The stares had faded now, but the heat of that brief spotlight still lingered, making her cheeks burn long after the moment had passed. Each new burst of the boy’s laughter came with a spray of sand on her legs, on her towel, even across the spine of her already-damp book.
Claire brushed it off mechanically, the earlier warmth of the day replaced by a gritty discomfort and a dull ache in her temples. The boy had made several trips to the shoreline now, filling his little bucket to the brim with a mixture of seawater and heavy, wet sand.