In Shelter Cove (14 page)

“Yes, he has something for me.” As she saw the large manila envelope in the lawyer’s hand, she felt a wave of panic. She wasn’t sure she was ready to read whatever Derek hadn’t been able to tell her in person.

“Who’s that man, Mommy?” Lucas asked, always inquisitive.

“He’s just a friend.” She glanced at Jason. “I know I shouldn’t ask, but is there any way you could take Lucas into the house for me and keep him busy for a few minutes? This shouldn’t take long.”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why doesn’t Lucas come meet some of Patty’s pets? She’s got a talking bird.”

“Can I, Mommy?” Lucas asked. “Can Digger come, too?”

“Sure,” Brianna said with relief. “Thank you, Jason.”

“No problem.”

She stepped out of the car and walked up to greet Mr. Isaacs while Jason took Lucas and the puppy next door.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“Just a few moments,” he said.

She swallowed hard at the sight of Derek’s familiar scrawl across the front of the envelope, which she took with a shaky hand. It was thicker than she’d expected. There was more inside than just a simple letter. “Do you want to come in?” she asked.

“No, thank you. It’s a long drive, and I’ll be heading back.”

“I appreciate the personal service. Are you sure I can’t get you a drink before you go?”

He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Not anxious to open that, are you?”

“Can you give me a hint what’s inside?”

“I honestly don’t know. Derek gave it to me almost a year ago, said to give it to you if something happened to him. I never thought I’d have to deliver it. I’ll leave you to it.” He nodded his head and walked to his car.

After he drove away, she sat on the love seat on
the porch and stared at her name. What a coward she was. There was nothing to be afraid of. Derek had probably written her a love letter, words to cherish for the rest of her life.

Unfortunately, that thought didn’t make her feel any better. While she’d just told Jason how Derek had dazzled her during their courtship, it had been a long time since she’d really felt his love—even longer since she’d felt her own love. Sometime in the past few years, she’d gone numb. She’d lost touch with her senses, her emotions, her heart. Derek had become a ghost in her life long before he died, a phantom presence holding her captive. She’d battled daily with the desire to stay and the need to run. No one who hadn’t been in her position could ever understand what it meant to love someone who was in jail.

Still, whatever he had to say to her, she wanted to hear it. Sliding her finger under the flap, she opened the envelope.

Brianna didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been a stack of pencil sketches. She flipped through them, her confusion growing with each page. The sketches were incredibly detailed and seemed to depict important people and places in Derek’s life. There was even one of her standing in front of the mirror at the gallery where they’d first met, the shadow of a man behind her. Was this how Derek had passed the endless days of his sentence? Why hadn’t he ever told her he was drawing?

Setting the sketches aside, she picked up a smaller white envelope and pulled out a letter. Her heart sped up as she began to read.

Dear Brianna,

When you come to visit me, there are so many things I want to say but I can’t seem to find the words. Our time is always so short and I don’t
want to waste it. I want you to know that I feel incredibly touched by your loyalty and your love, but also guilty for tying you to this terrible life. I never should have let you marry me, but I’ve always been a selfish man. I thought about what was good for me and not what was best for you. In the beginning I believed it would only be days until I got out. I never imagined that I would still be here now. I’ve told myself that I’ll make it up to you when I get out, but it would be impossible for me to ever return the years I took from you.

The words blurred, and she blinked away the tears.

I haven’t always told you the truth. Honesty doesn’t come easy for me. My secrets run deep. I created the life I wanted to live a long time ago, and I began to believe in my own lies. I thought I could take what was fake and make it real. I thought I could fool the world, but the glass always reflects the truth, and I should have known better.

I didn’t steal The Three Faces of Eve, but I’m not completely innocent, either. I’m not the man you think I am. If I get the courage to tell you all this to your face, you’ll never see this letter or the sketches I’ve done, but just in case . . . I’ll sleep better knowing that one day you’ll know the whole story, even if I’m not here to tell it.

I hope we’ll have a long life together, but things happen in prison. Every day someone seems
to fall sick or die. If something should happen to me, take care of yourself and our son. Know that whatever lies I told, there was always one truth: I loved you, and I loved Lucas, more than I ever thought I could love anyone. You both made me want to be a better man. I hope someday I’ll have a chance to exceed your expectations, to replace these years with ones we’ll both want to remember.

Love, Derek

Derek’s voice was so clear in her head, his eyes beseeching her to understand. Tears streamed from her eyes like the rush of water from a broken dam. She cried for the man who had died too young and the little boy who would grow up without his father. She cried for the death of all their dreams and because she had to let out the pain. She’d been holding it together for weeks, putting on a brave face for her son, but this moment was just for her.

Finally, she was spent. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and put the letter and sketches back into the envelope. Then she went inside to run cold water over her puffy eyes. After giving her face a brisk rub with a towel, she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was a mess of tangles from the windy beach, her eyes were still red and a little too bright, but the evidence of her weeping was fading. She’d gotten good at pretending to be all right, and this day wouldn’t be any different.

Derek said he’d been pretending, too. His words ran around in her head.
“I’m not who you think I am.”
Who was he, then? And what had he meant, telling her that he hadn’t stolen the paintings but he wasn’t completely innocent, either? If he’d wanted her to know the truth, why be so cryptic? Why continue to keep secrets when he was already serving time in prison? None of it made any sense. With a sigh, she turned away. She needed to get Lucas.

She went next door and rang the bell. Jason answered it a second later.

“Where’s Lucas?” she asked, stepping into the living room.

“He’s in the kitchen, trying to teach the parrot to talk.”

“I’ll get him.” She started to move past him, but he grabbed her arm.

“He’s fine. You, on the other hand, don’t look so good.” He followed her gaze down the hall. “Don’t worry, Lucas can’t hear us. The kitchen door is closed. The other pets don’t care for your puppy, so I had to isolate him. What happened? What did Derek’s lawyer want? Why have you been crying?”

She tried to pull away from him, but he had a tight grip on her arm. “Nothing’s happened.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Let me go,” she said desperately. Her emotions were too highly charged; she couldn’t tangle with Jason now.

He stared at her for a long moment, indecision in his eyes. “I know I
should
let you go.”

She caught her breath at the look in his eyes. It had been a long time since a man had gazed at her
with such desire—and since she’d felt the same pull. An electrical charge lit up the tense air between them; anticipation licked up her spine. She wanted what she shouldn’t want, needed what she shouldn’t need. If only he would look away—if only she could.

She thought he would kiss her, but he released her arm and stepped back, digging his hands into his pockets as if he were afraid he might reach for her again.

She was afraid, too. Because beyond all reason, she wanted his touch. She wanted him to take her in his strong arms and hold her, really hold her, the way a man holds a woman he needs to take to bed.

Her brain said,
Think.
Her body cried,
Act.

She closed the distance between them, sliding her arms around his waist and pressing her lips against his shocked mouth. She wanted to soak up his strength, to taste forgetfulness on his lips, to be herself again, a woman—not a mother, not a wife, not a widow. She didn’t want to cry anymore, didn’t want to feel like a lost ship on a stormy sea. She wanted an anchor to something real. She wanted to feel something better than pain.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth, hearing him groan, feeling his hands drop to her hips. He pulled her into his hard groin. She rubbed her breasts against his chest and thrust her hands under the hem of his shirt, running them restlessly over his hard abs. Jason was all muscle and heat, passion and tenderness. His intensity was overwhelming, intoxicating. A delicious fever overtook her.

Jason backed her against the wall, angling his mouth over hers to deepen the kiss. She could feel every inch of his body. She liked the relentless onslaught of his mouth on hers. She didn’t have time to think, only to feel, and she was feeling really, really good—until Jason suddenly jerked away.

He stared at her, his breathing rough and hard. “What the hell are we doing?”

She didn’t have an answer. As the seconds ticked by, she could hear the parrot squawking, reminding her that Lucas was in the next room. What if he’d come out and seen them? She never should have given in to such a reckless impulse.

“Brianna?” Jason’s dark gaze searched her face.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology,” he said tersely. “I want an explanation. One minute, you hate me; the next minute, you’re trying to rip my shirt off.”

“You kissed me back,” she reminded him.

“Of course I kissed you back. I’ve wanted to since the second I saw you in Murray’s Bar five years ago.”

“That’s not true,” she said, shocked by his statement.

“It’s absolutely true. When I saw you sitting on that bar stool, drinking white wine, your long hair down to your waist, your eyes a beautiful sky blue, your lips . . .” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “So soft and perfect. I thought to myself, This is her, this is the one I’ve been waiting for.”

His words took her breath away. “You did not think that.”

“
I felt like I was falling off a cliff. I never thought about women in terms of longer than a night or a week, maybe a month. But you . . . I don’t know what came over me. You spouted off all these intellectual facts about wine making, and I was a goner.”

“I sometimes babble when I’m nervous.”

“So
you
felt something, too. That’s why you didn’t tell me you were engaged.”

She had enjoyed talking to Jason that night. He was funny and sexy and interesting, and a lot better listener than Derek, who tended to dominate most of their conversations. She didn’t know if she’d consciously left out the fact that she was engaged or if it just hadn’t come up. But nothing had happened between them, and nothing
would
have happened, even if Derek hadn’t walked into that bar.

“Look, we had a couple of drinks together a long time ago,” she said. “Maybe you felt something for me, but I was in love with Derek. I’m sorry if that hurts, but it’s the truth. And you’re the one who wants nothing but the truth between us.”

He gave her a long look. “Okay, so you were being friendly then.” He took a step closer to her, and she instinctively backed up. “Is that what you were being tonight? Friendly?”

His breath fluttered against her cheek, and the challenge in his eyes only made him that much more attractive. But she couldn’t go there again. “Would you please move?”

“Why did you kiss me, Brianna?”

“I was upset. You were here. It just happened.”

“
Why were you upset?”

She hesitated, reluctant to get into the letter, but she needed something to distract him, distract both of them. “Mr. Isaacs gave me a letter that Derek had written. It was something he wanted me to have in case he died.”

Jason’s eyes turned speculative. “What did it say?”

“It’s personal. But the gist was that he loved me, and he didn’t steal the paintings, two things I’m sure you don’t want to hear.”

“So why were you so upset?”

“Wouldn’t it bother you to get a letter from someone you loved after they died?”

“I might find it comforting, unless they said something that surprised me. Is that what Derek did?”

She wasn’t about to give Jason any more ammunition. “Lucas is probably wondering where I am. I should get him.”

“You’re going to just walk away, pretend nothing happened between us?”

“I think it’s best if we both do that. Whatever you felt for me five years ago, whatever you feel now, it doesn’t matter.”

“What about what
you
feel?”

“You want to know how I feel?” she asked, searching for words. “I’m numb, frozen. Maybe I kissed you because I wanted to feel something. But it didn’t mean anything. Nothing can ever happen between us.”

“It’s already happening, Brianna.”

“
Then we need to stop it, because Derek will always be between us.”

“Only if you keep him there.”

“I have to. I’m raising his son, and I’m indebted to his parents.”

“So that’s it? You’ll never have another relationship?”

“I don’t know about never, but not now, not with you.”

“This isn’t over,” he said sharply. “But for now . . . I’ll get Lucas.”

Brianna let out a breath as he walked down the hall. She lifted her left hand and gazed at the diamond solitaire that Derek had placed on her finger so many years ago. The ring had grown loose in recent months, and as she played with the band, it slipped easily over her knuckle. She’d considered taking it off many times since Derek’s death, but if she let go of Derek, what would she have left?