by JoAnn Ross
“Why?”
“What does it matter?” he countered. “It just did.”
“Humor me.”
“Now it’s my turn to ask why.”
“Because it’s obvious that the festival committee wants you to help keep the famous movie star happy. And because I’m a writer. Digging beneath the surface of characters is what we do.”
“Don’t look now, but I’m not a character.”
She smiled at that. With those luscious full lips and eyes that had gone from sad and suspiciously misty when talking about her mother’s death, to teasing. “Not yet, maybe,” she agreed. “But the night, and the festival, are still young.”
13
Day segued into evening. Then night, as Phoebe basked in the glory of the day off Zelda had insisted she deserved. Although Ethan had prepared their lunch, after an impromptu trip to the fishmonger’s booth at the bay-side farmers’ market, she insisted on trying out her newly discovered talents in the kitchen, something she’d never been allowed while living with Peter.
At first she was a little nervous, afraid of not getting all the diced potatoes for the clam chowder the same size, or the oil the right temperature for the breaded Dungeness crab cakes, but not only was Ethan not the least bit critical, as Peter would have been under the same circumstances; instead of impatiently waiting to be fed, he pitched in on making the meal with her.
Yet again, unlike her husband, he didn’t brush her aside and insist on doing things his way, but worked easily as he took on the role of her assistant, gathering the ingredients she asked for, setting the table. And, amazingly, after declaring her supper of clam chowder, crab cakes, and grilled asparagus with a medley of fresh berries for dessert the best he’d ever tasted, he wouldn’t let her even clear the table, and insisted on loading the dishwasher himself.
She’d never—ever!—had a man wait on her. It felt strange. Yet, as relaxed as she was from the day, and the company, it also felt wonderful.
Which was why Phoebe was floating on air as he walked her up the steps to the door of Haven House.
“Thank you,” she said. “For lunch and a lovely day.” They were standing there on the pretty porch, only inches apart, she looking up at Ethan, he looking down at her, emotions swirling in the air between them.
“I had a great time.” Although the night had grown cool, his deep voice wrapped her in a warm velvet embrace. As he ran a hand down her hair, she watched the desire rise in his eyes.
“Me, too.” Over the past weeks, she’d prided herself on becoming strong and independent. So how could such a simple touch have her sounding so breathless?
He leaned closer. “Tell me,” he said, as that hand on her hair moved lower, to caress her collarbone, which until this moment she never would have expected to be an erogenous zone, “if I’m making a mistake.”
“I don’t know.” Having lived a lie for so many years, Phoebe had promised herself never to fall into that trap again. “I can’t always think straight when I’m with you.”
“I know the feeling, all too well.…Okay, how about this?” That work-roughened hand skimmed down her side, and when she didn’t automatically tense up, as she would have when they’d first met in the shelter’s kitchen, it slipped around to her lower back. “I’ve spent all day—hell, weeks—trying to be patient, but if you don’t tell me to back off now, I’m going to kiss you, Phoebe.”
Phoebe was not at all surprised that Ethan, who had been so understanding and supportive since the day they met, would give her fair warning, rather than take what he wanted. What they both knew, deep down, that she wanted, as well.
But life was so complicated. She was still technically a married woman. Legally separated, true, but from everything she’d read, everything the counselor who came to the shelter for group sessions said, women in her situation should take their time, get to feel comfortable in their own skin, before entering into another relationship.
And then there was her baby to think of. Even if she did sometimes, late at night, lying alone in the dark, think about what it would’ve been like if she’d met Ethan that night at the Grand Canyon instead of Peter and wish that it was this man’s child she was carrying.
She should tell him, politely, that she wasn’t ready for the next stage in their relationship, that it would be better for all concerned if they remained friends. She should put on her big-girl panties, and back away from the temptation he was offering.
That was what she should do. It was the practical, safe thing. But she was so weary of always trying to take the safe way, and at this frozen moment in time, after a perfect day, as the sea sighed in the distance, and stars whirled overhead, Phoebe was finding it very difficult to take her own advice.
“Time’s up.” His hand pressed against her back, drawing her closer. As his mouth roamed over hers, slowly, softly, her lips trembled beneath his tender, nibbling kisses.
Murmuring something she couldn’t hear over the blood roaring in her ears, he drew her closer yet, stroking her back, creating a trail of heat up to the nape of her neck, before retreating again to her waist.
Oh. My. The pleasure was liquid. As warm as a tropical sun. Her senses swimming, Phoebe clung to him, enjoying the stolen kiss for the sheer, bone-melting pleasure it was bringing her.
“Phoebe.” His lips skimmed up her cheek.
“What?”
“Just Phoebe.” His lips lingered at her temple before returning to hers. She could feel his smile against her mouth. “You’re so sweet.”
The teasing, tantalizing lips moved down her throat, warming her blood to the temperature of a beach bonfire. When he touched the tip of his tongue to the hollow at the base of her throat, she knew he could feel her pulse leap in response.
“So soft.”
And he was so tender. Ethan Concannon was, in every way, the man a little girl who’d believed in Prince Charming had spent so many days and nights dreaming of. The same man whom a woman cruelly betrayed by the husband she’d foolishly trusted had come to believe did not truly exist.
But he did. This organic farmer with the clever mouth and slow, sure hands was wonderfully, exquisitely real.
His lips brushed over hers, again and again, leaving warmth from one corner of her mouth to the other, inviting her into a warm, gilded world of sensation. Murmuring his name as she framed his face between her palms, Phoebe went willingly.
It was as if he intended to kiss her endlessly. Demonstrating the same patience he had for weeks, as they’d grown closer and she’d come to trust him, he didn’t rush. Nor did he make any demands. There were only shimmering sighs, soft murmurs, and a glorious golden pleasure that seeped into her bloodstream.
Her head began to swim as, without surrendering the gentleness, without passion or fire, he took the kiss deeper. Then deeper still, drawing a trembling breath from her that shuddered into his mouth.
“Excuse me.”
The woman’s voice, coming from behind Phoebe, shattered the exquisite mood like cold water thrown on smoldering flames.
When she would have jumped away, Ethan put his arm loosely around her waist and looked over her head. “Hey, Kara. What’s up?”
Although Phoebe no longer had any reason to be afraid of Shelter Bay’s sheriff, a foreboding rose up like ice, flowing over the warmth that had, only a moment earlier, been glowing so gloriously inside her.
“I hate to interrupt.” Kara Conway’s face was set in what Phoebe had come to recognize as her professional cop expression. “But I need to talk with Phoebe.”
The ice chilled all the way to her fingertips. “Is it about Peter?”
The sheriff didn’t answer directly. Which, Phoebe thought, could only mean bad news.
“Let’s go inside,” she suggested.
Her tone was too gentle. Her amber eyes too apologetic.
Which was why Phoebe knew that Sheriff Conway hadn’t come here tonight to tell her good news.
14
Damn. J.T. woul
d rather be back in the Kush, battling the bad guys, than answer questions about his life. But possessing a fair bit of tenacity himself, he could recognize it in others. Realizing that the Irish movie star was going to keep picking away, he decided that this situation was a lot like pulling off a Band-Aid. He could peel it off, bit by bit, allowing her to gradually see the wound over the next few days, or he could just let it rip.
Deciding to go for it, to get it over with once and for all, so they could move the hell on and get through this damn festival, he said, “I spent the last eighteen months as a CACO. A casualty assistance calls officer.”
“What I know about the American military could fit on the head of a pin and still leave room for a thousand dancing Marines,” she said. “But is that what it sounds like?”
“If it sounds like the guy who has the responsibility—and honor—of informing families that they’ve lost a loved one, you’d be right.”
There was a long pause as she processed his answer. J.T. could practically see the wheels turning in her writer’s imagination.
“That must be both the worst and best job in the military,” she decided.
“Yeah.” Now it was his turn to be surprised when she nailed it so perfectly. Polishing off the beer, he resisted the urge to get up and open another bottle, knowing that would lead to another. Then another. And still another. Until he’d drunk enough not to be falling down trashed, but to numb the scenes that ran in a nonstop loop through his mind night and day. “I’d say that about sums it up.”
“I wouldn’t imagine they assign such a delicate job to just anyone.”
Since it wasn’t directly a question, and there wasn’t any way to answer that, J.T. said nothing.
“No,” she said, again seemingly to herself. “They wouldn’t. They’d have chosen someone with not only a great deal of self-control but empathy, as well.”
Another silence settled over them as Enya’s evocative voice floated through the suite like a balm, managing to somewhat smooth the jagged edges of his mind.
Once again J.T. was struggling to reconcile this perceptive woman with the glamorous movie star who’d opened the door to him when he’d arrived to drive her to Bon Temps.
The dress, if you could call the short, slick tube of silk a dress, bared one smooth shoulder and skimmed down her toned, athletic body like rainfall. The deep blue color was a vivid contrast with porcelain flesh that looked as if it had never seen sunshine, and the fabric fit like a second skin. Pearls and diamonds dripped like glittery rain from her ears and more diamonds blazed on her wrist.
She’d put her hair up, in a loose twist that had his fingers itching to pull out some of those pearl pins, and she’d done female things with powders and pencils that made her blue eyes appear to be surrounded by smoke.
The ice pick heels she’d kicked off accentuated legs that went on forever.
Long-dormant embers stirred. Dammit, he wanted his hands on that long slim body. Then his mouth. And that was just for starters.
Dangerous thinking, that.
“Do you know how many women in this country make scrapbooks?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Neither do I. But sometimes it seemed like every damn one of them.”
“And you’d have to sit in their living rooms and stoically listen to their stories of their dead loved ones while bits and pieces were being torn off your heart.”
The woman was too perceptive for comfort. Even his brothers had focused more on the battle stuff he’d gone through than what, to outsiders, might look like a safe stateside assignment.
“It wasn’t that bad.” At least not in the beginning. But as the days and weeks and months went by, and the unrelenting sorrow seeped first into his blood, then deeper, into the very marrow of his bones, he’d begun to suspect that he might be as dead as the Marines whose families all had stories they needed to tell him. Dead man walking.
“Yes, I suspect it would be,” she corrected quietly. “There was a time, in ancient days, in the British Isles and Ireland, when people believed in the shamanic tradition of sin-eating. Sin-eaters were always outcasts in a community, living on the very fringes, both literally and figuratively, of society. The Catholic Church also executed them, for the excess of sins darkening their souls. And, of course, because they were infringing on the priest’s performance of last rites, and sin-eaters were given a few coins for their work, they were also depriving the church coffers of income.”
“There was a sin-eater in some old Spider-Man comic books,” J.T. remembered. A gunnery sergeant he’d served with in Iraq was constantly buying comic books online. Although they weren’t as popular as the porn books and magazines a lot of guys managed to get past the censors, since beggars couldn’t be choosers, J.T. had read them all.
“He was a minor villain who turned out to be a homicide detective who’d undergone drug experiments when he’d been a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.—Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division,” he explained at her questioning look. “Though later it was changed to Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. Then, when the movies started coming out, it was changed again to Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”
“What would governments do without acronyms? And what would an espionage division be needing with a sin-eater? Although,” she tacked on, “given how most such covert agencies appear to work, I may have just answered my own question.”
“The guy didn’t really eat sins. The drug treatments were supposed to increase strength and stamina, but the experiments were called off when people started having violent episodes and personality changes.
“When the detective’s partner was killed, he snapped and went on a murder spree, determined to wipe away the sins of humanity. Spidey finally caught him, and he spent a year in a mental institution and was supposedly rehabilitated, but he was haunted by his crimes until he was finally gunned down in a hail of bullets.”
“Well, isn’t that far more dramatic than the situation I was speaking of? In the case of which I were speaking, the person would arrive at the home, where the family would feed him or her some salted bread and wine, which would be first passed over the body, which was laid out in the center of the room. It was believed that the food absorbed all the deceased’s sins.”
“Which, when consumed by the sin-eater, eased the person’s way into heaven.” The heaven J.T. no longer believed in.
“So it was thought. It would seem that your role as counselor to all those grieving families must have been much the same. Because, while bringing them what comfort you could, wouldn’t you also, in turn, be absorbing their pain and sorrow?”
Bull’s-eye. Since she’d hit too close to home, J.T. decided that it was past time to call it a night.
“That’s an interesting take on it,” he said. “I can see why you’re a writer.” He stood up. “Well, I guess I’d better get going and let you get your beauty rest.”
The problem was not that he wanted to go. But that he wanted to stay. Which, of course, was exactly why he should leave. Now.
He dumped the empty beer bottle into the recycling tub beneath the bar, and after assuring her that he’d be back to pick her up in the morning, J.T. made a tactical retreat.
15
When was she going to learn? It hadn’t been easy drawing J. T. Douchett out of the Kevlar shell he’d constructed around himself, but just when he was starting to lighten up, she’d let her heart run away with her head and wanted to know everything about him. Not just because she’d never known anyone like him, nor because he exuded testosterone the way other men might expensive aftershave, but because Mary had felt something stir inside her. Which, of course, could be from having dreamed about him.
Which was impossible. Wasn’t it?
She knew that one of the draws of her series was the absolutely uninhibited nature selkies had toward sex. The hunger to mate was no different for their spe
cies from hunger toward food or the need of a safe place to dwell. There were times, after she’d lost herself in the sensuality of a scene, Mary had wondered if her fantasies were partly in response to the far more inhibited Irish Catholic religion in which she’d been raised.
She’d grown up with the selkie myths, of course. You couldn’t live in the west of Ireland without someone claiming to either be a selkie or know of someone who’d made the fatal mistake of falling in love with one.
Although those stories hinted at the sexuality behind the stories of the seal women shedding their skins—which she’d later come to realize was a metaphor for shedding those inhibitions that had been drilled into her from the cradle—her first encounter with eroticism was when, while attending university, she’d been researching the myths for a screenplay idea when she’d stumbled across an ancient, leather-bound book hidden away in a dusty corner of a Dublin bookstore. The stories, all written by some anonymous author more than a century ago, stimulated fantasies she’d never known were lurking in her subconscious.
Once they were set free, it was as if a dam had burst inside her and she’d poured those yearnings into her stories. Having never met anyone she’d been tempted to risk indulging those unruly passions with in her real life, she’d kept them confined to her work. Which hadn’t stopped her from dreaming about them. And, as impossible as it seemed, about J. T. Douchett.
Although she wasn’t nearly as sexually experienced as some who were drawn to her work might suspect, she had no doubt that J.T. would be a grand lover. She’d also felt that spark he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to hide when she’d opened the door to him when he’d come to pick her up earlier this evening.
Since she’d been the first to admit that her fashion sense wasn’t up to those high-maintenance women who seemed determined to outspend one another in those fancy Rodeo Drive designer boutiques, she’d been more than willing to allow her stylist to choose her wardrobe for this trip. And when she’d suggested that the small coastal Oregon town wasn’t exactly fashion forward, he’d assured her that was exactly the reason she should pull out all the stops.