Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel

by JoAnn Ross

  The idea of Nate Breslin’s hard, powerful body clad in a pair of bright pink briefs struck Tess as outrageously funny. Her gale of laughter had Nate glaring at her with mock censure.

  “It isn’t that funny.” He took the pasta off the stove and drained it in a steel colander in the farmhouse sink, then put it back in the pan along with a dash of olive oil, the lemon zest, and parsley. “In fact, it did irreparable damage to my social life. I was terrified to undress in front of a woman for fear she’d react the same way you are right now. Do you have any idea what that would do to my delicate male ego?”

  Tess didn’t believe she had ever met a man with such indestructible self-esteem. She also didn’t want to think about all the women he might have undressed with in the past.

  “I doubt anyone could dent your ego with a Sherman tank,” she said. “I also can’t imagine any woman laughing at your body.”

  Nate stopped in the act of transferring the salmon to two plates he’d taken out of a warming oven. Then flashed that hot smile she was finding more and more difficult to resist. “Why, thank you, darlin’.”

  After he finished plating the pasta and drizzled a balsamic dressing he’d whisked up himself on the asparagus, he was on his way to the table, a plate in each hand, when he stopped in front of her and bent his head to give her a quick, intense kiss. “If we end up getting married, I sure wouldn’t complain if you volunteered to do the laundry.” He continued to the dining room, Tess following.

  Married? Surely he had to be joking. Although she believed couples should be each other’s best friends, marriage was a long way from the friendship she’d agreed upon upstairs.

  “I’ve been married. It didn’t work out.” Yet another Lombardi woman love fail.

  “How long did it last?” He put the square white plates on the table he’d apparently set while she’d been upstairs sleeping.

  “Eighteen months. But it seemed a lot longer.”

  “What happened?”

  “I finally divorced him over a difference of opinion.”

  “That’s all? A difference of opinion?” Nate was surprised. He would have expected Tess to be one of those women who would work every bit as hard at a relationship as she did at her court cases.

  “Mark saw no reason why he should stop dating once we were married,” she explained dryly. “Strangely enough, I disagreed.”

  Tess’s former husband was not only a jerk but certifiably insane. What man would be inclined to wander with Tess Lombardi waiting for him at home?

  “That must have been rough on you,” he said quietly.

  Tess didn’t answer immediately. Even now, nearly two years later, she still wondered how she could have made such a grave error as to marry Mark Hunter.

  “Actually, it was a rather strange time,” she admitted as he pulled out her chair. “Although Mark didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word monogamous, he also was oddly jealous when it came to me. He tried to talk me into giving up my work, seeing my friends.”

  She shook her head as she remembered those agonizing days. “He wanted to keep me at home, like one of his possessions. Like his high school football trophies. His softball glove. Or his guns.”

  That last item got Nate’s instant attention. “Guns?”

  Tess shrugged. “Mark’s a cop.”

  So, not only was she the daughter of one of Portland’s finest, she’d also dated his old buddy Donovan Quinn, and been married to yet another cop. He wondered if she was one of those women who was only attracted to uniforms.

  “I hope that he’s gotten over his jealous streak. While I’m enjoying doing my part for the Portland judicial system by keeping you under wraps until the hearing, I’d rather not provide target practice for a love-crazed cop ex-husband.”

  “Love had nothing to do with Mark’s feelings. And you don’t have to worry, Nate. Although he was a little upset in the beginning, he’s accepted the idea of our divorce. In fact, I haven’t seen or heard from him in over a year.”

  Nate gave her that slow, winning smile that was only dangerous because of the way it stirred her blood. “Now that’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

  31

  The dinner was delicious, as she’d known it would be. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if there was anything that the man didn’t do well. Afterward, when Nate suggested a brandy in the living room, Tess knew she was playing with fire, but not ready to go up to bed alone, she agreed. The storm showed every intention of continuing all night. She could hear the sharp staccato of rain on the roof. Thunder rumbled in the fog surrounding the house.

  When he sat down beside her on the sofa, a bolt of lightning forked vividly outside the window. Tess drew in a quick breath. It wasn’t that she was afraid of storms; she just hated the way the electricity seemed to have gotten into her blood tonight, making her edgy.

  “Is the storm making you nervous?” Nate asked sympathetically.

  As he leaned toward her, their legs touched, and Tess could feel the warmth of his body through the faded denim of his jeans. “Of course not.”

  He placed his glass on the table in front of them before cupping her suddenly stiff shoulders with his palms. Heat kindled in her slowly. Insistently. “Then why are you trembling?”

  Tess didn’t think it prudent to admit that Nate’s gentle touch was far more disturbing than the fiercest storm. “I’m cold,” she lied softly. The heat was spreading outward from her stomach, making her body go lax, her fingertips tingle.

  He glided his fingers over her collarbone. “Want me to put another log on the fire?”

  At his tantalizing touch, Tess’s vision blurred. She shook her head to clear it. “That’s not necessary.”

  She took a deep swallow of the smooth amber brandy and realized she’d just made a big mistake. The alcohol was only adding fuel to a fire that was already in danger of raging out of control. She steadfastly kept her eyes on the hearth, unwilling to risk seeing the warmth she knew was in Nate’s green eyes.

  “Remember when I told you, when I showed up with that étouffée, that I was interested in you?”

  “I vaguely remember that,” she hedged.

  Lowering his head, Nate brushed his lips against the back of her neck. “Well, do you have any idea how much I admire you?”

  “I don’t need pretty words or flattery, Nate.”

  As she turned her head toward him, Tess found his somber face just inches from hers. “It’s not flattery. It’s the truth.” He plucked her glass from her fingers and placed it beside his on the low table in front of them. Then he took her face in his hands. “I admire the way you hold a jury in the palm of your hand. The gutsy way you’ve refused to knuckle under to that creep who’s been threatening you. How you handled the captain without blinking an eye.”

  His thumb brushed her lower lip, leaving sparks. “And since family’s always been the most important thing in my life, I especially admire your relationship with your father and the way you defend all those Lombardi women who’ve come before you… You’re a remarkable woman, Tess Lombardi.”

  Tess was infused with a warmth that had absolutely nothing to do with the flickering flames in the fireplace. Nate’s gleaming eyes and provocative touch were burning her skin.

  “If you’re telling me all this to seduce me, it’s working.”

  Tess knew that the storm was still raging outside, but at this moment, there was only a thick, heavy silence hovering between them.

  The rising passion in her eyes tore at his control; his body ached with an escalating need that only she could satisfy, but still Nate struggled to remain patient. Slowly, deliberately, giving her ample time to move out of range, he lowered his head until their lips were close, not quite touching.

  “I brought you here to keep you safe,” he insisted in a deep, low voice that vibrated through her. “You have to believe that.”

  Her breath shuddered out as he stroked her throat with the pad of his thumb. “I do.” Though there w
as nothing safe about the way he made her feel.

  Just when Tess thought he was going to kiss her, Nate tilted his head so that his lips grazed her cheek. Her mind spinning, she moaned softly as his firm but featherlight lips trailed around the curve of her jaw to her other cheek. “But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been losing sleep thinking about all the ways I want to make love with you,” he said.

  When she turned her head, intent on capturing his tantalizing lips, Nate’s mouth deftly glided up the satin of her skin, leaving her tingling with anticipation. His breath warmed the hollows of her cheeks, her chin, her temples. When it whispered gently over her eyelids, they fluttered closed.

  Tess couldn’t think; she couldn’t breathe. Every fiber of her being was brilliantly alive, concentrating on the drugging feel of Nate’s clever, wicked lips. When his breath feathered intimately at her ear, she gripped his forearm, as if to keep from falling off the edge of a wildly spinning world.

  “I want you, too,” she admitted throatily.

  He sighed and closed his eyes for a long, significant moment. When he opened them again, Tess could see the raw emotion in their emerald depths as she lifted her lips to his.

  She tasted almost unbearably sweet. Like the nectar of meadow flowers gathered by hummingbirds on a lazy summer day. Or a succulent peach ripening in the warm sun. As his writer’s mind searched for the proper similes, he concluded that Tess’s warming flesh also bore a richer, more pungent taste that reminded him of aged brandy before a winter fire. She was the essence of all those things. And more.

  Tess Lombardi was a woman for all seasons. And whether she was prepared to admit it or not, she was his.

  But at this moment, she was turning him inside out. If he had his way, they’d both be upstairs naked. And by morning they’d be naked and a lot more than just friends. They’d be lovers.

  And then what? Nate asked himself again.

  He’d watched her in court, slowly building up that case for the jurors, layer upon layer, until she had them eating out of her hand. Unfortunately, someone in that jury room had proven a holdout, causing her to lose the case. But despite having a well-deserved guilty verdict stolen from her, she had gotten a conviction on the son.

  The thing to do, he decided, was to co-opt her own technique to convince her that what they had going was more than her reluctant friendship. Or chemistry and the hot sex that came with it.

  He’d have to be patient. Take his time. Even though just being in the same space with her was sending him over the edge.

  “It’s late,” he said, struggling to think like an intelligent, rational human being instead of some horny guy who just wanted to get her clothes off. Which he was. “I have a long night of writing ahead of me. And you should get some sleep.”

  “I’m sorry I’m keeping you from your work.”

  Hell, he never lied. Well, almost never. Nate figured telling his cousin Joe that his six-week-old baby girl, who was unfortunately born with Mr. Spock ears, looked like a cute little elf didn’t count. That was a social lie. A white lie. And from the way both the new mother and father had swelled up with pride and agreed that the infant did, indeed, look like an elf, it had made them happy. It had also kept him from ruining the baby’s baptism and having about a gazillion family members wanting to throw him off the lanai into the lagoon.

  But in the rest of his life, he didn’t lie, because one, he wasn’t any good at it, two, it was too much trouble trying to keep track of what lies you told to whom, and, three, lies always came back to bite you on the ass.

  Like now.

  The hurt in her eyes made him feel like the worst guy on earth. “Okay, that’s a lie. I don’t need to work. But this isn’t a rejection.”

  “That’s funny,” she said. “Because I could have sworn it was.”

  “It’s definitely not,” he repeated. “Okay. Here’s what I’m thinking…Only a few hours ago, we agreed to be friends, and although you’re pretty much my every hot fantasy come to life—” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes as he tried to figure a way out of this. “No, strike that. You are every hot fantasy I’ve had since the day I discovered girls were more fun than baseball… But the thing is, I’m trying to act like a grown-up.”

  “And you’re saying I’m not?”

  “No. I mean yes. You always behave like a rational, responsible adult.”

  “Now you make me sound boring. No wonder you’re turning me down.”

  “What?” Hell, he couldn’t win. “I told you, I’m not turning you down. I’m just trying, even though my balls just happen to be the size of coconuts right now, to do the right thing and call a time-out. For now.”

  “Oh.” He could practically see the wheels turning around in her head as she considered the idea. “That’s probably wise.” Her eyes, as they drifted to the metal buttons of his jeans, checking out his claim, said otherwise. “I guess, then, I will go to bed. Alone.”

  “I’ll walk you upstairs.”

  “That’s not necessary. I can find my way. Thank you for the dinner. It was delicious. Five stars, definitely.”

  As he watched her walk up the stairs, her sweet little heart-shaped ass swaying beneath the long purple sweater she was wearing with a pair of black leggings, Nate decided that sometimes it sucked to be a grown-up.

  32

  The house was quiet when Tess woke the next morning. She took a quick shower, hoping that Nate was right about the captain’s discretion, hand scrunched her hair rather than attempting to blow-dry it, dressed quickly in her Stanford Law sweatshirt, jeans, and another pair of thick socks the elderly victim continued to make for her, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  Nate was nowhere to be seen, but he’d left her a note that he was upstairs in his office, writing, and if she needed anything, to feel free to interrupt. Which she had no intention of doing. She wasn’t a guest, after all. He had no responsibility to entertain her.

  Making herself a mug of free-trace coffee from the Keurig on the counter, she sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop and went over Vasilyev’s file with a fine-tooth comb, looking for something, anything, she may have missed. That one tiny loose thread that might unravel the entire fabric of her case against the Russian.

  Which had her thinking of Jim Stevens again. Tess missed her former mentor. Not just on a professional level, but a personal one. She missed having someone to talk with about work and life in general. She’d offered advice on teenage girls while he’d been dealing with three still at home; they’d argued about fictional cases on The Good Wife, and had an ongoing competition on which real-life “Ripped from the headlines!” case a Law and Order episode might be based. No Googling allowed.

  She’d gone to summer barbecues and holiday parties at his house, and once when she’d been dating Donovan, they’d gone out sailing with Jim and his wife, Susan. Susan, a family physician, had welcomed Tess into their home as if she were part of their family, while Jim had been more than a mentor. Over the years he’d grown into another father figure.

  And then, one day, without warning, he was gone, his body never recovered from the sea. Beloved by friends and family, and liked and respected by his courtroom opponents and judges he’d appeared before over his long, distinguished career, the turnout for Jim Stevens’s memorial mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral had been standing-room only.

  Tess sighed with regret for the loss of such a good man. But he’d taught her well as he’d created such a tight prosecutorial case that the Russian’s attorney hadn’t been able to find anything in the original procedure to get the mobster off the hook. And she was damned if she was going to allow him to use this latest ploy as a loophole to wiggle out of the steel net Jim’s relentlessly hard work had created.

  Rubbing the back of her neck, which had tensed up during what she now realized had been several hours hunched over her laptop, she made another cup of coffee, then walked over to the front window. Looking out the telescope beyond the shipwreck, s
he studied a sea stack covered with what appeared to be sea lions.

  “Amazing,” she murmured.

  “It’s Sunset Bay’s elephant seal rookery.” The familiar voice behind her had her jumping. Coffee sloshed onto the floor.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “I was just surprised. Which does bring up a question,” she said as he went over to the kitchen and tore off some paper towels to mop up the coffee. “Were you chosen to be a Marine sniper because of your ability to walk on silent cat feet? Or did that skill come with training?”

  “A bit of both,” he said. “And if you don’t mind, while Carl Sanburg described fog perfectly, I prefer to think of myself as stealthily stalking like a panther.”

  “Correction noted,” she said dryly. It was, after all, a more accurate description. “That’s a lot of seals on one rock,” she said, returning to the telescope.

  “You should see it at winter mating season. People come from all over the country to watch.”

  “They come to watch seals have sex?” The thought was too astounding for words.

  “It’s quite a show and brings in a lot of tourism. The parks department even has hourly tours.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Scout’s honor,” he said, raising his right hand. “They’re damn impressive—the average bull is around eighteen feet long and weighs three, maybe four tons. The season starts when the bulls arrive at the beginning of December,” he told her. “The stronger ones establish their dominance by fighting all the others and driving off the weaker ones. Then they establish their territory.”

  “Typical males.”

  He flashed that trademark grin. “As soon as the battles over territory are won, the cows arrive. They’re much more petite. They only weigh a couple thousand pounds.”

  Tess returned his smile. “That’s downright anorexic.”

  “Isn’t it? Anyway, when the would-be brides come ashore, they’re corralled into harems.”