by Pamela Fryer
He nodded. “You’re right.”
“I’m sorry.”
He mustered his own well-practiced that’s okay smile. “Don’t be.” He reached for the door handle.
“Wait a minute.”
She slid closer and squeezed his arm. “I don’t want to end tonight like this. Kiss me one more time.”
The tension rushed out of him in a whoosh. He did, gladly, eagerly, but this time with the reverence of a man about to step onto the gallows. And likewise, she was tender, gentle and cherishing. This time it was she who reached over to brush her fingers along his jaw.
If it was just one kiss, it was a very long kiss. She showed no signs of stopping, and heaven help him, neither would he.
He didn’t know what he’d done to discover this delicate angel, but it must have been something good. He felt like the luckiest man alive, yet at the same time, doomed to lose. He would be a fool not to recognize exactly how uncertain his time with her was.
She wasn’t his.
After tonight, letting her go would be even harder than before, and only yesterday he’d thought it would be impossible.
This time, when she stilled their kiss, it was on a sigh. “Geoffrey?”
He stopped, reluctant to open his eyes.
“Yes?”
She smiled sheepishly. “I have to pee.”
Chapter Twelve
Colin’s breath plumed in the crisp air as he crunched across the gravel driveway. He emerged from the shadows of the house into the warm, orange light of the rising sun.
He used to love the dawn, when he and Emily would launch the Maraschino onto a cobalt ocean. The colors usually held their deepest contrast at this time of day: the sky a deep cornflower blue, the ocean’s surface shining like polished silver, the boat’s white hull gleaming in the new light. And all of it pale in comparison to the hue of Emily’s eyes, the light in her smile.
He ached for those days with her, when before he hadn’t realized how good they felt.
He looked up in surprise at an approaching figure. Sonja crossed the driveway at an angle. He cringed at the sight of her. He hadn’t even heard her pull up.
“Colin. We need to talk.”
He opened the door to his battered Jeep and tossed his duffel bag to the passenger side. “Not now. I need to get on the road.”
“When are you coming back?”
He glanced over the marshes to the water. Pristine white seabirds circled a fishing boat returning early, trailing for fish scraps the fishermen tossed over as they cleaned their catch. Today, the morning held the promise of that renewed beauty he hadn’t known in so long. He had his first lead on Emily.
But Sonja, and her needy persistence, threatened to destroy that.
“Where are you going?” she added to the unanswered question. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face pale, as though she’d been up all night crying.
“Chelsie found a lead on a Jane Doe in a coma in a Seattle hospital. She has blond hair.”
“It isn’t Emily. Colin, dammit!” He turned away but she grabbed his arm. “Emily is dead. When are you going to accept that?”
He leaned towards her and shouted his answer. “When I see a body!”
Sonja pushed the door shut and stepped between him and the Jeep. “Emily is gone. I’m here. Colin, I’m five months along. You need to do right by this baby.”
He blasted an angry sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face. God, how was he going to explain this to his father?
Her voice grew softer and this time when she placed her hand on his arm, she was gentler. “Can’t you see that I love you?”
He shook his head and fought the urge to shrink out of her grasp. “You don’t—you’re just scared and you want to provide for your baby. I understand that, Sonja—”
“You love me, too, Colin. I know it. I could feel it when you touched me.”
“No. Jesus, I was drunk that night. You said, ‘Do you want to have some fun?’ Christ, that’s all it was. I wish I’d never done it.”
Her hand formed a fist at the collar of his coat. “How can you say that? We made love. We made a baby!”
He pried her fingers away. “I love Emily. She’s alive—I know it. I’m going to find her.”
He slipped into the Jeep and pulled the door shut. She stayed where she was in the driveway as he pulled away, making him feel like an A-number one dirt-bag.
Jesus, how he wished he’d never messed around with Sonja. The girl was out of her mind, plain and simple. She knew he’d never leave Emily, yet she’d tried to lure him away anyhow. What an idiot he’d been. Why hadn’t he valued Emily as she deserved? Was he being punished? In all those years she’d refused to set a wedding date, he’d still considered himself a free man, and he’d strayed.
More than once, he’d strayed.
But it had always been Emily he’d gone back to, always Emily he knew he’d spend his life with. She owned his heart. Why hadn’t he let the head with the brain do his thinking for him? God. A baby on the way.
He refused to believe Emily was dead. There was a piece of his heart that was connected with her, that continued to glow with her life force. When Chelsie told him about the young woman in a coma in Seattle, he had known in an instant it was Emily. She was alive, but unable to contact him. It made perfect sense.
His energy increased as he drove north, munching on pretzels and an apple. His father would surely run him up one side of the mizzen and down the other when he found out about Sonja, but hopefully Colin could keep her quiet about the baby until he and Emily were married.
He intended to provide for it, to fill a place in the child’s life. But Sonja had to find a husband of her own. It was an old-fashioned notion to expect him to marry her just because she was pregnant. If a girl was modern enough to sleep around before marriage, she should be modern enough for single parenthood.
His anxiety increased with each hour on the road. Gnawing hunger poked at his belly. He used the john at a gas station, but the munchies in the Jeep would have to do.
The only thing on his mind was reaching Seattle, and finding Emily.
* * *
August awoke late feeling groggy, but she didn’t think it was from the pill Gran Millie had given her last night. She’d been up late, thinking about that kiss over and over again.
She rose from the bed and padded to the mirror, smiling to herself as she wondered if Geoffrey had as much trouble sleeping, too.
He’d been a wonderful kisser, but she’d known he would be. There was something so enchanting about a humble man. His beard hadn’t been prickly, after all. His skin, and the gentle brush of his eyelashes across her cheek, had been magically soft.
She brushed her teeth and dragged a comb through her hair before venturing into the main part of the house. A quick glance outside showed Leah’s Lexus missing, and August remembered her saying she was taking Jocelyn shopping this morning.
“Geoffrey?” The house was eerily silent. “Derek?”
The patio door to the deck was open, just the screen closed, letting in the cool morning air. She expected to find Derek outside, but the deck was empty.
The morning was crystal clear, giving her a bright view of the gleaming tower in the distance. Two or three miles down the beach, a familiar shape in black shorts jogged toward the house at the water’s edge where receding waves left the sand hard. Geoffrey. Even at this distance, she could make out his blond hair and muscular physique.
August went back in and stuck a mug of hot water into the microwave for tea. A little caffeine would clear her head. She started a teabag steeping in the hot water and opened the dishwasher. Unloading dishes and vacuuming were the only tasks she could manage with one hand, and she’d quickly learned where things went in the orderly kitchen.
A sound from the back of the house seized her attention. She went still, all the hairs on her body prickling.
“Derek?” His room was at the other end of the house, next to Geoffrey’s.<
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She slotted the last knife into the butcher block holder, closed the dishwasher, and started down the hall in the direction the sound had come from.
Cold shivers of unease slid over her flesh. She cleared her throat. “Derek?”
Silence answered her. It was the first time she’d felt uncomfortable in this house. August turned around and went back to the kitchen.
She was imagining things, that was all. She needed the tea to wake up and clear her head. The pain pill Gran Millie had given her last night made her more fuzzy-headed than she realized.
She went back to the kitchen and toward the steaming cup on the counter. Halfway there, she froze.
One of the knives was missing from the butcher block.
Her body grew hot and hissing rose in her ears.
She glanced around the kitchen, searching for the phone, but couldn’t convince her feet to move. It was at the back of the long kitchen, by the doorway to the foyer.
A creak sounded from the hallway—the creak she had already come to recognize between Jocelyn’s room and the entrance to the grand living room, directly on the other side of the foyer.
Someone was coming.
She turned and bolted through the living room to the patio door. Her fingers fumbled on the latch, but she couldn’t stop her momentum. Her body hit the screen and she stumbled, knocking it off the track. She fell to her knees on the deck and nearly went flat on her face. With her good hand, she shoved herself upright and scrambled to her feet.
She leaped onto the stairs and crashed into Geoffrey.
“Whoa, what is it?” He grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Someone is in the house!”
He glanced past her. “Who? Did you see them?”
She turned around, nearly choking on her fear. Was someone coming with the kitchen knife, or a gun, to finish the job they started?
“I heard a noise when I was unloading the dishwasher. I thought it might be Derek, but he didn’t answer.”
He took her hand and stepped around her.
“Wait, Geoffrey—no.”
“We have to call the police.”
She pulled on his hand. “Can’t we go to a neighbor’s house?”
A female voice called out a hello from inside the house.
Geoffrey’s features relaxed. “It’s Leah.”
But it hadn’t been Leah. August jerked free and rushed up the stairs. Leah was in danger, didn’t he realize that? There was someone else in the house!
His footsteps thumped behind her on the wooden steps.
Leah set a bag of groceries on the counter and smiled when she saw August. “Hi. What happened to the screen?”
August glanced around. The house appeared the same as it always did.
“Where is Derek?” Geoffrey asked his sister.
“I took him to Gran’s. What’s going on?”
Jocelyn came through the front door carrying a grocery bag and a little sac from a boutique. She handed the groceries to her mother and started the other way.
“Jocelyn.” August stopped her. “Come here for a minute, please.”
“What’s up, August?”
She smiled, not wanting to upset the little girl. “What did you buy?”
“Mom got me these really cool beads to make a friendship bracelet for me and my best friend, Amy Knoeller. I’m going to make one for you, too.” She sat down on the couch and opened her bag, but stopped. “What’s going on? Why does everyone look so weird?”
August turned around and met Geoffrey’s eyes. “Someone was just here,” she whispered.
“Leah, did you see anyone on your way in?”
His sister shook her head. Leah had shifted into full-fledged worry; August could read it in her body language.
“Call Mike.”
Leah turned and grabbed the phone.
“Jocelyn, why don’t we take a walk down to the beach?” August held out her hand. She could hear Leah asking for her brother-in-law in the background.
“What’s going on?” Jocelyn pressed. “I’m not a baby, you know. Was there a burglar?”
Leah hung up the phone and they all headed out onto the deck together.
“August got scared, that’s all,” Geoffrey explained gently. He looked at the side of the house. August grabbed his arm when it seemed he was going to investigate.
“Then why is Mike coming?” Jocelyn’s voice took on a new hint of fear.
“We just want to make sure. Come on, let’s watch for him.”
A section of the road could be seen from the far end of the deck. In less than ten minutes, Mike’s black sedan angled around the bend, followed by a squad car.
Leah, August, and Jocelyn waited outside while Geoffrey explained the situation. After Mike and the two officers with him thoroughly checked the house, they went back inside and Jocelyn was allowed to go listen to music in her room.
“We didn’t find anything. The glass door to your father’s room was unlocked, but nothing to indicate someone had been here.”
They grouped in the kitchen, all of them looking at August like she was crazy.
“There was someone here,” she insisted. “I heard them in the hall. I thought it might be Derek, but he didn’t answer.”
“I took Derek with me this morning,” Leah confirmed. “There was no one in the house.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just hear the house settling?”
“When I came back to the kitchen, I saw that a knife was missing out of the butcher block. I had just unloaded the dishwasher and I’m sure the block was full. Every knife was clean.”
She could practically hear the swish of all five heads turning toward the butcher block.
“All the knives were there,” she repeated. “Then I heard someone step on the creak in the hallway. That’s when I ran to the glass door to the deck and fell through the screen.”
Leah went over to the dishwasher and cracked the door. She pulled it all the way open, bent, and retrieved a knife from the bottom rack. “This one?”
A wave of heat rushed from head to toe. She wasn’t crazy! “I put that in the block, I’m...I’m sure of it.”
“You’re certain you didn’t leave that one behind? It’s small; you might not have seen it in the silverware tray.”
“I remember replacing all five knives in their rightful place. That’s the paring knife. It goes in the bottom, rightmost slot.” She glanced away, certain that if she let go the tears stinging the back of her eyes, she’d lose all credibility in the officers’ eyes. “I’m not imagining this. I heard someone in the hall.”
“There’s something else,” Geoffrey added. He sighed. “I didn’t think it was important so I didn’t want to worry you with it. Now I’m not so sure.”
Her heart did a flip-flop. What did he know that he hadn’t told her? She swallowed back the burning in her throat and waited while Geoffrey turned to his brother-in-law.
He briefly explained the eerie feelings August had every time she saw the marina, and her memory of a red-haired woman. “Then last night at the banquet, I noticed a strange woman sitting at the back of the ballroom at an empty table. She didn’t look like she belonged. She was dressed casually and didn’t talk to anyone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” August didn’t mean to shout, but at the same time she couldn’t believe Geoffrey had kept this from her.
“Her hair was dark, almost black, and I didn’t think anything of it at the time.” The voice he returned sounded hurt. “I noticed a car had followed us out of town, but I didn’t put two and two together.”
“My God, Geoffrey, you endangered your family!” One tear slipped free, and August lost her hold on the others. She turned sideways and wiped at them with her good hand.
Geoffrey stepped closer and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Listen, we still don’t know it’s anything to worry about. You may have left the knife behind, and this old house creaks all the time.”
He wiped a tear
from her cheek. When he gathered her into his arms, she melted against him. She could feel the others watching them in silence.
“I think you may be overreacting,” Officer Mike finally said. “After all, if someone were after you, why would they put the knife back into the dishwasher?”
August pulled out of Geoffrey’s grip but wiped the tears from her face before turning back to face the group.
“I wish I had the answers. Believe me.”
“I know you do, and nobody blames you,” Mike said. “What can you tell me about the marina? Do you think it’s possible you were on a boat that night?”
August shook her head. “I don’t know. Geoffrey took me onto Penny Lane, but nothing looked familiar. Only the red-haired woman and her black Labrador were right at the edge of my memory.”
“Did you talk to Dr. Lohman about it?”
August shook her head. She didn’t want to admit she wasn’t going back to the psychiatrist. Thinking about it now, though, maybe she should.
“August isn’t comfortable with Dr. Lohman,” Geoffrey said. He stepped up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She felt a rush of gratitude for his support, and guilt churned in her stomach for snapping at him.
Mike’s frown said he disapproved, but he didn’t comment. “Well, the house is clear, and I locked that sliding door in your father’s room. I’ll send a patrol car past every few hours.”
“Can you issue an alert to pull over any cars with out-of-state license plates?” Geoffrey asked. “Just to check license and registration for any red-haired women from out of town? The woman last night might have been wearing a disguise. At least we could get a name.”
“Not officially, of course,” Mike said. “But I’ll see what I can do. Leah, when are you heading back to Portland?”
Geoffrey’s sister turned a sympathetic smile toward August. “I’m sorry, sweetie. In light of this, I think we should go today. Believe me, if Jocelyn were with her father, I’d stay here and help you kick some ass.”
August grasped her hand. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want anyone hurt because of me. I couldn’t live with myself.”