Kiss of a Stranger (Lost Coast Harbor, Book 1)

by Lily Danes

  Whoever had done this had been watching her, waiting for her to leave the office. Anger boiled in her core, and she welcomed it. Anger demanded action, and that was a lot more useful than fear.

  Maddie crawled to the desk and hit the speed dial button for Hastings Shipping. Her replacement picked up. “Tammy, is Gabe Reyes there? He needs to come to Oliver’s office now. There’s an urgent issue with his paperwork.”

  While she waited, Maddie began organizing the files. If she figured out what they took, she might have some idea who did this.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It took fifteen minutes to walk from the harbor to town. Seven minutes after her phone call, Gabe knocked on the office door.

  He took in the chaos with a single glance, then hurried to Maddie’s side. “Tell me what happened.” The words were sharp enough to cut glass.

  Maddie’s shoulders dropped in unexpected relief. His anger erased the fear she’d barely known she carried—that Gabe himself was behind this. That he’d been too impatient to wait for her to go through the files, or maybe hadn’t trusted her enough.

  She exhaled. It was exhausting, always second-guessing the man, and she didn’t want to do it anymore. She wanted to fall against his chest, feel his strong arms wrap around her and hear his gravelly voice whisper that she was safe.

  Instead, she told him everything she knew. It wasn’t much. When she finished, she repeated the story while Gabe asked questions, trying to tease out details she’d forgotten. A muscle ticked in his jaw when she mentioned her visit to the bookstore.

  “How long were you with Declan?”

  “Five minutes. Maybe ten.”

  “That all he’s good for?”

  Just like that, she felt more of a desire to punch him than curl up in his arms. This wasn’t the time for a dick-measuring contest. “We decided we didn’t want to go out again, you asshole.”

  Gabe hadn’t expected that, and his smile appeared out of nowhere. “Really?”

  She glared, waiting for him to return to the topic at hand.

  “We’ll come back to that. How long were you at lunch?”

  “Long enough to eat a sandwich. The lunch rush was over, so I didn’t need to wait long.”

  “Are you a slow eater?”

  It was a simple question, and a reminder of how little they knew about each other.

  “Medium, I guess. I read the front section of the paper while I waited. About twenty-five minutes.”

  “So they had less than an hour, and I doubt they used it all. This was about speed, not precision. Whoever did this wanted to get out before you returned.” Gabe rifled through the one box she’d already put back in order, then scanned the remaining mess. “They probably took the time to look at the file names, but not enough to pick through each paper.”

  Maddie thought the same thing. If they took anything, they probably grabbed an entire folder. It would be easy to figure out which by comparing the remaining files to the inventory list.

  Gabe settled himself on the floor and reached for the nearest documents. “This one’s accounts receivable from seven years ago. June.”

  She placed the list on a clipboard and sat across from him, then checked off that file.

  They fell into an easy rhythm. Gabe read off a name and handed her the manila folder. She made a note, then put it in the proper place. An hour later the floor was clear again, each folder lined up neatly in the large document boxes.

  “Everything’s still here.” Maddie frowned. “Everything except…” She trailed off and hoped Gabe didn’t notice.

  It was a ridiculous hope. “Except what?”

  Reluctantly, she opened her bag and withdrew its contents. “Except your file. I pulled it before I went to lunch. I thought it might…”

  “Might tell you more about me?” Gabe’s leaned against the side of the desk, his legs stretched out on the floor. “All you need to do is ask.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And I’m just supposed to believe you?”

  He leaned forward a little, the intent eyes a marked contrast to his relaxed pose. “I can’t make you trust me. Can’t make you do anything. I know I misled you, but I never lied. It’s not much of a distinction, but it’s all I got. And I don’t plan to start lying now.”

  “Okay. What’s your favorite color?”

  Gabe’s surprised laugh caught her off-guard. His face was transformed. The crinkles around his eyes softened the scar on his right temple, and the hard cheekbones almost disappeared. Even his dark brown eyes looked lighter, a bit of gold peeking through the depths.

  “No reason to lie about that,” she explained.

  “What if it was pink? I might not want that getting around. No one would believe I’m a degenerate criminal if I liked pink. But it’s yellow.”

  That surprised her. Most people chose blue, maybe red or green. Given his bad boy exterior, she’d half-expected him to go with black. “Why?”

  He closed his eyes, as if picturing the color. Dark lashes rested against his cheeks. She’d never noticed how long they were before.

  “It’s so bright. It’s a happy color. It’s hard to stay in a bad mood when you see daffodils the color of sunshine or a child playing on a yellow slide.”

  Maddie stared in amazement. “Are you saying you’re secretly an optimist?”

  Gabe laughed again, this time low and rueful. “No, I’m not that much of a fool. But maybe I still want to believe the world’s got more to it than people willing to screw you over for love or money. Who’d have guessed?” He sounded surprised by his own admission.

  The words caused something inside her to squeeze tight. “You’ve been screwed over for love?”

  This time, the heat filling his eyes wasn’t for her. It was anger directed at someone far away. “Not me. Not exactly. Mateo—my brother—was working a construction job at this big old house in Berkeley. I was on summer vacation, so he brought me along to make a little extra money and keep me out of trouble. I was seventeen. Anyway, a rich surgeon and his trophy wife were doing a remodel. Mateo always was too pretty for his own good, and the wife couldn’t stay away. He thought she loved him. She thought he was a fun distraction. When her husband found Mateo in the house, he grew suspicious, so the woman planted a big-ass diamond ring on Mateo and said he stole it. Turns out three carats from Tiffany’s cost more than most cars. He’d have gone away for a damn long time, because he was an adult and it was a felony, so I said I took it. I got a two-year sentence. At least they let me serve it all in juvie instead of moving me when I turned eighteen. That would’ve been a lot tougher.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  “For Mateo?” Gabe ran his hand over his scalp. In the two weeks he’d been in town, it had grown another half inch, and he tugged at a few of the strands. “He was a softie. Always believed the best of people. The sort of guy who’d trap spiders and carry them outside. I literally saw him help an old woman across the street once. He’d have been destroyed inside.”

  “But you weren’t?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  Gabe looked right at her. “It didn’t make me a better person, that’s for sure.”

  “But that was later. What did you do, those three years between getting out of juvie and getting caught with the guns?”

  “Wasted time,” he said, disgusted. “Did random jobs. Fucked around. Got tattoos and dated women I didn’t particularly like, always trying to find some excuse not to go back. Not to see Mateo.”

  “You blamed him.”

  “Of course. If he hadn’t been so blind, it never would have happened.”

  “Do you still?”

  Gabe turned his head to look at his shoulder, as if trying to see the tattoo hidden underneath his shirt. “No. Not anymore.”

  Her heart ached, both for the selfless man who’d been lost and the broken one he was now. “So that’s it? You say you’re not okay anymore, and that’s the end of it? You don’t try to get better?”
/>   Gabe glanced pointedly at the files, then at the closed door to Oliver’s office. “You know what will make things better.”

  “That’s not true.” She held up a hand to stop his protest. “Okay, it might make things better. It might make it easier to heal, but that’s all external stuff. You focus on that because it’s easier than dealing with who you are now.”

  He stared at her in amazement. “Are you really saying I need to focus on internal emotions over external achievements? You?”

  Maddie suspected the conversation was heading in an unpleasant direction. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The business degree you want, so you can do some vague work in a generic office…is that going to make you happy?”

  “You think you know what makes me happy? For the last few years, the only thing that made me happy was paying off bills and finding some leftover money in my checking account come payday. Knowing that I was taking care of myself and working toward my future. And all I hear from people who are supposed to know me is I’m making the wrong choices. Everyone acts like happy is this glorious achievement and we should all be chasing our bliss, but I’d guess those people never had to eat ramen for a week straight.”

  “Bullshit.” Gabe spoke the word like it was a declaration. A statement of fact. “Artists live in tiny apartments with too many roommates. Actors work crappy jobs so they can afford to go to auditions. Mother have babies that will cost every spare dime they earn because they want someone to love. People constantly make sacrifices for something that will make them happy. Why are you so different?”

  She opened her mouth several times, trying to find a response, before giving up. “Because I’m scared,” she admitted.

  Gabe’s eyes became more focused, but he didn’t move an inch closer to her, as if he feared spooking her. “Will you tell me what happened now?”

  Unplanned, she spoke the words. “My ex. Charlie.”

  It was a story she’d never wanted to tell again. It had taken long enough for the town to forget what happened, and the last thing she wanted was to stir up that memory.

  Except, no matter how she tried, she never forgot. It was with her always, guiding her every decision. Keeping quiet changed nothing.

  The story spilled out.

  “We met in high school. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He wore a leather jacket and rode a motorcycle, and he snuck cigarettes at lunch. He was the baddest boy at LCH High, so of course all the girls wanted him.”

  Gabe lowered his eyes and gave a rueful smile. Maddie bet he’d been that guy when he was sixteen.

  “I was amazed he even noticed me. We broke up so many times I lost track. Stupid high school drama. Somehow we always got back together. I thought that was normal. My dad left when I was two, so it was just my mom and me growing up. I guess I never saw a healthy relationship. And Charlie was pretty damn hot. The football players never did it for me.” Maddie glanced at Gabe, at the scar on his temple and the tattoo peeking out of his sleeve.

  But if she was honest, she’d admit that she didn’t want Gabe because bad boys were her type. He’d been equally appealing when he wore a suit to the party. She was beginning to think she had a new type—and it was just Gabe.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “The year after I graduated from high school, well, things weren’t great. My mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. The town did what they could to help, and one of the local churches hired me as a receptionist. We got by, and I cared for her the best I could. For a while, I thought she would make it through, but she grew so weak and thin. She struggled to shower and dress herself. By the end, she couldn’t even get out of bed.” Maddie swallowed hard, fighting the wave of memories.

  Gabe squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “That’s how I lost mine, too.” When he opened them, they were a little wet. “Fuck cancer.”

  “Agreed. I barely remember that time. I get flashes—the hushed voices at her funeral, or the pile of casseroles that filled my house for weeks afterwards, that sort of thing—but I was sleep-walking, just trying to get from one day to the next. But the rest of the world doesn’t wait for you to grieve. A month later, the bank tried to take my house. The electricity was turned off because I couldn’t pay the bill.”

  “Your friends couldn’t help?”

  “Bree was away at school, and I didn’t know Erin well back then. But Charlie…he was there. He helped pay the bills and made sure I ate. He’s the only reason I got through it, so three months later, I married him. We were young, and poor, but we tried to get by.”

  “That’s not an easy life.”

  “No, but it was better than it should have been. Charlie was fired from every job he had, but somehow he always had money. Said he won it hustling pool at Donnelly’s, though I never heard anyone complain about losing to him. I didn’t ask too many questions, because that money meant the bank didn’t get my mother’s house.”

  “Was he good to you?” He asked the question like her answer mattered.

  Maddie tried to remember. She’d hated Charlie so long, it was hard to remember a time she didn’t. “At first. A few months after we married, things changed. I didn’t need him to look after me as much, so he started working odd hours. We fought more, and I thought he was hiding stuff from me. But even then he could be sweet.”

  “What happened?”

  Maddie hesitated as she recalled images from that night. Flashing lights outside her door, steel handcuffs on her wrist. The officer whose daughter had been in her homeroom reading her rights. A hand on her head urging her into the back of a police car. The metal grate between her and the cops, who never said a word. Men she’d known her whole life acting like she was a stranger.

  For a second, she was back in that car, her stomach knotted with fear and dread as her life fell apart around her.

  “The cops came with a warrant. They found a bunch of pot and a hundred grams of heroin in the crawl space under the house. There was more in the car, ready to be split up for sale.” She exhaled, a soft hiss. “The bastard had been dealing for years, even before we got married. and I never knew it. He didn’t flash wads of cash. He used just enough to keep us happy, then stashed the rest with the drugs.”

  Gabe gave a low whistle. “What did that come to?”

  “Five years, no parole. It was the mandatory minimum. He did a pretty good imitation of the polite middle-class kid who made some stupid mistakes. The judge went as easy on Charlie as he could. A few others took plea deals and testified against him. They put me on trial, too, but the district attorney had no evidence other than what they found in my house and the car. My lawyer was able to blame that on Charlie. He went away, and I haven’t seen him since. I spent every penny on my defense and had to borrow the rest, but I refused to take a deal that said I was guilty when I wasn’t. Even so, I got fired from my job at the church. The cops took the car. Asset forfeiture, they said. The house was in my name, so I got to keep it. That was all.” Her voice cracked on the last word,

  “You lost everything. Again.”

  Maddie nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.

  “And now you’re scared to want something again. It’s why you dated a man you didn’t care about, because you felt nothing when it was over. It’s why you want to work some passionless, interchangeable job. You say you want comfort, but that’s only half the story. You want something no one can take from you.”

  Somehow, sitting on the floor of Oliver’s office, it felt like they’d created a small confessional, a brief respite from the tension that existed between them. She looked up and held his gaze. “I can’t go through that again. I’m not brave enough.”

  “You don’t know that. When was the last time you tried to be brave?”

  An image flashed in her mind, of her riding Gabe behind the curtain while her boss stood mere feet away.

  Gabe wasn’t done. “It’s why you’re avoiding what’s between us. Don’t deny it. You’re
scared I’m going to do what that asshole did and you’ll lose everything you’ve built up. Even if I did that—which I never would—you’d keep going. Damn it, Maddie. Look at yourself. You completely rebuilt your life in four years. Do you know how hard that is?” His voice filled with both admiration and longing.

  She shook her head, unwilling to accept his praise. “I didn’t do it on my own. Oliver was there. He never even asked if I was guilty. Just said everyone deserved a second chance and gave me a job making twice as much as I was before the trial. It’s why I can’t believe he’s guilty. He was my only friend. When the town saw the Hastings golden boy act like I was innocent, they began to do the same. He saved me.”

  Gabe nodded, the movement slow and deliberate while he processed her words. “What will you do if he is guilty? If he turns out to be the one who set me up?”

  Maddie didn’t even need to think about it. “I’ll help you, because it’s the right thing.” And she would, but doing so would hurt her in new and awful ways. “Can we not talk about that? Not until there’s evidence?”

  Gabe didn’t push. “After everything you went through, I’m just glad you’ll even speak to this ex-con. No one would blame you if you didn’t.”

  “Like Oliver said. Everyone deserves a second chance—even you.”

  Gabe rubbed his hand against his skull, ruffling the short strands. “Damn it. Don’t give me a reason to be grateful to the man.”

  Maddie couldn’t help laughing, and Gabe lifted his lips in a close-mouthed smile. Just like that, desire roared back, hot and demanding.

  She wasn’t alone. Gabe watched her, dark eyes hungry, but he made no effort to move closer.

  She waited for fear to kick in, but it was silent, and she felt absolutely no need to count to ten—or more likely, to a thousand—to calm herself.

  The only need she felt was for Gabe, so she rose to her hands and knees and crawled toward him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gabe’s lids lowered as Maddie moved toward him. His fingers curled into his palms, fighting not to grab her.