Man, Gray had come so close—dangerously close—to giving up everything after Mandi had left him at the altar. His veterinary practice, his new life at Turtleback...his fake identity. Everything, just to win her back. But doing so wouldn’t have endangered only himself. It would have put anyone he cared about in danger, too...something the WITSEC—Witness Security Program—marshals had drilled into him with horrifying, gory visuals and stories about federal witness protection cases where cover had been blown—voluntarily or involuntarily. Ironic that revealing the truth had caused him to be sentenced to a life of secrets and lies. He was lucky that he’d been allowed to continue his career as a vet under a different name, but any record of his completing veterinary school through the US Army or serving as a vet with the US Navy Marine Mammal Program or even his very short time in the Department of Defense research division was essentially gone. That history didn’t belong to Grayson Zale. Nor did any chance at a truly normal life beyond outward appearances.
He took to jogging the eighth of a mile from Nana’s to the path that led to the old Turtleback Lighthouse and the adjacent one-story “ranger” cottage where he lived. Unlike other lighthouses along the Outer Banks, this one wasn’t a famous tourist destination. In fact, the powers that be made sure it was clearly marked as not open to the public. A metal sign hanging on a wooden post near the clearing welcomed wanderers with a firm warning that the landmark wasn’t structurally safe, that it was undergoing restoration and that trespassers would be prosecuted.
There were no heavy security fences around the property. That idea had been nixed by WITSEC on the grounds that it would draw more attention to him than it was worth. Hiding in plain sight was essentially a more effective plan, which meant no added security fences that would only raise eyebrows. There was an old double-wide gate with a short, open-ended fence to either side where the main road led to the property, but it was nothing more than an entrance marker. Anyone could get around it, so he had a hidden surveillance camera on the property, just in case people got too curious. The few times he’d run into intrigued hikers, he’d told them he lived there as an authorized curator and guard, and then sent them off. As for townsfolk, they believed that lack of proper funding was the reason no major restorations had happened yet, including the high cost of relocating the lighthouse to a safer spot, farther away from the shore, as had been done with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. There would be no safer spot. At least not for him. There wouldn’t be any major restorations either, because opening up the place to tourism was out of the question.
Laddie trotted up the steps to the cottage door and nudged the brass box that held mail. He could tell when it was empty or full and he knew the scent of the mailman wasn’t a threat. Or it wasn’t supposed to be, not just because of the Postal Service’s reputation, but because, as Gray understood it when he first moved here, the delivery guy had been cleared.
He grabbed the mail, unlocked the door and waited for Laddie to follow him inside.
“Hungry?”
The dog responded with his usual half grunt, half yodel. Dog-speak. Gray chuckled as he poured kibble into the food bowl and put fresh water in the one next to it. He didn’t know what he’d do without Laddie. Having him around the past few years had made life manageable.
“We rescued each other, didn’t we boy?” He scratched Laddie behind the ear and got a dog smile in return. “I still have you. It doesn’t matter that Mandi will be here for the funeral. I can deal with it. Life’s been just fine without her.”
Funny how lying to himself had become just as natural as lying to everyone else. Or maybe repeating those words to himself had become more of a mantra. Life’s just fine without her. God knew he’d relied on that mantra during Mandi’s short and infrequent visits from up north to see Nana over the past couple of years. Most of the time, she had convinced her grandma to go visit her instead—a blatant avoidance of him.
He was guilty of steering clear of her too, though, down to not grabbing coffee at the local bakery whenever she was in town for a couple of days. He told himself he was avoiding gossip and proving to everyone in town that he’d moved on, but the fact was that one look at her and every stitch he’d tightened around the wound she’d left would unravel. He was strong and resilient, but there was only so much a man could take.
He glanced at the clock. Sheesh. Ten already? He scrubbed his hand across his face. So much for dropping by the office to make sure everything was under control. He needed to shower and change in time for the funeral. She’ll be there. You can’t avoid each other this time. Yeah. He knew that. A fact that had been gnawing at him for two days now.
As if having his life turned upside down when he’d been placed in the witness protection program, and again when Mandi had gone runaway bride on him, wasn’t enough. Now Nana was gone. Nana...the one person who’d accepted him unconditionally...who’d treated him like a son and who’d taught him about rescuing endangered sea turtles by tending to their nesting grounds along her private stretch of beach and the sands that extended beyond the town limits. Nana was gone and the one person who understood and felt the depth of that loss the way he did was Mandi. But it didn’t matter that a part of him wanted to reach out and console her or that he desperately needed to talk about Nana and share memories about her with Mandi. No way would he open his heart, even a crack, and let Mandi in. He was a survivor. Burned once and all that. Others would be at the funeral, including Mandi’s father, John Rivers, Nana’s only child. They could console her and give her support. She didn’t need Gray in her life. She’d made that clear long ago.
And he certainly didn’t need her.
* * *
MANDI RIVERS EXAMINED herself in the tarnished silver mirror that hung in Nana’s entryway above a rustic console table. Her eyes weren’t any less puffy than they had been the five previous times she’d checked during the past thirty minutes. Why did it matter? No doubt, others in town had cried, too, when they heard of Nana’s unexpected passing.
She scurried to the kitchen and chucked the cucumber slices that had proved useless into the trash bin. The fact was that she hadn’t noticed what the nine-hour drive from New York yesterday—and the dam of tears that finally let loose once she’d stepped into Nana’s home last night—had done to her face...until she had spotted Grayson down on the beach this morning. She wasn’t sure if he noticed her peering past the sheer curtains. She had ducked back the second he glanced up toward the house, but the way he took off at a run seconds later made her wonder. Maybe he had seen her.
He had looked serious and irritated and so, so good. It was criminal to look that good with his dark brown hair all messed up by the ocean breeze and his favorite old T-shirt looking more worn than she’d remembered. Even from a distance, she knew which one by the faded blue color and tear at the bottom hem. It was the one that said “Save the Sharks” on the front. Heaven help her, she had a better chance of surviving a shark attack than surviving being around Gray this afternoon.
She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her throbbing temples. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she cared enough to spy on him. She had wasted too much of her life trying to get him to open up and share things about his history. She’d gone from having a crush on him when she was twenty, right about when he had first moved to town, to dating him and even saying yes when he had finally proposed on her twenty-third birthday. She thought that day would never happen, given how withdrawn and serious he’d sometimes get. As much as she had loved him and confided in him, he had been hard to crack. He was skilled at evading questions and switching subjects so smoothly that most people didn’t notice. But she did. And it hurt that he didn’t trust her enough to open up. She had thought being engaged and eventually married would make a difference, but boy had she been naive. She’d come so close to throwing away a chance at a master’s degree and an incredible career for someone she’d never be enough for.
The last straw had been wedding jitters mixed with her father warning her that marrying Gray would be the biggest mistake of her life. The look on her dad’s face when she stood at the altar had left her hyperventilating and sweating in her wedding dress. Her controlling father had been the one person she’d rebelled against and the last man she wanted to listen to, yet when push came to shove, his disapproval had carried weight. The need for parental approval was one of those convoluted psychological things that latched itself to a person’s mind even when logic shunned it. He’d made her second-guess herself. He’d made her second-guess Gray’s love for her.
Wasn’t it Freud who had written something to the effect that girls tended to fall for guys who were much like their fathers? God help her. Her father was a hovering, micromanaging, money-driven, controlling man who valued appearances and reputation above all else. He had made her teenage years unbearable. And then there was Gray, who had a compassionate side she couldn’t resist, yet he had to maintain control of every conversation, and his explanations for mundane things, like why he never had visitors or why he didn’t keep old baby or family photos, had frustrated her to no end. The thought of marrying someone remotely controlling like her father still made her nauseous. And there had been a part of Gray she couldn’t figure out...a part he kept locked away with the key in his pocket. Control. That fact had kept her up every night the week before the wedding. It had driven her to choose control of her own life...and to abandon a love that was just too risky.
On one hand, she often wondered if her father’s air of superiority and always having the final say in decisions had been the reason her mother had abandoned them when Mandi was still in grade school. Nana used to tell her that her parents had loved each other, but perhaps loving John Rivers had been too risky. Maybe the women in Mandi’s family were simply doomed when it came to love.
But Nana also used to say that there were two sides to every relationship and every story, so a part of Mandi also wondered if her mother had had commitment issues and Mandi had somehow inherited that curse. Perhaps her mom had suffered from the same suffocating urge to leave Turtleback and travel or experience big-city life that Mandi had. What if Mandi was just like her mother? And what if maybe, just maybe, Gray wasn’t at all like her father and Mandi had been fishing for excuses to run away. That would mean that she had thrown away the kind of love she couldn’t ever imagine feeling again.
Just stop it. She groaned and clenched her fists as she headed for the kitchen. She was doing it again—overanalyzing and spiraling through pointless reasons for what had happened to her and Gray. She hated it when she slid into this pattern. It had taken months for her to regain her focus after leaving him and starting graduate school. She was not going to let seeing him weaken her resolve. She steeled herself against the slurry of anger and sadness that pooled in her stomach. She took a glass from the cabinet by the fridge, filled it with cool water and drank half before setting it down.
No regrets. Nana’s voice swept through her mind with haunting clarity. The same words she would command Mandi to repeat like a mantra, whenever she was feeling down or torn about a decision. Regrets are like steel anchors. They’ll weigh you down and keep you from moving forward in life. Own every choice you make, and make it work for you.
Oh, she’d made her choice work for her alright. She would never regret earning her undergraduate college degree on her own terms. Studying online may not have been the same as getting a degree from a university her father could brag about, but it had saved her money. It had been the affordable option, and her master’s diploma from NYU was the one that counted now. Her father’s insistence that she study prelaw out of high school, then attend law school—all because he felt his political aspirations would have gone far beyond town mayor had he done the same—had resulted in her taking a gap year after high school. He had given her an ultimatum that he would pay for college only if she studied prelaw, which she had no inclination toward or desire to do.
That gap year had really ticked him off, but not nearly as much as her decision to put herself through a four-year advertising degree online, while working locally to support her goals. Her father had been downright furious. Turning down his money not only stole some of the power he had over her, but that gap year had also stripped him of bragging rights. His only child was the only one in her senior class whose intended college wasn’t announced at graduation. She had shamed him.
She never asked Nana for financial help either, though there was a time or two she wished her grandmother would have offered. All Nana ever told her was that she had faith in her and that Mandi could accomplish more than she knew she could. And she had. She’d accomplished something significant, but her father had yet to express any pride or approval in her degree. Had she married Gray the year she earned her diploma and found out she’d been accepted into a master’s program, she wouldn’t be on the verge of jump-starting her career right now. She took a deep breath and rolled the stiffness out of her shoulders.
Gray had not known she’d gotten accepted into NYU, yet he had made it clear that selling his vet practice and moving was out of the question. If she’d trusted his feelings for her, maybe she’d have given it all up for him or maybe she could have figured out how to make a long-distance marriage work for two years, but that hadn’t been the case. She didn’t leave him because of the master’s program. She left him because she couldn’t see a life with someone who wasn’t completely open and honest with her about everything.
You don’t regret leaving him. You’re just feeling alone because Nana’s gone.
She opened the pantry and took out another box of tissues. This was so unfair. Nana hadn’t said a word about being sick. Or had Mandi been so preoccupied with school and her career that she’d missed the signs? If she regretted anything, it was not being there for her grandmother.
She jolted when her phone alarm went off, then quickly silenced it and hurried to the guest room she was using while staying here. She glanced in the mirror and ran a comb briskly through her long, wavy hair. Her sun-kissed highlights were long gone and her face looked pale against the deeper brown. Unfortunately, her nose was as red and miserable as her eyes. She pinched her cheeks, then hurried to the sofa, where she’d thrown her purse last night. Years of avoiding a face-to-face with Gray, and now he was going to see her like this? She looked nothing like a successful graduate who’d just been offered her dream job with a top New York advertising firm. That was the impression she’d hoped to give. And why did that bother her so much?
She hated that one glimpse of Grayson on the beach had her worried about appearances and impressions...so much like her father. She just wanted people to see that she was okay and doing just fine for herself without Gray in her life. She didn’t want her father seeing her as weak and doubting that she could make it on her own without his money or connections. She wanted everyone who had been a part of her life to feel at least a little proud of her for making it on her own...even Gray. But she knew Gray hated her and she couldn’t blame him after what she’d done, yet a part of her yearned for him to wrap his arms around her and hold her until the pain of losing Nana became bearable. If it ever would.
She flipped the pillows on the sofa. Her keys had to be here somewhere. She distinctly remembered tossing them onto the purse. She shoved her hand between the sofa cushions. Yes. Her fingertips brushed against the pewter turtle that held the bundle of keys together. The doorbell rang. No.
She wasn’t expecting anyone. The image of Gray standing in the doorway flashed in her mind. She knew it was him. She just did. Her instincts screamed it. Her stomach twisted and her pulse skittered at the base of her throat. This would be so like him...wanting to give her his condolences in private, away from curious friends and family. Public displays of affection had always made him uncomfortable. It didn’t matter that this gathering was about loss. The fact that everyone in town knew their history practi
cally guaranteed that behind all the sympathy would be curious eyes and gossip.
Gray was right. Getting this first encounter over with in private was the smart thing to do.
She shoved the keys in her pocket and took a deep breath as she went for the door and opened it.
“Mandi.”
“Dad?”
Her gut sank a few inches, but she wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment. Her father opened his arms and she complied. His embrace was anything but comforting. Maybe it was all in her head, but everything between them...even seemingly kind gestures on his part...always felt tainted with expectation or ulterior motive. Nonetheless, he was her father. Her only remaining family. That had to count for something. Mandi gave him a peck on the cheek and stepped back. He strode past her and stood in the center of the main room, his gaze darting around the place with purposeful efficiency.
“I thought we should drive over to the funeral together. Show how the Rivers are strong and will get through this together, as a family,” he said.
And there it was. Show. Keep up appearances. Mandi folded her arms around her waist.
“I’m so sorry about Nana, Dad. I know losing your mom must be hard on you.”
“Yes. Thank you. Same to you, sweetheart. I know you were close. And I realize that you were so young when your mother left, you probably don’t remember what it was like having her around. It’s different when you’ve been around someone day in and day out your entire life, like Nana, and then, suddenly, they’re gone. I know she was old, but still. It hurts.”
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