A Shore Thing (30 page)

“You’re crazy,” she hissed. “I’m afraid to call him. He might see you hanging off that cliff and run like mad.”

In one swift action he held a finger to his lips.

She frowned, still whispering. “I’ll go north, in case he runs. You going to be okay?”

He nodded. If he could make it past the sheer face of the middle section of this rock, he will have made it to safety. The last quarter way down consisted of mostly plant-supported ledges and rocks. Moondoggy, for his part, had resumed his stance, sniffing the sand beneath him.

Despite the sheerness of the rock’s face and the flatness of the bottom of Gage’s shoes, he took a chance and ran toward the first ledge near the bottom. Actually, he slid, tried to catch his balance, and fell backward, hard, landing on his rear. If it weren’t for the toughness of his jeans and the wallet in his back pocket, he’d be more sore than ever tomorrow.

Recovering, he sneaked down the rocks and sunk into the sand, thankful for minimal damage. Moondoggy lifted his head again, sniffed the air, probably catching wind of the cavalry’s eminent arrival. Gage slowed and glanced into the distance, not wanting to scare the animal away. He could see Callie up on the cliff, looking for a safe way down.

He needn’t have doubted, for when he caught sight of Gage watching him, Moondoggy, mouth wide open and tongue hanging free, launched into a sprint and nearly knocked him over.

Chapter Thirty-one

I didn’t think a dog could make me cry this hard or this much. By the time I reached Gage and Moondoggy, a jet skier could have skimmed my face. Heart racing, I dropped into the sand where Moondoggy had snuggled next to Gage.

I crooked my arm around Moondoggy’s neck. “Come here, you.” He licked my face mixing my drying tears with slobbery spit. “Where have you been? Oh I missed you—you scared me to death. Don’t ever do that again? Okay? You hear me?”

Gage watched us intently.

I froze. “What? You don’t think he understands?”

He shook his head, laughing. “Nah. Just thinking what a lucky dog he is.”

“Oh.” I measured a breath. “Some rock, uh, climbing you did over there. Impressive.”

“Huh. You were going to say falling, weren’t you?” He pointed at me, a teasing smile on his face. “You were going to accuse me of rock
falling.
”

I shrugged, biting back a smile of my own. “But you did it so well.”

He shook his head and looked out to sea, that smile still on his face. “What can I say—it seemed like the fastest way down at the time.”

“I’ll say.” I made a swooshing sound. “Skidding’s like that.”

“Fine. Be that way.” We both laughed as I continued to pet Moondoggy as the lapping waves inched closer to us. “I haven’t done this in awhile.”

My hand froze, tucked into Moondoggy’s fur. “Done what? Rescued a crazy woman and her dog?”

“Never actually did that before. But I was talking about sitting on the beach. Reminds me of being a kid, building castles and moats and burying my father in the sand.”

“So is that why you became an architect?” I asked, tongue in cheek. “Because you liked building things so much?”

He paused, considering. “Hmm, well, that’s when I learned to site the castle so that the tide would just barely hit it when it rose to fill the moat, thus supplying the castle with enough water to use but not enough to destroy it in a high tide.” He laughed. “So in answer to your question, yes, I’d have to say that my interest in architecture—green building in particular—did start then.”

“And you mustn’t forget about those lost-in-thought beachcombers,” I said. “Or worse, big kids with heavy feet.”

“Ah, yes. The ones who stomp on castles just to be mean. Then as in now, I work by simple, common sense principles.”

“Which are?”

“Avoid those people at all costs.”

Laughter bubbled up from some deep place within me, forcing out the stress and worry of the morning. “Gage, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I mean it. When I woke up this morning, I knew that no one in my family could help—not after the night we all had.” Fingers of relief wended their way through my body. “You may find this hard to believe, but you were the first one that came to mind. Suz always sings your praises, so somehow I knew you would come.”

His eyes knit toward each other, a faint upside down V formed above the bridge of his nose. “I’m honored.”

I lowered my chin. “Honored? You make me sound like the Queen of England.”

His cheeks widened in a smile and those liquid-pool eyes captured me. “More like a princess.”

Goose bumps danced up my arm.
Princess?
Four little words and I softened, like butter. Faint sprays from the tide landed on my skin. What could I say to that? He hadn’t laughed nor scoffed after uttering those words, instead Gage Mitchell kept a never-wavering gaze on me. I’d resisted him so far (except for that one lapse in the dark in Jamison’s bushes), and at this moment I didn’t have an idea why.

“I feel like you and I need to start again—again. Know what I mean?”

“You mean you think we should forget about all our previous, uh, meetings.”

He shook his head. “No. That’s not at all what I meant. All of those times—the confrontations out at Kitteridge, the impromptu dinner—the kiss that took us both by surprise—they’re all part of our history together.”

My heart caught on the word
together.

“But some of that history, especially with my work and your cause, keeps a wedge between us.” He glanced out toward the horizon. “I hate it.”

My lips rubbed together before I managed to eke out a response. “I hate it too.”

Gage swung his gaze back to me, but I looked away. When I did, he moved closer. I knew by the way the sand shifted and Moondoggy’s tail started slapping against my thigh.

Gage’s fingers reached for my chin and turned me toward him, his touch sending a spark down my neck. His gaze caressed my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth, and I felt steady as a kite in a light wind. Gage kissed me then, lightly at first then more hungrily. I pulled him toward me, letting him know what I was discovering too—that I didn’t want to send him away again.

A wave crashed and rolled until cold water slipped beneath us, but neither of us shied away from it. If it were not for Moondoggy’s insistent pull on the leash wrapped around my forearm, we might have sat there in each other’s arms past sunset.

GAGE

GAGE DROVE THE TWO miles home after dropping off Callie and Moondoggy, bouncing along as if sitting plopped in the middle of Cloud Nine. How stupid was that for a guy to say? Then again, he could hear Marc in his head now, egging him on, telling him how much chicks dig a guy’s softer side.

Until recently, he wasn’t aware that he had a side that was quite so . . . so . . . pliable.

This should not have surprised him, however. His and Suz’s parents had the ultimate love story until their mother’s sudden passing at fifty. Their father didn’t live much longer after that. The doctors called it cancer, but he had always surmised that his father’s heart had been too broken to beat. Gut-wrenching as losing their parents was, they’d always found a foothold of comfort knowing how intertwined their lives had been.

He pulled into the drive, aware that a grin had become embedded in his cheeks. Suz’s car sat at the curb as he strolled up the path alongside his clipped lawn and bounded toward the door.

“Suz? Hello?” He stepped into the living room, only silence to greet him. He wandered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. In all the chaos of the morning and afternoon, he had not stopped to eat, and though he’d need to get back to work soon, the grumblings of his stomach called. Spying a plate of Suz’s leftover lasagna, he retrieved it, served up a slice, and waited while his plate heated in the microwave.

A pile of envelopes and advertisements on the table caught his eye. One piece of mail, an envelope ripped at the corner, lay on top.
Heinsburgh Valley Correctional Facility.
The microwave bell rang, but he ignored it.

He climbed the stairs two at a time, calling for his sister, stopping at the closed door to the bedroom she shared with Jer. “Suz?”

A weak voice answered. “Come in.”

Suz lie buried in rumpled bedding, an empty box of tissues teetering at the edge of her nightstand. If it weren’t for the envelope he held between two fingers, he might have thought she was ill.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It’s from Len. He found out where I was from my old landlord.”

It took considerable control to keep Gage from swearing. “Let me answer it for you—”

“No!” She sat up, her face red and puffy. “Stop trying to be my knight in shining armor—I’m not a child, Gage.”

He raised both hands like paddles. “Give. Sorry.” Since when did his little sister not want his help? “What did the guy want anyway?”

“Men suck, you know that?”

Gage stood. “Whoa. Don’t compare me to that . . . that—”

“Say it! Len is a loser. I pick
losers
real well, don’t I? If I were going to be in a beauty pageant that would be my talent: How to Choose a Loser with a capital
L!”

“Don’t say that. You’re a beautiful, talented woman. And I’d say that even if you weren’t my sister.” He sat on the bed. “I don’t know what this guy has said that has upset you this much.” Well, he could
guess.
“But don’t shut me out. You and Jer . . . you’re my life, you know that, don’t you?”

Suz released a throaty sob. “He stole drugs, leaving Jer and me to fend for ourselves. You should have
heard
how catty all the neighbors got. Did you know they called Jeremiah a criminal’s spawn?”

Gage flinched.

“I never told you this but they said that Len had a girlfriend, someone he brought into our home while I worked. I denied it to everyone who spread that nasty little rumor, always tried to protect Len’s reputation.” She winced. “But it was all true.”

Gage’s heart sank lower than it had already gone since finding his sister in this state. “He never deserved you.”

Suz gave a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, well, seems you’re the only one who thinks that.” She shook her head and threw the covers off of her. “I don’t care anymore. Forget it all—forget him.”

“What did the letter say, Suz?”

“He wants a divorce.” She choked back another sob. “Yeah, apparently his girlfriend wants to marry him.
In the prison.
”

He crushed the envelope in one hand and pitched it into the trash. “Let him. You don’t need that guy and you know it. Now he’s guaranteed to stay far away from you and from Jeremiah. Isn’t that what you wanted all along?”

“What I wanted?” Suz stared like he had ordered her to jump off a bridge. “No, Gage, what I
wanted
was for the man I loved to love me back. What I wanted was for my son to have a father.”

“I don’t get it. The man committed a felony, he cheated on you, he’s not worthy of either one of you.”

Suz sank onto the edge of the bed, her head hanging low. “I guess I had this small hope that one day he’d listen to me. He’d find God and surrender his life to him, and then he’d realize what he’d lost.”

He slid an arm around her. “And want you back.”

She nodded, her voice dull with sorrow. “Yeah.”

“You’re right that anyone can be reformed.” Gage shrugged and pulled her close. “Hopefully that will happen someday for Len. But your life is now. Your life, Jer’s life, they’re both gifts from God. Don’t waste these years waiting for someone who’s not ready to accept the grace of God in his life.”

“I’ll never stop praying for him, you know.”

Something twisted inside Gage. His sister had been praying all along for her loser of a husband. There was something so right about that simple, merciful act, and yet it had never occurred to Gage—not even once—to do the same. He caught eyes with his little sister, seeing the woman she had become. “I know, Suz. I believe that you never will.”

Later, after she’d gone to pick up Jeremiah from an after-school care program, Gage sat in his kitchen, finally finding time in this hectic and emotionally whipped day to nourish his body. If Marc were here, he’d be on his case, urging him to nourish his soul too. He knew he should be in the office, head down, pencil to paper, yet he couldn’t get Suz—nor Callie—out of his head. Both women, in different ways, were being threatened. He understood now some of what Suz had been experiencing, that despite her husband’s abandonment—among other things—her heart had been broken by a man she had trusted.

What about Callie? A charge ran through him that first time they met, when she chastised the surveyor for flicking a cigarette into the ocean. She had glared at the other men, but when she looked at him, the sharp lines around her eyes softened. He knew he had not imagined that. Her soft gaze hardened once she learned he would be designing the Kitteridge project, though. But now that she knew him, and how similar they really were—except for the position on the project, that is—was that the only reason that, until today, she chafed at his presence?

Contentment rose to the surface as he thought about how they reconnected today, and yet a sickly niggle kept him from over celebrating. Someone had been leaving threatening notes at Callie’s door. They may have even lured her dog away. He set down his fork, unable to take another bite, firm in his resolve that it was time to ask his client some serious, direct questions.