Almost A Bride. Rula Sinara

       CHAPTER ONE

      GRAYSON ZALE BIT back a curse as he ducked between the weather-beaten posts that hoisted the pier at Turtleback Beach over the clawing surf. He crouched down, pulse racing, as he pretended to reach for a shell stranded by the low tide, and waited for the guy in the backward cap and sunglasses to finish taking a panoramic shot with his cell phone. The last thing Gray needed was to have his face plastered on social media and recognized by the wrong people. Or worse yet, what if this guy wasn’t some random tourist? Not many tourists ventured this far south along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and those who did usually stayed away from the areas roped off and marked as turtle breeding grounds. Most vacationers settled on staying in towns farther north of Hatteras Island, like Duck or Kill Devil Hills, where they could have their pick of hotels, amenities, shops and attractions, like the memorial where the Wright brothers took their first flight. Granted, Turtleback and neighboring towns, like Rodanthe or Avon, did get some visitors—usually more peace-and nature-loving types. It was just that being cautious and suspicious had become a twisted, unsettling part of who he was...like a leech or parasite, unwilling to let go.

      Laddie, Gray’s rough collie rescue, positioned himself stoically between Gray and the stranger. No barking or growling. That was a good sign, but getting caught in an online photo was a threat in and of itself. It was more than out of the question. It was a matter of life or death.

      Sure, he was the town’s veterinarian, which meant just about everyone had come to know him in some capacity or another since he’d landed in town five years ago. He was their pet’s doc, a friend of a friend, the guy who grabbed his coffee and bear claw at the local bake shop the second it opened at six in the morning with Laddie ever at his side. He was the guy they’d wave to as he took off on a motorcycle ride down Highway 12. But as much as he’d integrated himself into the town, he’d also become adept at skirting photos, and he almost always wore his “Save the Turtles” ball cap and Oakley sunglasses when walking the beach during the busier summer season, just in case he did end up in the background of a tourist’s photograph. He took every precaution to stay under the radar and live a low-key life.

      Nonetheless, it was a tiny town. Everyone knew everyone and news traveled faster than the infamous riptides could suck a person out to sea and drown them. He was surprised he’d survived the gossip and side-glances when he was abandoned at the altar by Mandi Rivers, the town’s sweetheart and former mayor’s daughter, two years ago. As privately as he lived his life, having his heart shredded so publicly had been unbearable—not because of humiliation or pride, but because she must have known that having his personal life laid out for everyone to dissect was akin to physically stabbing him in the heart and leaving him to bleed out. Yet, she’d done it. She had deliberately hurt him. Sometimes he wasn’t sure what hurt more...the pain of losing the only woman he’d ever loved and trusted, or the pain of knowing that she had cast him off like fisherman’s chum and never looked back.

      He glanced across the waves toward the horizon. It hadn’t been the first time everything in his life had been cast away, but Mandi’s leaving him would probably be the one loss he’d never fully recover from. He knew this because every time she entered his mind, a spot deep in his chest, beneath bone and heart, cramped and ached with pain and longing. And what bothered him even more was that he couldn’t, in all honesty, place all the blame on her. He’d destroyed his own life. Every choice he made seemed to doom him—not that keeping that truth from her about his past had been a choice. But she had wanted more from him than he could give. Openness and honesty. And telling her that he honestly loved her clearly hadn’t been enough.

      The stranger’s voice broke through the rhythmic cries of seagulls and crashing surf as he called out a name. A woman emerged from the tall grasses that flanked a narrow, sandy path leading from the road to the beach. Similar paths, some paved with weathered, wooden