Barefoot Bay_Shelter Me

by Elana Johnson

  All that was about to change.

  She marched down the hall to her bedroom, hoping everyone was still out front where she’d left them. She snatched the huge rock of a ring off her nightstand and hurried outside. Marcus was just folding himself into the SUV; her mother was already seated on the passenger side.

  Noah was gone.

  Abby catalogued that fact with a sinking heart. He didn’t have a car. He couldn’t get too far, and she had some things to do and some things to say to him before they could go across the causeway and have their celebratory dinner.

  “Take it.” She held the diamond out to Marcus, who simply stared at it. She shook it as if he couldn’t see what she meant. “Take it now.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I left LA eight months ago, Marcus. I was done then, and nothing’s changed now.” That wasn’t entirely true. Almost everything about Abby had changed, but not why she’d left, and not how she felt about him.

  “We’ve been together for three years.” He still didn’t take the ring.

  Something softened inside her. “I’m sorry, Marcus.” She couldn’t believe she was apologizing. He was the one who’d had a different woman in every city where he played baseball. She’d known about his unfaithfulness for a solid year before she’d decided to leave.

  “Please take it.” She reached for his hand and uncurled his fingers. “Being together isn’t the same as being in love.” She placed the ring in his palm and backed up.

  “You’re making a mistake,” her mother called. “There’s no such thing as being in love!”

  “Good-bye, Mother.” Abby turned her back on Marcus, her mother, and the SUV, and headed for her car.

  But it was gone.

  Apparently, Noah did have a car: hers.

  Helplessness filled her even though the SUV’s engine roared and Marcus drove the vehicle away. Her phone rang, but Abby ignored the call from her mother, the same way she’d been doing for months.

  She hastily dialed Noah, praying he’d pick up. He didn’t, and she turned in a circle, searching for an anchor she could hold onto. Her call went to voicemail and she hung up. Tears pricked her eyes again, but this time they weren’t angry. They were borne from fear. Fear that Noah would leave the island before she could explain everything to him. Before she could show him she wasn’t engaged anymore, that she wanted to be with him personally and professionally.

  Her eyes landed on the house next door, and she sprinted in that direction. The sound of poor piano playing came from behind the closed door, cutting off when Abby pounded on the wood with both fists.

  “Maryann,” she panted when her friend opened the door. “I need to borrow your car.”

  “Abby.” Maryann took in her full form. “What’s going on?” She glanced to the house next door, which sat serenely in the sunshine now that everyone had left.

  “I need to borrow your car.”

  “What happened to your car?”

  “It…Noah stole it.”

  Maryann’s eyebrows nearly flew off her face and her mouth rounded into an O. “He did? I thought you guys were…proposing this afternoon.” She glanced at Abby’s left hand, where a tan line from the engagement ring she’d worn for nineteen solid months still remained.

  “We had a change of plans,” Abby said, her frustration mounting again. Her mind raced with where Noah would go, how far he could’ve gotten already.

  Maryann walked away and came back with her keys, the jangling sound like a balm to Abby’s ragged soul. “Here you go. Remember she’s old. You can’t go over fifty.”

  “Right,” Abby agreed, though she just might push the old car to her limits if it meant finding Noah sooner. “Thanks, Maryann.” She practically leapt off the steps and flew toward her aunt’s house. No matter where Noah went, Abby would find him.

  Once behind the wheel of Maryann’s car, she drove near fifty miles an hour to Casa Blanca, praying the whole time that everyone in the police department was busy somewhere else. Luck was on her side, and she parked in the employee lot and hurried along the paved path to Rockrose. She knocked, but Noah didn’t answer. Lord Pawton and Barksdale weren’t waiting with their noses pressed against the front windows.

  Abby had had the foresight to grab her keycard before she’d left the house, but all she had to do was open the door to the villa to know Noah had left. Her heart fell to the soles of her feet, but she somehow managed to walk into the master bedroom.

  The master bedroom where he’d whispered he wanted to make their partnership personal and professional. Where he’d confessed that he’d never felt so much for someone so soon. Where she’d revealed that she did believe in love at first sight when it was him she was looking at.

  She slumped against the doorjamb, wondering where on earth Noah would go. He’d said once that his own mother didn’t know he’d come to Florida. How on earth had he packed so fast? He could only be fifteen minutes ahead of her.

  There was one day of the veterinary conference left, and the nearest cities were Naples and Fort Myers. So Abby would start there tonight, and come back here tomorrow.

  9

  Noah woke in a strange room, without the sound of waves. Both dogs slept on the uncomfortable bed with him, and he groaned as he sat up. He hadn’t been able to be picky about where he stayed, not with two animals the size of small ponies. And though he’d only had the dogs for a month, he couldn’t part with them.

  He spent a half an hour getting ready for the day, an hour on the phone with a lawyer to get the papers drawn up for Albert, and another hour at a credit union to secure funding for the clinic.

  He paced in the hotel, trying to decide what to do about Abby’s car. Would she report it stolen? Technically, she could. He had stolen it while she was in the house, deciding who she liked more.

  Noah had never felt so stupid. Now, when he was alone with his thoughts, when there wasn’t a celebrity baseball player standing inches from him, the humiliation dove deep, deeper.

  And he didn’t know what to do. Yesterday, he’d wanted the clinic on Mimosa Key. He’d wanted Abby. Pieces were moving and clicking into place, almost as if there was a higher power at work in his life.

  “I still want the clinic,” he told Lord Pawton, who cocked his head as if trying to understand Human. “I spent hours on the phone to secure that.”

  He ran both hands through his hair. Problem was, a clinic wouldn’t keep him warm at night. Didn’t have curves that made his mouth dry. Didn’t talk to him, ask him questions, provide support or sympathy.

  He wanted Abby too.

  “Let’s go, boys.” He leashed the dogs and headed down the lobby. He stepped up to the check-in counter, where the manager stood. “Hey, I need to get a car back out to the island. Is there someone I can hire to do that?”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” Carlos, said. “My two sons can do it.” He slid a pad of paper toward Noah. “Write down where it goes, and they’ll get it there.”

  “Can I write a note to the owner of the car too?” Noah picked up the pen, already composing in his head. “And I want a text when the car’s been delivered.”

  “Sure thing, Boss.”

  Noah wrote his note, put the address of Casa Blanca and his cell phone number on another piece of paper, and slid a hundred dollar bill across the counter. “Thanks. Now, I need to rent a car.”

  “I can call for you,” Carlos said. “Maybe you want an SUV with the dogs?” He glanced at the canines with a fond glint in his eye.

  “Yeah, an SUV sounds great.”

  “I’ll need a credit card.” Carlos picked up the phone and punched a rapid-dial number and began speaking in quick Spanish.

  Thirty minutes later, Noah had his bag on the passenger seat, both back windows open, and his dogs loaded up in a bright blue SUV. He set the car north, away from the causeway that would take him back to Abby.

  He knew he was being a baby, but he just needed a few days to wrap his head around t
hings. He hadn’t been able to get in touch with Jules the previous night, but he dialed her as he drove.

  “Noah?” The level of surprise in her voice reared into the atmosphere.

  “Do you still have my diamond ring?” he asked, not bothering with hellos.

  “Yes.” She drew the word out like a warning.

  “I’d like it back,” he said. “If you still have it, that means we’re still engaged.”

  “It does not.” She scoffed, half a laugh coming through the line. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not being ridiculous.” Oh how he hated that laugh. Hated the condescension in her tone. “I bought that for my fiancé, which you no longer are. I’d like it back.”

  “Fine,” she said, and he could just imagine her with her arms folded, sitting at her father’s desk like she owned the world. “Where should I send it?”

  “To my mother’s house in Denver.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me where you are.”

  “I can’t imagine why I would.” Surely she didn’t care. She hadn’t tried to get in touch with him since he’d left fifty-three days ago.

  “Your mom calls me every week to see if I’ve heard from you. I can’t lie to her.”

  “Then don’t. Tell her you talked to me, broke off the engagement, and that she should be receiving the ring very soon.”

  “You broke off the engagement, Noah.” Jules’s voice was soft, filled with something Noah couldn’t identify over a phone connection.

  “That resort and lodge were mine,” he said, the familiar fury rising through his whole body. “Your father said he’d give it to me when he was ready to retire dozens of times. You heard him say it. You broke off the engagement when you decided to keep what was mine.”

  “It wasn’t in the will.”

  “I’ll have my lawyer draw up papers to get my diamond ring back if I have to, Jules. If you’re going to be so letter-of-the-law about it.” Because she could’ve gifted him Lions Creek Lodge. Without a will, the lodge automatically went to her, according to the intestate laws in Wyoming. So yes, legally, Lions Creek belonged to Jules. But she could’ve given it to Noah.

  Heck, they could’ve run it together. He didn’t want to deal with the day-to-day headaches of scheduling and housekeeping anyway.

  Just like he didn’t want to do that with his veterinary clinic, why he’d been so keen on partnering with Abby to take care of all that business-y stuff.

  His heart leapt and dropped and thudded around painfully in his chest. He really should be driving across the causeway to talk to her, to finish the last day of the veterinary conference, to take the papers to Albert to sign.

  I just need a few days, he thought.

  “I don’t need papers to send the ring to your mom, Noah,” Jules said. “But you should call her and let her know you’re alive. That’s what she’s worried about, you know.”

  “Good-bye, Jules.” He hung up before he had to hear her voice lecturing him about his mom. He’d texted her many times since he’d escaped from Jackson Hole. She might not know where he was, but she knew he was alive.

  Still, he decided to go ahead and dictate a text to her, telling her that he loved her, that he was safe, and that he’d call her when he got a chance. Then he set his phone on silent and simply drove.

  By evening, mountains loomed before him, sending peace through him. Though the Appalachians weren’t anything like the Rockies, there was still peaks in the sky and that was as soothing as anything Noah had seen that day.

  He’d hike tomorrow, the tree-scented air clearing his head, and then he’d know what to do. Abby had called twice, but he hadn’t been able to answer her calls. He didn’t want to hear her pretty voice explain things to him over a phone line. He needed to get things sorted on his end before he could face her.

  And he wanted to face her—the real her. So after her found a bed and breakfast that actually had kennels for his dogs, he pulled out his laptop and did the one thing he’d promised her he wouldn’t: He Googled her.

  Abby Thames LA brought up a scad of results in under a moment. Hundreds of pictures of Abby, sporting much longer and much blonder hair, assaulted his eyes. She barely looked like the woman he’d met in Rockrose.

  This LA woman possessed some beauty, sure, but it was fake. Her smile, her clothes, her poses, her spray-on tan—all phony.

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know about this version of her, but he couldn’t believe how different she looked. She really had gained some weight since these pictures were taken, and he much preferred the curvier, shyer version of her. He loved her short hair. Liked her calming energy. Liked everything about the woman in the Florida Keys.

  His heart thundered in his chest. Link after link would tell him all about who she was when she lived in Los Angeles. Who she might still be.

  He could barely breathe past the pulse in his throat.

  He put his fingers on the trackpad and clicked.

  Abby woke to the sound of her phone buzzing its way right off the nightstand. Her heart bolted to the top of her head and then settled back into its proper place. A quick glanced at the screen showed Mandy’s name. Not Noah’s, and Abby wasn’t interested in talking to anyone but Noah.

  But, dang, the man knew how to disappear. Her car had been returned the next morning by a couple of very nice teenagers, along with a note she’d ripped open as soon as the boys had driven away together on their motorcycle.

  Abby,

  Sorry about the car. Thanks for not calling in grand theft auto. I’ll be back in a few days.

  Noah

  It had been a few days. Times two. And Noah still hadn’t set foot back on the island. Abby hated what she’d done to make sure she knew the moment he did, but there were some things worth stepping foot inside the Super Min for.

  Maryann’s name lit up the screen next, and Abby hated this game of tag team her friends had started on Day Four.

  Why hadn’t Noah returned to the island? He’d said a few days, but almost a week had passed. She’d gotten three sentences, no endearments, no salutations, in six days. So, no, she wouldn’t be going into work today, and no, she didn’t want to come sit with Maryann while she gave her morning piano lessons.

  She wanted to drift away into unconsciousness until Noah returned, but Aunt Macey appeared in the doorway next, preventing Abby from closing her eyes. “There’s someone at the door for you,” she said.

  Abby shot into a sitting position, her heart hammering with hope.

  “It’s not Noah,” Aunt Macey said, a sympathetic pinch appearing around her eyes. “Sorry, I should’ve led with that.”

  Abby wiped a weary hand over her face, though she’d just woken and surely couldn’t be so tired. “It’s fine, Aunt Macey. Who is it?”

  “Charity Grambling.”

  The second best thing to Noah. Abby scrambled out of bed and hurried down the hall, her heart maddeningly made of helium again. She’d tried to talk herself out of her infatuation with Noah. After only three days, surely that was all she was feeling for him. But the hollow place in her heart, the emptiness in her stomach, testified of something more than simple infatuation. What it was, though, she wasn’t sure.

  There’s no such thing as being in love.

  She silenced her mother’s voice as she saw Charity Grambling on the other side of the storm door, her back to the house.

  “Charity?”

  The older woman turned, anxiety in the set of her face, the tautness of her muscles.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I did.” Her eyes looked positively hawkish. “Your phone went right to voicemail.”

  Abby pressed her eyes closed. Her friends had been calling right when Charity needed to tell her something. She tamped down her frustration, hoping Charity had good news for her. But the tense look on her face had already answered that question.

  “A lawyer just stopped by the Super Min for coffee. Said he
had papers for Albert Hanks, and wanted to know where to find him.”

  “Papers?”

  “I inquired, of course.” She lifted her chin a bit higher, and while Abby had not appreciated the third degree Charity had given her when she’d come to the island six months ago, she hoped she’d been as thorough with the lawyer.

  “He said he’d come to get the final signature for the purchase of the clinic.”

  “Noah’s not even going to come do that himself?” Abby fell back a step, everything inside her crying, What if he never comes back?

  A dark look crossed Charity’s face. “Noah isn’t the buyer.”

  Those four words took their sweet time settling in Abby’s head, but when they did, a sense of horror filled her. “Doctor Hanks accepted another offer?” How could he do that? He’d countered Noah at half of his original offer. And now he wanted more?

  Abby shook her head. “This makes no sense. Who’s buying the clinic?”

  “The lawyer wouldn’t say.” Charity practically spit out the word lawyer. “But I figured you’d want to know right away.”

  Abby did, but she certainly didn’t know what to do now. “Thanks, Charity.”

  The wiry woman went down the steps and climbed in the car where her sister waited. They drove off while Abby’s mind spun.

  “What—?” She turned back to her aunt. “I have to go to the animal clinic.”

  “I’m coming.” Maryann climbed the steps, her piano apron still tied around her waist.

  “You’re teaching.” At the same time, Abby really wanted a friend by her side. “Sorry I didn’t pick up this morning,” she mumbled.

  “My last student just cancelled. Chicken pox.” Maryann gave her a triumphant look. “I’m coming.”

  “You’re driving.” Abby grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of the couch and pulled it over her pajama T-shirt. “I’m a ball of nerves, and I’ll probably drive right into an inlet or something.”