by Various
He kept his other hand in his pocket instead and struggled not to think X-rated thoughts as her hip bumped against his every few steps. In a minute they reached the keeper’s house, a small, square one-story building, gray and weathered from the salt air the way most homes near the ocean tended to be. It had a solid but old door, a crumbling stoop, a chimney that had seen better days. A cracked window or two. Guess ten years of neglect would do that to a place. To a place, and a town, and the people who lived there too.
Only the engraved brass plaque hanging beside the door still looked new.
“What’s this?” Sophie ran her fingertips over the lettering. “In memory of Mitchell Talbot.” She turned to him. “Oh. The other keeper who died, right? More recently?”
Lucas cracked his knuckles and scanned the horizon. “Yep.” He waited for her to ask when and where and how, and then tried to figure out how he’d answer, but she didn’t.
Instead all she said was, “Not another murder, was it?”
“Nope.”
She tried the knob, but it didn’t budge. “Damn. Thought Lon might’ve already unlocked it.”
“Here, here, hang on.” Lon trudged up the path behind them. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”
“You know me, handsome. Patience isn’t one of those virtues God gave me.” Sophie flashed him a smile and stepped back from the door, close to Lucas. Close enough that he could smell her perfume or lotion or shampoo or something. He didn’t know or care what the hell it was, only that it was enough to make him stop thinking about Mitchell Talbot and the keeper’s house and anything else except the way Sophie’s bare skin would feel next to his, her legs tangled with his and his hands in her hair and–
“Here we go.” Lon turned the key, and Sophie followed him inside, and the moment was gone. Just in time, too, because Mr. Wake-up-and-Look was turning into Mr. Wake-up-and-Let’s-Go in a hurry. Hell, keep it under control, Oakes. Think about the Red Sox. Lucas yanked at the bill of his baseball cap and stepped across the threshold.
Lon stopped in the middle of the kitchen. His cheeks puffed in and out as he looked around. “Need to get a few shots in here.” He pointed at Lucas. “Tomorrow. First thing.”
Lucas nodded. But there wasn’t much to see, as far as he was concerned. Three rooms made up the place, besides the kitchen they stood in: a bedroom and small living room and bathroom and all pretty dusty.
“They found the wife in here, right?” Lon turned to Lucas with the question. “In the kitchen? Strangled?”
Lucas nodded.
“Huh. I would-a thought the bedroom. Like maybe he found her in bed with–” He glanced at Sophie and stopped.
“What?” She threw the word at him. “Don’t stop on my regard. Go on, please. Tell the whole damn story.”
“Forget it.” He brushed by her and went back outside. “I’ll talk to Terrence about it.”
Lucas’s head swiveled to the door and back. “What was that about?”
Sophie shrugged. “Sometimes he gets weird when we’re filming.” She stuck her head into the bedroom. A bed with a red-checked comforter hugged the far wall under a salt-streaked window with a faded blue curtain. Thick layers of dust covered a dressing table and chair. A few stray papers lay scattered on the floor, and a closet door hung partly open, revealing an old suitcase, dented and dated in style. “You ever been here before?”
And he decided to lie. A white lie, nothing major, because it didn’t matter whether he had or he hadn’t. “Nope.”
Facing him, she ran her fingers down the doorframe. “Kind of a sad place, don’t you think?” But the softening of her mouth and the look in her eyes didn’t suggest sadness. Her pupils darkened, and if he hadn’t been so out of practice with reading women, he would have sworn desire was slipping through her mind the same damn way it was slipping through his.
From where he stood, there was a foot or two between them. If he took one step, there would be less than that. She’d be within arms’ reach, that cute curvy figure and the hair he wanted to loosen from its headband and let fall around his fingers as he pulled her close.
Lucas stopped the thoughts. Two people working together shouldn’t get involved. He’d heard that advice more times than he could remember.
“Mm hmm. Kind of sad.” He took one step. She took the other.
“Lucas, listen. I usually don’t–” she began, but instead of putting distance between them, she rose up on her tiptoes to meet him.
The rest of her words disappeared inside his mouth. He had no control, zero, willpower straight out the window, the minute she softened against him. Her lips parted, and she sighed into his mouth, the smallest sound that turned him hard in a second. He caught her chin with one hand and pulled her to him, and it was like he had never kissed anyone before, the way he wanted her, his tongue inside her and his hands making their way down to her wrists, to her waist, pulling her close as he tasted more. Wanted more. His mouth moved to her neck, to the skin at the base of her throat, and she sighed as he nipped at her flesh.
“Sophie.” He breathed the word. One hand slipped the strap of her sleeve to her elbow, then did the same with her bra, and all he could think of was tasting what lay beneath it. Silk. Bare skin. Warmth and maybe the tang of her soap, and–
Someone cleared a throat behind them.
Shit. Lucas froze. Caught by Lon. Caught by the damn producer, who’d give him a lecture about doing his job and minding his business and keeping his hands off the talent. He returned both straps to their rightful positions. So he’d gotten a little carried away. Wasn’t like Sophie had stopped him. Still, he turned around, ready to apologize.
But the person in the kitchen with them wasn’t Lon.
“Taking after your grandmother, eh, Soph?”
Grandmother? Lucas frowned. What the hell?
Sophie stiffened under the one hand he still rested on her arm. Her skin went cold, and when he looked at her face, all color had left her cheeks.
“Tom Allen?” Instinctively, Lucas moved between him and Sophie, turning his body so she was hidden behind him.
“Lucas.” He bobbed his head. The greasy, unemployed town alcoholic, whose claim to fame was that his father had once done part-time maintenance work on the lighthouse, leaned against the refrigerator with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and a shit-eating grin on his face. His next words weren’t for Lucas, though. He dropped his head to one side and said to Sophie, “I dunno as I’d tempt fate. This place isn’t so good to Smiths and their lovers.”
Lucas glanced behind him. Sophie’s jaw twitched, and her eyes darkened, but he wasn’t sure if it was anger or fear or a little bit of both.
When she spoke, though, all he heard was pure steel. “I’m not a Smith. And what the hell are you doing here?”
Chapter 9
“Thank you again,” Sophie said after the waitress delivered their drinks. She and Lucas sat in the corner of a tiny dining room made up of ten tables and a bar in the opposite corner.
“For what?”
She lifted her glass and touched it to his. “Being my knight in shining armor earlier today. Telling that idiot to get lost.” Kissing her until she’d lost her mind.
He smiled, a real one that got her straight down to the soles of her feet. Tingles. Times two. She sipped her wine to distract herself.
“You’re welcome. Tom Allen’s a nuisance.”
“But I’m guessing people put up with him around here.”
Lucas shrugged. “Everyone puts up with everyone around here. Tom Allen’s from Lindsey Point, his whole life. Father and grandfather before him.”
“Mm. So you all watch each other’s backs.” Sweet in theory, but in practice, not so much. She got chills every time she thought about the guy, with his yellow teeth and nasty breath and worst of all, his belief that she was– “This was a nice idea,” she said to stop her own thoughts from running wild. “Dinner, I mean.” She looked around the room. “And this is a nice place. Doesn’
t even look like a restaurant from the outside.”
“That’s kind of the point. Russ and Ryan wanted a low-key place, away from downtown.”
“And away from the tourists?”
“Exactly.”
Again with the cold shoulder to anyone who didn’t belong. Fine. Sophie settled her arms on the table. Small towns liked their own. They protected their own. But she’d visited a hundred of them, and Lindsey Point was different. If it turned in on itself anymore, it would disappear. She glanced outside. An enormous window made up almost the entire front wall of the restaurant and overlooked the bay. Starlight reflected off the water. From here the whole town lay between them and the lighthouse. She rested her cheek on her hand. Honestly, she liked the distance, knowing its stones and its secrets were a good three or four miles away instead of outside the window of the bed and breakfast. She wondered if Lucas had chosen it deliberately, sensing her need to get away.
Or maybe it was just a family favorite.
She reached for the basket on the table, deciding she could have one piece of bread tonight. She’d forego dessert as a tradeoff. Maybe. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Today at the keeper’s house.” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say.
“Before Tom Allen showed up?” He crooked a brow.
“Exactly.” She felt herself color. “What was that?”
He met her gaze, deep brown eyes boring straight into her. “Last time I checked, I think it was called a kiss.” He paused. “Did I read it wrong?”
She shook her head. “Not at all.” It was nice, she wanted to say, but that sounded like she was about twelve, so she kept quiet.
He smiled and tore into the loaf of bread on the table.
“So do you live at home?” she asked Lucas after a long moment of awkward bread-buttering. “With your parents?”
He gave her a cutting look. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. Why? Lots of people still do.”
“Maybe. I guess. I don’t.”
“But you’re still here. In town, I mean. You didn’t pick up and move somewhere else.”
For a moment he didn’t say anything. Finally he opened his menu and said, “That’s a different question.”
She waited, but he didn’t offer anything else, and before she could ask, a thin middle-aged man in a crisp white shirt, khakis, and a thin red tie came over to take their order. “Lucas! How’re your mom and dad?”
“Hey, Russ, good. Thanks. This is Sophie. She’s with the TV crew, doing the story on the lighthouse.”
“Nice to meet you, sweetheart.” Russ winked.
“Where’s Ryan tonight?” Lucas asked.
“Teaching a culinary class for the adult ed program over at the high school.”
“Ah, right. Heard about that.”
“Nice guy,” Sophie said after he took their order and left.
“Very.”
“Gay?”
“Very.”
“That explains why this place is decorated so well.”
Lucas cocked his head. “Little stereotypical, wouldn’t you say?”
“Listen, I have two friends back in the city who are gayer than rainbows and puppy dogs put together in the middle of a meadow.” Sophie leveled a look at him. “They are the best dressed men I know, and they have the most beautiful apartments you’ll ever see. Should be in magazines.”
“Well, that solves the puzzle. All gay men are well dressed and closet interior decorators.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Of course not.” But the corners of his mouth curved up. “So how much do you know about Lindsey Point? You do a lot of reading and stuff before you got here?”
“About the lighthouse? Or the hauntings?”
“Both.”
“I did my research. Usually we talk to people when we get to the location too, though. It’s a little realer, if you know what I mean. Everything printed in a newspaper or on a website is just someone else’s story. It gets told over and over the same way, after a while. It’s more fun to find out first-hand.”
“Hm.” Lucas finished his beer. “So lemme ask you somethin’.”
A little stirring started up in her stomach and spread to her chest. The kiss. Ask me about the kiss. About how much I liked it, and how much I’d like it to happen again, only longer this time, and sweeter, and with your hands in other places.
“What Tom Allen said earlier today, that bit about you being a Smith?”
If the stirring feeling had been desire, it turned to indigestion in a hurry.
“What was he talking about?”
Sophie reached for her wine glass. Empty. Damn. “Nothing. Some story he made up for a little attention.”
Lucas studied her. “Uh huh.”
“I’m serious.” She shrugged. “He came up to me yesterday and went on about the Smiths being my grandparents, and my father being–” She made air quote marks with her fingers. “–the Baby on the Beach. Which of course is complete nonsense.”
Lucas nodded.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She flagged down the busboy and ordered another Pinot. Pronto. “Don’t even tell me you believe what he said.” Her gut went cold. “Oh, no. Hell no.”
“I didn’t say I believed it. But I heard it around town, sure. When people were talking about you coming here to film.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and for the first time all night, it occurred to Sophie he wasn’t wearing a baseball cap. She could see his whole face, from the curls falling over his forehead to the tips of his earlobes. She liked it. Or she would have, if she hadn’t suddenly been thinking of an escape from this whole conversation. “Some people are saying that’s why you came here,” Lucas finished. “Because you’re the Smiths’ granddaughter.”
“What?” Her leg jolted the table.
“It kind of makes sense. If it’s true.”
“It isn’t.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Really? Because don’t get mad or anything, but you do kind of look like Miranda. From the pictures I’ve seen, I mean.”
“Stop right there.” Sophie laid one hand flat on the table between them. “Seriously. I had this conversation with Lon last night. I’m sure as hell not gonna repeat it with you.” She shoved her hair behind her ears and wished she hadn’t spent almost an hour getting ready for dinner, wished she didn’t care what Lucas thought or that she’d closed her eyes and crossed her fingers that the night wouldn’t end with a handshake but something decidedly less casual and involving a lot more skin.
“The fact that I bear some kind of resemblance to someone who died around here fifty years ago does not mean I’m related to her. God.” She felt her cheeks flame, and an edge of frustration crept into her voice. The bartender sent over her wine, and she grabbed onto the glass with both hands.
“Listen, I’m sorry. There were a lotta people gossiping about it the last week or two. If it’s not true, then it’s not true. Period. End of story.”
“It’s not true.” Sophie blinked a few times and fastened her gaze over his shoulder, on a painting of an ocean sunrise that hung on the wall behind them. Pinks and reds and deep blues, set against black. Gorgeous. And terrifying. All water and sky, and nothing else. No wonder people built lighthouses. They needed some glimmer of hope in the darkness.
“Your father, whoever he is–you don’t know him?” Lucas asked after a minute.
“Never did,” Sophie said as she drew in a breath. “He died six months after I was born, and my mom never talked much about him. I know he was a good guy, hard worker. Swept her off her feet the minute they met.” She stared into the pale yellow of her wine. “But he’s not some tragic hero from a ghost story. If he was, she would have told me.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Don’t you think?”
He paused a moment before answering. “I don’t know. Families–people in general, I think–they keep secrets. Maybe she wanted to protect
you. It’s a pretty awful way to lose your grandparents. Maybe she didn’t want you to grow up thinking you were the center of some...I don’t know, some soap opera everyone knows about.”
Sophie shook her head. “It isn’t true. It can’t be.”
Lucas stacked their empty salad plates on the edge of the table as their entrees arrived. “What about pictures? Your mom have any pictures of him as a kid?”
She sliced her salmon steak in two. “What is this, the third degree? I didn’t know that’s why we were having dinner tonight.”
“I didn’t mean to pry.” He reached over to take her hand, but she pulled it away.
“Of course you did. Apparently, you’re as nosy as everyone else around here.”
“No, I’m not. And I could say the same thing about you, coming here when you don’t know anything about Lindsey Point but acting like you do.”
His words stung. Worse, they weren’t entirely untrue. “Fair enough,” she said to her fish. She counted to five and raised her gaze. “Truce?”
He smiled. “Truce. But all I meant was it made some kind of sense when people talked about it. Why you were coming here, I mean. If it were me, I’d want to know about my dad, especially if I’d never met him. That’s why I asked.” He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, and this time she let him. “But you’re not related to the Smiths. And the lighthouse story has nothing to do with you.”
“Right.”
“So let’s talk about something else.”
She smiled for the first time in a long five minutes. “Good idea. But I get to choose.”
“Am I going to regret this?
She grinned and shrugged.
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“I want to know why you’re here.”
“Having dinner with you?” He raised one brow, and all the animosity hanging over the table vanished. Replacing it was a low, lovely warmth that spread from her stomach to the space between her legs in a hurry.
Oh, damn. Take it easy, Sophie.
“No, I mean here in Lindsey Point. Why didn’t you ever leave?”