Reunion on Rocky Shores Read online

  She shook her head. “I pushed you too hard the other day. I said terrible things. I had no right, Will. I have a terrible habit of always thinking I know what’s best for everyone else.”

  Her short laugh held no trace of humor. “I don’t know why. I mean, I’ve made a complete mess of my own life, haven’t I? So why would I dare think I have any right to tell anyone else what to do with their life? But I was wrong, Will. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “Everything you said was right on the money. I knew it even while I was reacting so strongly. I’ve thought the same things myself, deep in my subconscious. Robin wouldn’t want me to hide away from life, to sit out here in my workshop and brood while the world carries on without me. That wasn’t what she was about, what we were about. But even though I’ve thought the same thing, I can’t deny that hearing it from you was tough.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He sighed at the misery in her voice and surrendered to the inevitable. He stepped forward and picked up her knotted fingers, feeling them tremble in his hands.

  “I care about you, Julia, more than I thought I could ever care about anyone again. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m sixteen again, sitting on the beach with the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. But it scares the hell out of me. I’m not ready. That’s the bald, honest truth. I’m not ready and I’m afraid I don’t know if I ever will be.”

  “That’s why you’re leaving?”

  “I’d be lying if I said you had nothing to do with my decision to take the job with Eben. But leaving—trying something new—has been on my mind for some time. I was considering it long before you showed up again, back when you were just a distant memory of a past that sometimes feels like it should belong to someone else.”

  He paused, struck by the contrast of her soft, delicate hands in his fingers that were hard and roughened by years of work.

  “I guess you could say you’re part of the reason I’m leaving, but you’re not the only reason. I need a change. If I stay here, buried under the weight of the past, I’m afraid I’ll slowly petrify like a piece of driftwood.”

  She took a long time to answer. Just when he was about to release her hands and step away, she clutched at his fingers with hands that still trembled.

  “Would it make any difference if I…if I were the one to leave?”

  He stared at her, taken aback. “Where would you go? You love your new job, Brambleberry House. Everything.”

  Sadness twisted across her lovely features. “I do love it here and the twins are thriving. But I have much less invested in Cannon Beach than you do. I’ve only been here a short time. We started over here, we can start over somewhere else.”

  That she would even contemplate making such a sacrifice for his sake completely astounded him.

  “You can’t do that for me, Julia. I would never ask of it you.”

  “You didn’t ask. I’m offering. I hate the idea that I had anything to do with your decision to leave. I blew into town out of nowhere and ruined everything.”

  “You ruined nothing, Julia.”

  Whether he liked it or not, tenderness churned through him and he couldn’t bear her distress. He lifted their joined hands and pressed his mouth to the warm skin at the back of her hand.

  She shivered at his touch and he couldn’t help himself. He pulled her into his arms, where she settled with a soft sigh.

  “You ruined nothing,” he repeated. “If anything, you made me realize I can’t exist in this halflife forever. I have to move forward or I’ll suffocate and right now taking this job with Eben feels like the best way to do that.”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she murmured, her arms around his waist and her cheek against his chest.

  He closed his eyes, stunned by the soft, contented peace that seemed to swirl through him. Right at this moment, he didn’t want to think about leaving. Hell, he didn’t want to move a muscle ever again.

  They stood together for a long time, in a silence broken only by the sea outside the door and the dog’s snuffly breaths as he slept.

  When at last she lifted her face to his, he gave a sigh of surrender and lowered his mouth to hers.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  His kiss was slow and gentle, like standing in a torpid stream, and it seemed to push every single thought from her head.

  After their last kiss and the words they had flung at each other afterward, she had been certain she wouldn’t find herself here in his arms again.

  The unexpectedness of it added a poignant beauty to the moment and she leaned into him, savoring his hard strength against her.

  He kissed her for long, drugging moments, until her knees were weak and her mind a pleasant muddle.

  Through the soft haze that seemed to surround her, she had a vague awareness that there a subtle difference this time, something that had been missing the other times they kissed.

  It took her several moments to pinpoint the change. Those other times they had kissed, he had always held part of himself back and she had sensed the reluctance underlying each touch, even when she doubted he was fully aware of it himself.

  This time, that hesitancy was gone. All she tasted in his kiss was tenderness and the sweet simmer of desire.

  She smiled against his mouth, unable to contain the giddy joy exploding through her.

  “What’s so funny?” he murmured.

  “Nothing,” she assured him. “Absolutely nothing. It’s just…I’ve just missed you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, his face just inches from hers, then he groaned and kissed her again. This time his mouth was wild, urgent, and she responded eagerly, pouring all the emotions in her heart into their embrace.

  She was in love with him.

  Even as her body stirred to life, as their mouths tangled together, as she seemed to sink into the hard strength of his arms, the truth seemed to washed over her like the storm-churned sea and she reeled under the unrelenting force of it.

  He was leaving in three days and had just made it quite plain he wouldn’t change his mind. Nothing but heartache awaited her. She knew it, just as she knew she was powerless to change the inevitable.

  But that didn’t matter. Right here, right now, she was in his arms and she couldn’t waste this moment by worrying about how much she would bleed inside when he walked away.

  She tightened her arms around him and he made a low sound in the back of his throat and his arms tightened around her.

  “Julia,” he murmured. Just her name and nothing else.

  “I’m here,” she whispered. “Right here.”

  She brushed a kiss against the skin of his jawline, savoring the scent of sawdust and hard-working male. He made a low sound in his throat that sent an answering shiver rippling down her spine.

  “You’re cold.”

  “A little,” she admitted, though her reaction was more from the desire spinning wildly through her system.

  “I’m sorry. I like to keep it cool out here when I’m working, especially at night to keep me awake.”

  He paused for a moment, his gaze a murky blue. “We could go inside,” he said, with a soberness that told her exactly what he meant by the words—and how much it cost him to make the suggestion.

  A hundred doubts and insecurities zinged through her head. It would be tough enough for her to handle his departure. How could she possibly let him walk away after sharing such intimacies without her heart shattering into a million pieces?

  But how could she walk away now, when he was offering her so much more of himself than she ever thought he would?

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  He paused, taking his time before answering. “I’m not sure of anything, Julia. I only know I want you and this feels more right than anything else has in a long, long time.”

  “Oh, Will.” She framed his face with her hands and kissed him again, pouring all her heart into the kiss.

  When at last he drew back, both of them were t
rembling, their breathing ragged.

  “I don’t know if I can promise you anything,” he said, his voice a low rasp in the night. “Hell, I’m almost a hundred percent certain I can’t. But right now I can’t bear the thought of letting you out of my arms.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  “Not even inside, where it’s warmer and far more comfortable than my dusty workshop?”

  She smiled, aware of the cold seeping through her jacket despite the heat of his embrace. “All right.”

  He returned her smile with one of his own and she shivered all over again at the unexpectedness of it. “I’m not going to let you freeze to death out here. Come on inside.”

  Conan was already standing by the door waiting for them, she saw when she managed to wrench her gaze away from Will’s, as if the dog had heard and understood their complete conversation.

  She shook her head at his spooky omniscience, but didn’t have time to ponder it before Will was holding her hand and walking inexorably toward his house.

  It had started to rain again while she was inside the workshop, a fine, cold mist that settled in her hair and made her grateful for the warmth that met them inside the house.

  She hadn’t been inside his home since that last summer so long ago, though she had seem glimpses of it through the window the day they had gone for ice cream, another lifetime ago.

  She had the fleeting impression as she followed him inside of a roomy, comfortable place with a vaguely neglected air to it. He slept here but she had the feeling he spent as little time as possible within these walls.

  Conan stopped in the kitchen and plopped down on a rug by the door but Will led her to a large family room with two adjoining deep sofas facing a giant plasma television on one wall.

  “Are you still cold?” he asked. “I can start a fire. That should take the chill out of the air.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “It will only take a moment.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he moved to the hearth and started laying out kindling. She didn’t mind, sensing he needed the time and space, just as she did, to regain a little equilibrium.

  She shrugged out of her jacket and settled into one of the plump sofas, nerves careening through her.

  It had been a long time for her and she hoped she wasn’t unforgivably rusty. She would have been completely terrified if she didn’t have the feeling he hadn’t been with anyone since his wife’s death.

  “I imagine you have a spectacular view when it’s daylight.”

  He gave her a rueful smile as he set a match to the kindling. “I guess. I’ve been looking at it every day of my life. I tend to forget how breathtaking it is. Maybe traveling a little—seeing other sights for a change—will help me appreciate what I’ve taken for granted all my life.”

  Somehow she didn’t think the reminder of his imminent departure was accidental. She tried to pretend it didn’t matter, even as sorrow pinched at her.

  “Do you know where Eben’s sending you first?”

  “Outside of Boston. I’ll be there for a few weeks then I guess I’m off to Italy. Quite a change for a guy who’s never left the coast.”

  The tinder was burning brightly now so he added a heavier log. The flames quickly caught hold of it. Already, the room seemed warmer, though she wasn’t sure if that was from the fire or from the nerves shimmering through her.

  Will stood for a moment, watching the fire. When he seemed confident the log would burn, he turned back to her, his features impassive.

  “Is something wrong?” she finally said, when the silence between them dragged on.

  His sigh sounded deep, heartfelt. “You scare the hell out of me.”

  She tensed. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “About as much as I want to take a table saw to my right arm,” he admitted. “In other words, absolutely not.”

  Despite her nerves, she couldn’t contain the laughter bubbling through her as he moved toward her and sat on the sofa beside her. He reached for her hand, but didn’t seem in a rush to kiss her again.

  This was lovely, she thought, sitting here gazing into the flickering firelight with a soft rain sliding against the window and his fingers tracing patterns on hers.

  “I don’t know if this is any consolation,” she said after a moment, “but you’re not the only one who’s nervous. It’s, uh, been a long time for me. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t hear my knees knocking from there.”

  He gave her a careful look. “Do you want to leave?”

  She mustered a shaky smile. “About as much as I want to watch you take a table saw to your right arm. In other words, absolutely not.”

  “Good,” he murmured.

  Finally he kissed her and at the delicious heat, the familiar taste and scent of him, her nerves disappeared. She was suddenly filled with the sweet assurance that this was right. She loved Will Garrett, had loved him since she was a stupid, naive girl.

  She wanted this, wanted him, and even if this was all they would ever share, she wouldn’t allow any regrets.

  He kissed her until she was trembling, aching for more. She held him close, pouring all the emotions she couldn’t verbalize into her kiss.

  By the time he worked the buttons of her blouse, her head was whirling. When he pushed aside the lacy cups of her bra to touch her, she almost shattered apart right there as a torrent of sensations poured through her.

  Oh, it had been far too long since she had remembered what it was to be touched with such heat and tenderness. She had forgotten this slow churn of her blood, the restless ache that seemed to fill every cell.

  She arched against him, reveling in his hard strength against her curves, in his rough hands against her sensitive skin.

  He groaned, low in his throat, and lowered his head to take her in his mouth. She clutched him close, her hands buried in his hair, as he teased and tasted.

  His breathing was ragged when he lifted his clever, clever lips from her breast and found her mouth again while he shrugged out of his own shirt.

  She couldn’t help shivering as his hard strength covered her again.

  “Are you still cold?” he murmured.

  “Not even close,” she answered, framing his face in her hands and kissing him fiercely. He responded with a groan and any tentativeness disappeared in a wild rush of heat.

  In moments, they were both naked. Silhouetted in the dancing firelight, he was gorgeous, hard and muscled, ruggedly male.

  “Okay, now I’m nervous again,” she admitted.

  “We can stop right now if you want,” he said gruffly. “It might just kill me to let you out of my arms, but we don’t have to go any further.”

  “No. I don’t want to stop. Just kiss me again.”

  He willingly obeyed and for several long moments, only their mouths connected, then at last he pulled her close, trailing kisses from her mouth to the sensitive skin of her neck.

  “Okay now?” he murmured, his body warm and hard against her.

  “Oh, much, much better than okay,” she breathed, her mouth tangling with his again as he pressed her back against the soft cushions of the sofa.

  It was everything she might have dreamed—tender and passionate, sexy and sweet. When he filled her, she cried out, stunned at the emotions pouring through her, and she had to choke back the words of love she knew he wasn’t ready to hear.

  His mouth was hard and urgent on hers as he began to slowly move inside her and she lifted her hips to meet him.

  Oh, she had missed this. She hadn’t fully appreciated how much until right this moment.

  How was she ever going to be able to go back to her solitary life?

  She pushed the grim thought away, unwilling to let anything destroy the beauty of this moment.

  He moved more deeply inside her and she gasped his name, feeling as breathless and shaky as the time she and Will had sneaked out to go cliff diving.

  He withdrew then pushed inside
her again and the contrast between the tenderness of his kiss and the wild urgency of his body sent her spinning and soaring over the edge.

  With a groan, he joined her, his hands gripping hers tightly.

  As they floated together back to earth, he shifted and pulled her on top of him, tugging a knit throw from the back of the sofa to cover them.

  She nestled into his heat and his strength, a delicious lassitude soaking into her muscles, more content than she could ever remember being in her life.

  * * *

  She must have slept for a few moments, tucked into the safe shelter of his arms. When she blinked her eyes open, the grandfather clock in the hallway was tolling midnight.

  Like Cinderella, she knew the spell was ending and she would have to slip away home.

  She shifted her gaze to Will and found him watching her. Was he regretting what they had shared? To her frustration, she could read nothing in his veiled expression.

  She sat up, reaching for her blouse as she went. “I need to go back to Brambleberry House. Sage and Anna are going to be sending a search party out after me.”

  He sat up and she had to force herself to look away from that broad, enticing expanse of muscles.

  “Oh, somehow I doubt that. I have a feeling they know exactly where you are.”

  “You’re probably right,” she answered ruefully. “A little on the spooky side, those two.”

  He raised an eyebrow as he slid into his jeans. “A little?”

  She smiled. “Okay. A lot. I should still go, much as I don’t want to.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, watching out of those veiled features as she worked the buttons of her shirt.

  “Julia, I can’t promise you anything,” he finally said.

  She met his gaze, doing her best to keep the devastation at bay. “You said that earlier, and I understand, Will. I do. I don’t expect anything.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m just so damn screwed up right now. I wish things could be otherwise. I’m just…”

  She returned to him and cut his words off with a kiss, hoping he didn’t taste the desperation in her kiss. This would be the one and only time for them, she knew.