by Lori Foster
Heat flared over her face and then spread down her body. Between her thighs, she was tender, but the minute he talked to her in that rough-soft voice, she felt herself going soft there, and wet. Turning her head, she pressed her lips to his. “I wouldn’t want to deny either one of us on our last night together.”
He stilled a moment, then smiled and swept her along to the bedroom. There, he undressed her with a staggering gentleness that would make a more emotional woman weep. Next, he slid her under the cool sheets and before they’d even warmed up, he was beside her, his body a furnace, his mouth scalding the side of her neck, the fragile skin inside her hipbone, the drenched tissues between her legs. Except there was no pain in the burn, only the deepest, farthest-reaching pleasure.
When they’d both climaxed, he held her against him, her head in the hollow of his shoulder. This is it, she thought, closing her eyes against the stinging ache behind them. Tonight is our last.
“What’s a good evening for you next week?” Caleb asked, his fingers sifting through her hair. “I leave the office at five o’clock these days, which means I could make it to you by... What? Five forty-five? Six?”
Instead of being alarmed by the question, Meg realized she was...was...tempted.
Oh, God.
How he tempted her.
The realization was enough to goad her into sitting up. Clutching the sheet to her throat, she glared at him. “Caleb, I told you. Really, I was clear. I’ve been very clear. There’s no future—”
“Of course there is,” he said, in that calm, certain manner of his.
“There’s no reason—”
“There’s no reason why not.”
“I don’t do this,” Meg protested. “A...a relationship is not what I want.”
Caleb reached over and turned on the bedside light. “Because you’re afraid.”
She blinked against the sudden brightness. “Because I don’t believe in happy endings...only endings.”
Sitting up, too, Caleb took her free hand in his. “Sweetheart. Believe me—”
“Why should I?” Meg said, tugging even as his hold tightened. “Why should I believe this thing we have would turn out any better than what I had with Peter?”
Caleb stared into her eyes for a long minute. “For the simple—or maybe not so simple—reason that I already died, Meg. Three months ago, on the operating table, they lost me.”
Her skin went cold. “No.”
“Yes.” He brought their joined hands together and kissed the back of hers. “And when that happened, I had what I’ve been calling a dream, though perhaps ‘out-of-body experience’ is a better description.”
Meg wanted to move, but her muscles wouldn’t obey her commands. “Caleb...”
“And while I had this whatever-we-want-to-call-it, several scenes played out before my eyes. I saw you here, Meg. This you, not the younger you, and I knew I needed to come here to the cove and be by your side. I saw us in the future as well, happy, together, a couple. In love.”
“No.” She yanked her hand and then slid away from him, toward the edge of the mattress. “You’re not with me just because of some odd dream.”
“No, not just because of some dream,” he agreed. “The fact is, I’ve thought of you over the years. You might not have noticed me that summer, but I definitely noticed you, the way you sparkled, the way you seemed to embrace life with wide-open arms. And I only admired Peter more for winning you. After he was gone, you would come to mind from time to time and I’d wonder...”
“Wonder what?”
“If I should try to contact you.” He shrugged. “I talked myself out of it, though, until that day I woke up from surgery and was told that I’d survived the crisis and would have a complete recovery. Remembering my dream, I knew I had to follow it. I had to at least come to the cove and see what might happen between us.”
“I might not have been here!” she said. “I haven’t been back since that summer.”
He shrugged again. “Fate at work?”
Meg swallowed. “It’s ridiculous to think something like fate or a dream had a hand in...in our meeting or anything that came after.”
“It didn’t have a hand in what came after. When I arrived and met you, not the dream you, but the real woman, that’s when I fell in love. That’s who I’m in love with. You, Meg. You still sparkle, you know. And I think that hand in hand, the two of us could do a damn good job of embracing everything life has to offer.”
She was already in her clothes. Without even being aware of it, during that speech she’d found them and quickly pulled them on, like armor. Caleb didn’t seem interested in stopping her; he just gazed on her with a steady, self-possessed regard.
It made her want to throw things.
It made her want to throw up.
It made her want to fall down on her knees and cry.
Instead, she ran away, returning to her childhood bed where she crawled under the blankets and pulled them over her head, though she knew such an action never kept the monsters away.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, aware she’d have to face Caleb sometime, she couldn’t stand hanging around the property management office. Instead, at about eleven, she left a note on the door, saying she’d be back after a thirty-minute walk.
Then she took off down the beach, the wind fluttering the hem of her sleeveless cotton dress. The sun was out early, the morning was as warm and beautiful as high summer, and the smell of sunscreen was in the air as she traipsed past small groups on the sand, their camps delineated by bright beach towels and low fortress walls made up of coolers and beach chairs. Meg waved when people called out her name, but didn’t stop to chat. She’d have to pass Caleb’s rental and she wanted to be moving at full steam when she did so.
Yet her feet came to a sudden, panicked halt when she caught sight of him at the water’s edge, bare-chested and wearing a low-slung bathing suit. With a kayak.
Her mind flashed back ten years before. Peter, giving her a jaunty wave as he started off that late afternoon.
Never to return.
Her rubbery legs still managed to break into a run and she raced toward Caleb. “What are you doing?” she screeched.
“Going out,” he said calmly. He was already in the water up to his knees and was stepping into the molded plastic watercraft.
Without even thinking, Meg waded toward him, barely registering the cold water on her toes, her ankles, her shins. “You shouldn’t do this!”
But he was already moving off, stroking with the aluminum-and-plastic paddle. A small wave tilted the kayak’s nose higher, and she saw a lei nestled in the bow.
“Why do you have flowers?”
He glanced at her over one bronze shoulder and raised his voice as he moved farther from her. “A tribute for Peter. Would you like to go out with me? This is a two-seater.”
“No.” Anxiety was churning in her gut, swirling like the sea water around her legs. “Please, Caleb. Please come back.”
He looked at her again, the kayak still cutting through the water. “Of course I will, sweetheart. Keep the faith.”
I don’t have faith. I don’t have anything like that. But her throat was too tight to say the words and he was now too far from her to hear. Her eyes still on him, she walked backward to shore. Once on dry ground, she continued to watch him, noting as he stroked off toward the cliff at the south end of the cove.
That’s what Peter had done that day, she remembered, panic rising again. Peter had paddled in that direction, then gone outside the cove, and neither her feelings for him nor the merpeople magic had been strong enough to keep him safe.
Something wet touched the back of her knee. She looked down. “Bitzer,” she whispered, dropping low to take him into her arms. His fur was warm against her face. “B
itzer, I don’t know what to do.”
The dog seemed to have a plan. After allowing her a long hug, he started trotting down the sand, his gaze on his master, who was skimming through the water about fifty yards offshore. Then Caleb angled, clearly intending to head around the bluff.
Throat tight, Meg followed in the paw-steps of the dog, the both of them keeping pace with the man in the kayak. But as she and Bitzer ran out of cove, Caleb edged around the waves crashing against the rocks at the base of the cliff and disappeared.
At that, a short, harsh sob caught in Meg’s chest. Still looking out to sea, Bitzer whined, and she dug her fingers into his fur, hoping to bring him comfort. “It will be all right, boy,” she croaked out. “It will be all right.”
Please, Caleb. Please come back.
Of course I will, sweetheart. Keep the faith.
With some vague notion of climbing the bluff for a view from the top, Meg headed toward one of the paths that led up the rocky side. But then her gaze caught on Beach House No. 9, and she felt compelled to go toward it instead. Griffin Lowell was still absent, so she and Bitzer wouldn’t be disturbing anyone. Calling the dog to her side, she trotted toward the steps leading onto the deck. There, with the furry canine leaning against her leg, she kept watch, waiting for the first glimpse of Caleb.
Waiting for her love to return to her.
More panic churned in her belly at the thought. Love?
“I love him,” she told Bitzer, caught somewhere between dread and awe. Caleb, with his confidence, his laughter, his pure enjoyment in every breath he took, had found his way beneath her long-held defenses. He knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, and she...she... “I’ve fallen in love with him.”
The dog shot her a craggy grin, then redirected his attention to the ocean. Meg did the same, all the while feeling as if No. 9’s deck was that of a rocking ship in the midst of a storm, and she was struggling to get her sea legs.
I’ve fallen in love with Caleb.
How had this happened? Despite her past, despite her fears, the man had found an ember of hope inside of her and with his very breath nurtured it into a full and steady flame. He’d brought her to life, too, by making her love again. By making her love him.
Time passed. Minutes? Hours?
Bitzer’s vision was better than hers because he let out a burst of a bark before she could detect any sign of Caleb or kayak. Then she saw them both, and as the dog took off down the steps, so did she, racing through the soft sand, damp sand, wet sand, until the water rushed over her toes. Even then she didn’t stop. Instead, she kept on going, until the skirt of her sundress was drenched and plastered against her thighs. Caleb was calling to her, saying something, but she couldn’t make out the words because she was laughing and crying and now she was actually swimming toward him.
Her hands clutched the side of the kayak and he was smiling down at her—the man she loved was alive and smiling at her!—all the while shaking his head. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”
The explanation stuck in her throat. So she attempted clambering into the watercraft. It took two tries, the second one aided by Caleb and also—she decided to just go with the wild thought—the supportive hands of the merpeople she fancied just might be watching out for her after all.
She fell against the sun-warmed man, winding cold arms around his neck and pressing wet kisses to his handsome face. His own arms closed tightly about her. “I told you I’d be back,” he said, soothing her with his big hands. “I told you.”
“I didn’t believe,” she said. “I didn’t believe in anything.”
They were floating on the water, the cove’s bay cradling them with a gentle rhythm. “I know,” Caleb said, holding her away a little so he could look into her eyes. “Because you’d lost this.”
Then he held up the necklace she’d given Peter. The heart-shaped shard of abalone shell gleamed in the sunlight, its dark, pearlized rainbow both beautiful and mysterious. Like life. Like love.
Meg gasped. “Where did you get it?” she asked, staring as it swung gently from Caleb’s hand.
“It was another part of that dream. Peter showed it to me, Meg. He showed me where he’d stashed it that day, and told me it was way past time for you to have it back.”
She gave her head a little shake. “No—” But then she remembered that she believed in love now, and was that any less a strange and wondrous miracle than a dream filled with portents or a man surviving critical surgery and near-death? Her hand reached out, her fingers closed over the abalone shell.
Caleb released the thong it was strung upon.
Letting her lashes fall, Meg cradled the shell in her palm as if it were something precious. In her mind’s eye she saw Peter standing on the beach, saw his brilliant grin, saw him take his young lover by the hand. The girl clasped his fingers, then threw a happy smile over her shoulder at Meg as the two turned to stroll along the sand stretching endlessly in front of them.
And this time, finally, forever, Meg really let them go—both Peter and her younger self. Goodbye, she thought, squeezing the shell to cement that last, sweet vision of the pair. Farewell.
Then she lifted her lashes and turned her gaze to Caleb. “This was Starr’s heart.”
He nodded. “Yours again.”
“No,” Meg said. “Though I’ve kept it deep under wraps, I actually have—had—my own.”
Caleb’s brows came together. “‘Had’?”
“So I think I’ll return this one to the merfolk whose it was in the first place.” With that, Meg held her arm over the side of the kayak and let the necklace fall. It drifted atop the water for a few moments, and then it started to sink beneath the ocean. Maybe it was her long-suppressed imagination coming alive again, her old belief in magic, but she could swear she saw the slim, pale fingers of a mermaid reach up to close around the shell and then disappear.
Warm hands cupped her shoulders. Caleb turned Meg to face him. “‘Had’?” he demanded again, his expression serious.
“It’s yours now,” she confessed, her voice a little hoarse with emotion. “I’m in love with you, Caleb, and when you get me, my heart is part of the package.”
His eyes searched hers. Then he smiled, and it was the sun breaking through the fog. “You love me,” he said, the smile turning even brighter. “You really do.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she teased.
“It already has,” he murmured against her mouth, the kiss at first a promise that quickly turned to passionate intent. Then the kayak’s rocking rhythm was no longer so gentle. Almost unseated, they were forced to come up for air.
The merfolk urging them to dry land? A joyful bark turned their attention to the beach. Bitzer was there, pacing impatiently, as if he was eager to be part of their happiness.
Caleb slanted a look at Meg as he fished for the paddle that had dropped to the bottom of the craft. “Well, my love? What next?”
“Forward,” she directed with a grin. “We have a dog on shore. And a forever just waiting to get started.”
* * * * *
Strong Enough to Love
Victoria Dahl
Dear Reader,
I first met Eve while I was writing Close Enough to Touch, the first book in the Jackson Hole series. Another character noticed the sadness in Eve’s eyes, and in that moment, I had to know the cause of her pain. I had to know her story. As you might expect, her story is bittersweet, but I promise there’s a happy ending! In fact, I wanted to write this ending for everyone who’s yearned for that one person you can’t have. The person who’s off-limits. The person who makes your heart ache.
Eve and Brian have a very special place in my heart. I hope you’ll feel the same!
Happy reading, and if you’d like to read mo
re in the Jackson Hole series, check out Close Enough to Touch, Too Hot to Handle, and So Tough to Tame!
Victoria
www.VictoriaDahl.com
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
CHAPTER ONE
EVE HILL STARED at the man poised above her, his blue-and-black flannel shirt open at the front, exposing a smooth chest and an abdomen ridged with muscle. She watched as his chest rose with a breath, watched the fabric part a tiny bit farther, revealing more of his tanned skin. A breeze ruffled his hair, drawing her eye to the way the sun haloed the blond curls around his head.
“Take off the shirt,” she said softly.
He shrugged it off willingly, eagerly even, revealing wide shoulders curved by tight muscles. His skin glinted with a delicious gleam, so dark against the snowy mountain peaks behind him. Pine boughs shushed in the wind and Eve watched his nipples draw tight with the cold.
Her camera shutter snapped in the silence. Eye to the viewfinder, Eve kept her face indifferent and cool. He wasn’t a warm smooth body that would cover hers. He was a job. Nothing more. He wasn’t an answer to her darkest fantasies. He wasn’t company for her long nights. Whatever beauty he offered was superficial, and she’d already tried at that kind of satisfaction and failed.
Eve took the pictures the client wanted, and she didn’t need anything more than that.
“I think we’ve got it,” she said. She had no idea what a naked male chest in front of the Teton range had to do with selling five-thousand-dollar watches, but her eye had been drawn to his skin, after all, and all marketing ever wanted was that few seconds of attention. Look. Look at this. You might not have this chest, but you can have this watch.
