by Nora Roberts
“Don’t you dare bite me, Giff.” She giggled, struggled, rolled. “Ouch! Damn it.”
“I didn’t bite you yet.”
“Well, something did.”
He moved fast, visions of snakes slicing into his brain. He rolled her, gained his feet, and scooped her into his arms in one lightning move. Her jaw dropped open as she watched his eyes, suddenly hard and cold, scan the ground.
“Golly,” was all she could manage, as her romantic’s heart flopped in her chest.
Nothing slithered or crept or crawled. But he saw a glint of silver. He set Lexy on her feet, turned her around. A faint red scrape marred her delicate shoulder blade. “You just rolled over something, that’s all.” He kissed the scrape lightly, then bent to pick up the dangle of silver. “Somebody’s earring.”
Bright-eyed, Lexy reached back to rub absently at the little pain. Why, he’d picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all, she thought dreamily. And he’d stood there, holding her, as if he would have defended her against a fire-breathing dragon.
Images of Lancelot and Guinevere, of misty castles, floated into her head before she managed to focus on the earring Giff was holding. It was a bright trail of small silver stars.
“That’s Ginny’s.” With a slight frown, she reached out and took it from him. “It’s from her favorite pair. Wonder how it got here.”
Giff lifted his brows, wiggled them. “I guess we’re not the first people to use the forest for something other than a nature walk.”
With a laugh, Lexy sat on the blanket again, setting the earring carefully beside her before she reached for her bra. “I guess you’d be right. Long detour from the campground and her cottage, though. Was she wearing them last night?”
“I don’t pay much mind to my cousin’s earbobs,” Giff said dryly.
“I’m almost sure ...”
She trailed off, trying to bring back the picture. Ginny’d been wearing a bright-red shirt with silver studs, tight white jeans cinched with a concho belt. And yes, Lexy thought, almost certainly her favorite silver star dangles. Ginny liked the way they swung and caught the light.
“Well, doesn’t matter. I’ll get it back to her. If I can find her.”
He sat down to pull on his Jockeys. “What do you mean?”
“She must have found herself a hot date at the bonfire last night. She didn’t show up for work this morning.”
“What do you mean she didn’t show up? Ginny always shows up.”
“Well, she didn’t this morning. I heard the hubbub over it when I came down for the breakfast shift.” Lexy dug in her tote for a hair pick and began the arduous process of dragging out the tangles. “Ouch, damn it. We had a bunch of check-ins and -outs over at the campground, and no Ginny. Kate sent Daddy and Jo over to handle it.”
Giff pulled on his jeans, rising to snap them. “They checked her cabin?”
“I finished up before they got back, but I’d expect so. I can tell you, Kate was in a tizzy.”
“That’s not like Ginny. She’s wild, but she’d never leave Kate in the lurch that way.”
“Maybe she’s sick.” Lexy rubbed the earring between her fingers before tucking it into the little pocket of the tiny shorts she’d put on to drive Giff crazy. “She was knocking back the tequila pretty steady.”
He nodded in agreement, but he knew that even hung over, she’d have done her job or seen to her own replacement. He remembered the way she’d looked, staggering over the beach in the dark, waving at him and Lexy, blowing them kisses. “I’ll go check on her.”
“You do that.” Lexy rose, enjoying the way he watched her legs unfold. “And maybe later . . .” She slid her arms around him, up his back. “You’ll come check on me.”
“I was giving that some thought. I was figuring I’d come by, have dinner at the inn. Let you ... serve me.”
“Oh.” Her lips took on a feline curve as she stepped back, slowly pulling the pick through her long corkscrew curls. “Were you figuring that?”
“Yeah. Then I was figuring how about if I just wandered on upstairs afterward, maybe wandered right on into your room. We could try this in a bed for a change.”
“Well.” She ran her tongue over her top lip. “I might just be available tonight—depending on what kind of tipper you are.”
He grinned and captured her just-moistened lips with his in a kiss that rocked her straight back on her heels.
When she could breathe again, she exhaled slowly. “That’s a real good start.” She bent down to gather the blanket, deliberately turning to tease him with tight buns in tight shorts, then turned her head. “I’m going to give you . . . excellent service.”
BY the time Giff was back in his truck and on the road to the campground, his heart rate was nearly back to normal. The woman was potent, he thought, and life with her was going to be a continual adventure. He didn’t think she was quite ready to have her notions adjusted to a lifetime with him, but he was going to work on that too.
He smiled to himself, flipped the radio up so Clint Black wailed through the speakers. He had it all planned, Giff mused. The courtship—which was progressing just fine in his opinion. The proposal, the marriage, the life.
As soon as he convinced her that he was exactly what she needed, that would be that. Meanwhile, they would give each other a hell of a ride.
He turned into the campground, frowning a little as he saw the teenager inside the booth instead of Ginny. “Hey, Colin.” Giff braked, leaned out his window. “Got you manning the post today?”
“Looks like.”
“Seen Ginny?”
“Not hide nor hair.” The boy tried out a lascivious wink. “She musta caught a live one.”
“Yeah.” But there was an uncomfortable shift in Giff’s gut. “I’m going to look in at her cabin. See what’s up.”
“Help yourself.”
Giff drove slowly, mindful of the possibility that a child might dart out in front of him. With summer just around the corner, he knew more would be coming, stacking up in the campground, the cottages, spreading towels on the beach. Those in the cottages would fry themselves in the sun half the day, then come back and run their ACs to the max. Which usually meant he’d be kept busy replacing coils.
Not that he minded. It was good, honest work. And though he dreamed now and then of taking on something more challenging, he figured his time would come.
He pulled up into Ginny’s short drive and climbed out. He hoped to find her in bed, moaning, with her head in a basin. That would explain why it was so damn quiet. When she was home, Ginny always had the radio blaring, the TV on, her voice raised in song or in argument with one of the talk shows she was addicted to. The noises clashed cheerfully. She said it kept her from feeling lonesome.
But he heard nothing except the click of palm fronds in the breeze, the hollow plop of frogs in water. He walked to the door, and because he’d run as tame in her cabin as he did in his own home, he didn’t bother to knock.
He nearly jumped out of his skin as he pulled open the door and a man’s form filled it. “Jesus Christ Almighty, Bri, you might as well shoot me as scare me to death.”
“Sorry.” Brian smiled a little. “I heard the truck, thought it might be Ginny.” His gaze shifted over Giff’s shoulder. “She’s not with you, is she?”
“No, I just heard she wasn’t at work and came to check.”
“She’s not here. It doesn’t look like she’s been around today, though it’s hard to tell.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Woman’s messy as three teenage girls on a rampage.”
“Maybe she’s at one of the sites.”
Brian scanned the trees that crowded close around the tufts of golden marsh grass. There were a couple of pintail ducks taking a breather in the slough on their trek along the Atlantic flyway. A marsh hawk circled lazily overhead. Near the narrow path, where spiderwort tangled, a trio of swallowtail butterflies flitted gaily.
But he saw no sign of the human inh
abitant of this small corner of the island.
“I parked over near number one, circled around to here. I asked after her, but nobody I ran into has seen her since yesterday.”
“That’s not right.” The discomfort in Giff’s stomach escalated into dull pain. “Bri, that’s just not right.”
“I agree with you. It’s after two o’clock. Even if she’d spent the night somewhere else she should have surfaced by now.” Worry was a fist pressing at the back of his neck. He rubbed it absently as he looked back into the living mess of Ginny’s cabin. “It’s time we started to make calls.”
“I’ll go by, tell my mother. She’ll have half a dozen calls made before either of us can make one. Come on, I’ll drop you back at your car.”
“Appreciate it.”
“She was pretty drunk last night,” Giff added as he slipped behind the wheel. “I saw her—Lexy and I saw her. We were in the water ... taking a swim,” he added with a quick glance over.
“Swimming—right.”
Giff waited a beat, tugged at the brim of his cap. “How am I supposed to tell you I’m sleeping with your sister?”
Brian pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I guess that was one way. It’s a little difficult for me to get my tongue around the word ‘congratulations’ under the circumstances.”
“You want to know my intentions?”
“I don’t.” Brian held up a hand. “I really, really don’t.”
“I’m going to marry her.”
“Now I’m never going to be able to say the word ‘congratulations’ again.” Shifting in his seat, Brian aimed a level stare at Giff. “Are you crazy?”
“I love her.” Giff slapped the truck into reverse and backed up. “I always have.”
Brian got a vividly clear picture of Lexy gleefully kicking Giff’s still bleeding heart off a cliff. “You’re a big boy, Giff. You know what you’re getting into.”
“That’s right, just like I know that you and everybody else in your family never give Lexy enough credit.” Giff’s normally mild voice took on a defensive edge that made Brian raise his eyebrows. “She’s smart, she’s strong, she’s got a heart as big as the ocean, and when you shake the nonsense away, she’s as loyal as they come.”
Brian blew out a long breath. She was also reckless, impulsive, and self-absorbed. But Giff’s words had struck a chord and made Brian ashamed. “You’re right. And if anyone can polish up her better qualities, I’d say it would be you.”
“She needs me.” Giff tapped his fingers on the wheel. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of this to her. I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”
“Believe me, the last thing I want to discuss with Alexa is her love life.”
“Good. Well, I veered off from where I was heading. Like I was saying, I saw Ginny last night. Must have been somewhere around midnight. Wasn’t paying much attention to the time. She was walking south on the beach—stopped and waved at us.”
“Was she alone?”
“Yeah. Said she needed to clear her head. I didn’t notice her walk back, but I was kind of, uh, busy for a while.”
“Well, if she passed out on the beach, someone would have come across her by now, so she must have walked back, or cut up over the dunes.”
“We found one of her earrings in that clearing on the Sanctuary side of the river.”
“When?”
“Little bit ago,” Giff said as he pulled up beside Brian’s car. “Lexy and I were ...”
“Oh, please, don’t put that image in my brain. What are you, rabbits?” He shook his head. “Are you sure it was Ginny’s earring?”
“Lexy was—and she was pretty sure Ginny was wearing it last night.”
“That’s the kind of thing Lex would notice. But it’s a funny way for Ginny to walk if she was heading home.”
“That’s what I thought. Still, she might have been with someone by then. It’s not like Ginny to leave a party before it’s over—unless she’s got another kind of party planned.”
“None of this is like Ginny.”
“No, it’s not. I’m getting worried, Brian.”
“Yeah.” He got out of the truck, then turned and leaned in the window. “Go get your mother started on those calls. I’m going to head down to the ferry. Who knows, maybe she met the man of her dreams and eloped to Savannah.”
BY six there was a full-scale search under way. Through the forest paths, along the rugged hiking trails to the north, down the long curve of beach and around the winding paths that twisted through the sloughs. Some of those who scoured the island remembered another search for another woman.
Twenty years hadn’t dimmed the memory. And while they looked for Ginny, many murmured about Annabelle.
Probably she’d taken off just the way Belle had. That was what some thought. She’d gotten an itchy foot and decided to scratch it. The Pendleton girl always had been wild. No, not Annabelle, some said, but Ginny. Annabelle had been still water running deep, and Ginny was all crashing surf.
But both of them were gone, just the same.
Nathan walked in on one of the conversations as he lingered at the dock, tossing his briefcase into the cab, loading his supplies in the back.
It made his heart beat just a little too fast, a little too hard. It made his stomach churn. He heard Annabelle’s name tossed back and forth and it made his ears ring. He’d come to face it, Nathan reminded himself, then had tried to ignore it. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do either. Or if he was going to be able to live with whichever path he took.
He drove to Sanctuary.
He saw Jo sitting on the grand front steps, her head resting on her drawn-up knees. She lifted it when she heard his Jeep, and he saw all the ghosts in her eyes.
“We can’t find her.” She pressed her lips together. “Ginny.”
“I heard.” Not knowing what else to do, he sat beside her, draped an arm around her shoulders so she could lean against him. “I just came in on the ferry.”
“We’ve looked everywhere. Hours now. She’s vanished, Nathan, just vanished, like—” She couldn’t say it. Wouldn’t say it. And, drawing a breath, slammed the door on even the thought of it. “If she was on the island, someone would have seen her, someone would have found her.”
“It’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“No.” She shook her head. “If she was trying to hide, sure, she could keep one step ahead. Ginny knows the island as well as anyone, every trail and cove. But there’s no reason for that. She’s just gone.”
“I didn’t see her on the morning ferry. I kicked back and slept most of the way, but she’s tough to miss.”
“We already checked that. She didn’t take the ferry.”
“Okay.” He ran his hand up and down her arm as he tried to think. “Private boats. There’s a number of them around—islanders and outlanders.”
“She can pilot a boat, but none of the natives report one missing. No one’s reported one missing, or come in to say they took Ginny out.”
“A day-tripper?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, tried to accept it. “That’s what most people are starting to think. She got a wild hair and took off with someone. She’s done it before, but never when she was scheduled to work, and never without leaving word.”
He remembered the way she’d smiled at him. Hey, handsome. “She was hitting the tequila pretty steady last night.”
“Yeah, they’re saying that too.” She jerked away from him. “Ginny’s not some cheap, irresponsible drunk.”
“I didn’t say that, Jo, and I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s so easy to say she didn’t care, didn’t give a damn. She just left without a word to anyone, without a thought to anyone.” Jo sprang up as the words tumbled out. “Left her home and her family and everyone who loved her without a second thought for how sick with worry and hurt they would be.”
Her eyes glittered with fury, her voice rose with it. She no longer cared that i
t was her mother she spoke of now. No longer cared that she could see by the sober and sympathetic look on his face that he knew it.
“I don’t believe it.” She caught her breath, let it out slowly.
