One Summer (28 page)

She’d decided in her teens to become a veterinarian and she’d done everything to make that happen. Next she’d worked her way up from assistant veterinarian to being on staff at one of Chicago’s best and biggest veterinary clinics. And then, after she’d set her mind to moving here, she’d gotten the house remodeled and the clinic established in record time.

A year later, she’d fulfilled her dream of opening up a shelter, but she was already thinking of ways she could draw other vets from other counties in, to create a network of shelters and volunteers willing to foster animals waiting for adoption.

Except for that halcyon summer here in Shelter Bay, Charity could not recall ever just living in the here and now. She’d learned not to dwell on the past, even as she was always looking toward tomorrow.

“I was also thinking,” she murmured, “that there’s a lot to be said for living in the moment. One day at a time.”

He took her hand and lifted it to his smiling lips. “Sugar, you are playing my tune. Especially when the day’s as perfect as this one.”

The siren shattered the soft afternoon air. Blue and red lights flashed atop the sheriff department’s cruiser.

“This is the tweriff,” a voice instructed over the loudspeaker. “Come out with your handth up!” The order would’ve carried more weight if it hadn’t been coming from a five-year-old pigtailed blonde with a lisp.

“I think you just might have won the Ms. Popularity contest,” Gabe told Kara Conway as they watched the line of kids waiting for a chance to play with all the gear.

“Kids seem to love playing cops and robbers,” she agreed. Her deputy, who didn’t look much older than some of the kids themselves, appeared to be having just as much fun.

“Did you?” he asked.

“Sure. But although my dad was Shelter Bay’s sheriff, I didn’t consider going into law enforcement until after I’d gotten married.”

He hadn’t realized she’d been married before. Then again, most of the people he knew had been married. Some more than once. With the seeming exception of Charity, who’d stopped at the brink.

“I was widowed,” she revealed.

“I’m sorry.”

“So was I. The irony was that Jared, my husband, made it through two tours in Iraq, only to get killed during a domestic cop call.”

“That’s tough.” And tragic, yet from what he’d witnessed at the wedding, and from her cheerful attitude the other day on the beach, he guessed she’d gotten over it.

“It was the darkest time of my life. But I was fortunate to have our son, which kept me from just crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head for the rest of my life.”

She sighed softly, then shook her head. “You know what they say about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?”

“Roger that,” Gabe agreed.

“It’s true. Yet if all that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have ended up back here in Shelter Bay. With Sax.”

By the way her face lit up when she said Cole’s brother’s name, he could tell that what the two of them had was the real deal. It also made him wonder what secret the Douchett family had that the rest of the planet couldn’t seem to figure out.

“I heard you and Charity had dinner at the Sea Mist last night.” Her tone might be conversational, but he caught a question in the statement.

“You and probably everyone else.”

She shrugged khaki-clad shoulders. “It’s a small town. People talk. It actually makes my job a lot easier… .”

The way her voice trailed off made him suspect she’d been planning to say something else, and was debating whether to go for it. Since he’d seen her patrolling Harborview as he’d driven away from Charity’s house this morning, he figured her arrival home hadn’t gone unnoticed by those cop eyes, which, despite the way the sky had begun to cloud up, were currently hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.

“I bought your book,” she said.

That wasn’t what he was expecting.

“Thanks.”

“I almost didn’t because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what Jared had seen.”

“I can understand that.”

“But everyone was talking about it, so I dropped by Tidal Wave Books yesterday and looked through it.” She looked up at him, but he still couldn’t see her eyes. Which was probably the point of those shades all cops seemed to wear. “You put me there. With those photos.”

That was how he’d always viewed his mission. To be a witness to history. To shake people out of their indifference.

“Is that good? Or bad?”

He didn’t mention that the photos, as graphic as they were, were only a fraction of what he’d seen and smelled and heard. Nor did he share that he lived with an entire library of violence and suffering in his head.

“I haven’t quite decided. You did help me understand a lot of why he’d changed so much when he came back home after his last tour. I bought it to look through again, since Sax was downrange, too. I’ve decided to put it away for Trey, my son, when he’s older. To help him know a bit more about his father.”

“I’m flattered you believe my photos might help.”

“They’re very good.” She folded her arms. “I especially like the way you somehow managed to keep your own feelings to yourself, leaving it up to the viewer to experience individual emotion. That must have been difficult.”

Again, he heard the question.

“I guess it’s a trick I developed.” He had, after all, been keeping his feelings to himself for a very long time.

“Well, it worked.”

Two kids, twins from the look of them, were climbing into the backseat behind the screen that separated prisoners from the driver of the patrol car.

“I also hear you’ve been traveling the country taking photographs for a new book,” she said.

“You heard right.”

“How long do you plan to stay here in town?”

Finally. There it was. “Is this where you tell me the town’s not big enough for the two of us, Sheriff?” he asked mildly.

“Of course not.” There was an edge to her tone that reminded him what Sax had said about her not having always been a small-town sheriff. She’d been a cop down in Oceanside and had even attended classes at the FBI Academy.

“Good. Because I’m not finished here.”

“But when you are, you’ll be moving on to the next state.”

“Washington,” he agreed absently as Charity, who’d been in the kitchen helping Sedona Sullivan give a baking class, came out of the lodge. “Then Alaska. And finally Hawaii.”

“Sounds ambitious. I’ve always fantasized about just taking off and seeing the country.”

“It’s been quite the trip.”

He watched Charity scan the parking lot. When she spotted him, then waved and flashed that dazzling smile that could brighten the grayest of days, Gabe felt his heart shift, like the tectonic plates that were always moving and colliding here in America’s part of the Ring of Fire.

“Charity moved here shortly before I returned home,” Kara volunteered, following his gaze. “We’ve become good friends.”

“She’s definitely friendly.”

“True. But here’s the thing.” She shoved her glasses up on the top of her head. Her gaze was hard, her tone all cop. “If you hurt her, I may have to shoot you.”

She was joking. Right? She had to be. Strangers disappearing in outwardly friendly small towns that turned out to be harboring dark and dangerous secrets was just a fictional cliché.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Gabe said as
Bad Day at Black Rock
flashed through his mind.

She nodded, the warning clear. “You do that.”

“I could get used to this.” Charity stretched happily, every muscle in her body feeling deliciously relaxed.

If word ever got out that an hour of great sex could accomplish more than a year’s worth of yoga exercises, Seventh Heaven Yoga studio would shut down in a week.

“I already am,” Gabe said.

She felt a tinge of loss when he left the rumpled bed, though watching him walk over to the dresser was certainly no hardship. She might not have seen all that many naked men in her life, but seriously doubted that there were many out there who had as hot and hard a body as Gabe had—and were so comfortable with it.

When he turned back around, he was holding his camera.

Quick, sharp panic sliced through her. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“Don’t think. And don’t move.”

“Gabriel.” Feeling the flush of heat rising in her breasts, she went to cover them with the sheet. “I’m naked.”

“Exactly. And you look incredible.”

“But—” She folded her arms over the sheet, holding it tightly beneath her arms. “I can’t pose for that kind of picture.”

“I don’t take
that
kind. This is art.”

“Since when do you take art photos?”

“Since tonight. When I saw you looking all flushed and satisfied, bathed in starshine and candlelight.” Uncommonly for the coast, the sky was clear tonight, allowing the light from a thousand whirling stars and a slice of crescent moon to flow in from the skylight above the bed.

His wicked smile faded just a shade. “Unless you don’t trust me not to post pictures of you all over the Internet.”

That idea was so outrageous that she let out a laugh on a short exhaled breath that had her relaxing. Just a bit.

“Of course I trust you.”

“Good.” He gently tugged the cooling sheet back down to where it had been gathered low on her hips. “Just lean back, relax, and let me do all the work.” He skimmed a hand down her side, knuckles brushing against her warming skin as he adjusted the sheet to his liking.

“I’m not a model,” she protested, even as the caress created a humming in her blood.

“No, you’re a woman.” He brushed her sex-tousled hair back over her shoulders, leaving her even more exposed. “A very sexy, very desirable, incredibly hot and luscious woman.”

The way he was looking at her did make Charity feel hot. Sexy. Even, amazingly, wanton.

“You’re just prejudiced.”

“You bet.” Framing her face between his palms, he bent his head and took her mouth, coaxing her back into the mists.

“Gabriel—”

Even as she felt herself succumbing, the cautious, logical part of Charity, who’d spent her entire life shying away from emotions like the ones that were threatening to swamp her, tried to make itself heard.

“Trust me,” he murmured. Her eyes drifted shut as he lightly nipped at her bottom lip with his teeth. “I want to remember you like this.”

She felt him move. Heard the click of a shutter.

“With stars in your eyes, and my name on your lips.”

His words cut through the clouds in her mind, reminding her that their precious time together was slipping away, like beach sand though her fingers.

“Look at me, Charity.”

Refusing to allow herself to cry, and not wanting to waste a single moment, Charity opened her eyes.

And her heart.

“Johnny!”

Jasmine, the girl formerly known as Angel, came running toward him, her bag of gathered shells banging against her tanned bare leg. It was their first trip to the beach this year, and she’d been as free and happy as Johnny had ever seen her.

Despite her earlier problems with those mean girls, she’d made friends with two sisters from Ashland, and instead of clinging to him, the way she had last summer, she’d spent much of the day with her new friends, building sand castles and collecting shells. Which would probably be stolen by some other kids her first week back, but since the sun was shining, the picnic lunch from some crab place had been so good, and his sister was behaving a lot like he figured kids who weren’t stuck in the system would do at the coast, Johnny wasn’t going to worry about that. Now.

“Guess what I found!”

“A shark?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“Moby Dick?”

“What’s that?”

“A whale.”

“No.” Another, more emphatic shake of the head.

“A pirate ship?”

“No. But it’s almost as good.” Her face split into a grin even brighter than the diamonds the sun was making on the water. She grabbed his hand with her free one. “Come see.”

He walked with her about twenty yards down the beach, skirting around tangled green kelp and tide pools that were home to orange and blue starfish. The beach Fred and Ethel had taken them to was crescent shaped, curving around the Shelter Bay lighthouse cliff.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone,” she said.

“I promise. How much farther?”

“It’s right here!” She stopped in front of what appeared to be a cave. “It’s Aladdin’s cave!” she announced. She tugged on his hand. “Come see!”

In contrast to the sunny day, the cave carved into the cliff was as black as night. As he came in from the light, it took Johnny’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. When they did, he saw what had his sister so excited.

“See!” She was spinning around, arms outstretched, like the tiny ballerina that had danced in a music box his mother had owned years ago. She’d wind the key and dance around their apartment the same way Angel was doing now. “It has diamonds on the walls.”

From the geology lesson Fred had given some of the older kids earlier, Johnny knew the brilliant chips glinting from the walls and dark sand floor were actually quartz, garnet, and maybe gold, which was probably fool’s gold, since he figured all the real stuff had been dug out over the years.

“It’s really cool,” he said.

Which, even though those weren’t diamonds, was true.

“It’s wonderful!” She hugged herself, as if trying to keep the joy from having her floating up to the sparkling ceiling. “Guess what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“That people could live here.”

“Until the tide came in.” Fred had also taught them about tide charts.

“There’s a ledge.” She pointed. “We could stay up there until the tide went out. And we could fish and catch crabs and sell diamonds for money to get other things we needed. There’s lots of room. It’d be just like camping out.”