In the Waning Light (18 page)

“The incident tonight, it could have just been someone trying to scare me off.”

“And next time? When they see you didn’t get the message?” Adrenaline thumped hot and silent in his blood. He was in full protective mode, an urge swelling in him to just wrap himself around her, keep her safe.
His
Meg. Like the old days. Except she wasn’t his. She belonged to someone else.

“Are you going to call him?” he said quietly. “Jonah?”

She looked down and fiddled with her massive engagement ring. Several beats of silence hung. He watched her hands, her ring. He wanted to tell her it didn’t suit her. Too big and flashy. If it were his choice to make, he’d pick out something completely different. More natural. Small but pure, an utterly perfect diamond with not a flaw in its facets. A blue white, maybe, that came from the far north of Canada. Clean. Enduring. Something that wouldn’t get in the way of using your hands properly.

A ship sounded its horn out at sea. The soft flare of the lighthouse swept like a searchlight. Dawn was creeping nearer.

“I can’t,” she said finally.

His pulse blipped. But he waited for her to explain.

She looked up, met his eyes. “Jonah called it off.”

Wham.
His world wobbled dangerously on its axis. “What?”

She inhaled deeply. “It’s why I came back to Shelter Bay. To prove I
could
do it—write Sherry’s story, scrape away my own memories, rewrite them within a new context, a fresh understanding of the past. Put it all to bed properly,
‘The End.’
So that I can move on.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

She swallowed, looking suddenly small and scared and young, and he wanted to hold her, comfort her. So bad, with every fiber of his being, it made him hurt.

“You won’t get it.”

“Oh, fuck, Meg. What am I? Some physical brute who can’t get a shrink’s cerebral, touchy-feely crap? Give me some credit here. I know you better than anyone knows you.” There. He’d said it. He’d slapped down his gauntlet.
I know you better than that tight-ass celebrity shrink . . . you were more mine than you’ll ever be his . . .

“I was having trouble committing. To everything. Including my old desk job at the
Times
. I just . . . couldn’t stand being held down between four walls and a roof and a routine, and he thought it was because I have some PTSD thing going on. He wanted to set a wedding date, and . . . and I just couldn’t do it, okay? So he called it off. And he’s right. I can see now that he was right. I
needed
to come home. To fix things with Irene, the house, Tommy, Bull . . .” She looked up. The word hung.

You.

Emotion gleamed into her eyes. A tear caught light as it slid down her pale cheek. His stomach folded in on itself.

“I’m doing it for him, Blake. I’m writing Sherry’s story to win him back. And now it’s so much more.”

Blake’s throat tightened. His heart thunked, slow, thick, steady, as if trying to beat its way out of molasses.

She swiped the tear away angrily. “I just didn’t expect this. I thought I knew what
‘The End’
was. I don’t.”

And again, the subtext hung.

I don’t know how to do this now . . . it’s changed . . .

“Meg—” He touched her hand, and he fingered her ring, and it was like crossing a boundary, a point of no return, as if he’d decided on a cellular level before his brain was fully aware, that he was going to fight this guy. That he was going to see her take this ring off, of her own volition.

“I
can’t
call him,” she whispered. “Not until this is done.”

“Do you want to?” he said, softly.

She was silent. Waves crunched out on the distant reef.

“I don’t know.”

His heart quickened. It was a gap, and he took it. Acting almost of its own accord, his hand reached up, and he gently cupped the side of her face. Every moral fiber of his being that told him,
no, don’t do this; she’s promised herself to someone else; she’s vulnerable right now; this could get far too complicated; it could mess with your relationship with your son,
was being countermanded by another hot whisper in his head—
her engagement is off, she isn’t calling him, doesn’t want to, this is your window, this is your second chance to win her back . . .

She leaned in toward him, her lids lowering, and desire gushed hot through his gut, kicking every residual thought clean out of his head and sending his blood south with a sweet, pulsing delirium as his lips met hers. Her mouth was cool, soft, firm, and she opened to him.

He slid his fingers up into the dense, soft waves at the nape of her neck. A moan slipped from her throat, and her hand touched his arm, moving up his biceps, along his shoulder, encircling his neck as she pulled him closer, and opened her mouth wider, moving suddenly faster, hungry, her tongue, slick, warm, mating, warring with his.

CHAPTER 14

Meg drowned into his kiss, into the rough sensation of Blake’s stubble against her cheek, into the past, and present, and future, and nothing, drawing him closer, deeper. His body was hard, warm. His scent, his taste, filled her with a rush of the familiar and too long forgotten. It was a feeling so blinding and so right, like sliding into a shoe of perfect fit, into soul-warming comfort. His splayed hand slid firmly down her back as his lips forced her mouth open wider and his tongue sought hers. Something imploded deep inside her, cracking open a sweet, thick heat—a hunger that surged fierce up into her chest, firing her blood with driving need. A need to have him, all of him. Completely. She opened her mouth wider, her breath coming faster, faster, her nipples tightening and aching, tingling with desire to be touched, her consciousness spiraling into blackness. Down, down, down . . .

A banging sounded in a remote part of her brain. Then louder. He stilled his mouth on hers. His hand froze on her breast. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart in his chest. Knocking came again, against the driver’s window.

She pulled back, shocked. At what had just happened. How she’d lost control. She stared at him, her breath coming ragged and raw. His eyes burned, dark and glittery, and desire etched the rugged planes of his features into hard shape. A kind of indefinable terror and confusion rose in her chest.

“Shit,” Blake said as the banging sounded again, a dark shape looming behind the steamed-up glass.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Geoff. Listen, Meg, I . . .” His eyes locked with hers. Words failed him. Her, too. Because, what now? What kind of threshold had she just crossed?

Blake swung open the truck door and stepped out. Air gushed in—wet, salty. Cold. Meg drew her coat close over her chest and got out of the truck, pain suddenly searing under her feet. She gasped, taking weight off her left foot, which hurt most, and she grabbed her tote from the front seat, shouldered it, then reached into the back for her bag of clothes. Wind was picking up. It whipped her hair around her face.

“What is it?” Blake said coolly to his brother. “Noah okay?”

“Fine. Still asleep. I saw the truck.” Geoff came around the front. “Heya, Meg, long time.” He gave her a big hug. He was lean and hard and smelled of booze as he kissed her cheek. He stepped back, his gaze flickering between Blake and Meg, a look on his face she couldn’t read in the dark. The passage of years whispered in the mist around them. And he’d seen them kissing. This knowledge was now shared between the three of them and it put an uneasy feeling into Meg’s chest.

It brought guilt.

It made her think of Jonah, of why she’d come here.

“Is everything okay?” Geoff said.

“It’s fine,” snapped Blake. “Just someone trying to spook her off.”

Geoff glanced at his brother. “Because of the book?”

“Probably. Meg needs to get inside,” Blake said abruptly, taking her arm.

“Wait—my file boxes. In the back.”

“Here, I’ll get them.” Geoff reached for the back door.

“No.” Blake’s word was curt. The tone stopped Geoff dead in his tracks. A moment of tension pulsed between the two brothers. “Just . . . give us a bit of space,” Blake said quietly as he opened the door himself, and reached in for the boxes. He piled one atop the other, hesitated, then said, “Where were you all night, before you heard about the shooting?”

“Told you. Couldn’t sleep. Just taking a drive around town, a nostalgic look-see at all the old haunts.”

“Did you go into Forest End?”

“I went everywhere.”

Another moment of thick tension simmered between the brothers. Then Blake said, so quietly Meg almost missed it, “Shouldn’t be driving over the limit.”

“Says the saint to the sinner.” Geoff stepped back with a slight stumble. He stared at Blake for a beat, then turned and headed off into the mist.

“Where’s he going?” Meg said.

“Boathouse. He’s staying down there. Come. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

“What was that all about?”

“I need to look at your foot,” he said. “I can see you’re feeling the pain now that the adrenaline is wearing off.”

They entered through the office, and Blake led Meg into the back side of the marina that was the Sutton home. Coals still glowed in the hearth in the living room that looked out over the water. Lucy pushed herself up from her mat in front of the fire and wiggled a sleepy welcome. Blake set the file boxes in his study, and went directly over to stoke the embers, tossing in more logs, building flames to a crackling roar.

Meg crouched down to pet the Lab. Lucy licked her, and she hugged the dog, burying her face against fur. Assailed by a sudden sense of familiarity, of warmth, of hearth and home, she realized with a pang how much she missed having animals around. And it struck her just how exhausted she was, how much she wanted to give in, drop her guard, curl up and sleep somewhere safe. It seemed like she’d been awake for days, tight with tension ever since the
Evening Show
interview, since Jonah had broken up with her over a bottle of Burgundy from the slopes of the Saône River. Since she’d discovered her mother’s earth-shattering journal and files. The attack tonight had come close to being the proverbial straw. That’s why she’d been vulnerable to Blake. That’s all it was. She just had to stay focused on why she’d come here, what she had to accomplish. On getting back to Seattle once it was all over.

But as she cuddled Lucy, Meg felt an eerie sense of being watched. She looked up.

Blake stood by the fire. He’d gone stone still, watching her, unblinking, iron poker in hand. An unreadable look in his eyes.

“Blake . . . what happened in the truck, it . . . it was a mistake.”

He held her eyes in silence for a moment longer. “I don’t think so, Meg.” His voice was rough, thick. “Didn’t feel like a mistake to me.”

Meg swallowed at the rough intensity in his gaze.

“Come sit in this chair here by the fire,” he said. “I’ll get the first aid kit, bring you something warm to drink.”

Meg allowed herself to slump back into a soft old wingback in front of the flames. Blake draped a blanket over her shoulders, and Lucy nuzzled her hand. Meg stroked her doggie head while the fire crackled. She shivered, unable to get warm. The cold seemed to have sunk down into her bones. But there was something more, deeper—the person she’d been in Seattle had begun to crack, and she wasn’t sure what that meant, or if she even wanted to fight it.

Blake returned with a steaming glass mug and a red first aid bag.

“Hot toddy,” he said, handing the mug to her. “Brandy, hot water, lemon, honey. Should do the trick.” He smiled. It put dimples into his cheeks and a green light into his eyes. Her heart did a funny flip as she accepted the mug, sort of excited and terrified. She needed to try calling Jonah again, just to hear his voice. Orient herself.

Do you want to?

Or maybe not.

Because if Jonah knew she’d been attacked tonight, he’d be on a private plane and in Shelter Bay before morning, whether he’d broken off their engagement or not. All she would have proved to herself was that she couldn’t do this without him.

Or was it because of Blake that she wasn’t calling him? Was it because of what she’d felt when he’d kissed her? And still felt now?

Blake set an enamel bowl of hot water onto the stone ledge in front of the fireplace, and opened the kit containing cotton swabs, forceps, disinfectant, adhesive, and gauze bandages. Outside the wind was picking up, and she could hear the slap of small waves against the wooden dock as the tide surged into the bay. Sounds and rhythms of her youth, and they comforted her as she sipped and the brandy blossomed warmth through her chest.

Blake dragged an overstuffed ottoman in front of the fire and patted it. “Feet up.”

It made her smile. She propped her feet up and he slid her boots off, then her socks. They were bloody. She took a deep gulp of her drink, put her head back, and just relaxed into the throb of pain rather than fight it. He pulled over a desk reading lamp, angled it, and set a pair of reading specs on the end of his nose.

She laughed. “How long have you been needing those?” she said.

He peered at her, mock stern, over the tops of his glasses. “Too long. Now, sit still.”

He bathed her feet, dipping a cloth into water, wiping away blood, and wringing it out in the enamel basin. Blood pinked the water. In spite of the dull throb of pain, her eyelids grew heavy. “Gosh, how much brandy did you put in here?”

A half smile played over his mouth. His green eyes twinkled. “Enough.” He squeezed the skin under her foot and she flinched. “You’ve got a fair-size shard of glass in here. It’s going to sting a bit as I pull it out, ready?”

She nodded, and sucked air in sharply as he yanked it out. He plinked the splinter of glass into a bowl. “One or two more, okay?”

She felt blood flow as he removed pieces. He dabbed, wiped.

“How was it, being a medic?”

He grunted, concentrating. She studied him, seeing him anew in her relaxed and receptive state, without the energy to keep her walls up. Blake Sutton was a changed man. Matured. Stories in the lines of his face. The way he now had to wear glasses to see up close endeared him to her. Yet he still exuded an alpha physicality. It was his hallmark. It’s how she always remembered him, even as a boy. He took up space unapologetically. He was a fighter—a gladiator. Kind. All about protecting tribe and family. His emotions were raw, you got what you saw, he said what he meant. No games. Whereas Jonah was sleek, sophisticated, cerebral. He played life like a game of chess. Calculating, second-guessing. Always wary and watchful. All about aesthetics. Meg liked to think in terms of mythology and archetypes when she crafted her books, and if she had to pin an archetype on Jonah, he’d definitely be the messiah. And part of her had always harbored a quiet suspicion that Jonah saw her as someone who needed to be saved.

Did you foresee what might happen to me if I came back here, Jonah? What chess move was this? Did you suspect that the facade I’ve been wearing for so many years in Seattle might start to crumble back in Shelter Bay? Do you really know me better than I know myself? Did you realize on some deep level that it really was over between us, or perhaps never truly was, and that at heart I’m a small-town, ocean girl who might want to write books in her cottage by the sea?

“What are you thinking?” he said without looking up.

“What makes you think I’m thinking anything?”

He looked up, angled his head, cocked a brow. “When is Meg Brogan ever not thinking about something?”

“I was wondering about Geoff. When did he arrive?”

“Yesterday.”

“Ouch.” She winced, reflexively jerking her foot back in pain. He held her steady, and dropped the forceps onto the plate. “Going to flush with disinfectant. It’ll sting a bit.”

And shit, it did. She scrunched her face, eyes watering as he rinsed the cuts with antiseptic. He repeated the process with the other foot, but that one had fewer wounds. He bound them both gently with gauze and then pulled on big, clean woolen socks he’d brought downstairs. The kind you make sock monkeys from and wear in construction boots. Warm and comforting.

“Hand?” he said, holding his palm out. She set her empty mug down, leaned forward, and placed her hand in his. He probed and prodded. “Just a few thin cuts—doesn’t look like any glass left in here.” He flushed out the tiny cuts, and wrapped a bandage around her left hand.

“You were lucky,” he said, starting to pack up his stuff. “You could have hurt yourself badly on all that glass.”

“Does he visit often, Geoff?”

“He came home once, when Dad died.”

“And not for Allison’s funeral?”

He shook his head.

“So why now?”

He snorted softly, came to his feet, enamel bowl in hand. “He’s getting married.”

“What—
who
?”

“I’m sure he’ll want to tell you himself. I’m just going to clean up. Do you want to stay by the fire, or try to get some sleep in the guest room?”

“Fire,” she said, leaning back and pulling the blanket over herself. She didn’t relish the idea of being alone. It was warm down here. Comforting. He held her gaze a moment, then turned off the lamps apart from one. He busied himself cleaning up, and she felt herself drift on the distant sound of the waves. Wind was increasing, as it so often did over the bay just before sunrise, and a shutter banged somewhere. The buoys in the rafters outside began to thump gently against the wall.

“It’ll be light soon,” he said, startling her awake. “I’m going to shower, then make Noah’s school lunch, get him up for breakfast, take him to school.” He hesitated at the door. “You okay here?”

“Very,” she whispered. Too comfy. Dangerously so.

He started to close the living room door behind him.

“Blake.”

He stilled. Their eyes met.

“Thank you.”

“Just promise me that you won’t interview Ike alone, or do anything risky without me.”

“Nothing risky.”

He closed the door, leaving her with Lucy sleeping on the mat at the foot of the wingback. Exhausted, her brain thick with brandy, stress, nights without sleep, Meg slipped into deep slumber for the first time in weeks.