by Cari Quinn
“Hell yeah. We’ll take it.” Jack stood. “Good luck on a jailbreak, my Jell-O compadre.” He dropped a kiss on my forehead. He turned to Blake. “Any fires to put out?”
“I emailed you a few things to look into. And was able to reschedule two appointments until tomorrow. I’d like to get Grace settled before I return.”
“Take the day.”
“I’ll be in later.”
“I’m okay, Blake. I can take care of myself.”
He barely glanced my way. “I’ll see you later,” he said to Jack.
“Suit yourself.” Jack saluted me. “Bye, beautiful.”
“Thanks for keeping me company.”
“Anytime.” Jack shined his sunny smile on the nurse rushing into the room. She blinked, then smiled just as wide right back at him.
Ah, Jack. Ever the charmer.
Blake’s brow lowered, and his mood seemed to disintegrate before my eyes. I grabbed his hand and dragged him down to me. His glower lessened briefly as he looked me over. When his gaze landed on my mouth, there was nothing but appreciation in his hazel eyes.
“Morning, Ms. Copeland,” the nurse said. “Let’s get you freshened up. The doctor will be in to see you within the hour.”
“Perfect,” Blake said. He brushed his lips over mine, then glanced at the tray. “Jell-O?”
“I happen to like orange Jell-O.”
He licked his lips. “Hmm.”
The nurse pushed over the wheelchair that had been stashed in the corner. She was a far chipper version of my nurse from last night. I was pretty sure I’d rather have the efficient one back. This one babbled incessantly as she got me into the bathroom.
A few minutes later, we were back in my room and Mari ‘with an i’ had me back in bed. My IV had been banished sometime in the night, thank goodness. Maybe that was a good sign.
I was more than ready to get the hell out of there.
“How was Mr. Neal?” I asked.
Blake held up the sheet for me to slip back into bed. I hissed as my foot hit the mattress. His eyes went flat with no expression as he caught sight of my ankle.
“Looks worse than it is.”
“It looks like you were trying out for the part of the author in Misery.”
“That’s pretty accurate.” I grinned up at him. “Just don’t tell me you’re my biggest fan, all right?”
His knuckles were white from his grip on the blankets and sheet.
I curled my fingers around his wrist. “I’m fine.”
“What the hell were you doing in there?”
I winced as I inched my way up to a more comfortable spot on the bed. “I’m pretty sure you know.”
He frowned as he sat in the chair Jack had vacated. “I’m sure I don’t.”
“So, you weren’t reading my grandmother’s journal last night? Was I dreaming?”
“I read it.”
At least he didn’t lie about that. “She talked about the cove a lot. That she went there to think.”
“I think on my run, doesn’t mean there’s anything nefarious about it.”
I turned onto my hip. “And on that run, you don’t have anything besides a course that maps out a five kilometer loop?”
“How do you know that?”
“I may not run, but I can guess by the almost identical time you spend on each run that there’s a particular goal in mind.”
“Actually, it’s more accurate to infer I have to run until I don’t feel like strangling someone.”
“Me?”
“Sometimes.”
I shrugged. “And on this circuit there’s nowhere you could hide something in plain sight?”
He steepled his fingers. “I didn’t say that.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He tapped his fingertips together. “Were you able to do a thorough search before your…accident?”
I shook my head. “The sun was already starting to set when I got out there.”
His jaw muscle flexed. “Just how long were you in there?”
“When did you find me?”
He swiped his hand over his face. “Christ, Grace.”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“The party had already started when Jack and I finally left to find you.”
I propped myself up on my elbow. “What? Eight?”
“It was 8:23 when you finally called me.”
If it had been just a little more seasonable, I probably would have frozen to death. The water in the Atlantic was considered frigid in high summer. December? No, I’d definitely been lucky.
“You have no idea how hard it was to get that damn phone, and then to find a freaking signal.”
His fingers bunched into fists.
I reached over to cover them. “I’m fine.”
“Is that why you were half naked in that icy water?”
I shrugged. “You might want to buy up some stock in the Lifeproof company. It was the only reason—”
“Just stop.” He cupped my face, then covered my mouth with his. Visiting hours this morning didn’t include any softness, and definitely no sweetness. He devoured me. His grip escalated in direct proportion to the wildness in his kiss until I was half off the bed. His breath was labored against my throat, my scalp burning from his fingers twisted in my hair.
I clutched the lapels of his charcoal wool suit. “I’m fine.”
“Just twenty minutes more and the water would have been over your head.” His eyes were bleak. “Twenty,” he whispered.
“You found me.” He buried his face in my hair as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You found me,” I said again for him, maybe for me. I hadn’t relied on anyone except my grandmother in so very long.
Footsteps in the hall broke us apart. I glanced over his shoulder. The doctor was outside speaking with one of the nurses.
He eased me back into my bed. I fussed with the positioning arrows until I was semi-presentable and sitting up.
Blake paced back and forth, his gaze straying to his watch.
“Another meeting?”
He shook his head. “No. I just want to get you home.”
I opened his mouth to disabuse him of that term. I didn’t live with him and he was quick to remind me of that, but now didn’t seem to be the time. He really was wound up about it.
Finally, the doctor came in with a cheery, “Good morning.”
Blake pounced. “When will she be released?”
Dr. Perrault ignored Blake and stopped at my bedside. “Mari tells me you’re moving around a bit better this morning.”
I nodded. “I’m ready to blow this pop stand.”
He dug into his pocket and pulled out three Life Saver lollipops. “I agree. Pick a color and you’re out of here.”
I plucked the orange one out of his hand. “Just like old times.”
Dr. Perrault grinned. “Mari is emailing you your ankle instructions. I want you to stay off of it as much as possible. You’ll be ready to walk on it before the weekend.”
“Thank God.”
The doctor used a stylus to put something in the chart at the end of my bed. “I’m ordering your discharge papers. You should be able to have lunch at home.”
I ripped the wrapper off my lollipop and popped it in my mouth. “Perfect.”
“Now, can we keep our meetings to checkups, Ms. Copeland?”
“Definitely.”
“Good. Keep out of trouble.”
“No chance of that,” Blake muttered.
I grinned around the stick in my mouth. “Thank you, Dr. Perrault.”
When he left, Blake pulled his phone out.
“You’re supposed to have that turned off.”
Blake simply lifted an eyebrow at me. “I’m having my housekeeper ready our room.”
I rolled the lollipop around my teeth. “You don’t have a housekeeper.”
“She only comes in once a month to do a full clean. This is a special occasion.”
That had to be a
fairly recent development, because I knew Blake had…issues when it came to hiring help. “We’re going to the beach house,” I said.
He paused from his furious thumb strokes. “Pardon?”
“Did you know I designed the stained glass that arched over her back windows?”
He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “It doesn’t surprise me. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Beautiful work, Grace. You’re very talented, Grace.”
“You know very well that your work is superb. You don’t need me to tell you.”
Of course he’d say that. “It’s nice to hear, you know.”
“Is there a point to this story? You know, so I can tell you no. Because we are not going back to that house. You’re going back to the townhouse to recuperate.”
I ignored him. “Every inch of glass had been chosen by me.”
He sighed. “All right, I’ll play along. What does that have to do with this particular conversation?”
“When I was searching the house, I started looking at all the glass. It seemed to be the only common denominator.” I paused as he fisted his hands. “Did you really sic Jack on me?”
“I was left out of the loop on that particular operation.”
“Oh. Hmm.”
“I’ve had a limited amount of sleep even by my standards, Grace.”
I sighed. “A few panes of glass had been replaced in my design.”
He frowned. “Covenant glass?”
I nodded. The fact that it had been in my house, under my nose the entire time was also something I was trying to work out as well. My grandmother had hidden that journal for a reason, and she’d used Blake’s security glass to do it.
Just how well had Blake known my grandmother?
He’d told me they’d never been lovers, but that was it. Getting information out of him was like solving a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded.
“I want to go back to the cove.”
His face closed off into that mask I hated so much. “No.”
“Blake…”
“Absolutely not.”
Chapter Seven
I peered up at Blake from the passenger seat of his Range Rover. “This was not what I had in mind.”
He held the door open. “Too bad.”
I started to slide out of the SUV when he scooped me up. “Blake.” I yelped—actually, squeaked was probably a better word for it. I gripped his shoulder.
“Hang onto me, dammit.”
“I am.” He jostled me until I saw stars, but I didn’t make a freaking sound. One peep and he’d have me back in the Rover and ensconced in the townhouse like he’d planned. As it was I’d had to argue my way out of the house after we’d showered and changed into warmer clothes.
“You’re supposed to be resting this ankle. No part of that includes you traipsing across a quarter mile of sand and rocks.”
“You can’t carry me that far.”
“I did the other night.”
Okay, so I didn’t really have anything to say about that. I’d been unconscious for most of it, so I really couldn’t say anything. If I had to saw off my damn tongue with my teeth to keep my mouth shut, I would.
I hated being helpless. Hated it more than a fifteen-hour cycle in the annealing room at a glass shop. And the fact that I had to rely on Blake just made it even more frustrating.
But I also knew that the only way I’d get to the cove was if I let him help me. I was cranky and each of his long strides reminded me how limited my movements were.
He set me down on one of the large boulders at the mouth of the cave. “I’ll go in and—”
Fuck, the rock was cold. Sea spray was already dampening my jacket. “No. I need to be in there.”
“What? So you can fall back into that rock fissure? I think not.”
“You don’t know what you’re looking for.”
He put his hands on his hips. “And you do?”
It wasn’t like I wanted to go back in there. “I know my grandmother.”
“I did too.” His chest heaved as he tipped his head back.
I frowned. “Just how well did you know her, Blake?”
His face blanked again. “Annabelle was one of the few people in Marblehead that was welcoming to me as a new resident.”
“You don’t even really live in Marblehead.”
“I do now.”
I jammed my cold fingers into my ski jacket. “Just had to go there.”
“Yes,” he growled. His hazel eyes were a little wild. “I’m fucking cold and I’m back at this godforsaken cave where I almost—”
Where he’d almost lost me. I reached for him. “It wasn’t that close.”
“You didn’t see it from my point of view.” He moved until we were toe-to-toe, him looming over me. “You were blue. Your skin was colder than marble—as cold as death. Don’t tell me how close it was, Grace.”
“I’m sorry.” I levered myself up, then pushed him back a step so I could put my hands on his chest. “I was stupid.”
“Yes, you were.”
“Sugarcoat it, why don’t you?”
“I am sugarcoating it.”
I slid my hands up until my fingers curled over his shoulders under his jacket. He was deliciously warm, and his shoulders were my second favorite thing about him.
“Good thing your blunt honesty makes my girl parts tingle.”
“Jesus.” He tried to pull away, but I held him still.
“We both can go in there.”
“And how am I supposed to climb the wet rocks with you in my arms?”
“Piggyback?”
“This is not a summer picnic,” he roared.
“We can try that kind this summer, too.”
His nostrils flared before he closed his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Counting to ten.”
“Probably going to need twenty.”
His eyebrows shot up as he looked down at me.
“Is it the idea that we’ll be together this summer, or that I want to ride your back instead of your front?”
His chin dropped to his chest, but I saw his lips bending up into a smile. “Fuck.” He turned around. “Get on.”
“Yes.” I held his arm as I maneuvered myself up on a rock, then hauled him over to where I wanted him.
“Why do I put up with this?”
I slid my arms around his shoulders and hopped on. “Because we have fantastic sex.”
“Not a good enough reason.” He hiked me up until my cheek brushed his.
I was tempted to say because he loved me, but I didn’t want to press my luck. “Onward, great steed.”
“That’s it. I’m dumping you into the ocean.”
I laughed and locked my good leg around his hips even tighter. “You’ll do no such thing.”
It was slow going up the rocks that made up the wide mouth of the cove. There was a steep drop off down to a little swimming hole in the semi-circle of rocks, but what I was interested was a little higher and to the left of the pool of choppy water.
“Up that way.”
“This better be worth it,” he said with a grunt.
I wasn’t really sure I’d find anything, but I had the same feeling as I did the other night. There was something here, I knew it.
I tried to hang onto his middle, but the splint on my ankle and his every movement seemed to make my ankle throb. I was going to need to down a bottle of Advil when this was over.
Maybe with a vodka chaser.
Finally, he stopped and lowered me against a rock that was in the crude shape of a chair. I held on to the side of it as my butt landed on the wet rock.
He bent at the waist and dragged in a breath.
“That huffing and puffing better not come with a dietary warning.”
“Lugging a twenty-pound bag would be hard, let alone a buck twenty.”
“Seventeen, thank you.”
“Excuse me.” He collapsed against the
cave wall. “Where do you think she would hide something?”
“Check the little crevices for a small shelf or stone box.”
He felt along the walls. He was methodical and thorough. A helluva lot more patient than I would be, to be honest. I scooted around on the various rocks and did the lower sections of the cave.
“Are you sure it would be this side?”
“This is where she took me all the time as a kid. We used to hide conch shells with little semi-precious gems in them.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me.
I shrugged. “For the mermaids.”
“Of course.”
“Can’t live on the beach as a kid—especially one named Lady’s Cove—without stories of mermaids and crashed ships.”
“I suppose not.”
We kept searching. My fingers were almost numb, but I kept moving down the rocks. Finally, a piece fell away. “Blake.”
He backtracked to crouch beside me. “What’d you find?”
“A shelf. I can feel something.”
“Let me.”
“Your hand’s too big.” The hole was very dark. “Please don’t be an animal or something,” I whispered and stuck my hand inside. There was something there. Smooth and jagged on the corners.
I coaxed it out with my forefinger until it dropped into my palm. “Help me down?” Maybe? My chest tightened as I held up my find.
Blake jumped to the sandy part of the cove. The tide was out, so the sand was packed down tight. I scooted to the edge and let him lift me into his arms.
“Wash it off?”
He nodded and took the lump and crouched near the water’s edge. He came back with clean hands and a small conch shell.
Disappointment flooded my eyes with tears. “Mermaid,” I said as I brushed away a cracked piece of shell to find a jade lookalike stone. I dimly remembered tucking the sand around the leather cord and pretty drop pendant. The cord had long since disintegrated leaving a sea-ravaged jump-ring through the stone.
Instinctively, I tucked it into my jacket pocket, but it definitely wasn’t what I was searching for.
Blake slid an arm around my waist and gathered me in. “Let’s get you back.”
I nodded into the warmth of his jacket. “In a minute.” I let a few stupid tears drip down my face as I laid my cheek against his chest.
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “The tide is starting to come in. We can try again another day.”