“I was just walking along the beach—from the pier, you know—and saw you here and remembered you said I could visit and here I am!”

  She wasn’t surprised to see Sandy Penn. She was gd the girl was alone. Jam or Jelly would have told her she could bring her brother or probably anyone else she wanted. Was it selfish not to want to share the Summerlins?

  “No Daryl today?” asked Kris.

  “Oh, no.” The girl didn’t exactly screw up her face in disgust but one got a definite feeling she was not eager to be in the vicinity of Daryl Sterne. “He’s a buddy of my brother, you know. That’s kind of how I ended up with him on the Fourth.” She sent a radiant smile in James Summerlin’s direction. “And how I ended up here!”

  “So that’s the direction the wind blows,” Joey whispered in her ear. Kris nodded; it wasn’t hard to see. She somehow doubted the girl had just chanced to come by.

  “It’s still early,” called Jelly, lounging at one of the tables behind Jam, doing something with her guitar. Tuning probably. Kris didn’t think she’d been paying any attention. “Hang around all day if you want.”

  “Thanks! I have to go to the airport ter. I’m a cadet with the Civil Air Patrol and I get to ride with the sunset patrol on Sundays!”

  “That,” observed Jam, “seems both like fun and an inconvenience.”

  “Oh, I love it, you know? I’m going to be a pilot!” She gave the boy a disconcertingly direct look. Kris might have been willing to call it a stare. “Is it true you’re going to be a priest? A Catholic priest? My brother pns to be a minister.”

  “It’s possible. They seem to be expecting me at the seminary.” He shook his shoulder-length locks. “I might even have to cut my hair.”

  “Ooh. Doesn’t the bible say men shouldn’t have long hair?”

  “Ah, but how long is long?”

  Sandy giggled. “Three inches!”

  “That’s a good answer to the old ‘how long is a piece of string’ question,” commented Joey. Kris didn’t know that question but let it pass. Joey simply said things she didn’t understand sometimes and sometimes she could get Ronnie to expin them.

  “Ronnie and An have arrived,” announced Jelly, looking past them. Everyone was here now but Will. He’d promised to make it after church.

  “Hey, An,” called Joey, waving. “You’ve got to teach us to surf. We got the board out.” After spending the st few days in the Summerlin’s garage, the long surfboard now y on the wn, the big blue fin pressing down into the grass. It looked kind of battered, thought Kris. The foam under that fibergss would have been whiter when it was new.

  “I didn’t notice any waves,” came An’s answering shout. He and Ronnie were retrieving their guitar cases from the back of the wagon.

  “It’s safer that way!”

  An came over to give the board a disinterested look. “Any of you ever surfed?”

  Kris didn’t think Joey had ever been on a board. Nor Ronnie. She had tried it out a few times. Boys had always been willing to give her a lesson. Usually a hands-on one. “I have,” she admitted. “Just pying around at it.”

  “I’ve skied,” volunteered Jelly, standing and slipping her guitar back into its case. “I did that a lot in Switzernd.”

  Jam shook his head. Was he truly annoyed by her bit of pretentiousness? It was frequently hard to tell when he meant something or was just indulging in theatricality. “We both ski. And water ski.”

  “Me too,” said Kris. “Water ski, I mean.” Not that she was any good at it.

  “I used to ride this board, sort of inherited it when Russ went to a shorter one. Mine is shorter now, too.” An went off without further words to join Ronnie at one of the tables.

  “So who’s going to carry this beast down to the beach?” asked Joey.

  “Not me,” Jam informed her. “It belongs to you young dies so you have to tote it around.”

  “I’ll help!” blurted Sandy. “Um, I mean, can I come too?”

  Joey jumped on that at once. “Let’s vote on it.”

  “You’re already part of the club, Sandy,” Jelly assured the girl. “And watch your step, Miss Varney, or we’ll vote you out of it!”

  “Oh, you mean I can’t be a sophisty-kate anymore?” Then, a little more seriously, “I kind of dislike the Varney name. I was thinking of using my mother’s maiden name when I write. Or maybe Italianizing my own to something like Varese.”

  “It’s been used before,” Jam had to point out. “What’s the other name? Your mom’s.”

  “Montini. I don’t like it that well either.” Kris didn’t think she had ever heard it before. Maybe Ronnie had. In fact, it was likely.

  Ronnie and An had returned to the group bunched up around the surfboard. “It’s not all that heavy,” said An. “A bit over twenty pounds.”

  “But unwieldy,” added Ronnie. “We found that out when we loaded it on top the car. I’ll take one end,” she said, and tucked the board’s nose under her arm. Sandy took the tail before anyone else thought to move, and they marched toward the Gulf. The rest followed, even Jelly.

  Kris ran ahead of them, to stand spshing the water around her ankles. “Everyone into the pool!” she called out. It was like a pool today. Or a bath, considering how warm the water felt.

  “I’m still in my church clothes,” protested Joey.

  “I can lend you something to swim in,” Jelly said. “We’re close enough in size.” The girl might have smirked a little. “Except in the chest. I need to change too.”

  Everyone else had bathing suits on or had worn them under their clothes. Even Jam. Shirts and shorts were doffed in a pile on the white sand and the group waded in. Kris y down on the board and attempted to paddle it. Slippery. Didn’t the surfers put some kind of wax on them to make the tops sticky? She tipped over on the next stroke.

  Maybe hand over hand wasn’t the best idea. It threw her off bance. But she’d seen guys paddle that way. An had retrieved the board and was up on his knees on its deck.

  “Paddling from a kneeling position isn’t so easy with the new smaller boards,” he told them, “but it works well on one this long.” Which he demonstrated, paddling in a circle around them. “The important thing is to find the ideal spot to be in bance. Not too far back or you’ll bog down. And not too far forward—that straight bottom up front on this board makes it better for nose riding but it also makes it easier to pearl.”

  “Pearl?” asked Sandy.

  “That means the front end goes under the water and you slide off ungracefully,” Kris informed her. She knew from experience.

  An came to his feet for just a second and dove off. It was all one movement and probably a lot harder to do than it looked. The board did spin away from him and Sandy went to retrieve it. She enthusiastically tried to climb on, succeeding in turning herself over.

  The girl came up ughing and then waved toward the shore. Kris turned to look. Joey, returned in shorts and a tee. They did fit her well enough.

  She and Jelly had Will in tow. “Come on in,” she called to him. “An’s finally going to be able to give you those surfing lessons.”

  He tossed his tee aside and waded in, wearing cut-off jeans. Ooh, she liked the way they clung to his muscur thighs. Kris made an effort not to stare.

  Will gave her hand a little squeeze but nothing more. He was still reticent about public dispys of affection—they both were—and Naples beach on a Sunday was about as public as one could get. “I never heard of any bck surfers,” he said.

  “Go to the Caribbean and you’ll see plenty,” came An’s reply. “Though I have run into a couple over in the Cocoa area. We’ll probably get there.” His eyes went to Ronnie. “Whoever happens to be going with me.”

  “He knows about us?” asked Joey, who had followed Will into the water. Jelly still stood on the beach, gazing south toward the pier.

  Ronnie nodded. “I sprung the idea on him as we were driving over here.”

  “So she did,” said An. “I’m okay with it, as long as I don’t have to pack too many of you into the wagon.”

  “Just Jam and me, I think.” She turned to the Summerlin boy, who was steadying the surfboard as Sandy attempted to mount it again. “Your sister wasn’t interested, was she?”

  “She’d just as soon not hang around with me. She’s also likely to be riding her new toy all over town. Oh, you two haven’t seen it yet,” he said to An.

  “He means her motor scooter,” Joey put in. She turned to Kris. “Maybe she’ll give you a ride if you’re sure you don’t want to come.”

  “I”d rather stay here with Will. If he takes up surfing, I’ll go with him.” She couldn’t help giggling at a sudden silly thought. “We’ll be on surfari to stay.”

  She was rightly ignored by the others. “Tough crowd,” she whispered to Will.

  “There is a chance of waves toward the middle of the week. Not a big one and maybe no surf at all. I’ve been looking at the weather maps.”

  “Oh, I love weather maps!” enthused Sandy, spshing with her arms as she attempted to propel the board toward them. “If I wasn’t going to be a pilot, I’d be a meteorologist!”

  “And you could let An know whenever waves were coming,” said Jam. “So, Wednesday, maybe?”

  An nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. I’ve cleared it with my folks so, well, I’m going no matter who decides to ride along.”

  Sandy had deserted them and gone to talk with Jelly. Or talk at her; the older girl mostly just smiled as she carried on. “We’re going to go walk on the pier,” Jelly called.

  Ronnie had taken possession of the board and was on her knees, attempting to emute her boyfriend. “Ow, that hurts,” she compined.

  “That’s where surf knots come from,” said An. “Another reason I’m not that big on knee paddling these days.” He lifted one leg out of the water to dispy a bump just below the knee. “This used to be bigger. I suspect it will disappear in another year.”

  Will scrutinized it. “Calcium deposit?”

  “Yep. Also know as housemaid’s knee.”

  “Surf knot sounds a lot better,” felt Jam.

  “But I bet they both hurt just the same,” said Ronnie, slipping off the board and back-stroking away.