A Stone in Time

by Kim Allred

  Finn fumbled with his pants. A small voice in the back of his mind made a meager attempt to stop this reckless behavior, but the passion that had lain dormant since she had left a few hours earlier silenced his fear of regret. Her face reflected his own desire. He slid onto the bed. Her arms embraced him and pulled him down, and with equal passion, they let the Daphne Marie rock them sweetly into the afternoon.

  The view from the large bay windows revealed an expansive sky, dotted with evaporating puffs of marshmallow clouds. The sun reflected off the ocean, trying to ward off the dark clouds lining the far horizon. A storm was coming.

  Ethan stood in his living room and weighed his options. He had done all he could to protect AJ, but something tugged at him, traveling the length of his back. He was familiar with the sensation, a bad omen. He was missing something.

  He knew time was growing short. He’d experienced it before when they had gotten close, but that wasn’t what triggered his sixth sense. Ethan was as far away from finding the object as he was to knowing what bothered him. Perhaps he should make another visit to Finn Murphy. No. It would be better to follow him, but Murphy’s location in the bay made that difficult.

  The realization of his next move rocked him. He needed to trust AJ if he expected her to do the same of him. Maybe he wouldn’t have to tell her the whole truth, just enough to convince her to help him. Then she might fully comprehend the risk Murphy represented. His plan didn’t provide any insight into what was nagging him, but it gave him the satisfaction that he had something to do beyond staring at the sea, as beautiful as it might be.

  Now he had to find AJ.

  AJ opened her eyes. The shadows creeping their way across the room told her that it was late afternoon. Finn slept beside her, his face soft and boyish, and she wanted a glimpse into his dreams. His long lashes were a touch darker than his brows, and his wavy mane lighter, almost a match for her own curls. Her eyes traveled to the soft, downy hair on his chest, and she started to run her fingers across it until she spotted the medallion.

  It was a silver Celtic cross, all arms equal distance in length, a circle encompassing the intersecting lengths. Embedded inside the circle was an unusual stone. She had seen it before—where?

  Finn stirred beside her, and her gaze moved back to his face. He watched her, his eyes dark and sleepy. AJ brushed the hair from his face and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

  “This is a most pleasant way to wake from a nap,” he said. His voice was husky from sleep.

  AJ rolled to her side, resting on her arm. “I have to admit, I don’t mind playing hooky from work.”

  He pulled her back to him. “I’m glad I’ve been able to be a distraction for you.”

  She rested her head against his chest and sighed in contentment. “Yes, you’ve definitely been that.” His chuckle resonated in her ears. She touched his medallion. “Where did you get such a beautiful cross?” He stiffened for an instant before pulling her closer.

  “It’s an old heirloom.” He rolled over, trapping AJ beneath him, the cross grazing her breasts. Finn grinned. “And there will be no antiquing aboard ship today, madam.” He kissed her on her forehead and more passionately on her lips.

  AJ forgot about the medallion as Finn demonstrated his personal techniques for creating alternative distractions.

  An hour later, as AJ dressed alongside Finn, the medallion long forgotten, she broached the question that had nagged at her when she had first arrived. “You were working on the sails earlier. Was it maintenance or something else?” She tried to keep her tone light.

  Finn looked at her, his gaze soft but determined. “Where did you think this was going to go?”

  “I don't know. I guess I hadn’t thought it through.”

  He ran his hand over her shoulder, and the tingle burrowed straight to her core. He cupped her breast, his hand warm through her shirt, but she backed away.

  “You knew I wasn’t going to stay.”

  “I know.”

  “It's not someplace you can go.”

  “And, what, I’d drop my life here and go with you? I don't even know what you do.” AJ lost the battle to keep her voice light. She turned away and searched for her shoes. “I didn't want this to happen. To leave it like this. It's not your fault—it’s as much mine.”

  She took another full look at him, knowing it could be her last. His tousled hair, his green eyes still dark with something she couldn’t name. She laughed out loud and could see it unsettled him. “Look at the two of us. The clichéd, star-crossed lovers.” AJ was happy to see his grin return. She was on safer ground. “It’s silly to ask if I’ll see you again.”

  “One never knows what the future holds.”

  He held the grin, but with effort, and she had no words to respond. Before she knew it, he was next to her, pulling her to him once more. She lifted her lips to his, closed her eyes, and held on as his tongue searched for hers. She let him consume her. To burn his touch and his smell into her memory, accepting this last token before he disappeared, lost to her forever.

  AJ broke the connection and stepped away. She looked back before walking through the door. His arms dangled by his sides, a simple smile all he seemed able to give her. He looked so alone. She turned and ran up the stairs.

  38

  Driving home, AJ tried to ignore the sense of loss. Finn was a man on a ship, no better than a traveling salesman. Her rash actions were more Stella’s style of free love. AJ had been the one looking for the stable guy, a good job, nice car, not too close to his mother. Someone not-Adam. She snickered. There was no question she’d found someone unlike her brother. She couldn’t picture either of them ever getting along.

  But Ethan seemed to get along fine with her brother, and Ethan was nothing like him. It surprised her to think Ethan and Finn would get along. They shared so many similarities, yet she had fallen for Finn.

  Fallen for Finn!

  The realization slammed her, but she had no other explanation for why she kept coming back. She could have completed her article days ago. She didn’t need Finn’s tall tale.

  AJ struggled with her internal revelation the rest of the way home. At the door to her apartment, as she fought with the sticky lock, the sight of the Celtic cross flashed in her head, as did the unfamiliar stone that resided at its core. The recollection crashed into her like a rogue wave, and she dropped her bag on the floor, sprinting through the apartment to her bedroom.

  She stared at the large antique jewelry box that held center stage on her dresser. The box, one of AJ’s most treasured possessions, had been a gift from her father a few months before his death. She opened it and the smell of the wood enveloped her, a scent that would linger with the box until its last days. Warm tears fell as she remembered her father and all he had taught her.

  She wiped her eyes and lifted the box’s top shelf, filled with the items she wore through the week. Jewelry lay piled in the lower half of the box. AJ loved how the mix of necklaces and bracelets melded together, her own treasure chest of jewels. She rarely searched for antique jewelry, uninterested in the stones that caught everyone else’s attention. From her experience, they tended to be overvalued. But every once in a while, she would find something unique that called to her, and it ended up in this box. Someday she would research each piece to see if there was a history to discover. Jewelry from estate sales rarely came with their own provenances.

  AJ lifted out each item one by one, knowing which piece she was after. She pulled out several before finding an earring and its matching partner. Each earring was fashioned in silver, in a type of circular pattern she didn’t recognize. Nor could she determine the origin. Inside each earring was a small stone. AJ looked closely at the stone and recognized it as the same stone in Finn’s medallion. Its marbled coloration was identical. She had no idea what kind of stone it was. She had never seen anything like it before.

  Except…

  AJ laid the earrings aside. After moving aside another piece or t
wo, her hand clasped a silver necklace. The chain was heavier than most, which was why she would never wear it, but she could appreciate the workmanship in each link. But it was the stone she was interested in. It lay in the center of its own silver pendant, the circular design matched the earrings. The setting differed from Finn’s cross, but there was no denying it. The shades of blue, yellow, and gray were too distinct. It had to be the same type of stone.

  An overwhelming desire came over her. She had to show this to Finn. He would want to see this necklace. The stone seemed too uncommon not to be related.

  She placed the other jewelry and matching earrings back in the box. Closing the lid, she allowed herself a few seconds to run her hands across the top. Then she raced back to the living room, grabbed her bag, and took a look around her apartment. Something seemed different. She shook it off and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

  Ethan arrived at AJ’s door late in the afternoon. He had tried her office first, but the staff said she had left early. He wasn’t sure where she would have gone, perhaps to Stella’s, but it made sense to try her at home first. With his mind focused on what he would say to her, he hadn’t paid attention to the door until he reached for the knob and discovered the door was already open, a small crack providing limited visibility. Worried, he leaned his ear to the door but heard nothing discernible.

  Maybe she had left in a hurry and hadn’t noticed she didn’t close the door. But AJ didn’t seem that careless.

  Ethan peered through the half-inch gap of the open door but couldn’t see much. A bookshelf of some kind, a slip of wall, a painting, and nothing more. A quiet curse slipped from him. He should have thought to bring his gun with him. The clock ticked away faster and faster. Never mind the consequences—he knew them all too well.

  Bracing himself for what he might find, Ethan pushed the door open. There was no one there. He was sorry he didn’t have time to take a closer look, to marvel at how AJ had surrounded herself in books and antiquities. No time to appraise the large book sitting by what must be her favorite chair, a small afghan hanging across one arm.

  Ethan sensed someone in the apartment just before a sound came from one of the back rooms. Perhaps AJ was home after all and for some reason had left the door ajar. But he didn’t believe that, not of the woman he had come to know. He could picture Stella leaving a door open, but not AJ.

  Allowing himself one last recrimination for leaving his gun behind, Ethan searched the shelves of knickknacks for something he could use to mount a defense. He spied an old letter opener next to a matching inkwell and pen, all made of silver, discolored with age, pieces that had tarnished over the years and had been polished a thousand times. Ethan picked up the letter opener and tested its strength. It was well made. He had been in enough knife fights, and this small relic was all he would need, unless, of course, the intruder had a gun. Nothing he could do about that. He crept down the small hallway toward the noise.

  The last door was half-open. It had to be AJ’s room. His doubts resurfaced. If she was home, he would be feeling pretty stupid in a few seconds. He had no choice now but to announce himself, leaving him vulnerable if it wasn’t her behind the door. He took a small step and opened his mouth to call out—

  An arm and leg flashed by the door. Not AJ’s. He tucked the letter opener into his sleeve, out of sight but available if needed, and slammed the door open. He was ready for anything—

  Until he saw the person’s face and the mess in what could now be confirmed as AJ’s bedroom.

  Drawers had been opened, ransacked, and haphazardly shut. Pieces of garments remained visible where they had been crammed back in, as if left behind to mount a protest against their rough handling. The bed was scattered with purses, belts, and jackets. Boxes, their contents of letters, old watches, and what must have been hundreds of buttons of various sizes and shapes had all been dumped on top of the clothing and accessories. But it was the dozens of seashells, some broken from being tossed without care onto the bed, that enraged him, knowing they must have been treasures AJ had collected with her father.

  Ethan took it all in within seconds, and he turned to the man who had created the destruction.

  “Adam. What are you doing?” Ethan tried to keep his question level. The man looked demented, running his fingers through a large pile of jewelry that had been dumped on the dresser. An old wooden box had been turned upside down next to it.

  Adam looked up, dazed. He didn’t seem surprised to see Ethan, but he said nothing—just turned his attention back to the jewelry.

  Ethan tried again. “What are you doing here, Adam? Where’s AJ?”

  Adam picked up a bracelet, turning it over as if appraising its value. Ethan struggled to maintain his patience. He didn’t have time for this, but he needed to know why Adam was here. He was about to ask a third time when Adam finally seemed to register him.

  Adam had the decency to look ashamed at his behavior. He let out an audible sigh, his voice a croak. “I’m looking for a necklace.”

  “A necklace.” Ethan blanched. “What kind of necklace?”

  “One with a colored stone. Yellow and blue, marbled with some gray.” Like a defeated soldier, Adam sat on the bed.

  “AJ has the necklace?” Ethan’s words were barely audible.

  Adam stared at Ethan, his voice equally quiet. “You know about the necklace?”

  “How do you know AJ has it?”

  Adam looked at his hands, turning them over, then scanned the room as if he might find a place he hadn’t torn apart in his frenetic search. “I tracked her from the last owner.”

  “How did you find it so quickly?” Ethan found no reason for pretense now.

  “My client had most of the details. It was really a matter of finding where everyone was living now.” Adam returned to his search through the detritus from the opened boxes. “It’s not hard to find people anymore, unless they’re looking to disappear. Then it can be trickier, but not impossible.”

  “Under my nose the whole time,” Ethan said, mostly to himself but loud enough for Adam to hear.

  “You’re looking for the necklace too?” Adam moved back to the wooden box he had turned over, slowly sifting through the pieces lying tangled in a heap on top of the dresser. He stopped and looked at Ethan. “Your interest in Westcliffe—you thought that was a connection to the necklace?”

  Ethan had taken Adam’s place on the bed, trying to work out where AJ would have taken the necklace. She’d have no reason to hide it. By itself, there was nothing special about it. The stone wasn’t any known element, not precious to anyone unfamiliar with it. The word shot through him. Westcliffe.

  “I wasn’t sure. The location was convenient and the inn closed. It was worth checking out.” Ethan calculated his next steps.

  “This looks like it could be the stone, but it’s not a necklace.” Adam picked out a couple of small items from the pile that had been discarded like yesterday’s trash. “Earrings. That’s not close enough to a necklace, is it?” The disappointment was thick in Adam’s voice, and he pushed the pile away from him.

  “Do you know where AJ is?” A cold sweat worked its way over Ethan, and a sickening sensation prickled him. When Adam didn’t answer, Ethan became more forceful, turning the man to face him. “AJ. Do you know where she is?”

  Adam shook his head. “Not sure. I got here just as she was leaving, almost ran into her as she ran out the main door. I didn’t think she’d be home…at least I was hoping she wasn’t. I have a key, so I let myself in.” Adam was talking fast now. The words seemed to stumble out of him. “My client isn’t going to be happy.”

  “Finn Murphy, is that your client?” Ethan barked the question.

  “Yes.” Adam stepped back, finally seeing the rage in Ethan’s face—and something else. “How did you know that?”

  “Come on, we need to pay Finn Murphy a visit. We can’t waste any time.” Ethan ran to the door.

  Adam followed. “Where are we g
oing?”

  “To Murphy’s ship.”

  “He has a ship? How did I not know that?” Adam trailed behind Ethan, seeming to take two steps for every one of Ethan’s, although Adam wasn’t much shorter. “Why are we in such a hurry?”

  “Because AJ is in grave danger.”

  Ethan sprinted to the Escalade. He was behind the wheel, putting it into gear as Adam fell into the passenger side.

  “Was it something I did?” Adam said.

  Ethan’s only answer was to floor the SUV, leaving marks against the pavement as it hurled itself down the road.

  39

  AJ drove the long route back to Westcliffe. She needed time—she had no idea what to say to Finn. She wasn’t looking for any promises or commitments. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, go with him. She knew close to nothing about him, had no clue what he did to earn a living, whether he had a family. She let up on the gas, almost hit the brakes. My God, please don’t be married.

  She hadn’t forgotten Ethan’s warning, and while in the throes of passion and lust, she wasn’t thinking clearly, but she would know if there was something morally wrong with Finn. There was a mystery that floated around him. His silent reveries, his refusal to talk about his family—it was clear there was a past he wasn’t comfortable sharing. AJ didn’t know what he might be running from, but for a reason she couldn’t explain, she was convinced to her bones he was not a bad man. He was not a thief.

  By the time she parked in the lot, she didn’t know why she had considered this a good idea. She had simply snatched the necklace and raced out of her room. What would she say to Finn? She had no reason to ask anything of him. While her heart tugged at her, AJ’s pragmatic side, the side her father had instilled in her long ago, would not let go. She wasn’t there for any other reason than wanting to share the necklace with him.