“Brilliant move. Testing him to see if he was going to tell the truth or lie most heinously.”
“No, you idiot,” Leila said lightly. “He’s the town sheriff. I didn’t expect him to lie. I needed to have something to talk about, to break the ice, so to speak, so I asked him about his costume.”
“Of course. You broke the ice. He said, yes, he was a ninja. Then what?”
“I told him I had been wearing a Cinderella costume, and I asked him if he happened to remember if I was the person he’d kissed at midnight.”
Simon laughed, thoroughly enjoying himself. “I can’t believe you actually had the nerve to ask him that. Go on. What’d he say?”
“Well…” Leila began. “This is where it got a little tricky. Apparently Liam wasn’t a designated driver that night, and he’d had a little too much to drink—”
“His usual truckload of whiskey and beer,” Simon interjected. “What else is new?”
“The end result being, much to poor Liam’s embarrassment, that he doesn’t remember exactly what he was doing at midnight. The evening all became one rather out-of-focus blur for him.”
“He admitted that?”
“He did, although he spent about ten minutes trying to convince me—and himself, it seems—that this doesn’t happen to him all the time. He said it was New Year’s Eve and he let himself cut a little more loose than usual.”
“Hmm,” Simon said.
“Yeah.”
“Then what?”
“Then we stood there for a few more minutes and both tried not to be embarrassed as he denied he has a drinking problem. He’s never missed a day of work, he never touches the stuff when he’s on duty, he only drinks to relax, blah, blah, blah. I heard it all. Every excuse in the book.”
Leila took a deep breath, looking up at the moon and the stars in the inky blackness of the night sky. “So then,” she continued, “when he stopped to take a breath, I interrupted him and told him about the man who had kissed me at midnight—who incidentally, certainly didn’t act as if he were blind, stinking drunk.”
“You told him? About the kiss?”
“Kisses. Plural. I gave him the G-rated version.” Leila glanced ruefully in Simon’s direction. “I told him I was looking for this man, that I wanted to find out who he was. I didn’t go into detail as to why.”
“Good thinking.”
“Then I asked him if he would mind kissing me.”
Simon nodded. “So what did you do when he said no?”
Leila tried to swat her brother on the top of the head with the palm of her hand.
“I was kidding.” He ducked out of the way. “So he kissed you. Was he the guy you’re looking for? Did you see fireworks, et cetera and so on?”
“No.” Leila stared back at the stars. “No fireworks. Definitely not.” She sighed. “And then, when I got back to the jeep, Marsh was gone.”
Simon sat up. “Marsh was there? With you? While you were kissing Halliday?!”
Leila glanced over at him. “We were driving back from the Beauchamps’. I thought we were heading back here to have dinner and then go over Marsh’s books. But he just disappeared. He left the keys in the jeep. I waited for a while, but he never came back. So I drove home. You’re sure he’s not here?”
“Oh, Leila. Oh, no.” Simon buried his face in his hands. “No, he’s not here. I should go look for him.” He glanced at his watch. “But I’ve got a date in about fifteen minutes.”
“Who’s the unlucky woman?” Leila asked.
“You wound me,” Simon said. “Her name’s Amanda. She’s the new waitress over at the Pier.”
“Poor thing. Be gentle when you break her heart.” Leila stood up. “If you see Marsh, tell him I’m looking for him. You can also tell him that one way or another, I will see his books. He’s not going to get away from me this easily.”
The sound of the telephone ringing woke Leila from a deep sleep.
“’Lo?” she rasped into the phone, pushing her hair out of her eyes, and reaching over to turn on the bedside table lamp.
“Leila?”
“Yeah.” She squinted at the clock in the sudden brightness. “Frankie? Is something wrong? It’s two-thirty in the morning.”
“You got that right,” Frankie drawled. “I’m working the late shift for the cab company, and I got a call to pick up a customer over at the Rustler’s Hideout, ’cause it’s closing time. I got here a few minutes ago, and guess who that customer turned out to be?”
“Simon?”
“Good guess, but no cigar. You’re on the right track though. Think a little thinner, a little shorter, brown hair instead of blond—”
“Marshall?”
“Bingo. Bartender says he’s been here for hours. He doesn’t really seem juiced, but he says he wants me to drive him home.”
“Well, bring him on over.” Leila swung her legs out of bed. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee and—”
“His home,” Frankie interrupted. “He wants me to drive him over to his burned-out house on the point, Leila.”
Leila stood up, carrying the telephone with her as she went to her bureau and pulled out a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a clean pair of underwear.
“I wasn’t sure what to do,” Frankie continued as Leila pulled her nightie over her head and got dressed. “I mean, I can’t drive him up there and just leave him. The house is wrecked. It’s dangerous to go near it in broad daylight, let alone the middle of the night. And that’s not even taking into consideration the man’s blood-alcohol level. But he’s insisting that’s where he wants to go.”
“I’ll wake up Simon and we’ll meet you up at the point. Drive slowly, though. It’s going to take us a few minutes to get over there.”
Frankie sighed with relief. “Thanks, Leila. Sorry I had to wake you.”
“I’m glad you did.” Leila hung up the phone and slipped her sneakers onto her feet.
Out in the hallway, the house was dark.
She walked softly down the hall toward Simon’s room. His door was ajar, and she pushed it the rest of the way open. Moonlight streamed in through the windows onto his made-up bed.
Her brother wasn’t home. And if she knew Simon, he probably wouldn’t return for a while. Like not until sometime tomorrow afternoon.
She was going to have to do this alone.
Leila arrived at Marsh’s house before the taxi. She pulled into the driveway and parked, then got out of the jeep to look at the ruins of the house in the moonlight.
It was in awful shape. Apparently, the house had burned for quite some time before anyone saw the smoke and sounded the fire alarm. The roof was gone, and three of the outer walls had caved in. The brick chimney stood alone, listing slightly to one side. It wouldn’t take much more than a strong wind off the ocean to send the bricks tumbling down on top of the pile of ashes and charred lumber that used to be Marsh’s house.
Strips of yellow police tape, printed with bold black letters, warned Danger, Keep Out! They’d been placed as a kind of barrier, encircling the ruined building. They had long since sagged and torn, and now flapped rather uselessly in the cool night breeze.
Leila heard the sound of a car engine and turned to see headlights approaching. She walked down the drive toward the taxi as it pulled up.
The inside light went on. Marsh was sitting in the front seat. He gave Frankie the fare, then opened the door.
He clearly wasn’t expecting to see Leila standing there. A wide range of emotions crossed his face, including pleasure and surprise before he settled on wariness.
“Well.” He climbed carefully out of the taxi and closed the door behind him. “My word. This is a rather interesting surprise.”
Frankie leaned across the front seat so she could see Leila. “I’ve got to run. I’ve got another fare to pick up. Must be the full moon. You gonna be all right?”
“Everything’s under control,” Leila said with far more confidence than she felt. In fact, the mere
sight of Marsh—in particular that flash of uninhibited pleasure that had lit his eyes when he’d first spotted her—made her feel as if she were careening off the side of a mountain.
“Ah, I’m so glad to hear that,” Marsh said. “I do hate it when things get out of control.”
“You want me to swing past here later?” Frankie called.
“No, that’s okay,” Leila told her. “Go on. We’ll be okay.”
Marsh turned to watch the taxi slowly roll down the street, leaving them in the moonlight. The moon was nearly full, and so bright that it cast shadows around them.
Marsh still wore the white shirt and navy blue pants he’d changed back into at the Beauchamps’. At the time, his shirt had hung open, but now it was neatly buttoned and tucked into the waist of his pants.
He didn’t look like a man who’d spent the past seven hours in a bar.
His hair was messy, but that was nothing new. His hair was nearly always messy. As he turned and caught Leila watching him, he self-consciously pushed it back, out of his eyes.
“So. You’ve come to rescue me, have you?”
Now that she could see his eyes, Leila wished that he hadn’t pushed his hair back. He was watching her much too intently, hungrily even. In the moonlight, she could see heat in his eyes, heat from desire. Desire. He wasn’t trying to hide it from her. In fact, she could have sworn that he stepped closer, tilting his head slightly, so that she would have a better chance to see it there in his eyes.
“That depends.” Leila wet her suddenly dry lips. “Do you need rescuing?”
“More than you would believe.”
Leila’s pulse kicked up higher as she stared at him, trapped by the magnetic pull of his eyes. Oh, my God. Everything about him—the way he was standing, his body language, his smile, that unmistakable glint in his eyes—said “come and get me.”
If she were eighteen again, she would’ve leapt at the chance to play this game with him. But she wasn’t eighteen anymore. And games usually ended with a winner and a loser. One of them was bound to end up hurt, and it would probably be her. After all, she wasn’t the one who’d spent the entire night drinking in order to lose his inhibitions.
Leila crossed her arms. “Oh, I’d believe you need rescuing. While you were out, I took the opportunity to look at your financial records.”
Marsh scratched his chin. “Funny, I thought I’d locked my bedroom door. Don’t tell me you’ve taken up picking locks in your spare time.”
“Our rooms are attached by a balcony,” she reminded him. “And you didn’t lock that door. It was wide open. So of course I went in.”
“Of course,” Marsh murmured.
“Your records are a mess. I’m not sure which is worse—your handwriting or your organizational skills.”
“Rumor has it I’m a very good doctor.” Marsh pushed himself up so that he was sitting on the hood of the jeep.
The heat in his eyes hadn’t let up despite her attempt to discuss his least favorite subject—money. He’d purposely left space for her to sit next to him. He didn’t pat the spot or gesture in any way, but his invitation couldn’t have been more clear.
“That’s one rumor I’d believe,” she replied, moving several steps away from him. “I didn’t realize that you’d specialized as a surgeon during your internship and residency. You gave up more than a high salary when you turned down that job in Boston, didn’t you? You gave up an entire career.”
Marsh finally looked away from her, lifting his chin to gaze up at the moon. The whitish blue light bathed his face, playing delicately over his high cheekbones and lean jawline, making his upturned eyes look oddly crystal clear and strikingly beautiful.
Leila stood, almost spellbound, just watching him. She would have given just about anything to know what he was thinking.
And then, he spoke.
“Every choice you make in life, every decision you come to, means you’re giving something up.” He turned his head to look directly at her. “I gave up a chance of probably ever owning a Porsche. I gave up a career that probably would have made my name familiar to physicians all over the world. But what I gained is far more valuable. I gained a life that I’m happy with. I do a job that I’m proud of. Boston is just another city, another impersonal place where I have no ties, no roots.” He shook his head. “I know you probably can’t understand that. I don’t know what I can tell you to make it any clearer. I know you don’t feel the way I do about Sunrise Key. If you did, you wouldn’t have left. But this island is my home now. I love it here.”
Leila was astonished at Marsh’s openness and the eloquence of his words.
“This island could be your home again, too,” Marsh said softly. “You don’t know what I’d give, Leila, to have you down here year-round.”
Leila was staring at him as if he were speaking in a foreign language. God, she was beautiful in the moonlight. Her hair looked almost silvery instead of gold, and her skin seemed to glow.
A strong breeze occasionally gusted in from the Gulf, pressing her oversized T-shirt tightly against her slender curves, outlining her breasts in exquisite detail. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She’d probably thrown her clothes on, assuming that he’d never know the difference.
She was wrong. Marsh always knew.
Her cutoff jeans were the same kind of shorts that had driven him nearly crazy back when she was a teenager. Had she worn them on purpose? No, from the way she kept backing off, it was clear that she hadn’t come to seduce him.
But she had come.
What had Frankie told her? It had to be Frankie who called Leila. Did Frankie tell Leila that Marsh was at the Rustler’s Hideout, sitting at the bar, drinking? And did Leila come because she thought that Marsh was half-seas over and unable to get home on his own?
The truth was, he’d had three gin and tonics all night. Six hours plus six ounces of gin did not add up to intoxication, despite the fact that he’d had his third drink right before the bar’s last call. It was true that he wasn’t a drinker. And it was also true that he nearly fell off his bar stool on the way to the men’s room, but that was from light-headedness due to lack of dinner, not from the drinks. He was, quite honestly, only very slightly anesthetized. Very slightly.
Still, it was likely that Leila thought he was sozzled.
He opened his mouth to inform her otherwise, but then shut it again. Why tell her? This way he had the edge. This way he could say things he might not normally say. This way he could play the role, if need be.
“Look at this place,” Marsh commanded her.
Leila turned and gazed at the ruins. “The house looks awful. God, Marsh, you’re lucky you weren’t inside—asleep. Can you imagine if—”
Shaking his head, he cut her off. “No, I didn’t mean the house. I meant the island—the ocean, the beach, the moonlight, the trees.” He took in a deep breath through his nose. “Something’s blooming. This is the time of year when the island is covered with flowers. It’s gorgeous. It’s paradise. How could you possibly have traded this for Manhattan?”
Leila sighed. “Marsh, I lived here for ten years.”
“And you don’t miss it? Not even a bit?”
She faced him. “Of course I miss it. But..”
“But what?”
The breeze blew again, and she hugged herself as if she were chilled. Marsh watched her stare sadly at the ruins of his house. “I was going to say that I love living in New York. But…”
Marsh waited, willing her to go on.
“But I don’t know anymore,” she said. “I see this road ahead of me, this future, and all I can feel is detached curiosity, as if it’s someone else’s life, not mine. I try to imagine myself spending the rest of my life with Elliot, living in the city, making all the right career moves, going through the motions. It should be so perfectly right, but to me it feels wrong. At the same time, giving it all up seems wrong, too.”
“Maybe it’s time to come home,” Marsh murmured.
She turned to look at him and her eyes were so sad. “I spent every waking moment for nearly four years planning and scheming to get off Sunrise Key. Coming back here would feel like quitting.”
“It’s not—”
“I wish that I loved him.” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “But I don’t.”
She was talking about Elliot.
“Coming back to Sunrise Key wouldn’t be quitting,” Marsh said.
Leila shook her head. “Living here drove me nuts, Marsh. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing all the time. There’s no privacy, no secrets, no surprises. I remember when my parents decided to start a vegetable garden. Doesn’t seem like much of a topic for gossip, does it?” She laughed, and there were traces of despair in her voice. “But it was. I rode my bike down to the hardware store to pick up some chicken wire for fencing, and Mr. Lanigan had already set a roll aside for us…along with a tray of tomato seedlings, some wood stakes, and a garden trowel that had gone on sale.”
Marsh leaned forward slightly. “But that’s nice. If Mr. Lanigan hadn’t set those things aside for you, they might’ve been sold to someone else.”
“But I didn’t tell him I was coming. My parents didn’t tell him. He assumed, because someone had told him about our garden.”
“Leila—”
“It was worse when I turned sixteen,” she continued hotly. “I couldn’t make a move without everyone in town knowing where I was and what I was doing there. Frankie and I tried to hitchhike off the island. Who picks us up? Sam Zimmer, the manager of my father’s store.” She rolled her eyes. “He drove us home and told us if he ever heard even the tiniest whisper of a rumor about us hitching again, he’d tell my father and I’d be grounded for the rest of my life.” She snorted. “The big joke was, I was already grounded—I was stuck here on Sunrise Key.”
Marsh realized he’d been holding his breath, and he exhaled swiftly. “Thank God for Sam Zimmer.” He slid down off the jeep. “Can you imagine what might have happened if some off-islander had picked you up?”
Kiss and Tell Page 11
