Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Mila still had her sunny smile, but he saw the shadow behind it. The older and probably wiser Mila had learned the hard way that life wasn’t fair, that talent, hard work, and luck weren’t always enough. Luck could be both good and bad, and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about where it fell.
But at least she’d found a new path for herself. He deeply admired the guts and dedication it must have taken for her to hang up her board professionally and retrain for a completely different career. Not only had she started over, but she’d also worked her way to the top of her second profession. She had gumption in spades, and he liked that. In fact, it was sexy as hell.
He looked up, and suddenly he was able to picture Mila looking down at him from the top of the hill he was climbing. She was giving him that warm, knowing smile she had, daring him, and it made him pick up the pace and pound the ground. Despite the burning sensation in his legs, he smiled back. Mila Davenport had gotten under his skin. If she did find him a house—no, scratch that. When she found him a house, he wondered what the appropriate amount of time would be before he could invite his Realtor out for a date.
It had been a long time since any woman had appealed to him the way she did. In the past year, he’d not felt even a flicker of interest about a person of the opposite sex. It was as though every part of him was struggling to come back to life. Even his libido. But since he’d met Mila, he seemed to have switched on again. Switched on to Mila Davenport.
He rounded a bend and realized that his speed had almost doubled. Just the thought of Mila spurred him on. But then doubt began to creep in, swirling its sly way around his guts. Maybe he’d gotten ahead of himself. He only had to think about going on a date with Mila when he began to write the whole story in his mind. He could envision so clearly the romantic restaurants, holding hands, weekend hikes, and then moving to a physical relationship. Their chemistry would be electric. They would become enchanted with each other until, one day, they’d get married. It wasn’t hard to picture her looking up at him with confidence as he slipped a ring onto her finger.
It was a tempting fantasy, but he’d seen how hard it was for his friends who had wives and families to leave for space, knowing the dangers they faced. He’d never wanted to leave anyone he loved at home. It was too painful for everyone involved, and he’d witnessed too many times the breakdown of a perfect couple when faced with the immense distance space put between them.
And kids he’d have to leave behind? Well, he didn’t think he could do it. He loved his mother dearly, and he’d become pretty famous with her birthday cake in space, but it wasn’t like he had a choice in having a mother. Having a wife and kids was a decision—one that should never be taken lightly.
Not that he lived like a monk, of course. He enjoyed the company of women and sex as much as the next red-blooded male, and Mila seemed like a woman who could do casual, which at this point was all he was capable of. Even as he could imagine her accepting his ring, he could also imagine the two of them burning up the sheets. Neither had acknowledged it, but the chemistry was undeniable. He was, after all, a man of science.
By the time Hersch returned to his hotel room, he knew two things—he was going to work really hard to find a house he could be at least reasonably happy in for the next couple of years. And he was definitely going to ask out his Realtor.
Some challenges were meant to be faced, and he was determined to succeed in this one.
Chapter Six
Mila checked the waterproof watch that tracked her every movement and every appointment. She had a couple of hours before her surf classes began, so she headed into the office, centrally located in town. She was used to cramming one more thing into her daily schedule. In fact, she positively thrived on wringing every possible moment out of each day, so she rushed home, showered, and put on linen trousers and a soft blue sweater. Usually, that’s where she would have stopped on a Saturday, but now she blow-dried her hair, swiped some mascara across her lashes, and applied a watermelon balm to her lips. When she went into the office, she was always in her business persona, even if it was only for a couple of hours before she slipped back into her wetsuit and took her place in the ocean once more. There was land Mila and ocean Mila, and she was pretty good at jumping between those two personas. She had the transformation down to a slick ten minutes. Five, if she was really pushed for time.