Because now she recognized what all the crooning, the kissing, the sweethearts and the babys were about. Her cooperation. He wanted her complicit in the dangerous decisions he made for himself.
His mermaid? Ha. His stooge was more like it.
Scalding tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back. She wouldn’t let him see them! Her pride deserved better.
His brows drew together, as if he was beginning to sense her mood. “Skye...”
Before he could guess, before the tears had a chance to spill, she had to act.
And so she did, without malice aforethought...or not much anyway. Giving a mighty shove to his shoulders, she sent him stumbling back. It only took a second to push him over the bluff.
Without even waiting to hear the resulting splash, she scampered down the trail toward home, not the least bit satisfied, only unhappily aware that while her vengeful action might have saved face—it had done nothing to expel him from her head.
Or her heart.
* * *
SKYE DECIDED ON A NIGHT of wallowing in lonesome self-pity after her encounter with Gage on the bluff...and her acknowledgment of her feelings for him. Her hand had hovered over her phone, coming a hairbreadth away from calling her sister for a couple of woe-is-me hours. Meg had loved and lost once upon a time.
But now her sister was in a blissful new marriage, and not only did Skye not want to be the dark cloud in her sister’s sunshine, but she just wasn’t in the mood to witness—even via telephone—someone else’s happy pairing-up.
Yes, Skye thought with a grimace. Woe is me.
It wasn’t even six o’clock, but she’d pulled the drapes and flipped on the TV when the cowbell she’d hung on her front knob started clanging. Bolting from her couch, she approached the entryway. “Yes?” she called through the door, wary.
The bell’s clapper began another racket, joined by louder knocking. “Open up,” a familiar female voice called. “Long John Silver and Peg Leg Polly are itching to come in.”
Frowning, Skye put the cowbell aside, then unlocked and inched open the door. All she could see was her best friend in one of her kindergarten costumes—a black felt pirate hat with luxurious red feather—and a man standing behind her. “Uh, isn’t it too early for Halloween, Peg Leg?”
Polly-Peg wouldn’t be deterred. She pushed on the door, forcing Skye to step back. Then she marched in, a troop of people behind her. Well, Teague, Jane and Griffin, who was helping elderly Rex Monroe with a hand under his elbow.
They brought the smell of fried chicken with them.
“We’re having a treasure-hunting party,” Polly said, practically dancing into the kitchen. She was flying high on fiancée fumes, Skye figured.
Teague grinned as he carried in beer in one hand and a pair of wine bottles in another. “Isn’t she something?” he asked Skye, pausing to buss her on the top of her head. “That’s the woman I’m marrying.”
His happiness was adorable enough to make her cry. Refusing to give in to tears, though, Skye pasted on a smile and watched Griffin escort Rex to a comfortable chair. “I appreciate the intrusion—”
“She’s calling it an intrusion,” Griffin called toward the kitchen. “Jane, I told you and Polly we should have called her first.”
Heat crawled up Skye’s cheeks. “I meant, uh, interruption.”
“She meant interruption,” Polly repeated, bearing a glass of white wine that she passed to Skye. “And it doesn’t matter what she thinks now, she’ll be thanking us later.”
“If I knew what this was about, I might thank you sooner,” Skye put in, but she was ignored as the kindergarten teacher directed the action. Soon the guys had carried a long picnic table from the side yard to the front so they could enjoy the sunset. Then paper goods, the buckets of food and the drinks were all paraded outside again and placed on the table. They gathered around it, Rex given a place of honor at the head, to share the feast.
Skye’s self-pity didn’t abate, though she laughed when it appeared appropriate and tried to smile the rest of the time.
A body slid onto the bench beside her. “Don’t let that smile drop,” the man she’d tossed into the ocean that afternoon murmured against her ear.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She slid Gage a glance, steeling herself not to react to his delicious spicy scent. He didn’t look any worse for his impromptu dunking. Was that what had held him up? He was probably late to the party because he’d had to shampoo the salt water out of his hair, and she didn’t feel the least bit guilty about that. “What would I have to frown about?”
Except for the fact that you made me love you while all along making clear you were leaving me.
“Here’s the deal.” He was still murmuring. “They all pronounced dire consequences if we slept together, and I, for one, don’t want to give them the satisfaction of being right.”
Her smile’s wattage went into the mega range. “Of course. Especially when they are wrong. Nothing dire, nothing consequential.”
“Except for my half a lung of seawater,” he muttered.
Again, not a single pang of contrition. “That’s what happens when you do stupid, childish things.”
“Or consort with childish women.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Rex demanded from his end of the table.
“I thought Gage might explain exactly what treasure you hope to find,” Skye said, raising her voice.
“The jeweled collar, of course,” Polly answered. “When I read the newspaper article today, it got me thinking. If it’s never been found, not in a safe-deposit box, not among any family effects, it must be somewhere in the house itself.”
“I don’t know...” Rumors of the famous piece of jewelry had been more interesting to the public than to Skye’s relatives. None of them, in her memory, had actually believed it might still exist. Maybe Edith had thrown it into the ocean, as she’d once considered. Maybe Max had dismantled the piece and sold it off, stone by stone.
“Well, it’ll be exciting to look anyway,” Polly said. Beneath her ridiculous pirate hat, her gaze settled on Skye’s face. “I think you could use some fun.”
Best friends often saw way too much. Or maybe it was the kindergarten teacher in her who could sense tantrums and crying jags in the offing. “Sure,” Skye said, suppressing her sigh and pinning on another carefree smile. “Sounds great.”
Gage spoke up from beside her. “I call her underwear drawer.”
“Ha-ha.” Skye slid him a lethal look. “If you guys are serious, it’s not going to be hidden in the furniture. The older pieces went with my parents to Provence.”
“So we’ll check walls and built-ins, then,” Teague said.
Skye faked another smile. “There’s a plan.”
After the food was consumed and cleaned up, they really went at it, her friends. Tapping, knocking, running fingers over rough plaster walls and cupboard seams. All their banter and enthusiasm brought Skye’s mood to a new low, as she realized that if—when—she left the cove, she’d be leaving them, too.
It seemed a given, though, that she’d end up traveling to France to be near her parents, or San Francisco, where Meg was living. Staying in the area would only make abandoning her heritage that much more difficult. Goodbye, Edith, goodbye, Max, she thought, trying out the words. She’d be walking out on all they’d first dreamed of and then established at the cove, as well as the efforts of the generations that came after.
There’d be no one left here to remember her own family or the tribe of never-never land kids that had made it back this summer: Tess, Griffin, Teague and Gage.
As the treasure seekers finally called it quits two hours later, Skye couldn’t help following her former lover with her gaze. He’d done his share of good-natured searching, but now he was helping Rex out of the chair from where he’d played a supervisory role. “I’ll take him back to his place,” he told his twin. His eyes flicked toward Skye, then darted away. “Night,
all.”
There was an echoing chorus before the rest exited, as well. Polly was the last to cross the threshold. “We didn’t find the collar,” she said.
“Did you really expect to?” Skye asked.
“I expected to cheer you up.”
Skye smiled. “I’m cheered.”
Polly snorted from beneath her pirate hat. “You can do better than that,” she said, then headed next door, where the love of her life waited.
Skye watched until her best friend’s jaunty feather disappeared. Then she spent an hour returning the house to its former order as Polly’s words echoed over and over in her ears. You can do better than that.
Maybe she could, she thought. Maybe instead of standing here mired in self-pity, she should do something proactive, like walking down the beach to No. 9 to give arrogant and annoying Gage Lowell a piece of her mind. Before she had a chance for second thoughts, she was jogging down the moonlit sand.
She’d start by telling him he was crazy for going back to that ransom farm, perhaps putting himself in harm’s way. He could be recaptured. Or even killed in retaliation for getting the police involved.
You of all people should understand that, Skye. You should get that I can’t allow anyone to keep a piece of me.
Fine. Instead, she’d point out how wrong he was to ignore the customary foreign correspondent protocol.
Except that he did so in order to protect his family from difficult, torturous decision-making. Mara’s face, weary with pain and racked with guilt, floated in Skye’s mind’s eye. Some days I have a hard time forgiving myself.
Still, she didn’t hesitate to mount the steps leading from the beach to the deck. At the top, she paused, taking a minute to steady her heartbeat and smooth out her breath. Automatic landscape lights washed along the boards, a pale glow that illuminated the patio furniture: umbrella table and chairs, two single chaises and double-wide lounger.
Eyes closed, Gage lay stretched on the latter’s cushions, a blanket over his legs and bunched at his hips. Beautiful dreamer.
Her mouth went dry as she stared at his face, studying the lean planes and the curves of spiky lashes. His hair was rumpled over his brow and she walked forward, her fingers itching to push it off his forehead.
She gazed down at him. His relaxed hands were linked over his belly, and his chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm. He was asleep, and she knew that didn’t come easy to him.
But she had something to get off her chest. She should shake him awake, stare straight into his amazing, laser-blue eyes and tell him that leaving her wouldn’t be right. Perhaps she’d even tell him why.
But he would end up leaving anyway, she thought, resignation a heavy weight on her shoulders. Because that’s who he was, who he’d always been: an adventurer, a risk taker. He’d been clear on that from the very beginning. He lived for the adrenaline rush, and only one thing would prevent him from seeking out the next thrill.
If you love somebody enough, you won’t chance putting them through that.
If he was going back, it was because he didn’t love anybody enough to stop him.
Including her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DREAMS HAD COME TO GAGE in the dark, hellish pit where he’d been held captive for two weeks. That was no surprise; it was the fact that he’d fallen asleep in the first place that had amazed him. You’d think when you suspected your life was being measured in minutes, you’d want to stay awake for each and every one of them.
But the mind was a powerful instrument, and while his body had been imprisoned eight thousand miles away, in his dreams he’d traveled to California. The cove had looked much as he’d remembered, the beach houses, the blue sky, the scarlet and salmon bougainvillea winding up the scaled trunks of palm trees. Skye had been there, too, but not skipping on the sand or splashing in the shallows as she had done when she was small. Instead, she’d grown into a lovely mermaid, and he’d seen her from a distance, flipping her tail and tumbling in the water with the grace of a seal.
In his dreams, he’d smiled at her playful antics and longed to reach her. But despite how far out he swam, how long he stayed in the water, he never managed to get close enough to touch. Each and every time, the tide would eventually catch him up and drag him back to shore, leaving him sprawled on the sand.
Now, like then, his limbs felt heavy, his eyes reluctant to open. The end of those prisoner dreams meant remembering he was still underground. Who wouldn’t put off that ugly jolt of reality as long as possible?
But something compelled him to lift his lids. Twinkling stars. A pale half-moon, glowing. Relief washed through him and he felt almost drunk on the fresh air.
A movement caught his eye. He rolled his head, and there was Skye, out of her tail and standing on two human legs.
Another high-octane shot of relief poured through his bloodstream. He held out his hand, found her wrist, pulled her nearer. “You’re here,” he said, his voice still hoarse and sluggish with sleep. “Where you’re supposed to be.”
“Is that right?” She sounded doubtful.
He frowned, and then recent events caught up with him. “You’re still mad at me.”
Hesitating, she looked down, hiding the mysterious depths of her eyes. “Oh, Gage. I’m so conflicted about...about what we’re doing. Whether I should be with you right now.”
Without letting go of her, he scooted on the cushions, and drew her down, so she sat beside his still-reclining body. “What if I told you I had a method to clarify your thinking?”
“What if I told you I’m sure you think you do, arrogant man?”
He laughed. “I’m not such a bad guy.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s one of the problems. You’re not a bad guy at all.”
“C’mere, then,” he said, “and let me tell you about how we resolve your concerns.” Picking up the edge of the blanket covering his bottom half, he held it open in invitation. He didn’t dare let his satisfaction show as she slid in beside him.
They lay side by side, staring up at the sky. “So...” she said, after a few moments of silence, “I’m waiting.”
“Impatient girl.”
“We don’t have forever.”
He turned his head to study her profile, the curl of her lashes, the straight edge of her nose, the full curves of her mouth. “That’s where you’re wrong. If we frame this moment just right, it will remain how we want it until the very end of time.”
She glanced over. “Is that so?”
He moved closer, then slipped an arm beneath her so her head rested on his shoulder. Lifting both hands, he shaped his fingers into a box. “Let me give you a perfect picture.”
Her body stilled.
“Now close one eye,” he advised, and adjusted his hands so they matched up with her line of sight. “What do you see?”
“The half-moon, a star.”
“Blink once.” When she did, he smiled. “You just took a photo of them.”
Her gaze slid to him, skeptical.
“Really. Close your eyes.” He let his hands drop. “What do you see?”
“Half a moon,” she whispered slowly. “A star.”
“There. Captured forever.”
Her small sigh still sounded a bit forlorn.
He didn’t let it deter him. To the marrow of his bones, he knew they were supposed to be together—tonight, and for the remaining nights he had at the cove. Sliding his arm from beneath her, he sat up. Once more he made a frame with his hands, and looked at her through them. “There,” he said. “Your pretty face, always mine.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he pretended to take a photo of that, too, before swooping down to steal a kiss. Her taste lingered on his mouth, and he knew he’d possess that forever, too.
Then he straightened again, and used the edge of his thumb to dry the moisture from her lips. “Take it from an experienced photo editor. There’s an easy way to eliminate those conflicts and doubts that are b
othering you.”
“I’m listening.”
He once more boxed his fingers, then moved them this way and that, capturing her eyes, her ear, her mouth, her chin. “Crop out what’s too loud, pare away anything that clashes with the image you see in your head, strip off the extraneous. Then what you have is pure. The truth.”
“And what’s the truth?” Skye asked.
His hands cupped her cherished, now so-familiar face. “That we’re here, right now, together. That this moment, these moments at the cove are ours to enjoy. They belong to us.”
The next kiss was longer. She tasted like sweet surrender, and Gage felt a surge of heated satisfaction. He came down over her, a primitive part of him insisting he prevent her escape. Her legs parted, a willing cradle for his sex.
Caution urged him to go slow and gentle. There was tension in her, not from her body but from her busy brain. So he took a deep breath and tried slowing the primal beat of his heart. Take a picture, he reminded himself.
Her drowsy eyes.
Her swollen mouth.
The contrast of his big, tanned hands on the delicate buttons of her white blouse. Her bra was stretchy lace, and he drew the cups beneath her breasts, letting the material plump the soft flesh, glowing in the moonlight. The tips hardened under his gaze and he thumbed them, hearing her soft pants in response, feeling her shift beneath his hips.
Still unhurried, he drew away her shirt, letting it drift to the deck. Then he dipped his head to her nipples, drawing them into his mouth, sucking on them with thirsty, yet slow intent. She whimpered, and her legs drew up to clasp his hips. He pressed into the juncture of her thighs, the ridge of his cock aching to join with her there.
“Gage,” she whispered, her fingers sifting through his hair as he continued to lick and gently bite at her breasts. “Take me inside.”
“No,” he said, drawing his mouth up her neck. “Let’s make our forever right here, under the moon I framed for you.”
She shuddered as he reached her ear. “Someone will see.”
“Only me. And I want to look at you bathed in starlight.”
Her mouth opened, but he stole the argument from her, kissing her until she was helpless to speak, her hands sliding from his shoulders to land on the cushions beside her hips, boneless.
The Love Shack Page 27
