Perfect for the Beach (39 page)

“El?” He took a hesitant step forward. “Do you recognize me?”

Her soft mouth thinned. “Of course I recognize you. You haven’t changed at all. I was just, ah, surprised that you didn’t recognize me.”

“I didn’t remember you being so pretty.” The words came out before he could vet them and decide if they were stupid or rude.

Based on her reaction, he concluded that they were. She grabbed a wad of paper towels from the roll on the counter, wiped up the eggs and dropped the mess into the garbage pail. She dampened another paper towel. Her hair dangled down like a veil. She was hiding.

“What’s wrong, El?” he asked cautiously. “What did I do?”

She knelt down, sponging off the floor tiles. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“But you won’t look at me,” he said.

She flung the soggy towel into the garbage. “I’m called Ellen these days. And what do you expect? You disappear for seventeen years, no letter, no phone call, not so much as a postcard to let me know you weren’t dead, and expect me to run into your arms squealing for joy?”

So she hadn’t forgotten him. His mood shot up, in spite of her anger. “I’m, uh, sorry I didn’t write,” he offered.

She turned her back on him. “I’m sorry you didn’t, too.” She made a show of drying some teacups.

“My life was really crazy for a while. I was scrambling just to survive. Then I joined the Marines, and they sent me all over the map for a few years while I figured out what I wanted to do with myself—”

“Which was?” Her voice was sharp and challenging.

“Photojournalist,” he told her. “Freelance, at the moment. I travel all the time, mostly war zones. By the time I got things in my life more or less straightened out, I was afraid …” His voice trailed off.

“Yes?” Her head swiveled around. “You were afraid of what?”

“That you might have forgotten me,” he said.