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The second Marc joined his mother on the front porch his gaze immediately traveled down Sycamore Avenue to the sandstone, Arts and Crafts-style house down the block. A dark blue sedan sat in the driveway. Mari’s car had been notably absent when he’d returned this afternoon from their annual visit to Harbor Town Cemetery.
I didn’t come back to Harbor Town for you, he vividly recalled her saying last night. He leaned against the porch railing and crossed his arms below his ribs. What had she come back for, then?
He inhaled deeply of the fresh air. It always seemed to take several days into his summer vacation to get the city soot out of his lungs. The sky had turned a pale blue, tinged with lavender, but above the beach at the end of Sycamore Avenue, crimson, pink and gold splashed across the horizon. It would be sunset soon—Harbor Town’s most famous tourist attraction. How many of those sunsets had he watched with Mari in his arms?
He jerked his mind into the present.
“When did you say you were headed back to Chicago?” Brigit Kavanaugh asked. She’d placed her sneakered foot on the pavement, stopping the porch swing’s movement.
Marc knew she’d noticed him staring at Mari’s house. Not that it was odd for him to look at the Itani vacation home on his rare visits to Harbor Town. His eyes had been trained long ago to stray toward that house. Even his ex-wife, Sandra, used to take note of it, usually with a flippant, sarcastic remark, on the few occasions she’d accompanied him to Harbor Town.
“I was thinking about staying on a couple days past Brendan’s party,” Marc said, referring to his nephew’s tenth birthday celebration.
“Really? Do you think work can spare you that long?”
He shrugged. “The county can undoubtedly do without me.”
“Marc,” Brigit scoffed with a smile. “You’re a state’s attorney, for goodness’ sake. You have over a thousand employees working under you.”
“Most of whom are gone for the holiday. I’ve never taken off more than day here and there since entering office. I have the vacation time. I might as well use some of it. It’s not like I haven’t been working from here, anyway.”
All of the Kavanaugh children had taken jobs that would somehow prove they were hard-working, sacrificing, worthy members of society, Marc mused. His sister Deidre was an Army nurse on her fourth tour of duty. Liam was a twice-decorated detective on the organized crime squad of the Chicago Police Department, and Colleen was a psychiatric social worker who worked with high-risk teenagers with emotional and substance abuse problems.
Survivors’ guilt.
Their father’s final actions had left its mark on all of them.
His mother usually wanted her sons to stay on as long as possible for these annual Independence Day visits. She seemed to want Marc long gone at the present time, though. He tried to ignore the flare of irritation he felt at that fact. Brigit loved him. She remembered how much he’d been hurt by Mari’s refusal to see him after the crash. Maybe she just didn’t want to see him get hurt again.
The porch swing resumed the rhythmic squeaking noise that blended so hypnotically with the sounds of the locusts and the Lake Michigan waves breaking on the nearby beach.
“You’d do best by staying away from her,” Brigit said, finally saying the words he knew she’d been thinking since the parades yesterday.
“Maybe you’re right. But that doesn’t seem to be stifling the urge to do the exact opposite.”
Brigit exhaled at his quiet admission. “After all they did to us—”
“Mari never did anything to us. As for what Ryan and his aunt did, it’s not that different than what most people would have done in the same situation.”
“She ignored you! She took that money—blood money! After all this time, you’ve forgotten the effect it had on me—on us.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said, stung. “Maybe it’s never occurred to you that Mari and I might have memories, too, Ma, memories outside of Dad and the crash and the deaths—and the grudge.”
Her face pale and tense, she brought the swing to a halt and stared at him. He hated seeing her pain, but damn it, what he’d said was true. He exhaled heavily, trying to rid himself of his anger. He wasn’t mad at his mother, necessarily, but at this whole situation.
He almost heard Brigit building her arguments in her mind. Marc had become a lawyer like his father, but it was his mother who’d taught him the skills for making an airtight case.
“You want Mari because she’s the only thing you’ve wanted and couldn’t have.”
Marc started. “That’s a hell of a thing to say. Do you really believe that?”
“I do,” Brigit said quietly. “You’re my oldest son, Marc. I carried you in my body, and I watched you grow from an infant to a man. Do you really think I’ve never noticed that once you set your mind on something, you make it happen, no matter what kind of storm you cause in the process?”
Marc scowled. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this from his own mother’s mouth. “You make me sound like a spoiled brat. I’ve worked like hell to get anything I’ve ever had. And I’ve failed at plenty of things. What about Sandra?” he demanded.
“I said anything you ever wanted. If you’d wanted Sandra more, the two of you would still be married.”
Marc gave his mother a hard stare, warning her not to tread on that private territory. He’d heard her out after he and Sandra had decided to split, but that decision was his and his ex-wife’s business, not Brigit’s. His mother changed gears, just like that.
“Mari never married, I hear,” Brigit said levelly.
“No,” Marc conceded, not sure where his mother was going with her comment.
“Her brother is the only family since her aunt died a few years ago. I don’t think Ryan would take too kindly to having Mari get involved with you again.”
“You really care about what Ryan Itani thinks?”
“No. But if you care about Mari, you should. Would you really consider alienating her from her only relative?”
Marc rolled his eyes and stood. “You’re assuming Mari would even be interested. I haven’t seen any indication of that so far,” he muttered bitterly. His mother’s comment hit home, even if he tried not to let her see it. He knew he should leave Mari alone. He knew he shouldn’t stir up the frothing cauldron of their shared history.
Problem was, he already had. He’d touched Mari again. He’d held her naked against him while her shudders of pleasure and release had vibrated into his body and mixed with his own.
It was too late, Marc realized with a grim sense of amazement. Something had happened in those ecstatic moments that couldn’t now be ignored.
He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He swung around like a hound catching the scent and he saw Mari walking toward her car, her long brown hair bobbing in a ponytail. As she was opening the car door, she paused and looked furtively down the street. Their gazes locked for a few electric seconds before she ducked into the car.
The screen door squeaked open. Combing his longish blonde hair with his fingers in a distracted fashion, Liam sauntered onto the front porch. He looked a little taken aback when Marc charged him.
“Give me the keys to your bike,” Marc ordered tersely.
Liam’s bewilderment dissipated when he glanced over Marc’s shoulder and saw Mari’s car backing rapidly out of the driveway. He dug into his short’s pocket and handed Marc the keys to his motorcycle.
“Fill it up with gas while you’re out, will you? Unless whatever you’re doing gets too interesting, that is,” Liam said with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. Marc grabbed the keys and jogged down the porch steps, ignoring his mother’s burning glance of disapproval.
Mari had risen early the morning following the Jake’s Place fiasco, determined to refocus on her mission. She breakfasted with Eric and Natalie Reyes to discuss more plans for The Family Center. Afterward, she and Eric went to the real estate office to sign a lease, and then to an office furniture and supply store to arrange for items to be delivered to the Silver Dune Bay facility.
She spent the rest of the day making the old house presentable to prospective buyers. Without really knowing why she did it, she paused in her manic scrubbing at 5:17 p.m., walked to the front door and cautiously peeked out a window. A silver sedan passed with three people in it, Marc at the wheel.
She’d somehow known he was near, even though she’d been doing her damnedest to deny his presence in her mind all day. She returned to her cleaning and tried to turn her thoughts in another direction, but failed.
Later that evening, she stood at the front door and gazed onto the tree-lined street. How the hell had she ended up here at this point in her life? Mari wondered. Seeing the crimson sky at the end of the street caused hundreds of other remembered sunsets to blaze to the forefront of her mind. She was hyperaware of the handsome, white house built in the Colonial Revival style up the street.
After the end of a doomed, four-year relationship with James Henry, an investment banker from San Francisco, Mari had experienced a desire for a fresh start. That inner push had set her plans into motion. She’d wanted to be free of her past once and for all and that meant returning to Harbor Town.
Too bad her grand scheme for a clean slate and healing had turned into a maelstrom of mixed emotions.
By late evening, her stomach had started to growl. She took a shower, pulled her hair into a ponytail and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Her heart was skipping rapidly when she exited the house and headed for her car. Something compelled her to look up the street at the Kavanaugh house.
Sure enough, Marc was leaning against the porch railing, his head turned, watching her. For a few seconds, it felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
She got in her car and drove to a little diner on the edge of town called The Tap and Grill. After the friendly counter lady had brought her an enormous turkey sandwich to go, she drove aimlessly through the town’s quiet, tree-lined streets, finally ending up on scenic Vista Point Drive, overlooking the beach.
A motorcycle roared, breaking the sleepy silence, as she parked at the side of the street. She opened the car door and leaned over to the passenger seat to grab her sandwich. A shadow fell across the steering wheel.
She turned around to see Marc standing between her car and the open door.
“I hope whatever’s in that bag is enough for two.”
Mari glanced out the back window, noticing the gleaming black and chrome motorcycle parked down the street. She’d peeked out of her windows enough lately to know the vehicle belonged to Liam. Apparently Marc had forsaken a bike years ago for the handsome, conservative sedan she’d seen him driving. Memories of Marc and her brother, Ryan, tearing down the street on their motorcycles, looking like young summertime gods with their deep tans, sunglasses and wind-tousled hair, washed over her.
“Did you follow me?” she asked him warily.
He shrugged, his stare never leaving her face. “I figured you wouldn’t answer the door if I knocked at your house. When you finally broke cover, I thought I better take my chance or risk not seeing you for another fifteen years.”
She gave him a hard look. He quirked one eyebrow.
“We need to talk, Mari. Please.”
Against her will, her gaze lowered to his shadowed jaw and tanned throat. She shivered when she recalled how the stubble had felt brushing against her neck that night in Chicago, grazing ever so lightly against the sensitive skin covering her ribs. The sight of his insouciant male good looks only increased her caution.
Or her reaction to them did.
“So if I let you come with me to Sunset Beach, that’s all you’ll try to do? Talk?”
He sighed. “I’m not planning on coming on to you on the beach,” he replied drily.
She rolled her eyes at him as she aggressively swung her legs out of the car, daring him not to move back and give her the space she required.
His only reaction to her wary acquiescence was a slight grin. They said nothing as they made their way down the private sidewalk that ran between two mansion sized homes. When they hit the white sand beach, Mari led them over to the manmade break water that consisted of stacked lengths of cut, unfinished logs.
She plopped down on the breakwater. Marc sat down next to her. She studied him through the corner of her eye. He wore a pair of cargo shorts and a dark blue shirt that failed to hide the breadth of shoulders or hint at the sleek muscles Mari knew lay just beneath the soft fabric. He managed to make the casual beachwear look sexy as hell. She could just see him as a tall, lanky, cocky fourteen-year-old sporting a new pair of sunglasses, standing on Sycamore Beach and clutching his skimboard, the sunlight turning his hair into a havoc of incandescent gold waves.
She handed him half of her sandwich wrapped in a napkin.
“I was only kidding about sharing. Eat your supper,” he murmured, giving her a sideways smile.
“You know how they make sandwiches at The Tap. It’s huge.” She insistently pushed the sandwich toward him. Maybe he noticed the irritation in her expression, because his eyebrows rose, and he accepted the food, probably to avoid an argument.
The fiery, orange-red sun looked like it was slowly quenching itself in the shimmering, dark blue water. They ate without speaking. For the first time, it struck her how odd it was that the beach was empty.
“Isn’t Sunset Beach public anymore?” she slowly asked Marc as she held up the paper bag so he could deposit his rumpled napkin inside it.
He shook his head. “Mom told me the home owners hereabouts bought it from the town a few years back. It’s private now.”
Mari stopped chewing and glanced warily at the affluent residences nearby.
“Don’t worry. They aren’t going to call the cops on us. Unless we make an ugly scene or something,” Marc said when he saw her uneasiness over trespassing.
She took a swig of the bottled water she’d ordered with the sandwich. She offered the bottle to Marc, and he drank, too. Mari glanced away from the strangely erotic sight of him placing his mouth where hers had just been.
“I don’t plan on making a scene,” she said briskly, shoving the wrapper and the remainder of her sandwich into the bag. “And you’re awfully quiet for someone who insisted we had to talk.”
“I just didn’t want to ruin the peaceful moment.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Implying that whatever you have to say is the opposite of peaceful?”
“If it involves you reacting to it by refusing to see me again… Yeah, there might be some serious waves.”
Mari kicked off her flip-flops and stuck her feet in the cool, fine sand. Despite her attempts to calm herself, her voice still cracked when she spoke.
“Marc… You saw what happened last night as well as I did. All that animosity, all that hurt. It’d be irresponsible of us to…you know—”
“I think I know, but do you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked slowly.
“I wasn’t planning this little reunion, Mari. But now that it’s happened, I’m not willing to just walk away from it, either. And I’m not talking about sneaking down to your house and having some hot, vacation sex with an old fling.” His gaze flickered down over her neck and breasts and he added gruffly, “Although I think we both know that scenario has its appeal. The point is, you mean more than that to me. It was a hell of a thing to see you Chicago and realize that was still true, after all these years. I’m a practical guy. It’s kind of hard to run from the truth when it’s staring you right in the face.”
Mari swallowed thickly in the silence that followed.
“It would never work out,” she said after a moment, her voice so quiet it almost couldn’t be heard above the sound of the waves breaking gently on the beach.
“I don’t think you’re so sure about that. I think you want to act like you’re sure—” her heart surged against her breastbone when he reached up and caressed her jaw with large, gentle fingers “—so it’ll be easier to push me away.”
Her spine straightened and he let his hand drop to the wood embankment. “I’m not being selfish. I’m trying to be wise,” she explained. “I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want my brother to worry. I don’t want your mother to be angry. I don’t want—”
“What about you? What about what you want, Mari?”
She looked out at the dark waters, worrying her lower lip with her front teeth. She was highly aware of him leaning toward her.
“Because here’s the thing,” Marc muttered near her left ear, causing her neck to prickle in awareness. “I think you were worried about all those things when you left Harbor Town fifteen years ago, when you cut off all ties with me. I think you were thinking about what was wise instead of what was right.”
She glanced at him furtively, but when she saw the expression on his face, her gaze stuck.
“I think you were considering what you thought your parents would have wanted you to do in that situation, Mari.”
Anger flared in her breast at his mention of her parents. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
She started to stand, intent on getting away from him at that moment. He halted her with a firm hand on her shoulder but it was the earnestness in his deep voice that truly restrained her.
“I’m not saying it was wrong. I understand. Your folks were suddenly gone—something you’d never dreamed of as a possibility, even in your worst nightmares—so you did what you thought they would have wanted if they were alive. The rebellious daughter who lied to them and snuck out to see the guy her parents forbade her to see vanished fifteen years ago.”
“So what if she did?” Mari challenged. “You’re making my point, not talking me out of it. I had been behaving like a selfish, lying, thankless brat. Sometimes it takes a crisis before you realize how foolish—how hurtful—you’ve been acting.”
“And I’ll bet after they died, there were times you would have done anything to take back your rebellion against them,” he said quietly. “But there was nothing heartless in what you did, Mari. You were acting like a typical teenager. You never purposely hurt your parents.”
“Only because their deaths got in the way of them ever fully realizing what I was doing,” she cried out.
