by Lily Everett
Once her prisoner was subdued, Andie risked a glance over her shoulder to see a crowd gathering on the porch and Sam barreling down the garden path like a berserker, the light of battle making his face fiercer than she’d ever seen it.
“I’m fine,” she called, grimacing at the hoarseness of her voice. She coughed a bit and held up a hand to stop Sam from pounding the man under her knee into some kind of pulp. “Seriously, Sam, cool it. He’s down. I need you to call the sheriff’s office, have Deputy Fred—I mean, Acting Sheriff Stanz, send someone over to pick this guy up.”
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” Sam growled, looming enough to block out the moonlight.
Andie squinted at him and called up a smile. “Just another day on the job. Well, the job I used to have.”
“Who is he?” Sam demanded when the man beneath her spat a weak stream of blood and wriggled like a caught fish.
“I didn’t get a chance to check his ID,” Andie said, riding out her prisoner’s struggles. “But I’m pretty sure it’s Trent Little.”
The man—Trent—groaned and tried to throw her off. “I need a doctor!” he yelled. “This bitch attacked me.”
Between one breath and the next, Andie had been hauled off Trent’s resisting body and set carefully aside so that Sam could slam the suddenly—and rightly—terrified man up against the summer cottage wall. “If you ever use that word to refer to any woman again, I swear to almighty God that I will hunt you down like the rabid dog that you are, and put you out of everyone’s misery.”
“Sam. I know you want to hit him, but you can’t. Please, love.” Andie put a restraining hand on Sam’s back, feeling the electric tension of his muscles quivering as he fought for mastery over himself.
Finally, the tension went out of his shoulders, and Andie let herself relax too. “Someone call the Sheriff’s Department,” Sam called to the crowd of onlookers clogging the porch.
“What’s going on?” A young man’s voice carried over the sudden hush of the crowd. “Who’s that? Oh my God. Dad?”
“Matty, no,” Penny cried. “Don’t go down there!”
Andie met Sam’s anguished sideways glance. So much for keeping Matt blissfully ignorant of just what kind of man his father is.
*
Standing in Matt’s house, watching Dakota Coles swan around clinging to his arm like he was an extra-large accessory she’d picked out to match her baby-pink silk dress was not Taylor’s idea of a fun night. So she’d spent most of it in the kitchen, helping Matt’s mom.
And she wasn’t hiding out, no matter what Penny said.
Happy graduation to me, she thought as she plunged a dirty wine glass into the soapy water filling the sink.
“I hope you’re enjoying that.” Matt’s voice behind her made Taylor lose her grip on the slippery wine glass. She caught it before it floated to the bottom of the sink.
“I love washing crystal,” she deadpanned, shooting him a snooty look to cover how happy she was that he’d sought her out. “It’s my favorite thing.”
“Good.” Matt sauntered into the room with his hands tucked into the pockets of his pressed khakis. “Because if you stick to this whole no-college plan, at least you’ll have a back-up career in the food service industry.”
Taylor flicked soapsuds in his direction and he laughed and danced backwards, one hand shielding his navy blue bow tie. When he dropped his hand, she saw that his tie was printed all over with little pink whales the same color as Dakota’s dress.
She turned back to the sink, all her pleasure in the moment popping like a soap bubble. “You should get back to your party. I’m sure your friends are looking for you.”
“Why don’t you come with me? Then all my friends will be in the same place.”
Yeah, because I’m just dying to hang out with your stuck-up, popular crowd who only started paying attention to you once you got hot and rich. “I’ll be right there. I promised your mom I’d finish up this round of dirties, but after that I’m all yours.”
I’m always all yours.
“I’m holding you to that,” Matt said sternly, pointing ridiculously dorky finger guns at her. Taylor tried not to find it endearing.
She also tried not to be depressed that when she didn’t leave the kitchen for the next hour, Matt didn’t come looking for her again. The only person who came to find her was Caitlin.
“Taylor! Hi! See what Aunt Andie got me?”
Taylor grinned down at the plastic horse, a small chestnut mare who bore an uncanny resemblance to the barn’s designated beginner pony, Peony. Andie was still on her campaign to make her niece throw over Queenie for Peony, then. Taylor dutifully admired the toy horse before asking, “Where’s your aunt now? Did you run off again?”
Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “Maybe, but I didn’t mean to. They were so slow! And gross.”
Ah. Sam and Andie had arrived together, of course. And maybe they’d stopped to steal a kiss along the way. “I remember when my dad first started dating Jo Ellen, he was worried I’d be upset when they kissed. But you know what?”
Caitlin gave her a skeptical look, like she knew she was being taught a lesson, but she played along. “What?”
“It’s actually really nice to know that they found each other. Because I love my dad, and I’m happy that he’s happy, that he’s not alone, and that he found someone besides me who sees how cool he is. And it helped that I loved Jo, too.”
“I guess.” Caitlin didn’t appear completely convinced, but she obviously wasn’t too concerned about it because in the next breath she was off again, telling a long, rambling story about what happened during her last riding lesson with Sam. Taylor listened enough to be able to make the right noises at the right times, but most of her attention was caught by noticing that the hallway and living room had gone eerily quiet.
Is the party over?
Grabbing Caitlin’s hand, Taylor stuck her head out into the empty hallway. A thump from the back porch had her head swinging that way. “Come on,” she told Caitlin. “Let’s go see where everyone is.”
They followed the sounds of commotion down the hall to find what seemed like every single party guest clustered against the railings of the wraparound porch. Slipping around to the outskirts of the crowd while keeping a firm grip on Caitlin’s squirming fingers, Taylor craned her neck to figure out what was going on.
Sam Brennan had some guy up against the wall of the cottage, looking rough and tough and like he’d be happy to beat the everliving snot out of the stranger. Andie was down there too, looking disheveled but basically okay. And who was the guy? Taylor strained to make out his face just as she heard Matt’s voice crack as he cried out, “Dad?”
Taylor’s heart dropped into her stomach with a sickening lurch. The worst had happened. Trent Little had come to Sanctuary Island, and Matt was about to find out the truth.
Not just that his father was an abusive jerk, but that his best friend, who encouraged him to get in touch with the man, had known all about it and hadn’t told him.
Chapter Twenty
Taylor felt Caitlin’s small body press close against her side. The kid couldn’t possibly see what was going on through the thicket of adult legs and torsos cramming the porch, but she could obviously tell it was something bad.
“Matty, no. Don’t go down there!” Penny’s anguished cry rang over the whole porch.
Taylor had zero hope that Matt would listen to his mother. Everything in her wanted to get down there and do something, anything, to help Matt, but she had Caitlin …
Except, she didn’t. Between one heartbeat and the next, Caitlin had dropped Taylor’s hand and eeled her way through the crowd to peer through the slats of the porch railing. “Andie!” she cried, and somehow slipped under the railing to make a run for her aunt.
Crap. Taylor started after her, vaulting the porch railing. Good thing she wasn’t wearing a tight skirt like Dakota’s. Or heels. She ran through the rosebushes to intercept the kid, th
e soles of her ballet flats slipping on the gravel path and her heart pumping frantically.
Halfway there, Taylor collided with Matt, who grabbed at her arms to stop her from falling. Over his shoulder, Taylor saw Caitlin barrel straight into Andie, who dropped her phone in the middle of calling in—yikes, an attempted assault on herself—to swing her niece up into her arms. Andie carried Caitlin around to the front of the cottage, talking to her quietly, and Taylor relaxed a fraction.
Until she realized that Matt had pushed past her, his wide-eyed gaze trained on his father. In a voice that shook, he demanded, “What’s going on here? Let go of my dad, Sam.”
“Not gonna happen,” Sam rumbled, never taking his attention off Trent Little for an instant.
“Matt, don’t,” Taylor pleaded, but he shook off her tentative touch as if he hadn’t even felt it.
“Someone tell me what the hell is going on. Right now!” Matt demanded.
“What’s going on is that bi—ow!” Trent broke off when Sam surged closer to him, mashing his face into the wall hard enough to shut him up. But Matt was the one who made a sound like he was in pain.
Panic shot through Taylor at the imminent freak-out she sensed in Matt. He needed answers. Taylor looked around. Sam was too busy watchdogging Trent, Andie was on the phone with the dispatcher and had Caitlin in her arms, and Penny was struggling to make her way through the crowd of gawking guests.
“Your dad isn’t supposed to be here,” Taylor blurted.
Matt looked down at her, seeming to focus on her face for the first time. “Tay. What do you mean? I invited him. He said he’d come.”
The bewilderment in Matt’s green-gold eyes slashed at Taylor’s heart. “I know.”
“This is all a big misunderstanding,” Matt said, begging Sam to understand. “I wanted him here. I asked him to come to graduation.”
“He tried to hurt Andie.” Sam’s voice seemed to have permanently dipped into that riled-up bear growl.
“That … doesn’t make any sense.” Matt wrapped his arms around his torso as if he were cold, even in the balmy early summer evening. “No. He was … Dad, were you nervous? Maybe waiting out back until the party thinned out so you could come in and say hello in private? And Andie, I don’t know, thought he was a burglar and clobbered him.”
But Andie was still several feet away, all her attention focused on comforting Caitlin. Taylor swallowed hard. “Andie knew who he was, Matt.”
“How is that possible? He’s never been to Sanctuary Island before!”
Taylor bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut against the oncoming storm. “Because Andie helped your mom get a restraining order after I told her you’d invited Trent down here.”
“You what?” Furious betrayal darkened Matt’s eyes.
“I had to,” Taylor cried. “You weren’t going to tell her, and she had a right to know. To protect herself, and you.”
“I don’t need to be protected from my own father!” Matt yelled.
“Matthew.” Penny’s sharp tone was enough to stop Matt short, but it took a look at her pale, set face to make him really back down. “Don’t be angry with Taylor. If you have to be angry with someone, you can be mad at me.”
Matt glanced back and forth between them. “I still don’t understand what’s happening,” he said, more quietly now.
“I know, honey.” Penny glanced over her shoulder to where her husband, Dylan, was attempting to herd the crowd of party guests back into the house while keeping an eagle eye on the action in the garden. “But can we please discuss it a little later?”
“When?” Matt demanded. “After the sheriff hauls Dad down to the station in cuffs?”
Penny didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
“Then…”—Matt appeared at a loss, as if he hadn’t expected his mother to agree—“I’m going with him.”
Oooh, bad idea. Alarmed, Taylor shot Penny a glance, but Matt’s mother had her stoic face on. “There are some things you need to know first, Matty. Things I probably should have told you a long time ago. And if you still want to visit your father in jail, I won’t stop you.”
Matt vibrated with tension, torn between getting answers and taking care of his father. He didn’t have long to be conflicted, though, because what seemed like the entire Sheriff’s Department showed up right about then, descending on the summer cottage like a swarm of khaki-clad bees.
Taylor let herself be pushed to the fringes of the commotion. She was pretty sure her presence was no longer needed here—she hadn’t witnessed anything, and whatever Penny had to say to Matt was a private family matter. Even if Taylor’s cyber snooping had given her a decent idea of what it might be.
The only reason she’d stick around at this point would be as Matt’s moral support, but since he hadn’t looked at her once since he shouted at her, she was probably off duty there, too.
She told herself she didn’t care, that Matt was under a lot of stress and they’d work it out when things calmed down, but the way her heart leapt with relief when he appeared in front of her told another story.
Over his shoulder, she could see the deputies leading Trent Little away, Sam and Andie following behind, probably to give their statements. Caitlin had been transferred to Sam’s arms by now, and the same man who’d mercilessly restrained Trent Little held the eight-year-old girl as if she were made of spun sugar.
“I want the truth, Taylor.” Matt’s voice was harder than she’d ever heard it. “How long have you known about whatever is going on between my parents?”
Penny paused on her way up the back-porch steps to join her husband in shoving their guests out the door, and sent Taylor a concerned look. Neither of them was on Matt’s list of favorite people right about now, Taylor thought wearily. “A few weeks.”
She could actually hear his molars grinding. “You should have told me.”
A tiny spark of anger sizzled to life in Taylor’s belly. “Why? When I told you about Sam, you said you wished you didn’t know. Make up your mind, Matt.”
“That was different,” he said loudly, raking both hands through his short, tawny hair. “I said that about Sam because—”
“Because you love sending me mixed signals,” Taylor concluded, with a bitterness that went deeper than she even she had known.
Matt rocked back on his heels, scowling. “I don’t do that. Mixed signals. What are you even talking about?”
The peal of semi-hysterical laughter caught Taylor by surprise. “Are you punking me? Is this being filmed? Where’s the camera, in the rosebushes?”
“Stop making jokes,” Matt yelled. “I’m serious about this! You’re my best friend. I tell you everything, Taylor. I can’t believe you would keep something like this from me. It’s about me!”
“Oh, come on, Matt.” Fed up, Taylor started searching her pockets for her car keys. She needed to get out of there before she said something she couldn’t take back. “You don’t want me to tell you everything. Trust me.”
“Wait, there’s more? What else are you not telling me?” Matt grabbed her wrist when she turned to escape, tugging her off balance so that she stumbled against his chest.
Overcome with his nearness, her senses filled with the heat of Matt’s lean, strong body and the fresh scent of his expensive cologne, Taylor lost her head. She gazed up into Matt’s beautiful, intense hazel eyes and blurted out, “I’m in love with you, you idiot.”
Those hazel eyes widened in shock as he stepped back, putting space between them. Everywhere they’d touched felt instantly cold and empty. Matt opened his mouth but nothing came out, and with a small, hurt sound, Taylor turned and ran for her car.
So much for leaving before she said something she couldn’t take back. Thank God graduation was tomorrow, and after that—she’d probably never see Matthew Little again.
Taylor told herself she was glad as she started her car and peeled away from Harrington House, that it was good to finally get everything out in the open and to stop prete
nding she was okay with being Matt’s best buddy. That was a slow, torturous death of daily heartache. This way, she could make a clean break.
But as the tears started to fall, she knew she’d give anything to go back for her daily serving of heartache if it meant seeing Matt smile at her again.
*
Andie’s official statement was a clear-cut case of self-defense. Sam’s was more problematic. Trent Little had complicated it by swearing it was Sam who’d broken his nose—probably because he was embarrassed to have anyone know that a woman had taken him down—and it took time to straighten out everyone’s stories and get to the truth.
By the time Acting Sheriff Stanz let them go, it was well after midnight. When Andie walked out of her old office, still smarting a bit from the awkward interview with her former deputy seated behind her old desk, she found Sam sitting behind Ivy’s vacant desk with his long legs stretched out in front of him. Caitlin was curled on his chest, and they were both fast asleep.
My little family. The thought came to her out of the blue, and she tried to dismiss it immediately. It was way too soon for that kind of thing with Sam—and Caitlin. Andie’s heart just about broke remembering that she might very well be that little girl’s only surviving family.
Refusing to give into the rising tide of emotion, Andie rallied the troops and got them up and into the SUV. While she settled Caitlin into the backseat and searched for the seatbelt, the girl roused enough to say, “I’m glad Sam is coming home with us. He’s not like other boyfriends. He doesn’t make you forget about me.”
The backs of Andie’s eyes burned with unshed tears. “Nothing could make me forget about you,” she said, the words as fierce as her hand smoothing back Caitlin’s messy red hair was gentle. “Nothing could make me stop loving you.”
Caitlin blinked up her. “Not even if you found out I did something really bad?”
“Not even that,” Andie promised her, sliding the belt buckle home and tightening it securely. “You’re my girl. I love you.”
