Searching for Sea Glass: BEST-SELLING AUTHOR (Sea Glass Secrets Book 1)

by Wingate, Teal

  “Miss Murphy,” he said in that deep hot-buttered rum voice of his. He inclined his head in greeting.

  It was a very old world gesture. He sounded just like he always did in her dreams… uh nightmares. She didn’t think she’d forgotten one single thing about the man. He looked the same. His black hair was a little too long. She remembered it felt like heavy silk when she’d run her fingers through it that night on the beach. His eyes still made her remember the old sterling silver sugar bowl her mother had cherished. It was Sunny’s now. Pity the man wasn’t.

  “Mr. McIntyre,” she said gravely.

  “I need to speak with privately. Could we step outside for a moment?”

  It was a perfectly polite and legitimate request. And she was terrified right down to the tips of her pink-painted toenails. He’d come to take Billy. There could be no other reason he’d show up here after all these years. She couldn’t delude herself into believing he was here on her account. It was a miracle the man even remembered her name.

  “I’ve got a restaurant full of customers. Can’t this wait?”

  “No, it cannot.”

  He looked over and jerked his chin at the two men who’d walked into the café behind him. They were big. One of them could be JD’s twin escept for his hair. The other looked more like a lawyer. He carried an expensive leather briefcase. Both men wore tuxedos. The one who looked like McIntyre grinned. The lawyer frowned. Both of them proceeded to begin waiting on tables.

  “You can’t do this. They can’t do this,” she hissed up at him.

  “I need to see you outside Sunny.”

  “What if I don’t want to talk to you, John?”

  Instead of getting mad at her, which she was pretty sure he had a right to do. She’d taunted him. And she’d done it on purpose. Instead of yelling or trying to hit her, he grinned. He grinned like he’d missed her. Sunny swallowed hard. Her head felt a little swimmy. Maybe she should have eaten lunch.

  “You need some help, Sunny?” Trey was suddenly standing at her back. A heavily pregnant Trinity was right beside him. Harry had come out from the kitchen with a butcher knife in his hand. Maude Evelyn glided over from her regular table by the window.

  Sunny would have laughed. If there’d been enough time. Little flashes of lights were already crowding her narrowing vision. And then the absolute worst thing happened.

  “Hey!” Billy bounced up dragging Olivia with him. They’d both been doing their childish version of dancing. In Billy’s case, that meant doing a whole lot of jumping up and down. His little face was sweaty and red. But his puppy-dog eyes were shining.

  “Hey, I know you! You’re the man in the picture. You’re even wearing the same clothes. Hey, everybody!” His high-pitched voice echoed through the silent dining room. “This is my daddy!”

  Sunny’s eyes rolled back in her head. She felt her knees give way. She started to plummet to the floor. She knew when she slammed into it, it was going to hurt. But there just wasn’t a darn thing she could do to stop it from happening. For a minute everything went black. Then she was floating on the ocean.

  But strangely the ocean had never felt so warm or smelled like cologne from the bottle she kept hidden in her underwear drawer. Neither had the ocean ever lifted her head or made her sip something that burned all the way down her throat. She woke up sputtering and trying to catch her breath. That’s when she heard the yelling.

  “Give her to me!” That was Trey. He sounded like he was ready to go to war.

  “No,” rumbled the low voice that seemed to be coming from somewhere near her ear.

  “Get your hands off her, you low-down dirty son of a bitch,” Harry roared.

  Sunny lifted her lids. It was hard, but she did it. She thought she caught a glint of light flashing off his butcher knife. Harry liked to keep his knives sharp and shiny.

  “Young man, who are you? I must demand that you surrender Sumner immediately. It is not at all seemly for her to be hoisted up into your arms like a sack of potatoes. This is public establishment. And a very well regarded one.” Maude Evelyn sounded very distressed.

  “Are you the guy who’s the reason Sunny’s still a virgin?” Trinity had never been known for her delicacy or considerate turn of phrase.

  “Enough!” JD’s command stopped them all cold. “Sam, clear the place. Matt write a check.”

  Both men nodded. The lawyer went over to retrieve his briefcase from behind the counter. The man named Sam smiled at the other patrons. Sunny was sure she heard a few of the women sigh.

  “I’m so sorry folks. But you’ll have to leave. Sea Glass Café is closed tonight for a private party.”

  “You can’t do this,” Sunny found her voice. She directed her words solely to the man who held her in his arms like she weighed less than a feather. “You can’t just shut down my restaurant.”

  JD hoisted her up higher. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Yes, I can. It’s already done.”

  Sunny looked over his broad shoulder. She realized he was right. Every person in the place was being kindly but firmly escorted out the door by Sam. Even her friends and Billy were forced out.

  Over at the counter, the man named Matt called to her. “Miss Murphy do you prefer a check or may I just directly deposit into your bank account?”

  Sunny was stunned. She couldn’t find her voice. She looked up at JD with pleading eyes.

  “A check is fine, Matt. Put it in the cash register,” JD answered for her. “You can turn the lights out when you leave. Tell Sam I won’t be joining you at the Towers tonight.”

  “You won’t?” Sunny was appalled at how her voice broke on the last word.

  Was he implying what she thought he was? Did he think she was going to sleep with him? Did he believe he could just stroll into her restaurant and pick up with his seduction of her where he’d left off five years ago?

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about Sunny.”

  He eased her into the booth closest to the bar. The squat white candle in its Mason jar holder flickered on the table. He turned away. Before she knew it, he was behind the bar.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

  “I like the house red,” she answered.

  There was a part of her that just couldn’t believe this was happening. He was here. After all the years of dreaming about him. He was here. But she was pretty sure this… thing that was going on would be ending badly. At least it would for Billy and her. How could she a fight a billionaire for custody of his nephew? Nobody was going to give fig that she’d raised the child with all the love and care of a mother. The judge who’d been so sympathetic when she’d granted Sunny guardianship of both Willie and her baby, might not be feeling so kindly soon. Was there a statute of limitations on withholding information from the police?

  She watched as he poured her a glass of wine. Then he poured himself two fingers of her best Scotch in a squat, heavy glass. He dropped in one lone ice cube. Bringing them both to the booth, he slid in opposite her. He didn’t say a word. He just ran one long tanned finger around the rim of his glass.

  Sunny watched its slow sensuous progress. She lifted the wine glass and took a hefty gulp. She immediately pulled her hands into her lap. She gripped her fingers together.

  “Look at me,” he demanded in a soft voice she felt all the way down to the source of her womanhood.

  She took a deep breath and did as he asked. She saw a strange tenderness in his eyes. One she wouldn’t have thought to see in JD McIntyre.

  “Tell me about Willow,” he coaxed this time instead of ordering.

  Sunny felt a flood of hot tears gather in her eyes. “Why now? Why do you want to know now?”

  “She was my sister, Sunny. My baby sister. Of course I want to know what happened to her.”

  “How do you know about Willow being here in the first place?”

  “Billy called.”

  “I don’t believe you. How could he have?”

  “I don�
�t know. I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’s capable of,” he said with a long steady look. “I didn’t know he existed before he called.”

  “If all it took was a phone call, why didn’t you want to have anything to do with Willow those times I called you.”

  “We both know you never called me.” He took a drink of his Scotch. His gray eyes accused her of awful things. But he remained silent.

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No, but you just said I was one. I never got a call from you Sunny.”

  The girl leaned forward. She folded her arms atop the old marred table. She looked him straight in the eye. She defiantly started speaking. “I called you two times. Once on the day Billy was born. It was the same day Willie, Willow died. I spoke to your mistress, lover, or your whore - I’m not really sure what to call that snake. She was the woman on the beach... that night.”

  “Leanne Simmons?”

  “If that’s her name. She claimed you were in the shower. It was about ten minutes past midnight. She promised she’d give you my message. She promised you’d call me right back. She promised…,” Sunny’s words choked in her throat. She took another sip of wine. She began to feel its warmth spread through her body. She’d need to be careful. She never drank. And when she did it was only a half glass of wine.

  “I never got that message.”

  “So it’s her word against mine?”

  “Why would she lie about something like that, Sunny?”

  “I don’t know. I only know I called you because Willie begged me to. She was so sure you would come and… I don’t know.” She waved her hand. “Rescue her. She thought if you were there, maybe she wouldn’t die. She was afraid of dying. She fought as long as she could to give Billy a chance to live. But she was so afraid.”

  Sunny said nothing of her own fear. She said nothing of her own injuries.

  “Was there a car accident? Was she having complications with the pregnancy? Is that why she was in the hospital” His voice was flat and unemotional.

  Sunny couldn’t take his apparent unconcern. “She was brutally beaten. She had internal injuries that the doctors could do nothing to help. She suffered several seizures. She was in a medically induced coma for three weeks.”

  “Who beat her?” There was a killing look in his eye. Though the cadence of his voice never changed.

  “My father.” Telling that truth was the hardest thing Sunny had ever done. But he deserved to know it. And she wasn’t about to diminish Willie’s sacrifice by not telling him.

  “Is he dead?” JD asked. There was a dangerous edge to the words. And a cold promise that if the man wasn’t dead, he would be soon.

  Sunny nodded her head. “He died in jail.”

  “Good.”

  “He wasn’t a nice man.”

  “Why was he beating Willow? Was it a rape?”

  “No.” This time she lowered her face. “He attacked her because she was trying to save me.”

  “Save you?”

  Sunny watched as his strong hand gripped the Scotch glass. The knuckles turned bone white. She was sure the glass would shatter in his grasp.

  “What happened to you Sunny?” The words were low and far more deadly than any he’d said thus far.

  She shrugged. She would tell him anything he wanted to know about Willie. But some things were too personal to share. Some pain was just too deep.

  “Tell me.” A muscle jumped along the length of his sculpted jaw.

  “It was nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “The nothing you’re referring to got my sister killed. I want to know what happened to you.”

  She slid out of the booth. She glared down at him. “I don’t care what you want. I loved Willie like she was my sister. I love Billy like he grew in my body, under my heart. You can’t just bull your way in here and start making demands.”

  The shaking began with her knees. It moved up through her body and down her arms. Finally it settled over her hands. She noticed it at that point and clenched her fingers tightly together. She hoped he wouldn’t notice. It was always a bad idea to reveal your weakness to a lethal predator. They’d always take vantage of it. Of you.

  “Why are you so frightened?” he asked. He rose to tower over her.

  “I’m not afraid,” she lied for all she was worth.

  He settled his large warm hands on her shoulders. The gesture should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

  “Sunny, what’s wrong? Just tell me. I’ll take care of it for you.”

  She jerked back. She forced her eyes to meet his. “There’s nothing wrong. Other than the fact that you showed up here tonight with your entourage. You can’t have Billy. If that’s what this is about. There’s no way I’m letting you have him.”

  He took a step closer. “Have I said anything about taking him? Have I done anything to make you believe I would do such a thing?”

  Sunny shook her head. “No, but what other reason would you have for showing up now. After all these years? It certainly couldn’t be because you wanted to see me. It’s been five years, John. I’m sure you forgot all about our little escapade on the beach that night. I know I have.”

  “My friends call me JD,” he said. He moved forward until the material of his tuxedo coat brushed her breasts.

  Sunny couldn’t stop the involuntary shiver that ran down the length of her frame. She licked her lips. She tried to fashion some kind of snappy comeback. But it seemed her brain had gone numb while her senses had taken over. She felt her bosom swell under the ridiculous tee-shirt she was wearing. She felt intoxicated, but she hadn’t drunk her whole glass of wine.

  She watched as his every breath caused the most intriguing movement of his deep chest. There was just something seductive about a man in a tux. Especially this dangerous enigmatic man.

  Sunny bit her lower lip. She tried moving away from him again. But his hands moved slowly, oh so slowly, from her shoulders. They trailed down her back, igniting a path of fire. They locked together at the base of her spine. She was trapped against him. Though she did admit to herself there had been no force used to get her there.

  “I’m not your friend,” she sputtered. This was wrong. He was the enemy. She shouldn’t be basking in the heat of his body. She shouldn’t be savoring the feel of his taunt arms around her. She shouldn’t

  “You could be,” he whispered it. His dark head bent to hers. He stopped an aching inch from her lips. When she nervously licked them, he groaned. A second later he swept her up into a whirlwind of jolting desire.

  Sunny remembered this feeling. It was like the most exquisite pain. She knew she should run away from him as fast as she could. The last time she’d let him get this close, it’d been years before she found her equilibrium. Truthfully, did she ever regain it? No, she hadn’t. That was why she had a dog-eared newspaper clipping of him in her drawer. And why she’d never been able to make herself get rid of his business card. It was like fighting an ocean riptide, this overwhelming attraction to him. Almost impossible to escape. Unless one had the strength of will to do what seemed counterintuitive, to be free. She knew this. She knew what was happening between them would only lead to more pain and sorrow for her in the end.

  But her body just wouldn’t obey. It was as if it recognized him by his touch alone. By the rasping feel of his fingertips. By the searing heat pouring off his sheltering body. By the scratch of the rough shadow of beard on his lean face. Everything in him called to the most elemental parts of her.

  “Say you want this,” he ordered against her throbbing lips. “Say you want this as much as I do, Sunny.”

  Before she could answer, the screen door of the café crashed open. The shock of the loud sound made her turn. Billy ran in. Sunny’s mind registered three things, JD was not letting her go, Billy was staring up at the both of them with wide intelligent eyes, and the man called Sam had strolled in after the child.

  Chapter Five

  Why are
you holding Sunny like that. Is she sick?” Billy asked. It was an innocent question from an equally innocent child.

  The big man who’d followed him into the café was not so innocent. His snort of derision caused Sunny to blush and try to tear out of JD’s arms. His arms tightened. She was his prisoner.

  “What do you need Sam?” he calmly asked over her head.

  “The little squirt here is getting restless. I thought maybe you’d had time to do what was needed. Apparently I was wrong.”

  “Apparently you were,” JD growled. He released Sunny from his embrace. He walked over to Billy. The tall man crouched down so they were eye level with each other.

  “Are you my daddy?” Billy asked. He was tired. His eyes were very heavy. He had a finger tucked into one corner of his mouth.

  JD looked up at Sunny with a cocked questioning eyebrow. Her eyes begged him not to say anything to the child. His own told her he’d humor her for a while. But just for a while. The little boy was his nephew. He would make sure the child knew it before long.

  “I’m not your dad,” said JD.

  Sunny’s eyes closed in relief. She finally took a normal breath. Then she heard what the man had to say next.

  “But I knew your mother, very well.”

  “My real mom? The one who lives under the rock at the cemetery?” The child perked up. “Her name was Willow. She’s dead.”

  He felt a sting in the vicinity of his heart. He nodded. “I’d heard about that. I was very sorry to learn she’d died.”

  Billy rubbed his eyes. He yawned. “Sunny says she was the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Was she?”

  JD looked up at Sunny. A long pregnant silence fell between them. “No, there is one woman who’s more beautiful. But Willow, she came pretty close.”

  Again Sam snorted. He rolled his eyes. “Come on squirt. Let’s get you ready for bed.” He walked over and hoisted the little boy up onto his wide shoulders. “I think Sunny and JD still have some more talking to do.”

  Sunny snapped out of her passion-induced stupor at the man’s words. The last thing she wanted was to do more ‘talking’ with JD McIntyre. She managed to elude his hands when she sped around him. She caught up with the boy and Sam on the path to her house.