Her Forbidden Love (Indigo Island Book 2) (15 page)

“Dammit Dorsey,” he said as he dropped his head in his hands.

Chapter 17

Dorsey

T
he uplights shining on the decorative palms in the courtyard in front of the inn made the fronds appear to dance ghoulishly as Dorsey ran by.
I need to stop scaring myself.
She reached into her pocket for the oogle, but she’d left it back at her cottage.

She had to force herself to keep running past Jack’s cottage, even though she would have been able to shower there but she needed a change of clothes.

Jack had seemed less angry with her by the end of the oyster roast and she knew a night in bed would be just the kind of release he needed. His temper was fiery, but so was his passion. She’d learn to take the good with the bad. That’s what love meant. They would stand up to Steve together and everything would be fine.

She cut through the dark passageway between her cottage and the one next door, and had just caught a glimpse of her porch when she tripped, falling hard on her left hip and shoulder. Her entire left side began to throb as she lay in the wet dirt trying to catch her breath. She imagined all the bugs crawling on the ground and she got the chills. The earth smelled like pine and mold. As she carefully sat up and began to try to stand, someone grabbed her from behind. A gloved hand covered her mouth and a solid arm under her arms lifted her off the ground, holding her tightly against him. She tried to scream, but his hand smashed her mouth, crushing her voice.

In her terror, time stood still. Every step he took, carrying her, played out in her mind as if it took an hour. All she could feel was his solid presence behind her. In front of her was the ocean. She was sure she was going to die, her heart was pounding in her chest. She tried to kick backwards but the man’s grip grew tighter and his hand covered her nose and her mouth. She couldn’t scream; she couldn’t breathe. When she stopped trying to struggle, he uncovered her nose and she sucked in a huge breath of air. Her captor smelled like smoke, or maybe that was her own skin, from the oyster roast.

Sweat trickled down her back and she was getting dizzy from a lack of oxygen. Her side throbbed from where she’d fallen. As if she were a child, the man carried her away from the cottages toward the darkness of the ocean. She could hear the waves pounding against the seawall as he dropped her face down on the grass and pressed her face into the ground. She imagined being found dead—grass, dirt and worms ground into her face, between her teeth.

“Excellence isn’t an option, it’s an expectation,” he whispered. “You will not be warned again. Remember the policies.”

His words swirled through her brain individually and collided, breaking into pieces. She needed air but couldn’t lift her head. Her nose was filled with dirt, her eyes were streaming tears, and suddenly everything went black.

Sputtering and spitting dirt, she sat up. She was alone, soaking wet from the ocean spray cascading over the seawall. It was still night, she realized, slowly remembering what had happened. A chill spread throughout her body. She hoped she could stand up. Her face hurt all over and her left side, especially her hip, was sore and throbbing from when she had landed on it when she fell—or rather, when he had tripped her.

Dorsey wiped her face with her forearm and pushed herself up. Standing up made her head spin, and her left wrist started to throb too. She looked around but couldn’t see anything or anyone. When she started to walk toward her cottage, she could feel the blood pumping through her heart. Little sparks of pain shot through her with each step.

One step at a time
.
One step at a time.
When she finally made it to her cottage, she had never felt more relieved. She bolted the door behind her for the first time since she had arrived on Indigo Island.

Leaning against the door, she started shaking so hard she had to slide down to the hardwood floor, where she sat hugging herself, hoping the trembling would stop. She slept somehow, sitting up by the front door, but awoke just as the sun rose and hobbled into her room as she realized with a start,
Jack never came over
.

Her reflection in the bathroom mirror told the story of the attack. She had a bruise on her forehead and a split lip from where her front tooth had been pushed into her lip. Her neck was stiff, but the only marks were fingertip-sized bruises on both sides of her neck below her ears. Her left elbow hurt and her hip was scraped and raw. She worried a little that her wrist was broken, but when she could pick up her toothbrush, she figured it must be fine. Her teeth and gums were covered in dirt and grass. In the back of her mind, something told her she had been attacked by Steve. But was that possible? Was he capable of delivering a warning so fierce, so out of bounds? He’d already had her where he wanted her, didn’t he? What more did he want from her?

When she was finished cleaning up, she decided to pull on her uniform meant for cool weather – long pants, long-sleeved shirt, and hobbled back to the bathroom to apply more makeup than she had in her life. Dorsey wondered what a broken rib felt like.

She needed to find Jack. She realized he must be mad about the ethics committee, even though he had seemed better by the end of the oyster roast. He must have been exhausted and fallen asleep at his cottage. It had been their first night apart since they’d gotten serious. She’d tell him she would fix everything. She had decided she’d lie to the committee, of course. Protect him and his career. She could find another Kids Club position, she knew she could. She had learned so much here. She wrapped her arms around herself, knowing that the most important lesson she’d learned so far on Indigo Island was to open herself up to love. And she did love Jack, she knew. She loved him enough to take the blame. From the beach, she scanned the pool for him, but didn’t see him.

“Where would you like it, ma’am?” asked the muscle-bound, tanned teenager carrying an umbrella and lounge chair down to the ocean for the mom of one of the little campers in her Kids Club. Fortunately, it was an overcast day so Dorsey could get away with her attire: long khaki uniform pants, long-sleeved button down. She was hot, but fairly well covered up. Her left knee had bled through her pants, but no one had mentioned her lip or her neck. The mom looked around and pointed to a spot. As the campers started building their sandcastles and the mom settled into her lounge chair, Dorsey asked the cabana boy to send Jack down during his break.

“He’s sick today,” the young man said.

“Sick?” Dorsey said. “Ah, ok, thanks.” Jack had never been sick the entire time she’d known him. As soon as her Explorers Club outing was over, she’d go find him in his cottage, bring him some soup if she could manage it. And she’d tell him everything was going to be OK, just like he’d done for her so many times since they’d met.

Fortunately her little explorers were young, five and seven, and there were only two. Slow walkers, perfect for her aching body.

“These are shell sacks, where baby shells grow,” Dorsey said, holding up what looked to be snakeskin left behind by a large reptile. It was already hot, trickles of sweat ran down her back between her shoulder blades.

“Ick,” said the older of the two girls. Their parents had dressed them in matching bathing suits, hot pink and white striped, with matching pink sunhats. They were like bright little Easter eggs on a field of brown sand and shells.

“Don’t say ick. Touch it. Be brave. It’s important for girls to know how to take care of themselves,” Dorsey said, a reminder to herself more than a lesson for the kids. She had driven the girls in the golf cart to the southern end of the island, near Bloody Point. Now, as they trailed behind her on the beach, she walked toward the spot where she and Jack had made love and her stomach clenched with the memory.

Dorsey knew she had to find Jack, as soon as possible. She realized he’d called in sick because he was mad at her and her big mouth. Why had she told Steve the truth about them, she wondered again. She’d make it right. Take the fall, leave the island and report Steve. She wondered if his fingerprints could be lifted from her neck? She supposed she could ask the sheriff. But no, she didn’t need to stir up more trouble for Jack. She needed to fix things. To help him. He owed Steve money somehow and without his job, he’d never be able to pay him back. This was the job of his dreams, the life of his dreams and because of her, it was slipping away. She’d fix it.

“I’m cold. It looks scary over there,” said the younger one sitting next to her on the cart.

“That’s called the backside of the island. When we round this point, we’re outside the plantation. But don’t worry. Some very nice people live in those woods,” Dorsey said. “There’s a cemetery up on that little hill, too.”

“Yeah, and snakes, and alligators, and bugs and ghosts,” said the older girl. She stopped. The younger one froze too.

“We want to go back,” the younger one said.

“Look, what’s that?” the older one said, pointing into the thick woods.

“What? What did you see?” Dorsey asked, walking to stand beside them while looking into the dense trees.

“It was a man. And he didn’t have clothes on,” said the older one. “I’m scared.”

Dorsey followed their gaze, the hair on her neck standing up while a chill ran down her spine. She pulled the two girls close to her. “I don’t see anybody, but we’ll go.”
Oh my gosh, has he followed me here? Is Steve this crazy, this controlling?

Panicking, she said, “Let’s race back to the golf cart. Go.” When Dorsey rubbed the oogle in her pocket, she was able to run without pain as she tried to hurry the girls to the cart.

“Hurry, Miss Dorsey, I’m scared. Please hurry,” said the little one, sliding close to Dorsey so her sister could sit up front too.

“I don’t want to look back that way,” the older girl said.

“We’ll be back at the Kids Club before you know it.” Dorsey pressed the golf cart’s pedal to the floor, willing it to go faster and wishing she’d grabbed one without a governor added to keep the cart from going very fast.

Did the girls really see something, or were they just spooked by the end of the island? Little girls don’t make their bogeymen naked
.
They saw something.
Instead of heading up to the road that meandered through the desolate pines and live oaks, Dorsey drove them back along the beach. Against the rules, but she was spooked, too.

When they finally arrived, Dorsey hustled the girls into the Kids Club, though she had watched the rearview mirror all the way down the beach and hadn’t seen anybody following them. Dorsey’s college helper, Suzy, met them on the porch.

“Miss Suzy, these two need a very special lunch with extra French fries,” Dorsey said.

“We saw a naked man in the woods,” the younger one said.

“Miss Dorsey?” Suzy asked.

“Miss Suzy, I’m headed right now to tell Steve about it. These two think maybe it was a man who’s lost and can’t find his house or his clothes,” Dorsey said, winking at the other woman. “We’ll have Sheriff Smith go find him.”

“That’s a good idea,” Miss Suzy said, shooing the girls inside the cottage and giving her a frightened look. “Y’all be sure to tell Mr. Steve right away, Miss Dorsey.”

“I will. Bye girls,” Dorsey said. Before heading back to the inn, she took a detour, she needed to check on Jack. As she drove past the rows of sunbathers on the beach, Dorsey thought about how intrinsically trusting they all were. Sitting there, drinking what was brought to them, defenseless in their flimsy, bright-colored vacation clothing. And the kids, running back and forth from the water to their parents, building castles.

Maybe the girls saw a wayward golfer, using nature as his restroom,
she thought.
That’s probably all it was.

She knocked on Jack’s cottage door and then walked inside when he didn’t answer. His bedroom door was closed but she opened the door quietly, hoping not to wake him if he was sleeping. The shades were pulled, but she could see his gorgeous body outlined in his bed.