Almost Paradise (Book 4)

by Christie Ridgway

  She nodded, trembled again.

  He laid it on the line. “Forget about lunch. Come back to my bed. Stay there until it’s time for me to go.”

  * * *

  SKYE WAS TUGGED AWAY from Gage, just as his words started to sink in. Come back to my bed. Stay there until it’s time for me to go. Polly had her by the arm, and it appeared she had no intention of letting go.

  “I’ll bring her back shortly,” her blonde friend said to Gage, in her cheery, kindergarten-teacher voice. “You just sit tight.”

  Gage opened his mouth as if to protest, then shut it. He must see the same implacability on Polly’s face that Skye did. Though a pair of sunglasses covered her eyes, her friend’s expression was set and her jaw was firm.

  “I just need a few minutes of girl talk.” Polly continued towing her in the direction of the bar. Upon reaching it, she practically lifted Skye onto one of the stools. For a small woman, she had wiry strength that came from a career of wrangling little kids. “Thank me,” she said.

  “For what?” Skye glanced back at Gage to see that he’d resettled into his seat and was staring out at the ocean. “What the heck was that about?”

  Come back to my bed. Stay there until it’s time for me to go.

  “I’m giving you a chance to think this through without being under the influence of Stunning Sex Man.”

  “You heard what he said?” Come back to my bed. Stay there until it’s time for me to go.

  “I was standing right beside you, not that I expect either of you noticed with all the pheromones buzzing around you like electrons circling atoms.”

  “‘Powerful juju,’” Skye murmured.

  Polly called out to the guy behind the bar. “Hey, Steve, could we get a couple of lattes?”

  It was that same young man who’d served them that afternoon a couple of weeks before, the one who was the film friend of Addy’s. It didn’t take him long to concoct a couple of caffeine-and-milk beverages, and he smiled at Skye as he slid her oversize cup in front of her. “Nice to see you again,” he said. “You don’t get in here much in the afternoons, I guess. That’s when my shifts are usually scheduled.”

  “No.” She gave him a polite smile. “I’ve been pretty busy this summer.”

  “Searching for the famous jeweled collar?” he asked, picking up a bar towel and sliding it across the surface. “Has it come to light?”

  “No.” He was looking at her so expectantly she felt compelled to say a little more. “But Addy found a letter from my great-great-grandmother to my great-great-grandfather that seems to at least confirm its existence. As a matter of fact, a local reporter is writing a feature about it for the Sunday Lifestyles section of the newspaper. It’s supposed to come out later this month.”

  His hand paused in its wax-on, wax-off movement. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  Skye lifted her cup to her lips. “This weekend’s paper or the next.”

  “And I’ll look forward to talking to you more about it, too.” He smiled. “I’ve scored some evening shifts so maybe we’ll run into each other more often.”

  Something about that smile of his set Skye’s nerves jumping. “Uh, sure,” she said, and was relieved when a waitress came up to him with drink orders. She leaned close to Polly. “Does he give you the creeps, or is it just me?”

  Her friend shoved her sunglasses to the top of her head as if to get a better look at the barista. Skye drew back, concerned by the shadows under her friend’s eyes. “Polly, what’s wrong?”

  The blonde flicked her a glance. “I’m good. I’m always good.”

  Skye frowned. “I’m not letting you get away with your usual pat answer.”

  “It’s nothing you need to know about.”

  “Are you kidding? You just meddled in my life. I think it’s only fair that I get to be nosy about yours.”

  Polly glanced at her again, then heaved a sigh. “Fine. Maybe it will be instructive to you.” Leaning down, she blew across the surface of her drink. Then she straightened without taking a sip. “I told Teague my secrets. You know, about...about my wild teenage rebellion.”

  Skye was careful to let nothing show on her face. “I was surprised you hadn’t before. You’ve been so close to him.”

  The other woman shrugged. “Maybe I was afraid to shatter his illusions. He always thought I could do no wrong.”

  Skye placed her hand on her friend’s arm. “Pol, you were a kid acting out in kid fashion. You didn’t do wrong, you just did...”

  “Stupid. Hurtful.”

  “Because you were hurting. You know that, right?”

  Polly smiled, but it didn’t make her appear any less tired. “The double major in psychology and education knows that.” She touched her chest with her fingertips. “But in here there’s a piece that’s not so sure.”

  “What did Teague say?”

  “I didn’t give him much of a chance to say anything.”

  “Still,” Skye said loyally, “he is a dope.”

  “Told you.”

  They were silent a minute. Then Skye picked up her latte. “Out of curiosity, how did you think I might find your situation with Teague-the-dope instructive?”

  “Heck, I don’t know.” Polly glanced over her shoulder in the direction of Gage. “Maybe it’s safer to keep your secrets?”

  Wasn’t it too late for that? Skye wondered. He knew about the home invasion, he knew about the problems it had caused for her...but he didn’t know everything. She stole her own peek at him. He appeared relaxed in his chair, but she could see his fingertips drumming on the tabletop.

  He didn’t know how close she was to falling for him.

  If he did, she suspected he wouldn’t have made that tempting, delicious demand. Come back to my bed. Stay there until it’s time for me to go.

  “So...are you?” Polly asked.

  Skye turned her head to look at her friend. “Am I what?”

  “Going back to his bed.”

  “It would just be temporary. He’s leaving the cove after the wedding.”

  “Which is exactly why you should think twice, or thrice, or...what’s four times?”

  Skye shrugged. “Twice twice? And wasn’t it you who was encouraging me to have a summer fling? You seemed a hearty proponent of temporary sexual gratification not all that long ago.”

  Pursing her lips, Polly seemed to mull over the idea. Then she blinked, straightening on her stool. “Hear that?”

  “Are the voices in your head starting up again?”

  “Ha-ha.” Polly pointed toward a speaker hanging over the bar. “It’s a sign. A warning. Bananarama’s ‘Cruel Summer.’”

  The barista paused in his stroll down the bar. “We’ve been playing summer songs all day. You don’t like this one?” Before they could answer, he reached toward a computer sitting beneath the shelves holding the call liquors. Quick keystrokes, and the music changed.

  Justin Timberlake singing how this couldn’t be mere “Summer Love.”

  That was the warning, Skye thought, chilled.

  And then a hot, heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Time’s up,” a voice growled in her ear.

  Her breath went short as desire shot through her, a dizzying cocktail of heat and giddy excitement. The place between her thighs clenched. Slowly, so slowly, she turned her head to look at Gage. His eyes were piercing blue in his tanned face. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and she knew the whiskers would be rough on her skin. He’d leave a chafed trail behind—around her mouth, down her neck, on the pale slopes of her breasts and the delicate skin of her thighs. She’d probably revel in it.

  His hand squeezed her shoulder. “Well?”

  Another summer moment popped into her mind. Her mother had signed her up for a weeklong sleepaway camp, and before leaving Skye had felt this same mix of sickness, sadness and incipient excitement. Hadn’t she made it back from that experience safely?

  Skye slid off her stool. Gage stepped back and she shot a l
ook at Polly. Her friend wiggled her fingers, then shrugged, a “What can you do?”

  Nothing, Skye thought, placing her hand in Gage’s. As his fingers closed over hers, desire surged again, along with an almost melancholy feeling of inevitability. “Don’t think you can escape me,” he’d said.

  She’d always known she couldn’t.

  The only question was whether she could escape losing her heart.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THAT NIGHT, POLLY DIDN’T know what prompted her to nudge aside her front curtains. But some instinct had her crossing the living room floor, the flannel of her men’s-style pajamas flapping around her ankles. From Skye’s place next door, a floodlight was trained on the surf. It lit up the sand, too, giving it a glaze of silver. At the edge of its ghostly cast, closer to Polly’s house than to her friend’s, she saw a man sitting on the beach, his back to her.

  Teague.

  She dropped the curtain and retreated from the window. What the heck he was doing out there this late—it was close to midnight—was not her problem to ponder. Usually she’d be in bed herself by now, but insomnia had decided to move into the tiny cottage with her.

  Biting her lip, she looked toward the front door. Should she...? No. The four walls were too small for her, Teague and sleeplessness. Good sense precluded her from going out to him. Telling him her bad girl secrets had only served to make her feel more vulnerable and insecure. In this state, who knew what other dangerous information—I love you, I’ve loved you for years—she might unwillingly reveal?

  So instead she retreated to the bedroom and shivered as she slipped between the cool sheets. It was the only good-sized room in the house, large enough for her wrought-iron queen-sized bed with its very high mattress as well as the tall lingerie chest in the corner. The matching bureau had to be stored in the closet, but she still had access to all her things.

  When she’d moved in at the end of last month, Teague had installed a hanging jewelry rack on the interior side of the door.

  What a pal.

  In return, she was leaving him alone in the cold night.

  Shoving the thought away, she closed her eyes and tried picturing her upcoming students—the Olivias, the Beaus, the Bobbys.

  But what popped onto the screen of her mind was that image of Teague sitting on the beach, dressed only in a T-shirt and jeans. Another shiver went through her, as she thought of how chilled he must be by now.

  Or not. Maybe he’d already headed for home. Maybe he was driving back to his place that was twenty minutes away, the car heater blasting, leaving her to lie here, needlessly worrying about him.

  Frowning at his rudeness, she threw back the covers and hurried into the living room without pausing for her slippers. She gripped the corner of the curtain, then jerked it back with a flourish, like a magician about to reveal that the rabbit had disappeared.

  The bunny was still out there.

  Damn his big ears. She stomped to the front door, worked the locks, then yanked it open. “Shoo” was on the tip of her tongue. But strange noises floated above the sound of the surf. Musical notes?

  Curious despite herself, she hurried across the chilled sand toward her former best buddy. Getting her first frontal glimpse of him, she came to an abrupt halt, her heels digging in the damp grains. It was Teague, all right, sitting cross-legged, a bottle of something wrapped in a brown bag propped in front of him. He cradled a ukulele to his chest.

  Polly stared. “Since when do you play an instrument?”

  He squinted up at her, as if her face were too bright. “Wha?”

  Sinking to her knees, she sniffed at the brown-bagged bottle. Booze. “You’re drunk,” she said, surprised. He was always very careful about the amounts he imbibed.

  He plucked at the instrument’s strings. “Pozzible,” he said, slurring the word.

  “Why?”

  “Can’ talk.” He made a tipsy, big-armed gesture that she realized was him miming zipping his lips, then locking them and throwing away the key. “M’father’z advice. Don’ talk ’bout it.”

  Polly decided not to try to decipher his mood. As she’d been saying for weeks, she was moving on from him...except she couldn’t move on until she got him off her beach. “Let’s go,” she said, grabbing for his wrist.

  His skin was corpse-cold, his arm a deadweight. “Came here,” he said, a big lump of unmoving, drunk man. “Didn’ mean to.” His head turned slowly, as if taking in his surroundings for the first time. “But...”

  “You’re here,” she said, impatient. “But inside here will be more comfortable than outside here.” Putting more effort into it, she tugged on his arm as she got to her feet.

  He rose like a sleepwalker and stumbled after her. She kept her hand on him, worried that if she let go he might wander in the wrong direction. The ukulele’s neck was gripped in his fist as she towed him up her steps and into her living room. She breathed a sigh of relief as she shut the door behind them. Step one to getting him out of her house and out of her hair was getting him into her house and sobering him up.

  “So, when did you take up the uke?” she asked, glancing down at it. “And why?”

  “Hobby. For stress.” He blinked at her. “Where’s m’booze? Helps, too.”

  Stress? He was one of the most laid-back men she knew. She pushed him toward the breakfast bar. “No more alcohol for you. I’m going to fix you some soup and a sandwich.”

  “Thank you, Pol,” he answered in that earnest way of drunk people as he struggled to maneuver himself onto a stool. The ukulele fell to the floor with a clatter and he ignored it. “Owe you...owe you...”

  His stare caught on a bowl of fruit. “Owe you an apple.”

  He owed her an explanation, but she wasn’t going to press for one. Instead, she heated up a can of soup and slapped together some bread, meat and cheese. She poured him a glass of milk and even draped the throw blanket from the couch over his shoulders as if he were a small boy.

  The thought sent a swift and unexpected shaft of pain through her heart. She could imagine it too easily, a little guy with Teague’s dark hair and eyes, his easy charm and even temperament. It was stupid of her, she knew, but tears stung the corners of her eyes. She’d never wanted riches or fame, just simple things like a teaching career, a family. A husband whom she could believe in.

  Teague.

  But that was a dream not to be, she reminded herself, and turned her back on him to wash up the sauce pan and then make half a pot of coffee. She didn’t look at him again until she placed a mug of dark brew beside the drained milk glass.

  He was staring at his empty soup bowl and looking more miserable than she’d ever seen him. Even when Tess had dashed his hopes almost as soon as he’d had them, he’d never appeared so grim.

  The milk-pourer in her wanted to ask what was wrong, but the woman who needed to get over an unrequited romance wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t allow her emotions to get further engaged.

  Then he reached for the uke, which she’d retrieved from the floor and set on the stool beside him. He placed the fingers of his left hand on the neck and strummed with his right thumb. It sounded terrible.

  A hobby to help with the stress.

  He strummed another jarring chord. Polly winced. “That’s really awful, you know.”

  His head came up and she could see that the food and nonalcoholic drinks had gone a long way to sobering him up. “Yeah.” Grimacing, he set the instrument aside again.

  A tense silence welled up between them. Should she insist he leave now? Was he safe to drive? Because it wasn’t safe to have him here, where he only fueled more dreams, where he only made her feel things she’d vowed would remain unspoken.

  “I suppose you want to know...” he started.

  “I don’t want to know anything!” She whirled around and grabbed up the dishrag, blindly scrubbing at the clean countertop.

  Another moment passed. Then she heard the stool’s legs scrape against the flo
or. “Okay. Yeah. That’s best.”

  When she didn’t hear further movement, Polly peeked over her shoulder. Standing, he stared down at the class roster she’d left out, with the one-inch-by-one-inch photos of her students affixed beside each name. His finger traced a single line, over and over.

  “What is it?” Polly heard herself ask. “What’s wrong?” Too late, she wished she’d shoved the dishrag in her mouth.

  Teague looked over, his face set in tired lines. “I...” Then he shook his head. “No. I’ll be on my way. Sorry I disturbed you.”

  His expression disturbed her now. Drunk she could dismiss him, but exhausted and upset was a different matter altogether. “What won’t you say?” she demanded, as she recalled him on the beach, telling her his father’s advice. Don’t talk.

  “Had a few bad shifts, that’s all.”

  Those shifts he never spoke of. The job he didn’t discuss beyond raunchy jokes and firehouse recipes. Teague’s father had been a firefighter, too. Had his instructions been to hold all the stress of the position inside? To never speak of it? Sympathy swamped her.

  “Tell me,” she said, tossing the cloth into the sink and coming closer. It rattled her more than a little to see easygoing but always-in-control Teague in a mood. “What’s wrong?”

  He collapsed back onto the stool and lowered his head to one hand. He massaged his temples with thumb and fingers. “The past couple of weeks we’ve had some disturbing calls. I just need a little time to...process.”

  To put the experiences up on that high shelf he had, Polly thought with sudden insight. But wouldn’t there come a time when there was no more room for another? Didn’t he have to sort them out and clear some away in order to cope with the next batch?

  “Care to share with me?” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  Not looking up, he shook his head. “It’s better to keep things...pretty here. I don’t need to bring disturbing stuff into this house or into your mind.”

  “Because your father protected your mother that way.” Despite that—or because of it?—Polly knew the woman had ultimately left her husband and son.