by Various
“Yes,” Sophie nodded. “That’s pretty much what happened.” Lucas didn’t need to know the rest, not right now. They all had demons, didn’t they? Past hurts and past loves that they tried like hell to get over but were always going to be part of the fabric they wove around themselves, no matter what. What Katie needed to sort out with her husband and her son was her business. She hadn’t hurt Sophie, not physically. She’d meant to scare her, yes. She’d had Sophie followed. But when she’d found out Tom Allen meant to hurt her, to kill her if he had to, Katie had stopped him. She’d put herself squarely in front of his weapon not once but twice. In Sophie’s book, that counted for something.
She squeezed Lucas’s hand. They could talk about it later.
“Think that’s about all. Thanks for your help,” the cop said.
Sophie breathed in the aroma of fresh-brewing coffee looked around. Caffeine would help her headache and her chills and the incredible exhaustion pulling at her bones. She rubbed her eyes, not caring if her mascara and eyeliner were smudged down to her chin. God, it smelled amazing. Was that cinnamon? She didn’t hear everything the cop said to Lucas. She could only make out a few words about assault and weapons charges and something else she didn’t understand. The walls grew fuzzy, and for a moment she wondered if she needed Francine’s touch. One breath in. One breath out. Nope, no panic here. Simple exhaustion, that was all. And Francine’s hands weren’t the ones she needed on her right now.
Sophie tossed off the blanket, suddenly overheated. “Where’s Francine?”
“I’m right here.” The woman appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, a coffee mug in one hand and a plate of doughnuts in the other. Probably day-old, Sophie thought. Maybe two days old. But she smiled. “You’re okay too? I mean, I’m not asking about cookies or coffee.”
Francine nodded. “I got a little nervous when I turned around an’ you were still standing in the clearing, lookin’ around like...” She faltered. “Like maybe you were seein’ a ghost or something. I don’t know. Before I could say anything, he came out of the woods like he’d been waitin’ there the whole time.” She shivered, and the motion shook her entire frame. “I guess maybe I shouldn’t have left you there. But I thought it’d be better to get someone, to stop someone driving by.”
“It was. It was the smartest thing you could have done.”
And so she had. Hundred-pound, scared-of-her-own-shadow Francine had walked into the middle of Main Street and waved down a car which turned out to be driven by Jim Riggins, Lucas’s former football coach and Francine’s former history teacher. Two phone calls had turned out almost the entire town, and after that he’d bustled her into the passenger seat of his car and kept her company until the police escorted her back to her parlor.
Considering all that, Sophie thought, fragile Francine looked remarkably calm and put-together. Even managed to bring out some refreshments for her guests. Sophie took one of the doughnuts and bit in. Crumbs dropped everywhere as the pastry crumbled in her mouth, drier than hell. “You know,” she said, “I think Charles–you know, the owner of the cafe downtown?”
Francine nodded. Lucas looked at her strangely.
“I think he might start giving baking lessons. Not, I mean–not that you need to take them, or anything.” She did her best to remove her foot from her mouth and tried again. “I mean, I know you buy most of your food. I thought maybe you could come up with a signature pastry for this place. His stuff is delicious,” she finished.
Francine stared at the plate of doughnuts. “That’s a good idea. I always kind of liked to cook.”
“Since when is Charles giving baking lessons?” Lucas whispered. “And why the hell would you know that?”
She gave him a look. “You aren’t the only one who knows a few things about the people in Lindsey Point.”
“You’ve become a resident expert in less than a week?”
She jabbed him with an elbow. “No.”
The cop in the corner cleared her throat. Cute woman, dark-eyed and dark-haired and built like a brick house. For a moment she thought a look passed between the cop and Lucas, but it was gone before Sophie could analyze or understand it. They knew each other, she told herself. Everyone here did. And maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with that.
“I think we have all the information we need at this point, Miss Smithwaite,” she said. “We’re asking you to stay in town for another twenty-four hours or so, though. Got some questioning we still have to do. If we need to do any follow-up, we’d like to be able to reach you.” She stood and pulled her cap over her eyes.
“Of course.” She could handle sleeping on a scratchy featherbed one more night.
“Lucas.” She nodded in his direction, and he waved a hand in return. The cops left, Francine wandered back to the kitchen, and then it was just the two of them.
Sophie reached down and pulled at the soggy bandage still attached to her ankle.
“Let me get it.” Lucas’s giant paws moved her fingers out of the way and tugged at the edge.
“I can take it off.”
“Sophie.” He stilled her hands. “Stop it.”
“You don’t have to do everything, you know,” she huffed as she sat back up and let him unwind it. “I mean, jump in the water, pull me out, take care of my injuries.”
“Why not?” He straightened. “What’s so horrible about being taken care of?”
Her jaw twitched, and she pressed her lips together. “I always took care of myself,” she said. “Even with my mom. I mean, she did her best, but I’m not so good at, you know, letting down my guard.”
“No kidding.” He cupped her cheek with the palm of his hand. “You know, sometimes panic attacks come from trying to control every last thing in your life.” His thumb moved over her bottom lip. “Start thinking you’re losing your grip, and your body rebels. Heartbeat speeds up–” He kissed her temple. “Face gets flushed–” Then her cheek. “Maybe some dizziness. You lose your breath a little.”
“Mm hmm.” Sophie reached up with both hands and pulled his mouth to hers. God, she wanted to taste him, to thank him, to breathe him in while the coffee still brewed and the scent of mothballs filled the room and everything in this moment was strange and unfamiliar and somehow made complete sense in her life right now.
“You drive me crazy,” he murmured. Her hands moved to his chest, his waist, the wet t-shirt clinging to his torso that she wanted off right the hell now. But as she worked her fingers under the fabric until they touched skin, chilled but smooth, he pulled back and studied her face. “What comes next?”
She looped one finger inside the waistband of his shorts. “Something that involves these hitting the floor, I’m hoping.”
He laughed out loud, one of the first times she could remember hearing him do so. And she loved it. It was a deep, broad sound that made her want to crawl inside her lap and stay there for a long, long time. What’s so horrible about being taken care of?
“I mean after tonight.” He ran one hand over her hair, tangled and salty and probably looking like a rat’s nest. For the first time in her life, she didn’t care. No cameras, no makeup artist, no audience to pretend to.
She sat back in her chair. “I don’t know.” She looked past him, to the window with the patchwork curtains pulled back. The top of the lighthouse skimmed the moon. “If you’re asking what I’m going to do with the land or the lighthouse.” She stopped. “I don’t have a clue.”
“I didn’t mean you had to plan out the next ten years of your life.”
“I know. But you would have a plan, wouldn’t you? You would fix up the keeper’s house. Clear the land by the cove and build a home of your own. Carry your bride over the threshold.”
“Where the hell am I getting a bride?”
She made a face and traced her fingers down one arm. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know, Soph. Last week, last year it all would have made perfect sense. I love this place. I’ve told yo
u that ten times, at least. Livin’ here and building a house on the water, sounds like heaven.”
She nodded.
“But I don’t know anymore.”
“Come on. Your parents, your friends are all here.”
“They’ll always be here.” He shrugged. “Sure, maybe I’ll stay. Maybe I won’t. But you said yourself, there’s a lotta places out there in the world to visit. Crazy foods to eat. Women to–”
She put her hand over his mouth before he could finish. “You will not be sleeping with any exotic foreign women as long as I’m in the picture.”
He raised one brow.
“And no, I haven’t got a clue how long that will be either.” She wound his fingers through his and stood, swaying only a little on her stiff ankle. “But weren’t you saying I shouldn’t try to plan and control every last thing in my life?”
“Since when do you listen to anything that comes out of my mouth?”
She pulled him closer, until his arms wound around her. Even after their dip in the ocean, after a day of bumps and bruises, he still smelled the same, like fresh air and deodorant and one hundred percent rugged man. Her gaze flicked to the window as they moved toward the stairs, and she was in the middle of willing him to pick her up and carry her to the third floor when she saw it.
“Lucas.”
He kissed her, long and hard and pulling her to her tiptoes. “Hmm?”
“Look.” She pointed at the lighthouse. A pinprick of yellow moved from floor to floor, as if someone inside was holding a light and climbing to the top. “Am I imagining things?”
“I don’t know. I see it. A light, right?”
“Yes.” But the lighthouse remained taped off and locked, and at least one police car was still parked on the beach. “What do you think it is?” It continued to move upwards. “I mean, I know you don’t believe in ghosts, but...”
He shrugged. “Not sure.” They stood there in silence another minute or so, watching it. It dimmed a couple of times but never went away. Finally it stopped at the top, winking through the dark. “Maybe we’re not meant to have answers for everything,” he said. “Strange lights, or ghosts, or buried treasure, or...”
Or love and where we find it.
Lucas swept the hair from her neck and kissed all the breath from her body. Sophie closed her eyes, and desire sent sparks zipping into places she hadn’t felt them in a long, long time.
Maybe we’re supposed to believe in the things we can’t touch or prove, things like ghosts or fate or even wrong turns that lead us right where we’re supposed to be, things like moonlight that appear and disappear with the tides but ask us to have a little faith in where they’re taking us.
Hometown Heroes #2: Inferno of Love
Reader, I hope you enjoyed Beacon of Love! Continue the series with the second book, Inferno of Love:
What happens when your soul mate returns after twelve long years – and has no idea who you are?
One teenage summer, Finn and Aubrey fell in love in the tiny coastal town of Lindsey Point. But that was before a local fire turned him into a hero and a horrific accident stole her memory. When Aubrey walks into his bar years later with no memory of who he is or what they had, he’s stunned, and it takes everything in him not to tell her about their past.
It’s only a matter of time before friendly conversation turns to passion on the beach and more. But when a series of events raises suspicion that Finn himself might have started the historic fire, Aubrey is forced to do whatever she can to discover the truth about both their pasts, including going back to where it all began.
About the Author
Allie Boniface is a small-town girl at heart who's traveled around the world and still finds that the magic and the mystery of small towns make them the best places to fall in love and find adventure. From the New England coast to Rocky Mountain hotels to tiny European bars, she's found more character and plot inspirations than she could ever count. Currently, she's lucky enough to live in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley with her own romance hero, her husband who can fix, build, drive, and grill anything and is the epitome of the strong and silent type.
When she isn't writing love stories, Allie is a full-time high school English teacher who enjoys helping her teenagers negotiate the ups and downs of writing along with the ups and downs of life (because, really, she's still trying to do the same thing!). And while she'll continue to travel far and wide, Allie knows there's really nothing like coming back to the place where the people who have known you welcome you home with open arms.
Allie's Website
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The Opposite of Wild
by
Kylie Gilmore
Chapter One
Ryan O’Hare sat at the swank bar of the Four Seasons Hotel New York, the beer in front of him untouched, as he kept an eye on his mark. The short, bald man in a suit at the other end of the bar hadn’t ordered yet, and his eyes nervously scanned the lobby. Ryan’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the number, his younger brother Travis. Not now. I’m waiting for the money shot.
A young redhead—twenty-five at the most—in a skintight blue dress that barely covered her ass approached, working those hips. He slid the microcamera from his pocket and waited. Quick kiss hello on the lips. That’s a start. Now he just needed proof they went someplace private together. He’d have to wait for however many drinks it took the soon-to-be divorced Stew Harbinger to get this one up to his room. Stew’s hand slid up her inner thigh—not too long a wait.
His cell vibrated again. Another message from Trav. Dammit. Trav knew he was working tonight. He ignored it. Mrs. Harbinger wanted before and after pictures of her cheating husband for the divorce battle to come. Cheating spouses were the bulk of his private investigator business.
Marriage was a crock.
Stew pulled a velvet box from his pocket. The redhead was delighted. Diamond earrings. Oh, Stewie. You’re going to pay for those. He snapped a few more pictures. His cell vibrated. This time a text from Trav: Call me. It’s about Gran.
Ryan tensed. Gran was seventy-two and had walked away from a car accident last week on Route 84 without a scratch on her. A fucking miracle. She’d been sideswiped by a truck in her little Corolla, did a few three-sixties across two lanes of traffic and landed on the grassy median. The ER doctor had said she was fine. Still, he and his brothers had taken turns checking in on her over the past week. He’d even placed an ad for more regular care this summer. She’d been doing odd things since the accident, like eating Snickers for breakfast and skipping her cholesterol pills. His sweet gran had even called him an old nag just for checking in on her.
He took one last look at Stew and the redhead cooing at each other, decided to risk it, and slipped out to the marbled lobby to call Trav back. “It’s Ryan. What’s up?”
“Now don’t go ballistic…”
Ryan said nothing. Trav always spilled his guts to fill the silence.
True to form, Trav spilled. “I just saw Gran, and she was really happy.”
“Yeah, so? That’s good.” He scanned the lobby in case Stew and his lover headed for their hotel room.
“When I asked her why, she said it was because she took your Harley out for a ride and, I quote,” Trav’s voice rose to a falsetto, “‘felt the wind in my hair.’”
Ryan let out a string of curses that had heads turning. He lowered his voice. “Who gave her the keys?”
“She said she wanted to leave you a lasagna. I gave her my key to your place.”
How the hell did she know his Harley keys were in his kitchen drawer? Gran on a Harley. She was seventy-two freaking years old! He paced back and forth, imagining all the worst-case scenarios—her frail body flattened or crumpled on the side of the highway. Nothing could happen to her. He wouldn’t let it.
“You still there, buddy?” Trav asked.
He jammed a hand through his hair. “I’m changing the locks on the g
arage. And don’t give her my key ever again!”
“Sorry, Ry. But Gran and the Harley are both fine. I just thought you should know. Maybe you could talk some sense into her.”
Ryan rubbed his throbbing temple at the headache already building there. “I’ll talk to her.” His grandmother needed a keeper ASAP. He pocketed his phone and slipped back into the bar.
Dammit! Stew and the redhead were gone.
~ ~ ~
Liz Garner grabbed her cell phone off the kitchen counter, whirled, and aimed the tiny camera at the code on the tub of hummus. “Fitness Woman,” she sang as the nutrition label popped up on the screen and saved to her MyFoodBuddy app. Fifty calories per serving.
She wished she wasn’t celebrating the last day of school alone tonight, but the other teachers were all married with kids. She arranged the chopped veggies by color in a large bowl around the hummus and reminded herself there was nothing wrong with being single. Thirty was the new twenty-five, right? So what was a two-year dry spell? She snatched the pinot grigio from the fridge. It wasn’t like she’d shrivel up and die from lack of—
The doorbell rang, startling her. She wasn’t expecting any visitors.
She peeked through the peephole and flung open the door. “Daisy! You should’ve called me. I’d have picked you up at the train station.”
Her older sister stood on the other side of the door, her long, blond hair up in a messy ponytail, her eyes red and puffy. “I took a cab. Oh, Liz,” she cried before throwing her arms around her sister.
Liz blinked and pulled back to look at what pressed between them. Through the outline of Daisy’s flowing pink sundress was an unmistakable baby bump.
She gasped. “Daisy, you’re—”
“I know!” she exclaimed before bursting into tears.
Omigod. Liz guided her to the sofa. Daisy had to be at least six months along, and not once had she given a clue about her current predicament—single, pregnant, and living on a receptionist’s salary. Handing her a tissue, she put a comforting arm around Daisy’s heaving shoulders. Daisy leaned in and sobbed into Liz’s favorite lavender button-down shirt. Daisy is my priority. I’ll have the shirt dry-cleaned tomorrow.