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“Yeah, I picked up on that.”
She lifted her gaze, meeting his despite her intention otherwise. “And?”
“And I’m curious what you think you’re doing.”
Count to ten, Laney. Her voice was calm when she finally spoke. “What I’m doing? You’re the one who told all those people that I was your wife.”
“You are.”
“Was, Sam. Was. You’ll surely remember the small matter of our divorce!”
His head cocked a little, his gaze measuring. “Have you taken to drink, Delaney?”
Her fingers curled. Uncurled. “Don’t be obtuse.” Her brother had been the drinker in her family. “And while it pains me no end to have to ask, would you give me a ride back to Castillo House?”
“Why?”
“Because I need a place to sleep! And I’d rather impose on Logan and Annie Drake for a corner on a floor somewhere than spend another minute with you.”
“Go for it. Those fancy shoes lying there are gonna get beat to hell walking all the way, but—”
Her hands curled. “You won’t even give me a ride?”
“Considering how nicely you’ve asked?” He snorted softly and reached out one long arm to hook open a drawer. “Here.” He tossed her the small flashlight he withdrew. “You might need that. No city lights here. Maybe you noticed.”
She caught the flashlight. “You’re impossible.”
“Makes you wonder why in hell we ever got married, doesn’t it?”
She went still, riding the pain of that.
He swore under his breath. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
A lifetime of practice helped her lift her chin, her shoulder. “You’re entitled to say anything you like, Sam. It’s been no concern of mine what you say since we got unmarried.”
The measuring look was back. And it was almost enough to make her uneasy. Almost. She clenched the flashlight and shoved her feet into her pumps, stifling a wince. That’s what she got for indulging her shoe sense rather than her common sense when she’d dressed so very long ago before the flight. Then she snatched up her briefcase and strode past him, right on out the front door. As soon as it closed behind her, the dark night swallowed her whole, and she fumbled with the flashlight. It gave out a weak stream.
She stiffened her shoulders. Trained the wobbling yellow beam in front of her. Headed up the stone walk. By the time she made it to the road that was only marginally smoother than the path, her feet were screaming inside her shoes. She wanted to scream. She was supposed to be an intelligent woman. Why hadn’t she followed her common sense that giving Sam back the ring in person was a foolish idea? It wasn’t as if he’d appreciate the sensitivity she’d been aiming for. She should have just taken the hint and kept the ring—tucked it away in some forgotten corner, in the same way she tucked away memories of him.
The only answer she got was a stone in the road that seemed to mock the notion of tucking Sam away anywhere as it caught her foot and sent her pitching forward.
She cried out. The flashlight flew out of her hand, her briefcase slid off her shoulder and her hands took the worst of the impact when she fell.
“You are the most stubborn woman God ever put on this earth.”
Perfect. Her day was complete.
Her hands burned. Her bare heels burned. Her eyes burned, the contents of her briefcase were scattered about, and the flashlight had gone dead. It was, unfortunately, nowhere within hand’s reach—she earned only another piece of gravel against her raw palms when she swept around feeling for it—or she could have used it to brain him.
She bowed her head. Violence never solved anything. “You were following me. I hope you got a good laugh.” The way she felt, it could well be his last.
She heard him sigh. “There’s usually more moonlight.” He moved around in front of her, and she gasped when he crouched down and lifted her head. “You’d have been able to see better, even with that cheap flashlight.”
“Obviously it’s enough light for you,” she said, jerking her chin away from his touch. “I hope you enjoyed the entertainment.”
“Delaney—”
“What?”
He sighed again. “Shut up.”
Her eyes burned anew when he caught her beneath her arms and helped her stand. She tested her footing. Frustration tightened her voice. “I think I broke my heel.”
“What?” He swore and swept her up in his arms, heading back toward his house before she could blink.
She went board stiff. “Wait. My briefcase.”
“Christ, Delaney, are you afraid you’ll misplace some precious bit of work? I’ll get it after I get you settled.”
“But I don’t—”
He kissed her again and shock swept through her, taking her words right along with it.
When he lifted his head, his breathing was rough. “At least there’s still one way to get you to shut up.”
She hastily closed her mouth, stemming her next words. Put me down screamed through her mind.
Sam grunted a little. “Better.”
She shifted as far from him as humanly possible. Which wasn’t far, given the fact that he had one arm around her back, his hand practically cupping the side of her breast. His other arm’s position wasn’t much better, tucked beneath her knees, causing her skirt to rumple up around her thighs. She surreptitiously tugged at the skirt. It didn’t help. The more she moved, the less space she could keep between them. She settled for trying not to breathe as his long stride ate up the distance back to his house.
He carried her straight through, back to the kitchen again, settling her on a bar stool. “Sit tight. I’ll get some ice.”
Delaney looked at her palms. They were red, raw, dirty. “I need to wash first.” She started to slide off the high bar stool.
“Dammit all, Delaney, would you just sit still?” He’d yanked open the freezer door.
“Don’t bark at me.” She focused on the bag of frozen peas he pulled from the freezer. “What…are you hungry now?”
“The bag’s easier to use than ice.”
It had always been hard to read his expressions, but just then Delaney thought he looked near the end of his patience.
Well, her patience was sorely limited, too. Particularly when he cupped her calf and lifted gently. He’d had his hands on her more in this one day than nearly the entire last month they’d been together.
“Which heel?”
She leaned over, pulling off her shoe, holding it up. “No amount of frozen peas is going to help it, I’m afraid.”
He studied the shoe for a long moment. “I thought you meant your heel.”
“I realize that. Now. You, um, you can let go of my leg.”
He did so. Quickly. She still felt the imprint of his gentle touch.
Distance. Distance was paramount.
She slid off the bar stool and scooted around him, awkwardly toeing off the other shoe at the same time. She hadn’t thought to bring a spare pair. She sidled past him and carefully stuck her hands under the faucet.
“I’ll get your briefcase.”
How could she have managed to forget about it so quickly? “Right—” he’d pulled a very sturdy-looking flashlight from the same drawer that had held the other one. She swallowed the thanks she’d been about to voice. The flashlight he’d chosen for his own use undoubtedly had strong batteries. “Make sure you get everything,” she said waspishly.
“Would you rather do it yourself?”
She shut off the water and snapped off a paper towel from the stone holder next to the sink. “It’s your fault I fell in the first place. You could have just driven me back to Castillo House, and none of this would—”
“I thought assigning blame was against your professional ethics.”
She looked at him, their past a sudden, deluging wave. “Janie mentioned that your father is here. Staying with…Etta…she said. How do you feel about that, Sam?”
His expression closed down, just as she’d known it would, just as it always had whenever she’d broached the subjects he’d deemed off-limits.
There’d been a time when she’d only wanted to understand the man who’d finessed her heart right out from under her. So she’d probed. Delicately. Hopefully.
It made her ill that she now used the same knowledge about Sam to retaliate. Wound for wound.
“Sam, I’m sorry.”
He never heard the words.
He’d already walked out of the room.
Chapter 3
Kissing her like that had been stupid.
Sam raked his hands through his hair. Pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Twenty-one months. He’d had to say that, hadn’t he? As if he’d been counting.
He’d even picked up the contents of Delaney’s briefcase after walking out of his own damn house. Papers. Pens. Cell phone. Organizer. A thin bag holding her personal items. When he’d finished, he’d contemplated pitching the entire thing off the cliff behind his house. Instead, he’d left the briefcase sitting on his front porch, and he’d driven back into town.
The bar fight he’d broken up earlier at the Seaspray couldn’t have come at a more opportune time, as far as he was concerned. He’d almost tossed the two idiots in jail, just because it would’ve felt good to do so.
Instead, he’d sent them home and planted his own butt on the end stool—one of the few the Haggerty fools hadn’t broken before he and Leo contained the fight. The Seaspray had once been a motel until a storm leveled it. So far, the only thing to be rebuilt was the bar. Mostly because the long wooden bar itself was the only thing that had been left standing.
He hunched over that bar, his hands cradling his mug. But he wasn’t seeing the dark liquid. He was seeing Delaney’s face; her expression when he’d kissed her. When he’d called her his wife.
In the opposite corner of the bar, his brother Leo slopped a cleaning rag over the bar stools.
“Sam?”
He looked up. And swore silently again. “Kind of late for you to be out, isn’t it?”
It was a testament to Sara Drake’s good nature that she didn’t slap him when she slid onto the stool beside him. “Thought I’d check and see how you’re doing. Went by the sheriff’s office. Was heading home when I saw your SUV outside this place.”
“You shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Maybe it’s not a bother.” Her smile flashed briefly. She nodded at Leo when he abandoned his cleaning rag to fill a glass with soda that he placed in front of her before he moved over to the small television at the far end of the bar.
Sam thought maybe he owed Sara an apology. But the Vega and Drake families went way back. Sam had grown up with Sara’s brother, Logan. Long ago both he and Logan had left Turnabout Island.
They’d both returned.
And while he felt an apology was in order, he wasn’t entirely certain why. Things weren’t that way between him and Sara. They never had been. Never would be, even if he weren’t still married and his kid brother wasn’t hung up on her.
He picked up his mug and drained it before he spoke. “I should have told you.”
“Why? There are things I haven’t told you, either.” Her smile widened a little. “Nothing quite as major as a marriage, mind you.”
“You’re too nice, Sara.” He meant it. She was nice.
“Yeah,” she agreed lightly. “All that niceness going to waste with no man around to take advantage of it.”
Sam looked up to find her watching Leo as she spoke. “Don’t expect your grandmother to be quite as understanding,” she warned, sounding amused. Then she nudged his shoulder with hers, companionably, and sat forward, propping her elbow on the bar. “Funny that I never pictured you with the buttoned-down type,” Sara murmured. “How’d you two meet?”
Buttoned-down type. Laney would detest that description. He’d have to remember it. “Working a case.”
“And you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s fair enough.” She was silent for a moment. “Janie told me she took Delaney to your place. Presumably you know that, by now.”
He grunted noncommittally.
“Do we need to check your place for a body?”
His lips twitched. “Not yet.”
“So, what are you doing here?”
He nudged his mug. “What’s it look like?”
“Come on, Sam. You dropped the news that you’re secretly married and walked out of Annie and Logan’s party. And now, hours later, you’re at a bar you detest. Did you leave her alone at your place or what?”
“Delaney’s capable of fending for herself. Believe me.” More than capable. The woman preferred it to ever depending on someone else. She could dredge up a wealth of trust for her patients, but had she had enough in him?
Had he deserved it? No.
