“Won’t somebody take them?” She toed off her espadrilles and picked them up. “I can carry them.”
“Nobody will touch them.” He plucked the canvas shoes from her fingers and set them next to his, where they looked like a child’s footwear by comparison.
“Are you sure?” She owned two pairs of nice shoes, and in Chicago, she’d never have left any belongings on a public beach, expecting to come back and retrieve them. Most of the time, she didn’t even carry a purse—only her phone in a case that also held her driver’s license, a credit card, and some cash tucked into her pocket as she had tonight. That and a lip gloss and her keys.
“I promise,” he assured her. “It’s an unspoken rule of the village.”
“Okay.” Sarah couldn’t keep the edge of doubt from her tone as she leaned down to fold up her pant legs. “What if we forget them?”
“We won’t.” He stopped in the midst of rolling his own pant legs to give her a grin. “However, if we did, we’d find them in the lost-and-found box at the lifeguard station right over there, which is never locked.” He pointed to a shack some fifty yards down the beach. “That’s where anything left on the beach ends up. And usually, if they know whose stuff it is, one of the village kids will deliver your lost items right to your door.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’m sure not in Chicago anymore, am I?”
“No, Dorothy, you’re not.” He extended his hand, invitation shining in his eyes. “Want to take a walk to Oz with me?”
After hesitating for a second, she slipped her hand in his, surprised that her biggest worry wasn’t the intimacy of the act; rather, her fear was that her hands were coarse and not at all feminine from the work at the shelter. Even wearing gloves hadn’t protected them from calluses and blisters. If he noticed her rough skin, he showed no sign as he enveloped her much smaller hand in his and started up the beach toward the rock jetty.
At the edge of the water, he stopped, pointing to the giant fiery ball settling onto the horizon. “Watch this,” he murmured.
The waves whooshed on the shore as they stood hand-in-hand, their shoulders barely touching. The sunset took her breath away—one moment the sun rested on the surface of the lake, the next it seemed to have sunk into the water. Her hand tightened on Tony’s while the whole sky became a study in crimson, and to the east, a few stars glimmered white gold above the bay. In one long hiss, she released the breath she’d been holding.
“That was... amazing,” she whispered, as if speaking in a normal tone might destroy the magic of the moment.
Lacing his fingers with hers, they continued walking along the hard-packed sand. “Yeah,” he said. “Gets me every time.” His voice was gruff with emotion and once again Sarah was taken aback.
Who’d ever have guessed this most masculine of men would turn out also to be such a sensitive soul? So gentle? He turned any notion she’d formed about male behavior on its ear. In the short time she’d known Tony Reynard, she’d never once seen him red-faced with fury or gritting his teeth to keep his temper in check. She’d never heard him tear someone down with cold, calculated cruelty or, for that matter, even utter an unkind word. Not that she believed for a moment that he was incapable of anger—he was human after all. But incredibly, he seemed to be exactly the kind, easygoing soul he presented himself to be.
Sarah widened her stride to match his long steps and, when she did, he slowed his pace with a faint smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “I sometimes forget most people’s legs aren’t as long as mine.”
“You’re fine,” she said. “You’re just fine.”
And he was… He certainly was.
THIRTEEN
Tony caught Sarah’s elbow as she slipped on the sandy path at the top of the concrete jetty leading out to the North Breakwater lighthouse. With a superhuman effort, he resisted the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her stupid. Kissing Sarah Bennett without her permission would be a colossal mistake, so of course, he’d never do it. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t longing to.
This thing with Sarah, whatever it was, was entirely new to him. He’d dated plenty over the years since his divorce, although he’d never been much of a player. There’d even been a couple of longer relationships with women he thought might make good life partners. Something always stopped him from taking that final step.
At this very moment, walking the jetty with waves lapping below them and his hand firmly on the small of her back, he thanked God he’d waited, because all he wanted in the world was to spend as much time as he could with this woman.
Pictures of the two of them together played in an endless loop in his brain—he and Sarah wandering the beach, exploring the dunes, grocery shopping, hanging out with their friends, and sharing meals in their own house. His apartment in town was too small for two people, but hers above the boathouse at Dixon’s had potential. Or maybe they could find a cottage somewhere close to the beach—perhaps Sophie and Henry would sell them their rental unit.
No, Sarah would want to live at the shelter and that could work, too. Having a cop onsite might be a good thing. They could claim one of the upstairs bedrooms for themselves—the master suite was certainly big enough and even included a sitting room.
Holy crap! He was ten seconds shy of tracing a huge heart in the sand with his toe and putting their initials in it. How old was he anyway? Fifteen?
His imagination continued to work overtime while his hand tingled where it rested on Sarah’s spine. Emboldened by the fact that she hadn’t stiffened as he guided her, he slid his hand up her back and placed his arm around her shoulders. His heart sang when after a few seconds’ hesitation, she slipped her arm around his waist and settled in close to him, her head just reaching his shoulder. She fit as perfectly as he knew she would, and he checked his pace, making sure he wasn’t forcing her to walk too fast to keep up.
Even though she was small, there was nothing fragile about Sarah Bennett. If he made a wrong move, a swift elbow to the gut or a kick in the balls would have him back in line in record time. Each step with her would need to be carefully considered.
“What time does the shooting range close?” Her question startled him out of his own head.
“Nine, but I have twenty-four-hour access.” He slowed and moved behind her as they approached the lighthouse. A set of concrete steps on the side of the old structure would be a good spot to sit and talk.
“You do?” After he led her up the stairs, she sat on the stoop, heedless of the gritty surface. “Why?”
“Deputy privileges, plus Harry Perkins is my neighbor.” Tony stood below her, resting his back against the stoop right next to her legs. “He lives in the apartment above me.”
“Where do you live anyway?” Sarah tipped her head back to examine the lighthouse as she spoke. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked you that before.”
“I knew one day I’d catch your interest.” He grinned. “Lately, you’ve been remarkably uncurious about me. That is, given how fascinated I am by you.”
“I’m sorry.” Her brow furrowed.
“Don’t be. I’m only teasing you.” He touched her shoulder lightly. “Well, except for the part about being fascinated.” When she looked away, clearly uncomfortable, he cursed inwardly and changed tacks, answering her question. “I live downstairs in the green Victorian with the maroon trim on Forest Avenue.” At her puzzled look, he gestured at the village and enumerated the streets east from the bay. “Waterfront Drive, Anchor Place, Forest Avenue. The house is two blocks east of Carrie’s studio.”
“Oh, okay. I’ve been so wrapped up in the shelter, I haven’t really learned my way around town yet. Chris takes me wherever I need to go and I don’t pay attention. I should, I guess.”
“It’s not hard. Everything is pretty much within walking distance.” He gazed out at the lake lapping at the rocks along the breakwater. The night was clear and more stars were beginning to appear. Soon the whole sky would be blanketed with
tiny lights—a sight that still awed him. You’d never see a night sky like that in Chicago.
“This is beautiful—the lake, the dunes, the lighthouse.” Sarah’s sweeping gesture took in the scene before them. “I haven’t spent time in a beach town before—the whole atmosphere is so, I dunno, so peaceful and laid-back. I can’t imagine there’d be much crime here.”
Tony shook his head with a smile. “Well, if you gotta be a cop, this is a good place to be one. We get called out to all the same kinds of stuff the law in other places do, though, just in smaller doses. Burglaries happen here, shoplifting, DUIs—”
“Domestic violence?” The question was whispered so softly he almost missed it.
“Now and again.”
She exhaled a huge breath. “He swept me off my feet. An older man—he was twenty-five and so handsome and suave and, dear God, he was charming.” She shivered and thrust her arms into the sweater draped over her shoulders.
Tony turned to help her when something in her eyes stopped him, so he shoved his hands into his pockets, keeping his neutral position standing next to the stoop.
“I was the envy of every girl at the club. His family had been old guard in Ames for generations, even though his ancestors were carpetbaggers—Northerners who came down and made a fortune during Reconstruction, taking over a cotton mill and a tobacco company.” She snorted a grim laugh. “By the time Paul was born, the Prescotts had reinvented themselves into wealthy Southerners. They own most of Ames, Georgia, from the IGA to the local newspaper—”
She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
Bewildered, Tony whirled around, scanning the beach before he pivoted toward her and placed one hand on her thigh. “Sarah, what is it?”
* * * *
Sarah trembled and her heart rose to her throat as realization struck her. The newspaper—that was how Paul had found her. The online subscription to the Ames, Georgia, Sentinel had been her only link to her previous life. Evenings in Chicago, she’d hunch over her laptop, reading every page of the small daily, savoring news of home and the people she’d left behind in the small town outside Atlanta, where Paul had once imprisoned her.
“God, I’m such an idiot,” she said when she could finally speak.
“What are you talking about?” Fear laced Tony’s tone and his hand was warm on her leg.
She wrapped her arms around her middle to control the trembling and swallowed, then swallowed again. “The newspaper is how he found me in Chicago.”
“Through the newspaper?” He knit his dark brows and reached for her hand.
“His uncle owns the paper. Someone in the newspaper office must have gotten him a list of online subscribers, and then he probably went on the Web and searched on it. There can’t be that many.” Bile rose in her throat as she tried to regain control over the tremors that shuddered through her. “Nobody else from down there knew I was in Chicago, but how hard would it be to look at the list of online subscribers and start trying to figure out who they are? And I was so hungry for news from home I didn’t even stop to think he could find me that way.”
“What about your family? Could he have found out from them?”
She shook her head. “My parents have been gone for years and my brother lives in Germany. I haven’t been in touch with anyone from Ames. I couldn’t be—he would’ve found me. I haven’t used my real name for anything since I left. It was just dumb luck and cold perseverance that he figured out which one was me and where I was.”
“I can’t believe someone at the newspaper office would do that.” Skepticism edged Tony’s voice. “I doubt it’s even legal for them to give out information from a subscription list, even if his uncle is the publisher.”
“Legal?” She rolled her eyes. “His family’s owned that whole town for damn near six generations. Hell, any one of those people would give him anything he wanted.”
“You make him sound like some kind of mafia boss or something.”
“Let me put it this way—when he went to jail, I was the one who was shunned.” She tugged her hand from his grip. “Julie told me once that the villagers here look after their own. Do you think it’s any different in Ames?”
“Aren’t you one of their own?” Tony sounded so reasonable. “Why would they shun you when you were the victim?”
“Because I wasn’t paying the salaries of eighty percent of the town. The Prescotts own the glove factory, the cotton mill, the bank, the newspaper…” She shifted away from him, needing space in order to continue her story. If he touched her again, she’d lose it, and remaining in control was the way she’d get through this. “You can’t imagine the power that family wields down there. He didn’t spend a moment in prison because of what he did to me. His sentence was about what happened to…to M-Macy.” Sarah choked on the word. She’d only spoken her daughter’s name a handful of times in the last eight years—the pain of that day was simply too much to bear.
“Sarah.” Tony placed both hands on the concrete surface of the stoop and in one smooth move, heaved his big body up to sit next to her, but not too close. “Sarah, you don’t have to do this.” He reached out a tentative hand and then pulled it back immediately.
“No.” Scooting away, she put at least a foot between them. “I need to tell you what happened. You should know…because you’re the law here and he’ll come looking. He’ll figure it out. He always does.”
His expression was unreadable in the shadows, but he acquiesced, folding his hands in his lap. “Okay. Talk.”
She’d intended to start at the very beginning and tell him everything, lay the whole mess all out coldly and without emotion. Now, her insides were roiling, and she just wanted to get through the telling as fast as possible. “We got married the December after I graduated from high school.”
“What about college?”
“I told you, he swept me right off my feet.” She gazed out at the lake, watching a freighter heading north. “My parents were overjoyed that a Prescott wanted their daughter. He was every Ames mother’s fantasy. They didn’t object in the least to me turning down the French scholarship to get married instead of going to Ole Miss with my friends. Mother couldn’t wait to help me decorate whatever huge mansion Paul and I would end up in. The only person who tried to talk me out of getting married was my brother, Quint.”
“You think he guessed what kind of person the guy was?” Tony asked.
Sarah shrugged. “Who knows? He moved to Germany to work for Mercedes right after the wedding. He only came back when my parents were killed and then—”
“Your parents were killed?” Disbelief was evident in Tony’s eyes even in the dim light above the door of the lighthouse. “Holy shit, Sarah.”
“When I was pregnant. A burglary. They were shot while they were sleeping. The police said the robbers probably worried they’d wake up and catch them.” Sarah was aware how dull her tone was as she told the story, but she had to get through it. “Paul found them the next morning when he stopped by the house to pick up some things Mother had bought for the nursery.
“Honestly, I don’t remember a lot about that time, except they were worried I’d lose the baby and I spent several weeks in bed. He and Quint handled everything—settling the estate, selling the house, getting rid of what was left of their belongings. By the time Macy was born, they had disappeared as if they’d never existed.” She was unable to stop the shudder that went through her at the memory. “Want to know something funny?”
“I can’t imagine what could possibly be funny.” Tony’s voice cracked.
“I’m terrified of guns.”
“I know.” Tony extended one hand. “Sarah…”
She held up her hand, shaking her head and continued. “Daddy always had guns—he was a hunter—but they were locked up and they never scared me. After those…monsters murdered him and Mother with his own shotgun, I wasn’t able to even look at a gun.” She met his eyes, and the combination of horror and tenderne
ss she saw in them nearly undid her. Then she pressed on, determined. “Now look at me. Look what he’s done to me. I own a freaking Ruger. I’ve applied for a concealed-carry permit. Isn’t that the ultimate irony?”
Tony sighed, and although Sarah could almost feel the tension vibrating in him, no way was she going to stop now. He’d asked. She was going to tell him. “The abuse started not long after my daughter was born. Before that, he’d been the ideal husband—loving, kind, supportive—all the things a man should be. Even Quint believed he was leaving me and Macy in good hands when he went back to Germany.” She bit her lower lip, trying to condense seventeen nightmare years into as few sentences as she could.
“I understand that most sociopaths are excellent actors,” Tony said.
“Yeah, my ex was no exception,” Sarah muttered, then cleared her throat. “I tried to rationalize it—that Paul was a busy important man and if I just did things his way, everything would be fine. And they would be for a while. Sometimes for as long as a year or so, and I’d get lulled into believing he’d changed. We were textbook—he’d do something cruel and then cry and beg my forgiveness and swear it wouldn’t happen again. He was entirely different around Macy, though. He was so sweet to her and to me when she was present. She adored him.”
“He never hurt her?”
“Never once in all those years. He was the perfect father.” Sarah shook her head. “And when he’d hurt me, he did it when she was away from the house, like for a sleepover. Crazy as I sound, that fact gave me hope for him, for us. I saw how he doted on her, and I’d think maybe I could convince him to get some help…for Macy’s sake.” Tears threatened, but she swallowed them, refusing to let a single one fall.
“Didn’t you ever try to tell anyone?” Tony’s voice sounded far away, even though he was sitting less than two feet from her. “Wasn’t there a maid or a housekeeper who knew what was going on?”
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