by Leslie Kelly
Mike immediately let her go and stepped away, willing himself back into she’s-a-stranger mode and out of the damn-she’s-hot one.
“Do you think the water’s calming down now?” she asked, pushing her tangled hair away from her face with a shaking hand.
“Seems like it.”
“God, I hate being sick like that.”
“Ditto.”
She eyed him. “It’s not just the nausea, it’s the complete lack of control over it. I know when I step off this boat, it’ll go away—mostly. And it infuriates me that I can’t make it go away right now.”
He grinned. “If you can come up with a method to think away nausea, you’ll be rich.”
She nibbled her lip and looked down, crossing her arms and shivering lightly. Still not looking at him, she murmured, “Maybe we’ll have smooth sailing the rest of the way?”
“Absolutely.”
Nope. This was more like the eye of the hurricane. Experience told him they were merely enjoying a moment of respite before they hit the big swells that encircled Wild Boar. The island currents made travel in the winter and early spring—which was now—dangerous and nausea-inducing. But he didn’t tell her that.
“I can’t believe we’re the only ones out here on deck. How could anybody not be seasick after that?”
He gestured toward the car-park section of the ferry, empty but for a shiny yellow Prius, which he assumed was hers. Good luck finding a charging station on Wild Boar. He’d left his own SUV at the docks, as his errand to the mainland to deliver some paperwork to the nearest county sheriff’s station had been a quick one. It had been easier to just have one of the county guys pick him up and drop him back off than deal with the hassle of taking his vehicle with him.
“We’re the only customers on board. The rest are crew and they’re used to it. This time of year I doubt they get more than one or two people a trip.”
“What? I thought we were heading to the most happening island this side of Maui.”
“Who told you that?” he asked with a grin. “Somebody who desperately needs you to take over their job for a while?”
She lifted a brow, studying him, as if hearing the certainty in his voice. That could be because he was now certain of who this beautiful, red-haired stranger was, and why she was heading to a remote, sparsely-populated island on this wickedly unpleasant day. “Is Monday your first day at the school?”
Her eyes popped; she appeared shocked he’d hit the nail on its proverbial head.
“You are the new teacher, aren’t you?” he asked, even though he knew he was right. The island had been agog all week about some mainlander coming to teach the science classes at the island’s one and only school, which catered to all five-hundred or so students, from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
“Sub,” she clarified. “I’m only substituting for the rest of the semester for my old friend who’s the regular teacher.”
Right. He hadn’t met her yet, but of course he’d heard all about Mrs. Parker, the science teacher. The woman’s baby had been born ten weeks premature and was still in an ICU unit on the mainland. That’s why there’d been a sudden need for a substitute, and those weren’t easy to come by on Wild Boar. Especially not teachers qualified to teach every science class in the school, from first grade why-do-caterpillars-turn-into-butterflies clear through advanced chemistry. Why this one wasn’t already tied up in a classroom three-quarters of the way through the current school year, he couldn’t say, but he had to admit he was interested in learning more about her.
“How did you know who I was?”
“There’s been lots of concern for your friend and her new baby. Concern equals talk on Wild Boar.”
“Callie’s baby is doing well,” the woman said with a gentle smile that softened her pale, pinched expression. “Little Will’s got a lot of growing to do, and his lungs aren’t fully developed, but the doctors think he’s out of the woods.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
She nodded. “Me, too. He’s deeply loved and was very much wanted.” She glanced away. “Unlike a lot of children.”
He noted the change of tone and wondered at it. But she didn’t give him a chance to wonder long.
“Still, how did you know I was the new teacher?”
“It’s pretty rare for newcomers to move out to the island, except for the summer tourist folks, and it’s too early for them. Plus, everybody’s talking about the cottage behind the old Wymer place being rented out for the next couple of months.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the cottage was ancient, rickety, drafty and probably full of spiders. Hopefully Mrs. Wymer had hired somebody to clean it up, since the fragile-looking elderly woman certainly couldn’t do it herself.
The stranger’s pale face became a shade closer to chalky. “Good grief, is the whole island a gossip mill?”
“Yeah, and that thing’s been grinding like crazy with all the new arrivals—that’d be you and me.”
She glanced down, one of her slim hands fisting as she pressed it into her stomach, as if she felt nauseous. Well, he supposed that was understandable.
“You’re a newcomer, too?” she finally asked, after she’d straightened her back and lifted her chin.
“Yes, ma’am.” He extended a hand. “I’m Mike.”
“Lindsey.” She took his hand and shook. Hers was a little clammy and very cold, since she’d been gripping the damp metal railing.
He reached into the pockets of his bulky windbreaker and pulled out his utility gloves, shoving them toward her. “Here. Your fingers are icicles.”
She stared down at his offering. “Don’t you need them?”
“I want my hands bare so I can clutch that railing,” he said with a wry grin.
“If I wear your gloves, how am I going to hold on?”
“How about I hold on for us both?”
“Pretty confident, are you?”
“I think I can manage to keep us from being swept overboard.”
She cast a quick eye over his shoulders, chest and arms. Color finally rose into those pale cheeks, as if she’d at last looked at him and seen the man, not the savior-from-death-by-drowning-or-seasickness. Her throat quivered as she swallowed, her gaze dropping lower, assessing him all the way down to his feet.
“I suppose you can,” she admitted, her voice thick and low.
He almost made a flirtatious comment in response, but suddenly the ferry lurched again, making him glad for his strong grip on the railing. But the woman—Lindsey—wobbled on her feet and, for a second, he thought she’d fall. Not even thinking about it, he stepped into her path and grabbed her before she could stumble.
Their legs tangled, hips bumped and chests collided. He had a chance to suck in a shocked—and pleased—breath, when her fine red hair whipped across his face, bringing with it a flowery fragrance that cut through the briny air and went right to his head. Just like this woman was doing.
“Whoa,” she murmured, either because of the stumbling or the fact that so much of her was now touching so much of him.
“I’ve got you,” he said, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. He turned his back to the wind, staying close, but giving her some distance and disengaging the more vulnerable parts of their bodies. As nice as she had felt pressed against him, he didn’t want her to know that his lower half was ignoring his brain’s order to be a polite protector and was instead going straight for horny man. Their new position removed the danger of sensual overload, but also kept her blocked from the worst of the wind. “I won’t let you fall overboard. Now glove up.”
Not taking no for an answer, he lifted one of her small, cold hands and shoved a glove on it. He forced himself to focus only on the fact that her lips now had a bluish tint, not that they were pretty damned k
issable. And that her expression was pure misery, not that her face was shaped like a perfect heart, with high cheekbones and a pointy, stubborn little chin.
Once her hands were adequately protected, she stepped the tiniest bit closer, as if welcoming the shelter of his body. Mike heaved in a deep breath of cold lake air, but found it tasted of spicy-fragranced woman.
Nice. Very nice.
“So, how long have you lived on Wild Boar?” she asked.
“A few months.”
“And how’s island life?”
He considered it, mentally comparing the insanely quiet nights he’d spent on Wild Boar to the lifetime of noise, energy, grime and vibrancy in Chicago.
“It’s...different.”
“Obviously you’re getting to know people if they’re already gossiping to you about the new substitute teacher.”
“Maybe. It could also be because we’re two new unmarried people and they’re trying to set us up.”
Her mouth fell open. “They’re what?”
“Apparently your friend—the one you’re substituting for—has let it be known that you are single and available.”
“Remind me to smack her, would you?”
“You bet.”
She licked her lips. “So you’re single, too?”
He noticed she didn’t add and available, maybe because she didn’t want to sound interested, though he could tell she was. Oh, she might not be looking at him, instead taking every chance she had to study her gloved hands, but he recognized desire when he saw it. During those few moments when she’d landed hard against him, heat had flared between them, instinctive and powerful.
“I’m very single,” he admitted, not sure why he’d emphasized it. After all, he should be backing away from flirtation or even the tiniest hint of romantic interest. He had no business indulging in either right now.
“And everybody is aware you’re single?”
“Yep. Just like they know your relationship status. Or lack thereof.”
“I can’t believe Callie told everyone that.”
“Well, to be fair, I suspect she told one person and the other eighteen-hundred residents found out by osmosis.”
Because that’s how news traveled in a small town. When he’d come to Wild Boar for his job interview, he certainly hadn’t gone around saying he was unattached. By the time he’d moved there to start the job, however, it had been common knowledge to every person he met.
Of all the things he disliked about his new life, the utter lack of privacy ranked number one. In fact, he hated feeling as if he lived under a microscope, and wasn’t about to give the gossipers any more ammunition if he could possibly help it. He needed to keep his life quiet, sedate and boring. Meaning no leaping off ferries to save gorgeous, impetuous redheads. So she’d better not jump.
“You’re an expert on osmosis, huh? Why aren’t you the substitute science teacher?”
He chuckled. “I have a rough idea of what the word means, but ask me to explain the difference between oxygen and iron and I’m in deep trouble.”
“One you breathe and one you make stuff out of.”
Another chuckle. “My point is, you’re not getting off so easily.”
She nodded slowly, and he couldn’t tell if she was relieved by that, or bothered by it.
“And if it’s any consolation, you’re not alone in the gossip pool. I’m treading water right there with you.”
She rolled her eyes and gestured toward the waves. “Could we please use another analogy?”
Damn, he enjoyed her wit. “Okay, let’s say I’m just as big a grape dangling from that huge, gossipy vine. Every day since I arrived, I’ve had cakes, cookies and casseroles brought to my doorstep by the population of single women on the island, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty.”
“Has it worked?”
“I haven’t taken the bait yet.”
Her cheeks puffed out as she feigned sickness. “No fish references, either, please.”
“Fish aren’t the only ones who eat bait.”
“But single men often do. Have you? Eaten the food, I mean? There could be secret love potions hidden inside.”
“That’s possible. There’s one widow, Mrs. Cranston—gotta be seventy if she’s a day—who makes the best lemon meringue pie I’ve ever tasted. I might propose to her even without the love potion.”
They laughed together, both of them distracted, for a little while, anyway, from the misery of their journey.
“I wonder what they’ll bring me. I don’t suppose I’ll be inundated with cakes and pies from the single men.”
“Maybe you’ll get cans of baked beans. Or motor oil.”
“Small-town hell. Check.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it hell. More like a really claustrophobic closet in the middle of an island.”
“With eighteen-hundred people in it.”
“Exactly.” And didn’t that sound appealing?
You decided to come here. You wanted a total do-over.
Yeah. Right. He had.
He’d been the one who wanted a change, the one so anxious to get out of Chicago—to escape from the darkness, the blood, the anger and the nonstop violence. It had been nobody’s choice but his own to quit his job of eight years with the Chicago P.D., to leave his upwardly mobile career as a detective.
He’d seen the ad for a Chief of Police of Tiny Island, Nowhere, and jumped on it, not really sure what he wanted or where he was going, just sure that after near misses with at least three bullets and a direct hit with a switchblade, he had to get away for his own sanity. And for his parents’, who’d pleaded with him to find another—safer—career.
Of course, they hadn’t intended for it to be so far away from them. He wasn’t sure if they’d call Wild Boar an improvement, considering he was the first Santori of his generation to actually move out of Illinois. But considering his parents had their first grandbaby to look forward to, courtesy of his brother Leo and his new wife, he supposed he wasn’t on their minds 24/7.
Besides, he couldn’t say if this would be a long-term change or not. He was well into his probationary period, having agreed to stay on the job for a minimum of six months. At the end of that time, either he, or the island’s authorities, could make a change, no harm, no foul. No matter how often he’d wondered if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, he would keep his word on that. He’d see how he felt at the end of the six months, and then make some decisions for his future.
Mike wanted it to work out. He couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the Chicago P.D. An optimist like him could only stick it out for so long in a job where he couldn’t make a difference before it became agony to go to work every day. Maybe on Wild Boar he wasn’t saving lives, but he made a difference in little ways. In Chicago, the only life he’d managed to save was his own, and that had been a struggle every Goddamn day of the week.
His spirit had been crushed by it. Day after day he’d seen the same brutal crimes, the same utter disregard for other people’s lives and property, the same hopelessness and despair. It had become an agony to go to work every day.
Wild Boar was the complete opposite. Peaceful, tranquil, a place where neighbors helped neighbors and everybody knew every other person on the island.
True, he didn’t love it yet, or even like it that much. He was too much of a Chicagoan for that. He was hopeful, though, that one day he’d wake up and realize he’d become a true islander and want to stick around for a few years. Or twenty.
Sometimes he even pictured himself asking one of those nice, pie-making women out, giving this life a real shot. Maybe he’d get married, do the whole family thing with the picket fence and pot-roast dinners on Sunday. The matchmakers on Wild Boar certainly seemed to want that future for hi
m. And, unlike his last girlfriend, a nice, small-town woman from Wild Boar Island would probably be happy with that kind of life. He couldn’t deny, part of him found that idea very appealing, too.
Of course, another part wanted to jump off this ferry right now and swim back to the mainland.
No. You’re sticking this out.
He just had to keep his head down, do his job, and focus on figuring out what he really wanted before someone else decided for him. He definitely didn’t need complications—like romantic entanglements—to interfere with the decision-making process.
“So the matchmakers are a powerful force, I take it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Listen, Mike, I’m only going to be on the island for a short time and I’m not looking for...”
He assumed she was about to let him down easy and he put a hand up, palm out, heading her off at the rejection. Not that he’d tried to, er, lift himself up. “Say no more. I said the gossipers are pairing us up, not that I wanted them to. You are perfectly safe from me.”
Her spine might have stiffened the tiniest bit. Hard to tell beneath her coat, and he realized he might have insulted her. Damn, he was so not used to this, though he should be. When it came to matchmaking, the entire population of Wild Boar Island had nothing on the Santori family. Whenever he was between relationships, his mother, aunts and cousins were always pushing females in his direction—blond, brunette, divorcées, partying singles—if she had a pulse but not a ring, they sent her his way.
But he couldn’t recall them ever introducing him to one with hair that vivid shade of red or eyes that brilliant, glittering green, or one with such luscious—if blue-tinged—lips.
He tried to explain himself. “Look, I didn’t mean anything. It’s just, you’re...”
“It’s okay,” she said with a shrug and an understanding nod. “You’re gay, no problem.”
