Waves of Desire by Lori Ann Mitchell Page A

looking at him, as sleep began to overtake them both, heavy and damp. And then, suddenly, the doorbell began ringing downstairs. They both leapt, like teenagers caught in the act.
    “The hell?” Derek murmured, turning to face her but making no move to leave. “No one ever uses the doorbell.”
    “Probably a salesperson,” she sighed, turning over and dragging the sheets atop her sweaty skin as it began to cool at last. “They’ll go away soon enough.”
    But they didn’t. If anything, they amped up the volume, ringing the bell between knocking on the door, then knocking on the door between ringing the bell. “Derek,” she murmured, dragging a damp pillow over her head. “Make it go away.”
    “I’m naked!” he protested as she peeked out at him.
    “Me too and, technically, it’s your house!”
    He chuckled, smacking her bare butt and rising to slip back into his baggies and tank top from the beach. She heard him pad across the bedroom floor, out into the hallway and down the stairs, footsteps heavy with weariness. And then, a muffled grunt of… What? Surprise? Shock? Something changed in the air, from silliness or inconvenience to genuine surprise – and not the good kind.
    She was already sitting up, reaching for her clothes, when she heard a strange hitch to his voice as he said, “Dana?”

Chapter 2:
    Derek
     
     
    “Dana?”
    Derek stood, transfixed by the ghost from his very distant past. “Derek?” she said, looking waifish, almost ghostly in a cheap slip dress and too-high heels. Her auburn hair lay limp and lifeless, surrounding her pale, wan face. She wore too much makeup, as if she might be going for a job interview.
    A little boy clung to her thigh, about waist high, with red hair and a soft spray of freckles across his cute pug nose. “How… how have you been?” he said, awkwardly inching the door shut behind him and gently guiding them toward the cluster of Adirondack chairs grouped on the front porch. They had been Sage’s idea; weathered and worn, each with a cute little throw pillow designed with scenes of sea and sand. Between them was a small roughhewn table featuring a small wire birdhouse with a candle inside. Beside it was a small blue bottle they’d found on the beach. Sage had cleaned it up and polished it off and now whenever they came back from the ocean across the street, they made sure to pick a wild dandelion to slip inside.
    “Sit, sit,” he told them, watching as Dana nodded to the boy, who sat obediently, legs hanging off, in the big chair on one side of the table as she sank into the other one.
    “You look great,” she said, and he blushed, trying to picture her as the tight little cheerleader he’d slept with that one night under the bleachers so very long ago. It had been just before he got his first acceptance letter from his publisher, Surfside Press, and he’d left school shortly after to pursue his writing goals. They hadn’t seen each other since.
    Back then she’d been comely and ripe, a luscious redhead with soft, pale breasts and a shaved mound that had shown glossy and wet beneath the full harvest moon. Now she seemed a shell of herself, as if she’d aged two years for each year they’d been apart.
    “You too,” he gushed. “What’s it been, four years?”
    Dana peered over at the kid, sitting quietly, eyes hooded and dull. “Almost five,” she said, looking back at Derek.
    He felt bad that she hadn’t introduced the boy and so he knelt in front of him, tapping the kid’s knee gently so as not to alarm him. He’d always liked kids and enjoyed putting on his regular surf camps to help them grow and learn. “Hey buddy,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Derek. What’s your name?”
    “Tell him, Archie,” Dana said, a new tone to her voice. It was sharp, almost scolding, and Derek and the boy – Archie – both winced at the same time. “Tell your father your name!”
    Derek stood, abruptly, momentarily ignoring the boy. His eyes