by Helen Brenna
Garrett moved to the dishwasher and started putting away the clean dishes. “I’m planning on keeping Erica company tonight down at Duffy’s,” he said. “You up for joining us?”
“Naw, that’s okay. I’m pretty tired. Want to get up bright and early in the morning to finish the knockdown ceilings at Sarah’s. Besides, the boys asked if I could play some games with them tonight.”
“Did I hear that right? You and the boys are going to play games?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Garrett nodded. “Good. That’s good. Except for one thing,” he said, his voice lowered. “You’ve been working twelve-hour days, seven days a week since you got here. You don’t let down a little bit, you’re going to explode.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve decided bars aren’t the kind of places I let down anymore.”
Garrett glanced at him. “Duffy’s is a little different than the Nail. I’ll be there. Erica. A couple of the guys you met at the community center. And Sarah.”
Sarah. Reason enough not to go. “No thanks, bro. I’ll be happy to keep an eye on Zach and the baby for you and Erica, though.” Now that he thought about it, built-in babysitter was the only benefit of his presence to Garrett and Erica. He might as well help out when he could.
“Renee’s daughter, Teresa, is babysitting tonight.”
“All right.” Jesse sat down at the center island counter with his plate of food. “I’m still not going out.”
“Not a good answer.”
A moment later, the babysitter arrived. She looked to be only a few years older than Zach, but the boys seemed to like her. Garrett gave her directions, Erica came downstairs and the two said their goodbyes. They had their coats on and were about to head out the door when Garrett glanced at Jesse. “Think about it, Jesse.” Garrett opened the door, letting in a burst of cold air. “You can’t hide forever.”
Like hell I can’t.
Jesse finished eating and made sure the kitchen was clean. Teresa was playing with David so Jesse glanced at Zach. “How ’bout I beat you in chess?”
“You can try.” Grinning, Zach jumped up and sat down in front of the chessboard.
After Zach beat him two out of three games it was obvious Zach knew more about chess than Jesse had expected. “You didn’t tell me you could play.”
“You didn’t ask. Garrett taught me.”
“That explains it, then.” Jesse laughed. “So why didn’t Brian come over tonight?” It had seemed to Jesse as though they’d had a routine. Fridays they slept at Zach’s and Saturdays at Brian’s.
“I don’t know.” Zach’s gaze dodged Jesse’s, belying his words.
“You guys get into a fight or something?”
“No.”
“Zach, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” The boy shrugged. “He said his mom won’t let him play over here unless Garrett or Erica are home.”
“What?” Jesse glanced up. “Why? Teresa’s babysitting.”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
Jesse knew. It was because of him. That wasn’t right.
“Checkmate!” Zach grinned. “Wanna play again?”
“Maybe later.”
Jesse stood and paced. Finally, he walked to the picture window to glance out through the woods. If he focused hard enough he could almost kid himself into thinking he could see the lights from Main Street flickering through the bare trees.
Garrett was right. He couldn’t hide forever. He had to tell Zach the truth, but there was one thing he had to do first. “Zach, I need to go out.”
“But you said you were going to play cards.”
“Can I catch you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, all right.”
Before he could think better of it, Jesse said goodbye to both boys, grabbed his coat and marched off down the hill toward Duffy’s. As he reached the door, the sounds of people enjoying life fell over him and he hesitated. Things had been going good. Well, maybe not good, but all right. Why rock the boat?
You’re not ready for this. Go back.
No. No.
Time to face your demons, Jesse. Face ’em head-on.
He opened the door and went inside.
“WHAT IN THE WORLD are they celebrating?” Sarah nodded toward the group of men, Garrett, Carl, Sean, Bud Stall and Mike Newman, clanking glasses together up at the bar in Duffy’s Pub.
Missy glanced backward from where she, Hannah Johnson and Sarah were all sitting in their regular booth for their once-a-week happy hour at Duffy’s Pub. During the summer months, they usually met to catch up on a weekday evening, but during the winter it was Friday nights.
“You didn’t hear?” Missy said, turning back around. “Sean bought Arlo Duffy’s carriage and stable operations today.”
“Our Doctor Sean?” Hannah said, openmouthed.
“Mmm-hmm.” Missy nodded. “Sean’s been boarding his horse with Arlo since he moved here and helping Arlo out with this and that. He said he’s been loving taking care of the horses while Lynn and Arlo spend the winter in Florida, and the whole carriage operation was getting to be too much for Arlo. So…”
“Is Sean still going to run the medical clinic?” Hannah asked.
“I think so. He said there shouldn’t be a problem doing both. As it is he said his clinic office hours are part-time, at most, even over the summer, and Arlo’s going to be running some of the operations. He insisted on driving the main carriage over the summers.”
“That’s good,” Sarah said, nursing a glass of wine. Mirabelle wouldn’t be Mirabelle without old Arlo, the single most photographed man on Mirabelle, sitting atop a carriage and holding a set of reins. “Sounds like a perfect arrangement for both of them.”
“Look at all those attractive men,” Hannah mused as she stared at the bar. “And they’re all taken, except for Sean.”
“You said you were going to ask him out.” Missy took a sip from her beer bottle. “Did you?”
“Yep.” Hannah sighed. “He turned me down. Said he wasn’t looking to date.”
“Oddly enough, that makes sense.” Missy shook her head. “I think what he’s looking for is a wife.”
Sarah laughed. “How’s he going to find a wife if he doesn’t date?”
“He’ll know,” Missy said softly.
She and Sean were good friends. There’d even been some conjecture that the two might become a couple until Jonas had shown up on the island, squashing any possibility of that ever happening.
“Honestly, he’s been awfully grouchy lately,” Hannah said. “Sometimes I wish Doc Welinski had never retired.”
“I guess this island starts to feel small sometimes,” Sarah said, patting Hannah’s hand. “Especially in the winter.”
“At least in the summer, there are men coming and going,” Hannah grumbled. “But in the winter, the flow of available men slows to, at best, a trickle.”
“I love our winters,” Missy said, smiling dreamily. “All the peace and quiet. The long, dark nights.”
“Easy for you to say.” Sarah laughed. “You’ve got a husband.”
“And two kids,” Hannah added.
“First it was Sophie Rousseau. Then Erica. Then you.” Sarah sighed. “Mirabelle’s young single women are getting snapped up one by one.”
“Except for you and me,” Hannah murmured.
“What about your professor?” Sarah asked. “I thought you two had really hit it off.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Hannah groaned. “He’s nice and all, but…”
“Nice? He drove all the way up here in a blizzard just to be with you on New Year’s,” Missy said.
“He asked me to come to Madison for Valentine’s Day.”
Sarah laughed. “That sounds serious to me.”
“Long-distance relationships suck,” Hannah said. “And it’s not likely he’ll move here anytime soon. Do you see any colleges on the island?”
“All right. All right.” Missy set her white wine down. “T
here are several single guys here on Mirabelle. Even in the winter. What are you two looking for?”
“Oh, oh, oh!” Hannah said, pulling a small notebook from her purse. “A list. The everything-I-want-in-a-man list.”
“That’s easy,” Sarah said. “Financially secure, good listener, responsible, consistent.” She ticked the attributes off on her fingers. “A man who wants to be a father, doesn’t drink or do drugs, has never had a one-night stand, has never been to prison, doesn’t own a sports car—or a yacht—and above all else, is absolutely no fun.”
“You’ve thought about this before,” Missy said, chuckling.
“Only a few times.” Sarah glanced up and froze the moment she caught sight of a man coming into Duffy’s. Although his features were shadowed, she instantly knew him. Already the shape of Jesse—his short haircut, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he carried himself—was familiar.
As he moved into the dim light of the pub, she saw his features more clearly. He might’ve been smiling as he headed toward the group of men by the bar, but that jovial expression didn’t come close to making it to his eyes. This was not good.
Garrett slapped Jesse on the back and pulled him into the midst of the group, introducing him to a couple of islanders who didn’t often venture out to socialize. Among the men was Al Richter, the new postmaster, who was twice as grumpy and half as lovable as his predecessor, Sally McGregor.
All the while he seemed to be chatting it up, Jesse seemed to be surveying the Duffy’s crowd, looking for something. Or someone. He certainly couldn’t have missed the new bank manager and his wife sitting near him at the bar, eyeing him warily. When the man threw a twenty down on the bar and they got up and left, Sarah couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of satisfaction. But then Jesse’s gaze landed on her, and she knew he’d been looking for her. He was angry. At her. His gaze seemed to travel all over her at once as if he couldn’t decide what to do with her.
Then he shrugged out of his winter coat, dragging the collar of his sweater down his shoulder and baring another edge of that mysterious, very large black tattoo, and all Sarah could think about was the other day at her house when he’d gotten his shirt wet. His bare chest. That tattoo. She took a gulp of white wine and willed her breathing to remain steady.
“What’s the matter?” Missy said, following Sarah’s gaze. “Oh. Garrett’s brother is here.”
“Is he?” Hannah spun around. “Is that him? Next to Garrett?”
“Yeah,” Sarah whispered, her throat suddenly dry.
“I thought you said he wasn’t at all attractive,” Hannah muttered.
“I guess dark and rugged isn’t my cup of tea.” Sarah took a sip of wine.
“Oh, sure.” Missy laughed, turning back around. “And I don’t go for FBI agents.”
“He’s not as handsome as Garrett, but he’s okay. So what?”
“So you have first dibs is what,” Hannah said. “With him working on your house 24/7, the other single women on this island don’t stand a chance.”
“Jesse fails every item on my list but one,” Sarah said. “He doesn’t own a sports car.”
“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” Missy took a sip of her drink.
“Why?”
“For starters,” Missy said, “you said yourself that he’s been doing a great job on your house.”
“All right, I’ll give him consistent.”
“And responsible,” Missy added, clearly defending Jesse.
“That remains to be seen.”
“He doesn’t drink or do drugs.”
“Not anymore, but I’ll bet he used to,” Sarah said. “You want him, Hannah, you can have him.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“Wait a minute.” Hannah glanced from Sarah to Missy and back again. “You two have talked about this before, haven’t you?”
Jesse took a swig from a bottle of water and chuckled at something Garrett said. Then he made a comment that got the whole group of guys bellowing with laughter. There he was. The life of the party. The man everyone wanted to be with. Even her.
“Sarah?” Hannah looked confused. “What’s going on?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. Sarah had told Missy about a big chunk of her past. She might as well spill an abbreviated version to Hannah. After she’d finished, she took another big gulp of wine and glanced at her friends.
“Now I get your list,” Hannah said.
“I could be wrong,” Missy said. “But from everything I’ve heard and seen there’s not a lot about that story that sounds like Jesse.”
Jesse had set down his bottle of water and, with hands moving this way and that, he was clearly telling a story. The men beside him seemed spellbound. She knew the feeling.
“Bobby and Jesse are more alike than you know.”
“Maybe. But he sure has an interesting aura,” Missy said. “There’s a lot of red.”
Normally, Sarah would’ve found Missy’s woo-woo mumbo jumbo interesting, but this time she wasn’t buying it.
“Red is emotion,” Missy went on. “Raw passion. Determination. He’s very sexual.”
“Ooooh,” Hannah murmured.
“Missy—”
“The best of man, the worst of man.”
That piqued Sarah’s curiosity. “What does that mean?”
“He has amazing abilities inside him. As long as he puts his efforts to good use, he can do incredible things.”
“But there’s a dark side, isn’t there?” Sarah asked.
“There usually is,” Hannah muttered.
“I don’t see one, Sarah. His color is clear.”
His color could be perfect and he would still scare the hell out of her. That smile. That voice. Those eyes, looking at her as if he was thinking of undressing her. “I thought I was all over bad boys,” she said, groaning. “After all the things Bobby said and did. I thought I was finished with them.”
“We’ve all lived here for years,” Hannah said, her voice laced with more than a little disappointment. “It’s not as if Mirabelle offers much in the way of temptation.”
“You got that right.” Until Jesse.
“Maybe the man isn’t as bad as you think.”
Sarah shook her head. “He’s the epitome of a bad boy.”
She glanced up and saw Jonas coming into the bar, one bundled-up baby boy in each arm. He nodded to the men at the bar and proceeded toward their table. Before Sarah could tell Missy that her husband had arrived, Missy spun around as if she could sense his presence.
“There are my boys,” she said with a smile.
“And there’s Mommy,” Jonas said, bending to let Missy plant a kiss on each child’s cheek. “Sarah. Hannah,” Jonas said, nodding to each of them in turn.
“Are you hungry?” Missy asked.
“That can wait.” Jonas grinned at her. “First, I want a dance.”
“I’ll watch the babies,” Sarah offered.
“Thanks, Sarah, but there’s no need,” Jonas said. “I hold the boys and…Missy can hold me. Real close.” Then he bent down to kiss his wife’s head before whispering something in her ear. Her face beaming with a satisfied smile, Missy stood, threw her arms around Jonas’s waist and tugged them all out onto the dance floor, where they proceeded to dance much too slowly to the beat of the fast rock song.
“That’s it,” Hannah muttered, turning back toward Sarah. “I’m going to Madison for Valentine’s Day.”
Sarah laughed out loud, and then immediately sobered when she noticed Jesse had broken away from the group of men at the bar and was coming right toward their table. “Hello, ladies.” He smiled at Hannah. “You must be Hannah Johnson, the best teacher in the world if what Brian and Zach say is true.”
Hannah actually blushed. Blushed. “Well, on an island as small as Mirabelle,” she said, “the kids don’t have much by way of comparison.”
“I’m sure you’d hold your own in any big city.” H
e turned to Sarah. “Can I talk to you?” His grin belied the intensity in his eyes. “Alone.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HANNAH RAISED HER EYEBROWS in surprise at Jesse’s request, but a slight smile tugged at her lips. “Go ahead. I’ll watch your wine for you.”
Sarah glared at her friend. She was oblivious to Jesse’s true mood. Was Sarah the only one who could see there was a boiling tempest beneath his jovial exterior?
Then again, this was a small island. You could try running from conflict, but sooner or later it was bound to catch up to you. Except that maybe conflict wasn’t what she was worried about in this situation. The last time Sarah had been alone with Jesse, the attraction she’d felt toward him had been worse than an argument could ever be. Still, she’d confronted him and he’d taken it. Felon or not, didn’t he deserve the same from her? She stood and followed him.
A few steps away from Hannah, he asked, “Is there somewhere we can go that’s quiet?”
She hesitated. Being with him here in the bar surrounded by other islanders was one thing. Being alone with him was an entirely different matter.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he murmured. “I just want to talk.”
“The restaurant. It’s closed this time of night.” She led him across the bar and through a large set of double doors. He closed the doors behind him and leaned against the wall.
The long, narrow room that looked out over Mirabelle’s empty marina was relatively quiet and dark but for the moon shining through the large windows facing the white expanse of a frozen Lake Superior. There was a distinct chill in the air.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Is there something wrong at the hous—”
“You got a problem with me, that’s fine.” Jesse spun around and glared at her. “Don’t take your issues with me out on Zach.”
She stiffened. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Like hell. You wouldn’t let Brian have a sleepover at Zach’s house tonight. Why?”
She wished she could say she’d labored over the decision, that she’d spent hours pondering the implications of the influence Jesse might have or not have on Brian. The fact was her decision tonight had been a knee-jerk reaction to what had happened in her house the other day. Jesse had frightened her.