Karma by the Sea Read Free Page B

“We can call the paramedics.”
    Considering she’d just been in his situation, she shook her head without being offended. “No.” She leaned down and rinsed her face with the water. His touch on the small of her back kept her steady. Salt gritted every crevice, making her eyes sting. “I don’t do drugs.” She straightened up, ready to walk again.
    “Good to know.” His touch on her elbow gentled as they neared the sand. Calm water lapped around her ankles and she remembered the feel of being twisted and caught.
    “I’m an…” she stopped, not wanting to confess her identity after acting like a lunatic. “I haven’t cried since I was seventeen.” Now why had she shared that personal gem?
    He cocked his head, blocking the sun behind him and she got a look at his captivating hazel eyes. Greenish-gold, with dark lashes, they seemed to see into her soul and she lost her footing. He was cute, in a boy-next-door kind of way. Definitely at odds with the tattoos all over his forearms and beneath his once white, once dry and once clean t-shirt. “Maybe you shouldn’t go so long between crying jags.”
    She sniffed at his sarcasm-heavy advice. “I jog.” A long time ago, I used to swim .
    He looked down at her shredded skirt and torn stockings. “I can tell. Nice legs.”
    K flushed. “For endorphins.” She needed out of this water, now. Namaka had the last bitter laugh, spitting her out half-naked into this stranger’s arms.
    “I’m assuming you’re the one that found Rita Hartley?” His tone lost the teasing lilt.
    “Yes.” She pressed her hands to her stomach. “How did you know that?” She didn’t offer any information. Silence made people uncomfortable and they usually talked to fill it in.
    He knew the trick, too and answered her question with another question.
    “Name?”
    She pulled away from him, realizing she’d gravitated toward his body heat. Her teeth chattered and she bit the inside of her cheek. The sun was blazing down, so it had to be shock and not cold weather that felt like bone-freeze. “You sound like a cop.”
    “I am. Joe Porter. Now the only mystery is who you are.”
    K frowned and dug her heels in the sand, anchoring herself to sanity. “This is like a bad dream.”
     
    *****
     
    Joe studied the dripping wet female before him. In the prime of her life, her slicked-back hair showed the classic beauty of her face.  High cheekbones, large brown eyes and a killer body she obviously worked at. Nature just didn’t hand out those toned arms or sleek calves. But he was a man trained to do a job no matter how attractive the distraction. “Nope. You’re awake and unfortunately so am I. Name?”
    “Kar, K. K Aneko.”
    “How do you know Rita Hartley?”
    She lifted her chin and held his gaze. He was impressed at how she pulled it together even as she shivered in the sun. He fought the urge to put his arm back around her and hold her until she stopped quivering.  He hadn’t wanted to let go in the first place.
    “She’s my client. I am an attorney.”
    A few strands of dyed white hair fell forward as the wind dried it, her brows a couple shades darker. Her eyes were oval, her lashes black. She gazed at him with clarity. Sober. What had caused her shouting at the sky? And where had those waves come from? The water had been smooth all day, and was hardly moving now.
    “What kind?” he asked.
    “Divorce.”
    “Humph.” Had to have a hard heart for that job. One of the officers here had been married and divorced three times, and he said that divorce lawyers were like barracudas that weren’t happy until the opposition was nothing but powdered bones.
    “What does that mean?” Her brown eyes narrowed, the eyeliner around them obviously not waterproof.  She leaned back, her arms crossed under her breasts. The black silk top clung like a second skin, the skirt a torn disaster.
    Had he imagined an electric charge in the water when he’d grabbed her arm? There had been