The yearning for what would never be squeezed back the tighter she gripped her camera bag strap.
From across the deck, Drew’s gaze connected with hers as it had numerous times throughout the night. He smiled with his eyes in a picture of happiness she didn’t need the camera to show her. That was all she cared about. Seeing him happy. This was the best farewell gift she could offer.
Drew wove through the crowd on his way toward her, but Grandma Jo cut him off halfway over. He sent an apologetic glance to Ti while escorting Grandma Jo onto the dance floor. Ti smiled back, lifted her lens, and snapped pictures of them for the album she planned to put together before taking off.
The thought of leaving burrowed into her with the fabric cinched around her waist. Stop thinking about it.
Livy came up alongside her with a stem glass in hand. “Still no dance?”
“Hmm?”
“You and Drew. You haven’t gotten to dance yet?”
“Oh.” Stalling for a response, Ti curved her hair around her ear and tapped her camera. “I’m on photography duty. No slacking on the job.”
“Uh-huh.” A telling grin snuck around the edge of Livy’s glass.
Definitely time to avert that conversation. “Excuse me for a sec.”
Ti approached the deejay to cue the song she’d been waiting for all night and turned in time to see Stan tap Drew on the shoulder to cut in. Ti held her breath. When Grandma Jo accepted Stan’s hand, Drew looked like he might have a coronary. His gaze flew to Ti, as if he somehow knew she was behind it all.
He made confident strides toward her again, looking determined to turn down any more dance requests. He might’ve made it this time if the next suitor hadn’t been Maddie.
In the adorable pale pink dress she and Ti had picked out together, Maddie curtseyed and reached for Drew’s hands. He lifted her so her feet topped his. And in a matter of minutes, they easily secured the ribbon for the most precious father-daughter dance ever.
If the duo Ti’d come to love didn’t have her heart caught up between them right now, maybe she could’ve moved.
Thankfully, someone brushed by and jarred her muscles long enough to get a handful of takes of the dance in before emotional paralysis returned.
She batted away a tear she had no business releasing and breathed in the calming lavender essential oil she’d dabbed on her neck earlier. Just get through the night. You can do this.
Livy sidled up beside her again. “They’re cute, aren’t they? Just missing one more member to complete the family.” She leaned closer. “Could be you, you know.”
And replace a wife and mother? Yeah, right. Ti folded the edge of her camera strap back and forth but couldn’t suppress the question getting the best of her. “How long ago did Drew’s wife die?”
Livy coughed through a swallow. She set her glass on the deck rail. “Annie didn’t die, Ti. She left them.”
“What? I assumed . . .” Ti peered toward Drew twirling Maddie across the floorboards. Her stomach twisted. It was bad enough his wife had left such an amazing man, but Maddie? “How could a mom walk out on her own child?”
“Not everything’s so black and white.” Livy’s curt tone echoed her abrupt shove off the rail.
“Liv, wait.” Ti reached for her friend’s hand. “I didn’t mean to offend, but Maddie—”
“Has a good home with people who love and take care of her.” Still avoiding Ti’s eyes, Livy gathered her hair off her shoulder. “Maybe Annie’s leaving was the best way she knew how to love her daughter.”
“How can you—?”
“It’s late. I need to get back to my flat. Tell the guys I said good night.” She turned to leave.
“Liv.” Ti dropped her arms to her sides. What just happened?
Her cell buzzed. Sighing, she adjusted her camera strap on her shoulder and withdrew her phone. “Hey, Cass.”
“How’d dinner turn out? No fires, right? The oven’s still intact?”
“Look who’s talking. Don’t act like Ethan ever lets you anywhere near the kitchen.”
“Not if he wants something edible.”
“Exactly.” Ti returned Cassidy’s laugh. Man, she missed her best friend. Especially right now.
“Tell me she didn’t skip the meat,” Ethan called from the background. “If the lasagna didn’t turn out right, that’s why.”
“Um, hello, this is Ti we’re talking about. Do you have to ask?”
Ti folded her arms over the rail and peered across the harbor into memories of the camp Cassidy and Ethan ran in the Catskills. One summer there confirmed the mountains weren’t the right place for Ti, but distance never threatened her connection with Ethan and Cass. Same way it wouldn’t steal memories she’d created with Drew and Maddie. Would it?
She swallowed the lump terrorizing her throat. “Listen, Cass, I need to run. Tell Ethan that Nonna’s recipe was a hit. Even without the meat. Love you, guys.”
“Ti, wait. You sure everything’s okay? I’ve been monitoring your bank account like you asked.”
Ti turned to make sure no one was nearby. Darting a glance away from the faces of the party back to the docks, she lowered her voice. “No weird withdrawals or anything, right?” She’d been using her credit card for everything while here, just in case.
“Nothing. It’s been quiet. When are you gonna tell me what this is about?”
From the last update her NYPD buddy Josh gave her, there’d been no more signs of someone stalking her. Like he’d turned into a ghost. Maybe he’d given up on finding her. Still, she wasn’t ready to get into it with Cass.
“Later.”
Cass breathed into the line. “You’re family, Ti. Like it or not, I’m gonna worry about you. I know you feel like you need to do things on your own, but promise me you’ll remember we’re here for you.”
“I promise. But right now, I gotta run. Love you, girl.” Ti ended the call, tapped her cell against the railing, and exhaled.
A grasp on her arm whirled her around and led her into a dark closet off the side of the house. Drew turned on the flashlight app on his phone.
Ti moved a mop handle digging into her rib cage. “Um . . . props for spontaneity and all, but I’m not really the hook-up-in-a-closet kind of girl.”
“What?” The flashlight illuminated a rosy flush stretching all the way to Drew’s hairline. “No, I didn’t bring you in here to . . .” He bumped into a bucket and scrambled to steady a broom falling between them. Loosening his tie, he cracked a laugh. “I’m really racking up the smooth points here, aren’t I?”
“Need me to bust out my essential oils?”
“Tempting.” He cleared the junk between them. “Sorry about this. I just wanted to get you alone for a minute to thank you.”
“For what?”
A sobered expression brought him a step forward. “For cooking me dinner, helping Maddie make that incredibly thoughtful gift, pulling off this party.” He pressed a hand to the shelf above her. “And that’s just tonight. Want me to keep going?”
Ti dodged his crippling green eyes and straightened a bottle of cleaner beside them. “You give me more credit than I deserve.”
“More like you don’t give yourself enough.” Drew dipped his head under hers and wrenched up her pulse. When she leaned back, he looked to the shelf, brow furrowing with something she couldn’t read. “Maddie asked you to stay for this party, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t need me as much as she thought.”
His countenance seemed to fall. “Is that the only reason you stayed?”
Her heart rate shot up again. “I already told you. I made a promise—”
“I know.” He faced her again, eyes calling hers. “I just hoped it might be more.”
More. This close, she couldn’t ward off how much she wanted it to be more. How much she wanted this to be real. To last.
Memories flashed in the shadows. Her dad, begging his dealer for the drugs he’d just made Ti pay for in bed.
His dealer, pulling his musty T-shirt over his head and tossing her dad only half the stash. “She wasn’t worth the rest.”
“Ti?” Drew’s tender voice brought her back to the moment.
She slipped under his arm, needing to get away and keep him from thinking she could be more than what she was. “We should get back.”
“Wait.” Drew stopped the door from opening all the way. “Let’s get out of here for a little bit. We can slip out the back, hang by the docks.”
The claws of her past loosened their grip a breath at a time. Freed, she sank into the comfort Drew provided without even knowing it. “It’s kinda hard to ditch a party unnoticed when you’re the guest of honor.”
“Sounds like the kind of challenge Ti Russo would be up for.” His wry grin baited her.
“You really want to sneak out? Sure this isn’t your sixteenth birthday party?”
“Add some Zimas and Fuzzy Navels, and it might be close.”
Ti squelched a laugh.
“What? Not edgy enough for you?”
“Tell me you threw some Jolly Ranchers in the Zimas, and I’m really gonna be scandalized.”
“Laugh it up. I had my bad-boy moments.” He peeked through the sliver opening to the deck. When a guest swooshed by, Drew swept the door closed.
“How very 007 of you.” Ti took his cell.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Cooper to create a diversion.” She handed back the phone, cracked the door open again, and grabbed Drew’s hand.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re intimidating?”
“Only guys who whisk me into closets without knowing how to escape them.”
“And here I thought I was the only smooth one out there.”
As soon as Cooper’s voice sounded over the PA system, Ti snuck onto the deck and led Drew down the back steps. “And that’s how it’s done, rookie.”
He dipped his head in admiration. “Never cease to impress.”
She leaned against a post on Jacob’s pier. “We all have our gifts.”
“Not as many as you.”
“Me?” Hardly. “All the kudos go to the single dad giving everything to take care of his family.”
Drew shot down the compliment with his eyes and rolled up his sleeves. “Maybe we should duke this out in a dance.”
“Duke it out?”
He extended a hand and winked. “Just pretend that was smooth. My ego’s hanging by a thread.”
Ti shook her head, his smile winning hers. She put down her camera bag and slipped off her heels in time for him to sweep her into a dancing hold. She tipped her chin. “The owner knows how to lead. Now who’s the one who never ceases to impress?”
“My hip dance moves at the coffee shop didn’t give that away already?” He let go to pull off a wobbly Michael Jackson spin.
Ti popped him in the arm. “Don’t mock. Letting loose on that dance floor was good for you. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you about art. You get so caught up in it, you come to life without caring who’s watching or what people think. No inhibitions holding you back. You can’t contain what you feel, so you just . . .” Arms outstretched, she raised her head to the star-filled sky and twirled. “Fly.”
When she finally stopped spinning, she faced him head-on. “Haven’t you ever felt that way about something?”
Eyes full of passion locked onto hers. A step closer, he traced a finger along her cheek to brush back the hair caught on her lashes. “I’m starting to.”
Her stomach dipped at his touch, her heart at his words.
He drew her back into a dancing frame. The music from the party joined the cadence of the waves lapping against the docks. Activity brimmed all around them, but nothing overpowered the rhythm of Drew’s heart against hers.
She rested her chin over his shoulder and drank in the feel of his hands securing her close to him. Sturdy, soothing. Strong, yet too gentle to ever hit her. Instead of leaving bruises, they embedded marks of hope deep inside her. She closed her eyes. “Do you know how different you are from most guys?”
A soft laugh trickled against her hair. “I tried to warn you I missed dating school.”
“It’s not that. You make me feel safe,” she whispered.
He pressed a cheek to her temple, and she balled the back of his shirt in her fingers when his lips grazed her ear. “You should always feel safe at home.”
Ti strained to focus on the moonlight and begged her lungs to keep breathing. He couldn’t know how hard he was making this on her.
The music playing from the deck changed tempo, but they continued swaying to a song of their own.
Her conversation with Livy hovered in the forefront. Thinking he’d suffered the loss of his wife had been reason enough to guard his heart. But to know she’d walked out on him? More than ever, Ti needed to leave now before she risked hurting him like that, too.
She closed her eyes. “Drew, I’m sorry about your ex. I had no idea.”
His feet stopped, his muscles hardening against hers.
“I can’t imagine anyone leaving you two. I just assumed she died.”
He resumed dancing, but his body remained tense. “Being a widower might’ve been easier.”
“She went to New York, didn’t she?”
“Left for the city like a starry-eyed artist.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s my fault. Living here, taking over the shop, raising a family. Those were my dreams. Not hers.” He scoffed. “Even during her postpartum, I kept smothering. Kept pushing. So sure she’d want this life, too, if she gave it a chance.”
“She never came back?”
“Not even when I went after her, begging her to come home, like a pathetic loser.”
“You fight for those you love, Drew. Don’t mistake honor for weakness.”
Minutes passed with nothing more than regrets and unknowns drifting in the wind.
“When you first came, you reminded me of her.” He exhaled over her skin. “All those times I was so rude . . . It wasn’t your fault.”
“I understand.”
He shook his head. “And that’s what makes you different from Annie.”
“What if I’m not?”
“Trust me.”
“You don’t know me.”
He leaned back. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m a runner, too. It’s what I do.”
“What are you running from?”
“Who I am. Things I’ve done.” She withdrew and closed her arms across her torso. “You don’t want to be with me.”
Drew lifted a hand to her face. “Why don’t you let me make that call.”
She looked away. “You and Maddie deserve someone who belongs here.”
“I’m sorry, have you noticed how much my girl adores you? You’ve been winning people’s hearts here since day one.” He gestured toward the deck. “You even have Mr. Fiazza and Grandma Jo dancing together, for crying out loud.”
Smiling softly, he brought her to him. “Ti, there are a lot of mysteries I don’t have figured out yet. But where you belong isn’t one of them.” A flicker of pain creased his brow. “I know our lighthouse can’t compete with Times Square, but—”
“Stop.” She backed away. “Don’t you dare discount your life here. Ocracoke, your family, the home you’ve built—do you have any idea what I’d give to be a part of it?”
“You are.”
Her destructive patterns didn’t have a place in his white-picket-fence future. She wouldn’t bring that on them. “You’re wrong.” She turned to the water, but Drew was already at her side, drawing her around.
He held back the hair blowing over her cheeks and searched her face.
Smiling sadly, she lifted her fingers to his cowlick and slid them to the whiskers shadowing his jawline. “Clean-cut business owner turns scruffy MI6 agent. I must be a bad influence on you. You show up in a Henley next, and the world might end.”
&nbs
p; Drew cupped a hand over hers. “Ti . . .”
“The surf competition starts tomorrow.” She let go. “I’m staying to help until that’s over. We shouldn’t complicate things.”
The corner of his mouth hitched. “I think complicated went out the window the day a gorgeous, outspoken New Yorker barged in and deemed herself my new consultant.” He rested her palm on his chest. His heart thundered with the same disjointed rhythm as hers. “I’ve tried to fight it this whole time, but I can’t. And I don’t want to keep pretending to. Even if you’re just here for Maddie, I—”
“Drew, please.” Ti lowered her head. “Don’t make this any harder.”
Exhaling slowly, he released her and backed up like she’d asked.
She made it only a few strides away before stopping and turning around. Drew remained at the end of the pier—hands in his pockets, tie loosened over his dress shirt—looking every ounce the man she was falling in love with.
Heart taking over, she jogged up and curled her arms around his neck. Strong yet gentle hands found the small of her back, and the tears secured behind her lashes tore through. “Happy birthday, Drew.” Her lips brushed his cheek.
He held her a moment longer.
But once her heels met the wood again, she turned without looking back this time.
Chapter Twenty-two
Layers
Cramped in Ti’s passenger seat, Drew banged his knee on the dashboard. He angled toward the window and bumped an elbow into the door panel. For the love of all things good, why did she have to drive a stinking Matchbox car?
Drew curbed a smile before Ti saw. Frankly, he was grateful her car was still here, period. He’d hardly slept last night, worried she’d be gone by morning. Instead, she’d gotten to work early, raring to go. Even the disappointing lack of business so far hadn’t slowed her down.
He couldn’t blame her for jumping headfirst into preparing for today. Either she blocked out last night, or pretending it didn’t happen was her way of coping. If she needed him to play along, he’d do what he could.
For now.
He still had so much to uncover about her. About how to navigate this relationship. When to push, when to give her space. How to make her see what he did when he looked at her. After the way she’d withdrawn last night when he’d tried, he had to tread carefully. Especially when today brought on enough obstacles of its own.
Begin Again (Home In You Book 2) Page 18
