The Love Shack (25 page)

That unsettled him, too, an uncomfortable reminder that the mystery of the home invasion hadn’t been solved. Before he left the country, he’d speak to both Teague and Griffin. They’d look out for her.

Though it wouldn’t be the same as his doing so. The thought made him twitch, and at his involuntary movement, Skye looked over. Their gazes met and he twitched again, the jolt of sexual awareness impossible to tamp down. Her sleeveless, V-necked dress was an amazing two-piece thing, a formfitting aqua sheath topped by a filmy second layer in the same color that acted like a filter over a camera lens. The lightweight fabric moved over her body like water, and the image was reinforced by the small starfish clip she wore, holding back the dark mass of her hair from a deep side part.

Both brought to mind his mermaid dreams, disquieting him further as he remembered his unrequited yearning. In every one, he never managed to reach her before the tide returned him to shore.

Well, he’d touch her now, he decided. A kiss, a caress, just a breath of her fresh perfume would calm the jagged edges of his mood.

Half rising from his chair, he saw her eyes widen as she guessed his intent. With a subtle shake of her head, she sent him a pointed message:
Not here. Not now.

Frustrated, he settled back in his seat, delivering his own unspoken memo by folding his arms across his chest. Stubborn woman. He’d barely managed to get her to the table. She’d been present at the rehearsal as the cove’s property manager, on hand to answer questions or help with details, but when it was finished she’d tried slinking away, claiming she had no place at the celebratory meal.

His parents had overheard her remark and squashed the objection. They’d been delighted to renew their acquaintance with the grown-up version of the little girl they’d remembered. Perhaps they’d picked up on her link with Gage—Griff claimed they lit the air between them like flying embers from a bonfire—but they hadn’t given a sign.

Servers arrived then, bearing plates of sashimi, coconut shrimp, fried calamari and hummus with pita. A waitress had mixed drinks on a tray, and the guy who was usually behind the bar followed, a wine bottle in each hand, topping off glasses of red and white. He lingered behind Skye, and Gage narrowed his eyes as she turned around to exchange a few words with him.

Something tickled the back of his neck and he glanced right, at his mother, seated beside him. She was leaning over, whispering in her husband’s ear. Noting Gage’s attention, she straightened in her chair and threw him an innocent smile.

“What was that about?” he asked. “You know gossip is bad for the soul.”

“Gossip is speculation,” his mother pronounced as she lifted her martini. She was a Tess prototype, with dark, unsilvered hair and ageless cheekbones. “Facts are a balm to the heart.”

He sent her a suspicious look. “Exactly what ‘facts’ are balming your heart?”

“I’d love to see all three of my children settled,” she said.

Gage groaned. There were facts, and then there were false hopes. “Look, Mom—”

“A toast!” his dad’s voice boomed down the table.

Since there’d already been several when the first round of drinks had arrived, each focused on wishing the bride and groom good health and long happiness, they were all practiced in raising their glasses. “To my second son...” Alec Lowell said, this time directing his focus on Gage.

Hell.
He swallowed his second groan. Following on the heels of his mother’s whisper, this didn’t bode well.

His father lifted his glass higher. “Wishing him much success and a safe return to those who love him.”

Across the table, Skye jumped as if she’d been jabbed with a bamboo skewer. Gage noticed, but everyone else proceeded as normal, hear-hearing and then tipping back their beverages.

Gage took a healthy gulp of his own, while assessing the damage of that “safe return” on his siren of the cove. He didn’t
think
she’d spill his secrets, but there was her steadily rising stress level to take into account. And that stress wasn’t only because he was leaving in three days. Polly was on the move, as well. Skye’s best friend had already transferred most of her things from the little beachside dollhouse to Teague’s larger home in the suburbs.

The ping of fork on glass drew the table’s attention to Tess, sitting at the opposite end from Gage, between both of Jane’s brothers. They didn’t appear to be chatty types, but his sister took her matron-of-honor duties seriously and had been coaxing conversation from them. Most everyone had given up on getting much out of Griffin’s future father-in-law.

Tess tapped her fork again, then stood up, her gaze directed at Gage.

Crap,
he thought. Since she’d already aimed words of wisdom at both Jane and his twin, he could guess her next target.

“To Gage,” she said. “Who will promise right now, in front of witnesses, not to go incommunicado again!”

The sound of shattering glass punctuated her line. All heads turned from Tess to focus on Skye, who was standing, her chair pushed back, shards of her broken goblet at her feet.

Gage didn’t think. Perhaps he jumped over the table. All he knew was that he was beside the siren, his hands on her shoulders as he looked her over from head to toes bared by strappy sandals. “Don’t move,” he ordered. “Are you hurt? Did you get cut?”

“No.” She flushed. “I’m embarrassed.”

Beneath his hands, she trembled, and he could feel her ready to bolt. “You’re okay,” he said, then nudged his brother, who had the chair beside hers. “Griff, switch with me.”

Already a busboy was there with a broom and dustbin.

In moments, Gage had taken Skye’s seat—in case there were errant glass slivers—she was in his twin’s, and Griffin was across the table. An awkward quiet lingered, however. He tried thinking of some comment to ignite new conversation, but hell, he wasn’t the wordsmith.

His gaze shot to Griffin’s.

His twin instantly cleared his throat. “Uh...” He threw a look toward his bride. “Jane? Weren’t you telling me something interesting about, uh...?”

It wasn’t panic, exactly, that clutched at Gage’s gut, but even with inches between them he could feel Skye’s mounting strain. She was keeping his secrets—the kidnapping, the way he did his job, the dangerous aspect of his next assignment—and each passing moment made it harder for her to remain quiet about them.

He stared at his brother.
Come on.

“The article!” Griffin said, triumphant. Smiling, he looked around the table. “There’s an article coming out in tomorrow’s paper about the cove. It details the love story of the founders, and the mystery of a missing priceless piece of jewelry.”

The dude with the wine bottles was back, carrying a new glass for Skye. Gage watched as he placed it near her hand and filled it with the white she preferred. Then he stepped back, yet still hovered, taking his wine-replenishment duties seriously.

The table conversation—thank God—had been successfully manipulated by his brother. Jane chimed in, too, and together they related the history of Crescent Cove to her family, as well as the rumors about the jeweled necklace known as the Collar. The information appeared to intrigue the Pearson clan. Jane’s father and brothers, all scientists, tossed around hypotheses as everyone enjoyed the appetizers.

Skye explained that the Collar had never shown up in a bank or in a memento box. No mention of it had been made in any last wills and testaments. The only record was the old rumors and the letter written by Edith Essex in which she claimed it was safely put away where she and her husband wouldn’t have to think about it or look at it again.

Edith and Max’s former house was the natural presumed repository, of course, but Skye explained it had never shown up there—not in the past eighty-five years, not during the search they’d just conducted days before.

“However,” Corbett Pearson—Jane’s father—said, forefingers tapping his chin, “it could be that a later renovation changed the lines of the original house, concealing old nooks and crannies. Are there architectural records?”

“Well, yes,” Skye said. “In the property management office. I actually do have plans for many—maybe all—of the cottages.”

Tess scooted forward in her chair. “Oh, fun! We should get them, look them over. What if we found the Collar tonight?”

“I think there’s enough excitement on the agenda as it is,” Gage said. Beneath the table, he found Skye’s hand, squeezed.

But she was slipping her fingers from his, and on her feet in the next breath. “There’s no harm in me looking through my files,” she said, moving toward the exit. “It won’t take long—I’ll be back before dinner is served.”

Gage started to get up. “I’ll come—”

“Of course you won’t leave your family,” she said, shaking her head. “You only have a short while with them left.” In a blink, she was nothing but a flutter of color going out the exit.

He stared after her, wincing as the little barb of her last line sank into his skin. It didn’t make him feel any better to understand exactly why she’d grabbed at the opportunity to run off. She needed to escape the pressure cooker of the situation for a short while.

Or a long while.

Perhaps it only seemed that way to him, but when he started drumming his fingers on the tabletop, his twin sent him a sharp look. “I’d think she’d be back by now,” he said to Gage. “You’re just going to sit there?”

“She needs some breathing room,” he confessed, murmuring to his twin under the general conversation at the table. “The situation has her a little...wound up.”

His brother shook his head, expression disapproving. “I told you—”

“You don’t know anything about it.” His hot rejoinder didn’t alleviate the guilt simmering in his belly. Yeah, Griffin wasn’t aware of all that was bothering Skye, but the blame for that did sit squarely at Gage’s door.

Still, he believed it was the right way to handle things.

But it was wrong to leave Skye alone for so long, he decided. Hadn’t he promised himself he’d keep an eye on her? What if something had happened—

He was out of his chair before completing the thought. Then he leaped down the steps to the beach and ran toward the property management office, a quarter-mile dash that he made in record time. What if she needed him and he arrived too late?

Shit.
She should at least be able to count on him now, while he still lived at the cove.

The office door was propped open and the room brightly lit when he sprinted over the threshold.
There. There she is,
he thought, relieved. She stood at her desk, yellowed papers strewn in front of her, a handful of old black-and-white photographs scattered on top of them.

“Skye?”

She glanced up, barely noting his presence before she redirected her gaze to the plans and photos. It was as if Gage were a stranger to her.

At best a former friend, already half-forgotten.

With souvenirs of the past surrounding the siren of the cove, Gage caught a glimpse of his future.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
FEW
DAYS
AGO
,
THE
MERE
act of looking at Gage had begun to cause Skye pain, each glance setting off an ache that pulsed beneath her breastbone, not unlike a second heart. But this beat didn’t cause blood to travel through her veins, instead offering only a cold taste of the loneliness to come. So she kept her head down now, and turned over one of the photos on the desk, rechecking the dates written in an old-fashioned hand, probably Edith’s. Maybe Max’s.

Gage’s footsteps were nearly silent on the hardwood floor, but she sensed him coming closer, walking warily as if she were a cornered animal.

He should know; he’d put her in that corner.

Being around his family while privy to things they were unaware of made her miserable. Of course, just knowing what she knew made her miserable.

Still, though it was nice to take a breather away from the rehearsal dinner, she’d planned to go back.

Because despite her growing low mood, she’d given up on distance. Instead, she continued to hold Gage’s hand when she could, kiss his mouth when possible, share his bed every night. With the sand running out of their hourglass, what other choice was there? She could deny herself his company sooner, of course, but what was the point of that, when either way the days without him stretched endlessly ahead, like the vast Pacific on its infinite journey toward the horizon?

“What did you find?” he asked, coming around the desk to look over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure.”

The fingers of one big hand stroked through her hair while the other flipped the photo back to its image side. “Edith and Max?”

She nodded.

“On the deck of Beach House No. 9,” he said.

Nodding again, she studied the pictured pair. Max, debonair in white slacks and shirt, his dark hair slicked back. Edith, in a lightweight flowered dress, was half turned to gaze into her husband’s face, her hand resting over his heart. Her devotion to him was palpable.

“I think they lived there for a while, probably to get away from the sounds of hammers and saws.” Skye tapped on the set of plans, the paper yellowed and brittle. “About the time they got out of the movie business, they added a couple of rooms to their home. My home. The one where we’ve never found the Collar.”

His hand stilled, midstroke. “What are you saying?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder, then quickly looked away.
So handsome. So dear to me.
“If I match the date on the renovation plans to the date on the back of this photo to the date on the letter Edith wrote to Max...”

His fingers tangled in her hair, tugged. “Are you saying she may have hidden the Collar at No. 9?”

“Maybe. It seems a possibility, though whether it might still be there...” She shrugged.

He turned her then, stepping close so that she could count each of his sharp black lashes and the silver striations in his turquoise eyes. The back of his knuckles caressed her cheek. “Be honest about something else, will you?”

“What?” she whispered, his tender touch tightening her throat. His body, tall, strong and aligned with hers, made her feel small and safe at the same time. A harbor. His warmth enveloped her, his exotic scent stirring up everything female inside her. She wanted to press herself to his bare skin, rub her face along his tanned throat, nip a path down his chest. Trembling in sudden need, she dropped her forehead to his shoulder, the single point of contact enough to almost settle her jittering pulse.

“Do you want to go home now? Skip the rest of the party? I can make your excuses.”

She glanced up, surprised he was offering her an out after insisting she attend. “What makes you ask that?”

“I’ll feel like a shit if the transitory nature of...of this thing between us is making you unhappy.”

His intent gaze turned her heart over. “I thought you said we had forever if we framed it right.”

A wry smile played at one corner of his mouth. “You know I would have said anything right then. I was dying to get into your pants.”

The admission startled a laugh from her. “You’re horrible!”

“I am.” He nodded.

What was he saying? “Are you...would
you
rather we stop things here?”

“Hell, no! You know how selfish I am. If I have my way, I’ll be breathing you in until the very last second. But, baby...” His fingers gently combed through her hair and then he kissed her forehead, her nose, her mouth. “Talk to me. Tell me the truth.”

Three words gathered on the tip of her tongue. They’d be so easy to release. They wanted out, like wild birds caged in an aviary. Terrified she’d say them, she swallowed hard. “The truth is...” They welled up again, clogging her throat like tears. She swallowed them back once more, then spoke in a rush. “The truth is, everything’s okay and we should get back to the party.”

She didn’t breathe easy until he nodded, took her arm and led her in the direction of Captain Crow’s. She’d thought she wanted to take a break from the family event, but now she figured being around his relatives was the best way to keep her from a dangerous confession.

* * *

T
HE
INSTANT
G
AGE
SHEPHERDED
Skye back to the long table at the restaurant, Tess insisted on a full report. While a train of servers began delivering steaming plates of steak and seafood, Skye reported on what she’d found. Gage’s sister was all for turning the meal into takeout and heading down the beach for a full frontal assault on No. 9’s mysteries, but it was their mother who put her foot down.

“We’re having a nice, leisurely meal tonight, then a lovely sunset wedding tomorrow. A search will come after both of those occur—
if
that’s what Skye chooses to do.”

Tess acquiesced to their mother’s wishes with better grace than Gage expected. “All right,” she said, with only the slightest of grumbles. “But, Skye, if—
when
—you do decide to rummage around No. 9, can I help?”

Skye smiled at her wheedling tone. “Um—”

“I’ll blend a batch of my special mojitos and we’ll make a girls’ night of it.”

“Well, if mojitos are involved...” Skye said. “Of course.”

Gage frowned down at her as people around them picked up their knives and forks. “Have you ever had her special mojitos?”

“No.”

“She has a very liberal hand with the rum.” At her inquiring look, he further elaborated. “They’ll knock you on your ass. After one of Tess’s mojito parties, there have been verified reports of inhibition shortfalls, not to mention memory loss—which is why she never serves her special concoction in mixed company.”

“Inhibition shortfalls? Memory loss?” Skye gave him a guileless smile. “Sounds good to me.”

Frown deepening, Gage picked up his own utensils and contemplated his dinner. He’d ordered steak, just like his first meal at the cove. A fat, foil-jacketed baked potato sat beside it, topped with a cloud of sour cream and a scattering of chives. Steamed to their brightest summer colors, baby carrots, string beans and yellow squash were drizzled with a sauce that gave off a faint lemon fragrance.

Given that the number of stateside meals he had left was dwindling, he should have fallen on the meal like a hungry wolf.

Weirdly, though, he’d lost his appetite.

His knife cut into his meat and he put a piece in his mouth, but didn’t taste it as he chewed. His mind was on the future: girls’ nights and mojito parties. The idea of Tess keeping Skye company should please him, but the siren’s pleasure at the idea of memory loss curdled the food going into his belly.

She wanted to forget about him.

As for the inhibition shortfalls? He figured she might have some concerns about her physical response to the next man who interested her. And there would be one, he knew that. Because when Gage left the cove, unless she wanted to be alone for the rest of her life, she’d be looking for new male companionship.

He didn’t like thinking about her and new male companionship.

Pushing his food around his plate, he sent Skye a sidelong glance. She didn’t look any more enamored with her red snapper than he was with his sirloin. As if she sensed his regard, she glanced up, looking at him through those big, deep-in-the-cove-green eyes of hers.

Pain pierced his chest. For a second he thought, heart attack, but it was beating just fine, he was breathing just fine. Something inside him was clenching like a fist, though, pounding on his ribs, shouting for his attention.

How can you leave her? What if something happens to her again? How can you go without knowing she’ll be safe?

It was the fucking dream, he thought, that was messing with his head. It had always bugged him that in it he couldn’t reach her; that although he struggled forward, the tide always tossed him back to shore. But now...now he saw the other side of it. In the dream, Skye was at the whim of the water, too. And it controlled her, sweeping her up in its force, causing her to drift farther and farther away, out of the cove.

To the dangerous waters of the open sea. All alone.

As if she could read his mind, Skye shivered, then rubbed at her bare arms with her palms.

He had to clear his throat to speak. “Are you all right?”

“I’m cold.” She glanced at her nearly untouched meal. “I think I’ll dash out and get a sweater from my place.”

“Let me do it,” he offered. He needed air, space, a fresh breeze to blow that damn dream from his mind and this nauseating anxiety from his belly.

“You’re sure?”

He was already holding out his hand for her keys. Then he slipped away from the table, his fingertips skimming her shoulder but not touching as he passed. The walk did him good. His breath came easier. When he reached her house, the scent of her on the sweater he grabbed from a hook by the door didn’t send him into that cardiac-arrest level agony again.

Still, he lingered on the beach in front of her place for a few minutes, stalling his return to Captain Crow’s. Christ, he thought, rubbing his palm over his chest, which still held a residual ache. He really didn’t want a replay of that pain.

What he needed was some detachment. Why the hell was he finding that so hard? His line of work required it, but now when he could use a little cushion of emotional separation, it eluded him.

Fucking nautical knots. All of them were at work it seemed, the Bowline on a Bight, the Icicle Hitch, the Rat-Tail Stopper, each woven into one elaborate tangle of Big Trouble. He rubbed his chest again, then held out his hand, staring at the empty palm.

That was it! There was the source of his problem. He’d been walking around for weeks, his hands empty of his cameras. Since making those images of Skye, he’d left the devices untouched, packed away in their cases. What had he been thinking? Hadn’t he told Rex how important they were?

“It’s like armor...it’s a layer between me and what I see.”

No. 9 was only another mile down the beach. Gage jogged the distance, anxious to have the solid heft of a camera’s body between his fingers. Then he could adjust the focal length between himself and the world around him. No matter how close the subject, he could change the focus to make it appear farther away.

As he approached the house from the beachside, he slowed. Puzzled, he noted the elf-sized door that led to the crawl space beneath the raised deck was open. And stranger yet, the automatic landscape lights that usually lit the perimeter of the house hadn’t come on, though it was full dark.

The caterers? The wedding planner? That must be it. Someone had arrived with equipment necessary for the next day’s event. Strolling closer, he placed his hand on the elf door. “Hello?” he called out, bending to peer inside.

A blow to the back of his head staggered him. He lurched around, still gripping the door to stay upright. Two figures wavered in his line of sight. One in a ski mask, another in a baseball cap and bandanna.

Gage blinked, nothing making sense. He put a hand to his throbbing head and saw Bandanna lift a heavy flashlight. Its light blinded Gage and before he could think or move, its metal body slammed against his temple. His legs crumpled and he fell to his knees on the sand.

A voice sounded from far, far away. “Put him under there.”

Under? No, hell, no.
Gage worked to marshal his thoughts and control his body. He felt hands on him and he pushed them away and kicked out with his legs. He wasn’t going under anywhere.
No more under!

But his limbs refused to cooperate. Inside his head he was screaming around the fracturing pain, yet he still found himself being rolled and pushed toward that dark space beneath the deck. Eyes half-open, he heard the men grunt and curse as they struggled to maneuver his deadweight and he was grimly happy it was hard on them. One of the bastards, the one in the ski mask, was breathing harder than the other, and with an oath, he stripped off the disguise.

As they shoved Gage into the black hole in front of him, rolling him once again, he tried holding on to the image of the man’s face. He knew him, he thought, consciousness dimming. It was the guy from behind the bar at Captain Crow’s, the one who’d been filling the wineglasses...

He tried swimming up from the depths of unconsciousness. He despised the smothering dark, the cloying taste of it in his mouth and the weight of it against his chest. This time it would smother him, and the thought was so wearying that he let the blackness descend, welcoming—

No!

He had to rally. Two men. One in a ski mask, one in a ball cap and bandanna. Where had he heard...

Skye’s attackers. The men who’d invaded her home.

Needed to tell her. Protect her. Stop them from ever having the chance to hurt her again.

Gage realized he was facedown on the sand. As he tried crawling forward, he got some in his mouth and he choked on it.
No matter. Move. Get out of the fucking dark.

But then it descended again.

* * *