Harbor Lights

by Sherryl Woods

  “Goodbye,” she said, wondering if the call would make things better for Henry or if she’d only made a bad situation worse.

  Kevin arrived to find Shanna looking distracted and unhappy. Her hair was mussed, she wore no makeup, and it was evident she’d forgotten all about their date. His apparently unexpected arrival would normally have flustered her, but she didn’t seem to care.

  “Okay, tell me what’s happened,” he said, walking into her apartment. “Obviously you’ve had a bad day.”

  The last time he’d seen her like this, she’d received a phone call she refused to discuss. He wondered if there’d been another one. When she didn’t reply to his inquiry, he urged her toward a chair.

  “Sit down and tell me what’s going on,” he said.

  She met his gaze with troubled eyes. “I forgot we were going out.”

  “No problem, though it is a huge blow to my ego,” he said dryly. “Maybe if I knew why, I’d feel better about it.”

  “I can’t…” She shook her head.

  “Have my sisters been over here bugging you?” It would be just like them.

  “I saw Bree this morning for coffee, but she wasn’t bugging me.”

  An even more distressing thought came to mind. “Georgia’s mother didn’t call you, did she?”

  She blinked at that. “No, why would she?”

  “To warn you away from me.”

  Her lips curved slightly. “She couldn’t scare me. Believe me, I’ve known much scarier women.”

  “Did you happen to run across one of them earlier today?” he asked, feeling his way.

  She nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No, but thanks. I really am sorry I forgot about dinner. We could still go. It won’t take me long to shower and change, though I can’t promise I’ll be very good company.”

  “Your company couldn’t possibly be bad, but something tells me you’re in no mood to go out. Why don’t I pick up something and bring it back here? Thai, maybe? Italian? Whatever you feel like.”

  She shrugged indifferently. “I’m really not hungry.”

  “A huge tub of ice cream,” he suggested, desperate for something to put a smile on her face.

  Her lips twitched. “Not terribly nutritious.”

  “I think the situation calls for decadent. How about it?”

  “A banana split,” she suggested. “At least there’s fruit in that.”

  “Can’t get much more healthy than a banana split,” he agreed.

  She almost smiled at that, but it faltered before it could fully form. “I’ll walk with you and we can eat them by the beach,” she said. “Getting out of this apartment will be good for me.”

  “Sounds perfect,” he said at once, relieved to have her show an interest in something, even if it was only ice cream.

  Outside the air was hot and sticky, but there was a faint suggestion of a breeze as they neared the water. Kevin ordered their banana splits with extra hot fudge as she’d requested, then carried them to a bench along the beach. A breeze stirred and kept the mosquitoes away. It even cooled the humid air slightly. To his relief, Shanna dug into her ice cream with enthusiasm.

  “This is the first thing I’ve had to eat since early this morning,” she admitted. “I’m starving.”

  “Nothing like hot fudge sauce to stir the appetite,” he said.

  “It’s comforting,” she said, licking the spoon with her eyes closed.

  Kevin’s blood heated at the rapturous expression on her face as her pink tongue stroked the plastic spoon. Lucky spoon! Who knew that eating a banana split would turn out to be an erotic experience? He shifted, trying to hide his immediate arousal. Given her distress, it was a fine time for him to start thinking about sex.

  “I had a call earlier today,” she said, startling him. “They took my ex-husband to the hospital. He’d been drunk and he took too many pills. Sleeping pills, I guess, though I’m not sure. They’re calling it an accidental overdose.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kevin said, studying her face, trying to discern if this was simply concern for a man she’d once loved or more. Was she still in love with him? “He’ll be okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Hearing about that must have been upsetting.”

  She looked at him, her expression bleak. “It wasn’t unexpected,” she said. “It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.”

  “Then his problem with alcohol isn’t something new?”

  She shook her head.

  “And that’s why you left him?”

  She nodded. “I couldn’t do anything to help. In fact, most of the time, it seemed I was only making things worse.”

  Kevin had known a few Iraq veterans who’d turned to alcohol to deal with their memories. He knew that recovery wasn’t always easy, not for them or those who loved them. “People with problems like that can’t be helped until they’re ready.”

  “His mother’s hoping this will scare him so badly that he’ll complete rehab this time.”

  “He’s been before?”

  “More times than I knew about when I married him,” she admitted. “How stupid was I? I completely missed all the signs that he had a problem. I just thought he was a social drinker who overindulged occasionally. I had no idea how bad it was. Talk about naive!”

  “Sometimes people with drinking problems are very adept at hiding them.”

  “Greg certainly was.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She met his gaze, surprise in her eyes. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “It affects you, so of course I’m sorry,” he said.

  She lifted her hand and touched his cheek. “You really are amazing.”

  “Hardly,” he said.

  She gave him a wry look. “Bree told me what happened at dinner Saturday night,” she said, shifting gears. “I feel bad for Georgia’s parents. Your sisters should have realized they didn’t need to hear that you might be seeing someone else.”

  “They didn’t mean any harm,” he said. “You know how they are. They like to tease, and this was the first opportunity they’d had to gang up on me since news of the kiss broke. I’m just glad Mick wasn’t there to make things worse. He’d probably have given them a detailed eyewitness account.”

  Shanna groaned at the image that stirred. “Surely he wouldn’t have!”

  Kevin chuckled at her reaction. “Don’t you know him well enough by now to realize that he absolutely would have?”

  “Why wasn’t he there?”

  “He’s in New York trying to make peace with my mother. He let her down a couple of weeks ago, and she’s making him jump through hoops to make amends.” He grinned. “I have to say I’m finding it more amusing than I thought I would.”

  She gave him a thoughtful look. “Bree mentioned something about how tough it was on all of you when your mother and father split up and she left.”

  “Yeah, it was bad,” he said, though without the bitterness that once would have been in his voice. He was finally starting to realize that there were two sides to every story, even that one. “Recently, though, I’ve started seeing my mother’s side of things.”

  “You sided with your dad when she left?”

  He nodded. “It was a complicated situation, but I saw it in black-and-white. He stayed. That made him right. She left. Therefore she was the bad guy. Turns out it wasn’t that clear-cut.”

  “Relationships are seldom easy. And it’s even harder for an outsider to know what’s really going on.”

  Kevin heard an odd note in her voice, a hint that she was speaking from experience. “Did people judge you for leaving your husband?”

  “Some did,” she said. “Partly because it was easier than blaming him. I was the nobody who’d married into a prominent family. And partly because we worked so hard to keep anyone else from knowing the truth about how bad Greg’s drinking was. Therefore if the marriage
was over in less than a year, it had to be my fault. I must have been some gold-digger, eager for a quickie divorce and a lot of alimony. There was even an item in one local paper suggesting that I’d get a bundle because of a prenuptial agreement, which we never had. I could hardly take out an ad in the paper to say I’d taken nothing from him.”

  “That must have been tough.”

  She acknowledged it with a nod and a change of subject. “How did things go with the job today?”

  Kevin wanted to pursue the discussion of her marriage, but she was regarding him with an expression that begged him to move on.

  “The job is great,” he said. All day he’d been thinking about sharing this with her. It felt good to come home and have someone around who was interested in how his day had gone. “Uncle Thomas is even more amazing than I realized.”

  “Tell me,” she said eagerly.

  “Today I went with him to speak to a couple of Maryland legislators. Tomorrow he has an appointment with the governor, and I’m going along for that, too. Obviously I don’t have much to contribute, but he wants me to be up to speed on all these talks before we start a real push for stronger bay cleanup efforts.”

  “New legislation?”

  “No, just stricter enforcement of the Chesapeake Bay Act that’s already on the books. It’s not just a problem in Maryland, but in all of the states whose waters flow into the bay. I’m not sure if it’s a lack of investigators to follow up on violations or a lack of will. Either way, we need to get the states to make this a priority.”

  She grinned as he talked. “This is the happiest I’ve seen you since we met,” she said. “You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?”

  “It’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s the kind of work that can make a real difference.”

  “I’m so happy for you.” She squeezed his hand. “I can’t wait to do my part by holding that fund-raiser at the store. I’m getting so many inquiries about it, I’m afraid it’s going to be standing room only that night.”

  “You could always move it to the inn,” he suggested. “Or just count on spilling out into the square. You might have to get a permit for that, but I don’t think it would be a problem. Want me to check? I know my uncle would be open to expanding the event. There’s nothing he likes more than speaking to a huge crowd about his passion for the bay.”

  “I love that idea,” Shanna said eagerly. “We’d have to have a sound system of some kind in the gazebo on the green, but he could speak from there. People could sit in lawn chairs or on blankets. I’d set up a table to sell books. I’d have to get someone to work in the store, but I could handle the sales outside.” Her eyes lit up. “Someone from your group could be there to sign people up for memberships and to take donations.”

  “I’d do that,” Kevin volunteered, catching her enthusiasm.

  “This is going to be amazing,” she said. She jumped up. “I need to start working on this right now.”

  “It’s after working hours for most people,” Kevin reminded her. “There’s not much you can accomplish tonight.”

  “I can make lists, so I’ll be set to go first thing in the morning.”

  He met her gaze. “We’re on a date, remember?”

  She looked at him, then finally sat back with a sheepish grin. “I got carried away.”

  He laughed. “I love seeing you like that, but it’s hell on my ego to have you so eager to toss me aside for making lists, especially such a short time after completely forgetting that we even had plans for tonight.”

  She chuckled. “I think your ego’s probably just fine. It can withstand a few hits.”

  He sobered and he touched a finger to the dark smudges under her eyes that not even her excitement and humor could wipe away. “I’m really sorry you had such a tough day.”

  “I’m better now,” she told him. “Thanks to you. The banana split was a good distraction. The idea for expanding the fund-raiser was even better.”

  “How about this?” he asked, leaning forward to claim her lips. The brief touch set off an inferno inside him. Under his fingertips, her skin heated, as well.

  “Is this a good distraction?” he murmured, his breath mingling with hers.

  She swallowed hard. “The best.”

  He met her gaze. “I want more, Shanna. My life’s a mess and I can’t make any promises about tomorrow, but I want you tonight.”

  She hesitated for so long, her gaze locked with his, that he thought she was trying to find the right words to refuse him. Instead, she stood up and held out her hand.

  “I want you, too,” she said simply.

  Only as they made their way back toward Shanna’s apartment did Kevin start to wonder if she truly wanted him, or if she simply wanted another guaranteed distraction from the news about her ex-husband. Worse, with her hand secure in his, he wasn’t really sure it mattered. Right this second, all he cared about was how desperately he wanted her in his arms.

  Shanna needed someone to hold her, someone who genuinely cared about her. She especially needed that tonight. Thinking about Greg and his problems and how that had spilled over to make her feel inadequate had been on her mind all day. She knew intellectually that she hadn’t failed him, that he’d been troubled long before they’d even met. Still, deep in her heart, she believed there must have been something she could have done, should have done, to fix things for him and especially for Henry.

  The solid feel of Kevin’s hand wrapped around hers gave her a sense of security she hadn’t felt in a while. He was a strong man, one she could lean on rather than have to prop up. For all of his grief over Georgia, Kevin had never lost sight of his responsibility to his son. She admired that strength of character more than she could say. It told her the kind of man he was, the kind of man she wanted in her life for the long haul.

  When they walked into her darkened apartment, lit only by the soft glow of lights from the street and a bit of shimmering moonlight, a part of her wanted him to sweep her into his arms and make her forget everything else. Another part appreciated the care he was taking, the gentle touch of his fingers on her cheek, the soft caress as he stroked along the bare skin exposed by the neckline of her T-shirt. He was going slow, though his gaze was heated. He was giving her time to change her mind, maybe even to catch up with him.

  When he sealed his mouth over hers again, his tongue teasing at her lips, then delving inside to taste, she felt the shock of the kiss melt everything in her. If she hadn’t been leaning into him, her knees might very well have buckled.

  “Bedroom,” she whispered, wanting to get on with it, wanting to feel the length of him stretched out next to her…on top of her.

  His hand stilled, almost to the tip of her breast, leaving her tingling and wanting more. His gaze sought hers. There was fire in the depths of his eyes and a need that surely matched her own. “You’re sure?”

  “Very,” she said, leading the way.

  Inside the room, though, she grew hesitant, remembering how often things with her ex-husband had gotten exactly this far, sometimes even further, before he lost interest or fell asleep. It had devastated her. Though rationally she’d known alcohol was to blame, she’d been unable to separate that from her own feelings of inadequacy.

  “Shanna?” Kevin whispered, a question in his voice and in his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she insisted, reaching for the buttons on his shirt, rather than her own. She needed to push him past the point of no return, needed to touch and feel his arousal, to know that she could make him desire her in ways she’d begun to doubt herself capable of.

  Apparently sensing something a little wild in her, guessing at the tension she was feeling, Kevin let her proceed at her own pace. She heard his breath quicken as her fingers touched his rock-hard abs, then slid lower. She undid the buckle on his belt, the catch on his pants, then slowly lowered the zipper, her knuckle grazing his arousal beneath the soft fabric of his briefs. He moaned then and stilled her hands.

&nbs
p; “Enough, sweetheart. My turn,” he said, easing off her T-shirt, then lowering his head to suck at her already hardened nipples through the lace of her pale peach bra.

  He lifted her onto the bed, then deftly began removing the rest of her clothes before stripping away the last of his.

  Shanna waited with bated breath for the moment when something would go wrong, but Kevin’s touches became more intimate, his attention never flagging. Her blood was humming, her nerves straining, as he watched her with the kind of masculine appreciation she’d always yearned for.

  “You can let go,” he told her, stroking her until she thought she’d fly apart, but she couldn’t let go, didn’t trust him or herself enough, because it could be over then.

  “I want you,” she murmured. “Please, Kevin. I need you with me.”

  He rose above her then, lifted her hips and fit himself to her, then moved slowly, confidently, until he filled her. The sensation was amazing. Too much. Yet not nearly enough. Her hips began to move. He met her, again and again, until at last she dared to let go, dared to believe in him and, finally, in herself, as wave after wave crashed over her, through him.

  As the waves finally, inevitably, ebbed, she clung to him, not wanting to let go, not wanting the magical moment to end.

  Then, after a bit, magically he stirred inside her and the wild ride started all over again. As they reached the peak and flew over the edge, Shanna’s doubts about who she was as a woman fled. No matter what happened from this night on, she would never forget that Kevin had been the one to accomplish that, to give her back the self-confidence she’d thought gone forever.

  18

  It was three in the morning when Kevin finally awoke and glanced at the clock on Shanna’s bedside table. He was immediately assailed by guilt. It was one of the few times ever he hadn’t been at home to tuck Davy into bed, or at least to give him a good-night kiss.

  Not that he was worried his son wasn’t being well cared for. Gram would see to that. Davy’d already been half-asleep when Kevin had left the house, and he rarely woke up during the night. But what if this was the one night he had, and Kevin hadn’t been there to comfort him? Even knowing that Gram was right next door wasn’t reassuring.