Sanctuary Island

by Everett, Lily

  But all the same, as she stood there in the circle of his arms and stared up into his eyes, she felt a connection unfurling between them like the tender green vines creeping up the side of the house. A perfect empathy unlike anything she’d ever experienced in years of talking candidly to professional therapists, even Adrienne.

  Without warning, something inside her opened up, a tightly closed bud stretching toward the first sunlight of spring.

  His gaze dropped to her lips, and Ella’s heartbeat quickened. The moment went taut, suspended and fragile between them, as if they were holding something delicate and infinitely breakable in the cradle of their bodies. Slowly, almost in a daze, Ella tilted her head back. Just a little.

  Just enough.

  As if aware that a sudden movement would shatter the moment, Grady dipped his head to take what she was offering.

  His lips moved over hers softly, a questing touch that barely grazed her mouth, but somehow sent shivers of sensation cascading down her spine. Ella’s lungs ached and burned until she remembered to breathe, sighing against his lips, and the kiss changed.

  Grady’s careful grip tightened, pulling her closer, so close she was all but burrowing into the solid warmth of his chest. He made a hungry noise that reverberated through her chest, and when she gasped, he stroked his tongue along the sensitive flesh of her bottom lip.

  His eyes darkened, and Ella realized this was the first time she’d ever kissed anyone with her eyes open. It was odd, almost too intimate, and some part of her cowered away from the frightening vulnerability of letting him see what he was doing to her.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes. She couldn’t look away from him and what he was telling her without words. Whatever Grady was saying, it was in a language Ella didn’t know yet—but with every beat of his heart against hers, she felt herself groping toward understanding.

  A truck engine rattled and coughed, heavy wheels churning up the gravel of the driveway.

  Ella snapped back into reality with an unpleasant sensation of whiplash. Jerking her head back, she blinked into Grady’s intense stare. Her lips were still buzzing and tingling from his kiss. Every part of her body that had been touching his now felt cold and bereft.

  Oh dear Lord. What am I doing?

  A hot flush crawled up her neck, and she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled out of his arms, desperate to escape the unbearable strangeness of this whole episode.

  What had she been thinking? Dreaming up some mystical, spiritual connection with a man she’d known for all of fifteen minutes, letting him save her and then swooning into his arms like some pathetic, helpless damsel offering herself up for a kiss?

  It’s this island, Ella thought hysterically as she put some much needed distance between herself and Grady. Sanctuary Island is doing something to me. It’s turning me into an insane person.

  The loud, dark blue pickup truck rumbled to a stop in front of the house, and the driver’s side door opened. Ella barely had time to smooth a trembling hand over her hair and make sure her shirt was still neatly tucked in before a tall, spare woman stepped down from the truck’s cab.

  The woman shaded her eyes with one hand as she stared up at the porch, and when she smiled, Ella wished she were still standing close enough to Grady for his strong arms to steady her. That smile made the entire world tilt like the D.C. metro train taking a sharp curve.

  That smile. Bright, open, infectious, inviting whoever saw it to share the joke. Ella had seen that smile a thousand times, growing up. But never before on her mother’s face.

  That was Merry’s smile.

  “Well, now.” The woman’s throaty voice, laced with a combination of nerves and amusement, sent a shock of recognition all the way to Ella’s bones. “Looks like Grady is making you feel right at home.”

  Ella gathered the tattered shreds of her dignity around her and drew herself up as straight as she could manage without flinching at the low throb of pain in her stupid ankle. “Yes, he’s been very helpful.”

  And to think, Ella had been sure that when she saw her mother in the flesh for the first time in fifteen years, she’d feel nothing.

  The seething well of messy emotions bubbling in her chest was certainly not nothing. Shocked at herself and taken completely off guard, Ella struggled to find some sort of equilibrium.

  Eyes sharp on Ella’s face, Jo Ellen appeared to be gauging every word carefully. “Ella. It’s been … you look good. Wonderful, really. How are you doing?”

  The stilted question flayed along Ella’s raw nerves like a razor blade. It seemed as if Jo were asking for a lot more than an update on Ella’s health and well-being.

  “I’m fine,” she said, schooling her voice and her expression to show nothing. She didn’t want to give this woman anything, and wow, did she ever need a minute to catch her balance. “You should go inside. Merry is looking forward to seeing you.”

  Next to her, Grady lifted a hand to her shoulder, and the warm, heavy weight of it was an anchor in a stormy sea. Ella straightened her spine and lifted her chin, pathetically grateful for the surprising show of support.

  “And you weren’t,” Jo clarified, her voice quiet but unsurprised. “Well. That’s certainly … understandable. Thank you for coming anyway—it means a lot to me to have you here.”

  “Look. I don’t mean to be harsh,” Ella found herself saying, even though she did mean to. Didn’t she? “But I don’t think there’s any point in beginning this visit under false pretenses.”

  “So tell me, what you do want from this visit?” Jo Ellen said.

  “I’m not here to act out some movie-of-the-week tearjerker.” Ella’s voice had gone raspy, the words ripping from her throat like bolts shot from an arrow. “I’m not going to fall into your arms and call you mom. I’m not here for you at all. I’m here for Merry. That’s it.”

  She saw—actually saw—every one of those words strike home. That smile Jo Ellen had stolen from her youngest daughter melted away, leaving Jo looking up at the porch with an expression Ella couldn’t decipher.

  “I see.” Jo stood tall, solid, completely unlike Ella’s memories of broken-down desperation. “In the interest of clarity, let me tell you what I’m expecting from this visit.”

  Ella braced herself, ready to fend off her mother’s emotional demands for a renewed relationship, her desire to reconnect, to rehash the past, to apologize—Ella didn’t want to hear any of it.

  Apparently, that wasn’t what Jo had in mind.

  “I want you to get to know the island,” Jo said. “This place is part of your family history, and you deserve the chance to discover where you come from.”

  It took Ella a long moment to switch gears. “Um, sure. It seems like a nice place.”

  “It is,” Grady said. His deep, certain answer was aimed at Ella, but when she glanced at him, he was watching Jo. The two of them seemed to be having a silent conversation using only their eyes.

  His hand still gripped her shoulder, and Ella fought a moment of vertigo. Was it weird to feel so much more of a connection to this man she’d just met than she did to her own mother? “And it’s small, too, which is nice. I can’t imagine it will take me long to see all the sights.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I bet it would take a month, at least, to really plumb the depths of what Sanctuary has to offer,” Jo said lightly.

  “One week,” Ella countered, her inner negotiator zooming to the fore.

  “Three weeks,” Jo returned, with a hopeful smile.

  “Two. And that’s my final offer—that’s all the vacation time I’ve got.”

  Technically true, although this wasn’t exactly a vacation. Paul Bishop had told her he didn’t want to see her back in the office until she’d put on five pounds and lost the bags under her eyes. But there was no way she was admitting that to Jo Ellen.

  “Okeydoke.” Jo’s smile widened into a grin, and there it was again, that so familiar, much-loved smile looking comple
tely out of place … and yet, right at home on Jo’s angular face. “I can work with two weeks.”

  Somehow, Ella realized, she’d gotten the short end of this deal.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” Jo said, staring up at Ella. “And I know you won’t believe me right now, because I destroyed any trust you ever had in me a long time ago. But I’m going to make sure you don’t regret coming to Sanctuary Island. That’s a promise.”

  Ella felt herself seize up with tension, as if someone had strung a wire through her shoulder blades and pulled it taut. Grady, who obviously noticed, stepped up to stand beside her. His voice was a deep rumble in her ear. “And when Hollister women make a promise, they never break their word.”

  Something like pain and regret shadowed Jo’s blue eyes. “I didn’t always live up to the Hollister name. But these days, I do my damnedest.”

  Despite herself, Ella felt a twinge of curiosity. She knew almost nothing about her family on Jo’s side. It might not be a horrible chore to find out more.

  “For now,” Jo said, reaching into the cab of her truck and hauling out a couple of plastic bags, “let’s go inside. I’m dying to see your sister.”

  Grady walked over to the side of the porch as Jo came around, stretching an arm to help her up. Instead of taking his hand, however, Jo passed him the pair of shopping bags and vaulted lightly up onto the porch under her own power.

  When Jo saw the gaping hole in her porch floorboards, she froze so suddenly that the shopping bags Grady had been handing back to her slipped through her fingers.

  “What happened?” Her concerned gaze shot to Ella, raking her from head to toe as she took a step forward. “Are you all right?”

  Ella retreated a step before she could force herself to hold her ground, her injured ankle wobbling and slicing lines of pain up her calf.

  When Ella sucked in a short breath, Jo froze in place, dismay carving lines into her face.

  “It’s nothing.” Ella drew on her reserves and carefully controlled the image she presented. Self-sufficient, dismissive, poised. “Twisted my ankle a little. Go ahead and find Merry, she’s waiting for you. I’ll follow you in a minute.”

  Ella forced herself to straighten out her ankle and plant her foot firmly on the floor.

  Don’t fuss, she mentally warned Jo. I don’t need your sympathy or your concern.

  After a long moment, Jo reluctantly looked away. She turned her gaze on Grady, who nodded once, silently.

  Which was apparently the reassurance Jo needed. The screen door banged behind Jo as she slipped past them, and Grady turned back to Ella with a wry twist to his mouth.

  “Let me walk you in. No sense hurting yourself worse just to prove a point,” he drawled as he held out his arm.

  Heat scorched her cheeks and neck. Even Ella wasn’t sure if it was anger at his insistence on misunderstanding her or the thrill she got every time they touched.

  “I’m not proving any point,” she declared, defiantly taking his arm. “I didn’t want to get Taylor in trouble for not warning me about the porch.”

  Grady’s tawny eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Why not? The brat deserves it.”

  “Maybe.” Ella shrugged, hyperaware of the hardness of his bicep under his soft flannel shirt. “But she’s just a kid, and if she and Jo are as close as you say, then it can’t be easy for her to suddenly come face-to-face with Jo’s biological daughters.”

  “That’s … incredibly perceptive and sensitive of you.” Grady moved toward the door, keeping pace with her slower steps.

  Ella laughed, her throat raw and tight. “Don’t sound so shocked. I’m not the villain here, Grady.”

  He stopped short, pulling her off balance so that she leaned more of her weight on his shoulder than she’d intended.

  “I know that.” Grady’s arm was like solid steel beneath her fingers. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have tried to run you off.”

  The lump in Ella’s throat was hard to swallow around. “Jo is important to you. To a lot of people on Sanctuary Island, apparently. Including Taylor.”

  “That doesn’t give us the right to attack you. And you should know, this isn’t Jo’s fault. I mean, it’s not like she’s been bad-mouthing you and Merry all over town or anything.”

  “Don’t.” Ella winced at the sharpness of her own voice. “Look, I don’t want to ruin this nice moment we’ve got going on, but I can’t listen to you sing Jo’s praises or make excuses or apologies for her.”

  A muscle ticked in his rigid jaw, but he met her gaze squarely. “Fair enough.”

  “And thanks,” she said, as they restarted their painfully slow progress across the porch.

  “For what?”

  “For getting me out of the porch.” Ella paused, then gritted her teeth and finished. “And for not making a big deal about … before.”

  He stilled under her touch for the briefest of moments before circling a steadying arm around her shoulders. Despite how close he stood, Ella felt his withdrawal before he even spoke.

  “You mean the kiss.”

  The kiss was a mistake, a blip in the smooth, predictable course of Ella’s organized, sensible life. She wasn’t here on Sanctuary Island to make friends. Or to make out with handymen.

  No matter how handsome that handyman might be. Handsome, intriguingly complicated, fiercely loyal …

  “I was taken off guard,” Ella explained quickly, keeping her eyes trained forward on the front door. “This whole trip has turned out to be a lot more … emotional than I was expecting. But it won’t happen again.”

  She sneaked a peek at his face out of the corner of her eye and saw the way his jaw clenched. Catching her looking, Grady smoothed his face into an impenetrable friendly politeness. “Sure. With the whole rescuing-the-damsel thing, we got caught up in the moment. It didn’t mean anything.”

  Ella swallowed, the ache in her throat making it tough to form words. “Good. We agree.”

  Thick, leaden silence dropped over them like a blackout curtain. Ella hobbled on, every fiber of her being tuned in to the rangy, rough-hewn man beside her. It took almost as much effort to hide her wince every time her bad foot landed on the boards as it did to hop laboriously forward, inch by inch.

  After the fourth or fifth step-hop-ow, Grady made an aggravated noise. “This is stupid.”

  He turned to her, and before Ella knew what was happening, he’d swept her into his arms like a bride, kicked open the screen door, and carried her over the threshold.

  CHAPTER 8

  This. This was what she’d been missing.

  Jo buried her nose in her younger daughter’s hair and breathed in, the combined scents of sea salt and whatever chemicals Merry had used to dye her hair magenta coating Jo’s brain in the kind of euphoria she hadn’t experienced since her last shot of bourbon, fourteen years ago.

  The reminder of her past, the things she’d done and choices she’d made that had resulted in having to go more than a decade without putting her arms around this amazing young woman had Jo tightening those arms until Merry squeaked.

  “Sorry, sugar.” She never wanted to let go, but she had an insatiable need to stare into Merry’s beautiful face. One glance had been enough to sear the image onto Jo’s brain forever.

  During those long years of missing her girls and feeling their absence like an aching hole in her own heart, Jo had prayed for the chance to catch just a glimpse of them. Even from afar, to see how they were with her own eyes—she’d sworn before God that if she could have that, she’d never want for anything more.

  And now, here she was with one baby girl in her arms, the other close by, and Jo knew she’d been wrong.

  Sorry, God. I lied. One glimpse is not enough. Because I’m weak and greedy, and now that I have them here, on my island, I want more.

  Thankfully, Jo was pretty sure God hadn’t been fooled. He knew what she needed better than she knew herself—as proof, the fact that E
lla and Merry were here on Sanctuary.

  But for how long?

  Already dreading the moment when Merry would be out of her reach, Jo let herself have one last squeeze before easing back and staring down into her daughter’s wide blue eyes.

  I have them for at least two weeks, she reminded herself. Ella agreed to it.

  And there was nothing in that agreement that said Jo couldn’t do her darnedest to make them both want to stay longer.

  “Um, hi,” Merry said, tucking a strand of reddish-purple hair behind her ear. “It’s good to … meet you? Although I guess we’ve already met. Wow, could I have come up with a dumber thing to say? Sorry.”

  Ignoring the tightening of her throat, Jo smiled. “Let’s say we’re happy to see each other and leave it at that.”

  Merry ducked her head, a grin tugging at one corner of her mouth. “I guess you saw Ella outside. Was she out of the porch yet? Is she okay?”

  “She looked fine to me.” Other than the hurt ankle, Ella looked wonderful—every inch a grown woman, sure of herself and ready to fight to protect her sister.

  It warmed Jo’s heart to know that her daughters had such a close bond, and that Ella’s instincts were so caring and strong. It said a lot about her as a person, Jo thought.

  “Was Mr. Tall, Blond, and Helpful with her?” Merry popped a dimple in one cheek as she cast a sly look at Jo, who had to laugh.

  “Grady? He sure was.”

  “Good.” Merry nodded decisively. “Once Taylor told me who your handyman was that she was calling, I decided to stay in here and let them have a few minutes together.”

  “That’s funny, I had the same thought!” Remembering the way Grady had stepped up and stood with Ella made Jo smile. She left Merry perched on the ancient chintz sofa and walked across the front parlor to peek out the window. She couldn’t get a good angle to see what was going on out there, but Ella and Grady certainly did seem to be moving mighty slowly.