by JoAnn Ross
Despite her earlier protestations and mostly against her will, Tess had fallen irrevocably, undeniably in love with Nate Breslin.
Desire had come easily. She’d been unwillingly attracted to the man from the beginning. Need, she had discovered to her vast amazement, was simple. But love? Love was illogical, and no one had ever dared to suggest that Tess Lombardi was not logical. Until now, she told herself on the sixth day of her stay on Sunset Point. She’d come here an intelligent, capable woman. This morning, as the time grew closer to Vasilyev’s hearing, she was turning into a confused jumble of emotions.
The rain had finally stopped, leaving the house wrapped in fog. Nate had watched her pace, stopping to stare out the window at regular intervals all morning. Finally, his own nerves couldn’t take the leaden silence any longer.
“Worried about the hearing?”
“Of course I’m not. I’m a professional. They’re part of my job.”
He eyed her curiously over the rim of his coffee mug. “How about death threats?”
“I can handle them.”
“Of course you can.”
“Besides, no one’s contacted me here. It’s obvious Vasilyev’s men have no idea where I’m hiding. Especially since I haven’t even been allowed to talk or text with friends.” Although she’d been allowed to keep her phone, only to hear from her office, if necessary, otherwise it had been off-limits.
“Cell phones aren’t secure. Neither are landlines these days.”
“I know.” She blew out a breath. “But I feel cut off from the world. I can’t even go into town for dinner.”
“Sax delivered gumbo last night,” he reminded her.
“But Kara couldn’t come. Because someone watching the house might wonder why the sheriff was delivering dinner. And it’s not as if you’re not good company—”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And you’re a wonderful host. But I miss my friends.”
“Totally understandable.” Although he’d been known to stay in the house for days at a time while on deadline, there was no one keeping him from leaving. Which made a big difference.
“And it’s not as if I’m in any danger leaving for the hearing, since armed Oregon State Troopers are driving me to the prison.”
“Well, something’s got you on edge. Has the captain made any more appearances?” Something had her acting like Horatio, his parents’ Harlequin Great Dane, in a thunderstorm, and Nate was determined to find out what it was.
Tess dragged her hand through her hair. “No, the captain has thankfully stayed wherever it is ghosts live when they’re not haunting the houses of mad horror novelists.”
His brow furrowed. “Does what I do really bother you that much?”
“Of course not. I admire what you do. A great deal.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Tess sank down onto a chair. “Now that the time’s getting closer, I’m getting edgy,” she admitted. “Every time I hear a noise, I wonder if it might be him. Whenever a tree branch brushes against a window, I’m afraid he’s breaking into the house. I find myself staring out into the fog, afraid I’m going to see him staring back.”
She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “The only time I don’t think about him is…” Her voice drifted off.
“When we’re making love.”
“When we’re making love,” she agreed before beginning to pace again.
Nate had noticed that it was difficult for her to remain still when she was nervous. The knowledge that she was not as innately serene as he’d first thought made him respect her controlled courtroom behavior even more.
“At least I’m some help,” he offered, inviting her to find some comfort and humor in their situation.
She whirled around, her eyes wildly passionate, her hands on her hips. “I hate what this is doing to me. It’s turning me into a raving paranoiac—jumping at sounds, cringing at shadows…”
There it was again. The soft vulnerability that she worked so hard to conceal that he found irresistible. Walking over to her, he smoothed the deep lines between her brows.
“Hey, if we weren’t all incipient paranoiacs, I’d be out of work.”
“You’re just saying that to be nice to me.” She was trembling in his arms. As a feeling of protectiveness welled up inside him, Nate realized that, under normal conditions, Tess was so efficient, so controlled, it was easy to forget how delicate she was. How human.
His palms cupped her shoulders, soothing out the tension he could feel under the royal-blue sweater. “Are you telling me that you’ve never walked into a cocktail party at the bar association, had the room go suddenly silent and known everyone was talking about you?”
“Of course, but—”
“The only difference between us and the paranoiacs in the mental wards is that we’ve managed to keep our suspicions safely under wraps.”
Tess leaned against him and closed her eyes, drawing strength from the comfort he offered. Nate heard her sigh and felt her begin to relax as his hands made slow, soothing circles on her back. They remained that way for a long, silent time.
“You always say the right thing,” she said eventually. “I only wish I could believe you.”
“You should. About everything.”
At this moment, her dark eyes full of distress, Tess could have asked Nate for anything in the world and he’d have moved heaven and earth to get it for her.
He was not a total stranger to love. He had, after all, witnessed it with his own parents. He’d also, at the suggestion of his editor, woven love stories into all his novels. But never in a million years would Nate have expected love to be such an all-encompassing, overwhelming emotion.
It was coming as a distinct surprise to realize that he’d give up his own life, if necessary, to protect Tess from whatever monsters—real or imagined—might be lurking out there.
“I know there’s a rational explanation for Vasilyev’s threats,” she said quietly. “But what’s happening between us is different. What if the same way the captain put Isabella into your dreams, he somehow caused me to fall in love with you in order to ease his guilty conscience?”
“I suspect that’s a little beyond his ghostly powers.”
As tense as she already was, and admittedly beginning to get a little stir crazy locked up in this house, as wonderful as it was, Tess wished she hadn’t brought up the captain’s damn curse. And she definitely didn’t want to start talking about marriage again.
She pulled out of Nate’s arms and grabbed her hooded plum windbreaker from a hook by the front door. “I need to get outside. I’m going for a walk.”
“It could start raining again,” he warned.
“I like the rain.” With that, Tess was gone.
Muttering an oath, Nate yanked his jacket from the coatrack and followed her.
35
That it began raining again before she’d left Nate’s front porch did nothing to improve Tess’s mood.
“Why can’t he just accept things the way they are?” she complained, jamming her fists into her pockets. “Why does he have to keep insisting on the impossible?”
The object of her frustration came up beside her. “Nice day.”
“If you don’t like the rain, I’d suggest you leave.”
“Hey, you know I’m not going to do that. Besides, you’ve convinced me that courting pneumonia is the only way to spend a lazy coastal day.” He shook his head in mute disbelief as he hunched inside his jacket. “And to think I used to believe days like this were made for making love.”
In front of a warm, crackling fire, Tess admitted secretly. “You’ve got sex on the brain.”
“I’ve got you on the brain,” he corrected in a low, disturbing tone that did nothing to instill calm.
As they neared the cliff, Nate took her arm. Knowing it would be foolhardy, not to mention dangerous, to shake off his hand this near the edge of the rocky precipice, Tess ignored
the casually protective gesture.
As she stared out to sea, she was glad of the rain, grateful for the cold and gloomy day. It served to counterbalance the fierce and heated storms Nate was capable of stirring up inside her. With a single touch. A mere look.
“I’m going down to the beach,” she decided.
“It’s dangerous.”
“So’s life. Or so I’ve been told lately.”
Shaking his head with resigned frustration, Nate followed her down the steep, perilous path. It wasn’t a romantic stroll along shell-sprinkled sands. On this stretch of open coast, the rocks had felt the full fury of the sea since the beginning of time.
“Are you sure I can’t coax you back to the house?” he asked, easily keeping up with her as she scrambled over moss-slick rocks. “How about another game of poker?”
“I already owe you eight million, four hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. And fifty-four cents. I think I’ll pass.”
“Marry me, and I’ll write the entire thing off,” he offered.
She didn’t answer. Nate shook his head as he watched her negotiate a particularly treacherous stretch. Jellyfish the size of marbles shimmered on the sand, stranded by the ebbing surf.
“Damn,” Tess said as she came to a sudden halt where churning water thundered against the cliffs. “It’s a dead end.”
“Too bad. I guess that means we have no choice but to turn back.”
She turned on him, her eyes shooting furious sparks. “Don’t you dare be calm when I’m not.”
His own temper, brought on by escalating concerns he hadn’t wanted to share with her, was hanging by a ragged thread. “My job is to keep you safe. Even when you decide to behave irrationally.”
“Irrationally?” Tess’s hood fell back when she tossed her head. “If you’re talking about my falling in love with you, I suppose you’re right. Because it was a stupid, irrational thing to do!”
“Thanks for the compliment,” he shot back. “If it hadn’t been for you, I might have blithely gone through the rest of my life thinking that I was a fairly decent human being.”
“You are, dammit.” The wind practically whipped the words from her mouth. “You’re a kind, decent, wonderful man.” Her shoulders sagged as she turned away. “And that’s the problem.”
Nate couldn’t recall ever being so frustrated. She’d been driving him up the wall since the captain had first put her into his thoughts. He’d had to work like hell to wear down her resistance enough to see how much he loved her. Cared about her.
But even now, even after she’d admitted her own feelings, she was holding something back. Something that was keeping them from planning a life together. Nate had a sneaking suspicion he knew what that something was. But the idea was so absurd, so ridiculous, especially for a logical, intelligent woman like Tess, that he couldn’t make himself believe it.
“Does your reluctance have anything to do with the captain’s alleged curse?”
His voice was soft, but Tess heard him just the same. She didn’t want to talk about it.
“Tess?”
Exhaling a weary breath, she looked over her shoulder, stunned by the pain that was ravaging his handsome face. “Oh, Nate,” she whispered regretfully. “I never should have come here. It’s all been a horrendous mistake.”
He cupped her chin in his hand, lifting her distressed gaze to his. “That’s where you’re wrong. Because, despite your Russians, this is probably the most right thing that’s ever happened to either one of us.”
He pointed to the top of the cliff, where the salty wind had twisted the fir trees into silhouettes resembling old men with their backs bent against the wind. One particularly deformed spruce, knotted by “sailor winds,” had dug its gnarled roots into crevices in the stone. “See that tree?” he asked quietly.
Grateful for any change in the conversation, Tess glanced up and nodded.
“The legend goes that it used to be a man. A seaman, as a matter of fact, not unlike the captain.”
“I don’t want to talk about the captain.”
“Whatever you say.” Although it took an effort, Nate kept his tone smooth. Easy. Even amiable. “Anyway, the poor guy got shipwrecked after being lured onto these rocks by a siren.”
“First ghosts, now sirens. At least conversations with you aren’t boring.”
“Thank you. Anyway, a siren is a lovely young thing from Greek mythology who sings with bewitching sweetness, luring seamen to their destruction.”
“I know what a siren is. I just don’t believe in them.”
“It wasn’t that long ago that you didn’t believe in ghosts.”
A teasing light had replaced the storm in his eyes, and Tess had no choice but to return his sly grin with a reluctant smile. “Point taken,” she murmured. “Can we just get on with this story?”
“That’s what I was trying to do before you interrupted. Anyway, the lovely siren took him to her castle beneath the sea, but after making love, the foolish sailor decided he wanted to return to his ship,” Nate said.
“So not into hit-and-run sex, the siren, infuriated that he didn’t want to stay with her, lost her temper and supposedly turned him into that tree,” Tess finished dryly.
As ridiculous as the story was, she wouldn’t be all that surprised if Nate halfway believed it. What was it that Alexis had said about her not believing anything unless it was written in The Oregonian? While Nate’s mind was open to anything and everything. Tess envied him that quality.
“That’s exactly the way it ended. See what happens to people who cavalierly turn their back on love?”
“I’m not turning my back on love,” Tess insisted.
“Just marriage.”
Unable to answer because of the lump in her throat, Tess could only nod.
Nate drew her into his arms and covered her mouth with his. His lips were warm, and his tongue sought hers without warning, drawing passion from some secret, wonderful place deep inside her. Tess had no choice but to accept the demands of his mouth as he urged an answering warmth.
Her hands tightened on his shoulders as desire swirled through her blood, hot and insistent. He swore softly as a wave hit the boulder they were standing on, drenching them in a cold saltwater spray.
“Do you think we could possibly continue this conversation somewhere a little warmer?” he asked when he finally let her breathe again.
It was becoming more difficult by the moment to deny this man anything. “Like a hot, steaming shower?”
Her suggestion was rewarded by that slow, devastating grin that never failed to arouse something elemental within her. “I’ve always said that you were an intelligent woman.”
Hand in hand, Tess and Nate returned up the narrow path. Misty wisps of fog curled around their feet as they walked back to the house.
In no time at all, they were standing together under a hot stream of water. “I thought you wanted to talk,” Tess demurred as Nate soaped her slick body.
“I still do.” His hands smoothed the lather over her breasts. “Later.”
It was difficult to think with his clever, wicked hands clouding her mind. “Later,” she agreed on a soft moan. “Much, much later.”
36
Along with great sex, the man had another thing going for him, Tess reflected over lunch. Any woman who did marry him certainly wouldn’t starve to death. The seafood recipe he’d prepared was an elegant cross between a Louisiana jambalaya and a Spanish paella. Served with a lightly dressed green salad, it was sinfully delicious. As was everything he’d cooked during her stay at Sunset Point.
“You’re going to spoil me.”
Nate’s only response, as he topped off her wineglass, was an arched brow.
“All this food,” she explained. “If I ate like this every day, I’ll weigh as much as one of those elephant seals.”
“No chance of that,” he countered with a wicked grin. “Not when we’d be working off all the calories every night.”
/> “Sex fiend,” she murmured, plucking a piece of blackened monkfish from its bed of saffron rice.
“I haven’t heard counsel offering any objections.”
Tess smiled. “No objections, your honor,” she said, succumbing as always to the warm glint in his eyes.
“If that’s the case, marry me.”
Tess dropped her eyes immediately to her plate. “I can’t.”
“Because of the captain’s curse?” he asked incredulously.
She was pushing her food unseeingly around with her fork and didn’t answer immediately.
Nerves screeching like an Exocet missile, Nate forced himself to wait for her answer.
Putting down her fork, Tess braced her elbows on the table and linked her fingers, eyeing him soberly over them. “I know the idea of a curse is ridiculous. But the fact remains that every Lombardi woman since Isabella has had miserable luck with men. My own marriage included.”
“We could make it work, Tess,” he insisted gently. “Curse or no curse.”
She swallowed. “But even without the curse, we can’t ignore the fact that you belong here in Shelter Bay. And I belong in Portland.”
“We belong together,” he insisted, dismissing her argument with a wave of his hand. “Shelter Bay, Portland, it damn well doesn’t matter. We could work it out. If we both cared enough to try.”
It was so tempting. Closing her eyes against his uncomfortably desperate gaze, Tess pressed her lips together to keep from crying out that she’d live with Nate anywhere. Forever.
“I need more time to think about it,” she said finally.
His expression was oddly flat. Emotionless. “You do that,” he agreed before returning his attention to the cooling paella.
As the lunch dragged miserably on, Nate pointedly ignored Tess. Each time she attempted to make conversation, his answer was curt. Short.
After what seemed like an eternity, he began to clear the table. Without a word, Tess rose and began to help.
