"Nope. Picture perfect." Her arm draped over her knees, she drew circles in the sand with exaggerated concentration. "We landed and off-loaded supplies in twenty minutes. Never even shut down engines before it was time to clear the ramp for the next formation of planes."
With bitten fingernails that made him wonder and even worry, she continued to sketch in the sand until her canvas of circles expanded as wide as her silence.
Something wasn't right. Like her missing smile. The edginess in a normally indomitable woman. What was she doing here? "So you decided to sunbathe."
Darcy snorted inelegantly. "I'm not exactly the sun goddess type. I just like to swim. When Dad was a squadron commander here in Guam, my sister, brother and I all but lived in the water. Snorkeling. Scuba. We loved to explore the underwater wreckages of the planes and boats."
Where was she going with this? He might not know, but he would hang on for the ride long enough to wipe away whatever had brought the pucker of worry between her brows. "Being stationed in Charleston near the beach works well for you then."
"I fly a lot. That limits how often I can dive with the twenty-four-hour restriction before and after a flight because of the whole issue of nitrogen in the bloodstream."
Max nodded. The extreme changes in pressure caused nitrogen bubbles to gather in the bloodstream. It only took one nitrogen bubble to the heart for things to turn deadly.
There was a lesson in that, no doubt. Their very different worlds of air and water weren't meant to coexist any more than he and Darcy.
Darcy abandoned her sand doodles. "You've probably guessed I didn't just happen to be here coincidentally today."
"Why are you here?" He readied himself for anything from a woman who had an uncanny knack for leveling him.
"I want to apologize."
Well, hell. A knockout before the first round. And what a knockout she was without even trying. "Apologize for what?"
"For making things awkward." She drew her knees in tight, the wind whipping her cinnamon-brown hair around her face as she rested her chin on her folded hands. The storm brewing in the skies echoed the one in her eyes.
"There's nothing to apol—"
"Please, stop. This is embarrassing enough, but I need to say it." The red burning her cheeks had nothing to do with the sun. "I'm not good at this kind of thing. I'm even worse at talking about it."
Max prayed she'd get the hell off the subject of kissing, fast, which led too easily to thoughts of laying Darcy back on that sandbar and investigating her tan lines.
She straightened, her arms falling away from her knees as she braced her shoulders for battle. "Okay, here goes. I made a real pest out of myself back on the beach the other day and you were nice to let me off the hook with all those bicoastal excuses. You're a sexy, fascinating guy, but I realize you're not interested. And that's fine." She paused, laughing lightly as she scrunched her toes in the sand. "Well, sort of."
Her honesty was killing him faster than bullets.
Waves rolled up the sandbar, lapping around them before receding. "I'm not any good at games, Max, and I just misread the signs. Sorry. Most of all, I'm sorry I've made things uncomfortable this past week."
He felt slimier than pond scum. How did he combat such total, open honesty? Especially when she had every reason to be pissed at him. He'd sent mixed signals from the start. Here was his chance to fix that by sending her safely packing. Cut her off. Now.
He couldn't do it. He had to offer her some kind of a face-saving out while still keeping the boundaries in place. "You didn't misread anything."
Confusion creased her brow—with an unmistakable hope glinting in her eyes.
Rule number two for undercover work, keep the story as close to the truth as possible. He forced the words out. "There's someone else."
Her brow smoothed.
But the wary hope faded also. "Oh, well, that explains it then. I should have thought to ask at the start."
"Or rather there was." Where had that come from? Hell. Her honesty must be an infectious disease.
Darcy rested her cheek on her knees and watched him, waiting without pushing. This woman made talking easy.
Too easy.
"She, uh..." Max looked away from those amber-rich eyes luring him to spill secrets. He scooped up a shell, pitching it from hand to hand. "She died two and a half years ago."
"I'm so sorry."