by Toni Blake
She tilted her head in doubt. “Well, Julia’s kite was pretty great. People still talk about it.” Julia Adkins, then owner of the flower shop on Harbor Street, had affixed fresh blossoms and blooms of varying colors all around the edge of her kite and taken the trophy that year.
“But a twenty-one-year-old guy who makes a pink kite for his girl—that ought to count for something.”
“It did. With me anyway,” she assured him with a smile.
“Julia still run the flower shop?” he asked absently, pleasantly, probably remembering what a nice lady she’d been.
“She died actually,” Allie informed him. “Not long ago.”
The news turned his expression sad. “Oh. She was Meg Sloan’s…great-aunt or something, right? I’m staying at her inn.”
Allie nodded. “Yeah, and it was hard on Meg—they were close. I miss her, too.” She smiled with a bit of sorrow. “Julia was a lifer here, like me. Or almost anyway—I think she came as a young girl, here since back in the 1950s. Not many people here can say that.”
They talked more, passing the wine cup back and forth, refilling it when it got low. They reminisced about bike rides around the island, and secret little spots along the way they’d found to make out as teenagers. About picnics on the shore, and swimming in the pool at his family’s vacation home when it was warm enough, and throwing a Frisbee in Lakeview Park. And “that time you dropped your sandwich in the sand and tried to eat it anyway,” and “that day we rented a rowboat and rowed out to the South Point Lighthouse, which was a lot farther away than it looked,” and “that perfect heart-shaped stone we found along the shore—do you remember it?”
I still have it. Tucked safely in a drawer. A perfect memory. Too perfect to give up, even after you left me. It had been the one keepsake of him she’d allowed herself to hold on to. But she caught herself before telling him that. “Yeah, I do,” she said instead.
After more about the past—the good parts of that magical summer—he asked, without prelude, “Have there been a lot of other guys, Allie?”
It caught her off guard and she swung her gaze around to look at him. They were both probably a little drunk. And dusk had begun falling over the island—the sky on the eastern horizon fading from blue to purple. “No one serious,” she said. Even if that embarrassed her a bit. Ten years—there should have been someone serious. No matter how small a world she lived in.
“Is it selfish of me to be glad?” he asked.
She thought that over. More honesty from more wine. “Maybe.”
A look of guilt stole over him. “I want you to be happy, Allie—I do. It would just make me jealous as hell.”
She blinked, sighed. “Like I feel about you having been married.”
“Don’t.” He shook his head, expression vehement. “Like I said, that was a mistake.”
She steeled herself with another sip. “You didn’t really say much about why.”
Next to her, Trent peered down at the pebbly ground in front of them, now shadowy with the coming of night—before finally lifting his eyes back to her. “She was a great girl—smart, pretty, accomplished, and fun. She was…kind of perfect, to tell you the truth. And so it made sense—to marry her, build a life with her. We fit together in every way.”
Okay, so far, it seemed like Allie had every reason to be jealous—each muscle in her body tightened with the grating emotion. “Then what happened? Why was it a mistake?”
He blew out a heavy sigh. “I thought I loved her. I tried to love her. But what it boiled down to in the end was…she wasn’t you.”
“Oh.” It was the softest of whispers. The sweetest of realizations.
No, she wasn’t jealous at all. She even felt sad for this other woman, because it sounded like a fate worse than the one Allie had suffered.
That was when his hand gently covered hers on the flat stone surface between them, squeezing her fingers in his. “Allie,” he rasped deeply. “It never went away. What I felt for you.”
The confession seized her breath.
And then she heard her own. “Not for me, either.”
She’d tried to banish all those emotions, of course. She’d even succeeded in convincing herself she had. But the last few days had made it painfully obvious that she’d just been fooling herself. One more belief that had turned out not to be real.
And his hand on hers, that one simple connection—simple but so very intense—had her entire body pulsing with a desire that had never faded any more than her love for him had. Even in the waning light, his eyes sparkled as blue as she imagined the Mediterranean Sea. And the stubble on his chin reminded her once more of the passage of time and that he was a man now. With her free hand, she reached up to touch it. Not a decision, a compulsion—she’d done it before she’d even realized it.
As their eyes met, she opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t know what. More confessions? Or maybe denials? Either way, their gazes stayed locked—until his dropped briefly to her parted lips just before he bent to kiss them.
The kiss started out hard, demanding—but quickly it softened, into a series of smaller, more tender kisses. Less about urgency and more about rediscovering each other, rediscovering the joy of each little connection, each potent touch.
Wine abandoned now, his hands closed on her arms, and her own palms pressed lightly to his chest through a button-down shirt. Like a few days ago, she felt his heartbeat. Once that heart had belonged to her, been like a part of her. It felt that way again now.
“Is the lighthouse still kept unlocked?” he asked.
No, no, no. This can’t happen again. You can’t let it. “Yes,” she heard herself say, the juncture of her thighs flaring with a longing she couldn’t push down.
Trent said nothing more, because words seemed unnecessary at this point—he simply took her hand and pulled her up from the large rock where they sat. He led her halfway around the black-and-white lighthouse to the old wooden door, grabbing the knob, thrusting it open, leading her inside. Maybe it would have made more sense to stay on the shore, but despite the hour and falling darkness, bikers and hikers likely still traveled the road and he didn’t want to have to worry about privacy.
The interior was sparse—a wood plank floor, some electrical boxes, and the switches that controlled the lights on top in bad weather. A staircase twisted up the rounded wall of the structure, so he led her to it. Another door at the top opened onto a railed walkway circling the area that housed the lighting. Even being back out in the fresh evening air again, the setting felt much more secluded.
“This is where…” she began—but then stopped.
Oh God. She was right. “I know.” Where he’d asked her to marry him. This very spot. He’d not brought her up here because of that, but it was probably what had drawn him to the lighthouse in the first place. Reminiscing, and wishing things had turned out differently.
There were a million things he could say right now, but words continued to seem far less important than the way he wanted her. So rather than waste time on that, he simply resumed kissing her—deeply, with hands gripping her slender waist and his tongue playing about hers.
Nothing could have felt better than her arms twining around his neck as she kissed him back. Up until now, even as she’d let him guide her, he’d sensed a certain reticence, hesitation, doubt—but all that had just changed. To a sweet surrender.
As his hands glided instinctively upward to her soft, pert breasts, molding them, he found himself remembering them, exploring them, wanting to kiss them. So he pushed her cardigan from her shoulders, then removed her tank top over her head. Her bra was the palest of pinks. It hooked in front, so he reached up, undid it, watched it fall.
He allowed himself a second to take in the simple beauty of her standing there like that before him, topless in a pair of faded denim shorts—and then he closed his
hands over her ass and bent to suckle one taut dark nipple in the dusky air.
The moan that left her fueled him, hardened him. The zipper of his blue jeans went painfully tight as he pressed into her, felt her moving, grinding against him there, in that way that harkened back to youth.
Her breath came heavy above him—his grew labored, as well. And when he released her breast from his mouth, he rose to rasp against her ear, “God, I want you.”
Hot, feminine, panting sighs left her as he undid her shorts, shoving them down. She unbuttoned his shirt, pushed it from his shoulders, and then opened his jeans, too. Kicking off shoes, they soon stood naked atop the lighthouse, and even though the night breeze should have made them cold, too much heat swirled between them for that.
As he turned her body to face away from him, folding his hands over hers to close them around the iron railing, he appreciated that it wasn’t completely dark yet. Because the plane of her back and the curve of her ass presented a beautiful sight, even if bathed in shadow. He studied the shape of her as he bracketed her hips in clutching fingers and began to ease his way inside.
Tight—she was so tight—and her low groan told him how well he filled her. As he began to move, he eased one hand around to the moisture between her thighs.
And after that, it was oblivion. Animal instinct. Pleasure.
When she came, it pushed him over that same edge as well—and he thrust into her hard, teeth clenched, spilling every ounce of his desire in the only place it had ever really belonged.
Afterward, they both went still, their bodies remaining joined, his arms embracing her from behind. He dropped a kiss on her shoulder in lieu of not knowing what to say. They were in a strange situation, and God knew he hadn’t planned this—not when he’d unwittingly knocked on her door, and not when he’d taken an innocent walk to the lighthouse an hour or two ago. All he knew was that a strong connection obviously still existed between them, both physically and emotionally, even all these years later. And that it was worth exploring, discussing, figuring out.
He pulled back, hating the separation. And kind of wishing they were in bed, like they’d been at her house—it would make cuddling and talking a little easier. But they’d have to make do with where they were.
Spotting her panties on the wooden walkway—and damn, they were white with pink polka dots, cute and sexy as hell—he plucked them up and held them out to her with a sated smile. “I never dreamed I’d find you here tonight, Allie Cat, but I’m damn glad I did.”
She took the panties, put them on. Reached down for her bra, rushing into that, as well.
“You want to get a drink at the Pink Pelican?” he asked, envisioning a dark, quiet table at the island’s popular watering hole. “Maybe discuss things?”
“I’ve had too much to drink already,” she replied, pulling on her tank top, then grabbing up her shorts.
“Fair enough,” he answered, glancing around for his own underwear. But he looked back to her to suggest, “Then maybe come back to the inn with me? We could talk on the patio, or if it’s busy there, in my room. Or we could go to your place.”
She was slipping her feet into flip-flops at the same time as she slid her arms back into her sweater. He still hadn’t located his underwear—they were black, and blending into the growing darkness somewhere.
“No—I have to go,” she said.
His head darted back to her, boxer briefs forgotten. “What?” Was she serious?
“I have to go,” she repeated—and he realized she was already starting to walk away, back to the door, that quickly. And yeah, she’d tried to blow off their sex as nothing last time, but they’d both been completely surprised, caught off guard then—this time was different. Or it should be anyway.
So he took a step forward, grabbing her wrist as she reached for the doorknob. “Allie, you can’t keep acting like this doesn’t matter. It does, to both of us.”
“Yes I can,” she insisted, yanking her arm free from his grasp. “Because it can’t be fixed. We can’t be fixed. What happened at my house was a mistake—and this was, too.”
And then she disappeared through the door, that fast, leaving him to feel as abandoned as she’d probably felt ten years ago.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE’D BARELY SLEPT, tossing and turning all night. Remembering. Feeling. Loving. Hating. Only she wasn’t sure which one of them she was angry with—him, for stirring things up right when she’d been on the verge of making a little peace with the situation, or herself, for letting it happen.
She almost wanted to skip the Fourth of July festivities today, but she’d worked too hard with the kids not to attend the kite fly, and she looked forward to seeing friends and family at the picnic and fireworks that followed. And she’d let Trent Fordham steal enough of her joy.
Though she was beginning to realize it wasn’t his fault if she’d never really let go of the past, and it wasn’t his fault if she’d let the loss of their love turn her into someone who tried to run from her problems, retreating to her tiny cottage up in the island’s hills. A person had to be responsible for their choices. And finding out that she’d been wrong about his reasons for leaving all those years ago was making her rethink some of hers. Today, she chose not to retreat and isolate herself.
Yet as she pedaled toward the Algonquin on—a hot pink seven-speed that helped her climb the hills to her cottage a bit more easily than the island’s more common beach cruisers could—she had no choice but to worry about running into him today.
She’d never before had the kind of sex she’d had with Trent last night. Standing up, totally naked outside, for heaven’s sake. For some people, that kind of thing might be commonplace, but the island existence that had kept her dating limited had, by extension, also kept her sexual experience limited.
And even so, what perhaps should have felt like living out some sort of naughty fantasy had, with him, only felt…right. Not like a wild, daring escapade, but simply as if it made sense to follow every impulse with him, chase every desire. No one had ever made her feel as exciting or sexy or beautiful as Trent had up on that lighthouse platform.
Stop thinking. Maybe he won’t be here today. He was surely still on the island—still waiting for the closing to take place—but maybe he’d want to keep a low profile and not run into her either, especially given how she’d gone haring away afterward. Fingers crossed.
As she approached the most dependably windy point on the island, a summer blue sky swirled with kites of all shapes and colors. The cheerful sight lifted her spirits and reminded her why she’d never left this place despite the millions of other spots on the globe a person could choose to live. Things Trent had said about the island’s simple joys were true—and the sight of a few dozen kites decorating the sky drove the point home.
Parking her bike alongside the road with others already there, she walked onto the wide green lawn scattered with Adirondack chairs and a white lattice gazebo, the area today also teeming with people, kites, and refreshment stands.
Upon spotting Dahlia and their friend Suzanne Quinlan, who’d bought Julia Adkins’ flower shop after she’d passed, she tried to put last night behind her by approaching them with a smile. “Beautiful day for kiting,” she greeted them. The temps on this sunny afternoon were pushing into the high seventies, downright hot by Summer Island standards. She’d worn shorts and a lacy tank top, stuffing a sweater in her bike basket for later—pretty much her standard uniform for pretty summer days.
“It makes the sky like…a playground,” Suzanne suggested, looking charmed by the sight as a breeze blew dark curls back from her face. It reminded Allie that the nice and often-funny woman, a few years older than her, was a relative newcomer here.
“Is this your first Fourth of July on the island?” Allie asked.
Suzanne nodded, and Dahlia said, “I didn’t realize—it seems like you’ve
been part of our merry band much longer.” Allie agreed—Suzanne fit right in with the locals and had quickly become part of the year-round community.
That was when Dahlia pointed out a low-flying kite Allie immediately recognized—being flown by a certain little red-haired girl and her dad. “That one’s a winner—I can feel it.”
Allie smiled. “Yeah, I think so, too.”
With her eyes still on the field of kites, Dahlia remarked, “Trent seemed like a natural with the kites—and the kids.”
Allie’s chest tightened as she said, “I suppose.”
“Who’s Trent?” Suzanne asked.
And when Allie didn’t answer, Dahlia explained the man, and the situation, rather succinctly—concluding with, “They were quite the item back in the day. It was nice seeing them work together on the kites.”
“But it’s over and it was all very awkward,” Allie added—just to make sure that was clear. Even if it hadn’t ended up being awkward the whole time, she was hoping to just shut down this topic of conversation.
“Oh,” Suzanne said, sounding a little disappointed by that part. “Well, there are other fish in the Great Lakes, and with all the people who come and go on this island, we’ll catch you a new one—or more than one.”
And even while Suzanne began happily scanning the crowd as if Allie had announced she was on the hunt for a man, Allie didn’t bother telling her that even as practical and likely as that plan sounded, she’d never had much luck at it. “Or we could find one for you,” Allie ventured in another attempt to shift focus.
Suzanne drew back her chin, scowling slightly. “Me? No. Not interested. I’m still in mourning and all that.” She’d moved here after being widowed—and Allie had observed her frequently shoving everyone else toward romance while claiming she wanted none for herself.
“Okay, be still my heart—there’s one now,” Suzanne said. “See him—holding the kite?”
