Storm Surge (2 page)

“What are you doing out here?” he asked after she’d taken another step back.

She paused, not quite balanced. “I needed some air.”

“You don’t smell like you’ve been drinking.”

“I haven’t been.”

“How far did you walk?”

Paige’s nails dug into her palms, fingers curled tightly once more. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Just trying to determine where the hell you’ve come from and what you’re doing here,” he said. “My major issue is with the patrons of Cappy’s. They like to wander down to the beach to walk it off before heading home. Is that where you’ve come from?”

“What on earth is Cappy’s?”

“Answers that question. You really aren’t from around here.” His tone was dismissive.

Paige’s brow wrinkled. Could this guy be any ruder? “At the moment, I am from around here. I’m renting the cottage next door.”

He made an abrupt movement in her direction and Paige stumbled backward.

“How long?” he demanded.

“Am I staying? Not that it’s any of your business, but—”

“No. How long have you been in the cottage?”

Good Lord, was that any of his concern, either? “What does it matter?” Paige continued backing away, keeping the man in her line of sight. What had been a shadow had begun to fill in with muted color: faded blue jeans, the indistinct hue of his T-shirt, disheveled coal black hair. He possessed a handsome arrangement to his features, though the particulars remained veiled by darkness. Not what she wanted to find—the guy pissing her off in the middle of the night was good-looking. She’d rather he resemble the discarded leftovers from the vanished gulls.

“Sorry to have disturbed you,” she said with mock sweetness. “As we’re to be temporary neighbors, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again at a more reasonable time of day.”

A soft red glow appeared on the man’s face, highlighting a scar running down his jaw. Paige glanced toward the ocean. The horizon had lit up like a thin line of embers.

“Red sky at morning,” she whispered.

“Sailors take warning,” he finished.

She snapped her attention back to him. “So the saying goes.”

“That it does.”

“Are you a sailor?”

His jaw worked, dark eyes narrowing beneath lowered brows. Surely he wasn’t that much older than she, but something in his life had aged him, weathered him a bit—and not unattractively—by exposure to the elements. The sun lifted higher, sunlight dancing across the waves that washed over the rocky beach. His shadow lengthened along the sand, conjoining with hers. “I was. Why?”

“No longer spending your days on the sea?”

“I’m not out here for small talk. I have work to do.”

“At this hour? What are you, a smuggler?”

He said nothing, but something in him stilled. Crap. Maybe she had struck on the truth. Paige renewed her retreat, surprised when the man offered an abrupt, if not quite willing, introduction.

“My name’s Liam Gray. I apologize for giving you a hard time.”

“No apology necessary.” Paige spun on her heel and strode up the slope toward the rental.

“And who are you?” Gray called after her.

She stopped short, sneakers sliding in the sand. “I used to live in your house,” she said, pointing toward what was little more than a two-storey cottage, tall, limited in width, and looking not quite so decrepit in the daylight. “And my name is Paige. Paige Waters. Edwin’s daughter. I’ve come back for answers, and I plan to get them.”

Edwin Waters’ daughter didn’t even reach his collarbone, yet her stride on the slope would put a person twice her height to shame. Liam watched her disappear over the hill. The ponytail flying behind her looked as if she’d whipped it with an eggbeater. And her clothes, well, they resembled something pulled from a trash bin. He refused to be intrigued.

Liam crossed the porch and yanked open the door, stomping sand from his shoes before stepping into the shadowed kitchen. A kitchen once inhabited by Paige and her family. And, after all these years, she’d parked herself next door. Seemed to him she had more of an agenda than she was letting on. Seemed to him trouble had come in the form of a five-foot-tall whirlwind. The balance in his life was already fantastically out of whack. He had no desire to wage another battle.

Not bothering with light switches, Liam climbed the stairs, heading for his office. He paused in the hallway, listening to the boards creaking across the attic floor overhead. He had given up checking. Whatever lurked up there didn’t want to be seen. There’d been a time when he thought he knew what resided in this house with him, but lately he hadn’t been so sure. Ironic, a man who wrote ghost stories for a living unable to uncover any history about the one in his own home. Paige Waters might know a thing or two about that, but he wasn’t about to ask her.

The groaning timbers silent, Liam continued past the attic door into his office. Instead of turning the laptop back on, he went to the window, staring through a scraggly pine at the cottage roof eighty feet away. The timing of her return couldn’t be worse.

“What are you really up to, Paige Waters?” he whispered. After a moment, he picked up the cell phone from the desk and dialed. He suspected she planned to storm the town with questions. Certain people needed a heads up.

* * * *

Paige parked her car in a space on the blacktop circle that surrounded the stone cross bearing the names of all the sailors Alcina Cove had lost at sea. She climbed from the vehicle, swung the door shut, and approached the etched names. Reading them, the sheer number of men and women who had died in pursuit of a living on the vast ocean in the past one hundred years dismayed her. The death notification she’d received regarding her father had only informed her that his ship had gone down, and his fate was not marked here.

Around the cross, flowers bobbed in the manicured beds, planted lovingly by a local society, according to the small plaque set on a post in the middle of them. Red, white, and blue blossoms of geraniums, petunias, and some tiny flower Paige didn’t recognize reminded her that the Fourth of July was around the corner. Tiny flags on wooden dowel posts spray-painted gold lined the edge of the garden.

Paige tarried a few minutes longer to study the most recent names. Some sparked a vague memory, the surnames familiar to her. Had she known a Donald Sweetwater as a kid? Or an Albert Dunwiddy? Probably. Despite its growth, the town wasn’t all that large. Many families remained in Alcina Cove generation after generation. Or so she’d been informed by both her mother, when alive, and web articles Paige had studied prior to heading north.

The ocean pounded the jetty rocks behind her. The processing plant she had passed in her car yesterday filled the air with a distant thrum. Beyond the memorial, Alcina Cove’s main thoroughfare lay straight as an arrow pointing inland, the residential side streets angled out irregularly from the business center. Paige decided to leave her car parked by the cross and head into town on foot. Most addresses on the small spiral pad in her purse should be located on the narrow side roads.

She stopped first at Cora Showalter’s home, a woman whose name she had found in her mother’s battered address book with Cora’s birthday noted. Even though Paige had never heard her mother talk about the woman, the fact that Debra Waters knew the woman’s birthday held some significance. Paige had sent Cora a note informing her of Debra’s passing and that she’d be coming north—she couldn’t quite bring herself to use the word “home”—in a few months and would like to stop and see her. Paige had never heard back, but that didn’t mean anything. For all Paige knew, there’d been little or no contact between this woman and her mother since that night long ago. Cora should still be able to provide her with information.

Striding up a slate and crushed stone walkway, Paige practiced the few lines she’d prepared for introduction. She pressed the bell at the front door. Receiving no response, Paige opened the screen door and knocked on the wooden one for good measure.

“Who are you looking for?”

Paige glanced over her shoulder. A woman with unnatural crimson hair glared at her from the sidewalk. “Cora Showalter?” Paige said. “This is the last address I have for her. Does she still live here?”

The woman wrinkled her nose. “Nope.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“Try the Episcopalian cemetery.”

Paige’s fingers tightened around the notepad, spiraled wire digging into her palm. “When did she die?”

“A few months back. Her daughter lives here now, but you won’t find her at home at this hour of the day. She works. And she won’t like an out-of-towner lurking on her sidewalk,” the woman added.

Paige sighed. “The accent, of course.”

“And the fact you didn’t know about Cora. Any long-time resident knew about Cora the moment she passed.”

“Was she that well-loved?”

The woman’s mouth twitched. “No.”

Paige strode down the walkway but halted a short distance away from Cora’s erstwhile neighbor. “So, are you a long-time resident, Miss—?”

“Of course.”

No offer of a name. Paige bit the inside of her lip. “Then maybe you knew Edwin Waters or Debra Waters?”

“Nope, can’t say I ever did.”

Paige didn’t quite believe her. She didn’t expect her parents to be known to everyone in the town, naturally, but the way the woman looked away when she answered made her suspect. Paige recognized there’d be no point in accusations, though. She thanked the woman and turned away, crossing the name
Cora Showalter
from the lined paper with a vigorous scoring.

“What have you got there?”

Paige glanced back. “Nothing. Thank you for your information.” Paige started walking back in the direction of Main Street. Behind her, she heard the woman’s heels clicking sharply in scurrying pursuit.

“Wait! Wait just one second.”

“Yes?” Paige paused in anticipation of last minute information. The woman clattered up beside her and snatched the pad and pencil from Paige’s hands.

“Let me see what you’ve got here.”

Shocked, Paige reached to take the notebook back, but the woman turned a shoulder to her. Paige realized she wouldn’t get the notebook back without a struggle. Not until the woman finished scanning the list, making little noises through her teeth as she ticked off each name. She went back and crossed through some of them before returning pad and pencil.

“There,” she said.

“Why did you do that?”

“Those people,” the woman explained, wagging her pointer finger over the page, “useless to try and hunt them up. They won’t be helping you. They’re gone, one way or another. As for the rest? You pound on the wrong doors, you’re going to find trouble. People around here, they don’t like strangers.”

“Yes,” said Paige, “I’m getting that impression.”

Holding Paige’s gaze while she gave a short, sharp nod, the woman backed away and spun on her heel. Paige scanned the lined page again. Her information pool had been reduced by more than half.

* * * *

Sweat stinging the sunburn on her nape and shoulder, Paige returned to the cottage discouraged. Not one of the residents on the remaining list had been home. Paige parked her car in the graveled spot that served as a driveway and climbed out to hammering coming from next door. If she hadn’t totally alienated the man, Liam Gray might be of some help. After sweating all day, she lifted an arm for a quick sniff to make certain she didn’t smell like a cow’s backside before heading over to the house where she had spent her earliest years.

The first thing she saw as she rounded the beach-facing porch was sawhorses laden with packs of cedar shakes. On top of the nearest pack, a
faded blue shirt fluttered in the breeze. Paige’s gaze shot to the top of a ladder to the porch roof where Liam, shirtless, muscular, and lightly browned, straddled a pile of cedar with his back to her, hammering replacement shakes into place. Paige bit her lip.

“I’ll be right down,” he said without turning.

Paige pivoted away, heat flaming her cheeks with more ferocity than the sunburn at her neck. Naturally, he would be able to see the whole beach reflected in the second floor windows, including her upturned face gawking at him.

The ladder rattled with his descent. She waited until he had slipped back into his shirt before looking at him. He hadn’t buttoned the garment. The soft fabric hung over his torso, negligently revealing more than it covered.

“What can I do for you today, Ms. Waters? Was there something you needed?”

Annoyed with herself for her distraction and him for his sarcasm, Paige shifted her gaze away from Liam’s naked chest. “For starters, you can call me Paige.”

“Paige,” he said. “Better? Did you need something from me?” His tone had become guarded. As it should be, she supposed. She hadn’t been very friendly when they’d met before. If nothing else, the hour hadn’t been conducive to the usual niceties. As for needing something from him, well, she didn’t want to think about the way he looked in his open shirt. Because there was
that
need. Her mind had gone there straightaway, to that simple, dangerous, heated need. One foisted on her by solitude and loneliness and a desire to be held, to melt away until, for a while, nothing of herself remained. He stared down at her, waiting.

“I thought I might ask you about my father.”

He appeared mystified. “Your father?”

“Yes. Did you not hear me this morning when I said I was Edwin Waters’ daughter?”

“I heard you.”

Something in his manner snapped her drifting focus back to his face again. His black lashes had lowered, partially concealing his eyes.

“Did you know him?” she asked. “My father?”

“Why would you think I knew him?”

“But you knew of him,” she persisted. “You made mention about him dying shortly after you bought the house.”

“Yes, I did. But it doesn’t mean I knew him or anything about him.”

Paige sighed. “Somebody has to.”

Liam’s lashes lifted. The thought process behind his dark eyes remained unreadable.

“I don’t even know exactly how he died except the rather useless ‘his ship went down.’” Embarrassed by her voice’s beseeching tenor, she inhaled to steady herself. “Can you at least tell me that?”