With his whole heart, Bran wanted to believe LT was right. Wanted to believe that what ran in his blood could be controlled by his brain. Wanted to believe that nurture had more to do with the making of him than nature.
Pa Ingalls…The name drifted into his mind from a long-ago memory.
Is it possible?
Possible to be as good a man, as decent a man as Pa Ingalls, the one who’d always made his mother smile? Asking the question, even to himself, opened up the prospect just a crack.
The joy that rushed in, the yearning, was almost more than he could bear.
“Now, I know you had some supremely bad shit happen in your past,” LT continued. “But stop bein’ a jackass and lettin’ the past rule your present. You don’t see yourself clearly, but the rest of us do. You’re a good man, Bran Pallidino. An honorable man. And a worthy man. And we all think Madison Powers would be the luckiest lady on the planet to have you.”
“I’ve said my piece,” LT said, pushing away from the doorjamb and heading in Bran’s direction. “So I’m goin’ outside to make out with my beautiful fiancée behind a palm tree.” He set his beer on the end table beside the sofa. “Don’t drink my beer.”
And with that parting shot, LT left. After the screen door slammed shut, Bran sat in stunned silence.
He felt like the bonds of the past, the fear of the past had unraveled in the last few minutes. Just a little bit. And what was left in the place of those lifelong threads was a glimmer of hope, a ray of dreamlike promise that he might have a chance for a future.
With Maddy.
Chapter 28
The next day…
Maddy’s mouse icon hovered over the Send button in her email account. For the last five minutes she’d gone back and forth over whether or not she should click it.
“It’s not like you’re askin’ to move in with him,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just askin’ if he’d be okay with you comin’ to visit. You say in the email you’ll bring your sleepin’ bag. So, no pressure. And friends visit each other, don’t they?”
She sat back against her headboard and fisted her hands in her lap. She’d tried. Lordy, how she’d tried to go back to the way things were before. But things weren’t the same as before. She wasn’t the same as before and—
Ding-dong!
She jumped at the sound of the doorbell and glanced at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock.
“What kind of person shows up at someone’s house at seven-thirty in the mornin’?” she grumbled, setting her laptop aside and tossing back the covers. She threw on her favorite robe—it was green and tattered and totally comfy—before stopping to give her reflection in the mirror above her dresser a cursory glance.
Hair? Every which way.
Face? Smudged with the mascara she hadn’t washed off last night.
Breath? She blew into her hand. Not daisy fresh.
She padded to the bathroom to give her teeth a quick scrub and contemplated running a comb through her hair and a washcloth over her face. Then she figured, Anyone comin’ this early in the mornin’ deserves what they get.
Ding-dong!
“I’m comin’!” she yelled, running to the front door. She would bet her sweet bippy it was one of her big, dumb brothers. Either that, or another reporter looking for an exclusive. Either way, she was about to give someone an earful. She tossed open the door at the same time she opened her mouth. The latter snapped shut with a click of her teeth when she saw Bran standing on her front porch.
“God, woman,” he said in lieu of hello, his deep voice swirling around in her ears and raising goose bumps over the back of her neck. “Would you stop getting more beautiful every day?”
Somehow, she managed to answer him around the heart that had jumped into her throat. “Har-har. Very funny. But let me tell you right now, bucko, if you show up at a woman’s house before she’s had her first cup of coffee, this is what you’re in for.” She did her best Vanna White impersonation and gestured dramatically at herself.
What in the devil-lovin’ hell is he doin’ here?
She could think of only one thing. A glimmer of hope ignited in the center of her chest. It grew to a small conflagration when he said, “Since you mention it, I haven’t had my first cup of coffee either. You got enough to share?”
If her heart beat any faster, it was liable to hop right out of her mouth and go bouncing across the foyer. Not wanting to see that, she kept her lips sealed and held the door wide. And bonus, she used the support to keep herself upright. Her knees had gone weak at first sight of him. How cliché. His words, and his possible intent, made them weaker still. You really are a stereotype when it comes to him, you know?
Yessirree, Bob. She knew.
When he brushed by her, she closed her eyes and breathed him in. Irish Spring soap and Tide laundry detergent and…Bran. The familiar smells tunneled up her nose and made her dizzy, like fine champagne. Like a roller-coaster ride. Like…love.
“And, Maddy?”
“Yeah?” She opened her eyes to discover he’d stopped beside her. She had to tilt her chin way back to look into his face, to see his dark eyes and the pirate smile that stretched his lips.
“I wasn’t joking about you getting more beautiful every day.”
Before she could answer that thoroughly devastating statement, he sauntered into her house. She watched his loose-hipped swagger the way you might watch lasagna after having been on a low-carb diet for a year. She was suddenly ravenous. Rabid for a taste. But not of pasta and sauce. Oh, no.
At the end of the entryway, he looked right and left. Without hesitation, he headed in the direction of her kitchen. Her house was built in the open-concept style, so navigating wasn’t difficult, even for first-timers.
Her hands shook when she closed the front door. Her legs shook too when she turned and followed him into her kitchen. Dressed in jeans and a navy V-necked shirt, he looked very dark against her white cabinets and light-gray countertops. Dark and dangerous and totally delicious.
“Coffee cups?” he asked with a raised brow.
“Cupboard to the right of the stove.” She grabbed one of the bar stools shoved beneath the center island and quickly hopped onboard. Number one, because her knees threatened to give out on her at any moment. And number two, because it took everything in her not to run to him. “The coffeemaker is on a timer so it should be ready. Help yourself.”
Bran opened the cupboard and pulled out her Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring collectors’ mug. He glanced down at it, then looked back into her cupboard where all her collectors’ mugs were arranged neatly on a shelf. She had one commemorating her favorite film of the year for each of the last twenty years.
Shaking his head, he blurted, “God, I love you.”
She fell off the bar stool. Or at least she would have, had she not caught the edge of the island in a death grip. All the air left her lungs, and her head felt so light she was surprised it didn’t float right off her shoulders.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, he set the mug aside and walked to the opposite side of the gray marble countertop. He flattened his wide-palmed hands on the surface and leaned forward.
“It’s true,” he said, his eyes fierce. “I love you, Maddy. And I tried like hell not to. Tried to convince myself that you were better off without a man like me. Tried to tell myself that the risk wasn’t worth the reward. But it was like trying to walk to the horizon. No matter what, I just couldn’t get there.”
The words hung in the air between them like fat balloons. Maddy was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. She thought if she did, she might pop those balloons and then she’d be left to wonder if they were ever really real, really there to begin with.
She swallowed and licked her lips, racking her brain for something to say. I love you too was t
he obvious answer. But for some reason, maybe because of the anguished look on his face, she reckoned he wasn’t ready to hear it. So she went with “You know, that’s the problem with hearts.”
He cocked his head, dark hair shining in the overhead lights.
“The damn things do what they want.”
For a while neither of them spoke. They just stared at each other. Finally, Maddy couldn’t stand it. He might not be ready to hear her tell him she loved him, but she was beyond ready to say it. “And in case you’re wonderin’, I love you too.”
He sucked in a breath and his expression was so tortured she had to hook her feet around the legs of the bar stool to remain seated.
“I’m terrified,” he admitted.
“Of w-what?” Her voice caught on the magnitude of her feelings.
“That I’ll turn out like him,” he gritted between his teeth. “Maddy, I love you so much, so completely, so intensely. Like she loved him. Like he loved her.”
His mother. His father. Their poisonous relationship had tainted his whole life. But what he didn’t understand was that they’d never poisoned him. He was bright and unblemished. Brave and strong and self-sacrificing. He was so much more than he gave himself credit for. She saw it. She was determined to make him see it too.
“I love you with all my twisted heart and all my broken soul,” he croaked, and it broke her heart to see big Bran Pallidino on the verge of tears. “And what if that means I’ll—”
Screw it! With a cry, she jumped up, rounded the island, and threw herself into his arms. He caught her close, buried his face in her neck, and trembled.
“You’re nothin’ like your father,” she swore. “Nothing like your mother, either.” She was so sad, so…mad that he’d spent his life trying to make up for something that wasn’t his to make up for, scared of becoming something he would never become. But she was happy too. Happy because—
He loves me! He loves me! He loves me!
Her heart had been crying the refrain since the words first formed in his mouth.
“And we’re goin’ to prove it,” she promised. “Month after month, year after year, you and me. We’re goin’ to prove that blood may be thicker than water, but it isn’t thicker than love.”
He made a strangled sound at the back of his throat. Then his lips were on hers. And just like always, once they started, they couldn’t stop.
* * *
“How goes the search for the Santa Cristina?” Maddy asked, feathering her fingers through his chest hair.
They’d spread her robe on the tiles of her kitchen floor and made love. Twice. The first time was fast and hard and desperate. The second time was soft and slow and delicious. Now they were both lazy and sated.
At least for the time being…
Bran knew it wouldn’t take much to get him going again. Everything about Maddy turned him on. He ran his fingers down the supple arch of her back and blew out a breath. “Slowly,” he admitted.
“What does that mean?” she asked, wiggling closer. Such a warm, wiggling, wonderful woman. His woman.
He was still trying to wrap his head around the idea. Still terrified that loving her so much would make him become the thing he hated most. But she was sure of him, sure of them. And her certainty was proving wonderfully contagious. He was beginning to believe. Beginning to consider the possibility that he could be more, be better than he’d ever hoped. And with that belief came a peace that ate away at his fear, little by little, bite by bite. One day, he prayed one day soon, it would be gone from him completely.
“It means we haven’t found anything else that definitively points to the wreck,” he admitted. “There have been some debris and a few pieces of iron that look like they might have been the ties on the ship. But nothing else.”
She pushed up on her elbow and cupped her chin in her hand. Her eyes melted him when she asked, “Are you worried?”
“Nah,” he assured her, dipping his fingers into one of the little dimples above her plump ass. “It’s early yet. And the seabed shifts every day, not to mention what it’s done over the past four hundred years. She’s down there. She’s just gonna make us work for it.”
Maddy pursed her lips. When he saw the top one plump, his dick flexed against his thigh. “The best ones always do.” She winked.
“So I’ve been told.” Round three of lovemaking was just around the corner, and this time he planned to bend her over the kitchen table. He’d love her and watch her flesh pinken in the morning light filtering in through the plantation-style shutters. “Doc thinks we should let Chrissy Szarek bring her customers out for treasure-hunting excursions. He thinks having more fins and tanks in the water will cut down on our search time.”
“Chrissy Szarek?” Maddy lifted a brow.
“She’s this leggy blond who runs a dive shop in Key West,” Bran explained. “She and LT go way back. Their dads were friends or something. Anyway, she thinks people will pay a pretty penny for a chance to spend an afternoon diving for sunken treasure.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Maddy mused. “More eyes in the water coverin’ more ground. But I’m not likin’ the sound of a leggy blond hangin’ out with you every day.”
She was jealous. And it was adorable. “I only have eyes for blonds with banging booties,” he assured her, grabbing a substantial handful of her ass.
She narrowed her eyes. “You better make that a blond with a bangin’ booty. Singular.”
“That’s a given.” He grinned. He’d been grinning for so long now his face hurt. But he couldn’t stop. He was…happy. In love. And it was amazing. And horny-making. That kitchen table seemed to be calling his name. “Anyway, LT isn’t completely sold on the idea. He thinks the divers won’t stick to the grid pattern needed to make sure every inch of the bottom gets searched. It’s tedious work, and he’s afraid they’ll get bored. And then Wolf objects to the whole thing because he and Chrissy don’t get along.”
“Wolf doesn’t get along with someone?” Both of her eyebrows reached for her hairline.
“I know,” he agreed. “Weird, right? Wolf gets along with everyone.” Bran had his suspicions about what the problem was, but he kept them to himself.
“Well, since you mention needing more hands on deck…” She let the sentence dangle. In the silence, every cell inside him seemed to strain in her direction, waiting impatiently, hoping beyond hope that he knew where she was going with this.
“Yeah?” Whoa. When had his voice turned into a croaking foghorn?
“I thought maybe I’d come to Wayfarer Island and stay for a bit. Help y’all out.” It was exactly what he’d wanted to hear. Obviously, she couldn’t see that joy had ballooned him to twice his usual size, because she continued to talk fast, as if she thought she might have to convince him. Silly woman. “With Mom and Dad gone, there’s no one at work to approve more charity functions and I’m at loose ends.”
Her parents had taken a trip to Europe, determined to get away from the press and the publicity, trying to put the awful events on Garden Key and in the Gulf of Mexico behind them. Maddy could have done the same. But her being her, all brave and stubborn and wonderful, she’d stayed to see it through. She’d given a couple of exclusives—he’d read and hung on every word—before shutting the door on the paparazzi who would have tried to sensationalize the story.
When he brushed his fingers through her short hair, he was delighted by its softness, its silkiness. For that matter, all of her was soft and silky. That soft silkiness made him hard. The uncertainty in her eyes made him harder still. She was unsure just how fast to push him. How far. She didn’t realize that he wanted pedal to the metal. Zero to sixty in five seconds. He wanted her. All of her. All the time. In every way.
“Babe”—he wrapped a hand around her neck and pulled her down until her lips hovered a hairsbreadth from his—“you don’
t need an excuse to come out to the island. You’re welcome any time.”
“Really?” She searched his eyes.
“Any time and all the time.”
She smiled. And it was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen. “Well, how about we start with this vacation, and then I can fly in on weekends until…” She trailed off and bit her upper lip.
That’s all it took. Her lip caught between her teeth and he was done. Finito. His cock was fully engorged.
“Until what?” he demanded, his hand drifting down her spine to lie atop her fabulous butt.
“Until I make you an offer you can’t refuse,” she said, quoting The Godfather.
“That was the worst Marlon Brando impersonation I ever heard,” he told her, his heart so full he was amazed it didn’t burst wide open. He pulled her down for a kiss that ended in them christening the room for the third time. Atop her kitchen table…
Epilogue
June 11, 1624…
Sitting in the crow’s nest his men had built between the two tallest palm trees near the beach, his spyglass raised to his eye, Captain Bartolome Vargas scanned the seas around him.
Perched in additional improvised lookouts on opposite sides of the island, two more of his crew, the two with the best eyesight, helped him watch for passing ships. It was hot, monotonous work. But it was imperative. With the remainder of the sailors working on the reef and down in the sea at the wreck site—at least those who were still healthy enough to work—it was left to the three of them to ensure no pirates sailed around the corner and stumbled upon the others’ efforts.
Lowering his spyglass, Bartolome blinked, giving his tired eyes a moment’s respite. Then he raised the glass and continued his vigil.
The wind was a bare whisper, leaving the ocean around the island glassy. Nothing disturbed the surface except a pod of dolphins that frolicked beyond the reef. The sun was high. The tide was out. A number of large grouper had swum into the lagoon the evening before, making them easy to catch. He and his men had feasted and still had full bellies today.
Devil and the Deep (The Deep Six) Page 30