by Nora Roberts
“That’s fine.” Giff nodded stiffly. “That’s fine, then. I’ll get out of your way so you can go about your business.”
Fury lengthened his stride as he stalked back to the truck. He climbed in, slammed the door behind him. Then just lowered his head onto the steering wheel.
He’d been wrong. All the way wrong. Sniping at Brian that way, going stiff and snooty on him. It wasn’t Brian’s fault or his responsibility. And it wasn’t right, Giff added, as he sat back and closed his eyes, for a friend to cut into another that way. He’d just give himself a moment to calm and to settle, then he’d go back and apologize.
Lexy sauntered out of the house. She’d streaked down the inside stairs, nearly breaking her neck in her hurry to be sure Giff didn’t drive off before she could taunt him with what he couldn’t have. And her heart was still racing. But she moved slowly now, one hand trailing along the banister, a distant smile on her face.
She moseyed up to the truck and, forgetting that her hands smelled of vinegar, propped them on the bottom of the open window. “Why, hello there, Giff. I was about to take a little walk in the woods to cool off, and saw your truck.”
He opened his eyes, looked into hers. “Go on then, Lexy,” he murmured and leaned over to turn the key.
“What is it?” The misery in his eyes was a balm for her soul. “You feeling poorly, Giff? Maybe you’re feeling blue.” She trailed a fingertip up his arm. “Maybe you’re wishing you knew how to apologize to me so you wouldn’t be so lonely these days.”
His eyes remained dark, but the shadows in them shifted from misery to temper. He pushed her hand aside. “You know what, Alexa? Even my limited little world doesn’t revolve only around you.”
“You’ve got your nerve, thinking you can talk to me that way. If you think I care what your world revolves around, Giff, you’re very mistaken. I couldn’t care less.”
“Right now that makes two of us. Get away from the truck.”
“I will not. Not until I’ve had my say.”
“I don’t give a damn what you have to say, now back off before you get hurt.”
She did just the opposite, stretching through the open window to turn the key and shut the engine down. “Don’t you order me around.” She stuck her face in his. “Don’t you think for one minute you can tell me what to do, or threaten me into doing it.”
She sucked in a breath, prepared to scold him properly. But there was misery in his eyes again, more than she’d ever seen or expected to. Her temper subsided, and she laid a hand on his cheek. “What’s the matter, honey? What’s hurting you?”
He started to shake his head, but she kept her hand in place. “We can be mad at each other later. You talk to me now. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Ginny.” He let out an explosive breath that scalded his throat. “Not a word from her, Lexy. Not a single word. I don’t know what to do anymore. What to say to my family anymore. I don’t even know how to feel.”
“I know.” She slipped back, opened the door. “Come on.”
“I’ve got work to do.”
“You do what I say for once in your life. Now come on with me.” She took his hand, tugging until he climbed out. Saying nothing, she led him around the side of the house toward the shade. “Sit down here.” She drew him down on the side of the rope hammock and, slipping an arm around him, nudged his head down to her shoulder. “You just rest your mind a minute.”
“I don’t think about it all the time,” he murmured. “You go crazy if you do.”
“I know.” Reaching around, she took his hand in hers. “It just sneaks up on you now and again, and it hurts so much you don’t think you can stand it. But you do, till the next time.”
“I know what people are saying. She just got a wild hair and took off. It’d be easier if I could believe that.”
“It wouldn’t, not really. It hurts either way. When Mama left I cried and cried for her. I figured if I cried enough she’d hear me and come back. When I got older I thought, well, she just didn’t care enough about me, so I won’t care either. I stopped crying, but it still hurt all the same.”
“I keep thinking she’ll send some stupid postcard from Disney World or somewhere. Then I could just be mad at her instead of so goddamn worried.”
Lexy tried to imagine that, let herself see it. Perfect. Ginny on some colorful, foolish ride, howling with laughter. “It’d be just like her to do that.”
“I guess it would.” He stared down at their joined hands, watching their fingers interlace. “I just tore a strip off Brian over it. Stupid.”
“Don’t you worry about that. Brian’s hide’s thick enough to take it.”
“How about yours?” He eased back, absently pushing a loosened bobby pin back into her messy topknot.
“All us Hathaways are tougher than we look.”
“I’m sorry anyway.” He lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “Do we have to be mad at each other later?”
“I guess not.” She kissed him lightly, then smiled. The birds were singing in the trees above her, and the flowers smelled so nice and sweet on the air. “Since I’ve been missing you, just a little bit.”
Her breath caught as he pulled her close, pressed his face hard against her throat. “I need you, Lexy. I need you.”
When she released her breath, it was unsteady, shuddering from lungs to throat to lips. She put her hands on his shoulders, her fingers pressing once into those hard muscles. Then she pulled back, rose, struggling to grip her own emotions as firmly.
She’d turned her back on him. Giff rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them helplessly. “What did I say now? What is it I do that always makes you take that step back from me?”
“I’m not.” She had to press her fingers to her lips to stop them from trembling before she faced him again. When she did, her heart was swimming in her eyes. “In my whole life, my whole life, Giff, no one’s ever said that to me. Unless it was a man meaning sex.”
He got to his feet fast. “That’s not what I meant. Lexy—”
“I know.” She blinked impatiently at the tears. She wanted to see him clearly. “I know it’s not what you meant. And I’m not stepping back, I’m just trying to get hold of myself before I act like a fool.”
“I love you, Lexy.” He said it quietly so she would believe him. “I always have and always will love you.”
She closed her eyes tight. She wanted it all engraved on her memory. The moment—every sound, every scent, every feeling. Then she was launching herself into his arms, wrapping herself around him, her breath coming in tiny little hitches that made her dizzy.
“Hold me. Hold on to me, Giff, tight. No matter what I do, no matter what I say, don’t ever let me go.”
“Alexa.” Swamped by her, he pressed his lips into her hair. “I’ve always held on to you. You just didn’t know it.”
“I love you too, Giff. I can’t remember when I didn’t. It always made me so mad.”
“That’s all right, honey.” He smiled, snuggled her closer. “I don’t mind you being mad. As long as you don’t stop.”
IN her bedroom, Jo carefully hung up the phone. Bobby Banes had finally gotten in touch. And had given her at least one answer.
He hadn’t taken the print from her apartment.
But you saw the print, didn’t you? It was a nude, mixed in with all the shots of me. It looked like me, but it wasn’t. I was holding it. I picked it up. You must have seen it.
She could hear her own voice, pitching into panic, and the concern and hesitation in Bobby’s when he answered.
I’m sorry, Jo. I didn’t see a print like that. Just those ones of you. Ah . . . there wasn’t any nude study. At least I didn’t notice.
It was there. I dropped it. It fell facedown on the other prints. It was there, Bobby. Just think for a minute.
It must have been there . . . I mean, if you say you saw it.
His tone had been placating, she thought now. Sympathet
ic. But it hadn’t been convinced.
Sick and shaky, she turned away from the phone, told herself it was useless to wish he hadn’t called, hadn’t told her. It was better, much better, to have the truth. All she had to do now was live with it.
From her bedroom window, Jo looked down on her sister and Giff. They made a pretty picture, she decided. Two young, healthy people locked in each other’s arms, with flowers growing wild and ripe all around them. A man and woman sparkling with love and sexual anticipation on a summer afternoon.
It looked so easy, so natural. Why couldn’t she let it be easy and natural for herself?
Nathan wanted her. He wasn’t pushing, he didn’t appear to be angry that she kept that last bit of distance between them. And why did she? Jo wondered, watching as Giff tipped Lexy’s face up to his. Why didn’t she just let go?
He stirred her. He brought her pleasure and set something to simmering inside her that hinted the pleasure would spread and deepen if she allowed it.
Why was she afraid to allow it?
In disgust she turned away from the window. Because she questioned everything these days. She watched her own moves, analyzed them clinically. Oh, she felt better physically. The nightmares and slick-skinned panic attacks were fewer and farther between.
But...
There was always that doubt, the fear that she wasn’t really stable. Why else could she still see in her mind that photograph, the photograph of the dead woman? One minute her mother, the next herself. The eyes staring, the skin white as wax. She could still see the texture of the skin, smooth and pale. The shades and sweep of the hair, that artfully spread wave of it. The way the hand had been draped, elbow bent, arm crossed between the breasts. And the head turned, angled down as in shy slumber.
How could she see it so clearly when it had never existed?
And because she could, she had to believe she was still far from well. She had no business even considering a relationship with Nathan—with anyone—until she was solidly on her feet again.
And that, she admitted, was just an excuse.
She was afraid of him—that was the bottom line. She was afraid he would come to mean more to her than she could handle. And that he would expect more of her than she could give.
He was already drawing feelings out of her that no one else ever had. So she was protecting herself with cowardice that wore a mask of logic.
She was tired of being logical and afraid. Would it be so wrong to take a page out of her sister’s book for once? To act on impulse, to take whatever she could get?
God, she needed someone to talk to, someone to be with. Someone who could, even for a little while, crowd out all these self-doubts and worries.
Why shouldn’t it be Nathan?
She rushed out of her room before she could change her mind, and for once didn’t even bother to grab her camera. She paused impatiently when Kate called out her name.
“I’m just heading out.” Jo stopped at the door to the office. Kate was behind a desk covered with papers and brochures.
“Trying to get ahead of the fall reservations.” Kate pulled a pencil out from behind her ear. “We’ve got a request to have a wedding here at the inn in October. We’ve never done that kind of thing before. They want Brian to do the catering, have the ceremony and reception right here. It would be just wonderful if we could figure out how to do it.”
“That would be nice. Kate, I’m really on my way out.”
“Sorry.” She stuck the pencil back behind her ear and smiled distractedly. “Lost my train again. I’ve been doing that all morning. I’ve got your mail here. I was going to drop it off in your room, then the phone rang and I haven’t budged from this spot in two hours.”
As if to punctuate the statement, the phone jingled again, and behind her the second line beeped, signaling an incoming fax. “If it’s not one thing, it’s two, I swear. There you go, honey, you got a package there.” She picked up the phone. “Sanctuary Inn, may I help you?”
Jo heard nothing but the beehive buzz in her own ears. She stepped forward slowly, could feel the air around her thickening like water. The manila envelope felt stiff in her hand when she reached for it. Her name had been printed on it in block letters in thick black marker.
JO ELLEN HATHAWAY SANCTUARY LOST DESIRE ISLAND, GEORGIA
The warning in the corner stated clearly: PHOTOS. DO NOT BEND.
Don’t open it, she told herself. Throw it in the trash. Don’t look inside. But her fingers were already tearing at the seal, ripping open the flap. She didn’t hear Kate’s exclamation of surprise as she upended the envelope, shaking the photographs out onto the floor. With a little keening sound, Jo dropped to her knees, shoving through them, pushing one after another aside in a desperate search for one. The one.
Without hesitation, Kate hung up on the reservation she was taking and rushed around the desk. “Jo, what is it? Jo Ellen, what’s wrong? What is all this?” she demanded, holding Jo under one arm as she stared at dozens of pictures of her young cousin.
“He’s been here. He’s been here. Here!” Jo scrambled through the photos again. There she was, walking on the beach. Asleep in the hammock, on the edge of the dune swale, setting up her tripod at the salt marsh.
But where was the one? Where was the one?
“It’s got to be here. It’s got to.”
Alarmed, Kate hauled Jo up to her knees and shook her. “Stop it. Now. I want you to stop it this minute.” Because she recognized the signs, she dragged Jo over to a chair, pushed her into it, then shoved her head between her knees. “You just breathe. That’s all you do. Don’t you go fainting on me. You sit right there, you hear me? You sit right there and don’t you move.”
She rushed into the bathroom to run a glass of water and dampen a cloth. When she dashed back in, Jo was just as she’d left her. Relieved, Kate knelt down and laid the cold cloth on the back of Jo’s neck.
“There now, just take it easy.”
“I’m not going to faint,” Jo said dully.
“That’s fine news to me, I’ll tell you. Sit back now, slowly, drink a little water.” She brought the glass to Jo’s lips herself, held it there, grateful when color gradually seeped back into them. “Can you tell me what this is all about now?”
“The photos.” Jo sat back, closed her eyes. “I didn’t get away. I didn’t get away after all.”
“From what, honey? From who?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m going crazy.”
“That’s nonsense.” Kate made her voice sharp and impatient.
“I don’t know that it is. It’s already happened once.”
“What do you mean?”
She kept her eyes closed. It would be easier to say it that way. “I had a breakdown a few months ago.”
“Oh, Jo Ellen.” Kate eased down onto the arm of the chair and began to stroke Jo’s hair. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been sick, honey?”
“I just couldn’t, that’s all. Everything just got to be too much and I couldn’t hold on anymore. The pictures started to come.”
“Pictures like these?”
“Pictures of me. Just pictures of my eyes at first. Just my eyes.” Or her eyes, she thought with a shudder. Our eyes.
“That’s horrible. It must have frightened you so.”
“It did. Then I told myself someone was just trying to get my attention so I’d help them break into photography.”
“That’s probably just what it was, but it was a terrible way to do it. You should have gone to the police.”
“And tell them that someone was sending me, a photographer, pictures?” Jo opened her eyes again. “I thought I could handle it. Just ignore it, just deal with it. Then an envelope like that one came in the mail. Full of pictures of me, and one ... one I thought was of someone else. But it wasn’t,” Jo said fiercely. She was going to accept that. If nothing else, she was going to accept that one thing.
“I imagined it. It wasn’t there at all.
Just those pictures of me. Dozens of them. And I fell apart.”
“Then you came back here.”
“I had to get away. I thought I could get away. But I can’t. These are from here, right here on the island. He’s been right here, watching me.”
“And these are going to the police.” Simmering with fury, Kate rose to snatch up the envelope. “Postmark’s Savannah. Three days ago.”
“What good will it do, Kate?”
“We won’t know that till we do it.”
“He could still be in Savannah, or anywhere else. He could be back on the island.” She ran her hands through her hair, then let them drop into her lap. “Are we going to ask the police to question everyone with a camera?”
“If necessary. What kind of camera?” Kate demanded. “Where and how were they developed? When were they taken? There ought to be a way of figuring some of that out. It’s better than sitting here being scared, isn’t it? Snap your backbone in place, Jo Ellen.”
“I just want it to go away.”
“Then make it go away,” Kate said fiercely. “I’m ashamed you’d let someone do this to you and not put up a fight.” Kate snatched up a photo, held it out. “When was this taken? Look at it, figure it out.”
Jo’s stomach churned as she stared at it. Her palms were damp as she reached out and took the photo. The shot was slightly out of focus, she noted. The angle of light was poor, casting a bad shadow across her body. He was capable of much better work, she thought, then let out a long breath. It helped to think practically, even to critique.
“I think he rushed this one. The marsh at this spot is fairly open. Obviously he didn’t want me to know he was taking pictures, so he hurried through it.”
“Good. Good girl. Now when were you down there last?”
“Just a couple of days ago, but I didn’t take the tripod.” Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. “This had to be at least two weeks back. No, three. Three weeks ago, I went out at low tide to do some studies of the tidal pools. Let me see another print.”