No Other Love (A Walker Island Romance, Book 2) (8 page)

He was surprised—and totally thrilled—when she nodded and leaned into him. As he worked his fingers into her tight muscles, he could feel her resistance melting away. Intent on making her feel better, he swept aside her long blond hair, his hands drifting from her shoulders to the small of her back.

This close, it was impossible to ignore how attracted he was to her, and how much he longed to be even closer. So much closer. But they were in the middle of a room full of people. He needed to control himself.

“Don’t stop,” Morgan breathed, and even in the near darkness of the dance school’s theater, it was easy to see the effect his touch had on her. Her eyes were half-closed, her limbs loose and relaxed, her lips parted as her soft breaths came slightly faster.

Seeing her like that—and knowing it was because of him—switched on a bright, hot light deep inside of him. He’d been trying to be so careful. Trying not to rush things, but now…

Brian slid his hands from her shoulders up to the nape of her neck, and when she turned toward him, he did what he'd wanted to do for seven long years and kissed her. Finally kissed her with all the hunger, all the pent-up need that he couldn't possibly hold back anymore.

Brian expected Morgan to pull back, but instead she kissed him back with the same intensity. Her fingers twined with his as they made out in the darkness, pulling each other so close that she was nearly on his lap and he was barely a breath from dragging her there.

The lights for intermission came up so suddenly that they both jumped in shock. And as the light spilled over them so that he could see clearly into her eyes again, Morgan pulled away.

“Oh God, we shouldn't have—” She put her fingers over her lips. “Your students might have seen—” She shook her head as she stood up to flee.

Morgan's sister Emily was looking up at them, her expression impossible to read. But even though he worked with Emily at the high school, right then he didn’t care what she was thinking. Morgan was the only one who mattered.

And she was slipping away.

Literally, given that when he went to follow her, several of his students’ parents stopped him to chat about their kids’ progress in his science class. By the time he was able to make his escape without being completely rude, he found that Morgan had taken Michael's seat in the front row next to Emily. Michael headed to the back of the theater to take Morgan's old seat next to Brian just as the lights began flashing to let the audience know they should return to their seats.

Michael was a few years older, but because Brian had dated Morgan for so many years in high school, he felt he knew the other man pretty well. Plus, he'd seen Michael with Emily enough times to recognize unrequited love when he saw it.

“Are you planning on starting things up with Morgan again?” Michael asked point-blank.

Brian appreciated the direct approach. “I'd like to, yes.”

“Morgan is like a sister to me, and her father won’t have this talk with you, because he isn’t that kind of guy, but I will.” Michael pinned Brian with a hard gaze. “Don't hurt her.”

“Hurting Morgan is the last thing I ever want to do.”

Michael studied him in silence for a few moments before he finally nodded and turned his attention back to the two Walker women who were leaning in close and whispering to one another. Probably about the two of them.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Brian asked. “Wanting something that you know you might never be able to have, but not being able to stop wanting it despite that.”

Michael didn’t deny it or try to say that he didn’t know what Brian was talking about. Instead, as he stared down at the back of Emily's head, Michael agreed, “Yes, it’s hard.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

After the performance, Morgan went straight home without speaking to Brian again. Grams, Paige and Emily came in a bit later, while Rachel and Charlotte had gone back to their own house.

Despite having run a major island performance tonight, Ava didn't seem to be tired at all as she bustled about, putting together a plate of homemade cookies for everyone. Emily made a pot of tea, while Paige looked over the digital pictures of the performance.

Morgan sat at the kitchen table and booted up her laptop to deal with her overflowing email inbox. Unfortunately, after a few minutes she realized she wasn't going to make much of a dent in her email, not when she couldn't stop thinking about Brian…and the kisses they'd shared tonight.

Kisses that she'd wanted to go on forever and forever.

Kisses that were even sweeter than they'd been in her memory.

“Morgan?” Emily waved her arms in the air. “Earth to Morgan.”

She looked up from her computer screen. “Hmm?”

“I asked if you want tea.”

“Yes, please.”

When Grams sat down opposite her, Morgan said, “The performance tonight was great.”

“It was,” her grandmother agreed. “Paige is so good with the students.”

Paige smiled at the compliment, but said, “I just give them the tools to work it out for themselves and maybe point them in the right direction a couple of times when they get stuck.”

“You always make it sound easier than it is,” Morgan said, smiling at her soft-spoken sister. “But, seriously, my hat's off to both of you. I really had a great time watching the performance tonight.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Ava said. “Although I did wonder why you switched seats partway through.”

Morgan had been hoping that no one but Emily would notice and try to give her advice. After all, she’d been ignoring well-meaning advice from her big sister all her life. But Grams was a different matter.

Ava held her own counsel much of the time and usually let them figure things out for themselves...which meant that when she
did
offer advice, it was impossible to ignore. In fact, Morgan sometimes felt like she’d been able to leave the island only because Grams hadn’t spoken out against it. Morgan suspected that Ava had even talked to her father, letting him know just how much Morgan needed to be set free to find her own way.

“It was nothing, Grams,” she said, but every syllable she spoke was clearly a big fat lie. One that she hadn't been trying to tell herself for just three days, but for seven years.

“Now, Morgan,” Ava said, “it’s obviously
something,
especially since I can see that you're upset. What is it, dear? What had you running down to sit with your sister halfway through the show like that?”

Morgan knew there was no point in trying to pretend anymore when her grandmother and two sisters already seemed to know what she was trying not to tell them. “It’s Brian.” She lifted her hand to her lips without thinking. “He kissed me. Or I kissed him.” She shook her head, as confused by it all as she'd ever been. “I honestly don't know how it happened, just that it did.” And that she hadn't wanted it to stop.
Not ever.
“I'm so confused.”

“Trust me,” Grams said with a small smile, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned from helping to raise you girls, it’s that things are often simpler than you think.”

“But it isn't simple!” she protested. “I shouldn't have kissed him. Not like that.”

Emily and Paige gave each other a look, obviously trying to assess what being kissed
like that
meant exactly. But Grams didn't seem at all shocked by the idea that one of her granddaughters had been getting hot and heavy in the back of her dance studio with a former boyfriend.

“Now, what is so wrong about you kissing Brian? Don’t you like the boy?”

“He’s not a boy anymore, Grams.” And that was part of what was making it harder. He’d said it himself back at the bar. They weren’t kids anymore. They were adults with real responsibilities...and hearts that could be too easily broken again. She couldn’t just dismiss all this as being some childish infatuation, or just a fun fling while she was in town on business, however much she might wish to. “What's wrong is that it can’t work. All of you know that I love being back on the island, but that doesn't mean I can stay.”

“You always say this, that you can't stay,” Emily said from over by the stove. “Why not?”

“Because this isn’t where my life is.”

“But it could be.” Emily sat down at the table with them. “It was while you were growing up. What’s so wrong about life on the island that you had to leave the first chance that you got?”

Back in the theater, when Emily had been the protective older sister, Morgan had thought that perhaps she might understand. Yet it was obvious that when it came to the island, Emily would
never
understand how she felt.

“You’ve never gotten it, have you?” Morgan asked her sister. “Why I left? Why I
needed
to leave?”

“Needed?” Emily retorted. “What was out there that you couldn’t find here? What could possibly be in New York City that was worth leaving all of this behind?”

“My career. Endless possibilities and choices. The chance to make my dreams come true. Do you think I could have gotten any of that if I hadn’t left the island?”

“Honestly, since you never tried to make your dreams come true here, I don't know what would have been possible. But haven't you ever wondered about all the things that you might have had if you’d stayed?”

“Like what?”

“Brian, for a start. He loves you, Morgan. He's always loved you. And if you ask me, now that I've seen you two together again, I think you still love him, too.”

Morgan swallowed hard. She should have guessed that Emily would be building up to this...and that she wouldn't pull her punches. Not when her older sister cared so much about all of them and not when Emily was always so sure about what would make each of them happy.

“Everything I am today,” Morgan said in what she hoped was a measured voice, “I am because I left the island.”

But instead of calming down, Emily almost looked angry now. “Do you really think that going away made you someone different? Do you really believe that your life came from leaving all this behind? There are things you can’t leave behind, Morgan, even though you seem to be pretty determined to try. If you ask me, you are who you are
because
of the island.”

“That’s enough, girls.” Ava reached out to take both their hands. “Finding happiness isn’t about where you live your life. Look at me. Who would have thought that I would find love on an island a ferry ride away from my original home in Seattle? It isn’t the place that matters. It isn’t even what you do. It’s whether everything in your life adds up to make you happy. We each have our own path. One that will change from time to time. One that will likely be full of twists and turns. One that might not look like the right path to anyone else.” Here, she looked at each of them again. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t right for you. So long as you're happy, that's the only thing that matters.”

It all sounded so simple when Grams put it like that. Morgan should just do what made her happy. And there was no question that Brian made her happy, along with so many parts of life on the island, especially being with her family and feeling like she was a part of nature all the time. Yet, off the island she had her successful, ever-growing career that made her happy too. If it were just a case of choosing between something that made her happy and something that made her unhappy, then the choice would be every bit as simple as Grams suggested. Instead, any way she looked at it, things were far more complicated than that.

Especially when Morgan could still feel the strong pulse of attraction that came just from being near Brian and the taste of his lips on hers lingered, too. Because for all her memories of being in love with him as a teenager, the past several days had shown her just how intense their love could be if she allowed them to let it grow from a night of heated kisses into something more.

But if the fall had been hard when they were teenagers saying good-bye, how much worse would it tear them apart now?

“I know this must be really hard for you,” Paige said as she moved behind Morgan’s chair and put her arms around her, “especially when things with Brian are all happening so fast again.”

“I swear I didn't expect to come back home to work on this project and start kissing Brian Russell in the back row of a dark theater like we used to as kids.” She had to laugh at herself. “It's just that whenever I'm near him, I can't seem to control the way I feel. And it...” It was hard to admit this to anyone else, especially herself. “It scares me. Feeling so much for him when I know it can't ever become something more.”

“But what if it could?” Emily had to ask. “What if you feel that much for him because he really
is
your forever?”

Morgan just stared at her sister, shocked by how right the thought of
forever
felt. “Are you saying you think I should give us a chance again while I'm here this summer?” God, even as she said it, she wanted nothing more than to get into her little red convertible, head straight to Brian's house, and kiss and kiss and kiss him until her head was spinning and her knees were weak.

“Maybe,” Paige said in a gentle voice before Emily could respond or Morgan could leap, “since you're going to be here for a while longer, the best thing would be to give yourself some space to see if things feel right and if you think you can find a way to have everything you want on the island...or if you don’t think you can.”

For all that Morgan suddenly longed to throw caution to the wind and give herself over to desire for one perfect night with Brian, she knew Paige was right. Because she'd never forgive herself if she lost control and gave in to an impetuous yearning that only ended up destroying them both in the end.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“It’s starting to look really good out here,” Natalie observed a couple of weeks later as they stood together in the garden and looked over what they'd accomplished so far.

Today they were working together to dig a small irrigation channel, and Morgan knew it would go well, especially since both of her interns’ confidence had grown tremendously during the time they'd worked together. That wasn't the only thing that had grown during the past couple of weeks, however. Every day as the two teenagers worked to shape and tend the garden, Natalie would constantly stare at Tad when he wasn't looking, while he stole just as many secret looks at her.