by JoAnn Ross
The sky was burnished pewter, a few shades lighter than the steel gray sea. Every so often the sun would pierce through the clouds, causing diamonds to dance on the waves. Although he’d traveled the world for the past ten years, Lucas had continued to feel the same connection to the sea he’d experienced the first summer his father had brought him to Shelter Bay. The summer after his sister had died and his grieving mother had left the gray drizzle of the Pacific Northwest—and her equally devastated husband and son—for a new start beneath Colorado’s blue skies.
He’d often thought that Magellan had gotten it wrong, because there was nothing peaceful about this part of the Pacific. It could be unpredictable. Wild. Even dangerous. Which he’d always thought mirrored his own life.
Out on the horizon, a fishing boat chummed the waters. Gulls trailed behind it, diving, screeching, and fighting over breakfast. Closer to shore, a pod of seals swam parallel to the beach, doing their own morning fishing. Sandpipers skittered along the edge of the surf as the German shepherd took off on her self-appointed yet ultimately impossible role of keeping the beach seagull free.
As the dog raced up and down the sand, her barks carried off by the breeze, Lucas cast his line into the white-capped breaker waves, then let the sinker dig into the sandy bottom, allowing the sand shrimp and clam-neck bait to sway enticingly back and forth with the movement of the water.
One of the things the military had taught him was patience. He kept casting and reeling the line back in until he felt the sharp, telltale tugs at the rod tip. Jerking sharply to set the hook, he reeled in a fat sea perch. While Scout kept the circling gulls at bay, he took out the hook, put the fish into his creel, rebaited, and cast again.
He’d caught his limit in less than thirty minutes, and killed time throwing a piece of driftwood into the surf for Scout, who’d race into the waves, retrieve it, and come racing back to drop it at his feet, her wet tail wagging merrily as she waited for another throw. The same way she’d walk with his SEAL team for miles over rocks and desolation in Afghanistan, she appeared indefatigable when it came to ocean fetching. And although there was a vague threat of a riptide, sneaker wave, or even a shark, at least Lucas no longer had to worry about her stepping on a booby trap and losing another leg. Or worse yet, her life.
He’d just thrown the stick for what felt like the umpteenth time when, out of the swirling mist and fog he viewed a woman clad in a bright yellow slicker and tall black boots, clamming in the shallow water.
Intent as she was on her harvest, she didn’t notice that she was no longer alone until Scout, sighting a new playmate, went racing toward her and dropped the driftwood right next to her shovel.
He watched as she laughed, patted the dog’s head, threw the stick into the water, then looked around for its owner.
Although she was far enough away to keep him from seeing her face, Lucas knew Maddy had recognized him when her shoulders stiffened.
She half turned as if to walk away; then, as he watched, she appeared to make the decision to stand her ground.
As he walked toward her across the damp sand, Lucas had a very good idea how those perch had felt when they’d found themselves hooked.
“Are you following me?”
“Not to quibble the point, but since the beach was deserted when Scout and I came down, I could ask the same question of you.”
“To which the answer would be a definitive no.” She glanced down at the dog, who was standing over the driftwood, furry tale wagging like a metronome, looking back and forth between them, eyes pleading for someone just to throw the stick, please.
“Is this your dog?”
“Yeah. I brought her back with me from Afghanistan.” Because the gaze was working as it always did, he gave in, picked the stick up, and threw it into the surf. She ran after it, pausing only to bark a warning to a pod of pelicans flying by in fighter-jet formation.
“Is that where…?” Her voice drifted off as if the question was too difficult to ask out loud.
“She lost her leg to an IED on a booby-trapped house door,” he supplied. “Which gave a whole new meaning to ‘taking one for the team.’ ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So was I.” He’d spent years treating guys wounded in battle, including a really bad copter crash in the Hindu Kush. He’d saved more men than he’d lost, but every life he hadn’t saved still haunted him. But never had he felt ice-cold panic as he had when amputating the loyal shepherd’s leg while under fire.
They both watched the dog happily bounding through the surf. Apparently realizing her humans were otherwise occupied, she began tossing the stick into the air herself. Then racing after it.
“She seems to have adjusted remarkably.”
“Physically, her recovery was amazing.” Lucas rubbed his jaw and wished he’d taken time to shave before leaving the cottage. “She did, unfortunately, return home with a rough case of PTSD, but Charity—that’s my half sister, but since she was only here one summer, you might not have met her—”
“She’s the vet Gram adopted Winnie from.”
“That would be her. I don’t think she’s going to be able to rest until every abandoned or abused animal on the planet has a home.…Anyway, she’s had animal behavioral training and says that Scout’s about ninety-percent back to her old self, which isn’t always the case. You should’ve seen the dog a few months ago. She spent most of the time with her tail between her legs, hiding under tables and trying to avoid people.”
“That’s so sad.”
“War’s a long way from playing fetch. But to her, sniffing out bombs was just another game in the beginning, and she was probably one of the best ever born to it. She also was great on house-to-house searches in some of the more remote villages we were sent to.”
“Damn.” Her brow furrowed and her midnight eyes darkened.
“What?”
“I’m really trying to hate you.” A thin white line circled unpainted lips he could still taste. Lips he was aching to taste again.
The definitive words, Lucas told himself, were trying to. “You hold a grudge a long time.”
“Yes.” He was tempted to rub at the furrow between her brows, then decided not to push his luck. So far she hadn’t slugged him with that clam shovel, which was encouraging. “It appears I do.”
“What happened between us was a long time ago.” Surely the statue of limitations on stupidity would have run out by now. “Would it matter if I had a reason?”
“No.” She lifted her chin. “As you said, it was a long time ago. There’s no point in rehashing old memories.” Her curt tone declared the topic closed.
He should just let it go. Count himself lucky that she didn’t intend to drag him over the coals.
They were no longer those two crazy kids they’d once been. They’d grown up. He’d changed more than he ever could have foreseen that stolen summer. She’d obviously changed, too.
Let it go.
Too late.
During all those summers he and his dad had come to Shelter Bay, the community had seemed frozen in time. From what he’d seen so far, except for the new names on the storefronts, and more tourist boats than fishing boats in the harbor, that hadn’t changed.
It had also been the very trait, which, when he’d found his postwar plans in shambles, had drawn him back.
One thing he hadn’t counted on was that Maddy would be returning home, too.
It’s true, Lucas thought on a burst of optimism. Timing really is everything.
19
“Look,” he said, “I understand you’re still hurting—”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” A gust of wind blew her hood back. Frustrated at this situation she’d landed in, Madeline ignored it.
After a night spent tossing and turning as images of that damn video of Maxime flashed through her mind, chased by other images of this man with a cocktail waitress from the Stewed Clam, she’d finally crawled out of bed, dressed quietly whil
e Sofia was still sleeping, and come down to the beach. She’d hoped that the brisk, fresh air would clear her head and the endless surf would soothe, as it had when she’d first started coming here after her parents’ deaths.
Which it had. Until she’d looked up and seen Lucas standing there. Wondering how long he’d been watching her instead of running away, as she’d been tempted to do, she’d stood her ground and made him come to her.
“What I am is annoyed that you’ve managed to insinuate yourself into my grandmother’s life. And for some reason, which totally escapes me, she seems to like you. Which means that by default, I’m stuck with you, too.”
“You’ve gotten tougher.”
“I’ve had to,” she said with a tone a great deal drier than the weather. There were, however, limits. Deciding it was time to cut this conversation short before it got more personal than she was prepared to handle, Madeline picked up her red clam bucket. “I suppose I’ll see you at the farm.”
When she turned to walk back to the wooden steps, he caught her arm. “This isn’t going to work.”
“On that we can agree.” She pried his long fingers from her sleeve. “So, why don’t you just tell my grandmother that your plans have changed and you won’t be able to do her remodel after all?”
“I gave my word.”
“Then break it.”
“It’s not that easy. Sofia’s like the grandmother I never knew. I wouldn’t begin to know how to say no to her.”
“Oh, really?” Damn the man; he had her trembling. Not as he’d once done, but with anger and, worse, remembered pain. “Give it a try,” she advised. “I’m sure it’ll come back to you.”
“Okay.” His tone was short and far more harsh than she’d ever heard it. Suddenly, he looked and sounded like the warrior she knew him to be. “That’s it. I’m already sick and tired of dancing around the damn topic. We need to straighten this out.”
Although she didn’t believe he’d actually hurt her, the hard look in his eyes had her backing up a step. “What we need is to get out of the rain.” The mist, which had turned to a drizzle while they were talking, was becoming a drenching rain. And getting colder by the moment.
“Okay. Come up to the cottage. We can talk there. Unless you want to dump our problem on your grandmother.”
“No.” She hated that he was right. “And, for Gram’s sake, I’m willing to work with you on planning her remodel. But that’s it. There’s nothing you can say that’ll change anything about what happened back then.”
“Yeah, that’s what Sax said you’d say.”
She’d been reluctantly walking back toward the stairs, but that muttered comment had her stopping in her tracks.
“You discussed our personal business with Sax Douchett?”
“Guys might not share as much as women, but, yeah, we’ve been known to talk about regrets. You were mine.…
“Not you,” he tacked on quickly, “but how things ended between us. So, yesterday, when I stopped by Bon Temps for something to eat and told him I’d run into you in Sofia’s kitchen, he told me to man up and tell you the truth.”
Madeline couldn’t believe this. Was there nothing about her damn life that was private? “I saw the truth.”
“You saw what you thought was the truth,” he corrected. “It was what I wanted you to see.”
“Right.” Rain streamed from her hair and face. She put down the pail long enough to drag a handful of wet curls out of her eyes. “You actually expect me to buy the story that you wanted me to see you sprawled on your father’s couch, making out with a cocktail waitress?”
“Who are you going to believe?” he asked. “Me or your lying eyes?”
“Excuse me if I don’t find betrayal a joking matter.” She picked up the pail and began walking again.
“Okay.” He blew out a long breath. “That was inappropriate. I apologize. Now, do you want to discuss it out here in the rain? Or indoors over some coffee and heated-up bread pudding?”
“I thought you didn’t cook.” Even as she asked the question, Madeline assured herself that the only reason he was able to throw her off track was that the debacle with Maxime had gotten her off her game.
“I don’t. It’s leftovers. Sax always serves me twice as much as I need. I suspect it’s Kara’s doing, so I won’t starve.”
“You could always learn to cook.”
“Or maybe once we get the restaurant up and going, you could cook for me.”
“Why, what a good idea.” She flashed him a sweet, feigned smile. “I’d love nothing more than to make you a pesto and hemlock pizza with a big piece of arsenic pie à la mode for dessert.”
His answering laugh was too rich. Too warm.
And too, too familiar.
As she climbed the steps up the cliff, Madeline sternly reminded herself that a strong, sensible, responsible woman who’d already been burned once by this man could not allow herself to be so easily turned into Silly Putty by a look. A touch. A laugh.
She was going to have to work on that.
Really, she was.
Beginning now.
20
The Chaffee summerhouse was just as Madeline remembered it. When visitors approached from the road, the house looked like a cozy Cape Cod cottage, with weathered gray shingles, white trim, and clapboard shutters.
But when you walked in the front door, you found yourself facing a wall of glass that framed the beach and the ocean all the way out to the horizon.
“This view still takes my breath away,” she admitted as she shrugged out of her wet slicker.
“Dad appreciated designs from the past.” Lucas hung the jacket next to his own on a pegged rack by the door. When he put his sandy boots in the boot box, Madeline followed suit and tried not to think how oddly right it looked to have her things next to his.
“Which is why, instead of building some stark, modern box that might’ve landed this place on the cover of Architectural Digest, he wanted the exterior of the house people viewed to fit into the rest of the town. But since he was also a form-follows-function guy, he thought it would be criminal to block this million-dollar view with traditional cottage windows.”
“Probably a lot more than a million dollars these days,” she said as she crossed the wide-plank wood floor to the window. Fortunately, the slipcovered couch where he’d betrayed her had been replaced sometime over the years. “I’ve missed this,” she admitted. “Not this view, specifically. But the town. And the ocean.”
“The East Coast has an ocean.” He crossed the room to stand behind her.
“True. But it’s not the same thing.” Instead of pale sands strewn with pretty pink and cream shells, a huge pile of driftwood logs had washed ashore. Green kelp covered everything, like nets left behind by careless fishermen. “Eastern beaches tend to be much tidier.”
“And crowded, I’ll bet.”
“You’d win that bet.” She sighed. “Until this morning, when I went clamming, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been outside without anyone within sight.”
“We’re definitely off the beaten track here.”
She looked up at him. “It sounds as if you plan to stay.”
“I got a call last night from this guy. He’s a retired stockbroker from Seattle who bought the old cannery down on the harbor and is looking for someone to fix it up.”
“From the high-flying world of stocks and bonds to canned fish is a huge jump for a second career.”
“He’s not going to use the building for canning. He’s an artisan furniture maker who reclaims wounded urban trees that are going to be destroyed, which apparently is becoming the ‘in’ thing among wealthy collectors. That counter”—
he pointed at the kitchen counter that hadn’t been there ten years ago—“is from a red maple that came down in a storm up in Astoria.”
“It’s stunning.” And all the more appealing because of the crack, which was evidence that the life of a tree wasn’t nearly as easy as
it looked when it was just standing in a park or forest.
“Isn’t it? Dad bought it about six months ago. He e-mailed me photos because he thought we could see about maybe incorporating some of the guy’s work into the millwork of the houses we were going to restore.”
He paused and dragged a hand through his hair. Madeline knew firsthand the hurt he was feeling. She also knew that he’d never quite overcome it.
“Anyway, he decided that he’d rather set up his own shop, now that he’s escaped the daily office grind. He was about to lease space on Pioneer Square in Seattle, but then he came down here on a fishing trip, started talking with Dad, who was at the marina that day, spotted the cannery, and decided to turn it into a workshop and lease out gallery space.”
“There are a lot of local artists who’d probably sign on right away.” Shelter Bay had, from its early days, drawn artists and musicians who enjoyed the solitude and creative inspiration of the sea and mountains. “And the location’s a draw, being right next to the farmers’ market. And down Harborview from the marina.”
“That was his thinking. He’s already got commitments for seventy-five percent of the planned space. Now he just needs someone who can turn the plans into reality.”
“It sounds like quite a challenge.” And made her wonder how Lucas also planned to remodel her grandmother’s kitchen.
“A lot easier than humping up a mountain with a hundred-pound pack on your back while bad guys are shooting at you.”
Again, she was forced to realize that whatever else he’d done, specifically to her, the man standing so close that she could feel the heat of his body was also a hero.
She was trying to morph the two disparate men into one in her mind when something out in the silvery mist caught her attention.
“Oh, look!” She drew in a short breath. “The whales!”
Several decades ago, a pod of whales had been making their annual migration from Alaska down to Mexico when, for some reason no one knew, they’d decided to settle on this part of the coast. Not only had they added to the local color, but they’d also proven an important part of Shelter Bay’s economy, drawing visitors from around the world.