Reunion on Rocky Shores

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He had to admit, he was flattered. How could he not be? He loved his work and took great pride in it. When others saw and acknowledged a job well done, he found enormous satisfaction.

  For just a moment, he allowed himself to imagine the possibilities. He had lived his entire life in Cannon Beach—in the very same house, even. Though he loved the town and loved living on the coast, maybe it was time to pick up and try something new, see the world a little.

  On the other hand. he wasn’t sure the ghosts that haunted him were ready for him to move on.

  “You don’t have to give me any kind of answer tonight,” Eben said at his continued silence. “Just think about it. If you decide you’re interested, we can sit down while I’m here and talk details.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he agreed. “I…it’s a little overwhelming. It would be a huge change for me.”

  “But maybe not an unwelcome one,” Eben said, showing more insight than Will was completely comfortable with.

  “Maybe not.” He paused. “I’ve got a buddy up in Ketchikan who’s been after me to come up and go into business with him. I’ve been tossing the idea around.”

  “That might be good for you, too. Look at all your options. Take all the time you need. As far as I’m concerned, you can consider the Spencer Hotels offer an indefinite one with no time limit.”

  “What offer?”

  He hadn’t even noticed Sage had joined them until she spoke. Now she slipped her arm through the crook of Will’s elbow and gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. Of all his friends, Sage was the most physical, and he always appreciated her hugs and kisses on the cheek and the times, like now, when she squeezed his arm.

  He didn’t like to admit it, but he sometimes ached for the soft comfort of a woman’s touch, even the touch of a woman he considered more in the nature of a little sister than anything else.

  “You won’t like it,” Eben predicted.

  She made a face. “Try me. Believe it or not, I can be remarkably open-minded sometimes.”

  “Good. It might be a good idea for you to keep that in mind,” Eben said with a wary expression.

  “What are you up to?”

  “I’m trying to steal Will away from Cannon Beach to come work for Spencer Hotels.”

  She dropped her arm and glared with shock at both of them. “You can’t leave! We need you here.”

  “Says the woman who’s going to be moving to San Francisco herself in a few months,” Will murmured.

  She tucked a loose strand of wavy blonde hair behind her ear, flushing a little at the reminder. “Not full-time. We’ll be here every summer so I can still run the nature center camps. And we’re planning to spend as much time up here as we can—weekends and school holidays.”

  “But you’ll still be in the Bay Area most of the time, right?”

  “Yes.” She made a face. “I’m selfish, I know. I just don’t want things to change.”

  “Things change, Sage. Most of the time we have no choice but to change, too, whether we want to or not.”

  She squeezed his arm again, her eyes suddenly moist. He saw memories of Robin and Cara swimming there and he didn’t want to ruin her night by bringing up the past.

  “I’m not going anywhere right now,” he said. “Let’s just enjoy the evening while we can.”

  Eben kissed his fiancée on the tip of her nose, an intimate gesture that for some reason made Will’s chest ache. “These steaks are just about ready and I think your bean burger is perfect, though I believe that statement is a blatant oxymoron.”

  She laughed and headed off to tell the others dinner was ready.

  “Give my offer some thought,” Eben said when Sage was out of earshot. “Like I said, you don’t have to answer right away. Maybe you could try it for six months or so to see how the traveling lifestyle fits you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he agreed, which was an understatement of major proportions.

  * * *

  They ate on the brick patio, protected from the wind blowing off the sea by the long wall of Sitka spruce on the seaward edge of the yard.

  While he and Eben had been grilling, the women had set out candles of varying heights around the patio and turned on the little twinkling fairy lights he had hung in the trees for Abigail a few summers earlier.

  It seemed an odd collection of people but somehow the mix worked. Sage, with her highly developed social conscience. Anna with her quiet ambition and hard work ethic. Eben, dynamic businessman, and Julia, warm and nurturing, making sure plates were full, that the potato salad was seasoned just so, that drinks were replenished.

  A group of very different people brought together because of Abigail, really.

  Conversation flowed around him like an incoming tide finding small hidden channels in the sand and he was mostly content to sit at the table and listen to it.

  “You’re not eating your steak.”

  He looked up to find Julia watching him, her green eyes concerned. Though she sat beside him, he hadn’t been ignoring her for the last hour but he hadn’t exactly made any effort to seek her out, still disconcerted by that moment in the hallway when he had wanted to kiss her more than he wanted oxygen.

  Sorry,” he mumbled and immediately applied himself to the delicious cut in front of him.

  “You don’t have to eat it just because I said something.” She pitched her voice low so others didn’t overhear. “I was just wondering if everything is okay. You seem distracted.”

  He was distracted by her. By the cherry blossom scent of her, and her softness so close to him and the inappropriate thoughts he couldn’t seem to shake.

  “You don’t know me anymore, Julia. For all you know, maybe I’m always this way.”

  As soon as the sharp words left his mouth, a cold wind suddenly forced its way past the line of trees to flutter the edges of the tablecloth and send the lights shivering in the treetops.

  He didn’t miss the hurt that leapt into her eyes or the way her mouth tightened.

  He was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. I’m not really fit company tonight.”

  “No, you’re not. But it happens to all of us.” She turned away to talk to Eben, on her other side, and the prime-cut steak suddenly had all the appeal of overdried beef jerky.

  He would have to do a better job of apologizing for his sharp words, he realized. She didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his temper.

  His chance didn’t come until sometime later when everyone seemed to have finished dinner. Julia stood and started clearing dishes and Will immediately rose to help her, earning a surprised look and even a tentative smile from her.

  “Where are we taking all this stuff?” he asked when he had an armload of dishes.

  “My apartment. My dishwasher is the newest and the biggest. Most of the dishes came out of my kitchen anyway and I can make sure those that belong to Sage or Anna are returned to their rightful homes.”

  He followed her up the stairs, then headed down for another load. When he returned, she was rinsing and loading dishes in the dishwasher and he immediately started helping.

  She flashed him one quick, questioning look, then smiled and made room for him at the sink.

  The sheer domesticity of it stirred that same weird ache in his throat and he could feel himself wanting to shut down, to flee to the safety and empty solitude of his house down the beach.

  But he had come this far. He could tough it out a little longer.

  “I owe you an apology for my sharpness,” he said after a moment. “A better one than the sorry excuse I gave you outside.”

  Her gaze collided with his for just a moment before she returned her attention to the sink. “You don’t owe me anything, Will. I overstepped and I’m sorry. I’ve been overstepping since I came back to Cannon Beach.”

  She sighed and turned around, her hip leaning against the sink. “You were absolutely right, we don’t have any kind of…anything. We were friends a long time ago, when we were
both vastly different people. That was in the past. Somehow I keep forgetting that today we’re simply two people who happen to live a few houses apart and have the same circle of friends.”

  “That’s not quite true.”

  She frowned. “Which part isn’t true?”

  “That we were friends so long ago.”

  Hurt flickered in her eyes but she quickly concealed it and turned back to the sink. “My mistake, then. I guess you’re right. We didn’t know each other well. Just a few weeks every summer.”

  He should just stop now before he made things worse. What was the point in dragging all this up again?

  “That’s not what I meant. I only meant that the way we left things was definitely more than just friends.”

  She stared at him, sudden awareness blossoming in the green of her eyes.

  “It took me a long time to get over you,” he said, and the admission looked as if it surprised her as much as it did him. “When you didn’t answer my letters, I figured everything I thought we had was all in my head. But it still hurt.”

  “Oh, Will.” She dried her hands on a dish towel. “I would have written you but…things were so messed up. I was messed up. The day we returned home from our last summer in Cannon Beach, my parents told us they were divorcing. This was only two weeks before school started. My dad ended up with Charlie and the house in Los Angeles, and my mom took me to Sacramento with her. I had to start a new school my junior year, which was terrible. I didn’t even get your letters until almost the end of the school year when my dad finally bothered to forward them from L.A.”

  She touched his arm, much the way Sage had earlier, but Sage’s touch hadn’t given him instant goosebumps or make him want to yank her into his arms.

  “I should have written to explain to you what was going on,” she went on. “I’m sorry I didn’t, but I never forgot you, Will. This probably sounds really stupid, but the time I spent with you that summer was the best thing that happened to me in a long time, either before it or after, and I didn’t want to spoil the memory of it.”

  She smiled, her hand still on his arm. He was dying here and he doubted she even realized what effect she was having on him. “You have no idea how long it took me to stop comparing every other boy to you.”

  “What can I say? I’m a hell of a kisser.”

  He meant the words as a flippant joke and she gave him a startled laugh, then followed up with a sidelong glance. “I do believe I remember that about you,” she murmured.

  The intimacy of the room seemed to wrap around them. For one wild moment, he felt sixteen again, lost in the throes of first love, entranced by Julia Hudson.

  He could kiss her.

  The impulse to taste her, touch her, poured through him and he was powerless to fight it. He took a step forward, expecting her to back away. Instead, her gaze locked with his and he saw in her eyes an awareness—even a longing—to match his own.

  Still he hesitated, the only sound in the kitchen their mingled breathing. He might have stayed in an eternity of indecision if she hadn’t leaned toward him slightly, just enough to tumble the last of his defenses.

  In an instant, his mouth found hers and captured her quick gasp of surprise.

  So long. So damn long.

  He had forgotten how soft a woman’s mouth could be, how instantly addictive it could be to taste desire.

  Part of him wanted to yank back and retreat to his frozen lake where he was safe. But he was helpless to fight the tide of yearning crashing over him, the heat and sensation and pure, delicious pleasure of her softness against him.

  * * *

  It seemed impossible, but he tasted better than she remembered, of cinnamon and mint and coffee.

  She should be shocked that he would kiss her, after being quite blunt that he wasn’t interested in starting anything. But it seemed so right to be here in his arms that she couldn’t manage to summon anything but grateful amazement.

  She slid her arms around his neck, letting him set the pace and tone of the kiss. It was gentle at first, sweet and comfortable. Two old friends renewing something they had once shared.

  Just as it had so many years earlier, being in his arms felt right. Completely perfect.

  Their bodies had changed over the years—he was much broader and more muscled and she knew giving birth to twins had softened her edges and given her more curves.

  But they still seemed to fit together like two halves of the same planed board.

  She was aware of odd, random sensations as the kiss lingered—the hard countertop digging into her hip where he pressed her against it, the silk of his hair against her fingers, the smell of him, leathery and masculine.

  And freesia.

  The smell of flowers drifted through her kitchen so strongly that she opened one eye to make sure Abigail wasn’t standing in the doorway watching them.

  An instant later, she forgot all about Abigail—or any other ghosts—when Will pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, his tongue playing and teasing in a way that demonstrated quite unequivocally that he had learned more than a few things in the intervening years since their last kiss on the beach.

  Heat flared, bright and urgent, and she dived right into the flames, holding him closer and returning the kiss.

  She had no idea how long they kissed—or just how long they might have continued. Both of them froze when they heard the squeak of the entry door downstairs.

  Will wrenched his mouth away, breathing hard, and stared at her and her heart broke at the expression on his face—shock and dismay and something close to anguish.

  He raked a hand through his hair, leaving little tufts looking as if he’d just walked into a wind tunnel.

  “That was…I shouldn’t have…”

  He seemed so genuinely upset, she locked away her hurt and focused on trying to ease his turmoil. “Will, it’s okay.”

  “No. No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve…I’ve got to go.”

  Without another word, he hurried out of the kitchen and her apartment and she heard the thud of his boots as he rushed down the wooden stairway and out the door.

  She leaned against the counter, her breathing still ragged. She felt emotionally ravaged, wrung out and hung to dry.

  She was still trying to figure out what just happened when she heard a knock on her door.

  She wasn’t sure she was at all ready to face anyone but when the knock sounded again, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide away there in her kitchen forever.

  “It’s open,” she called.

  The door swung open and a moment later Anna Galvez walked into the apartment.

  “What’s up with Will? He passed me on the stairs and didn’t even say a word before he headed out the door like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.”

  She gave Julia a careful look. “Are you okay? You look flushed. Did you and Will have a fight or something?”

  “That blasted or something will get you every time,” Julia muttered under her breath.

  “You’re going to have to give me a break here. I’ve been working all day on inventory and my brain is mush. Do you want to explain what that means?”

  “Not really.” She sighed, not at all comfortable talking about this. But right now she desperately needed a friend and Anna definitely qualified. “He kissed me,” she blurted out.

  Surprise then delight flickered across Anna’s features. “Really? That’s wonderful!”

  “Is it? Will obviously didn’t think so.”

  “Will doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do. If he hadn’t wanted to kiss you, he wouldn’t have.”

  “He was horrified afterward.”

  “A little overdramatic, don’t you think?”

  “You should have seen his face! I don’t think he’s ready. He’s lost so much.”

  “So have you. I don’t hear you saying you’re not ready.”

  But their situations were vastly different, a point she wasn’t prepa
red to point out to Anna. Will had been happily married when his wife died. She, on the other hand, had let Kevin go long before his fatal car accident.

  “He will figure things out in his own time. Don’t worry,” Anna went on. “He’s a wonderful man who’s been through a terrible tragedy. But he’ll get through it. Have a little faith.”

  Right now faith was something Julia had in very short supply. She could tumble hard and fast for Will Garrett. It wouldn’t take a hard push—she had been in love with him when she was fifteen years old and she could easily see herself falling again.

  But what would be the point, if he had his heart so tightly wrapped in protective layers that he wouldn’t let anyone in?

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was just a damn kiss.

  Three weeks later, Will backed his truck into the Brambleberry House driveway, fighting a mix of dread and unwilling anticipation.

  He knew both reactions were completely ridiculous. What the hell was he worrying about? She wouldn’t even be here—he had finally managed to work the molding job into his schedule only after squeezing in a time when he could be certain Julia and her children were safely tucked away at the elementary school.

  The very fact that he had to resort to such ridiculous manipulations of his own schedule simply to avoid seeing a certain woman bugged the heck out of him.

  He ought to be tougher than this. He should have been completely unfazed by their brief encounter, instead of brooding about it for the better part of three weeks.

  So he had kissed her. Big deal. The world hadn’t stopped spinning, the ocean hadn’t suddenly been sucked dry, the Coast Range hadn’t suddenly tumbled to dust.

  Robin hadn’t come back to haunt him.

  He knew his reaction to the kiss had been excessive. He had run out of her apartment at Brambleberry House like a kid who had been caught smoking in the boy’s room of the schoolhouse.

  Yeah, he had overreacted to the shock of discovering not all of him was encased in ice—that he could desire another woman, could long to have her wrapped around him.