Pelican Point (Bachelors of Blueberry Cove)

by Donna Kauffman

They pulled up in front of the house, saving him from having to think about it any longer. He didn’t want to be thinking about it at all. She wasn’t his problem. He shut off the engine. “Stay put until I come around the other side,” he said, pocketing the keys. “The ground is rocky and uneven and the lights aren’t on yet.” Remembering her distinct lack of respect for instructions, he added, “If you so much as move, I’ll call Bonnie and tell her to come out here and pick you—”

  A death rattle wheezed out from the passenger side of his truck. He instantly popped his door open so the overhead dome light came on, not wanting to admit that his heart had done a pretty hard stutter at the sound. He and Bonnie had agreed that they didn’t think the new arrival was on anything, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been wrong.

  He snapped off his seat belt and was already reaching for her, intending to check her pulse, when her head lolled to the side, toward him . . . and she let out a nose-sucking, throat-gurgling, chest-rattling snore that would have put a three-hundred-pound man to shame.

  He couldn’t help it. He grinned. Okay, he might have chuckled. “Alex?” he said quietly.

  Nothing—if you didn’t count another nose-sucking snort. Probably stuffed up from all the crying, he thought, trying to be charitable. But mostly to offset the continued chuckling. He reached over anyway and, careful not to disturb her any more than necessary, touched the pulse on her neck. Steady, solid. Good.

  Before he could take his fingers away, she shifted and trapped his hand between her cheek and the back of the seat. Her skin was soft, delicate. And surprisingly warm. If he could find a way to look past the red swollen nose, the splotchy cheeks streaked with mascara, and the significantly whacked-out hat hair that had emerged when Bonnie had taken her knit cap off to check for injuries earlier . . . she looked fragile. Vulnerable. In ways that had nothing to do with the superficial wreckage of a single day’s events.

  The glow of the overhead light wasn’t great for making any real diagnosis, but he didn’t need to see her. He’d gotten a very good look earlier when she’d first passed out. Faint purplish shadows were under her eyes, the fine skin looking drawn, stretched almost too thin. Cheekbones and a jawline that were probably a bit more pronounced than they might normally have been. Not gaunt, but heading in that direction. Long-term illness would have been most people’s guess.

  He’d held her, looked into those eyes before they went permanently spacey. Beautiful, haunting eyes the color of the deep blue sea. A very turbulent, deep blue sea. Actually, not haunting. Haunted.

  Yeah, she was suffering all right, but she wasn’t sick. Though she was doing a pretty damn good job of getting herself that way.

  He belatedly realized he was slowly stroking her cheek with the side of his thumb and went still, then shook his head at himself. Because, what? You’re suddenly sixteen and so dorky you’re afraid to touch a girl? With a dry smile aimed at himself, he carefully slid his hand free, trying real hard to ignore how long it had been since he’d stroked a woman’s face.

  He climbed out his side of the truck and closed the door, then hunkered his shoulders against the constant breeze and circled around to the passenger side. He carefully opened the door and leaned across to unhook her seat belt, then scooped her up before she could slither to the floor of his truck in a boneless, snort-snoring heap.

  Smiling again as she let a particularly staccato one rip, he shifted her in his arms so she tipped against his chest, her cheek against his jacket, then toed the truck door shut.

  The air had a pretty good snap to it and she shivered as he made his way over the rocky drive to the smoother brick path that led to the side porch. He tucked her closer and tried to angle himself to shield her as much as possible . . . and found himself noticing that for all her hair might have looked like it hadn’t seen a shower recently, it actually smelled . . . nice. Sweet, a little fruity.

  He chuckled. “Like its owner.”

  “Hmm?” She made another little groggy sound and he firmed up his hold on her.

  “I’ve got you,” he said quietly, calmly. “Go back to sleep. You’re fine.” Far from, he thought, but didn’t want a repeat of her trying to throw herself off the stretcher to prove her independence.

  That thought made him loosen his hold slightly. Is that it? Is she running from a threat? He stepped up on the porch and shifted her weight so he could turn the knob, and boot open the side door to the mudroom and kitchen. No, he decided, discarding that possibility as instantly as it had occurred to him. That isn’t it.

  He was mostly certain because he recognized the difference between a haunted look and a hunted one. He grinned as he made his way down the hall, past the bathroom, to the first-floor guest bedroom. He was 100 percent certain, however, because at one point in her exhaustion-induced delirium she’d called him Sex-god Voice . . . and had seemed pretty pleased about it. A woman on the run from a threat, particularly the male kind, wouldn’t likely say anything like that, especially to a stranger, no matter what kind of shape she was in.

  Sex-god Voice.

  He probably shouldn’t get such a kick out of it. Women had commented on his deep voice any number of times, but that particular description was a first. He hoped Bonnie hadn’t picked up on it. It was one thing for him to be privately amused as all hell, but the idea of anyone else in town getting hold of that moniker made him shudder to even contemplate.

  He leaned over the bed and started to lower her to the mattress, but the instant her body angled away from his, she grabbed the front of his jacket and tugged hard. “Don’t let go!” she cried, the words muffled against his jacket.

  He paused and looked down. Her eyes were still closed. She was still asleep. But her expression was contorted, strained. He paused for a moment and her hands relaxed a bit, so he tried to put her on the bed again.

  “Don’t go! Just hold on! Hold on!” She wasn’t clutching him any longer, but she was shuddering, and her voice was shaking, thick with emotion. “Come on, hold on. You can. Just . . . don’t let go.” The last came out on a choked sob, and then she gripped his jacket again, pressing her face against it, shaking. Tears squeezed out.

  A dream. More like a nightmare.

  “Dad! No! Daddy!” That last part had come out on a heart-wrenching wail. She clung to Logan, crying, keening.

  Shaken up, he didn’t quite know what to do. Force her awake? Or let her cry it out? He had the burgeoning feeling that the episode on the ramp earlier was likely because she’d spent too much time forcing herself to stay awake, and not enough time just letting it all out. Whatever it was.

  He turned and slowly lowered his weight and hers into the oversized stuffed chair angled in the corner next to the bed, shoving the matching ottoman out of the way with his heel as he settled her against him, and simply held on.

  There were no more words, no more pleas. Just wrenching, frame-shaking sobs. He questioned himself several times on whether it was the right thing to do, but saying her name, stroking her hair back from her damp cheeks, didn’t elicit even a ripple of awareness in her. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything harsher or more abrupt to shake her out of it. So he did what she’d asked.

  He didn’t let go.

  He wasn’t sure when the tears stopped. At some point, he’d drifted off. He felt her stir against him . . . and lifted his cheek from where it was resting on top of her head.

  The room was in deep shadows, with only a glimmer of light coming from the mudroom back down the hall, and a sliver of moonlight peeking in through the curtains. Just enough so that when she opened her eyes and looked up at him, they were deep, luminous pools.

  “It’s you.” Her words were raw and gritty.

  He didn’t know the best way to handle it, and he was still a bit foggy, so he simply said, “Yeah. It’s me.”

  “You didn’t let go.”

  The combination of wonder and affirmation might have made the corners of his mouth kick up a little, but it was some othe
r emotion entirely that pinched at his heart. “No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t.”

  “I thought you were a dream.”

  He didn’t want her to think about her dreams. “You’re awake now. It’s all okay.”

  “Your voice,” she said, hers gravelly. She was still only half awake, groggy.

  Sex-god Voice. His body surprised him by stirring, remembering how she’d smiled when she’d first called him that.

  She wasn’t smiling. She was warm, and soft, pliant in his arms, all tucked up against his chest . . . with big, bottomless eyes looking straight into his. When that gaze dropped to his mouth, his body went from stirring to leaping. Then he wasn’t smiling, either.

  “Alex—”

  She made a soft little moan at the sound of her name, and then completely and utterly shocked him by lifting her head up and nipping his bottom lip.

  He made a little grunt of surprise, while his body made a far more enthusiastic shout of hello.

  “I knew it would be,” she murmured, then slid her hand over his cheek and into his hair, pulled his head further down, and kissed him.

  And damn if he didn’t let her.

  For the first split second, he told himself it was because he was simply too stunned to do anything else. But then she moaned a little, suckled and nipped at his bottom lip again, and he was suddenly kissing her back. Instinct, he told himself. Because she was warm and soft, and her firm little butt was pressed against his now raging hard-on. And because she was a hell of a kisser. Slow, but greedy, unhurried yet demanding. He felt like he’d just been tossed into the endless sea of her deep blue eyes without a lifejacket. He was drowning, and he just didn’t care.

  He let her pull him under for a third time before he finally shook awake some part of what functioning brain cells he had left and broke it off. Her lips, warm and damp, her bottom lip all soft and full, clung to his until the last second before he broke contact entirely. He wasn’t sure who groaned softly, and didn’t want to know.

  She sighed, and he was all caught up in the wonder that was the sweet, satisfied smile on her face as she settled right back against his chest again, as trusting as a kitten.

  “That was even better,” she murmured drowsily.

  And then she was out—leaving him sitting there, half dazed, pulse thundering, hard-on throbbing, wondering how the hammering of his heartbeat wasn’t jarring her awake. He was sure as hell awake. More awake than he’d been in . . . well, too long.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think about all the things that were wrong with what he’d just let happen, and figure out what the hell he was going to do about it. But closing his eyes just enticed him to want to sink right back into the moment. Jesus. The friction of her sweet backside pressed against him was making him a little crazy. So the first thing he needed to do was get her out of his lap. Then take a very long cold shower. Then—then he didn’t know what.

  First things first.

  Carefully, and not without a little grimacing and wincing on his part, he managed to get them both up and out of the chair. When he laid her down on the bed, she didn’t rouse at all. In fact, she rolled to her side and curled up, face nuzzling into the pillow. Like she’d just nuzzled into my chest.

  Yeah, don’t think about that. He debated on taking her jacket and shoes off, but figured escaping was the better part of valor. He shook out the quilt folded over the footboard of the double bed and draped it over her. Then stood for another thirty seconds, watching her chest softly rise and fall, before finally kicking his ass out of his own guest bedroom.

  He glanced at the clock over the stove as he walked into the kitchen, surprised to discover it was past midnight. Awesome. He’d lost an entire evening. Not to mention dinner. He debated throwing something together, then remembered there was nothing to throw. Not to mention it was hard to think about food when he had a raging erection distracting the ever-loving hell out of him . . . and the warm, soft woman responsible for it was curled up in bed down the hall.

  Swearing under his breath, he headed out of the kitchen toward the stairs up to his bedroom, but paused, looking back down the hallway. He told himself he just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going back to nightmare land. But she’d been deeply asleep when he’d left her—like the very exhausted woman she was. He climbed the stairs, thinking he’d figure out what the hell to do about all of it in the morning.

  At the moment, there were more pressing . . . needs that he had to tend to. He trudged into his bedroom, peeling out of his uniform and kicking off boots as he went, then flipped on the shower in the master bath. At the last second, he slid the faucet to hot instead of cold. He stepped in, closing his eyes as the hot water beat on the tight muscles in his neck that came from ending a long day by sleeping in the guest room chair. Then pooled some thick body wash in his hands . . . and took care of his other stiff muscle. No need to let that go to waste, he figured, groaning as he leaned back against the tile wall, stroked himself, and let himself imagine how the evening could have ended if she’d been awake and lucid when she’d started kissing him. At least he’d get something out of the wasted night.

  Logan jolted awake to the sound of the old copper pipes groaning and rattling in the walls as water flowed through them. The first strands of thin morning light illuminated the faded wallpaper on his bedroom walls as he lifted his head from his pillow. Why was water flowing through the pipes downstairs? His gaze flew to the clock even as he was already tugging off the sheets and comforter and sliding bare feet to the cold, hardwood floor. It was just before six. And somebody was in the downstairs shower.

  He sank his weight back into the mattress, sitting on the edge of his bed, and palmed his forehead. “Oh. Yeah.”

  Feeling the twinges of a headache, he finally pushed off the bed and pulled on a sweatshirt, then dug out a pair of jeans, surprised at how rested he felt. He’d slept like the dead. He tugged his zipper up, then paused . . . remembered the shower, and rolled his eyes. Seriously, how pathetic is it that you slept like you got laid when all you got was a hot kiss and a soapy hand on your—a shriek echoed through the old house, cutting off the rest of his thought.

  It immediately occurred to him that that shower hadn’t been used in—oh shit. He took off downstairs, hearing the pipes groan again as the water was shut off. Then they kept groaning.

  “Alex!” he shouted, taking the stairs two at a time. “Alex, get out of the shower! Those pipes are probably rusted out.” He slid to a stop in front of the closed bathroom door and smacked his palm on the warped wood panel. “Alex, it’s not safe, you really need—”

  The door opened—well, after a firm yank, it opened— and Alex, wrapped in an old bath towel, hair dripping wet, with tear-tracked makeup smears spread farther out from the blast of water she’d apparently taken to the face, stood there . . . with a wrench in one hand and a piece of copper pipe in the other. “What you really need is a new fitting, a washer, and some Locktite. But that should hold it for now.” She held out the wrench and the rusty copper pipe until he silently took them from her hands. “Does your shower work?”

  “It does.”

  She calmly wiped her dirty hands on the faded navy blue towel she was wrapped in, then with a dignified air, pushed the sodden locks of hair back from her face. “Upstairs?”

  “End of the hall, through the bedroom on the right.”

  “Thank you.” Head held high, shoulders very squared, she moved past him and walked directly and quickly to the stairs, dripping all the way.

  He heard the pipes groan and rattle on the second floor a few moments later.

  He stood there for another ten seconds, then finally shook his head and walked to the kitchen. Coffee. That would help make sense out of this. Or, at the very least, kick out the little throb at the base of his skull. And the not so little one in his pants. Jesus, Joseph and Mary, McCrae, you’re not sixteen. Get a damn grip. And despite her grand entrance the day before, Alex MacFarland is no fragi
le, wilting flower, either.

  It surprised him a little when he caught his reflection in the old metal toaster a moment later to discover he had something that looked like a smile on his face. “And what’s funny about this? Nothing.”

  He put two more slices in the toaster when the first two popped out. Scraped the black off them, then grabbed butter and blueberry preserves from the fridge and set them on the small cherrywood table tucked into the bay window alcove. It was one of Eula’s, actually, and had been in his family longer than he’d been alive. By the time the water upstairs shut off, he had two cups of coffee and a pile of scraped toast on a plate. He sniffed the carton of milk still in the fridge, then, satisfied it wouldn’t kill either one of them, he set it on the table along with a small bowl filled with sugar packets.

  “Coffee?” came a hopeful voice from the doorway.

  “And toast. Sorry, I’m out of eggs. And . . . food.”

  “No, that’s good. More than good.”

  He’d picked up the coffeepot to take it to the table, then almost sloshed all of it onto his feet when he turned and got his first look at her. His first real look. She was wearing the same jeans and pullover she’d worn yesterday, or he assumed so. She’d had her coat on the day before. But they were definitely hers and not his, so . . . great deductive reasoning there, detective.

  That wasn’t what had made him almost drop the coffeepot. It was what she did for those jeans and that pullover. He’d felt her body, of course, all curled up against his chest and pushing against his—“How do you take your coffee?”

  “Hot.” She pulled out a chair and sat down, and he noticed that, while she seemed okay, alert and somewhat rested, she wasn’t making eye contact.

  Her hair had been toweled into a soft mass of chin-length, deep auburn curls that did amazing things all clouded around those deep-sea blue eyes. Without all the black mascara streaks, her cheeks were smooth, pale—maybe too pale, as the flush from the shower stood out a bit too starkly—which made her eyes, free of any makeup, utterly luminous. And then there was her mouth. Pink, soft, and surprisingly full when not pulled tight at the corners. How had he not noticed that?