Free Spirit

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2017 Andi Bremner

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-151-9

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  FREE SPIRIT

  Andi Bremner

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  Juliette

  Lugging her last bag out to her car, Juliette hoisted it into the trunk before slamming it closed and returning to the house. She was sure she hadn’t left anything behind. After all, she was the queen of moving.

  The living room was a mess of discarded clothes, empty beer bottles, and pizza boxes. The kitchen wasn’t much better, the sink piled high with unwashed dishes and empty milk cartons littering the counter tops. Opening the cupboards, Juliette scanned over the glasses and crockery, but there was nothing there that belonged to her. It all belonged to Harry and was there when she moved in six months ago and would no doubt probably be there six years from now when she was long gone.

  Opening the bathroom cabinet, she rifled through the toiletries and medicines. Deodorant, spare razors, aftershave, paracetamol, shampoo, soaps. It was all Harry’s as well. Her stuff was already packed and stowed in the trunk of her car.

  Pushing the bedroom door opened she was careful not to open it too wide. The door creaked, and she didn’t want to wake Harry, who slumbered obliviously in the bed where she’d left him. Juliette hated goodbyes, didn’t see the point of them since they only ever made people feel sad and reminded them of how finite everything in life was. Better to just leave, she told herself, no sad, drawn out goodbyes, leave while the memories are still good and ones to be cherished.

  Harry lay on his stomach, face turned towards her, eyes shut, dark lashes resting peacefully on his cheeks. Naked, the sheets swirled around his hips giving her an unfettered view of his smooth, broad torso, the well-defined arms and narrow hips. Light brown hair curled around his face, and for a moment she almost regretted her decision to leave.

  Almost, but not quite. She’d been in Lexington, Kentucky for nearly a year, six months of which she’d spent happily living with Harry. But it was now time to move on, and she had a hankering to see the ocean, live in one of those pastel colored houses nestled in the dunes with the sound of the waves rolling in on the beach beyond the front door that she’d seen on television when she was a little girl. It was where she’d been heading when she’d met up with Harry in the first place and been distracted by his dark brown eyes and cute smile.

  Harry made a noise in the back of his throat and rolled over, hiding his face in the pillows, and Juliette took a moment to quietly close the door and make her way outside. It was predawn, the sky a dusty navy color and still dotted with the brightest stars as she started the small ancient car the one that had seen her through many moves, and reversed out of the driveway.

  I’m not running, she told herself as she traversed the familiar streets of Lexington. I’ve left a note. I’m simply moving on before things got too heavy.

  By heavy she meant too much of a commitment. She’d never made a commitment really to anyone or anything, but she could feel herself getting close with Harry and it scared the life out of her. She didn’t want to spend her life with one guy, living in the same city he’d grown up in Kentucky surrounded by the same people day in day out. She wanted to see the ocean, she wanted to live on the beach, she wanted to travel and visit all the corners of the world, and she wanted to fall in love over and over again. She wanted a life of adventure.

  That was what life was all about, she told herself as she took Highway 64 heading east, adventure.

  And she needed a new one.

  ****

  As soon as Juliette laid eyes on Myrtle Beach, after driving for nearly ten hours, she knew she’d found her new home. Parking up near a pier complete with massive sky wheel, she stared out over the enormous ocean. It was blue. She laughed out loud. Of course, it was blue. What did she expect? Pink? But it was bluer than she’d imagined, lighter, blending in with the sky, which glowed a pale aquamarine in the setting sun, almost as if the water were part of the sky, as if the two mixed together on the horizon. The shoreline was capped with crests of silver as waves rolled in over the white sand. Juliette smiled to herself, breathing in deeply and filling her lungs with the salty, briny sea air.

  She could have stayed there all night, staring out over the darkening sky, inhaling the salty air and reminding herself how lucky she was to be there, to be in Myrtle Beach and to be alive, but she had to find a place to stay. It was getting dark, and she had an irrational fear of the dark. Not irrational, she reminded herself, totally justifiable. But still… She swallowed down any thoughts threatening to surface and glanced around. She really needed to find a place to stay.

  The beach stretched for miles with tall buildings lining the shore line and the boardwalk delineating a border between land and sea. Some—maybe most—were hotels, but Juliette couldn’t afford a hotel. She had money from her job at the dine in Lexington but until she found a job she had to make it last as best she could, and unfortunately that didn’t include fancy hotels with ocean views. A motel maybe, but not a hotel.

  Job. Place to live. Food. She made a mental list of all the practicalities she needed to take care of, but right now, she could spare a few minutes to dip her toes in the Atlantic Ocean.

  Making her way down to the shore, enjoying the way her toes slid through the silky sand she pulled her skirt up, winding it around her fingers so it wouldn’t get wet. The air was brisk and chill, and there were scarce people about, just a few souls enjoying the cusp between night and day. Juliette made her way down to the water’s edge, standing first on the wet sand before edging closer and letting the rolling waves break over her feet and ankles.

  It was cold, but at the same it was refreshing and delicious and—

  Her head snapped, her attention caught by something bobbing in the water a little way out. Narrowing her eyes, she squinted to make sense of what it was. Was that someone waving? Was someone swimming out there in the cold water?

  Moving further into the water Juliette let go of her skirts, which fell to her ankles and floated in the water around her. She was completely ensnared by the person flailing about in the waves. Oh God. She felt the blood rush from her face as realization hit her. Someone’s drowning.

  Panicked, she looked around for help, but found this stretch of beach pretty much deserted. There were people, in the distance, but they were too far away and would never get here in time. How long did it take someone to drown? Minutes? Minutes she didn’t have. Standing on tiptoes she strained to get another glimpse of the person waving and struggling in the waves, her heart beating frantically against her rib cage. They were drowning. Waves crashed over their head, and then, to her horror, they disappeared from sight, the ocean swallowing them completely.

  She had no other choice.

  Without thinking she ran into the waves, hardly noticing the cold water slicing over her and tugging at her skirt. Keeping her eyes fixed on the drowning person who’d resurfaced again—God, is that a child?—she kept running until it became too hard. It was only when the first wave washed over her head that Juliette had the sudden realization that this wasn’t perhaps her best idea.

&nb
sp; She didn’t know how to swim. Growing up she had moved around a lot, first with her mother and then later with various foster families. Learning to swim had never been high on her list of priorities, and no one had thought to enroll her in lessons. Even as a teenager she’d been too busy just surviving to worry about hanging out at beaches, swimming pools or lakes like the other kids at school. Right now though, she wished she’d made it a priority.

  The person wasn’t waving now, but she could still make out their head in the distance, bobbing up and down with the waves. She just had to reach them, somehow, and pull them to shore. But she had to catch her own breath first.

  Another wave rolled her, and she heard the rumble of the tide, felt as it pushed and pulled at her, tumbling her as if she were the tiniest item in a massive washing machine. Suddenly her head broke free, and she sucked in air only to see another wave heading towards her. She barely had time to draw a proper breath before it careened over her, forcing her under water once more.

  Her chest tightened, and she flailed her arms around uselessly trying to grab at something, anything, that would see her break free of the relentless tumble she was caught in. But there was nothing there and she was gasping at thin air, her fingers slicing through the water.

  This is it, she thought futilely. She was going to drown her first day on the beach. It seemed somehow poetic and ironic at the same time.

  Suddenly something caught her, something hard wrapping around her chest, under her armpits, and finally her head was free and she could inhale a deep breath and fill her lungs to the brim. It was the best sensation in the world, to suddenly breathe when she’d felt her lungs start to burn with desperation. Like being lost in the desert and finally finding water, or feeling yourself falling then finally finding your feet. But she didn’t have time to think too much because she was suddenly moving. The thing was dragging her through the water, and for a moment she thought she’d been gripped by a shark and was being pulled out to sea. The idea of being shark meat was worse than drowning she decided, so she struggled, fighting against her predator with all her strength.

  But they ignored her, dragging her, she realized with sudden clarity, towards the shore, steadfastly ignoring her futile struggles. She glanced down at the arm around her. It was dark, muscled, and definitely male.

  Spitting water out she sucked in more air, her lungs burning as they finally got what they’d been struggling for. But there was more at stake here than just her. “There’s someone there! Drowning!” she spluttered at the man who had his arm around her, her would-be rescuer.

  “It’s you!”

  “No!” she struggled. “There!” She pointed to where she’d seen the person floundering in the waves but they could no longer be seen. Oh no, she realized, they must have gone under. As grateful as she was to the man for saving her, she couldn’t let the other person drown. That was why she was out here in the first place.

  Suddenly her feet touched the hard sand and she tried to stand, but her savior didn’t let her, swooping her up into his arms and carrying her sodden, waterlogged body from the sea. Juliette continued to struggle, insisting he leave her and save the other person in between catching her breath and spitting up salt water.

  “There’s no one else,” he stated as he collapsed, with her in his arms still, onto the wet sand, “just you.”

  Panting, Juliette sat up, scanning the water, as her teeth began to chatter. “There!” she yelled as her eyes lit on the dark head of the struggling swimmer.

  The man followed where she indicated and then slowly turned to look back at her, his dark brown eyes wide with annoyance. And something else as well. “That,” he said slowly, “is Merve.”

  “Merve?”

  He wiped a hand over his face and stared at her. “The local sea lion.”

  As if to confirm his words, Merve chose that moment to rise from the water proving to Juliette that he was indeed a sea lion and not a drowning swimmer. Her mouth fell open, and she suddenly felt very silly. She’d nearly drowned, she’d waded into the ocean on a dark night with no swimming ability whatsoever to rescue … a sea lion?

  She felt so silly, and the situation was so ridiculous, that giggles started erupting from her.

  The guy frowned. “You think this is funny? You nearly drowned!”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “Can you even swim?”

  Juliette shook her head.

  “You went in to the water, without being able to swim to save a sea lion?”

  “Well,” she said in between giggles, “I didn’t know it was a sea lion. I thought there was someone out there drowning.”

  “There was someone out there drowning,” he said angrily, “you!”

  Juliette eyed him, wondering at his rising anger. She realized for the first time that he was fully dressed in dark jeans and a white t-shirt that were soaking wet, the t-shirt hanging on what could only be described as a sensationally ripped body. Firm muscles pressed against the thin fabric of his shirt, and she could make out the ripples of his abdomen which tapered down to a narrow waist. He was cold, she realized, her eyes lingering briefly on hardened nipples beneath his shirt, before she lifted them to his face.

  Dark eyes glowed angrily into hers, but she ignored them as she assessed the rest of him. Dark hair cut close around his face, longer on top and slightly wavy, dark stubble lining an otherwise hard jawline. His mouth was full and his nose straight, flanked by sharply chiseled cheekbones. Tanned skin completed the devastatingly sexy face that continued to glower at her. A prickly sensation traced up Juliette’s spine that had nothing to do with the clothes clinging to her or the chill night air whipping against her skin.

  Sitting up, she scraped her wet hair back from her face. “Thank you,” she said quietly “for rescuing me.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone charging into the water in the first place,” he grunted. “I thought you were trying to drown yourself on purpose.”

  Juliette’s eyes went wide. “On purpose! God no, why would anyone want to do that?”

  The guy stared at her hard a few moments. “There are plenty of reasons why someone would want to do that. It was only when you floundered that I realized you were in genuine trouble.”

  Juliette stared at him, his words sinking into her consciousness. He’d seen her go in and only came to her rescue when he realized she wanted to live. If she hadn’t struggled so much he would have let her drown herself? A chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran up her spine, and she tore her eyes away from his. There was a darkness in his eyes she didn’t like, a darkness she’d spent a long time running from.

  “Well,” she said after a long moment, “thank you again.”

  Climbing to his feet, the guy helped her up, his eyes raking over her body. Her t-shirt clung to her, and her light cotton skirt suddenly felt as if it weighed a ton. To top it all off she was freezing.

  “What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.

  “Juliette.”

  “You’re new in town, Juliette.”

  He didn’t say it like it was a question, but she took it that way anyhow. “Uh huh. I just arrived today.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  He smirked and shook his head like she’d annoyed him with her answer. Juliette watched him, wondering what it was with him. Why does he seem so pissed off? Angrier than seemed justified given the circumstances.

  “Well, there’s a motel down the road a bit,” he said after a moment, “or there’s a guest house just outside of town on the main—”

  “A guest house would be great,” she interrupted, liking the sound of that. She had nothing against motels, had spent many a night in one, but a guest house, maybe a cute little pastel colored beach house like she’d dreamed of…

  The guy nodded before he suddenly held out his hand. “Name’s Noah Daniels. Welcome to Myrtle Beach.”

  Chapter Two

  Noah

  N
oah rang his mom as soon as he was back in the car. As he waited for her to pick he drew off his t shirt and tossed it in the backseat. It landed with a sodden thud.

  “Hey, honey,” she answered. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, sliding his shoes off and wringing out his socks as he balanced the phone between ear and shoulder blade, “just wanted to let you know you’ve got a customer headed your way.”

  “So late?” his mom said, and he could imagine her frowning and glancing around her already immaculate kitchen.

  “Yeah, she only just arrived in town and needed a place to stay so I recommended yours.” He paused. “Hope that’s okay.” He didn’t know what had made him suddenly suggest his mom’s house, but he’d said it before he’d realized the words were out of his mouth. There were plenty of other guest houses in town, plenty of other places for her to stay that wouldn’t have him bumping into her daily. But there was something about her. About the way she giggled when she realized that she’d risked her life to rescue a sea lion instead of being angry or annoyed like any other girl would’ve been. There was also the way her gaze had washed over him, the way her eyes widened and her mouth had curled as if she liked what she saw.

  “Of course it is!” his mom chorused now, drawing him out of his musings. “What’s her name?”

  “Juliette.”

  Immediately his head swam with images of her glittering green eyes that sparked with so much fucking joy it was ridiculous. Especially considering she’d almost drowned. “She had a bit of an accident at the beach.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “A near drowning accident,” Noah explained, ignoring his mom’s sharp intake of breath as he plowed on, “but she’s all right. Nice girl. Bit crazy though.”