“I wanted you from the first second I saw you.”
Lauren’s heart sped up at the look in his eyes. “I never knew why. I was so not your type. Before me, you went with all the beautiful, wild girls.”
“You were different.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but Shane remained silent. “Different how?” she prodded, annoyed with herself because she shouldn’t care.
He thought for a moment. “Honest. Genuine. Real.”
“You make me sound like a Girl Scout,” she complained.
“I don’t think what we did together was in any Girl Scout handbook,” he said lightly. “In fact, being on this beach with you reminds me of the night we—”
“Don’t go there,” she warned.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve already been there today,” she confessed.
“Really?” His brown eyes sparkled wickedly. “It was a good night.”
“Yes, it was,” she admitted, meeting his gaze, the delicious heat of their memories dancing between them. Her fingers bit into the hard rock she was sitting on, as she forced herself not to get up and fling herself into his arms and see if it was as great as she remembered. “Stop looking at me like that,” she ordered.
“You’re looking at me the same way. It’s still there, Lauren—no matter how much we want to deny it.”
Praise for the first novel in the Angel’s Bay series
SUDDENLY ONE SUMMER
“This book has it all: heart, community, and characters who will remain with you long after the book has ended. A wonderful story.”
—New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
“Suddenly One Summer delivers a double whammy to the heart. Ms. Freethy cuts to the core with her depiction of a woman in jeopardy and a man who no longer believes that life has anything to offer. . . . A story that will keep you spellbound.”
—Winter Haven News (FL)
“A large cast of townspeople adds to this intriguing, suspenseful romance, which is the first of Freethy’s Angel’s Bay novels. Freethy has a gift for creating complex, appealing characters and emotionally involving, often suspenseful, sometimes magical stories.”
—Library Journal
“Suddenly One Summer transported me to a beautiful place and drew me into a story of family secrets, passion, betrayal and redemption.”
—New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs
“Angel’s Bay, brimming with old and new relationships, some floundering and others new with hopes and dreams, promises many poignant and heartwarming stories.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Freethy has written a suspenseful and captivating story, weaving in human frailty along with true compassion, making every page a delight.”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
“Angel’s Bay is a place I’ll want to visit time and again. . . . Freethy has done a beautiful job of weaving a compelling story while having the patience to fully develop characters who will become our friends, characters with whom we will share joys, sorrows, and all of life’s adventures.”
—Romance Novel TV
“A well-written, captivating story, with good pacing that will leave you satisfied as it unfolds. There is a little bit of everything—romance, mystery, and inexplicable events—a fascinating story sure to make your summer reading a pleasure.”
—Romance Reviews Today
And for award-winning author Barbara Freethy
“Barbara Freethy delivers strong and compelling prose.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fans of Nora Roberts will find a similar tone here, framed in Freethy’s own spare, elegant style.”
—Contra Costa Times (CA)
“Freethy skillfully keeps readers on the hook.”
—Booklist
“Freethy’s star continues to gain luster.”
—Romantic Times
ALSO BY BARBARA FREETHY
Suddenly One Summer
Now Available from Pocket Star
And look for the next book in the Angel’s Bay series
In Shelter Cove
Coming soon from Pocket Star
BARBARA FREETHY
On Shadow
Beach
Pocket Star Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Barbara Freethy
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information
address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department,
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First Pocket Star Books paperback edition April 2010
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Designed by Jill Putorti
ISBN 978-1-4391-0157-5
ISBN 978-1-4391-2698-1 (ebook)
In memory of my mother,
who shared her love of reading with me,
and is surely an angel now.
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue
‘In Shelter Cove’ Teaser
‘The Way Back Home’ Teaser
Don’t forget
to click through after
ON SHADOW BEACH
for an exclusive sneak peek
at IN SHELTER COVE
and Barbara Freethy’s next heartwarming tale
THE WAY BACK HOME
Available from Pocket Books July 2012
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my writing friends with whom I enjoy lunches, chocolate, and lots of wonderful, sometimes crazy, brainstorming sessions. You know who you are and how much you mean to me. Thanks also go to my wonderful editor, Micki Nuding, whose enthusiasm and support are always appreciated, as well as to my astute and insightful agent, Karen Solem.
Thanks to my family f
or their never-ending support and to my tennis friends, who keep me sane and fit by running me around on the tennis court. I couldn’t do it without all of you!
ONE
Just like before, the front door was ajar, every light in the house was on, and a game show played on the television. Lauren Jamison put down her suitcase, feeling uneasy.
Thirteen years had passed since she’d been home, but the living room looked the same: the brown leather recliner by the fireplace where her dad read the paper every evening, the couch her sister, Abby, used to curl up on and write in her journal, the table by the window where her mother and little brother, David, played board games. The furniture remained, but all of the people were gone. All except one.
“Dad?” she called.
The answering silence tightened her nerves. She needed her father to appear, to remind her that this wasn’t like before. Because thirteen years ago she’d returned home late one night, an innocent seventeen-year-old, and found the front door open, lights blazing, and her mother sobbing hysterically. Nothing had been the same after that.
The whistle of a teakettle drew her toward the kitchen, but the room was empty. She turned off the stove and moved into the hall, checking each bedroom. Her father’s room was cluttered with clothes. Only the faded floral curtains betrayed her mother’s once important influence on the décor. David’s bedroom had been turned into an office that was covered in dust and papers. The room at the end of the hall had belonged to her and to Abby.
The door was closed, and Lauren’s steps slowed. Her father might have redone the room, boxed up Abby’s things and given them to charity—or the room might look exactly the same as it had the night Abby died. Her heart skipped a beat.
She tapped on the door. “Dad? Are you in there?”
When he didn’t reply, she opened the door, scanned the room quickly, and then pulled the door shut, her breath coming hard and fast. Abby’s side of the room was frozen in time, as if it were still waiting for her to return. Lauren let out a long, shaky breath, then turned away.
Where the hell was her father? She’d called him that morning and told him she was coming, and he’d seemed fine. But according to the neighbors, who had sent numerous letters to her mother over the past three months, her father’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse. It was time for someone in the family to come back and take care of him. Her mother had refused. She’d divorced Ned Jamison eleven years earlier, and she had no intention of reuniting with him now. David was back east at college. So Lauren had returned to Angel’s Bay to deal with a man who was little more than a stranger to her. But he was still her father, and she needed to find him—she just wasn’t sure where to look. She had only spent a half dozen weekends with her dad since she’d left home at seventeen, and all those visits had occurred in San Francisco. Where would he be on a Friday night? She didn’t know who his friends were anymore, what he did, where he went.
Or did she?
Her father had always been a creature of habit. During her childhood, he’d spent most of his time in three places: home, the bait and tackle shop he’d run until two years ago, and his fishing boat Leonora, named after his great-great-great-grandmother who’d been one of the founders of Angel’s Bay.
Lauren headed out the front door toward the marina, which was only a few blocks away. Buttoning up her sweater, she hurried down the street. It was seven o’clock and there was already a chill in the darkening September sky. Soon there’d be pumpkins and Halloween decorations on every porch, but for now the neighborhood was quiet.
While some of the homes had been remodeled, the streets were very familiar. She’d been born in Angel’s Bay, and this neighborhood was where she’d taken her first steps, learned to ride a bicycle, roller skated into the Johnsons’ rosebushes, gotten her first kiss in the moonlight, fallen in love . . . and fallen out of love.
She blinked away the sudden moisture in her eyes and picked up her pace. She had a great life in San Francisco now, an interesting job and good friends, and she had no regrets about leaving her hometown. She just wished that she hadn’t had to come back.
By the time she reached Ocean Avenue, she was breathless. She quickened her pace as she passed the Angel’s Heart Quilt Shop, where she and Abby and their mother had partaken in the town’s longstanding tradition of community quilting. Quilting was the way mothers and daughters, sisters and friends connected the past with the present. She’d once loved to quilt, but she hadn’t picked up a needle and thread since she’d left. She didn’t want those connections anymore. Nor did she particularly want to see anyone she knew now. She was hoping to make her visit short, with as little community contact as possible.
Crossing the street, she kept her head down as she passed Carl’s Crab Shack. The line was out to the sidewalk and the delicious smells of clam chowder and fish and chips made her stomach rumble. She’d done the four-hour drive from San Francisco without stopping for food but she couldn’t stop now.
As she reached the marina she saw a new sign on her father’s bait and tackle shop, now called Brady’s instead of Jamison’s. The store was closed. She moved down the ramp that led to the boat slips. Luckily the gate had been propped open by a slat of wood, so she didn’t need a key. Her father’s old trawler had been moored at the second to last slip in the third row since she was a little girl. She hoped it was still there.
The marina was quiet. Most of the action occurred in the early morning or late afternoon, when the sport and commercial fishermen were going out or coming back after a day of work or pleasure. Her pulse quickened as the lights on her father’s boat suddenly came on, followed by the sound of an engine. She could see his silhouette in the cabin. What on earth was he doing? He couldn’t go out to sea by himself.
“Dad!” she yelled, breaking into a run. She waved her arms as she screamed again, but either he couldn’t hear her or he was ignoring her. By the time she reached the slip, her father’s boat was chugging toward the middle of the bay. She had to stop him. She needed to call the Coast Guard or find someone to go after him. “Hello! Anyone here?” she called.
A man emerged from a nearby boat and Lauren hurried down the dock.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
The familiar voice stopped her dead in her tracks, and as he jumped onto the dock and into the light, her heart skipped a beat.
Shane. Shane Murray.
He moved toward her with the same purposeful, determined step she remembered. She wasn’t ready for this—ready for him.
She knew the split second that he recognized her. His step faltered, his shoulders stiffened, and his jaw set in a grim line. He didn’t say her name. He just stared at her, waiting. Shane had never been one for words, he’d always believed actions spoke louder than explanations. But sometimes the truth needed to be spoken—not just implied or assumed.
“Shane.” She wished her voice didn’t sound so husky, so filled with memories. She cleared her throat. “I—I need help. My father just took off in his boat. I don’t know if you know, but he has Alzheimer’s.” She waved her hand toward the Leonora, whose lights were fading in the distance. “I need to get him back. Will you help me? There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.” When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “I guess I could call the Coast Guard.”
For a moment she thought he might say no. They weren’t friends anymore. If anything, they were enemies.
Finally Shane gave a crisp nod. “Let’s go.” He headed back to his boat.
The last thing she wanted to do was go with him, but she couldn’t stand by while her father sailed off to sea with probably no idea of who he was or where he was going.
Shane’s boat was a newer thirty-foot sport fishing boat with all the modern conveniences. There were rod holders in the gunwales, tackle drawers and ice coolers built into the hull. As she stepped on board, Shane released the lines and pulled in the bumpers, then headed toward the center console. He started the engine and pulled out of the slip.
/>
She stood a few feet away, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. How long would it take before he’d actually speak to her? And if he did, what would he say? There was a lot of painful history between them, and while part of her wanted him to break the silence, the other part was afraid of where that might lead.
She’d fallen for Shane just after her seventeenth birthday. He’d been only a year older in age, but a half dozen in experience. She’d been a shy good girl who’d never done anything impulsive in her life, and he’d been the town bad boy, moody, rebellious, and reckless. He’d drawn her to him like a moth to a flame.
Shane definitely wasn’t a teenager anymore. In his faded blue jeans, gray T-shirt, and black jacket it was quite apparent that he was all man now. His six-foot frame had filled out with broad shoulders and long legs. His black hair was wavy and windblown, the ends brushing the collar of his jacket, and his skin bore the ruddy tan of a man who spent a lot of time outdoors.
The set of his jaw had always been his “no trespassing” sign, and that hadn’t changed a bit. Shane had never let people in easily. She’d had to fight to get past his barriers, but even as close as they’d been, she’d never figured out the mysterious shadows in his dark eyes, or the sudden, sharp flashes of pain there. Shane had always kept a big part of himself under lock and key.
Her gaze dropped to his hands, noting the sureness of his fingers on the wheel. His hands were strong and capable, and she couldn’t help but remember the way they’d once felt on her breasts—rough and hungry, the same way his mouth had felt against hers, as if he couldn’t wait to have her, couldn’t ever get enough.
Her heart thumped against her chest, and she forced herself to look away. She was not going back to that place. She’d barely survived the first time. He’d swept her off her feet, into a whirlwind of emotions, then broken her heart.
“It took you long enough to come home,” Shane said finally. He glanced at her, his expression unreadable.
“I just came to get my dad. I’m planning to take him back to San Francisco with me.”
On Shadow Beach Page 1
