The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(68)

At first her father had laughed, and six-year-old Charlotte had laughed with him, not understanding he was laughing at her, not with her.

Her mother hadn’t laughed, but that was no surprise. Caroline Marie Meriwether Davis only laughed when she was at her club with the other members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy—and then only after her second very dry vodka martini.

Charlotte’s mother had tried to shut her daughter up by slapping the sass out of her mouth.

It hadn’t worked.

But that day Charlotte had run to the beach and cried herself to sleep. She’d awakened to find half of her body being gently held by the encroaching tide and the sound of beautiful, harmonizing women’s voices filling her ears.

She’d stayed there, sitting half in, half out of the water, listening to the ocean’s orchestra for the rest of the day.

They’d found her at sunset. Charlotte had tried to tell her parents and the rescue team that she hadn’t heard anyone calling her because she’d been listening to the mermaids singing under the water.

They all said she was lying because no one heard the singing except Charlotte. No one ever heard the singing except Charlotte.

And now the mermaid chorus lifted alluringly from the turbulent waves, reflecting the passion that filled the ocean as it entered hurricane season.

Eyes still closed, Charlotte began humming with the ethereal voices, trying to catch words as she always did—and as always, she could hear melodies, but when she tried to isolate voices and words, they slid away from her like waves returning to the ocean.

“Bastien, dude! I’m bailing! It’s a bomb. No way I can handle that!”

The rough male voice intruded, first fragmenting and then destroying the mermaid voices. Annoyed, Charlotte opened her eyes to see a young guy trudging to shore not far from her. Tethered to his wrist was a long surfboard that bobbed along behind him. He wasn’t paying any attention to Charlotte. All of his attention was focused out on the water.

Charlotte followed his gaze to see that an enormous wave had formed and was growing, gaining momentum and height, as it roared toward shore. From the center of that wave, in the pretty, curling part that Charlotte thought looked like a lovely water tunnel, a surfer shot into view. He was balancing like a dancer, making it look effortless. His dark hair was blowing behind him. He was tall and his muscular chest glistened with water and sweat—and he was grinning as if he was having the best time in his life.

“Whoo-hoo! It’s a double overhead, dude! Bastien, you’re killing it!” The second guy had made it to the beach and was shouting at the surfer through cupped hands.

Charlotte didn’t even glance at him. She couldn’t take her eyes from the surfer. He kept riding and riding the huge wave as it got closer and closer to shore. She could see his eyes now, and was shocked by their brilliant turquoise color—a color that reminded her strangely of her own.

The wave kept coming and coming … until finally the surfer gracefully stepped off his board and onto the beach as his friend clapped and hooted for him. The surfer turned then, and bowed to the ocean, as if he was thanking it for the ride.

When he straightened he turned, and his eyes met Charlotte’s.

She saw him hesitate and even stumble for a second as another wave smacked against him, but he righted himself quickly and nodded to her in a very Southern, very gentlemanly way—something Grandma Myrtie would definitely have approved of.

“Hello, cher.”

His voice was deep and rich. And Charlotte thought his accent was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard.

“Good mornin’,” Charlotte spoke automatically.

“Aren’t you sweet. Douces comme du miel. I’m Bastien. And this here’s my podna, Dickie.”

Charlotte almost blurted her name. Part of her wanted to tell him her name, phone number, Social Security number, and her address. Anything and everything she could tell him so that he’d call her and talk to her more in that gorgeous voice. But she couldn’t tell him everything. He wouldn’t want to hear her everything, and because of that she would tell him nothing.

But he was looking at her. Really looking from her long, bare legs to her boy shorts, to the swim shirt that was soaked and painted to her skin. He wasn’t exactly leering, but his eyes were intense and they reflected his very obvious interest, which sent an all too familiar shiver of fear down Charlotte’s spine.

She schooled her face into what her mother would call “acceptable politeness, but not an invitation” and in her best Southern belle accent said, “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Bastien. Have a lovely day.”

As the very sexy, very handsome Bastien opened his mouth to say more, Charlotte gave him a dismissive wave, quickly turned her back on him, retrieved her backpack, and without one glance over her shoulder she hurried away from him, retracing her steps down the beach.

Maybe someday … Charlotte thought wistfully. Maybe someday I can talk to a handsome young man like Bastien without being afraid, but today is not that day …





Bastien


“Didn’t know all we had to do was get you in front of a beautiful piece to get the words to roll right out of ya.” Dickie clapped his arm around Bastien’s shoulders. “What’d you say back there, anyway?”

Bastien shrugged away from the brotherly embrace. That young woman hadn’t been some piece. She was an ange. An angel. Her hair and the way the salt-licked breeze had twirled it around her head had been her halo. And those arms, long and delicate and goose-down white, would at any moment reveal the wings he knew were tucked up inside her, waiting to lift her from this cruel world. She’d landed right in front of him and he’d talked to her in the only way he knew how.