Castaway Cove (19 page)

“Oh, it’s lovely,” Annie said after Mac stopped the truck at the edge of a beach she hadn’t even known existed. Stretching out in both directions, the sun-gilded ribbon of golden sand was completely deserted. “You hung out here with Sax and his brothers?”

“Yeah. His grandfather built that picnic table,” he said, pointing toward the grayed wooden table and benches. “Although the weather’s done a number on it over the years, you can still see where he and Cole and J.T. carved their initials in it.”

He didn’t mention that his were there, too. Along with Jared, Kara Douchett’s first husband’s, who’d been Cole’s best friend in high school and had gotten himself killed on a domestic call as a cop after returning safely home from Iraq. Proving that life wasn’t always fair and often sucked.

One memorable night, before Cole and Jared had graduated from high school, they’d snagged some beer from Bon Temps, which the Douchetts had owned at the time, gotten drunk, and sworn to be best buddies for life. Whatever might happen, wherever they’d end up, they’d always be there for each other.

And there were other nights. . . .

“What’s funny?” she asked, making him aware that he was smiling at the memory of the night he and Sax had double-dated and, after a movie he couldn’t remember, had driven out here for a make-out session. That was the night, in the backseat of Sax’s Camaro, when Mac had rounded second and nearly gotten to third base with Debbie Henley. He might’ve made it, too, if Kara’s father, who’d been sheriff at the time, hadn’t pulled up behind them and flashed his red and blue cruiser lights.

“Just remembering old times,” he said.

“I suspect I’m not the first girl you’ve brought here.”

“Hey, I was in high school.”

“Which answers the question.” Instead of appearing offended, she gave him a knowing smile. “I always used to envy people like you,” she admitted.

“You didn’t know me.”

“You all seemed the same, as I was looking from the outside in. Confident, having a good time, going steady, breaking up, living like you were all part of the cast of
Happy Days
.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

Mac thought back to Kara getting pregnant her senior year of high school, and Lucas and Maddy breaking up. And, how, if they’d actually been living a
Happy Days
life, Sax would’ve been the Fonz. On steroids.

“I suppose so. But there’s such a sense of continuity about you all. Of connection.” She sighed. “This probably is a terrible mistake.”

“I’ve made mistakes a helluva lot worse,” he said. “It’s just a kiss.”

“We’ve already kissed twice. In the store and on the bridge.”

“They don’t count.” He brushed a thumb against her lips, which parted slightly at his touch. “The first was public, so I couldn’t really do my best. And the second was just a test. Let’s see what happens when we both really put our minds to it.”

“If my mind was even halfway working, I wouldn’t have come out here,” she complained.

She dragged her hand through those thick curls and looked out over the water. Fishing boats were chugging along the horizon, while another trio of boats, with tourists standing on the decks, had gathered around what he guessed was the pod of Shelter Bay whales. The familiar scents of seaweed and salt rode on the air.

Being the father of a six-year-old had taught Mac patience. So, although it wasn’t easy, he waited, as seagulls whirled noisily over the boats and pelicans flew by the windshield.

After what seemed like forever, apparently having made a decision, she unfastened her seat belt, then leaned toward him, touching her fingertips to his cheek.

Her eyes were as fathomless as the sea. A stormy sea as turbulent emotions swirled in those gray depths. Feeling himself drowning as she moved closer to him, Mac cupped her chin in his fingers. Then tangled his hands in her hair and tilted her head, covering her lips with his, kissing her lightly at first, nipping, teasing, tasting.

A low moan of arousal trembled against his mouth as she parted her lips, offering more.

Being male and human, Mac needed no further invitation. His mouth conquered hers as he hauled her onto his lap, held her tight against him, and deepened the kiss.

He’d known there would be pleasure. But never before had a kiss brought him pain. For the first time in his life, every atom in his body ached. His blood heated, pounding in his head. Boiling in his veins.

The passion that had been simmering since that first kiss in her pretty little store surged through him. As she responded, hands grasping the front of his shirt while her avid mouth drove him to the brink of sanity, Mac was struck with an almost overwhelming urge to touch her. Everywhere.

But the one thing he’d learned since returning from Afghanistan was that sometimes a guy just needed to be a grown-up. Which was why, instead of ripping her yellow and white dress apart, sending those little heart-shaped buttons flying all over the cab of his truck, with hands that were not as steady as he would have liked, he cupped her bare shoulders and set her a little bit away, breaking the heated contact.

“The deal was a kiss,” he said, as her unfocused eyes stared into his.

“That wasn’t just a kiss.” She glanced down at her hands, which were still clutching his shirt, and slowly loosened her fingers. “That was foreplay.”

“Sweetheart, if you think that’s foreplay, your ex wasn’t doing it right. That was like a warm-up to the preview of foreplay.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you can be more than a little arrogant?”

“Sure. I took it as a compliment.”

“You would.”

“I may be arrogant, but you’re lethal.”

He could tell that surprised her. “I am not.” She shook her head. “Damn. I knew this was a mistake. It can’t go anywhere.”

“Here’s a surprise for you. . . . You’re not going to get any argument about that. You deserve a guy who can put you at the center of his life.”

He’d already suspected it from their phone conversations. But what she’d said over lunch had pretty much nailed his belief that he really should stay away from this particular siren call. Which didn’t explain what he was doing here with a woman who represented trouble.

“To treat you the way you deserve to be treated,” he continued. “Right now, Annie, I’m not that guy.”

She lifted her chin, surprising him by seeming annoyed at that. “Did I say anything about wanting to be at the center of anyone’s life?”

“No. But face it—you’re not the kind of woman who’ll settle for a hot one-night stand or booty calls. You’re a settle-down-in-a-nice-little-house-with-a-picket-fence type of woman.”

“As it happens, I already have a very nice house,” she said. “Which also has a picket fence. So, if you think I need you to provide one—”

“No, that’s not what I was trying to say. And I know I’m going to regret turning down anything you might be inclined to offer, but you’ve got a point about chemistry not being enough. Not for you. And right now, that’s all I can offer.”

“And to think that I actually liked chemistry in school,” she muttered.

His body was aching and his mind was engaged in a full-scale war between what he wanted to do and what he
should
do. Because he was tempted, too tempted, he merely said, “We’d better get you back to work.”

“I suppose so.” Her annoyance faded, like morning fog lifting, as she scooted over and fastened her seat belt. “What are we going to do about the Fourth?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t want to bail on spending the day with Emma.”

“We’re grown-ups.” He was reminding himself as much as her. “It isn’t like we’ll be having any hot make-out session on the lawn in front of everyone. There’s no reason we can’t still be friends.”

“As long as we stick to being together in public,” she amended, revealing that she was every bit as tempted as he was.

“Deal.”

As they drove back to town in silence, Mac decided that the Fourth of July was looking to be a very long day.

•   •   •

As Mac and Annie were leaving the beach, they passed a white Subaru that was just arriving.

“Is that who I think it is?” Aimee Pierson asked.

“Looks like Midnight Mac and Ms. Shepherd, from the scrapbook store,” sixteen-year-old Matt Templeton said.

“I’ve been hearing they’re an item.” Aimee glanced back over her shoulder at the black pickup truck. “What do you think they’re doing all the way out here?”

Matt grinned. “Probably the same thing we’re doing.”

“That’d be cool.” When she smiled back, Matt decided he had to be the luckiest guy on the planet. “Annie Shepherd’s really nice. She deserves to be happy.” She reached across the space between the bucket seats and took hold of his right hand, which had been resting on the knob of the gearshift. “Like us.”

He’d nearly lost this girl due to his own stupidity, but fortunately, after he’d done some major apologizing, she’d taken him back, and now that he had his driver’s license, he no longer had to depend on her driving him around in her mom’s old Volvo.

When his mother had first dragged him from Beverly Hills to Shelter Bay last fall, he’d hated the small town with a passion as hot as a thousand suns. Now, as he brought the birthday car his mom and new dad had bought him to a halt at the sand’s edge, Matt decided there was nowhere else on the planet he’d rather be.

Since
he’d told his dad he’d be bringing dinner home, Mac stopped by Bon Temps after taking Annie back to Memories on Main. It was the slow time between the lunch and dinner crowds, so the restaurant was empty, with just Sax behind the bar, washing glasses.

“Hey, cher. I’m glad you stopped in,” Sax said. “I was just about to call you.”

Mac claimed a barstool. “What about?”

“The Fourth. Do you want a beer?”

Mac figured that after fighting back the urge to have crazy hot sex with Annie Shepherd, he could use something to cool him down. And he still had several hours before he had to go on the air.

“Sure. Make it Double Dead Guy Ale.”

“That bad a day?” Sax reached into the cooler, pulled out a dark bottle, popped the top, and handed it over with a frosted glass.

“Actually sort of mixed. So, what about the Fourth?” he asked after taking a long drink of the ale straight from the bottle. Which cooled his throat, but did nothing for other vital parts of his body, which could heat up just at the thought of Annie.

“We lost Ollie Nelson last night,” Sax said.

“Damn. That’s a shame.” The former vet was a favorite down at the VFW, being one of the few who would actually talk about his days in the war. And not just any war. The big one. WWII. “But he was, what, ninety?”

“Ninety-three.”

“He looked okay when I saw him the other day.”

“He died in his sleep.” Sax pushed a bowl of what Mac knew to be red-hot beer nuts his way. “Seems his heart just quit beating.”

“That’s a bummer, but isn’t it the way we’d all like to go?” Mac asked as visions of that arm with the blue Cub Scout uniform sticking out of the pile of bodies in the Afghan market flashed through his mind.

“I’d rather not go at all.” Sax dipped another glass into the sink, swirling it around in the suds. “But it sure as hell beats a lot of stuff we’ve both seen.” He rinsed the glass and dried it with a towel. “Ollie was going to ride on the parade float to represent his generation. He and your grandfather were the last Shelter Bay vets to have fought in that war.”

“That’s a sad milestone. To be down to one. I guess there’s going to be a funeral?”

“A memorial service. Tomorrow. One in the afternoon at Genarro’s, interment in the vets’ section of the Sea View Cemetery, then a funeral lunch/supper thing back here.”

“I guess I’d better tell Pops. Given that they were close friends.”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t want him hearing it from someone else. So how is Charlie these days?”

Mac shrugged as he snagged some nuts and felt the roof of his mouth burst into flame. Knowing that Sax saved the really hot ones as a test, he refused to let on that he felt on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

“He has good days and bad.” He took another, longer drink of the ale, ignoring Sax’s cocky, satisfied look. “He seems better with Emma. I swear his short-term memory goes up on the scale when he’s talking with her.”

“Interesting. Then again, little girls have a way of making everything seem better. Speaking of which . . .”

Mac saw this coming as Sax put down the towel, reached into his pocket, and pulled out an iPhone.

“We had Grace’s six-month photos taken last week. I still can’t believe she’s mine.”

He turned the screen toward Mac, showing off the photo of the six-month-old baby, her head covered with a red fuzz a few shades lighter than Kara’s strawberry blond. Her eyes were enormous, seeming to take up much of her small face, and, while they were blue, rather than Kara’s green, he saw her mother’s serious nature in them. In contrast, her toothless grin was as wide as a slice of summer moon.

“She’s really beautiful, Sax,” he said honestly. She looked like a baby angel in a dress he figured had been purchased for the milestone occasion. There were so many white ruffles, her round little head, dimpled arms, and chubby legs appeared to be emerging from a cloud.

“Just like her mother. She started sitting up on her own the day before the shoot,” Sax said, sounding as proud as if he’d just eliminated the last of the Taliban, single-handedly with his Super SEAL powers

“That’s impressive.” Mac had no idea how old Emma had been when she’d first sat up. He wondered if he would spend the rest of his life trying to make up for those lost years, and decided he probably would.

“Yeah. That’s what Kara and I thought. Here’s another one of her with Mikey.” Michael Sean Concannon had been born the same day, during a rare ice storm.

Mikey’s father, Ethan, was an organic farmer and his mother, Phoebe, who’d escaped an abusive first husband, had worked as a sous chef at Lavender Hill Farm restaurant before becoming a mother. According to the Shelter Bay gossip line, she was planning to return to the restaurant part-time when the season began slowing down after Labor Day.

The baby boy was wearing a blue shirt with a bright red Elmo on the front, tiny blue jeans, and white high-tops. Instead of looking at the camera, he was staring at baby Grace, seated beside him, with a glazed-eye look of bemused wonderment.

“Poor kid’s already a goner.” Mac wondered if he looked at Annie that same way and figured he probably did.

Sax laughed. “Yeah. Although they won’t admit it straight out, I suspect Kara and Phoebe are already planning their wedding.”

He flipped to another photo, which showed Kara, looking soft and pretty in a flowered watercolor dress that was a distinct contrast to the starched khaki sheriff’s uniform she wore to work every day. Yet another photo showed the family together: baby Grace and Kara, Sax, and Trey, Kara’s son whom Sax had adopted. They could have appeared on a poster for the perfect family.

“You are one damn lucky son of a bitch,” Mac said.

“I tell myself that every day,” Sax agreed. “I wasn’t as bad off as some guys when I got out of the military, but I had my share of ghosts.”

“I think everyone does.”

“Yeah, but mine talked and followed me around all the time. And razzed me, just like when they were alive and we were all part of the unit. It was weird, but also kind of cool in a way.”

“Like they weren’t really gone. “

“Exactly.” Sax shoved the phone back into his pocket and returned to washing glasses. “But once Kara and I got together, really together, not just the sex part, but the connection I’d always felt for her, they took off. And now, when I dream, I dream of her. And Trey and Grace.”

“Lucky.” Although he would never deny Sax his happiness, Mac found himself envying the former SEAL.

“You bet your ass. . . . So,” Sax said, “getting to why I was going to call you—somehow I managed to get myself put on the VFW’s parade committee.”

“Maybe because you’re the only recipient of the Navy Cross in Shelter Bay?”

“You know how I feel about that,” Sax muttered. “I’ve learned not to see that damn sign outside town, but there are days when I forget and look at it and find myself wishing a tsunami would just wash the sucker away.

“Anyway, the Korean War guys are going to be on a float, along with some disabled vets from more-recent wars. Ollie was going to be with them, but now he can’t. So I was wondering if you think your grandfather would be up to representing the Greatest Generation.”

“I don’t know.” Mac rubbed his chin as he gave it some thought. “Some days, absolutely. Others . . .” He shrugged. “Hell, like I said, I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Sax suggested. “And we’ll leave it up in the air. If he’s feeling good on the Fourth and you think he could handle it—the benches will all have seat belts, or we could work out a deal with a wheelchair—”

“Pops wouldn’t use the chair. It’s hard enough to get him into it when he’s at Still Waters. His pride wouldn’t let him use it in public.”

“Okay. But there will definitely be seat belts. And we could put arms on either side of where he’s sitting. Just for extra stability.”

“Sounds good. Emma would be over the moon to have him take part. I’ll drop by Still Waters in the morning and see what he has to say about it.”

Something belatedly occurred to Mac. “The parade’s early in the day, right?”

“At eleven. Before the noon basket raffle,” Sax confirmed.

“Good. Because he can’t handle fireworks.”

Sax shrugged. “Been there. There are times they still get to me. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll have Kara and the mayor put a joint notice in the
Sentinel
that for respect of our vets, no one should set off even small firecrackers during the parade.” Privately shot-off firecrackers were illegal in Oregon, but it wasn’t always possible to keep them out of people’s hands on holidays.

“Sounds good. I’ll ask him.” Mac polished off the beer. “I need some takeout.”

“And here I thought you’d come to tell me all about your hot date with Sandy from Shelter Bay.”

When Mac flipped him off, Sax just laughed and took his order.