Part 89 (2/2)

”He's a captain now,” Michael said for lack of anything else.

”That's nice.” She'd been raised to be polite under any circ.u.mstances.

”You'll tell him I said h.e.l.lo, won't you?”

”Sure.” They ran out of things to say so that the whoosh of the waves

filled the gaps. ”Ah, listen, do you want a c.o.ke or something?”

She looked up, dazzled to be asked. It was the first time in her life

she had had more than a five-minute conversation with a boy. Men,

certainly. Her life had been frill of men. But being asked to have a

c.o.ke with a boy only a few years her senior was a wonderful, and beady,

experience. She nearly agreed before she remembered the .rds. She

couldn't bear them watching.

”Thanks, but I'd better go. Dad was going to pick me up in a couple of

hours, but I don't think I'm up to any more surfing today. I'll have to

call him.”

”I could take you.” He made a restless movement with his shoulders. It

was stupid to feel so tongue-tied with a kid. But he couldn't remember

being more nervous since he'd asked Nancy Brimmer to the ninth-grade

Valentine's Dance. ”Give you a ride home,” he continued as Emma stared

at him. ”If you want.”

”You probably have something you want to do.”

”No. Not really.”

He wanted to meet her father again, Emma decided after one ecstatic

moment. A boy like him-why, he must have been at least

eighteen-wouldn't be interested in her. But the daughter of Brian

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