Sanctuary Island

by Everett, Lily

  *

  Once, during location training in the Colorado mountains, Grady and his partner had gotten lost in a sudden fog so intense that it had turned the familiar forest training grounds into a thick, damp cloud full of hidden obstacles.

  Trees and branches loomed out of nowhere to bash them in the face; rocks and gnarled tree roots leaped up from the ground to trip them. It had taken Grady and Tom seven hours of fumbling through the forest—the forest they would’ve sworn they knew like the back of their hands, the forest they had extensive maps of in their packs—before the fog finally lifted.

  The moment when the fading afternoon sunlight finally speared through the dense gray and burned it away in a burst of blinding glory was etched into his memory for all time.

  When Grady kissed Ella Preston in his kitchen, he felt his heart expand exactly the way it had that day in the forest.

  She opened her mouth, inviting him in, and every thought was wiped from Grady’s mind in a blast of hunger.

  For long moments, all he knew was the clean taste of her mouth, the soft heat of her body leaning into his chest, the silk of her hair tumbling over his hands—the thunder of blood through his veins, and the heavy throb between his thighs.

  But then she wrapped her arms around his back and her fingers found the slashing edges of his worst scar, and it was like a bucket of cold water cascading over Grady’s head.

  He jerked back, stumbling a little as his heel caught in the folds of the blanket at his feet.

  “Don’t.” Grady swallowed, wishing his voice weren’t so wrecked. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  Ella pressed her kiss-swollen lips into a brief line before making an obvious effort at a smile. “You’re right, I was pushing. I do that, sorry.”

  Busy slowing down his heartbeat and getting his lungs under control, Grady didn’t have a lot of strength to spare for regulating his tone. “It’s fine. Let’s just go.”

  She flinched a little, but caught herself before Grady could do more than drag in a breath to apologize. “No problem! Take all the time you need, if you want a shower or something … not that I’m saying you need one!”

  “A shower might not be a terrible idea—preferably freezing cold.”

  Grady watched as hectic pink flushed up her neck and into her cheeks. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, Ella said in a stifled voice, “I’ll wait in the car. I really am sorry.”

  “You don’t need to apologize.” He was starting to feel stupid about overreacting to a simple kiss. So she touched his shoulder. Big deal. Not like plenty of doctors and nurses and physical therapists hadn’t touched it after the accident. Granted, it had been a while.

  And not one of those medical professionals had made him feel the way Ella Preston did.

  She huffed out a frustrated breath, face drawn and tight. “Oh really? I invited myself over, forced my way into your house while you were half asleep, and then climbed you like a tree. Seems pretty apologyworthy to me.”

  When she put it like that, Grady felt embarrassment scorching the tips of his own ears. “I’m not mad about any of that. Promise. You can climb me anytime.”

  She cut her eyes at him as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “So long as I don’t touch you. Right?”

  Grady froze, not sure what to say. Before he could figure it out, Ella smacked a hand to her forehead and grimaced. “There I go again! Seriously, do you have a muzzle lying around anywhere? I’m an idiot. We barely know each other. I don’t have any right to pressure you about anything.”

  Okay, they hadn’t known each other very long, but it had been an intense few days. Still, as dedicated as Grady was to living like today was the last day of his life, he wasn’t completely ready to strip himself bare for Ella.

  Some adrenaline junkie he turned out to be. But he felt splayed open and raw; it was taking everything he had to stand in front of her with no shirt, no blanket, nothing to cover up the visible marks of his past.

  But he already wanted to punch himself in the face for shying away from her touch.

  “It’s fine,” he repeated firmly. “You startled me, but it’s not a problem.”

  Ella sighed, looking away. “Yes it is. This was a mistake. My mistake.”

  Suddenly, a cold shower seemed way less necessary. “A mistake,” he muttered, hearing the echo of her words after their first kiss, back on Jo Ellen’s front porch. “Let me guess. It didn’t mean anything, either.”

  A spasm of memory crossed her pretty face. She looked like she wanted to duck her head, but instead, she met his glare with eyes wide open. A trickle of respect dripped through Grady’s anger.

  “No.” Ella swallowed visibly. “This time … I didn’t mean for that kiss to happen, but I won’t pretend it meant nothing to me.”

  His frozen heart kicked back to life. Nerves fired sporadically down his spine, making his skin buzz with awareness like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm.

  He wanted to tell her how long it had been for him—how long it had been since he believed he’d ever even want this again.

  Closeness with another human being.

  Throat working, heart hammering, all he could bite out was, “It meant something to me, too.”

  She swayed toward him for one brief, charged moment, her hungry gaze dropping to his mouth. Grady’s fingers itched with the need to touch her, to wrap around her arms and pull her in close.

  But instead of falling into him, Ella stepped back. Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t,” in this scratchy voice. “Grady. It’s not that I don’t want to—at this point, it would be stupid to pretend I’m not incredibly attracted to you. But my sister and I are leaving Sanctuary Island in a week and a half. If this meant nothing, then maybe I could go ahead with it, have some fun, and head back to Washington without a second thought.”

  “I understand,” he told her. And he did.

  Grady wondered when he’d turned into a naïve schoolgirl. He knew she was leaving. She’d never so much as hinted that she might stay. How had he let himself forget that this whole visit was nothing more than a reluctant vacation from her regularly scheduled life? None of this was real to her.

  Trouble was, Ella was just about the most real thing Grady had seen in years.

  “But I still need your help.” She turned pleading eyes on him, trying on a tremulous smile that only made him want to kiss her more. “Can you show me your Sanctuary, if I swear to keep my hands to myself?”

  Grady did himself the favor of taking a moment to actually think about it. Being near Ella, showing her his island—that was going to be damn difficult, knowing that she had no intention of pursuing the simmering attraction between them.

  Then again, he mused as he watched her nervously tuck a lock of hair behind the delicate pink shell of her ear, intentions change.

  He’d defy anyone to spend time on Sanctuary Island without falling in love with the place.

  Grady didn’t question exactly why it was so important to him that Ella fall for the island. But it was—and showing off the place he loved most on earth to her wasn’t exactly going to be a chore.

  As for being forced into close contact with her for days on end … well, maybe his original plan of counting on the magic of Sanctuary wasn’t such a crazy one, after all.

  “Of course I’ll show you around the island.” The grin came easily, his heart lightening now that he had a plan. “I promised, didn’t I? Although your meddling mother gave me a talking-to about what kinds of things to show you. She won’t let me take you cliff jumping! Can you believe it?”

  Ella’s eyes glazed over. “Cliff jumping,” she echoed faintly. “Dear Lord. Is that what you do for fun?”

  Grady shrugged. “If you know the right spots, it’s safe enough. And what a rush! Okay, let me grab a shirt. You go on, get some coffee—we’ve got a lot to see before lunch.”

  Ella smiled at him, face lit up like he’d handed her the moon, and Grady had to turn and almost
bolt up the stairs to keep from grabbing her again.

  The plan was to make her fall for the island, to let her come to him, like a wild yearling. He could be patient. He’d been trained to move carefully, with deliberation, keeping his senses alert for danger and mapping out trouble areas beforehand.

  He could do this. He’d wait for her to come to him.

  And in the meantime, he’d let Sanctuary Island work its magic.

  CHAPTER 17

  Ella yelped out a laugh and chased the cold dribble of ice cream that dripped from the cone onto her wrist.

  Sweet, tart, creamy—she couldn’t help but moan appreciatively as the flavor of wild strawberries burst across her tongue.

  She licked up the stray droplets of melting ice cream and wished she’d been smart enough to grab a paper napkin from the counter of the roadside stand.

  “You really need to quit doing that.”

  Grady’s rough voice broke into her haze of enjoyment. She blinked her eyes open to see him staring at her across the picnic table, his own forgotten ice-cream cone tilting precariously in his big hand.

  Whoops.

  Guilt—Ella’s constant companion, after four days of touring the island with Grady—tugged sharply at her, reminding her that she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do anything to make this harder on Grady than it had to be.

  Licking herself right in front of him definitely counted.

  “Sorry,” she said, feeling a blush heat the back of her neck. Or maybe that was the afternoon sun beating down through the shifting branches of the trees lining the road where Miss Ruth’s Homemade Ice Cream stand had stood for decades.

  Forty-two years, to be exact, according to Miss Ruth herself, who scooped up the ice cream with a practiced twist of her wrist and packed it into a couple of cake cones without spilling a drop.

  A trim, petite woman in her sixties, Miss Ruth moved slowly, with precision. She was a woman who took pride in doing things perfectly. Ella could relate.

  Miss Ruth had winked at Ella when Grady turned to lead them across the grass to the weathered red picnic table set up under the trees beside the stand.

  “Be patient with that one,” Miss Ruth whispered, tilting her head so her bobbed ash-blond hair swung against her pointed chin. “He’s sweeter than he looks. Trust me, I know about sweet things.”

  Unsure how to answer, Ella had smiled back before hurrying after Grady.

  Now, with Miss Ruth’s signature ice cream melting in her mouth, all Ella could think was that the ice-cream lady was right.

  Grady was sweet. He was a good man. And merciful heavens, was he ever sexy. She looked at him, the heat in his gaze as she lapped up ice cream, and felt fire flash through her entire body.

  She really, really wanted to lean across the table and lick the taste of strawberries off his lips.

  But she couldn’t. Knowing what she knew, that this whirlwind tour of Sanctuary Island had only confirmed her decision to present Jo with a proposal to turn the Windy Corner house into a small inn. Knowing how much Grady would hate that idea, she couldn’t allow herself to kiss him.

  Even though they both wanted it.

  Swallowing hard against the surge of desire, Ella got up and hustled over to the stand to fetch a handful of paper napkins. Luckily, Miss Ruth was busy with other customers, a family with two little kids, so it was easy to avoid her avid, inquisitive eyes.

  Ella used one napkin to clean up the rest of the dribbles from her cone as she walked back to the table. Tossing the wad of paper onto the table, she said, “You’re a mess, Wilkes.”

  He muttered something that sounded like, “You have no idea,” switching his cone to his left hand and shaking sticky drops off his right with a grimace. The pale pink ice cream was stark and obvious against the brown leather of his gloves.

  “Here, you’re going to ruin those gloves.” Ella reached for him. “Let me just—”

  “No,” Grady said sharply, pulling away with an instinctive flinch that Ella felt like a punch in the gut.

  They stared at each other, tension mounting until Ella was honestly afraid she might suffocate.

  Making a big deal out of this was the worst thing she could do. Going back to her ice cream, she said, “I’ve seen them already.”

  “I know.” Grady was gruff, defensive, but his eyes gave him away. When his gaze darted to the young family still chatting with Miss Ruth, who was leaning both her elbows on her scuffed wooden counter, Ella knew exactly what was bothering him.

  “Those people are not going to care. They won’t even notice.”

  He pressed his lips together grimly. “They might.”

  “Well.” Ella concentrated on finishing off her cone, barely tasting it. Which was a shame. “So what if they do? What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

  She watched the struggle play out on his face, all the fear and shame he’d built up around his scars. And suddenly, she couldn’t stand it for another moment.

  Ella met Grady’s worried eyes and took his free hand in both of hers. Moving slowly enough to give him plenty of time to pull away, she tugged at the fingertips of the glove and loosened it, bit by bit.

  Grady’s breath came in quick, shallow pants and his entire frame was rigid—but he didn’t stop her.

  Trying to telegraph that it was all going to be okay, Ella set her jaw and pulled the glove off his right hand.

  They stared at each other, wide-eyed, his naked hand clasped in hers. Sunlight flickered through the gently swaying branches overhead, dappling the paler skin of his right hand with spots of gold. Somewhere nearby, a child laughed, high-pitched and happy, but Ella was only vaguely aware that there was a world outside of the two of them.

  A soft breeze ruffled Grady’s dark gold hair, sending a few stray tendrils to catch in his eyelashes. He blinked, swayed toward her.

  Ella couldn’t deny him. She couldn’t deny either of them. Lifting his ungloved hand to her lips, she pressed a gentle kiss to the backs of his nicked, scarred knuckles.

  She would’ve been tempted to do more, but the rest of the world was coming back into focus. The little family was still standing over by the counter, the mother talking to Miss Ruth while the kids, covered in the sticky remnants of their ice-cream treats, played in the grass in front of the stand.

  Following her gaze, Grady glanced over at the family. He watched them for a long, tense moment. The husband, a nice-looking guy with thinning brown hair and glasses, noticed them and lifted a hand in greeting.

  Grady hesitated, then pulled his naked hand from Ella’s grasp and lifted it in a silent wave.

  Pride and tenderness swamped Ella, forming an aching knot in the back of her throat.

  Careful, she reminded herself. Let it seem normal, ordinary.

  Even though she felt like she could cry at being witness to Grady’s breakthrough moment.

  “Come on,” she said thickly, standing up. “Let’s let that nice family have our table.”

  Grady finished off what was left of his cone in two big bites, then got to his feet. He looked at Ella, who was still holding his right glove, and down at his own hands. A half smile pulled up one corner of his mouth. “Might as well go all the way.”

  Without another word, he stripped the glove off his left hand and gave it to her. Ella closed her fingers around both gloves and worked up a smile. Her throat was almost too tight for words, but she managed to say, “What’s the next stop on the tour?”

  In one week on Sanctuary Island, they’d seen the tiny, one-room jailhouse, exclaimed over the well-preserved architecture of the small public library, listened to the local high school conduct a band camp practice on the steps of the gazebo, and gone to the square after dark to sit on blankets alongside what seemed like the entire population of the island to watch The African Queen projected on the blank white wall of the bank.

  Grady thought about it for a second. “We could check out Wanderer’s Point.”

  Ella narrowed her eyes in s
uspicion. “Isn’t that where you planned to take me cliff jumping? Because I’m telling you right now, Grady—”

  He held up his hands in surrender, laughing. “You don’t have to jump. But we should drive up there anyway. It’s the highest point on the island.”

  “So it’s got a great view, I bet.” Ella started walking toward the Jeep, needing movement and time to get herself under control. “Let’s go.”

  Grady got in the driver’s seat and curled his fingers around the leather steering wheel, flexing his hands.

  As he drove up the narrow country road, Ella cleared her throat. It didn’t help. There were words stuck in there that she had to get out, or she’d choke on them. “Thank you. That was … amazing.”

  He took his eyes off the road for a brief moment, and there was a flicker of answering gratitude in the green-gold depths before he said, “Yeah, it’s good ice cream, huh?”

  Grady shifted gears and put his attention back on the road in front of them, and Ella smiled to herself.

  “The best.”

  They rode the fifteen minutes across the island and up the tall, pine-studded hill in silence, each locked in their own thoughts.

  The Jeep bumped over the rocky single-lane road and crested the hill. The sky opened up over their heads, gossamer white clouds wisping softly across the blue expanse. Grady parked at the edge of the tree line and got out.

  Slamming the Jeep door behind her, Ella turned her face up to the sky. The sun beat down on her cheeks, warm and bright, and when she opened her dazzled eyes, she had to blink a few times before the beauty of the vista in front of her really registered.

  “Wow,” she breathed as Grady shut his door and rounded the Jeep to stand beside her. “I asked for a view, but I didn’t expect you to give me a peek into heaven.”

  Grady stood shoulder to shoulder with her, his long legs bracing both of them against the wind buffeting the rocky bluff where they’d parked. “This is one of my favorite spots on the whole island.”

  His voice was full of quiet satisfaction and pride. Ella edged as close as she dared to the side of the cliff. “It’s glorious.”