Caramel Beach (Lessons in Pure Life Book 2) Read online

  One night can change your life.

  In Audrey O’Connor’s steamy, stormy follow-up novella to Lessons in Pure Life, sun-soaked days melt into restless nights for Diego and Lia, kept apart for weeks by long hours and miles of coastline. When an A-list wedding reunites them in Caramel Beach, the tension is higher than ever.

  Over the course of an electric twenty-four hours filled with sugar, sex, and magic, the couple faces their share of personal demons, angels, and unlikely prophets. While Diego confronts his problems with the help of a surf champ and a bottle of whiskey, Lia stumbles into a bathroom-stall seduction and possibilities she never knew existed. Amid the chaos, Lia and Diego try to reconnect. What comes after is a life-altering odyssey into uncharted territory.

  Praise for Lessons in Pure Life

  “Rich with description and with interesting characters, [Lessons in Pure Life] was a book I was happy to spend an afternoon with…. I admired Emilia for her determination and strength in deciding to go to a completely new place and to try a new way of life. She is a pretty strong gal with a good head on her shoulders. Diego was also a great character, with a dark and mysterious way that really had me guessing as to what the reasons were behind his facade. He would give brief glimpses to a kind and warm man beneath the harder exterior and I was just as drawn to him as Emilia was. I really enjoyed reading their relationship and how it grew from a tentative start to a strong and unexpected bond.” – Jilly, Read-Love-Blog

  “O’Connor has done us all a huge favour by describing Lia’s new surroundings in rich detail…. In this tropical paradise far removed from home, she’s able to breathe and learns to let go of her past mistakes and the pain of a failed relationship…. Lessons in Pure Life isn’t just a romance. It’s about exploration and how Lia reinvented herself after her own personal misfortune to discover her own beauty.” – Bel, Bibliojunkies

  “I really liked Lia. She was a strong female, she wasn’t vulnerable and whiny but she also wasn’t all up in your face ‘I'm a bad ass’ kind of strong, she was just a strong leading character in all aspects.… She was hilarious too! Lessons in Pure Life was fun, sweet, romantic and had its sexy moments too. It’s a good get-away book, the perfect escape book. Audrey’s writing is smart and funny and her characters are intriguing and interesting…. One question though? Is there more? I hope so! I need a lot more of Diego Valverde.” – Jade, Red Hot Reads

  Tryst Books

  29 Golfview Avenue

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4E 2J9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Audrey O'Connor

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of the author or publisher.

  Front cover design: Meghan Behse

  Cover image: licensed through Shutterstock.com

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-988387-09-3 (print). ISBN 978-1-988387-07-9 (epub). ISBN 978-1-988387-08-6 (mobi).

  This is the original electronic copy of Caramel Beach.

  To the reader: Come on, let’s escape!

  CHAPTER 1

  Diego

  Only once in my life I nearly drowned.

  Caught a big barrel and got cocky, loosened up and wiped out. Flipped over into a rip that pulled me a quarter mile out. Swimming back wasn’t a problem, but the water in my lungs was. Adrenaline fueled me back to shore and I coughed up salt for days afterward. Soon as the fear wore off, anger burned in its place, twice as strong. Couldn’t believe I let the water take me by surprise like that. Made me ride harder and take greater risks, like I was going to conquer the ocean. Estúpido. I was sixteen.

  My last three Illusione Ultras roll around in their tin case. One of the guys tosses me a match and I scrape it lit. We all have our moment of zen. The sound of leaf catching fire is mine.

  “Waimea, that was my biggest wipe-out. I thought it was over, man. The angels were calling me home. I could hear their trumpets and those fuckin’ little harps.”

  “You’re full of shit, Marco,” says Brandon.

  “I’m serious.”

  The two of them’ve been bullshitting awhile now. They’re good men but their company is simple. It’s not enough anymore, even if the work we do comes with a direct deposit.

  “Waimea’s no joke, but you didn’t hear no angel.”

  “How the fuck would you know?”

  “My brother-in-law’s Hawaiian, pro surfer. He ate it at Maverick’s,” Brandon explains. “I got it on film. Dislocated his shoulder.”

  “Diego, didn’t you compete there?” Marco asks me, changing the subject.

  “Nah, I competed in Nicaragua. Been to Maverick’s, though.” I tap the cigar into an empty beer bottle. “A couple years ago I met this American, Jack, at Playa Pavones. He’s fearless. Invited me out there, to the west coast.”

  “Pavones is intense. That surfing’s beyond me, man,” says Brandon.

  “He was serious, here to ride,” I continue. “The left point break is long and the bottom’s rocky, so you need experience and strong legs.”

  “Bitchin’.”

  “Wait, are you talking about Jack Kootz?” asks Marco.

  I nod.

  “Didn’t he win–?”

  “Yeah, he did. He’s getting married a few miles from here on Saturday night, I’m going with some friends from Pacifica.”

  “No shit.”

  “I spent a week on his pull-out couch in California. Drove up to Half Moon Bay.”

  “Did you ride?”

  “Not at Maverick’s. Cold water like that, you crazy? Getting caught under the surface can be the end of your life. It’s goddamn dark.”

  On the North Shore, the Titans ride forty foot walls of saltwater. Some of the best have died, gone in seconds, their bodies found later by friends and younger surfers who’d grown up idolizing them, like I had. You never really knew the risks until it was too late.

  Crackling fills our silence. The two men’s faces are radiant with the fire and the blood in their cheeks. Since I lost my mother I’ve been less reckless. Everyone has an expiry date. This is the ghost that haunted me for the last year, not a person but grief. But now that the iron weight of it’s gotten lighter, I’m gaining momentum again. I’m twenty-five, six-foot-three, two-twenty, and getting restless. Guys like me don’t do well sitting still.

  “That girl coming?” Marco asks. “The ‘cool’ one?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  He shrugs.

  Hoped to have answers by the time I see Lia in the flesh, but it doesn’t look good. If anything, I want to leave home more than ever, but … this girl… Diamond girl. Can’t get her out of my head.

  “Look, you’ve made him frown.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for Diego. He’s mentally preparing to get laid.”

  “Don’t either of you have someplace to be?” I poke the coals with a stick.

  “No, not really,” Marco says, and they laugh.

  Nobody asks when I get up and leave. They’re used to it. Me, I need room to move.

  I walk till the water’s rolling up my ankles. Good swell tomorrow for sure. Maybe I’ll sleep on the beach tonight. I could save half this Ultra for tomorrow, last day of the job. But no, kill it now. Last one. I want to taste good for her.

  Can’t be more than a few months since I got hook
ed on the foreigner. She’s something, this wild card girl.

  The Valverdes have always supported the community with what we build. We make places for people to sleep, learn, and pray. It’s in our blood. Carving out space is what we’ve always done. An English teacher isn’t something we could build ourselves, so we asked for one, the first of many if we were really going to get kids to college. Almost all our neighbors grew up with less than half of what we had. Even my father acknowledged our teachers needed better training, and that was saying a lot. Responsibility came knocking.

  Trusting an outsider to influence the ones we protect made me uncomfortable. That’s an understatement. A foreign teacher wouldn’t know us, couldn’t represent us. Sounds like my father. I reacted just like he would, closed off, rude. Me, I just wanted to deliver the work my sister talked me into doing and get on with life. Didn’t want to work with either my father or Genesis. Too goddamn depressing. But I couldn’t say no when she asked me to help her make the schoolhouse safer. Genesis makes good things happen. I couldn’t say no.

  “Hasta mañana!” someone calls out, and I turn back to see a couple dark figures waving, turning in.

  I raise my hand. “Mañana.”

  So who does Genesis choose to reinforce our greatest weakness? Fucking Emilia Noble. I knew plenty about foreign girls, I thought. Quick to laugh and ask questions, they played innocent until they got what they wanted from you. The way Lia looked, it was kind of wild. She could have been peeled off of a softcore centerfold, standing there on the beach all shiny thighs and tits propped up in one of those strapless bikinis. Neck and shoulders naked except for a gold chain wrapped twice around her throat. What felt strange was the jealousy that came out of nowhere, surging, just seeing the lazy way her jewelry laid itself out on her skin. It was intimate. Wasn’t hard to imagine her without the strips of cloth covering her up. She took hold of me right away and I didn’t like it at all.

  I’ve learned to overlook a pretty face, since it never seemed to make me feel any less empty. I didn’t want anyone new. I didn’t really care what the new teacher looked like, so long as she knew what she was doing. You can get so used to feeling numb, you’re struck stupid when someone of substance wanders into your life. Something about this one. She’s different. Respectable.

  The students tipped me off. They were interested in her. When she was with them their eyes followed her around the room. I saw the whole thing myself. I mean, I was just patching the ceiling. Up on the ladder I had a bird’s eye view of the classroom. Just for a second, I paid attention, to see if she was bullshit. What I saw was right down her top, a glimpse of that flat stomach between her tetas. Didn’t mean to. Didn’t know the image would burn into my brain.

  I noticed other stuff, too. I never saw the kids motivated like when she was with them, even the young ticos, little pricks. They all watched her with a mix of curiosity and admiration. She didn’t know it, but she was a role model from the moment she walked into the classroom. Lia gave them new eyes and it started to make them strong.

  Nicaraguan spice fills my head until I blow it back out in smoke rings.

  People come and go on their noble quests to Costa Rica, imagining they’ve saved the environment in a week or two. But Lia stayed on to do her part. She makes other people happy, working extra hours when she can. Most people don’t get it. This girl does.

  When you’re a foreigner, there’s always someone waiting back home for you, worrying or wondering. Family is an anchor, heavy and strong. The pull homeward is a powerful current. After living in the US for college, I know what it’s like. You don’t take root in either place. You live in the moment because it takes all of your energy to balance two lives, your past and your present. She can’t promise me anything, so I can’t promise her anything.

  I dip the cigar stub in the shallow water and bring it back up the beach to throw it away. Time for bed. The moon’s hidden and the dark makes me tired. Sleep’s always been my friend. Only difference is lately, I actually kind of want someone next to me when I wake up.

  Lia

  Diego: when do u arrive?

  Lia: We’re still an hour away.

  @d1eg0: i should go get myself cleaned up

  @LiaTravels: Dirty?

  @d1eg0: not for long. about to shower

  @LiaTravels: See you soon…

  @d1eg0: luego

  Easy now. He’s probably pulling his shirt over his head, if he even had one on. And now he’ll be peeling his boxer-briefs off. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean.

  Doesn’t take much to paint the scene. By now he’ll be turning on the shower, stepping in, and closing his eyes as jets of water drill into his tight, sore muscles. Maybe he’ll sigh out loud as the heat and the pressure melt the whole day right down the drain. Hard labor for hours, he won’t be free till it’s good and washed off. What a stirring–

  “She’s on her phone again.”

  “Huh?”

  I snap my head up. Jose’s steering us into a restaurant parking lot with one hand on the wheel, the other arm slung over Kat’s shoulders. There’s nothing like a little distance to fuel the fire.

  We order tamales and fries that melt on your tongue, drizzled with spicy ketchup. Since I started working overtime more often, I’m always hungry.

  Kat and I lean against the yellow convertible in short-shorts and crop tops, the sun setting in our eyes. BØRNS is on the radio. The car’s hot against my thighs, the air cool from the afternoon rain.

  “You two eat like wolves.”

  “We are wolves.” I bare my teeth to Jose. His glass bottle of orange Fanta glows neon with sunset light.

  I balance my plate on the hood of the car and twist the top off my frosty soda, sipping it long and cool.

  “Mierda, that’s good.”

  Jose laughs quietly, unwrapping his tamale. “You sound like him.”

  A street sign behind my cousin’s boyfriend tells us we’re just seven miles from Playa Caramelo. Caramel Beach.

  “I should probably choose something to wear to the wedding if I’m supposed to be his date,” I mutter between bites.

  Kat stops, fork in the air.

  “Obviously the coral dress.”

  “To a wedding though? Appropriate?”

  She shakes her head, swallowing. “Jack and Mitsuko aren’t appropriate at all. Especially Mitsuko. Besides, that dress is amazing. Diego’s gonna shit his pants.”

  “Gross.”

  “Gross,” echoes Jose.

  “Trust me, it’s not going to be like any wedding you’ve been to before,” she insists, shaking a packet of salt.

  “How did you guys meet them?”

  “A few years ago Diego met Jack, then he introduced us at the World Surfing Games in Nicaragua,” Jose explains. “That’s how we met Laird Hamilton. Anyway, he’s been down with Mitsuko to visit in Pacifica a few times since then. These are good tamales, no?”

  Kat passes him what’s left of her meal and he adds it to his plate.

  “You guys really have it figured out, don’t you?”

  She smiles, tracing Jose’s mermaid tattoo, the tail visible behind his Pacifica Surf Camp tank. “I found a good one,” says Kat.

  “Don’t you feel like things have figured out for you, though?” Jose asks, craning his neck to look at me, swiping a napkin beneath his bottom lip.

  “With work?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah. I know you’ve done lots for Genesis at the new school. But I meant you and my best friend.”

  “Diego?”

  “No, the tamale man.”

  I throw the cap from my soda at him.

  “I guess it feels like it’s too soon to tell.”

  Kat watches me thoughtfully. “I think time apart’s made your brain dismantle it all, rearrange it.”

  The girl knows me well. For three weeks I’ve been listening to “Radar Love” on repeat, working my ass off administrating what’s to be the best school in the area, and trying to
ignore the most intense hook-up hangover I’ve had in my life.

  Diego and I have only had a single, proper date despite all the time we spent getting to know each other. Life took over and sent us in different directions. Twenty-something days can feel like months when you know what you’re missing. It eats me alive.

  But sometimes since we’ve been apart, I have a hard time even remembering what he looks like. I can put together the main features, but it’s like he took the details with him, and a lot of other things I felt sure about not so long ago. What does that mean? Does it mean anything? Excessive, inevitable Doubt rolls around again and again.

  And what if the chemistry isn’t the same as it was between us before? That would hurt. I mean, I could handle the ego burn, but to quit him physically, sexually, after so few but magnificent experiences…let’s just say the weaning would look like something out of Trainspotting.

  “Don’t overthink it, Lia.”

  “Kay,” I lie.

  “We’re very close now,” warns Jose, winking. “Ten minutes at most. Can you handle it?”

  That’s an excellent question. I’m electric with all the energy building up in my muscles, blood, and bone. Like gunpowder waiting to blow.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lia

  “Salut.”

  We clink the curving lips of our shot glasses and eye each other warily before throwing tequila down our throats. Grimacing with after-shot aftershock, I grope for a slice of lemon. Jose thrusts a tumbler in my hand and I throw it back.

  “Oh, god!” It tastes like grenadine mixed with something cheap and strong. I’m going from zero to sixty.

  “What is this?” Kat shouts over the noise to Jose.

  “The two-dollar special,” Jose shouts back, his laughter laced with apology.

  “Tastes like it.” She winces into her cup like it can hear what she’s saying.