Be My Love (A Walker Island Romance Book 1) (7 page)

Her eyes widened with surprise when she realized he was coming down the path toward her. But soon, her surprise gave way to a wide, and extremely beautiful, smile.

“Joel, what are you doing all the way out here?”

“I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from you again about getting into the archives. Do you still want to go look at them?”

“Of course I do.” But she looked more than a little stunned as she said, “You really came all this way to take me into them? Why?”

It was such a direct question that Joel wasn’t prepared for it. Heck, he hadn’t been prepared for any of this. His attraction to Hanna. Her endless curiosity and questions. And the fact that the Peterson-Walker feud suddenly didn’t seem so cut-and–dried anymore.

“Does it matter? I thought you’d be happy about it.”

“I am. But I’d still like to know what changed.”

Joel tried to think of how to explain it. “I’ve been looking through some of my family’s old papers in the attic, and I have…not doubts exactly, but questions. And from what I can see, you’re good at getting answers, Hanna. Because you see things most people would miss.”

“Thank you,” she said with a radiant smile that made his heart beat just a little bit faster than it already was just being near to her out on the cliffs. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”

Yet again, he wanted to put his hands on her waist and pull her against him so that he could finally see if her mouth tasted as sweet as it looked. Instead, he forcefully pushed away the urge as he asked her, “So you’re here filming storms? Has your documentary taken a new direction I didn’t hear about?”

“I needed some space, and time, to think about everything. So when I heard that there was a storm system coming in, I thought I might try to catch some footage. You know how rare storms are on the island.”

The moderate climate on the island not only made berry picking so successful, it also meant that Peterson Shipping could often send ships to sea on days when companies based on the mainland had to stay carefully in the harbor.

“I still want to go into the archives, Joel,” she explained. “But I didn’t want to rush you—or myself—into making any hasty decisions. Just tell me when you’re ready and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing to go with you.”

“Now.”

“Now?” Hanna looked at him oddly. “What’s the rush?”

“Things are about to get really busy for me at the office, so if you want me to take you into the archives, today is our best shot.”

“Okay,” Hanna said as she gave the rapidly darkening sky out over the ocean a slightly wistful look, “I’ll just need to pack up my camera and then we can go.”

The first rain fell in the lightest of dustings while the wind picked up. But moments later it was pouring down in splattering globules—more of a solid wall of water than individual droplets. The wind leapt to a roar, pushing at them hard enough that it almost tore Hanna’s camera from its stand.

“The caves!” Joel yelled over the wind as he grabbed her tripod and backpack.

As they ran together up the rocky path, Hanna began to laugh. The whole situation was so crazy—running in the rain with a Walker he couldn’t stop wanting to kiss—that Joel couldn’t help joining in. They didn’t stop running until they reached the mouth of the cave, huddling back from the sudden onslaught of the elements. Already, Joel was close to being soaked. Hanna was worse off, though, the storm having plastered her clothes to her body. Joel swallowed hard, trying not to stare, and failing miserably.

She was just so incredibly beautiful. Especially when he couldn’t picture any of the women he’d dated over the past decade running through a storm laughing the way she had.

“A group of us used to come here in high school,” Joel said to try to distract himself from just how close the two of them were in the small cave. “We’d go down on the beach and light a fire, then come back to the cave later.”

“Rachel was in your grade at school,” Hanna said. “Did she go to those parties?”

“I used to see her here sometimes, but we made sure to keep to opposite sides of whatever was going on.” Now that he put it like that, it sounded so childish, not talking to someone because of something their family had done two generations back. “How is Rachel? She has a daughter, doesn’t she?”

“She’s great,” Hanna said with a warm smile. “My five-year-old niece Charlotte keeps her pretty busy. Did you ever notice Rachel when you were at school? Or think about asking her out?”

That question caught Joel by surprise. “No. I mean, it never occurred to me. She was a Walker.”

“Well, you’re a Peterson,” Hanna countered with a smile, “and I had a crush on you when I was a little girl.”

But she wasn’t a little girl anymore. Not even close. And if she were anyone else, Joel would be closing the space between them in a heartbeat, pressing Hanna back against the cave wall while he kissed her.

Of course, just then, the rain stopped, and he realized just how close he’d come to doing something truly crazy. “We should get to the archives.”

Hanna stared at him for a long moment, her blue eyes darker than usual, before she finally nodded. “Okay, but I’m frozen. How about we stop off at the café first for a hot drink?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Do you think the world can handle a Walker and a Peterson being under the same roof for a
third
time?” he asked, only half kidding. Especially when he didn’t know how well
he
was going to handle it himself, given that he’d almost just given in to kissing her breathless.

But Hanna didn’t laugh. Instead, she simply said, “Honestly, I’m not sure I care anymore what anyone else thinks.” And then she headed out of the cave and up the path to his car.

* * *

A short while later, they were sitting in the café, Joel with a cup of coffee, Hanna licking the whipped cream off the top of a mug of hot chocolate with her fingertip.

Just as he’d predicted, they got plenty of strange looks from the locals as they walked in together. Half of them probably wouldn’t have looked so shocked if aliens had walked in.

Yet aside from the stares, coffee with Hanna felt surprisingly natural. She was easy to talk to, for one thing. And to listen to, as everything seemed to set her off on a new tangent.

“How did you get into filmmaking?”

“You know how they have screenings at the old theater in town? My sisters used to take me to everything that played, especially the black and whites.” Her expression softened as she talked about her childhood and her family. “What’s your favorite movie?”

Joel shrugged. “I don’t really have one. I’ve never watched a lot of movies.”

Her eyebrows went up. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I didn’t have four older sisters taking me to see movies,” Joel pointed out.

“But movies—” Hanna still sounded like she couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. “—they’re such an important form of storytelling.”

“And storytelling is important to you, isn’t it?” His family had always been more concerned with making sure that he stayed grounded in the real world and that he followed the “rules” of that world, but clearly, the Walkers had encouraged Hanna to dream.

“Of course it’s important,” Hanna insisted. “Not just to me, but to everyone. Stories are how we understand things. How we make sense of them. How we pass ideas on to other people. Without stories, we probably wouldn’t know half of what we do.” She studied him over the rim of her mug. “When was the last time you went to see a movie?”

“Last year, maybe?”

“In that case, maybe you and I should go sometime?”

Part of Joel wanted to accept her invitation right there and then. But there were the archives to think about, among other issues. Like the fact that her family had betrayed his and had been enemies ever since.

Pushing back his chair, he said, “If we don’t get to the historical society soon, we won’t be able to go at all.”

The archives were in a small annex next to the island’s library and they decided to leave his car and walk over from the cafe. But they were only halfway there when the sky split open with rain again, the wind even stronger than it had been before.

And wouldn’t you know it, they were standing right in front of the movie theater when the storm came again, fierce enough that they’d be doubly soaked if they kept on walking. Hanna took hold of his hand, pulling him back in the direction of the theater.

“You see,” she said, “even the weather
wants you to see more movies.”

“It’s certainly determined to push the two of us into cover. But what about the archives?”

“Come on Joel,” Hanna said. “It will be fun, and the archives will still be there when we’re finished.”

The theater was showing the classic Bogart and Bacall movie
The Big Sleep
. Apparently, though, film noir wasn’t all that popular on the island, because there were only a couple of other people in the theater. It made the whole place seem bigger—just him and Hanna while the Raymond Chandler story played out in front of them.

The movie was okay, Joel decided, but more than half the time, he found himself watching Hanna rather than the screen, unable to look away when her lips moved in synch with some of the lines of dialogue.

“There’s a lot of symbolism in this next part,” Hanna whispered at one point. “Not just the usual noir stuff of dark lighting to show the hidden darkness of the city, it’s all about…sorry, I shouldn’t be talking over the movie.”

“No, that’s fine,” Joel whispered back.

Would she be surprised if she knew how much he was enjoying being with her, especially while she was utterly engrossed in something she loved so much? Enjoying it so much, in fact, that when the movie ended and the theater manager announced that an obscure Japanese monster movie would be screening next, and Hanna’s face lit up, Joel almost decided to stay for a double feature.

He had never seriously considered the possibility of watching plastic monsters crush Tokyo—let alone alongside Hanna Walker—until that point. Yet he actually
did
consider it, at least until he looked at his watch and saw how late it was.

“Hanna, the archives.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Hanna said. “I guess we’ll just have to catch it another time.”

Another time.
Joel actually found himself smiling at that thought as they made their way out of the theater and back down the street to the archives.

He had a key, and let them both in. Inside, there were rows and rows of shelves holding hundreds of boxes. Benjamin and the others from the historical society did their best with the cataloguing and interpretation, but plenty of the documents there still weren’t in any real order.

“This is amazing,” Hanna said, clearly marveling at the sheer volume of files.

“If you’ll let me know where you’d like to begin, hopefully it won’t take me too long to find what you’re looking for. Despite how disorganized it looks, there’s actually some rhyme and reason to it all.”

“More perfect chaos,” she said with a smile, and then, “Why don’t we start with the police reports of Poppy’s death, along with the papers for the business sale.”

He was pleased by how quickly he was able to find the reports. Hanna made some notes on the buyout, but the police report was what she really stared at for a long while.

“Is there a Coast Guard’s report on Poppy’s missing boat?”

Joel looked for one, and found it after a couple of minutes of searching. It didn’t say much.

“They didn’t find her body,” Hanna said, her camera still trained on the reports, just as it had been since they’d begun to comb through the historic documents. “And they never found any sign of the boat, either.”

“It’s a big ocean,” Joel pointed out.

“It is.” But Hanna didn’t sound convinced. “But Poppy’s poem…do
you
think it was a suicide note? Milton says she was too happy, and the poem talks about new starts, not death. What if we have this all wrong? What if
everyone
has it wrong?” She paused then, looking deeply concerned, as if she didn’t want to have to ask the question they were both clearly thinking.

Their eyes were locked on one another’s as he spoke them aloud. “What if she isn’t dead?”

CHAPTER NINE

“But that’s just…you can’t be right.”

An hour later, sitting with her sister and grandmother on the living room couch, Emily was reacting to the idea that Poppy Peterson might not have passed away in 1951 pretty much the way Hanna had suspected she would. For her part, Ava was listening quietly from an armchair. At least she wasn’t brushing it all away as nonsense.

It was just the three of them for the moment. Rachel had taken Charlotte to a sleepover, while Paige was teaching a late class at the studio. Before Hanna had gone away to college, this would have seemed far too quiet. It had actually been pretty tricky getting used to having her own place when she left for school.

“Seriously, Hanna,” Emily said, “you can’t just go around coming up with ideas like this to make your documentary more exciting. I mean, what if someone sues you?”

“Who would sue me?” Hanna asked, slightly amused for once by her sister’s overprotectiveness. “I’m not libeling anyone. The idea that Poppy might be alive doesn’t imply that anyone else has done anything wrong. Maybe just the opposite, in fact.”

“What about Joel Peterson?” Emily suggested. “I bet he wasn’t pleased when you started suggesting this about his great aunt.”

“Actually,” she told her sister, “Joel’s the one who asked the question.” But she’d already been thinking it.

“Given how emotional this all is for him, I think he’s being really reasonable about everything.” Then again, it wasn’t always easy to figure out what Joel was feeling and thinking. Especially when it came to her. There were moments when it seemed obvious that he was attracted to her, yet even when they were completely alone in the attic, and then the cave, he hadn’t done anything. She’d felt his eyes on her at the movie theater too, but again, he hadn’t made a move.

“A Peterson being reasonable?” Emily said. “That would be a first.”

“You don’t know him,” Hanna insisted.