Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel

by JoAnn Ross

  “Hell. That must have been really tough. I’m sorry.”

  Tess shrugged even as her eyes filled. “Like you said, things change after a major event in a family.”

  “She couldn’t take it,” he said. “Probably the guilt she was feeling from not protecting you just weighed her down and eventually got the best of her. Did you ever think that perhaps she knew she was hurting you and your dad? So, she did the only thing she could think to do to make your lives better. Leave.”

  “To run off to Monte Carlo? And Paris? And Saint Barts?” Photos of Claudia Lombardi, lounging on various gleaming white yachts, wearing a skimpy bikini, and holding up a martini glass, had been a supermarket tabloid front cover staple year after year. It had gotten so that once winter came to the States, Tess hated going grocery shopping.

  “It’s probably easier not to think when you never stay still,” he suggested. As an oncoming car crossed the line on a particularly tight switchback, he returned both hands to the wheel. And left her missing his touch.

  “Western monarchs manage to fly all the way from Northern Canada as far as Baja, California, but no one ever thinks of them as having amazing stamina,” he said. “They just see them as beautiful butterflies flitting from flower to flower.”

  “Acting solely on instinct,” she murmured. “Without any complicated thought process about the distance they have to travel, how many generations it’ll take to make the journey, or all the dangers they’ll face along the way.”

  “In those moments, they’re just in it for the nectar,” he agreed.

  Tess thought about that as the sea came into view. “That’s a very good analysis of a woman you’ve never met.”

  “I’m a writer. I spend a lot of time and thought delving into the motivations of my characters. Living in their skins, thinking their thoughts. Feeling what they feel. Your mother isn’t all that different than many others who’ve suffered profound emotional pain. It’s just that her name and money, along with your kidnapping, get her more attention than most and make her appear to be nothing but a shallow, narcissistic heiress. Yet, from what you said about your early years, she’s anything but.”

  And didn’t that have Tess realizing that one of the things that had always bothered her about the grainy tabloid photos was the way, while her mother’s red lips would be smiling, her eyes would be flat. As if she’d checked out years ago. Which, in a way, she had.

  For the first time, she realized that, in her own way, leaving had required strength. As much as the desertion had hurt, Tess couldn’t imagine overcoming discovering that her mother had taken the easy way out with suicide.

  Folding her arms, as if to hold in her own secret turmoiled emotions, she turned toward him, as much as the seatbelt would allow. “How would you write me?” Tess was genuinely curious.

  “Ah,” he said. “Good question. You’d be a challenge. Being that you’re as complex as I suspect all the Lombardi women before you have been. You’d definitely be a heroine. Or more specifically, the hero of your own story.”

  “I like that,” she admitted.

  “Not that it’s been an easy journey. I’d write you as a woman who, at too young an age, had her childhood and her innocence stolen from her. Through no fault of her own. Which hasn’t prevented her from suffering from ‘what if-itis.’”

  How could he have nailed that so closely? Tess couldn’t count the times over the years she’d wondered how her life would have turned out if she hadn’t stopped and talked to that man in the van. If she hadn’t accepted his offer of a ride back to her grandparents’, which only made sense since the day had been hot, the road dusty, and, as he’d suggested, this way she could point out the way to the turnoff that would lead him back to the freeway.

  What lives would her parents be living if she’d refused to talk to him and just kept walking? Even more ironic was that she’d always been a bookworm. Inspired by all those hours at the library, she’d fully intended to grow up and write her own stories that others could someday read. But because of that one split-second decision, her life had taken an entirely different path.

  Tess had a career she was both good at and proud of. But she couldn’t deny the irony that very same career was, in a very significant way, responsible for her being here, with a man who made his living with words. Who wrote the books other people read.

  That led Tess to another thought…that the writing talent that had always won her gold stars on her school essays was partly responsible for her having the highest conviction rate among her peers. Because, just as Nate said he did while crafting his fiction, she always put herself into the skin of both the victims and the criminals. Studying them, learning them, she was able to share their stories with juries and hopefully make an emotional connection. Which, in turn, would lead to an informed decision.

  “What else?” she asked.

  “Let’s see.” Nate rubbed his jaw, as if pondering the matter. But his acting skills weren’t as well-honed as hers. Although he was pretending to be speaking off the cuff, Tess could tell that he’d already given her a great deal of thought.

  “Although she’d be intelligent and self-aware, that wouldn’t stop her from carrying her own sense of guilt into adulthood. Because she can’t overcome the possibility that her actions caused her mother to leave and break up what sounds like a strong, happy family. Sometimes it’s easier to believe in the existence of an ancient curse.”

  “You’re not talking about some fictional woman any longer,” she complained.

  He shot her a look. “I told you the line between fact and fiction tends to get blurry. I also see her as having spent her life trying to live up to her father’s sacrifice. And feeling the need to be perfect so he won’t leave, too.”

  “I’ve never, not once, worried that my father would abandon me,” she insisted.

  “The woman doesn’t,” he agreed. “But it’s not always easy to escape your inner child.”

  “Now you’re talking like a therapist. Not a novelist,” she complained.

  “Writing is a form of therapy,” he said. “Because I’ve been there, Tess. Which is probably why I understand you better than you might think.

  “What would you say to stopping for lunch?” he suggested, abruptly changing the topic as they approached a restaurant perched on a cliff. As they’d come out of the mountains, the sun had broken through the clouds, offering a dazzling view of gleaming silver sea.

  Tess was curious at what he’d left unsaid, but reminded herself that unless her caller was captured while they were eating lunch, she had time to learn whatever Nate personal story was holding back.

  28

  “This really is stunning,” Tess said after a Dungeness crab Louis salad at an oceanfront restaurant. Their window table afforded a panoramic view of the sea.

  “You’re not going to get any argument from me. Fortunately, my writing allows me to live anywhere. But this coast is, for me, one of the few places on earth where one can truly live the good life.”

  As she took a sip of the crisp Lombardi Sauvignon Blanc she’d been pleased to find on the menu, Tess thought about spending your life surrounded by such scenery, experiencing the open friendliness of the people, walking on the beach every morning before work. Though, from what Kara had said about Shelter Bay’s crime rate, there probably wasn’t enough business to keep that many prosecutors busy. So, while for her, the idea of living on the coast was more of an occasional fleeting fantasy, she could definitely see the appeal.

  “The danger,” she suggested, “would be in confusing life in such an elysian place with reality.”

  Nate didn’t take his eyes from hers. “Is that what you think I’ve done?”

  She tilted her head, her judicious gaze sweeping over him, taking in the somewhat shaggy cut of his black hair, the expensive but well-worn Irish fisherman’s sweater that had begun to unravel a bit at the cuffs, the faded jeans. She also realized that with all that bestseller money, he probably could live
anywhere in the world. Perhaps even run into her mother at a jet-set party on some Greek tycoon’s battleship-sized yacht. Yet he’d chosen to become part of a small community on this remote stretch of Pacific Coast.

  “No,” she said. “Despite the fact that you earn your living writing sheer fantasy and you’re alleging to live with the ghost of my great-great grandfather, I think you’ve mostly got your feet planted firmly on the ground.”

  He leaned back in the booth, eyeing her with what appeared to be amusement. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve said to me.”

  “I haven’t been that bad,” she protested. Not quite truthfully.

  “A challenge,” he repeated what he’d told her earlier. “Fortunately, I’ve always enjoyed challenges.” He signed the credit card slip the server had delivered. “Ready to get back on the road? I have a surprise for you.”

  “I believe I’ve had more than enough surprises for one day,” she murmured.

  Even understanding the well-intentioned motive behind her trip to Shelter Bay, she still wasn’t pleased with having been steamrolled by her father, Donovan, and this man.

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” he suggested.

  After they’d gone about ten miles, he pulled off the coast and headed down a washboard dirt-and-shell road that was little more than a lane, pulling over when they came to a dead end.

  Deciding that it would be childish to remain in the car, Tess got out of the passenger seat before he had time to open her door. The sky had darkened again while they’d been inside the restaurant, and Tess walked with Nate toward a small grove of trees, the sun losing its battle to shine through a thickening veil of silvery clouds.

  “This is lovely. But it’s going to rain. I really think—”

  “Wait. It’ll happen in a minute.”

  “What?”

  Tess had no sooner spoken than a ray of buttery sunshine penetrated the clouds, bathing the grove of trees in a warm glow.

  At first glance the monarchs, with their wings folded, had seemed to be nothing more than dead leaves hanging from the branches or moss clinging to the trees. But as they flew off into the air, flitting and dancing on the purple blossoms of nearby plants, Tess took hold of Nate’s hand. “That’s so beautiful.”

  “It is, thanks to Shelter Bay’s Sofia De Luca’s conservation group members who’ve been planting milkweed so the monarchs won’t have to bypass Oregon any longer.

  “But those butterflies aren’t nearly as beautiful as you, with your gypsy curls blowing in the wind and your cheeks flushed by the sea breeze”—he skimmed the knuckles of his free hand up her cheek—“and the excitement glowing in your eyes.”

  As she lifted those eyes to his, Tess experienced an entirely different type of excitment. And internal conflict.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” she murmured. If she gave into temptation now, how was she going to survive ten days and nights living under his roof?

  “How can you know if you don’t try?” Nate drew her into his arms. “May I make a suggestion?”

  “What?”

  “Why not, just this moment, try not thinking about what’s sensible and what’s not and just go with your feelings?”

  His hands were on her back, creating a warmth she could feel through her windbreaker. “You make it sound so easy.”

  Nate lowered his head. “And you make it sound so difficult,” he countered, brushing his mouth against her cheek.

  The Pacific surf pounded a thunderous refrain on the worn granite cliffs, drowning out everything but the call of a lone seabird as it cruised over the turbulent waters. Offshore, crab boats strained at their anchors as they bobbed on white-capped waves. A rain between mist and a full-fledged shower began to fall.

  But Tess was aware of none of this as she held her breath, waiting for those roving lips to find her mouth.

  And then, finally, they did. It began as a soft, almost innocent kiss. A light press of lips that demanded nothing back. But as he deepened it, degree by intoxicating degree, clouds began to drift over her mind. Tess’s blood began to warm and hum, and although she knew it was impossible, her bones had begun to melt. When her knees threatened to buckle, she took hold of his shoulders. His wide, strong shoulders.

  It was then he lifted his head and looked down at her. Gold flecks she’d never noticed glinted in his eyes.

  “You taste like rain,” he murmured. Leaning back in, he skimmed his mouth over the moisture on her cheek, her temple, her forehead.

  “You do, too,” she said softly as she pressed her lips against his throat.

  “If we were anywhere else but here…” he murmured significantly. His hands traced searing trails up and down the back of her jeans.

  “That would be crazy.” Even as her mind reminded her of that obvious fact, her rebellious body was shouting out yes! Perhaps she, not Nate, was the crazy one. Because from the way she was feeling at this minute, a case could undoubtedly be made for temporary insanity.

  “Probably. Especially with a storm coming. The temperature’s dropped a good twenty degrees since we parked. Your dad would undoubtedly shoot me if you came down with pneumonia because we got naked in the rain.”

  “Dad wouldn’t shoot you.” Tess smiled at that outrageous idea as she rested her forehead against his shoulder. “Besides, if I did get pneumonia, you could bring me Cajun chicken soup from Bon Temps.”

  She could feel Nate’s chuckle against her body. “I can think of far better ways to take care of you than that.” Damn, he was in serious trouble. Because now that he’d tasted her, he wanted more. A whole lot more. What he wanted, Nate realized, was everything.

  But not here. And not now.

  He sighed heavily, glancing up at the darkening sky pregnant with storm clouds. “We’d better get going before that sky opens up and we get drenched.”

  * * *

  The irony of Ferdinand Magellan naming the Pacific Ocean Mare Pacificum, the Latin for peaceful sea was that with its tsunamis and typhoons, and located as it was on the volcanic Ring of Fire, it was frequently anything but peaceful. Those who lived in this part of the world knew that if Mother Nature were looking for a location to stage her tempestuous tantrums, the Oregon Coast would be high on her list.

  All the elements were here—waves, wind, thunder, and rain, often clashing with a ferocity that only added to the remarkable beauty of the setting.

  A stiff wind drove raindrops against the windshield as Nate deftly maneuvered the car around the slick curves with a nonchalance Tess could only envy. He was definitely in his element.

  “It won’t be much longer,” he assured her as he turned off the highway. A neatly printed sign at the Sunset Point turnoff read Private Property. No Trespassing.

  The narrow, twisting road came to an abrupt end at a turn-of-the-century Victorian that seemed to defy gravity as it perched, like a seabird, on the rock escarpment overlooking the swirling walls of surf crashing against the boulders below. It had been painted a sea-weathered shade of gray with a wraparound front porch. Towering Douglas fir and Sitka spruce trees surrounded three sides of the house.

  If it had been located anywhere else, such as on Cape Cod, or more locally, on Harborview Drive in Shelter Bay, Tess would have found it charming. But with the tumultuous sea draped in fog and the angry sky behind it, it could have been on the cover of one of those gothic novels her mother had devoured like chocolate truffles.

  Unfortunately, the long-forgotten memory was a brief flash replaced by the claps of thunder and bolts of sulfurous lightning her imagination had conjured up. A man who made his living writing about things that went bump in the night could not have found a more suitable place in which to spin those eerie tales of darkness.

  While the outside of Nate’s house might bring to mind an earlier era, the interior updated the Victorian style with a more modern Pacific Northwest vibe. As she entered the front doors, she found herself looking across a long room through a wall of windows tha
t offered an expansive view of the sea.

  The foyer table had been created from polished thunder eggs set in concrete. Thunder eggs, Oregon’s state rock, were spheres created from volcanic ash that were usually the size of baseballs and looked ordinary on the outside. But when sliced in half and polished, they revealed stunningly intricate patterns of agate, jasper, or opal. The tabletop sat on a huge twisted base of driftwood that could have come from the beach out the window. A floating wooden staircase with a black steel railing curved up to a second floor.

  “This is stunning,” she said as she glanced around at the many stylized Northwest Native American paintings hanging on the high walls.

  He put their luggage down on the vast expanse of bamboo flooring. “You sound surprised.”

  She shrugged. “I expected you wouldn’t go for anything ordinary. I didn’t realize it would be so…” Her voice drifted off as she sought a word that wouldn’t insult him.

  “Understated?” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Let me guess. You were expecting either an overdecorated monument to the god of conspicuous consumption or maybe a man cave with a pool table in the center of the room and lots of dead animal heads hanging on the wall.”

  “Maybe the second,” she admitted. “Just a bit.”

  “Lucas Chaffee did a great job with the building. I’ve always loved living by the sea, and fortunately, we shared the same vision.”

  “While it might be a sea house, it’s undoubtedly nothing like what you grew up in on Orchid Island.”

  “Same ocean, entirely different vibe,” he agreed. “If I still lived on the island, I’d probably never get any work done because the weather’s pretty much the same year round. Here, during the long, wet winters, I’m stuck indoors.”

  “I can’t imagine writing by the fireplace, staying warm and dry in the midst of storms would be a hardship,” she suggested.

  “You won’t get any argument from me there. Although the view from my upstairs office can be distracting. Originally, in the style of the times, the house was cut up into lots of small rooms. But we knocked down the walls to make the downstairs all one open space. And since it faces east/west, I get the morning sun and the magnificent sunsets that named the place at the end of the day.”