Saving Sofia Read online

  “I didn’t drop the ball,” Patrick protested. “There was no ball.”

  “Oh, there was a ball,” Ramon insisted. “And you bobbled it. You could be doing the touchdown dance right now, but instead, you’re asking me for relationship advice.”

  Patrick had the sickening feeling that Ramon was right. She’d given him an opening, and he hadn’t taken it. What if he never got such a chance again?

  “So … what do I do now?”

  “Call her back and ask her out,” Ramon suggested. “Obviously.”

  Patrick sipped his coffee for fortification. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

  “Oh, you’re not. Believe me. But you should do it anyway.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe … what if I tried kayaking again? You know … just to spend some more time around her first.”

  “You’re too scared to ask her out, but you’re not too scared to do something that almost killed you the last time you tried it?”

  Patrick frowned. “Well … it sounds foolish when you put it that way.”

  Ramon raised one eyebrow. “There might be a reason for that.”

  He was infatuated, but he wasn’t stupid. He waited a couple of weeks before signing up for kayaking again. He let the bump on his head heal and made sure he wasn’t suffering any lingering effects from the concussion.

  When he was pretty sure he was okay, he went to her website and signed up for a Saturday tour. He’d have asked Ramon to go with him again, but he didn’t want to be told that he was being reckless and foolhardy. He already knew that.

  In the days leading up to Saturday, he was nervous about his physical safety. Drowning in the ocean was not part of his life plan. But the idea of seeing Sofia again balanced out the fear. The risk to his body would be worth it if he could talk to her a little. Look into those dark, limitless eyes. My God, she might even have occasion to touch him—preferably not in the context of a tourniquet or chest compressions.

  One could always hope.

  When Sofia checked her website and saw that Patrick Connolly had signed up for her tour again, she didn’t know whether to be pleased or horrified. Given how the last time had gone, she wondered if she should call him and suggest other forms of outdoor recreation—like sunbathing.

  On the other hand, with his fair coloring, that might be just as dangerous.

  “I can’t believe it,” she told Benny when she saw his name. “I seriously cannot believe it.”

  Sofia was seated at the kitchen table with her laptop at around ten a.m., the golden morning sun flooding the room. Benny was rooting around in the refrigerator, her butt sticking out in Sofia’s direction.

  “You can’t believe what? That somebody ate the last yogurt? Neither can I, my friend. Neither can I.”

  “Not the yogurt,” Sofia said. “I can’t believe Patrick Connolly signed up for the tour again.”

  Benny straightened and closed the refrigerator door, a cheese stick and a bottle of Coke in her hands in lieu of the yogurt. “Wait. Is he the guy who wiped out and nearly drowned?”

  “That’s the guy.”

  “Oh, man.” Benny had just come in from a run, and she was wearing a pair of running shorts and a tank top, both damp with sweat. Her hair, the same dark color as Sofia’s, was gathered into two stubby pigtails, her bangs skimming the middle of her forehead. “Either he really wants to learn to kayak, or he’s got it bad.”

  “He’s got what bad?” Sofia asked.

  “Oh, come on. You can’t tell me he’d be the first guy to sign up for kayaking because of the way you look in a wetsuit.”

  Sofia considered that. “Well … maybe not. But that’s not it.”

  “Really. How do you know?”

  “Because I gave him a chance to ask me out. Said he could find a way to repay me for saving his life. And he just … didn’t do anything with it.”

  Benny shrugged. “Maybe he’s shy.”

  That was possible. He certainly wasn’t smooth with women. And he wasn’t classically handsome, though he did have this … thing. This thing that made Sofia want to take him home with her, either to go to bed with him or just to make him a nice, home-cooked meal.

  She wasn’t sure about the nature of the thing, but it was there. The thing. Whatever it was.

  “He could be shy,” she admitted. “Or maybe he just really wants to learn to kayak.”

  “Either way, you’ve got to give the guy points for persistence.”

  5

  On Saturday, Patrick drove to San Simeon telling himself not to think about the fear. Fear was just a thought, just a feeling. If he didn’t allow himself to think it or feel it, then it wouldn’t be real.

  Of course, the danger he was putting himself in—that was real.

  He’d taken some steps to mitigate the risks. He’d gone on YouTube to learn how to launch a kayak. He’d paid particular attention to keeping the bow straight, since that seemed to be where he’d gone wrong before.

  And he’d done a little praying. He wasn’t particularly religious, but it couldn’t hurt.

  By the time he parked his car and headed toward the place on the sand where Sofia was setting up her equipment, he felt as ready as he would ever be.

  He was less ready to talk to Sofia, but if he could refuse to feel fear about kayaking, he could refuse to feel fear about that, too.

  She was leaning down over a kayak, doing some unidentifiable thing to the inside of it, when he approached. She was facing away from him, giving him a view of her wetsuit-clad behind that almost made his knees weak. The other tour participants were standing around watching, chatting among themselves.

  When she straightened up, turned around, and noticed him, she gave him a languid half smile that made him think of how she might look at him after sex, should he ever be that fortunate.

  “Patrick,” she said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Absolutely.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt. “Yes. Absolutely.” And he was sure he wanted to do it. He’d surrendered a certain part of his manhood when he’d crashed into the sand two weeks before. The only way to get it back was to show her that he could do this and that he wasn’t afraid.

  Even if it turned out that he couldn’t do it, and he was afraid.

  “Well, all right, then.” She rooted around in her pile of equipment and brought out a helmet. “I think you should wear this.” She tossed it to him, and he caught it.

  “Ah. Right. Good thinking.” Between the helmet and the life jacket, what could possibly go wrong?

  Sofia had to admit that the guy had grit. After what happened last time, most people would never go into the water again. But he was gamely giving it another try, even though he was plainly scared shitless.

  “All right,” she told him when the others had launched and it was time for him to go. “I’m going to hold onto the stern and keep you straight until you’re past the first line of breakers. Once I let go, don’t let yourself get turned sideways. If you start to go to the side, use your paddle to get straightened out again. Once you’re past the surf line, you should be good. Are you ready?”

  His mouth was too dry for him to speak, so he just nodded.

  “Okay. Here we go.”

  She pushed him and the kayak forward, and Patrick used his hand and his paddle the way she and YouTube had taught him. When the first child-sized wave hit him, she was still behind him keeping the kayak straight. He paddled hard, moving forward, keeping the bow as straight as he could.

  A second, larger wave headed toward him, and Sofia let go. This was the moment that would decide everything. Either he would keep the kayak straight and get past the wave line to join the others, or he wouldn’t. There was more at stake than his paddling skills. He wanted her to see him as competent. He wanted her to see him as brave.

  He wanted her to see him as a man.

  The wave hit—admittedly, it was a small one, but it seemed colossal to him—and the kayak started to turn
sideways. He used his paddle to fight the turn, pulling hard, using his weight and the balance of his body to turn the bow into the wave. He put his full strength, his full concentration, his full focus into the task, willing himself and the little vessel that held him to remain true.

  When he emerged, still upright and still relatively dry, on the other side of the wave, he let out a whoop of pure joy. He could hear Sofia somewhere back there cheering for him. He paddled out to the others, triumphant.

  None of the others in the tour group understood what a big moment it was for him, but Sofia did, and that was enough. He felt a surge of powerful, crystalline adrenaline, and for that moment, he felt like he could do anything.

  Sofia was so delighted with Patrick, not only for what he’d accomplished but also for the courage it had taken to even attempt it, that she couldn’t help herself. When the tour was done and everyone was on dry land, the kayaks sitting empty on the sand, she jumped into his arms and embraced him.

  “You did it! You really did it!” She let him go and stood at arm’s length, still holding onto his shoulders. “I’m damned proud of you, Patrick.”

  He was smiling and blushing, his eyes down, not meeting hers. And, holy crap, if that wasn’t cute. So, yeah, he was shy, then. There was a sweetness in him that pulled at her, intrigued her.

  So, she would give him another opportunity and see if, this time, he would take it.

  “We should celebrate,” she said. “Let me buy you a drink. I have another tour at two o’clock, but I’ll be back on the beach by three thirty. Meet me here?”

  There was the blush again, the smile. And the incredibly cute, shy stammer. “Uh … that’s … I’d like that.”

  She gave his shoulders a squeeze and let go of him. She turned and walked away from him, and if she put a little extra sashay into her walk, well, a girl had to use whatever tools she had at her disposal.

  Patrick went home, showered, and tried to make sense of all that had happened. He’d done it—he’d actually done it. And then, good God, she’d asked him out. If there was any way today’s adventure could have gone better, he couldn’t think what it would be.

  Perhaps if he’d found sunken treasure during the tour …

  As he dressed, he started to doubt himself. What if she hadn’t actually asked him out on a date? What if she genuinely just wanted to buy him a drink to congratulate him on his kayaking success, and nothing more? What if she routinely bought drinks for participants of her tour—whether male or female? What if he was reading this all wrong?

  Because he had few skills for interpreting the motivations of women, he called Ramon.

  “I went kayaking again, and it went well—no paramedics required—and Sofia said she wanted to take me out for a drink. What does that mean?” He was sitting on the sofa in his tiny house, scrubbed clean and smelling of soap and shampoo.

  “It means she has no taste in men,” Ramon responded.

  “But … what does it mean? Is this an actual date? Or is she just saying, I’m glad you didn’t die? Or …”

  “You know, I’m beginning to see why you don’t get more action with women.”

  “Ramon …”

  “Just go with it,” he said. “Go out, have the drink. Relax. And see what happens.”

  Patrick spent more time than necessary, probably, on deciding what to wear. He wanted to look nice, but he didn’t want to look too nice, given the fact that he would be picking Sofia up directly from the beach. Clearly, this would be a casual thing.

  He opted for jeans and a button-down shirt that someone had once said looked good with his eyes.

  It occurred to him that she might be getting into his car, so he tidied it up, clearing out a stack of student papers that were waiting to be graded, then gave the interior a pass with the small hand-held vacuum he kept in the trunk.

  Having assessed his hair (combed), his breath (fresh), and his wallet (present and accounted for—he’d forgotten it on a date once, and would never make that mistake again), he got into his car and headed for San Simeon.

  When he got there, he spotted Sofia, parked the car, and walked over to her. She had just come back from her tour and was saying goodbye to the group—five middle-aged men who all seemed to know each other. Everyone was smiling and chatting animatedly. It seemed like they’d had a good time.

  When Sofia saw him, she gave him a dazzling smile that made his palms sweat. He waved casually. At least, he hoped he’d done it casually.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes,” she told him. “I need to lock up the kayaks and get dressed, and I’ll be good to go.”

  “Take your time.”

  She’d already stacked all of the kayaks in a spot near the parking lot, and now she used a locking cable to secure them. With that done, she picked up a duffel bag and carried it to the outdoor shower just off the parking lot.

  What happened next would forever be burned into his memory, to be replayed in happy daydreams and reveries for months to come.

  Sofia stripped off her wetsuit, revealing a tiny red bikini underneath. Then she turned on the shower and began to lather up with a bar of soap she’d produced from her bag.

  He tried not to stare as she soaped up her long legs, her strong, supple arms, her tanned, toned midriff, and the luscious expanse of cleavage that was barely covered by the bikini top. She shampooed and conditioned, the afternoon sun glistening off the water on her body and in her hair.

  By the time she was done, he realized that an embarrassing situation had … well … arisen. He was sitting on a large piece of driftwood, and he was in no position to stand up.

  He tried thinking of his mother, his taxes, and various household chores, and that helped some. But then she did something that overwhelmed all of his best efforts to calm himself down: she wrapped a big beach towel around herself, reached under it, and dropped first the bikini bottoms and then the top to the ground.

  She rooted around in the duffel bag and somehow managed to put on first a bra and panties and then a T-shirt and jeans without exposing anything between her knees and her shoulders.

  Patrick was fascinated. What kind of special woman-magic was this? And how could he be expected to control his body’s response to it?

  She removed the towel now that she was fully dressed, and she used it to rub as much water as she could from her hair. She slipped into a pair of ankle-high boots she’d taken from the duffel and turned to him as though she hadn’t just left him utterly and irrevocably devastated.

  “Okay, all set. You ready to go?”

  “I … uh … I think I’ll just sit here and enjoy the view for a minute. If that’s okay.”

  “Sure.” She came over and sat next to him. The day was somewhat cool, and he was glad he’d brought a sweater because it gave him something to put in his lap.

  “Pretty day, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Gorgeous,” he responded.

  6

  He’d wondered earlier whether they would take her car or his. They took his, because she didn’t have one, and he couldn’t quite see himself getting on the back of her motorcycle. The morning’s kayak adventure was all the danger he could face for one day.

  As he drove north toward Ragged Point with Sofia in the passenger seat, it occurred to him that his nervousness, combined with the winding two-lane road leading into Big Sur, could be less than optimal, safety-wise. With that in mind, he took a few deep, calming breaths and put the idea of Sofia in a bikini out of his thoughts.

  The drive took about twenty minutes, and that gave them time to chat a little. He already knew what she did for a living, but she had no idea about him. He told her that he taught English at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, that he wrote a little, and that he liked his work—both the challenge of it and the satisfaction of opening people’s eyes to the value of literature.

  He could have filled in more detail—where he’d gone to school, for example, and his publishing credits—but he didn’t want to sound like he was r
eciting his résumé.

  Plus, he found that he was always more comfortable learning about someone else than he was talking about himself.

  “So, the kayaking,” he said as he drove. The Piedras Blancas lighthouse pointed its stubby white finger into the blue sky as though it were making a particularly salient point. “How did you get into that?”

  “I used to live in Ventura. You could rent a kayak at the harbor for twelve dollars an hour. I fell in love with it—being out there on the water all by myself, the quiet. Just me and the sky and the ocean, everything else so far away, so … irrelevant. Then, when I moved to Cambria, I bought my own kayak and started launching out of San Simeon. A guy down there had the tour business, and I got to know him a little. He wanted to retire, and my sisters and I had gotten some money from our parents’ estate, so I bought the business from him.”

  He shot her a quick glance, not wanting to take his eyes off the road for too long. “Oh. How did your parents die?”

  “Her, cancer. Him, car accident. My sisters didn’t approve of the kayak business. They still don’t. It isn’t very profitable, but it’s enough to cover my expenses, and I like the lifestyle.”

  It didn’t escape his notice that she’d immediately changed the subject from her parents. It wasn’t something he wanted to push right now, when they were just getting to know each other.

  “Why don’t they approve?” he asked instead.

  “It’s ‘not a real job.’ ” She put air quotes around the words not a real job. “My oldest sister’s a pediatrician, and the other two are a marine biologist and an interior designer.” She shrugged. “I’m the underachiever.”

  * * *

  He took all of that in. “Do they live near you?”