by Lena North
“I don’t know,” he said and glanced at me. “It’s… I don’t know.”
“If you don’t want to do it then you should tell them, although it would be –” Well, crap. So much for not sharing my view. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing to do?” I said carefully, holding his gaze.
“But it would mean they’d have a child who was mine?”
“Well, no. It would be their child.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know,” I said.
He watched me a for a while.
“What’s going on in your head right now?” he asked finally.
“You want to know what I think?”
“Yeah.”
Okay. He asked so I’d tell him.
“I’m an only child. You know how I grew up, and you’re right. No child should grow up that alone. So what I think is that it can only be good for any children you have to also have another sibling. For someone like me, that sounds like a really good thing. And the way you all are, Joao… You call everyone cousin, but in many ways, you’re like a big bunch of brothers and sisters. Look at how Pauline and her sister somehow share their kids? If you’re open about it from the start, no one will think it’s strange.”
He reached out to pull me closer to him and used a strong hand to tilt my head back.
“Really?”
“Yeah. And Tina is your cousin, but also your best friend in many ways. To be able to give her that gift and not do it would be selfish. You’re not a selfish man, Joao.”
His arm twitched, and I was suddenly hauled up in his lap. He buried his face in my neck and held me close.
“I wanted to do it, and you just put words on my thoughts in a way I never could have,” he murmured.
“You would have figured it out, eventually,” I said.
“Maybe.”
He still held me close, and I’d said enough. He needed to think more about it on his own, which meant I needed to butt out and change the topic.
“Of course you would have figured it out, Josie,” I said lightly. “You’re a bit slow sometimes, but you’re not stupid.”
He raised his head slowly and looked at me. I grinned back at him. Without any warning, he stood up with me still in his arms. Then he took a few steps to the side of the boat, and I knew what he was going to do.
“Don’t,” I squealed.
“Slow?” he drawled.
And then he jumped.
We stayed in the water a while. I tried to splash water in his face, which he avoided with annoying ease. Then three dolphins joined us, and I quickly got them to help me. The splashes from their fins were magnificent, and Joao caved in after a while. We horsed around for a bit longer and waved when the dolphins giggled something and swam off. Then he towed me toward the ladder, and we climbed up. I’d changed into a wide, white sundress and it was plastered to my body. My hair wasn’t the nicely brushed mop of curls anymore, and the mascara I’d put on would probably have ended up either on my cheeks or in the ocean.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he grinned.
“I tried to look a nice,” I snapped. “Now, look at me.”
He did. Then his eyes darkened, and he took a step toward me.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
I glanced down and saw what he saw. A wet, white dress which clearly showed I’d eschewed a bra but had put on a very nice-looking pair of white, lacey panties.
“Oh,” I whispered.
“Sunshine,” he groaned. “First that bikini, and now this. I’m trying really hard to not jump you like a sex-crazed maniac, and you’re not making it easy for me.”
“Maybe you should stop trying,” I suggested.
His hands slid up my sides, bringing the dress with them.
“Maybe I should,” he murmured and pulled the dress over my head.
I heard myself make a small, soft sound when he pulled me closer and let his hands move down my back. Then he leaned back, and his eyes were full of lazy humor suddenly.
“I guess this means you’ll make me an actual merslut?”
I burst out laughing and leaned in close.
“I really hope so,” I breathed into his ear.
Chapter Twelve
Alone
Joao
Joao woke up with the scent of her surrounding him and her warm body in his arms. He wasn’t a cuddler, so he was surprised to find himself wrapped tightly against her back and with his face buried in her soft hair. The sheet was down by their ankles which was one way of solving the heat his body radiated. She was warm too, and he started to move away, but she moved with him and made a small sound.
“Joao,” she murmured.
“Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he mumbled and let his tongue trail her neck.
She angled her head to give him better access, and he saw her mouth stretch into a smile. The way her soft skin felt under the hand he moved lazily over her hip made him smile too.
“Well, now that you’re awake…” he said and moved his hand further down.
“Oh,” she breathed but moved around to face him.
There it was. That beautiful smile.
“Sunshine,” he said hoarsely.
Something tightened in his chest, but then she moved her hand too, and neither of them said anything intelligible for a long time.
***
They got back to Croxier late that evening. Roark waited on the dock to help with the boat, and Joao wanted to tell him to go away. The two days they’d spent alone hadn’t been nearly enough, and he wanted to have her to himself a while longer. He also wanted to take her home with him which was something he did not want to ask her about in front of a brother who was laughing knowingly at him.
“Hey, welcome back,” someone called out, and Joao closed his eyes.
Uncle Nico. Why the hell was everyone walking around this late?
“Hey,” Charlie said and started talking about the island they’d been on.
“I’ll take you home,” Nicholas said calmly. “Paulie is still awake. We’ll have tea, and you can tell us everything.”
Joao had to clench his teeth together hard to keep a string of ugly expletives from slipping out. Roark chuckled. The goddamned brat.
“Oh. Okay,” Charlie said, sounding a little surprised, and he felt her hand twitch in his. Then she leaned into him and tilted her head back. “I guess I’m leaving,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I’ll call you.”
Their kiss was brief, and then he watched them walk off.
“Not the way you’d planned the night to end?”
He turned to look at his openly laughing brother.
“Not really,” he admitted. “Let’s head home.”
They sat on their back deck and watched the ocean, talking quietly.
“Happy for you,” Roark murmured suddenly.
Joao nodded slowly but didn’t answer. He knew his brother meant what he’d said, but there was a tinge of sadness in his voice too. He recognized the envy for what it was and knew he’d sounded exactly the same when he talked to his cousin Nicky. He wouldn’t have wanted to talk to Nicky about how he felt and assumed Roark wasn’t up for a heart to heart either.
“She asked who the dolphins were crying for,” he said instead.
“You told her about Tommy?”
He sighed and thought about his cousin. Big, brawny, and larger than life. Talented beyond belief and so damned fragile inside. Tommy had been close to Nicky, and it had crushed him when Tommy gave up on life. It had crushed them all in a way, and the dolphins had rushed from all over to Tommy, but they’d been too late. They’d all heard his soft goodbye, and then it had been over. Finding his cousin at the bottom of the ocean had been awful, and he’d cried with the dolphins at the funeral.
“She says it isn’t Tommy they cry for.”
“Really?”
“She says they cry for Jamie. Asking why he won’t come to them for help.”
“What?”
Joao looked at his brother and nodded. Jamie had been Tommy’s younger brother, and it had crushed their parents when also the second son was lost to the sea. He’d been shot because of his involvement on the fringe of the drug trade and thrown on a boat which had escaped its followers far out on the ocean. They’d found the boat and pieces of the one driving it, and forensics indicated the engine had exploded. There hadn’t been a single piece of Jamie anywhere.
“We need to start looking again. I know we searched everywhere when he disappeared, but the dolphins told Charlie he’s out there somewhere. They keep telling her he isn’t dead. We all thought he’d died, and we gave up when Nicky told us to stop, but we shouldn’t have. I think he’s alive still.”
“He can’t be. He’s been gone for almost a year.”
“He’s a certified genius. He also did some pretty nasty things. He might not want to be found, Roark.”
“But –”
“Everyone knew Tommy was the soft one. We never looked for that side in Jamie, and he never showed it to us, but he could have… cracked.”
“He lost his ability to talk to the dolphins. Maybe he can’t ask for help. Maybe he died on an island somewhere.”
“Maybe. And yeah, he couldn’t talk to them in the end, but he knows all he has to do is walk into the water, and the dolphins would pick up the scent from him. If Jamie is alive, he doesn’t want to be found.”
“We’ll start looking again.”
Joao’s phone beeped, and he looked down on it reflexively.
“Goodnight.”
Charlie had ended her text with a kissy-face and a pink heart. His brows went up.
“What?” Roark asked.
“I fucking hate emojis. It’s like some kind of code that I do not speak.”
“Let me see.” Roark nabbed his phone and started grinning. “Okay. Here’s what she’s really saying; I miss you, and could you please call me to say goodnight because I’m not sure how you feel about me, so I’m afraid to call myself.”
Joao blinked. Then he blinked again, took his phone back and looked at it. Nope. It still just said goodnight.
“Huh,” he grunted instead of asking how the heck his brother had gotten that from her message.
Roark explained anyway.
“She sends you a kiss, which means she wants one. And a red heart means she loves you, but since you probably haven’t exchanged avowals of that kind yet, she didn’t want to put one there and decided a pink would be safe. Kind of cute, but not too much.”
“Jesus,” Joao muttered but couldn’t hold a grin back. “Girls put that much into a few silly symbols in a text message?”
“Yup.”
“Huh,” he said again. A few of his former girlfriends, including Mimi, had ended their messages with a red heart and he hadn’t thought much about it. If Roark was right, he probably should have. “You need to leave,” he said and moved his fingers over the screen.
“Tell her goodnight from me,” Roark said and walked over to his own back door. “Don’t make too noisy kissing sounds. I need to sleep.”
He had no intentions of making any kind of sounds at all, but walked inside anyway and was sliding the door shut when she answered.
“Hey.”
“Wish you were here, Sunshine,” he murmured. “Wanted to kiss you goodnight and you’re not here with me so I can’t.”
“Oh,” she murmured. “Nicholas just offered to drive me, and I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to…”
He grinned when she trailed off.
“Silly girl. Of course, I wanted you with me.”
“You need to work tomorrow.”
“So? I would have liked knowing you were in my bed while I started sorting out whatever mess they made while we were gone.”
She was silent for a second and then she murmured, “I wasn’t sure what Nicholas and Pauline would think.”
Ah. He could have told her they probably wouldn’t have thought anything about it but decided to call his aunt first thing in the morning.
“Sunshine,” he murmured. “Can I pick you up when I get away from work tomorrow?”
“I could make dinner for us… at your place. If that’s okay?”
“I’d like that.”
“Okay. I’ll get the key from Roark. Text me when you’re on your way home?”
“Okay,” he echoed. “I’m gonna let you sleep now, baby.”
“Goodnight,” she whispered.
When they’d closed the call, he went out on his back porch again and watched the soft waves. Life was pretty great right then, and the next day she’d be in his house when he came home which would be damned fantastic.
***
“Yeah, Nicky, I hear you. I’ll make sure the house is cleaned.” He shifted the phone to his other ear and turned off the main road. “No, I won’t clean it myself, you moron. I’ll ask your mother.”
Nicky laughed, and he heard Snow hiss something in the background.
“No, I’m not gonna ask him that,” Nicky murmured in a muffled voice.
“What?”
“She wants me to ask about your love-life.”
Nicky sounded part appalled but part amused, and Joao grinned as he made another turn to get on the road to his house. Charlie wouldn’t be there because Carrie was visiting so she’d spent the night in Nicholas and Pauline’s house. He missed her when she was gone but loved how happy she’d sounded when he called to say goodnight the evening before.
“Tell Snow I’m happy,” he said.
“Yeah?” Nicky said softly.
“Yeah,” Joao confirmed and added quietly. “Tell her I have what you have.”
There was a short pause, and then Nicky murmured, “Josie…”
“Have to go, see you in a couple of weeks.”
“Yup. I’ll go deal with the puking lady now.”
Snow squealed something that sounded a little annoyed, but a lot happy, and then the call was closed. He grinned as he got out of the car. Carrie was leaving that evening so Charlie would be at his house again. He hadn’t lied to his cousin when he said he’d found what Nicky and Snow had. The way he and Charlie had slid into a relationship was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. It was hot and happy and so damned easy he sometimes just stared at her.
They’d only been a couple for a few weeks, and he got that the newness of it was part of their ridiculous bliss, but it was more than that. Their lives were merging, and he knew it wasn’t fair to his former girlfriends to compare, but he did.
He hadn’t ever dated someone who argued so damned much with him, which was exasperating. Or refused to let him take care of her, which was frustrating. Or communicated clearly to him when he was being a little bit of a jerk, which he could be when he was exasperated and frustrated.
He hadn’t laughed so much with anyone before, though, and for the first time since he became chief of police, he’d also ignored his phone. It had only happened once, he hadn’t been on call, and they had been naked, but he’d been naked with women before and never hesitated for a second to answer if they called from the station. This time, he threw the phone far out over the porch, and into the sand. Later, he’d spent fifteen minutes looking for it, while Charlie sat on the porch steps, laughing at him. When he called the office back, it turned out it had been a bit of an emergency in a domestic abuse situation, but they’d handled it well without him so he guessed that if something similar happened again, they’d be fine then too.
Charlie had started to look for a job and had been offered a receptionist position, but Mimi was working as an event planner at the same hotel, and she’d made a few unpleasant comments, so Charlie was stalling, hoping something else would come up. Joao had told her that if she wanted to look for an accounting job, it would be okay. She’d need to use her legal name for it,
and might need references, but Sebastian Lievens wouldn’t be a problem for her on the Islands, so it didn’t matter if he found out where she was. She stalled on that too and had told him it was because she didn’t enjoy being an accountant but he knew the douche was part of it, so he’d made a few more calls to his friends on the mainland. It would be good to be prepared because eventually, Sebastian would find out where she was. In a way, Joao hoped he would. He had plenty of dirt on the man already and would enjoy using it if the situation warranted it.
For now, they were good though, and that night Charlie would sleep by his side again, so they were more than good, actually. They were great.
He felt his brows go up in surprise when he saw Mimi waiting for him outside his door with a sweet smile on her face. She was always keen to be friends with everyone and could be there to mend fences, but somehow, he doubted it.
“Hello,” he said cautiously.
“Can we talk?”
“Okay,” he said and let her pass him through the door. “Back deck okay, or do you want to stay in the living room?”
He really wanted the back deck, where they would be in front of a lot of people hanging out on the beach. She wouldn’t pick a fight with him there.
“Living room.”
Shit.
She watched him quietly for a long while, and he waited. Then she spoke, and his world came crashing down around him.
“The time has come for you to cut off your dreads, Joao.”
God, no. No, no, no. Jesus, fuck. Charlie…
“What?” he asked hoarsely, but he knew what she meant.
“I’m pregnant,” she clarified, and added, “It’s yours.”
He turned away abruptly and tried to get his brain to start working again.
“Say something,” she murmured, and he felt her hand on his back.
He took a few steps away and turned.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded, and his gut clenched.
“Okay,” he said. “That was unexpected. It has been a while since we…”
“I was upset when we decided to take a break in our relationship, so when I missed my period, I didn’t think about it. It must have happened that last time.”
