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“I dumped you?” Celia stopped in her tracks. “Excuse me, but I seem to recall you being the one who dropped off the face of the earth.” Then she started walking again, fast, and despite his superior size, he had to take large strides to catch up with her. “Why are we arguing? As you pointed out, it’s ancient history. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
He could feel the anger slipping free of his control and he clamped down on it, gritting his teeth to prevent another retort. It made him remember gritting his teeth in a very similar manner—but for a very different reason—just a short while ago, and he pulled up a vivid mental image of himself smacking the heel of his hand against his forehead. How stupid would I have to be, he lectured himself, to care about what happened when we were still practically kids? He wasn’t any more interested than she was in resurrecting their old relationship.
“No,” he said softly, definitely. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
They walked in awkward silence for a few hundred yards.
“Who’s Mr. Brevery?” It was an abrupt change of topic but he wanted to show her how little he cared about the past.
Celia cleared her throat. “Claudette’s employer. He’s put up here every October for at least a half dozen years.”
“And Tiello?”
Her mouth twisted. “Playboy. Too much money and too much time to waste. This is the third year he’s visited us in the fall.”
The same probably applied to him in her estimation. So what? He’d stopped caring what Celia thought of him long ago. “So why were you out on the water with no lights?”
She looked around and he realized she was checking to be sure no one was near. “I’d rather tell you when we’re inside.”
Inside. She was going to invite him into her house. Although he knew she was only doing it because she’d entangled him in whatever little scheme she was up to, he still felt a quickening interest, as if he were still a teenage boy who saw a chance to score.
She broke your heart, remember? You’re not interested.
Right. That’s why you came back after you stopped by Saquatucket in late August and found out she was still around.
“Here,” she said. She pushed open a gate in a low picket fence and led the way up a crushed-shell path to the door of a boxy Cape Cod farmhouse-style home. The place clearly was an old Cape treasure. She paused on the stoop to unlock the door, then pushed it open and beckoned to him without meeting his eyes. “Please come in.”
Formal. She was nervous. About having him around? About what he’d interrupted? He told himself it didn’t matter. “Nice place,” he said. When she was young, she’d lived in one of the most modest cottages on the Cape. This house probably was on the historic register.
The living room was furnished with heavy pieces in shades of creams and browns, with an irregularly shaped glass coffee table mounted atop a large piece of driftwood. Over the mantel hung a painting of the harbor as it must have looked a hundred years ago, with small fishing boats moored along the water’s edge, stacks of lobster pots and nets piled haphazardly and a shell path leading to small, boxy cottages similar to the one in which he stood. There was a bowl filled with dried cranberries on the coffee table, and as he watched, she switched on additional lights.
“Thank you.” She hesitated. “It was my husband’s family home for four generations.”
“Your husband the harbormaster.”
“Yes.” She sounded faintly defensive. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No.” He flopped down into a comfortably overstuffed chair without invitation. “I’d like an explanation.”
Two
Celia took a deep, nervous breath, trying to calm the fluttering muscles of her stomach. What on earth had possessed her to involve Reese in this mess? She’d reacted instinctively, knowing she’d had no time to waste. And knowing Reese was safe. The one thing she did know was that he couldn’t possibly be involved. That would have required him to be in the area in the last few years.
“I was looking for drug smuggling activity.”
“Drug smugglers?” He sounded incredulous. The faint air of hostility she’d sensed from him disappeared as he sat up straight and stared at her.
She perched on the edge of the couch and clasped her hands together. “It’s imperative that none of the clients along the dock learn about it.”
“Why?”
“It’s possible that someone moored here could be a part of a drug operation.”
“So when I came along and blew the whistle, you decided to use me as a cover?” Reese’s eyes were intent, unsmiling.
She shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do. You were shouting loud enough to wake folks on the other side of town.”
The side of his mouth twitched, as if he were struggling not to smile. “Sorry.” He leaned back against the rough fabric of the chair, stretched out his long legs, then looked at her skeptically. “Drug smuggling?”
She popped up off the couch, uncomfortable with his questions and annoyed at the derisive tone. “I’m not crazy,” she said defensively. “You’d be amazed at the amount of illegal stuff that goes on around here.”
He laughed aloud, but she had the sense that he was laughing at her rather than with her. “I’ve been in dozens of harbors along dozens of shorelines and, believe me, I’ve seen more kinds of ‘illegal stuff’ than you could imagine. I’m just wondering what you think you can do about it.”
“Maybe nothing.” She carefully looked past him, hoping her face wasn’t too transparent.
“Celia.” He waited until she reluctantly dragged her gaze back to mesh with his. “You could be putting yourself in serious danger. Drug runners are criminals. They wouldn’t think twice about hurting you if they caught you spying on them. Leave the investigation to the law enforcement guys who get paid to do it.”
She wanted to laugh, an entirely inappropriate reaction, and she bit the inside of her lip hard. If he only knew! “I’ll be careful,” she said.
“Careful isn’t good enough.” His tone was harsh. “Do you think I’m kidding about getting hurt? This isn’t a game—”
“I know it’s not!” Her voice overrode his. “They killed my husband and my son.” Dear God, help me. She couldn’t believe she’d blurted that out.
The words hung in the air, still stunning her after two years. She collapsed again on the couch like a balloon that had lost its helium, putting her face in her hands. An instant later she realized that Reese’s weight was settling onto the cushions beside her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. A large, warm hand settled on her back and rubbed gentle circles as if she were a baby in need of soothing. “I am so sorry, Celia. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t expect you would.” She pressed the heels of her palms hard against her eyes, pushing back the tears. She wasn’t a crier; tears accomplished nothing but making you feel like you needed a nap to recharge the batteries you drained bawling. “It was just local news.” Except to me.
There was a small silence. “Tell me what happened.”
She hadn’t spoken of it in a long time. Not even to Roma, who she knew worried over her silence. But for some reason, she felt compelled to talk tonight. Maybe it was because she had a certain degree of familiarity with Reese due to their shared past. Maybe it was because he hadn’t known her family and therefore could be less emotionally involved. Most likely it was because she knew he wouldn’t be around long and it wouldn’t matter.
Drawing in a deep breath, she sighed heavily and shifted back against the couch, her hands falling limp in her lap. Reese sat close, his arm now draped along the back of the couch behind her shoulders. It should have bothered her, but the numbness that had been so familiar in that first horrible year of her bereavement was with her again, and she couldn’t work up the energy to mind.
“We only had been married for two years when Milo’s dad passed away and Milo was asked to take over as harbormaster. He’d been raised on the pier and he knew the work already.” She smiled briefly, looking into the past. “He was good at it. Everybody liked Milo.”
Reese didn’t speak, although she saw him nod encouragingly in her peripheral vision.
“Our son was born three years later. We named him Emilios, like his father and grandfather. Leo was his nickname. I had worked at the marina but I stayed home with him after he was born.” The numbness was fading and she concentrated on breathing deeply and evenly, forming the words with care. Anything to keep from letting the words shred her heart again.
“When Leo was two, Milo mentioned to me that he thought there was something funny going on down toward Monomoy Island. One night in September he came home and told me he’d called the FBI, that he was pretty certain some kind of illegal contraband was being brought ashore.”
“That was smart.” Reese’s voice was quiet.
“He didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “After he showed them where he thought the action was happening, he stayed away. The federal agents got a lot of information from him and that was it. Almost a year passed and nothing happened that we knew of. We figured they probably were proceeding cautiously, starting some kind of undercover operation. And then one day Milo took Leo with him on an errand over to Nantucket. Halfway across the sound, their boat exploded.”
Reese swore vividly. “What happened?”
She took another deep, careful breath. “At first I assumed it was an accident. Just a horrible, awful accident. And then federal agents came around one day and told me there had been an explosive device attached to the bottom of the boat. It had been detonated by someone close enough to see them go out on the water.”
She stopped speaking and there was silence in the room, broken only by the steady tick-tock of the old captain’s clock Milo’s father had restored. She wound it every morning when she came downstairs.
“How old was your—Leo?”
Her heart shrank from the question. She could deal with this if she just didn’t think too much about it. But she couldn’t talk about Leo. She just couldn’t. “Two and a half. He would have started kindergarten next year.” Her voice quavered. Shut up, shut up. Stop talking. “He was very blond, like I was as a child, and he had big velvety-brown eyes. He adored his daddy and there was nothing he loved better than going out on the…the boat w-with Milo.” Her voice was beginning to hitch as sobs forced their way out.
She felt Reese’s arms come hard around her, pulling her to his chest as the floodgates of long-suppressed grief opened. “Shh.” His voice came dimly through the storm of agony that swept over her.
“I wish—I w-wish I’d died, too.” She stuffed a fist in her mouth, appalled at voicing the thought that had lived in her head since the terrible day she’d buried her husband and her baby boy.
“Shh,” he said again. “I know.” She felt a big hand thread through her hair, cupping her scalp and gently massaging. He’d done that years ago, she remembered, when she’d been upset with her father’s reaction to him the day she’d introduced them.
Abruptly, it was all too much. Her father, her family, Reese…
She cried for a long, long time. Reese did nothing, simply held her while she soaked the front of his sweatshirt with tears. At one point he reached over to the end table and snagged a box of tissues—probably afraid she’d use his shirt to blow her nose—but he didn’t let go of her and as soon as he handed her a tissue he put his arm around her again.
His hands were big and warm and comforting. His arms made her feel ridiculously secure. She hadn’t allowed herself to lean on anyone in so long….
Reese tilted his head and glanced down at the sleeping woman in his arms. He’d been shaken to the core by her flat recital earlier. His problems, his issues with his family, seemed petty in comparison.
Not for the first time, he wondered if his parents were still living, if his siblings were all right. Some of them might be married now. For all he knew, he could be an uncle. He’d frozen them forever in his mind, but they’d moved on with their lives just as he had.
Although he really hadn’t. In more than a dozen years he’d done nothing of note besides win a few silly boat races here and there. He’d made plenty of money and given a lot of it away, but he couldn’t think of one single lasting thing of importance that he’d leave behind if he died tomorrow. Except Amalie, and he couldn’t take credit for her.
Celia must feel like that, too. Only it must be worse knowing that she had had something lasting and it was gone. A steady relationship and a child to carry on her genes—yes, it was much worse for her. He was sure her marriage had been good, just from the way she uttered her husband’s name, as if the mere speaking of it could evoke warm, fond feelings of affection. A ridiculous feeling of jealousy swept through him. She wasn’t his, hadn’t been his for years. She’d chosen another man. And yes, she’d definitely had something lasting…until it had been ripped away from her in one brutal moment.
Jealousy faded beneath compassion and pity. I wish I’d died, too. What would it be like to lose the people you loved most in the world? Particularly the child. God, losing someone close to you, a friend, was bad enough, as he well knew. And he had firsthand experience with a child who’d lost her parents. But to have your child go before you— He shivered, thinking of his adopted six-year-old daughter, Amalie, a bright butterfly flitting through his life, bringing radiant colors to his days. It wasn’t natural for any child to die and there was no way to accept it. He couldn’t even imagine what he would do if he ever lost Ammie.
And she wasn’t even his. Well, she was now, thanks to the adoption laws of the State of Florida. But her parents had been his best racing buddy, Kent, and his wife, Julie. They’d died at sea before Amalie’s second birthday and he’d been called on to honor his pledge to be Amalie’s godfather in a far more intimate way than any of them ever had expected.
He lifted one hand and wearily rubbed his temples. He needed to call down to the Keys where he’d made his home, to check in with Velva, his housekeeper, nanny and surrogate mother all rolled into one, to talk to Amalie. This was the first time he’d left her in the four years since her parents had died and he hadn’t been sure it was a good idea. But Velva and Amalie’s teacher both had urged him to take a few weeks for himself. He hadn’t sailed anywhere alone since Kent and Julie had died and he’d finally let himself be talked into this vacation. He’d decided to have one last carefree fling before selling the cruiser. He was a man who had responsibilities now. No more world-cruising for him.
One carefree fling? Ha. The minute you heard Celia was still around, you made plans to come back up here and see her for yourself.
He pulled his head back farther to look at Celia. Hard to believe she was lying here in his arms, even if it was only because she needed comfort. She’d wept silently, her slender body set in tense denial as huge tears rolled down her cheeks and soaked the fabric of both their shirts, until he’d told her to stop holding it in. And then she’d finally broken. She’d let him draw her against his chest and she’d sobbed and sobbed. Awful, desolate sounds that had made his own throat ache. How the hell long had it been since she’d let herself cry? Surely the woman had friends, if not family, around. She’d lived here all her life.
But there was something almost austere about Celia now that she hadn’t had when she was young. The woman she was now didn’t need people—or didn’t want to need them, he’d bet. The woman she’d been when he’d known her, a flower just in the first fresh moments of full bloom, had had no such boundaries. She’d been free with her hugs and her bright silvery laughter; her face had been open and alive, always smiling. And when she’d seen him coming, that smile had lit up the world.
As he thought of the girl he’d known, another memory floated through his head. It wasn’t of the first time they’d made love. Though he could remember that, too. She’d been a virgin and it hadn’t been particularly fun for her, he suspected, although she’d never told him so, and she’d made him feel like the king of the world.
No, the memory that haunted him was of an entirely different time….
“Reese! It’s the middle of summer a-and it’s broad daylight. There are tourists everywhere!”
He laughed, enjoying the way her eyes widened when he took her hand and pulled her down onto the deck of the catamaran, his purpose clear. It was a small boat with no cabin, but it did have a low railing around the deck. If they were careful… He’d fantasized about making love to Celia under the bright summer sun since the first time they’d been together more than two months ago.
“This little bay is fairly private, though.” He slid his hands over her bare, tanned torso, gently tugging at the strings that tied her bikini top into place until he could toss the scrap of cloth aside. “It’s an unwritten law of the sea. You never approach a moored boat if you’ve hailed them and nobody answers.”
Her finely arched eyebrows rose. “I can think of a dozen times I’ve broken that rule myself.”
But she wasn’t really arguing with him. Her small hands ran lightly up his arms, over the swell of his biceps and onto his shoulders, and she shivered, falling silent as he flicked his thumbs over her nipples, bringing them to beautiful taut points. He’d never seen her before in bright light and her skin was so satiny, her peaks and valleys so smoothly curved, that she literally stopped his breath.
“Celia.” He breathed her name as if it were a prayer, finding her mouth with easy familiarity, feeling the thrill that always shot through him at her instant response.
“I love you.” Her words were a whisper of sound, barely audible as he nibbled his way along her jaw, then slid his mouth down the tender column of her neck, pressing kisses to the delicate arch of her collarbone. He trailed his tongue along her skin, catching the faint scent that wasn’t perfume but merely the essence of her.
“You’re so beautiful.” His palms cupped the sweet weight of her breasts and he drew back just far enough to feast his eyes on the soft, feminine flesh he’d uncovered. Her nipples were a glowing coppery color, begging him to taste them, and he leaned down again, touching her with his tongue, lightly at first, then tugging her fully into his mouth to suckle one tender tip until she arched against him, twisting and crying out.
Smiling against her skin, he released one tight nubbin and blew on it. Celia’s eyes flew open. “Reese…” Her hands had been clutching his shoulders. Dragging them down over his chest, she indulged in a little teasing of her own, running her fingers through the dark mat of hair that spread across his breastbone and arrowed downward. She touched his flat nipples, rubbing small circles, making his breath come faster as the sensation triggered an even more intense need within him.
As she trailed one finger down along the ribbon of hair to his navel and beyond, he stripped out of his bathing suit one-handed and kicked it away without leaving her. The mere act of freeing himself from the restrictions of clothing turned him on even more as he felt the warm air move over him, the sun hot on his back. All that lay between them now was one tiny piece of fabric. He stroked her ribs, her hips, her belly, moving slowly down her body, savoring her. He loved the feel of every smooth inch. His finger skimmed the delicate dip of her navel and farther, over her hipbone and down to where the elastic of her bathing suit bottom impeded his exploration.
With slow, deliberate motions, he slipped a finger beneath the elastic and ran it back and forth, then delved a bit deeper until his long fingers combed through the dense mat of curls between her legs. She was dewed and slippery, and she arched beneath him, one long silken leg curving up over his hip and pulling him hard against her. They both made small sounds of delight as their bodies reacted to the sweet pressure.
Gently, reluctantly, he slid away from her long enough to hook his fingers in the fabric and pull it down and off. Celia watched him, her breath rushing in and out, but as the sun poured over her gloriously naked body, she made a motion to cover herself with her hands. “This makes me feel…exposed.”
He chuckled, lowering himself to her, taking her wrists and pulling them up beside her shoulders as he covered her. He shifted, snuggling himself firmly into the cleft of her thighs, groaning a little at the exquisite pressure that resulted from sandwiching himself between them. “Is this better?”
She smiled up at him, her lips quivering slightly. “Yes. But what if someone—”
He covered her mouth with his own again, using his tongue to draw a response from her until she was fully engaged in the kiss. When he released her wrists she clasped his shoulders, clinging to him, pressing her bare flesh against his chest and making him growl with approval. He worked one hand between their bodies, bypassing his straining flesh in favor of the soft fleece that hid her feminine secrets. Slowly, slowly, he inched one finger down, until he felt the pouting bump beneath his finger. Equally slowly, he pressed and circled gently, ignoring his body’s urgent demands until she was writhing and frantic beneath him.
“Reese,” she begged him, tearing her mouth from his. “Reese…”
“What, baby?” He used the moment to push his hand farther between her thighs, loving the slick, moist heat and the fact that he’d been the one to make her respond that way. “Do you want me?”
She nodded, reaching one small hand down to encircle him. He groaned as an involuntary surge of excitement threatened his self-control. She’d only recently gotten brave enough to touch him but she was a fast learner and the mere thought of what she could do to him— Under the circumstances, he thought, it might not be such a good idea. As she traced one finger across the sensitive tip, he reared back, removing himself from her grasp. He set his hands on her inner thighs, pressing them apart and looking at the secret treasure they yielded.
Celia reached for him, her modesty all but forgotten. “Hurry…”
He was dragged from his reverie by Celia’s hand, which he held loosely in his, slowly rising to tuck her hair away from her face. It was only quick thinking that kept him from pulling her hand down to palm the hard ridge pushing at the front of his pants. Her eyelids fluttered as she stretched and he caught his breath, further aroused by both the memory and the soft slide of her body against his. Then her eyes opened and she blinked at him. “Reese.” She didn’t sound surprised, only cordial and a bit wary. “What time is it?”
He glanced at the old clock that had faithfully announced the hour as well as the half all night long. “Nearly six. Sleep well?”
“Nearly six?” She tried to shove herself upright. “Oh, no! You were here all night.”
“Yeah.” He held her easily in place though he was careful not to settle her too snugly into his lap. There was no way she could miss the evidence that would betray his thoughts if she lay against him any more closely. “Relax,” he said, stroking her back. “All we did was sleep. Literally.”
“Yes, but—”
“And you did make sure those folks down on the pier knew that I was coming home with you, remember? This will just make your story more convincing.”
She stopped pushing against him, but her body felt stiff. It made him realize just how much he’d liked having her draped bonelessly over him in slumber. They’d never slept together all night way back when…and he was reminded of his daydream before she woke.
Without giving himself time to think, he asked, “Do you remember the first time we did it on the boat? We fell asleep afterward and my butt got sunburned.”
“Reese!” A startled half laugh burst out of her and she sat up again, pushing herself away from him as he reluctantly let her go. “What brought that on?”
