The Promise of Lightning

by Linda Seed

  Drew could sympathize with Liam on that, because much of the time, he himself was all wrapped up in being angry and wronged. But understandable or not, that kind of thing wasn’t easy for significant others to deal with. If Megan needed evidence of that, she could just ask Tessa.

  He couldn’t believe he was about to defend Liam, but it seemed wrong not to.

  “You know, sometimes people need time to process things. He and Redmond were close, everybody tells me, and it’s only been two years. When someone you love dies, two years is nothing.”

  “Right, but …” She shrugged and slumped back against the seat.

  He waited her out. If she was going to tell him all of it, she’d do it in her own time.

  “That’s not even the biggest problem,” she said finally.

  “Then what is?”

  “He keeps asking me to move in with him.”

  “And?”

  “And I always thought that when the man in my life asked me to move in with him, I’d feel elated. Over the moon. Beyond excited, you know?”

  He pulled up at the curb outside her house, parked the car, and turned off the engine.

  “So, what did you feel?”

  “Existential dread.”

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “No.”

  Drew felt bad about Liam’s impending heartbreak—the guy was a dick, but he was still a guy, and Drew felt a certain male kinship with him on the subject. But you had to love a woman—or anyone, for that matter—who casually threw the phrase existential dread into conversation.

  “You’ve got to tell him,” he said.

  “I will. Soon. After the wedding.”

  Drew weighed his options. Telling her what Liam and his brothers had discussed during golf that day would be a betrayal of confidence. On the other hand, not telling her what they’d discussed would be like watching a train wreck when he could have thrown the switch to move one of those trains to another track.

  “It can’t wait until after the wedding. You have to tell him right away. Tomorrow. Or, I guess it would be today, technically.”

  She turned in her seat to look at him in the darkness of the car’s interior. The moon was bright, and he could see the outline of her face in its silvery glow.

  “I can’t tell him yet. We’re going to be spending so much time together for the wedding, and if he’s pissed at me … and you know he’s going to be pissed. And hurt.”

  “Ah, God, Megan …”

  “What?”

  She didn’t seem drunk anymore, or at least, she’d sobered up enough since leaving the bar that she seemed fully present with him, fully aware.

  He dived in.

  “He’s going to ask you to marry him. At the reception. Most likely with a microphone in his hand, in front of everybody. And you can’t let it get that far. Because then you’ll either have to crush him in front of everybody he knows, or you’ll have to say yes when you really mean no.” And neither of those options seemed viable to Drew.

  “Oh … crap.” Megan slapped a hand over her mouth in surprise. “Why would he do that? If I haven’t been willing to move in with him, what makes him think I want to marry him?”

  Drew shrugged. “He probably thinks that you said no to moving in with him because you want the full boat. Commitment. The ring, and all that.”

  “He said that?”

  “Sort of. Plus, I’m a guy, and it’s what I would think.”

  “Crap!” She ran her hands into her hair and held them there, atop her head, as though she were trying to keep it from flying off.

  All at once, Drew felt sorry for Liam.

  Getting dumped was bad. Getting dumped by someone you hoped to marry was worse. But as he looked at how her skin seemed to glow in the moonlight, the way her hair fell down onto her shoulders in a glorious cascade, he thought that getting dumped by Megan Scott—no matter the circumstances, no matter how or when she chose to do it—would be a blow from which the man was unlikely to recover.

  Drew doubted that he, himself, would.

  Chapter Eight

  It was two-thirty in the morning, Megan was sitting in the car of a man she barely knew, and she’d just learned that her boyfriend was a ticking time bomb.

  Funny how things happened.

  She was probably still a little drunk—though less than she had been when she’d left the bar—because she should have been thinking about Liam, but instead, she was thinking about Drew.

  This close to him in the car, she could smell some leftover hint of a light, spicy aftershave and his warm skin. His long body was folded into a car that was too small for him, making him seem somehow vulnerable. When he spoke to her, the timbre of his voice ran straight down her body to her toes.

  Maybe she was still more drunk than she thought, because she wanted to reach out and lay the palm of her hand on his face.

  This wasn’t good, not at all.

  “I’d better go,” she said. “Liam’s probably going to show up looking for me.”

  “What, like a stalker?”

  She winced in both sympathy and regret. “No, like a guy who wants to make sure I got home safely. I kind of ditched him back at the bar.” Plus, he probably wanted to get laid, since she’d been putting him off for a while. She didn’t tell Drew that, because there were things he just didn’t need to know.

  She didn’t want to sleep with Liam, not anymore, not now that her heart wasn’t in it. Plus, it was too late, and she was too tired.

  When it came to the relationship, she was tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour or the alcohol.

  “Give me your phone,” Drew said.

  “What?”

  “Your phone. Hand it over.” He put out his hand, waiting.

  She dug her phone out of her purse, unlocked it, and gave it to him.

  Drew went to the text messages, clicked on Liam’s name, and began composing a message.

  Sorry we missed each other at the bar. Caught a ride with a designated driver. Got home safely. Gianna’s sleeping on my couch.

  Drew showed her the screen and looked at her questioningly.

  “Send it,” she said. Drew had solved her sex problem without her ever having told him she had a sex problem. She supposed he must have intuited it. He was a guy, after all.

  Drew hit send, and the text went off into the great unknown.

  He sent it to help Megan deal with her dilemma, but he sent it for his own reasons, as well.

  The idea of Liam coming over here and maybe sleeping with Megan made him sick to his stomach, though he couldn’t say why it was his business.

  It had something to do with the way Megan was looking at him. It had something to do with her obvious misery at the situation she’d found herself in. It had to do with the fact that Liam was pretty much a prick.

  But it also had to do with the way she looked with the moonlight coming through the car windows, and the way her hair had shone when he’d seen her in the bar. It had to do with the sound of her voice in the car as she told him things he had no right to know. It had to do with the tingle he’d felt when her fingers brushed his as she’d handed him the phone.

  God, he was an asshole.

  Liam was his family—in a way. And he was a guy in love. Guys acted stupid when they were in love, so maybe Liam deserved a pass. Maybe he deserved a little compassion from a man who was, if nothing else, his blood cousin.

  Drew needed Megan to get out of the car before he kissed her. Because he knew he was going to kiss her, he knew nothing would be able to stop him if she didn’t go inside now.

  “Okay. Well … we’re here,” he said, feeling awkward.

  “Right.” She opened the car door and got out, and it occurred to Drew that a gentleman would walk her to her front door.

  He got out and came around the car to meet her, and they walked together up the front steps to the little cottage. He stood there with his hands in his pockets as she found her keys in her purse and
unlocked the door.

  “Thanks for the ride. And for listening.” She leaned over, rose onto her toes, and kissed him on the cheek.

  It was an innocent kiss, a kiss one might give to one’s mother.

  But it caused an electric charge that went straight to his groin.

  Jesus.

  He took a deep breath of the chilly night air and nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  The moment she was inside, he fled like a scared rabbit.

  Something told him he should get the next flight home, go back to building the boat he had up on pallets in his workshop, and forget any of this ever happened, forget Megan Scott even existed.

  But something else—something stronger—knew he wasn’t going to do that.

  “You’re an idiot,” he murmured to himself, not for the first time.

  The Wedding Week event for Tuesday was a whale-watching cruise out of Morro Bay.

  Drew felt a cold dread just looking at the page his mother had given him. A day of being around Megan, knowing that he had to keep his distance from her, would be excruciating.

  He called his mom in the morning to see if he could get out of the whale-watching thing, but she reacted with horror to the very suggestion.

  “My goodness, Drew! You came all the way from Canada for this wedding, I would think you’d want to at least participate.”

  “I am participating. I’m in the wedding party.”

  He could almost see her pressing her mouth into an angry line, fine wrinkles feathering out from her lips.

  “This is important to Julia.”

  “Julia won’t mind if I don’t take a damned whale-watching cruise. Hell, she won’t even notice.” But he knew that wasn’t true. She’d notice, and she’d miss him.

  “Well, do what you want,” Isabelle said, in a voice that suggested exactly the opposite. “But I would think you’d have enough love and respect for your sister to at least make the effort.”

  That sealed it. After thirty-some-odd years of manipulating Drew’s emotions for her own gain, Isabelle was an expert at it. There would be no such thing as free will for him for the next week, and there was no sense in pretending otherwise.

  “All right, I’ll be there.”

  “Good.”

  And then, hesitating, he asked, “Mom? How are things going between you and the Delaneys?” The situation—Isabelle having been Redmond Delaney’s illicit lover so many years ago—was more awkward than a three-legged race on a tightrope, and Drew had no sense of how the various parties were handling it.

  “Oh … fine,” Isabelle said vaguely.

  “Fine?” he repeated. “What, exactly, does ‘fine’ mean?”

  She let out a puff of exasperation. “Sandra barks at me, and Orin seems embarrassed by me.”

  “Sandra barks,” he told her. “It’s what she does. And Orin seems embarrassed by everything, including, but not limited to, the fact that he stands upright and breathes in and out. Don’t worry about it. It’s just how they are.”

  “Well,” Isabelle said.

  From experience, he knew that well didn’t mean, Well, you might be right, or even Well, I’ll think about that. What it meant was, Well, you’re full of shit, but I’ll be polite and refrain from saying it.

  And for all he knew, Sandra and Orin really did dislike her as much as she thought they did. Isabelle had kept a Delaney child away from them, away from the brother they loved. She’d had her reasons, God knew. But the reasons didn’t change the damage that had been done.

  Drew himself held out hope that some level of repair with his mother might be possible, at least on his end. If he’d been able to stay at home on Salt Spring Island working on his boats and staying out of all this, he would have. But since he was here, he figured he might as well do what he could to stick things back together with duct tape and Super Glue.

  So, against his better judgment, he agreed to go on the whale-watching cruise.

  The truth was, he hadn’t given in only for Isabelle’s sake. As much as it might be hard to see Megan with Liam, it was the kind of sore spot that a person just couldn’t help touching and poking at.

  God help him, was he really thinking of trying to steal his cousin’s girlfriend? The fact was, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. That wasn’t going to help him mend things with the Delaneys. No, it wasn’t going to help at all.

  Chapter Nine

  Megan’s cheek was pressed against a café table at Jitters, a coffeehouse on Main Street, and she moaned in time with the pulsing throb in her head. Breanna, sitting in a chair across from her, looked pale and clammy from a bout of vomiting earlier in the morning.

  “Whose idea was it to have a bachelorette party?” Breanna whined. Her dark hair, usually so thick and lustrous, was unwashed and pulled back into an untidy ponytail.

  “I think it was yours,” Megan said.

  “No, it wasn’t. The strippers were my idea, and we didn’t even have any. So, really, none of this was my fault.”

  Lacy Jordan, a barista with silky blond hair and legs so long they might have belonged to a thoroughbred colt, brought two strong coffees to their table—Breanna’s black, Megan’s with copious amounts of sugar and cream.

  “Here you go, ladies.” Lacy sounded unnaturally chipper. “I hope it helps.”

  “Bite me,” Breanna said.

  “It doesn’t usually come with the service, but if you insist …” Lacy batted her eyelashes and grinned.

  “I don’t even drink!” Megan complained. “At least, not that much. And I didn’t have that much last night! So why do I feel like my brain is being shoved through a dull meat grinder?”

  “Tolerance,” Lacy said wisely. “You don’t have it. The obvious answer is to drink more.”

  “Bite me,” Megan said.

  When Lacy had retreated behind the counter, Megan lifted her head off the table, which caused the pounding to intensify. She sipped her coffee and pondered whether an IV drip of espresso would be helpful.

  She wasn’t sure what she felt worse about: the physical effects of the alcohol she’d consumed the night before, or the fact that she’d had a vivid erotic dream about Drew McCray. How was she supposed to see him today for all of the various infernal Wedding Week events when she would certainly be picturing all of the things he’d done to her in her subconscious the night before?

  And oh, God, had he been good. Masterful. Commanding yet gentle, and so very thorough in his attentions to the most intimate parts of her body.

  Why was she dreaming about Drew? Even if she were available—which she wasn’t yet—it would be stupid and reckless to jump into something with another man so soon after coming off of a long-term relationship. Who did that? Stupid people, that was who. People who were gluttons for emotional torment.

  “How did you get home last night?” Breanna wanted to know. “I was talking to Jennifer Crittenden, and when I looked up, you were gone.”

  “I got a ride with … with one of the designated drivers.” She couldn’t bring herself to mention his name.

  “Oh. Did you go with Drew?”

  She could feel heat rising into her face, and she avoided making eye contact with Breanna in the futile hope that her friend wouldn’t notice.

  “You’re blushing. Why are you blushing?” Breanna’s hand smacked over her open mouth. “Oh, God! Tell me you did not hook up with Drew. You haven’t even broken up with Liam yet. If you cheated on my brother …”

  “No,” Megan moaned. “Of course I didn’t.”

  “Then what?”

  “Because I sort of did. Subconsciously. I had this dream …”

  Breanna’s eyebrows shot up. “You had a naughty dream about Drew? Well, what are you waiting for? Tell me. How was he?”

  “Amazing.” She said the word in a stage whisper. She could feel the response in her nether regions just thinking about it. But it wasn’t the sex itself she remembered best from the dream. It was the longing. The aching need. She hadn’
t been happy with Liam—not really—for so long. The part of her that felt longing and aching need had mostly been shut down.

  But last night, she’d been open for business.

  “Really,” Breanna said. “Tell me more.”

  “I’m not going to tell you all the sex details from my dream.”

  “Aww.” Breanna looked disappointed. “Why not?”

  “Because I shouldn’t have even been having that dream in the first place!” Megan threw her hands into the air in exasperation. “I’m in a relationship! For a little while longer, anyway.” She felt miserable, partly because of the hangover and partly because of the stench of infidelity and betrayal that was clinging to her every pore.

  Breanna let out a short laugh. “Oh, come on. You don’t need to feel guilty over a dream. If we were all held responsible for the things we did in dreams, I’d have been locked up for murder a long time ago.” She considered this. “And, I’d have a lot of explaining to do to any number of celebrity wives.”

  “Yeah. I know, but …”

  “But what?”

  Megan couldn’t say the rest. She couldn’t say what really had her feeling like a horrible person—the fact that she wanted the dream to be real. Not that she wanted to launch into a relationship with a man she barely knew. But would a brief but intense fling be so wrong?

  It would. Yes, it would.

  “It’s going to be awkward when I see him today,” Megan complained.

  “You know what’s going to be awkward?” Breanna said. “Going on a boat with a hangover. Whoever planned the sequence of events didn’t consider the fact that the entire female contingent on today’s cruise is going to have their heads hanging over the railing, puking into the water.”

  That did seem like a distinct possibility.

  “At least Liam will be there,” Megan said. It wasn’t that she was eager to spend time with him, given the circumstances. But Liam would provide a kind of buffer between herself and Drew during the event, something she really needed.

  “No, he won’t,” Breanna said. “Didn’t he call you?”