Hmm, that idea wasn’t sitting quite as comfortably on him as it had before.
And while it was no surprise that Tate would champion Helena and get indignant on her behalf, Tate knew Helena better than almost anybody. If he worried Helena could get hurt, it gave Ryan pause and reason to believe it. That meant Helena wasn’t as tough as she claimed to be.
It meant that he had the power and possibility to hurt her.
Which meant she might care.
And that changed everything.
* * *
Flashlights, batteries, beer. Yep, pretty much all we’ll need.
On second thought, she grabbed a can of insect repellent. It got swampy out by the Neville place, and it could be buggy even this late in the year. Part of her wanted to grab some snacks for a mini picnic, but that was just too sappy to fathom.
Helena’s quick dash through the Shop ’n Save had taken less than ten minutes, so she still had time to run by Latte Dah for a coffee to-go and get home in time to make Grannie’s dinner.
I might just be getting the hang of this. Finding my groove.
The thought of a groove made her chuckle quietly to herself, but that died quickly as she left aisle six and ran straight into Shelby Tanner.
Shelby at least had the good grace to look a little guilty as well as surprised. “Hi, Helena. Good to see you.”
How she’d managed to go nearly a month in Magnolia Beach without running into Shelby before now was a great mystery. Shelby hadn’t changed much at all—she was taller and her features had matured, but the feminine version of the Tanner looks was impossible to deny.
Her initial amusement had given way to irritation and finally insult as Shelby’s attempts to find Ryan another woman picked up steam. Be the bigger person. Say something small-talkish and move on. Or just walk away. Maybe if Shelby hadn’t opened with “Good to see you,” Helena might have managed it. “I find that hard to believe, Shelby.”
I am petty and should be ashamed.
Shelby accepted the snark with a nod. “I guess that’s fair enough.”
“I won’t keep you, then. I need to get home to Grannie.”
“Please give her my best.”
“I will.” Grannie will be proud. She’d covered the basics of required politeness and could now leave without looking more petty and bitchy. “Bye, Shelby.” Head high, she turned away.
“Helena, wait.”
Christ. “What can I do for you?”
“Ryan’s beyond pissed at me, and I know you think I’m horrible, but I just want you to know that it’s nothing personal.”
Nothing personal? It was all she could do not to gape like a goldfish. “I don’t know how I can assume it’s anything but. What I don’t understand is why. What did I ever do to you?”
“Nothing. Which is why it’s not personal. It’s about Ryan, not you. I just want him to be happy.”
It was galling as hell, and Helena had no idea how to respond.
“Ryan has a good life here. He’s respected and loved, and you—”
“Are not. I know that.” She sighed. “We’ve talked about it, and he doesn’t think it’s a problem.”
“Of course he wouldn’t. Call it ego or arrogance or naïveté, but whatever it is, Ryan just has blinders on when it comes to you.”
“He’s a big boy. It’s his choice.”
Shelby shook her head. “But Ryan needs a nice, sweet girl who’d be happy here in Magnolia Beach being a mayor’s wife. I think we both know that’s not you.”
That stung. It was the truth, but that didn’t make it sting less. It also gave a stir to all the feelings and insecurities she’d been deliberately squashing. Damn it, I’m not letting Shelby Tanner undo years’ worth of therapy. “Since he hasn’t proposed to me and I’ll be leaving anyway, it’s not an issue. And I don’t think he’ll have a problem finding that nice, sweet girl once I’m gone.”
Shelby leveled a look at her. “But after he’s been with you, do you think a nice, sweet local girl will ever measure up?”
Ouch. Or maybe it should be thanks. Compliment or complaint? It was a hard comment to unpack. “I’m sure one will. As you said, that’s what Ryan needs.” She was done discussing Ryan with Shelby. It was time to try that dignified exit again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home and fix my grandmother’s dinner.”
Shelby nodded and let her leave without another comment.
Man, that was irritating as hell. Especially because Helena didn’t have a good counterargument. Nothing Shelby had said was wrong, and half of it she’d argued herself with Ryan. She couldn’t force him to care about something he didn’t. And maybe he was right. It wasn’t her problem, and she was frankly happier leaving it alone.
She was deep in thought, causing her to nearly run down another woman as she pushed through the glass doors to the street. She grabbed the woman to keep her from falling, recognizing her in the same instant as Pastor Thorpe’s wife. Lovely. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Jane.”
“Be careful, Helena. You’ll hurt somebody rushing around like that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How’s your grandmother?”
“Getting stronger every day,” she answered automatically.
“Margaret Wilson says you’ve offered to freshen up our Web site. That’s very kind of you.”
Helena hadn’t known Jane Thorpe was part of the historical society. “It’s my pleasure.”
“Well, watch where you’re going so you don’t fall, and tell Louise I said hello.”
“Will do.” She held the door open for Ms. Jane, thinking that if Ryan wanted to win over the ladies of the historical society, all he had to do was offer to redo their media presence.
It wasn’t until she got home that she realized she might have won over the historical society. If that wasn’t a coup, she didn’t know what was.
Chapter 15
“Helena, just admit you’re lost.”
This was not what he’d expected when Helena showed up at his house. Even when she’d told him to change into boots and jeans, he couldn’t have imagined she planned to march him through the backwoods of the outskirts of town for some as-yet-unexplained reason.
She turned and shone her flashlight in his face. “I am not lost. I just got turned around for a minute. It’s been a while since I’ve been out here, ya know.”
He pulled out his phone and checked. He had a signal but only two bars. It would be embarrassing, but he could call for help if she’d gotten them truly lost. “And where exactly is ‘here’?”
“You’ll see.”
He opened the map app. Maybe it could find them. “We’ve got to be on private property by now. So we’re trespassing.”
“Put that away. You’ll ruin the surprise. And don’t be such a goody-goody.”
“I coach teenagers. I’m the mayor. I’m supposed to set a good example.”
“Then keep your voice down.”
The pin finally landed, and the map told him where they were. “Jesus, we’re on the back side of the Neville place. That’s just great. Forget arrested. We’re going to get shot at.”
She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Hank Neville is a terrible shot. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
He pointed his flashlight at her. “I am not going to ask how you know that. . . .”
Grinning, she said, “That’s probably a good idea. Come on.” Reaching for his hand, she pulled him along. “I can’t believe you don’t know where we’re going.”
“Well, you haven’t told me, remember?”
“But you would recognize where you were if you’d ever been out here. Jeez, what did all you good little boys and girls do in the evenings?”
“Hung out at the Frosty Freeze. Went to the beach. Obeyed the laws. You know, the usual ki
d stuff.”
“Loitering, underage drinking, taking glass containers onto the beach . . . yeah, real law-abiding.”
“It might not have been Bible study, but I certainly didn’t trespass onto property owned by crazy rednecks who shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Good for you. You get a cookie,” she said sarcastically. Then she pushed through a bush and pointed with her flashlight. “Here we are. Look.”
A cinder-block lighthouse just a little taller than a one-story house, stuck up in the middle of the woods. Red and white stripes circled the tower. All that was missing was the light on top. “It’s real.”
“Of course it’s real.”
That lighthouse was a local legend—everyone claimed to have been there, yet no one would ever tell exactly how they got there. The story was that some Yankee tourist had gone crazy when his wife drowned in Heron Bay, and he built her a lighthouse with the idea she’d find her way home. When she didn’t, he climbed up to the top and shot himself. Supposedly his ghost still haunted the lighthouse, shooting at anyone who approached who wasn’t his dead wife.
He’d thought both the story and the lighthouse were just silly local lore. He didn’t know if kids today had even heard the story. But sure enough, that was a lighthouse, in the middle of nowhere, and in the last place anyone would look for it. “No, I mean, I always thought it was just a joke, a reason to get drunk kids to wander around in the middle of the night once they were too smart to go on a snipe hunt.”
“It is a bit of a snipe hunt.” She laughed. “A lighthouse should be on the water, so most people don’t think to come eight miles inland to look for it.”
“How did you know where to look?”
“Do you want the truth, or something that won’t horrify your mayoral and coaching sensibilities?”
Although he might regret it . . . “The truth.”
Helena laughed again as she cleared out the plants that grew in front of the small door. If the legend was still going around, that alone was proof the current generation wasn’t having any more luck finding it than he had. “Old Mr. Neville used to grow pot back here in the seventies. The lighthouse started off as just a lookout—inside it’s just a platform on scaffolding—which is why folks got shot at when they got too close. When the old man died, Hank Neville decided to make himself a lighthouse and built the cinder-block tower around it. I have no idea why, but he was always eccentric, you know. It used to have a place for a light up top, but that disappeared in the summer of ’ninety-seven or ’ninety-eight. We couldn’t exactly ask, so I never found out what happened to it.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but how did you learn of its location?”
She tossed a couple of rocks out of the way, then stood and brushed her hands off against her jeans. “Paulie’s older cousin used to help with the harvest. He told us about it.”
That was about the best answer he could hope for. “I’ve lived here my entire life. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this.”
“Well, even you can’t know everything, can you? Come on, the view is really cool from up top.”
“We’re going in?”
“Of course. Why else would I drag you a mile off the road into the woods?”
A quick glance over the door showed it was held shut by a rusty hasp and ancient padlock. “It’s locked.”
“You give up too quickly.” Helena gave the hasp a jiggle, and it released from the wall, leaving the door hanging drunkenly at an angle. “Things aren’t always what they seem,” she said as she ducked inside.
With no other option, he followed her in. The cinder blocks had been built around a metal ladder and scaffold, creating a circle with maybe a five-foot radius. While it smelled earthy and damp, the floor was clear of trash, meaning people didn’t come out here often. The ladder itself led straight up to what looked like a converted tree stand overhead. “Well, this seems to be a death trap.”
Helena gave the ladder and each of the supports a hard shake, but it didn’t move much. “It seems pretty sturdy to me.” She tucked her flashlight into her waistband, adjusted her backpack, and started to climb.
Ryan held his flashlight on her to provide light and hovered underneath her, waiting to catch her if the whole damn thing gave way. When she got to the top, he finally released his breath.
She looked down at him. “You coming?”
Ryan climbed slowly, pausing to listen carefully for creaks or the sounds of rusted metal about to collapse. Even with his added weight, it seemed like it would hold, but he tried to convince himself that if it did collapse, the fall wouldn’t be far enough to kill either of them. Once on the platform, he couldn’t stand up fully without bashing his head against the ceiling, so he sat.
Helena dug into her pack and set up a battery-operated camp lantern, which illuminated the area nicely, but as far as he could see, it was simply a cinder-block column, and he said so.
She sighed. “Well, give me a hand.” She put her hands against the ceiling and motioned for him to do the same. “Now push.”
Like a giant skylight, the ceiling swung back on protesting hinges, opening them up to the night sky and allowing them to stand up completely. Helena pointed toward the southwest. “On clear nights you can see almost all the way to the Coast Guard station. You can’t see the boats, but you can see the lights from the helicopters taking off and landing.” Then she sat and leaned back to look up at the sky. “It’s pretty, huh?”
Honestly, he didn’t see much difference between the sky here and in the rest of Magnolia Beach, but he figured he probably shouldn’t offer up that information. He sat beside her. “It’s nice.”
“I know it’s the same ol’ sky, but being up here makes it feel closer. Plus, it’s so quiet and dark out here. In town, you’ve got the lights and down by the beach there’s the sound of the water, but out here . . . about two o’clock in the morning, it’s like you’re the only people on earth.”
“That’s cool. Wait. I thought you had a curfew you had to be home for.”
“I did.”
“Then how were you out here at two in the morning?”
Helena gave him a pitying look. “I never said I stayed home.”
“Wow. I’m beginning to think your grandmother deserves a medal for not strangling you.”
Helena sighed. “The woman’s a saint, that’s for sure.”
“How is she doing, by the way?”
“Better. She invited her bridge club to the house tonight to play cards. She’s showing progress every day, so maybe we’re turning the corner toward the home stretch. Or at least, the my-going-home stretch,” she corrected with a laugh. “She’s going to need help for the foreseeable future, particularly with the cooking and cleaning, so if you know anyone who’d do a good job for a reasonable amount of money, send them my way.”
There was that unpleasant pang again. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.
Helena reached into her backpack and pulled out two cans of beer. After passing one to him, she returned to her earlier position. The lantern and the moonlight cast competing shadows and light across her face and body.
“So why’d you bring me out here?” he asked.
She smiled at him, and she seemed almost shy. “I thought you might like it.” Then she shook her head. “You’re right. It’s stupid. We can go.”
“No,” he corrected quickly, “I’m glad you brought me. It’s nice.”
That seemed to please her, and they lay there quietly for a few minutes watching the stars. When she sighed, he looked over and noticed the wrinkle between her eyebrows. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just thinking.”
“About . . . ?” he prodded.
“You, actually.”
The honesty of that shocked him. He wanted to be pleased, but . . . “From the
look on your face, I don’t think they’re very good thoughts.”
“They’re good thoughts, I promise.”
“How good?” He hoped he’d laced the words with enough innuendo to cover the naked curiosity.
“They’re not those kinds of thoughts.”
“Oh?”
“I was just thinking that you’ve been really great.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You weren’t what I was expecting; that’s for sure.”
“It’s another question I’m sure to regret, but what were you expecting?”
She seemed to consider it for a long moment, and that made him nervous. She sat up, leaned against one of the metal supports, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Ryan Tanner, of the Magnolia Beach Tanners, a good, God-fearing, established, and well-connected family. Good-looking, charming, local hero and football legend. A popular, well-liked, forward-thinking and respected mayor, successful businessman, role model for the youth of Magnolia Beach . . .” Somehow Helena made those descriptions seem less than complimentary. “You should be smug, self-assured, self-righteous, married to the former head cheerleader with two-point-five kids and a picket fence. But you’re not, so color me surprised.”
Helena wasn’t one for easy compliments. “I’m not sure whether to say ‘thanks’ or ‘bite me.’”
“I’d go with ‘thanks.’ I meant it as a compliment. I’m pleasantly surprised.”
“It goes both ways.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Who’d have thought Hell-on-Wheels would grow up to be you? Responsible, sensible . . .”
“Ugh, stop,” she interrupted. “My inner child is horrified.”
“Those were compliments.”
A small smile tugged at her lips. “I know. And thanks.” Helena leaned onto her side and propped her head on her fist. With a waggle of her eyebrows, she asked, “So, you wanna make out?”
He leaned in to give her a kiss. “No.”
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