Meant to Be Mine

by Lisa Marie Perry

  Unimpressed, Tish lazed on the blanket, her almond-shaped eyes imploring You’re kidding me, right?

  Sofia was equally ecstatic and bereft when Burke’s shadow stretched on top of her. There were no sea or food spices in the air. There was no music from the band and no conversation on the lips of everyone gathered here. There was no July warmth.

  Just him.

  They had plans for tonight. After dropping Tish off at the apartment, Sofia would watch the fireworks spectacle from Colossians 1:14. She saw herself in his arms, mesmerized by bursts of fire in the sky and his heat around her. But a gauzy layer of dismay lay underneath the excitement. Every day she let pass without sharing her medical prognosis, the lie weighed more heavily on her chest. It was unfair that finally they were together but a secret between them deprived her of experiencing him with pure abandon.

  “I’m here to steal my girls,” he said, and her periphery returned again. The beach was hot with summer and loud with celebration. Tish surged to all four paws, as if she understood perfectly that Burke had claimed her and Sofia as his girls and she was quite okay with that.

  Caro pretended to mull this. “Hmm…Oh, I guess you deserve them.” She summoned Evan to say good-bye and the child had hugs for everyone, leaving sandy fingerprints on Sofia, Burke, and poor Tish.

  “Tish agreed to this shindig only for the chance of barbecue,” Sofia told Burke, hefting her tote bag and walking with him and Tish. He carried a folded blanket under one arm and gripped the dog’s leash. “Everything’s covered in seasoning and sauce, so I’ve had to deny her.”

  “Then she might appreciate that I asked Hannah to set aside a few pieces of unseasoned, unsauced, deboned chicken.”

  She halted in the sand, turned, and laid a smacking kiss on his lips. “You’re kind of all right.” The burst of heat in his gray eyes singed her deliciously from her wind-teased hair to her patriotic-blue toenails.

  Burke’s arm wrapped around her waist, guiding her, and surprise registered on faces spying them from under hats and behind sunglasses.

  Sofia Mercer, with the transplant scar and tawdry sex shop. Burke Wolf, former junkie and forever badass.

  If their relationship hadn’t been the subject of whispers before, it would be now.

  Richard Pruitt stopped them, peddling raffle tickets for a kids’ summer sports program. Burke caved, purchasing twenty just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the change, and, overjoyed, the limping man ushered them to the luxury portable dance floor that was set up near the band. Above it was a pergola made of string lights and paper lanterns that only faintly sparkled in the daylight but would glimmer through the shadows tonight.

  Apparently it cost money to take a whirl around the dance floor, and since Burke had so generously donated, he and Sofia were entitled to a dance.

  “We can’t. The dog,” Sofia tried to tell Richard. His solution was to hand the leash and blanket off to his wife, Gretchen, and give them a good-natured push toward the floor, where people were already filling the space two by two.

  When a town offered no decent place for the masses to partner up, get close, and shake loose, people took what they could get.

  “Dance! Happy Fourth!”

  Guilty Pleasures, she thought as Burke led her to the floor under the web of twinkling lights and then drew her to him. It could be this, every night. No holding back. No restriction. Just indulgence.

  Sofia rested against the hard plane of his body, lying with him while standing. “The music’s nice.”

  “I didn’t know you liked bluegrass,” he said, the scruff on his jaw grazing her ear.

  “I like anything that catches me at the right moment.” She tightened her arms around him. His T-shirt, a deeper gray than his eyes, was soft on her skin and her fingers stroked the fabric.

  “People keep staring at your ass. I’m tempted to cover it with my hands.”

  She laughed. “That’s just an excuse to cop a feel.”

  “Can you blame me? I’ve been wanting to get my hands on you for an eternity.”

  The moisture dried in her mouth, as if she’d swallowed dandelion fuzz. Burke was barely moving and they were squandering their turn on the sparkling dance floor as one of the musicians took the mic and the band struck up a heart-tugging rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

  “When we’re alone tonight on the boat, you won’t have to wait,” she finally whispered as a banjo eased the song into its final strains. “Whatever you love and hate about me, it’s yours. All of me.”

  “Put your entire life in my hands? I don’t think I’m fit to hold you like that.”

  “All you have to do is keep wanting me, Burke. Keep caring.” Maybe even love me.

  If he did that, then no matter how many or how few days like this remained for them, he would heal when change struck again. So strong, he was for her—hadn’t he always been?

  Collecting Tish after their dance, they fed her the barbecue Hannah had put aside and let themselves be waylaid by conversations and flocks of folks rushing over to pet the dog. Finally Tish grew weary of her popularity and Burke hoisted the Siberian husky in his arms. Even more astonishing than the breathtaking ease with which he gathered the large animal was that Tish allowed herself to be swept off her paws.

  They walked until the clusters of people thinned. On one side of their path was a line of tangled trees. On the other was the shoreline and miles of water.

  “Come in with me,” she said on impulse. “Both of you!”

  “Hey,” he protested, chuckling, “you’re the only one dressed for a swim. Tish probably doesn’t want her harness to get soaked.”

  “So let’s take it off. That’s the Atlantic. It’s incredible. It’s beautiful and we’re all here and I just want her to remember swimming in the ocean with me.” Rambling, she knew she must sound frantic, but she couldn’t resist fighting for this moment. “Please.”

  Grappling for memories, desperate to capture this hot Cape Cod afternoon, she stepped out of her sandals and unhooked Tish’s harness. “Come with me, Tish.”

  The dog considered her, then her ears perked up as she detected shorebirds.

  Encouraged, Sofia patted Tish’s rump and they approached the gentle sway of water touching the shoreline. Venturing farther out past a grouping of large rocks, she sighed at the yield of the sand under her feet and the cool wash of the waves against her legs. She knelt and splashed Tish, who immediately shook out her fur in retaliation, pelting Sofia with droplets. More splashing, more fur-shaking, more playing, and soon she and the dog were both drenched.

  Catching Burke holding up his phone, she hollered over to him, “You’re not taking photos, are you?”

  “So what if I am?” He aimed the phone, then paused with a frown. “Let’s try that again, this time without flipping off the camera.”

  “Nope. I refuse to cooperate, so you might as well get in the water with us.” She splashed Tish, eventually so distracted that she didn’t expect Burke to come jogging barefoot to them in just his jeans. She was in his arms before she had time to gasp or dive out of the way.

  Seizing her, he dipped her into the water and all she had to do was hold on tight. Ocean water on her skin, salt and sand in her hair, sun caressing her scar, and Burke’s lips on hers, Sofia celebrated.

  It was almost perfect…

  Almost enough to make her forget the lie that breathed inside her.

  *

  At sunset Sofia got Tish settled at home and freshened up, changing into a simple white dress with sandals and putting her hair into a single braid.

  “In this area there’s no better place to see the fireworks show than on Bellini Beach,” she enticed, passing Joss, who sat at the kitchen table engrossed in a recipe book. “Paget’s there now. I saw her as I was leaving.”

  “I still might,” Joss said, glancing at her through round-framed reading glasses, but the words were empty of conviction. “Jotting down some recipes to try out. I’ll probably need to run to
the supermarket. Need anything, if I go?”

  “Can’t think of anything.” She’d completed the shopping for the week already, and they were still fully stocked. “You sure you won’t be lonely? It’s not like you to spend a holiday alone.”

  “Probably because when there wasn’t a party or a guy to keep me occupied, you were home and we found board games or lame movies to ward off the loneliness. Now you’re the one with a guy to keep you occupied.” Joss playfully flicked a balled-up sticky note at her, then she made her index finger and thumb into a ring and poked the other index finger through. “Hint, hint.”

  Sofia flushed. “All this time I’ve been living with a pervert.”

  “Says the woman responsible for the erotic mannequin art downstairs. Ten dollars says there’s sex paraphernalia in your bag.”

  A bullet vibrator, condoms, and a bottle of lube. “Shut up.”

  Joss slapped the recipe book shut, shaking with peals of laughter. “Nice!”

  “I carry first aid stuff. I believe in being prepared.”

  This only made Joss laugh harder as she shooed her out the door.

  So where do we go from here, Burke? Sofia wondered, approaching Colossians 1:14 as people moved around her seeking other slips or heading to the marina parking lot. The darkening sky cast grayish shadows on the boat.

  “Lost your way again?” Burke was on the pier, appearing troubled. It was as if his smile from earlier, the lighthearted moments that’d warmed her fully, had been illusions.

  “No. I know where I am and why I’m here.”

  “C’mon,” he invited, and when she reached him, he subtly touched the top of her scar and murmured, “You’re beautiful. Are you starting to believe that now?”

  “Trying to.”

  “Trying’s good.” He held out a hand and electricity popped at the contact. A spark. He smiled at her surprised gasp. “Aren’t the fireworks supposed to be in the sky?”

  “Kiss the hell out of me.” She yanked his hand and his arms flexed as he gathered her close. Still on the pier with an audience of marina neighbors, he bunched her dress in his hands.

  “Careful what you ask for, Sofia,” he said, and she felt his knee parting her thighs. Whatever she was going to reply was stolen by a deep, hard kiss that quite possibly did take the living hell out of her. “You could tell me to fuck you on this pier and I wouldn’t try to make you rethink it. My cock wants to be in you, and I’m craving another taste of you. Can you handle that?”

  “The boat,” she said, dizzy. People had paused to stare and mutter complaints. “On the bed, the first time.”

  His mouth twitched in a smirk. “And after that I’m going to bend you over and ride that soft ass of yours.” He pulled her along onto the boat and they thundered down to his cabin.

  Impatient, she pushed his shirt up. “Off. Take everything off. I need to touch you. I’m on fire.”

  When he stripped, she, still fully clothed, lay back on the bed and lifted her hips to take off her panties. “Get on me.”

  “Wait, Sofia.”

  If they waited there would be another interruption. Something would interfere—she sensed it. Either she’d blurt the truth or a panic attack would hit or he’d find a reason to pull back.

  “I’ve waited,” she said, pleading.

  Hurry, Burke. Take me before the truth takes everything away.

  He lowered over her and nudged her center, gyrating his hips against her.

  Watching him, she fit her hands over the firm muscles of his ass. She loved this man nude, from the hardness of his chest to the crisp pubic hair grazing her mound, to the taut pressure of him stroking into her—

  “Protection!” she shrieked. “Burke, we forgot.”

  Another interruption. Something else to draw them apart.

  He swore and rolled off her immediately. “I’m an idiot. I can’t believe we almost went that far without a condom.”

  “I have plenty. It’s all right.” Sofia scrambled off the bed to locate her purse. If she was fast enough, she could tear one off the strip and hand it to him and slide back into position as though they hadn’t missed a beat.

  “This happens a lot when we’re together,” Burke said, sitting on the bed with his feet on the floor. “We forget what’s important.”

  She went to him, condom in hand, and froze as he began to cover that incredible body with his jeans. “Why are you getting dressed? We can get back to where we were.”

  “We can’t, though. I’m heading to port tomorrow, Sofia.”

  Port? “You’re on vacation. How can they call you back all of a sudden? You’re a union regular.”

  “I called the hall—I’m going to handle a crane at the yard, and I’m thinking about getting myself something on location.”

  “You’re choosing to up and leave like this?” He was running away—no question about it. “So how was this supposed to play out, Burke? Were you going to sleep with me, slap me on the ass, hand me my underwear, and send me to the pier?”

  Her stomach hurt; her neck felt hot. “I—I don’t want to know.” She flung the condom onto the bed, whirled, and slammed herself into the head, throwing herself against the door.

  He knocked on it almost immediately. “Sofia, open the door. Talk to me.”

  “I can’t.” I can’t love you if you’re going to leave me. I can’t tell you the truth about my condition if you’re going to run.

  She’d thought they’d have more time to figure out how to make the impossible make sense, but it couldn’t happen if one was willing to fight and the other content to surrender.

  She opened the door. “I trusted you. I was going to fight for us.”

  “I need time.”

  “Ready or not, convenient or not, I was willing to try.” She didn’t touch him. Her fingers itched to trace the edges of his tattoos; her lips begged permission to lie with his. “When did you contact the hall?”

  “After you were discharged from the hospital. Jesus, Sofia, the only thing that’d be worse than losing you would be to stand here knowing I’m to blame for it. That would destroy me. Say I’m scared. A coward.”

  “It’s not hard to love me, Burke. You want this to be complicated.”

  “Don’t bring that word into this.”

  “Which word?”

  “Love. You and me—we’re doing this too fucking fast. What are you doing with me? Do you even know?”

  Loving you. Why wouldn’t the syllables form?

  “Silence. Great, Sofia. That’s what I thought. You can’t fight, not for me.”

  “I don’t have a history of chasing violence and brawling, but I fight every single day.”

  “Survival’s a struggle. No dispute. But if you knew me, you wouldn’t say I went around looking for violence.” He strode to the galley, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it down, not caring when he spilled drops down the front of his shirt. “Fractured bones. A concussion. Bruises. A scar from the time my dad kicked my ass for spilling marinara sauce on the floor.”

  Marinara sauce? “After I left your house that day, your dad hit you?”

  “It was his excuse that time.”

  “He hit you more than once?”

  “Nearly every day. At best it was a fist to the face for too much salt in the potatoes or an unmade bed. At worst it was Deacon putting a gun to my head.”

  She sagged against a wall. “Oh, God. At the lighthouse you told me what he said, that he blamed you for what happened to your mom. But you didn’t tell me he hit you and threatened to shoot you.”

  “It can’t be changed now. It wasn’t your war.”

  Deacon had asked her to report to him any misbehavior Burke was up to, and she’d done so. She’d thought he cared, thought Burke was fortunate to have a father who hadn’t abandoned him.

  She wanted to go back into the head to retch into the toilet. Drug abuse hadn’t been the trigger to his problems—it’d been a symptom of another problem altogether.

&
nbsp; “Weed took me away. When the lighter shit didn’t get the job done, I went to meth, cocaine, heroin. I didn’t want Deacon to have the satisfaction of taking my life away. I wanted the honor.”

  Sofia had found him unconscious at school once and had called 911. The next time she’d seen him, he was sporting a fresh bruise. Rolling her eyes, she’d been disappointed in him for getting wrapped up in yet another brawl—for not taking care of himself. Had Deacon welcomed him home from the hospital with a beating? “He tried to break you, but he didn’t. Not completely. You’re clean now and you’re strong.”

  “When I need to sharpen the focus on my sobriety, I leave.”

  “You’ve never tried to stay. Try for me.”

  “You don’t need my hell. You said you wanted someone easier, right? Someone stable. That’s not me.” He smoothed his hands over her hair. “I’m going to port. You just took over Blush. Settle into that. Give me some time to figure this out.”

  “And what if I can’t wait for you to decide what matters?”

  “I’m not going to tell you to put your life on hold for me.”

  “Tell me. I’ll do it. You’re worth it. To me, you are worth that.”

  “Sofia, I’m not going to tell you that.”

  With nothing more to say, he stood there while she gathered her things and left, walking on the pier as color burst in the sky.

  CHAPTER 20

  We’re all out of chocolate penises.”

  It was only two thirty in the afternoon, which Sofia pointed out to Paget, who’d announced to the boutique at large that their most popular erotic treat was yet again cleaned out in record time. Joss was collecting the data to see which items on her naughty menu were top sellers.

  “The next time one of those town hall suits comes in here to give us a morality lecture, I’m going to alert them to Eaves’s voracious appetite for chocolate dicks,” Sofia vowed.

  “Yeah, we should also alert the media,” Joss joked, going to the treat display to remove the empty trays that held her edible penis assortment. “Here’s the headline. ‘Cape Cod Cock Consumption Crisis.’”

  A throng of shoppers at the Vices register chortled. The blond-haired man who’d wandered into the back blanched a little. “Whoa.”