In the Waning Light

by Loreth Anne White

  “Here, I’ll get them.” Geoff reached for the back door.

  “No.” Blake’s word was curt. The tone stopped Geoff dead in his tracks. A moment of tension pulsed between the two brothers. “Just … give us a bit of space,” Blake said quietly as he opened the door himself, and reached in for the boxes. He piled one atop the other, hesitated, then said, “Where were you all night, before you heard about the shooting?”

  “Told you. Couldn’t sleep. Just taking a drive around town, a nostalgic look-see at all the old haunts.”

  “Did you go into Forest End?”

  “I went everywhere.”

  Another moment of thick tension simmered between the brothers. Then Blake said, so quietly Meg almost missed it, “Shouldn’t be driving over the limit.”

  “Says the saint to the sinner.” Geoff stepped back with a slight stumble. He stared at Blake for a beat, then turned and headed off into the mist.

  “Where’s he going?” Meg said.

  “Boathouse. He’s staying down there. Come. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “I need to look at your foot,” he said. “I can see you’re feeling the pain now that the adrenaline is wearing off.”

  They entered through the office, and Blake led Meg into the back side of the marina that was the Sutton home. Coals still glowed in the hearth in the living room that looked out over the water. Lucy pushed herself up from her mat in front of the fire and wiggled a sleepy welcome. Blake set the file boxes in his study, and went directly over to stoke the embers, tossing in more logs, building flames to a crackling roar.

  Meg crouched down to pet the Lab. Lucy licked her, and she hugged the dog, burying her face against fur. Assailed by a sudden sense of familiarity, of warmth, of hearth and home, she realized with a pang how much she missed having animals around. And it struck her just how exhausted she was, how much she wanted to give in, drop her guard, curl up and sleep somewhere safe. It seemed like she’d been awake for days, tight with tension ever since the Evening Show interview, since Jonah had broken up with her over a bottle of Burgundy from the slopes of the Saône River. Since she’d discovered her mother’s earth-shattering journal and files. The attack tonight had come close to being the proverbial straw. That’s why she’d been vulnerable to Blake. That’s all it was. She just had to stay focused on why she’d come here, what she had to accomplish. On getting back to Seattle once it was all over.

  But as she cuddled Lucy, Meg felt an eerie sense of being watched. She looked up.

  Blake stood by the fire. He’d gone stone still, watching her, unblinking, iron poker in hand. An unreadable look in his eyes.

  “Blake … what happened in the truck, it … it was a mistake.”

  He held her eyes in silence for a moment longer. “I don’t think so, Meg.” His voice was rough, thick. “Didn’t feel like a mistake to me.”

  Meg swallowed at the rough intensity in his gaze.

  “Come sit in this chair here by the fire,” he said. “I’ll get the first aid kit, bring you something warm to drink.”

  Meg allowed herself to slump back into a soft old wingback in front of the flames. Blake draped a blanket over her shoulders, and Lucy nuzzled her hand. Meg stroked her doggie head while the fire crackled. She shivered, unable to get warm. The cold seemed to have sunk down into her bones. But there was something more, deeper—the person she’d been in Seattle had begun to crack, and she wasn’t sure what that meant, or if she even wanted to fight it.

  Blake returned with a steaming glass mug and a red first aid bag.

  “Hot toddy,” he said, handing the mug to her. “Brandy, hot water, lemon, honey. Should do the trick.” He smiled. It put dimples into his cheeks and a green light into his eyes. Her heart did a funny flip as she accepted the mug, sort of excited and terrified. She needed to try calling Jonah again, just to hear his voice. Orient herself.

  Do you want to?

  Or maybe not.

  Because if Jonah knew she’d been attacked tonight, he’d be on a private plane and in Shelter Bay before morning, whether he’d broken off their engagement or not. All she would have proved to herself was that she couldn’t do this without him.

  Or was it because of Blake that she wasn’t calling him? Was it because of what she’d felt when he’d kissed her? And still felt now?

  Blake set an enamel bowl of hot water onto the stone ledge in front of the fireplace, and opened the kit containing cotton swabs, forceps, disinfectant, adhesive, and gauze bandages. Outside the wind was picking up, and she could hear the slap of small waves against the wooden dock as the tide surged into the bay. Sounds and rhythms of her youth, and they comforted her as she sipped and the brandy blossomed warmth through her chest.

  Blake dragged an overstuffed ottoman in front of the fire and patted it. “Feet up.”

  It made her smile. She propped her feet up and he slid her boots off, then her socks. They were bloody. She took a deep gulp of her drink, put her head back, and just relaxed into the throb of pain rather than fight it. He pulled over a desk reading lamp, angled it, and set a pair of reading specs on the end of his nose.

  She laughed. “How long have you been needing those?” she said.

  He peered at her, mock stern, over the tops of his glasses. “Too long. Now, sit still.”

  He bathed her feet, dipping a cloth into water, wiping away blood, and wringing it out in the enamel basin. Blood pinked the water. In spite of the dull throb of pain, her eyelids grew heavy. “Gosh, how much brandy did you put in here?”

  A half smile played over his mouth. His green eyes twinkled. “Enough.” He squeezed the skin under her foot and she flinched. “You’ve got a fair-size shard of glass in here. It’s going to sting a bit as I pull it out, ready?”

  She nodded, and sucked air in sharply as he yanked it out. He plinked the splinter of glass into a bowl. “One or two more, okay?”

  She felt blood flow as he removed pieces. He dabbed, wiped.

  “How was it, being a medic?”

  He grunted, concentrating. She studied him, seeing him anew in her relaxed and receptive state, without the energy to keep her walls up. Blake Sutton was a changed man. Matured. Stories in the lines of his face. The way he now had to wear glasses to see up close endeared him to her. Yet he still exuded an alpha physicality. It was his hallmark. It’s how she always remembered him, even as a boy. He took up space unapologetically. He was a fighter—a gladiator. Kind. All about protecting tribe and family. His emotions were raw, you got what you saw, he said what he meant. No games. Whereas Jonah was sleek, sophisticated, cerebral. He played life like a game of chess. Calculating, second-guessing. Always wary and watchful. All about aesthetics. Meg liked to think in terms of mythology and archetypes when she crafted her books, and if she had to pin an archetype on Jonah, he’d definitely be the messiah. And part of her had always harbored a quiet suspicion that Jonah saw her as someone who needed to be saved.

  Did you foresee what might happen to me if I came back here, Jonah? What chess move was this? Did you suspect that the facade I’ve been wearing for so many years in Seattle might start to crumble back in Shelter Bay? Do you really know me better than I know myself? Did you realize on some deep level that it really was over between us, or perhaps never truly was, and that at heart I’m a small-town, ocean girl who might want to write books in her cottage by the sea?

  “What are you thinking?” he said without looking up.

  “What makes you think I’m thinking anything?”

  He looked up, angled his head, cocked a brow. “When is Meg Brogan ever not thinking about something?”

  “I was wondering about Geoff. When did he arrive?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Ouch.” She winced, reflexively jerking her foot back in pain. He held her steady, and dropped the forceps onto the plate. “Going to flush with disinfectant. It’ll sting a bit.”

  And shit, it did. She scrunched her f
ace, eyes watering as he rinsed the cuts with antiseptic. He repeated the process with the other foot, but that one had fewer wounds. He bound them both gently with gauze and then pulled on big, clean woolen socks he’d brought downstairs. The kind you make sock monkeys from and wear in construction boots. Warm and comforting.

  “Hand?” he said, holding his palm out. She set her empty mug down, leaned forward, and placed her hand in his. He probed and prodded. “Just a few thin cuts—doesn’t look like any glass left in here.” He flushed out the tiny cuts, and wrapped a bandage around her left hand.

  “You were lucky,” he said, starting to pack up his stuff. “You could have hurt yourself badly on all that glass.”

  “Does he visit often, Geoff?”

  “He came home once, when Dad died.”

  “And not for Allison’s funeral?”

  He shook his head.

  “So why now?”

  He snorted softly, came to his feet, enamel bowl in hand. “He’s getting married.”

  “What—who?”

  “I’m sure he’ll want to tell you himself. I’m just going to clean up. Do you want to stay by the fire, or try to get some sleep in the guest room?”

  “Fire,” she said, leaning back and pulling the blanket over herself. She didn’t relish the idea of being alone. It was warm down here. Comforting. He held her gaze a moment, then turned off the lamps apart from one. He busied himself cleaning up, and she felt herself drift on the distant sound of the waves. Wind was increasing, as it so often did over the bay just before sunrise, and a shutter banged somewhere. The buoys in the rafters outside began to thump gently against the wall.

  “It’ll be light soon,” he said, startling her awake. “I’m going to shower, then make Noah’s school lunch, get him up for breakfast, take him to school.” He hesitated at the door. “You okay here?”

  “Very,” she whispered. Too comfy. Dangerously so.

  He started to close the living room door behind him.

  “Blake.”

  He stilled. Their eyes met.

  “Thank you.”

  “Just promise me that you won’t interview Ike alone, or do anything risky without me.”

  “Nothing risky.”

  He closed the door, leaving her with Lucy sleeping on the mat at the foot of the wingback. Exhausted, her brain thick with brandy, stress, nights without sleep, Meg slipped into deep slumber for the first time in weeks.

  “Where did you go last night?”

  Henry looked up from his mug of scalding coffee that he was sipping carefully at the table in the breakfast nook. His brain felt like cotton. LB’s voice was hurting his head. But something inside him stilled when he saw the expression on her face. Her pupils were dilated. She looked crazed. Her hair wasn’t right, either. Slowly he lowered his mug. “A client,” he said. “For drinks. I told you.”

  “Where? Which bar? Whose house?”

  He hesitated. Geoff had phoned him from a dive bar at the Blind Channel Motel just south of Whakami, a place that was dark and anonymous and old, home to sad, blue-collar drunks. He’d joined Geoff there against his better judgment, against his own damn will. He’d told himself it was just to discuss a solution to their Meg problem. And they had. And more.

  “The Shelter Head Pub,” he lied.

  “You came home very late.”

  He said nothing. The fact that he was late, and drunk, had been obvious, and he’d rather not talk about it. It was a one-off. An old friend. And it was more than a hangover making him sick. It was what had begun to stir in him again. The way he felt false unto himself. Fragile. As if everything was a hair’s breadth away from crumbling under him—his whole fucking, fake life.

  “I’m talking to you, Henry.”

  He shoved up from the table, dumped his coffee in the sink. “I’m going to work early.”

  “Henry!” She wheeled her chair after him. He kept going, into his office to get his briefcase. She wheeled right in after him, her face reddening.

  He turned, fury spearing hot into his chest. “For chrissakes, LB, give me some—” He stopped. Her face was wrong. Her silence, the tension around her was suddenly thick, dangerous.

  “I saw.”

  “Saw what?”

  “I saw what you have on your computer. I saw what you look at when you’re in here late at night.”

  The blood drained from his head. He reached for the back of the chair.

  “How … how could you, Henry? What are you!? I don’t even know you. Is this who you are? I have no idea who in the hell I bloody married!”

  Blake braced his hands on the bathroom basin and stared at his face in the mirror. The shower was boiling up steam, fogging his reflection. Meg’s words, her very reason for having returned home, roiled through his mind.

  I’m doing it for him. To win him back …

  The irony—the sad, sick, twisted irony was not lost on him. In keeping Meg safe, in helping her to achieve her goal now, he was helping her win her fiancé back.

  So why was he doing it? Was it self-interest? Hell yes. Because he saw a window to fight for a second chance. He’d felt it in her kiss—she wanted him. There was still something between them. And she was fighting it herself. She was flailing against the very walls she’d spent years erecting around herself to avoid hurt, and like a mythical maiden she was now locked up high in an impenetrable turret of her own making. And he was like the idiot knight at the base of the sheer stone walls, full of blustering bravado, thinking he could rescue her, and carry her off into the sunset. Offer her a life and ring that would suit her far better than the one she thought she wanted. Right here in Shelter Bay.

  Conflict churned through him as steam obliterated his image in the mirror. It could never work. They had too much baggage. There was Noah. There was the information he’d kept from her and the cops all those years ago—it could cost him this fragile, newfound connection with Meg.

  Shit. He could argue this every which way from Sunday, but no matter how he sliced it, there were big secrets in this town. Someone had attacked her house. Meg could be in danger. They all needed answers. He couldn’t not help. And yeah, at the same time he was gunning to win her back now. His goal was to see her remove that ring from her finger of her own accord. That was also a game he couldn’t not play. Meg was in his blood like the winds and the tide. And fate had brought both him and her, even Geoff, back full circle, to this marina, to this point in time. Surely for a reason? Surely for a second chance. And the trick would be to do it right this time. Yes, he could lose.

  But, he could win.

  He stepped into the steaming shower and let it scald his skin as he foamed up his hair and scrubbed his body.

  As he was drying himself, he heard a knock on the door.

  “Dad?”

  He snagged a towel from the rack, hooked it around his waist, opened the door. Noah stood there in his PJs. His son’s face was tight, hands balled at his sides. Lucy stood behind him, wagging her tail. Blake’s heart dropped at the sight of the dog. He’d closed Lucy into the living room with Meg. If Lucy was out, it meant Noah had been in.

  “Hey, champ. Good sleep?”

  “Where’s Uncle Geoff?” Noah demanded, unshed tears shining in his eyes. “He was supposed to be sleeping by the fire, not her. What’s she doing downstairs? You promised!”

  Noah’s words walloped through Blake. His son was supposed to be his top priority right now, and he had promised him they wouldn’t see Meg. Could he walk this tightrope? Balance both Meg and Noah? Did he honestly have any choice right now?

  “Come here.” Blake led Noah into his room. He sat on the edge of his bed in his towel, took his son’s shoulders.

  “I need to share something with you, Noah. But first I need to ask you a question.”

  His son eyed him, leery.

  “If someone was in bad trouble, like, serious danger, would you help keep them safe, even if it meant making some sacrifices?”

  Silence hung fo
r a beat. He nodded.

  “Even if it meant you didn’t like that person very much?”

  Noah hesitated, his gaze flickering to the door.

  “Because that’s what’s happening here. Some really bad guys drove past Meg’s house late last night and shot out all the windows with a hunting rifle. Now, you’re the first to hear about this. It will probably be on the radio, and in the Shelter Bay Chronicle, and you could hear about it at school.” Blake wavered, but opted to hold nothing back. The more honest and open he was with Noah, the more he gave his son some ownership of this thing, and the more Noah might buy in. Hide anything from him, and his kid was going to find out, especially in a small town like this. Look at what had already happened with Peggy Millar’s comment to her husband over their dinner table one night—what was supposed to have been private had found its way into the school yard and hurt his boy.

  “The bad guys also painted nasty words on her walls in an attempt to scare her out of town. And they painted those words in some kind of blood. Animal probably, but Chief Deputy Dave Kovacs and his guys are figuring that out, and they will find out who those bad guys are, and punish them.”

  Noah’s pupils darkened with interest. “Blood!?”

  Blake nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Because she wants to write that story about her sister’s murder all those years ago. And it looks like some people in town really, really don’t want that to happen.”

  “Is she in danger?”

  “She could be, Noah. That’s why your uncle Geoff told me about the gunfire—he heard about it when he was out late last night. And that’s why we brought Meg here, to the marina, where it’s safe.”

  “Is it safe? Can’t the bad guys come here?”

  “We can make it safe. The fact that she’s not alone will help. I don’t think these bad guys have a whole lotta balls anyway, trying to scare a woman alone like that, and then running off into the dark.”

  “Wow,” he said. “That’s … cool.”

  Relief punched through Blake and he smiled.

  “But what about the police?” Noah said, frowning. “Why don’t they guard her in her own house?”