Half Moon Hill (38 page)

“Um, are you sure this thing is seaworthy?” she asked, voice low.

“Yep, been in it a time or two,” he said, stepping down inside, then reaching a hand up to her. “Come on, Daisy.”

The boat wobbled as she entered, but she quickly sat down, allowing Duke to begin rowing away from shore. And he said what he thought she was probably thinking. “This can’t be the same one from your diary. It’s old, but not
that
old.”

“And it’s aluminum,” Anna said. “Cathy and Robert’s was wooden.”

“There was even an old tarp covering this when I first found it. Your Cathy must have bought a new one at some point.”

He was surprised the speculation made Anna smile. “Maybe that means she wasn’t alone in the house, that Robert was with her and they shared the boat.”

He simply smiled. Just like his Daisy to get all caught up in somebody else’s adventure.

But then it was she who laughed a little—and then covered her mouth, clearly worried the noise would carry.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“That was kind of . . . fun,” she said. “Racing away through the woods. I feel bad in a way, of course—he’s my brother and all. But it felt . . . exciting. And kind of forbidden.”

Duke couldn’t deny feeling the same way. Maybe not as much as Anna, but it struck him that of all the times he’d been on the run from somebody, this was probably the only such occurrence in his life that had been . . . fun, like she’d said. And so he gave her a grin and told her, “Yeah—it did.”

Then, all caught up in the night, he tilted his head, stopped rowing—because they were already far enough away now, and had gone around a little bend that would keep them out of sight even if Mike came to the shore—and said, “Anything else excite you tonight, Daisy?”

The soft moonlight allowed him to see the sexy look in her eyes as she said, breathily, “What we did in the woods.”

Duke still felt that, too, and the memory made his groin tighten again slightly. “That was hot, wasn’t it?” And actually, it had been more than hot—but he didn’t want to think about the
more
part now, or have to start labeling it, so he just left it at that.

“Probably the hottest sex of my life,” she said. Then added, “Except maybe for . . . other times with you. With you it’s just . . . always hot.”

Which was when Duke abandoned the oars altogether and leaned over to kiss her. And he’d always liked kissing Anna, but something about it right now felt different. More powerful, intense. And before he knew it, he’d laid her down in the boat, both of them stretched out side by side, just continuing to kiss that way.

As they made out, Anna’s hands roamed his arms, his chest, his face. And then he felt one fingertip very deliberately tracing the jagged scar on his cheek.

It caught him off guard. She’d never done that before. And yet something in the touch was so . . . tender. It made him stop kissing her and their eyes met, and she did it again—she traced his scar, slowly, from top to bottom.

“Does it bother you?” he heard himself ask. “It’s okay if it does—you can be honest. I know it’s . . . ugly.”

And the look in her eyes was like . . . damn—even in the dark of night, it felt like the warmth of the sun. “God, no,” she whispered. “It’s just . . . you. Part of you. I don’t even think about it or really see it anymore. I just felt it beneath my fingertips is all. And found myself wishing I could take away the reason you have it . . . so that you could be happier.”

“Maybe . . . maybe I’m getting that way,” he told her.

And as they floated along beneath the half moon shining down on them, they simply kissed, and kissed, and kissed.

A
bout an hour after leaving, Duke rowed them back to shore and listened to make sure all was quiet in the woods, soon deciding Mike had long since given up and headed home.

He walked Anna to the house, where he got a flashlight before heading back out to look for the fish he’d dropped. Animals had probably taken them by now, but he’d had the luck of catching three big bass and a bluegill and decided it was worth it to check. He’d gone fishing with his grandpa a lot as a boy, and catching big bass in the pond on his grandfather’s farm was one of his better childhood memories—along with watching his grandma fry them up in a skillet for dinner.

He shone the light on the path and to either side as he walked, but had no luck. Damn. And before he knew it, he’d arrived back at the cabin.

He was about to start back when he thought of the picture of the boy in the rowboat inside. He wondered if maybe Anna would like to have it since it seemed to mean so much to her. Maybe she’d like to keep it with the diaries and other belongings of the girl.

He opened the door, using the flashlight to show him the way—when another bright beam lit on his face, practically blinding him. “Hold it right there,” Mike Romo said.

Well, shit. Duke held still, as commanded.

“I’m a police officer,” Mike said, “and this is private property, so I’m gonna have to ask what you’re doing here.”

Duke still couldn’t see a damn thing, even now holding his arm in front of him to try to blot out the harsh light. “Damn it, Mike, it’s me,” he said. “Duke Dawson.”

He sensed Mike’s flinch. “Duke?” Then he could make out Mike shaking his head. “You don’t look like yourself, man.”

“Got a haircut. Shaved my beard.”
And got a bad scar now.
But if Anna didn’t see it, if she really didn’t . . . well, maybe it didn’t matter as much as he’d thought.

Mike looked closer, but when Duke said, “You mind getting that light out of my eyes?” Mike lowered the flashlight—allowing Duke to walk over to his propane lamp and turn it on so that a low glow lit the space. There, that was better.

He turned back to find Mike seated comfortably at his kitchen table in his police uniform, where he must have been waiting quietly all this time. Talk about tenacious.

Now for the tricky part.

“So what are you doing out here in the woods, Duke?”

That was a damn good question. As good as it had been when Anna had first asked him—only he knew Mike wouldn’t let him off without giving a real answer. He and Mike shared a quiet respect for each other, and they’d even gone through a pretty tight scrape together a couple of years ago involving Lucky—but that didn’t mean Mike trusted him or would cut him any slack.

“I’ve been staying out here.”

“I saw the bike outside.” Damn, he’d forgotten about that—he’d recently parked it behind the cabin like he used to—just to get it away from Anna’s house. The road didn’t get much traffic, but it had just seemed like a good idea. “Thought you went to Indiana.”

Like when Lucky had asked, Duke just said, “Didn’t work out. So I came back.”

Mike raised his eyebrows, his expression rife with doubt. “And decided to live in a ramshackle old place in the middle of nowhere?”

“Needed some breathing room,” Duke told him. “Some fresh air.”

“There’s not even running water,” Mike pointed out.

“I’m not picky.”

“Did you know this place is on private property?”

Duke noticed Mike didn’t point out that it was
Anna’s
property. Probably didn’t want Duke to know that if he didn’t already. In case Duke got in the mood to go raping and pillaging, he guessed. “No,” he said. Since he actually
hadn’t
when he first picked the place—he hadn’t been in a state of mind to even wonder about it back then.

“Neighbor reported somebody lurking around out here,” Mike explained.

“Didn’t know there were any neighbors that close.” Which was one reason he’d thought he’d have privacy here in the first place. But then, Anna had proved him wrong on that a couple of months ago.

“An older lady up the road. Likes to take walks in the woods occasionally, do some bird watching.”

Duke said nothing in response, only nodded.

“Who were you with earlier?”

Duke flinched slightly, but hoped he could play it off. “Nobody out here but me and the birds. Why?”

“When I first got up here about an hour and a half ago, coulda sworn I heard voices. Who were you talking to?”

“Like I said, nobody.”

Mike just sat there staring him down, obviously not believing him. But he wasn’t gonna give Anna away. Mike would surely freak out if he knew Anna was seeing Duke—but it would be even worse if he found out they were running around the woods together in the dark, and he figured it was possible Mike had heard them having sex, too.

Finally Mike said, “You doing anything out here you shouldn’t be, Duke?”

Duke cocked his head sideways. “Like what?”

“I don’t know—a man with your background could be into about anything. Running drugs, or guns maybe?”

Despite himself, it pissed Duke off. Given their mutual respect, not to mention his connection to Lucky, it surprised him that Mike would bring up Duke’s long-ago past and use it this way. “You see any guns? Any drugs?” Duke held up his hands to motion around him. “Feel free to search the place if you haven’t already.”

“I have,” Mike confirmed. “And I didn’t find anything—but I still don’t quite know what you’re up to out here.”

“Fishing and sleeping mostly,” he said, though he knew his expression had likely hardened at Mike’s accusation.

Finally, Mike stood up, clearly preparing to go. About damn time. “I guess you’re off the hook for now, and I won’t make you clear out just yet, but fair warning—
whatever
you’re doing out here, you oughta think about moving on.”

Duke stood waiting for Mike to go, glad when the door finally shut behind him.

Damn. Mike knew he was in town now—which meant it was no longer a secret. And Mike would probably be keeping a tight watch around here after this, especially given how close the cabin was to Anna’s house.
Man, if you only
knew
how close I am to your sister. You’d probably have me arrested.
Suddenly his place to hide himself away—not only the cabin, but Anna’s place—felt a lot less private.

Turning off the lamp, he stepped back out into the night, closed the door behind him, and leaned back against it until he heard the slam of a car door from the direction of the road, then listened as Mike drove away.

Up until now, he’d been . . . floating. Just like earlier with Anna in the boat. Floating, letting time pass, seeing where the floating led him. It had, somewhere along the way, become the easiest he’d felt in a long while. He’d quit worrying so much—about anything. He’d quit hurting quite so much inside. Oh, it was all still in there—Denny’s death, Linda’s loss, his father’s rejection—but it had just started seeming . . . farther away. He’d quit feeling it all so intensely, day and night. He supposed his Daisy had given him a lot of better things to think about—working on her house by day, working on her body by night. He’d have never dreamed upon first colliding with her in the woods that she’d end up making such a difference in his life.

But now . . . now it wouldn’t be so easy to float. And as he started up the path toward Anna’s house, flashlight in hand, Duke knew he had some serious thinking to do about what came next.

A
s Anna sat with Duke eating pizza on the sofa where they’d first made love, he told her everything Mike had said to him in the woods. Damn—she couldn’t believe Mike had sat waiting for someone to come back to the cabin all that time. It rather took the luster off the sense of giddiness she’d experienced coming home afterward. Maybe it was silly, but she’d somehow felt as if she’d stepped into the pages of Cathy’s diary to be sneaking around in the dark with Duke, then making out with him in a rowboat on the lake. But now that it came with consequences, it didn’t seem quite as magical.

“I appreciate you keeping me out of it,” she said, “but you could have told him.”

“But I thought you didn’t want him to—”

“That was before he was accusing you of selling drugs.” She glanced vaguely in the direction of the old rotary phone in the kitchen. “I have half a mind to call him and tell him you were with
me
. Then everything would be fine.”

But Duke appeared doubtful. “Would it, Daisy?”

She blinked, a little confused. “What do you mean?”

Next to her, he lowered his plate to the coffee table, looked her in the eye. “There’s a good reason neither one of us wants Mike to find out about us.”

“Which is?”

“He won’t think I’m good enough for you, and he’d make both our lives hell for it.”

She sighed. “But wouldn’t that be better than having him think you’re doing something illegal? And . . . maybe it’s time to quit hiding, Duke. For me, at least, anyway.”

“Best I can tell, honey, you haven’t been hiding from anybody lately.”

“In ways, no. But if I’m still hiding a big secret from Mike . . . well, the old me wouldn’t have done that. It’s just a habit I fell into after moving up here—keeping to myself, keeping my life more private. But the old me wouldn’t have kept you a secret from Mike—the old me would have just told him to deal with it and move on with his life. And maybe that’s a part of myself it’s time to get back.”

Yet now it was Duke who let out a long, tired sort of sigh. And Anna could pretty much read his thoughts. Just because
she
was ready to be completely out in the open now didn’t mean
he
was. “Truth is, Daisy, I’m not sure
I’m
up to dealing with Mike on this. I like your brother, but you know he can be a hard-ass, and . . .”

“And it’s safe to say he’d be that way about the idea of me and you,” she finished for him.

But it made her sad. To think that, even now, she wasn’t worth enough to Duke for him to stand up to her brother.

And yet . . . he’d never made her even one single promise. Technically speaking, their relationship was still “light and fun.” She’d just
told
herself things were changing. She’d foolishly let herself believe that—again.
What an idiot you are.

Just then, though, Duke playfully brought a hand down on her knee in a light slap to say, “Tell you what, Daisy. How about we just let this go for now? How about we sleep on it for a night or two? I’m tired and . . . I’ve had enough heavy shit for today. That okay with you?”