Mirrored (Follow Your Bliss series Book 4) by Deirdre Riordan Hall Read Free Book Online

head to hers and gave him a long kiss.
    As they walked down the beach, Alex slung his arm around her
shoulders, pulling her close as if they belonged there together, as if the
beach walk was routine, like they’d done it a hundred times before. Sand,
stones, and shells formed an endless blanket in every direction. They were just
in time to watch the setting sun melt into the horizon, liquid light fading to
pewter.
    Brighton thumbed the guitar pick with the coordinates for
that exact place on the planet. She smiled, stretching onto her toes and
pecking his lips. It was dark when they sunk into the still-warm sand, a kiss
for every star in the sky. Alex found his way under her shirt and then lifted
her skirt.
    Their breath moved in and out with the waves, one deep,
sea-breath after another cresting and receding. She unzipped his pants, groping
in the darkness. They rocked there, in the cover of night, lips moving from
chin, to cheek, to ear. Alex explored the terrain of her breasts until they
reached that blissful place that made the light pouring from the shops, the
blinking of the ships out at sea, and the blur of bulbs from the pier look like
a kaleidoscope.
    “I think I like Brighton,” she said when they brushed the
sand from their clothes and snuck back to the sidewalk.
    “Dinner? There’s a pub here that a certain El Holmes made
famous. Are you up for it?”
    Brighton nodded her head as if renewed, as if the salt-air
blowing in from the ocean revitalized her, and the heat they’d exchanged
energized her.
    Seated at a table in the window of The Gull and the Fox Pub,
the waitress brought menus. The covers were old vinyl record sleeves.
    “I got the Cars,” Brighton said.
    Alex flashed his menu. “The Clash. And over there, mounted
prominently on the wall are all of Bang Bang’s albums.”
    “I see they didn’t make the dinner menu cut,” Brighton said,
laughing.
    “After living in filth at that flat in Camden, and they’d
collected some cash, El bought the manor up the road. Do you remember it?”
    Brighton nodded vaguely as two baskets of fish and chips
appeared. The waitress, a dowdy woman wearing a fraying apron, asked if they’d
like anything else.
    Just as Alex was about to ask for vinegar, the waitress
squinted her eyes, “Wait a minute, I know you.”
    He immediately lost his appetite, recalling the run in with
the sedan earlier, rabid fans, and his inability to have privacy. He wondered
if the road trip through Montana would have been a better idea.
    “You’re Chaz’s son. My, you’ve grown up. I’m Milly. I used to
cook for him when he’d come up here and stayed at Windover.”
    Alex smiled, relieved the association was via his father, and
not her granddaughter or some other fangirl who he’d imagined would appear any
second. “That’s right, I’m Alex Stihl. And this is Brighton.”
    Her milky eyes grew wide. “Not Brighton Holmes?” Without
waiting for an answer, Milly wrapped her arms around her, pulling her to her
bosom. “You’re a young woman. Oh and beautiful. You were such a wild child,
running up and down the beach, scaring me half to death that you’d be swept out
by a rogue wave. It’s a delight to see you.” She wrung her hands together,
looking at them both expectantly.
    “We’re staying at the Inn, visiting Brighton’s grandmother,
Windover, maybe surf.” Alex returned Brighton’s look of dread with a smile.
“Milly, pull up a chair. Maybe you’d like to tell us how The Gull and the Fox
came to be.”
    “Surely you know,” she answered.
    Alex played dumb and nodded that she go on.
    “Well, it was originally the Seaside Pub, but in my opinion
that wasn’t very creative. Confusing really, my dad would say he was going down
Seaside and my mum never knew if he meant the pub, fishing, or what. If you
look around there’s a Seaside everything, corner store, gift shop,
boutique…anyway. Your father,” she nodded at Brighton, “hired me on as cook for
the