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a
man after a round or two in bed.
    Maybe she was made wrong, or missing
something. Or maybe she was mentally off, as she’d been accused of
more than once. It wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy men at all. At
times she did, for short times. Very short times. Too often she
ended up trying very hard not to tell them to just finish already
and get off.
    She didn’t have to tell the water that. The
water was hers to manipulate as she pleased, when she pleased, for
as long or as short a workout as she pleased. And it left her clean
and refreshed, not sweaty and tired. It was hers only.
Privately.
    As ballet had been, before she joined the
dance school and had to abide by their routine, their schedule.
Their rules.
    If Hayes thought he would control her as
much, he would learn fast how wrong he was. Some of the girls got
to choose their own music. They had to work up to that privilege,
he said.
    In three days, when Caroline went to Exotica
and turned into Lina – pronounced Leena – from New York, she would
take her music with her. He would have to deal with it.
     
    Dry enough to replace the sarong, Caroline
shivered in the night air and shook her towel out. She headed
toward where she saw Mr. Big Sword the night before. It was a long
shot he’d be there again, she expected, and after it had frightened
her, she didn’t know why she made herself look again, but she had
to look again. Or try.
    More disappointed – far more disappointed –
than she expected upon not finding him there, she sighed and walked
back the other direction. The couples ahead made her gag and she
wanted to be no closer to them.
    She supposed she should go on back to her
room. Tomorrow was moving day, not that she had much to move, but
then she would have to shop for basics. Toilet Paper. Basic food. A
pan or two. A spatula. She had nothing but her clothes and her
music, a few favorite books, most still stuffed tight in the trunk
of her old gray boat disguised as a Montego, and her starfish
collection. The car was a hand me down handed down several times.
She picked it up in New York just before she left. New York was
fine on foot or with public transportation and she preferred that,
but on Folly Beach, outside Charleston, personal transportation was
a must. If she worked days, she could catch a bus into the city,
she supposed. Not with her night schedule. They stopped running
before she would be off work.
    And it made for good storage room while she
needed it.
    A sparkle in the water caught her eyes and
she paused, then wandered closer, slowly. He was there. Out farther
in the water and harder to see. But he was there. Caroline got as
close as she could and spread her towel on the sand. Lowering,
again slowly, so as not to catch his eye the way he’d caught hers,
she crossed her left leg in front of her, the right leg out
straight, and gazed out at his motion, his elegance, his skill. His
dance.
    He was a Man of La Mancha dancer except with
more focus on the sword movements than on the dance techniques.
Caroline frowned. Maybe that wasn’t true. The dance technique for
him was the sword movement. The sword was an extension of him. His
skill was every bit as trained as her own, his body every bit as
controlled and precise. He would be a good dance partner.
    And if his big sword, the shiny hard long
extension of his body, was any clue as to the rest of him, he might
be good at other things, also. She was tempted to swim over to his
boat and find out.
    Then again, he could be as much putty and
bluster as nearly every other man she’d met. Better to admire him
from a distance and make believe he would be worth sleeping beside,
worth her energy and patience and skill.
    Not that she was terribly skilled in that
way. She had other skills she cared more about and skill in that
department wasn’t terribly necessary that she’d found. As long as
she complimented her mate, she came off as skilled enough. They
cared more about their own skill, real or not, than