by Meredith, MK
He followed her gaze back to the Victorian with its navy-and-gold trim. It was almost a gothic look with the eggplant siding, but somehow softer, and perfectly suited to the moody, rocky shores and wooded lands of the Cape. It would make an ideal community building.
He stepped between her and the house until she met his gaze. Low and gentle, he said, “I’m developing the property, Larkin. You couldn’t possibly match that kind of profit.”
Her mouth dropped open, then closed, and opened again as she processed his words. “Developing the Cape? You mean with houses?”
“Exactly.” He hated the look of panic on her lovely features, but she needed to understand the finality of his plans. “This place has brought me nothing but pain. It’s about time it gives me something positive, something to make up for the hell of living here all those years. It’s been in the works since last fall.”
The one thing his past had given him was a very pragmatic look on life, a keen ability to act on cold hard logic, and an immunity toward emotion. Usually.
“But, Ryker.” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Van Buren, surely you can see it wasn’t the Cape but the circumstances. Please don’t do this.”
“When I step onto this property, do you know the first thing I remember? My father’s fist slamming into my face…more than once.”
She sucked in her breath.
It might sound harsh but it was the only way for her to understand how serious he was. Sugarcoating had never been one of his strengths.
“I’m so sorry.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. She reached out to him, but he pulled away abruptly. The pain in her eyes cut deep, but the pity there raised his walls like nothing else could. He didn’t need anyone’s pity and he sure as hell didn’t want it.
She squeezed her hands into fists at her sides.
“I understand you’re upset. But selling the Cape to you isn’t an option.” He cracked his neck, the snap-snap reverberating loud in the silence between them. “Surely you didn’t think you could keep up these visits indefinitely?”
It took two tries, but she said, “I’m not upset about the Cape, I’m upset for the little boy who grew up here.” She pressed her lips together, stilling their quiver. “And to answer your very insensitive question: Yes, I absolutely thought I’d always be able to visit. Maxine’s like family. I live just off the water of the North Cove and can see the lighthouse from my kitchen window. I never imagined she’d sell it.”
Tears welled in her eyes, making the green sparkle as if cut by a master artisan, but he ignored her silent plea. He’d spent his childhood putting everyone before himself in order to keep them safe from his father. He’d believed every threat his dad had made. The man was filled with so much ugly; he didn’t see people, only punching bags. Ryker had to do this for himself now. It was the only way he might be able to close up the gaping hole inside of him and finally move forward.
He pulled in a rough breath. “Well, she did. To me. And now I’m going to put it to good use. Besides, there’s more to this whole venture. My company is invested already. It’s not just personal but also business.”
Larkin peeked at the well then blinked back the tears threatening to spill and pulled her shoulders back.
“Please. There must be another way. You must see—”
“Are you about ready, Mr. Van Buren?” One of the surveyors yelled to Ryker. He held up the now-rolled map and shook it back and forth.
On a sigh, Ryker lightly took her hands, which were clenched in a white-knuckled grip at her waist. “I’m sorry, but this is happening.”
She stared at the ground. “But you don’t understand.”
“You’re going to be okay, Larkin Sinclair.” He squeezed her hands one more time in reassurance, though his words sounded more like a command. He had to make sure she heard him.
He released her and walked back toward his men. They rolled out the map on the large work table and bent over it once again. He listened to their words at first, but couldn’t focus with Larkin standing where he’d left her as if she’d forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other.
He moved toward her to quietly demand she come back another time but slowed as she circled the well. She slipped one hand over the edge and held it there then dropped a penny with her other.
What in the hell was the woman doing now?
She waited a moment, then her whisper echoed from the bottom of the well, just barely reaching his ears. “Don’t worry, Archer, I waited for the penny to land on the bottom before making my wish.” Then she turned away, heading toward one of the trails that weaved through the wooded acreage.
“Van Buren, can we get this show on the road?”
Ignoring the request, he followed the same path Larkin had taken around the well and peered over the edge.
His heart squeezed painfully. There along the second row of bricks were the handprints of a child.
* * *
Larkin took shallow breaths against the rising tide of panic-stricken tears threatening her calm façade. She feared that once she started crying, she might not be able to stop. And the last thing she wanted was for Ryker to be a witness to one of her breaks.
Hurrying to put distance between herself and the chattering conversation about destroying her beloved Cape, she traced the familiar path she’d taken many times before into the shadowed entrance of the woods. It was like stepping through a portal into a whole new dimension. Instead of a world brightened by the warmth of the sun and the diamond waves crashing along the rocky shores, it softened into an emerald velvet, redolent with the scent of lush earth, and blessed by a muffled quality only possible through the embrace of mother nature.
She pulled in a deep breath, letting it out on a shuddering sigh.
“Larkin, wait.”
Ryker’s husky voice sounded behind her, and she blinked rapidly to erase any signs of distress before she turned around. “Look, I know you’re busy. I’ll leave in just a bit.”
“No, I—” He raked his hand through his hair as if he didn’t know what to do with it otherwise.
Well, she didn’t have it in her to worry too much about his discomfort with her still being on his property. She needed some peace, so she was going to take it. Who knew how much longer she could before the jeweled woods were cut down to make room for a fabricated mockery of hearth and homes?
“I don’t like seeing you upset.”
She glared. “We’ve already established my feelings don’t matter.” She sounded waspish and regretted it immediately, but her heart didn’t have any room for niceties at the moment.
“So mine don’t matter either?” His soft tone skittered along her skin.
She raised her hand then dropped it. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me.” Needing to move, she continued along the trail.
He stepped alongside her and she was instantly enveloped by his warm, masculine scent. It made her think of stormy waters and high winds, both a heat and a lightness to it, forcing her to take a deeper breath to figure it out.
“You know these woods well?” he asked.
She looked at the boulder along the first bend in the trail, wrapped on one side by the weathered gray-brown bark of a large red maple spotted with a vibrant moss—all three entities sharing the same sacred space.
She trailed her fingertips along the spongy green marks that Archer used to call leprechaun droppings. The ache in her heart intensified. “I do. My son and I explored them on every visit.” Dropping her hand to her side, she continued. “You?”
He dipped his chin. The muscles along his jaw ticked as he clenched them in some sort of struggle for control. “They gave me shelter more than once.”
She felt like there was something more behind his words but he offered nothing else.
A butterfly flitted between them and settled on the low hanging branch of a proud oak. The delicate creature’s back was a bright blue that looked like velvet until its wings lifted to reveal a soft white underside speckl
ed with dark dots.
“Huh, that’s one I’m not too familiar with, but I’ve seen it before.” He paused to watch it flutter.
Larkin stilled, staring at the butterfly, then a slow smile curved her lips along with an idea. A small fissure of possibility streaked through her heart. “A crowberry blue. One of Archer’s favorites. It’s very rare, but there’s a small, thriving population here on the Cape that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the area.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Really?” Focusing his attention more closely on the butterfly, he gave a non-committal grunt of wonder, and she wanted to kick him in the shin. When he developed the property, their habitat would be destroyed to house soccer moms and man caves.
A bit farther down the path, Ryker raised a hand. “Wait. Shhhh.” He stopped, holding his finger to his lips. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from how the pad of his finger pushed into the generous softness of his mouth. Her mind immediately focused on what it would feel like if her own lips replaced his finger. She pressed her mouth into a thin line against the sensation.
A low buzzing energy finally broke through her distracted haze, and she followed his line of sight to a cloud of honey bees swarming one of several beehive collections scattered around the Cape. There were at least five small apiaries if she remembered correctly.
He glanced at her. “Has Maxine said anything to you about a hired beekeeper for the property?”
She shook her head and took a step back. Where was her cat Puzzle when she needed him? He was a terror to bees and somehow never got stung. Archer had loved to follow him around the yard on his hunts, leaving Larkin to make sure her little boy never got stung. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for herself.
Being a coward in front of Ryker was not on her wish list, but if one of those suckers even turned one beady eye her way, she’d beat an Olympic sprinter to the safety of her car.
He pinned her with a raised brow. “Going somewhere?”
She swallowed, pulling her hair over her shoulder and holding on to it like a safety rope. “If you say they won’t bother me if I don’t bother them, I’ll punch you.”
A soft chuckle caressed her ears followed by his arm thrown over her shoulder. “You’re afraid of bees?”
She scowled in an I’m-not-the-dumb-one kind of way. “At least one of us here has some intelligence.” She’d always given herself credit in the past anyway, but the hairs on his arm tickled the sensitive skin along the back of her exposed neck, and the heat of his side warmed her from shoulder to hip in a way that muddled her thinking and made her question her original self-assessment.
“You’re blushing again.”
With a scowl, she pushed his arm from her shoulders, ignoring the deep bass of his laugh, and swearing under her breath at her damn tattletale curse of a lifetime. How many times had it ruined any poker face she’d mastered? Too many to count. And every time he touched her only added to that humiliating, growing number.
Turning back to retrace their steps toward her car, she swallowed hard, forcing the emotions clawing up her throat back down where they needed to stay.
Ryker fell into step next to her with a quick glance back at the hive. “Swarming the way they are, the bees look honey-bound. I need to give Grandmother a call.”
She slowed her pace and looked at him. Curiosity now layered on top of intrigue and something she didn’t want to think about yet. “You know about beekeeping?”
Watching his concerned expression morph into a blank veneer was telling. His eyes were now guarded and his jaw set once again.
“My grandfather. I used to help him all the time when I was a kid…until we lost him. I was fifteen, but I remember that day like it was yesterday.”
He pretended he was fine but the tension radiating from his body was like a heavy wind buffeting her as she walked.
“What do you mean by honey-bound?”
They stepped up to a small clearing where Maxine had placed a long park bench flanked on both sides by an array of red hummingbird feeders. The swift little birds swarmed about much like the bees, frustrated to find the wells dry. “They need food.” She pointed out absently as she sat down.
“I’ll put some out after I finish for the day. Anyway, honey-bound is when the hives are over-filled with honey. The bees begin to swarm and productivity will go down. If we’re not careful the queen might leave to find more room.”
“I’d like to say I’d be disappointed but…” She trailed off. The conservationist in her struggled with her fear. The honey bees were a gift—if only they didn’t have to come with stingers. She was tired of feeling pain from something that was so inherently beautiful.
He grinned. “I never pegged you for a scaredy-cat.”
“Well, you don’t know me very well.” She shrugged. As long as the bees stayed on their side, she’d stay on hers. If the universe would let her keep the Cape, she’d even share.
“I need to get back to work. Are you going to be okay?” His question both irritated and touched her.
“Is that why you followed me?” She studied the hard, square line of his jaw and his dark, heavy brow that leaned toward brooding even when he wasn’t. Awareness rushed through her as she imagined what it would be like to be the recipient of that hard stare out of interest instead of pity.
A small spotted salamander skittered across some moss that trailed beneath the bench. “Oh, look,” she whispered. Carefully, she twisted and bent forward, placing her hand slowly just in front of the dark blue critter. Its little yellow spots made her think of the high wire acts and funnel cakes of her youth.
The salamander crawled onto her palm, and she straightened, careful not to scare the little guy. “Oh, my gosh,” she whispered. Looking over one shoulder then the other, she said, “I bet there’s a small vernal pool nearby.”
Ryker raised a brow as he checked out the amphibian in her hand.
“A small, temporary pool of water used for breeding,” she explained.
He looked at her with a curious expression in his gaze. “You are full of surprises.”
“I really am.” She nodded her agreement with a playfully haughty air. She was warming to her new idea by the minute. He didn’t know the half of it, but he would very soon if she got her way.
On their way back toward her car, she tried one more time. “Even with the beautiful creatures living on this land, you won’t reconsider?”
A huge gusting breath was her answer. One that left her both hollow and more determined than ever.
“Look,” he said. “You have your vision of beauty. I have mine.”
They stepped out from under the protective canopy of the woods and back into the bright clarity of the sun where there was no place to hide.
“Turning this place into something that will reconcile even a bit of my past is what I find beautiful.”
And there it was. The ugly truth.
His endgame was to level his past as some sort of payout for his pain, while hers was to ensure life and preserve her memories. Two sides of a coin, a yin and yang—and she couldn’t blame him.
But she couldn’t be blamed either.
Nodding toward his crew, she sighed. “You better get back to work.”
“You’re going to be okay, Larkin.”
Her name slipping through his lips seemed to make promises whispered on humid nights and late, lazy mornings. Promises her body would be happy for him to keep. Steeling herself against the unwanted attraction, she lifted her chin. If her plan worked, she would be okay. But he might not be.
“So are you, Ryker.”
* * *
Once in her car, Larkin watched him with the men, their heads bent over the large land map. They could plan all they wanted— she had one of her own.
She headed toward home through an early afternoon mist. The thought of going to visit her parents as she’d originally planned seemed too daunting now. They’d understand after the day she’d had.
The mechanics of
driving through the trees and their speckled light usually soothed her, nerve ending by nerve ending. But it wasn’t working today, not after facing such disappointment. She traveled the few miles along the coastal road between her home and the Cape, shutting out the surfacing memories until she couldn’t. Eyeing the narrow, open grate bridge with its unforgiving steel sides, she slowed the car.
And wanted to punch her fists into the steering wheel.
She eased her car onto the shoulder of the road, focusing on the vibrating edge markers, and threw it into park. It had taken her a long time to drive the same route, but the alternate way home was an hour around the city. After the first year, she’d felt ridiculous and forced herself to deal with it. It wasn’t easy, but day by day she drove over the bridge without breaking down. Now she wished she’d taken the other way.
Her husband, John, had agreed to pick Archer up from the Cape to save Larkin the drive back home. She’d planned on spending some time with her best friend Blayne in town, searching for the perfect location for Blayne’s artisanal shop—a plan she regretted now and would forever.
John had a temper and it was never more apparent than when he was behind the wheel. She’d warned him over and over again to calm down, take a deep breath, especially when Archer was in the car. He had a habit of snapping from zero to sixty, but he’d always told her it was his passionate nature, that it was under control.
She’d been a fool to believe him. No one had control over a bad temper they wouldn’t admit to having. She had trusted their son in his care because he was Archer’s father; because she was supposed to. Her throat tightened as if the memory were an anaconda wrapped around her neck.
John and another driver had jockeyed for position to enter the small bridge just north of the North Cove with such ego-laden focus, neither had made it. They couldn’t even have been going that fast, but stormy weather and stubborn pride had made the perfect conditions for devastation.
A shudder wracked her frame and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. She sniffed then pulled in a deep breath, resisting the urge to let the full onslaught of tears come.
