a bright-green Speedo walked past her. He slowed and flashed her an inviting grin.

      “Oh, hon, I wouldn’t if I were you,” Ginna said, affecting a sultry Southern drawl. “My husband is the jealous type, and he knows about a thousand different ways to kill someone without leaving a mark on their body.”

      Unsure whether to believe her or not, the man opted to move off at a faster clip.

      She sighed as she picked up her bottle of sunscreen. After applying a coat of lotion, she slipped on her sunglasses and settled back on her elbows with her long legs stretched out in front of her. She looked outward and easily picked Zach out of the surf riders battling the waves.

      The attraction between them was already sizzling. She couldn’t remember ever experiencing anything this quickly.

      She should be scared to death. The attraction between her and Denny had been fast. Something she’d regretted once she’d regained her sanity. They’d gone from a few dates to living together to marrying, and then, after he pretty well told her she was defective, they divorced.

      They both wanted kids. Except she couldn’t conceive. All she remembered after countless tests was that pregnancy wasn’t possible. At first, Denny said it didn’t matter. But he’d lied. He wanted a child of his own seed and refused to consider any other options. Since she couldn’t give him one, he couldn’t forgive her for her imperfections. He married his pregnant lover the day their divorce became final. Ginna wanted to slink off into a corner to lick her wounds, but her family and friends wouldn’t allow her to hide. Initially, she hated them for their warfare tactics to get her out of her shell, but later on, she appreciated their concern.

      As a result, she hadn’t dated much since her divorce. She preferred keeping herself busy with lots of bookings and spending time with family and friends. What with Brian’s wedding and Abby and Jeff having a baby, family parties were plentiful. The salon and day spa had also been busier ever since word got out that their Blind Date Central bulletin board had been successful in matching up the right women with the right men since its conception two years ago.

      Who would have thought that a group of women lamenting the lack of available men would turn into Blind Date Central? Blind Date Central was a success from the first day. Women posted pictures of and information about available men they knew but weren’t interested in romantically on the board. The women were willing to share, and the men they “sponsored” had an even better chance of meeting the lady of their dreams.

      As a result, permanent matches had been made.

      She’d helped her sister, Nikki, post their brother Brian’s picture on the board, which was promptly snapped up by Gail Roberts, a pediatrician who was now his wife and mother of their baby girl. Another success story.

      Ginna had checked out the board a few times but didn’t see anyone who rang her chimes, as she liked to say.

      If she didn’t know any better, she’d think that fate had stepped in and tossed Zach her way.

      And she wasn’t about to toss him back.

      “YOU DID VERY WELL,” Ginna told Zach for about the fifth time. “Definitely better than I did. I think the only reason I didn’t immediately fall off was I wanted to wait until I was in deeper water so the fall would look more logical.”

      “Yeah, I did great all right. A ten-year-old kid was telling me what to do,” Zach grumbled good-naturedly, wincing as he gingerly lowered his battered body to the sand. “He was out there managing that sail as if he’d been doing it since he was in the cradle.”

      “It’s all that time they spend with their video games. Their hand-eye coordination is miles ahead of ours,” she said, even as she asked a waiter to bring them two piña coladas and a bowl of pineapple spears.

      Zach grinned sheepishly. “You’re doing a good job of soothing my ego.”

      “Good. And once you have your piña colada, you’ll feel even better.” She reached for a broad-brimmed hat and plopped it on her head to protect her face. A stripe of aqua-shaded zinc oxide graced the bridge of her nose to save

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