Safe Harbor (12 page)

That simple act had not, he realized, just rejuvenated him but, for a very small space of time, it had almost propelled him into a parallel universe, one where he got to experience all the things that he hadn’t experienced in this one. The list included a normal childhood, high school proms...innocence.

A quick rap on the door had both men looking in that direction. Stevi stuck her head in.

The second she saw him, she grinned.

“There you are,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I thought maybe you decided to take off without saying goodbye.”

Was that what she thought of him? That he would just get it into his head to disappear without a word? Things like that wouldn’t have bothered him before his stay here, but now, inexplicably, they did.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he told her quietly. Athough, he realized, he would’ve done that the first couple days he’d been here. In a heartbeat. But a lot had changed since he first woke up with Stevi watching over him.

“I might just decide to chain him to my desk,” Richard spoke up. “Mike fixed my computer and the printer.”

Mike shrugged. They’d saved his life. The trade-off was completely off balance.

He owed them far more than he could ever repay.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Y
OU
KNOW
YOU
don’t have to do any of this, right?” Stevi asked, looking up at the man she found herself growing progressively closer to with every passing day.

She was standing at the bottom of a twelve-foot ladder, holding up another streamer for him to hang. The Fourth of July was a week away and decorating the grounds for the celebration was slightly behind schedule. She blamed herself for that.

When Mike had seen her bringing out the various boxes that housed the decorations she’d accumulated over the past few years, he’d insisted on taking over, despite the fact that he was technically still convalescing.

He looked down from the fourth rung of the ladder. Amusement curved his mouth. He’d found himself smiling more and more. He felt unusually happy. Especially for a man recovering from a gunshot wound who knew that once the gang he’d failed to infiltrate found out he was still alive...well...let’s just say the happiness was unexpected.

But then, what he’d been experiencing these past few weeks was a great deal different from the life he was accustomed to.

“You’re not exactly holding a gun to my head here, Stevi, so yes, I know.”

Hammer in hand, he was nailing red, white and blue streamers to the temporary posts he’d put up for her earlier. Leaning over to the side, suddenly he caused the ladder, uneven on the grass, to move slightly.

Alarmed, she made a quick grab for it, using her body to keep the ladder steady and upright. She looked up. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He would probably say that with his dying breath, Stevi thought. Some men were just macho that way.

She was having trouble tamping down the waves of guilt she was feeling because she’d let him take over like this. At the root of it all was the fact that she liked having him around and this way, they’d be working together until the celebration took place.

Unconvinced by his assurances, she told him, “I wouldn’t want you suddenly pitching forward. Maybe you should come down and let me finish putting up the streamers and the lanterns.”

Mike made his way down the ladder, but it wasn’t to hand over the hammer to her. He wanted to get another handful of nails.

“Anybody ever tell you you worry too much?” he asked, taking the nails and slipping them into the pocket of the borrowed jeans he had on.

“You want that chronologically or alphabetically?” she answered.

Mike laughed. “Then I’m not the first.”

Yes, you are. You’re the first one who’s ever lit up my world. The first one I’ve ever thought about spending forever with.

Stevi pressed her lips together, knowing she couldn’t say any of that out loud. If she did, she’d come across as a clingy, needy woman. That wasn’t the way to induce him to stay—if he was inclined to, which she doubted. Most likely, since she wouldn’t give voice to her feelings, once Mike was his former self, he’d leave, never knowing how she felt about him.

Maybe it was better that way. At least she wouldn’t hear him say something along the lines that he was flattered that she liked him—or some such mindless drivel—but he was sorry, he just didn’t feel the same way about her that she felt about him.

And why should he? Just because they’d kissed? Men and women kissed each other all the time. It didn’t necessarily have to mean anything.

Except that to her, it had.

It did.

But that, she thought, was strictly her problem, not his. She was enough of a realist to recognize that. And enough of a romantic to hope that his departure date was somewhere further down the line.

“Were you really going to tackle all this by yourself?” he asked. Back up the ladder, he hammered in some of the nails he was going to need to hang her lanterns.

It wasn’t because she liked being in charge, the way Alex did. It was a matter of working with what she had. Or, in this case, what she didn’t have.

“Well, Alex and Cris are busy and besides, they’re pregnant so I wasn’t about to ask them to pitch in. And Andy, whenever she actually is around, is supposed to be watching Ricky. I’ve used up my next six months’ worth of goodwill with Silvio,” she said, glossing over the fact quickly, “and I’m not about to have Dad on a ladder, so that just left me.”

“And me.” Mike came down a couple steps. He extended his hand toward her. “Need more nails,” he told her.

She didn’t even bother looking into the box she’d brought out. “I seem to be out,” she informed him.

She wanted him down off that ladder. Blessed with a vivid imagination, she could just see him reaching out like that again and this time, sending the ladder over onto its side. She wanted him to stay longer, but not because he’d reinjured himself.

Mike looked down and gave her a penetrating look. He’d just taken several nails out of the box and knew for a fact that there were at least several dozen nails of varying sizes left.

“No, you’re not.”

Stevi stuck out her chin. “Are you accusing me of lying, Mike?”

That would have been the word for it if he hadn’t gotten to know her the way he had.

“I’m accusing you of being overprotective. You want me coming off this ladder so that you can scamper up it instead. Now then, nails, please,” he said, putting out his hand again.

Reluctantly, Stevi gave him several more nails. “And for your information, I do not scamper.”

He laughed at her indignant protest. “Sure you do,” he told her. “Someone as light as you scampers when they move.” He paused his hammering, looking down and regarding her closely for a moment. “What do you weigh, ninety-five, a hundred pounds maybe?”

She weighed a little more than that, but her weight had been a sensitive issue for her when she was younger and she hadn’t quite managed to conquer that fully yet.

“That’s a conversation for another time,” she said dismissively.

Ever since she’d found him in her father’s office, asking for jobs to do, he’d been working almost nonstop on one thing after another. That couldn’t be good for his healing process and even though it might ultimately hurry along his departure, she didn’t want him doing anything to risk his health.

“Look, if this is about that debt you think you owe my father, you’ve already paid it back in spades. You fixed my dad’s computer and his printer. Cris told me you programmed her tablet to operate faster and more efficiently so she could input her menus on that and I’m not sure how, but you seem to have won over Ms. Carlyle—and she does
not
take to strangers well. Whatever you did, she’s a fan now. I overheard her singing your praises to Wyatt the other day.”

The retired schoolteacher and Alex’s husband became friends when he interviewed the woman extensively for the book about the inn he was completing. A book that had been initially started by his father. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to see the project through, Dan Taylor had asked Wyatt to complete it.

Ms. Carlyle turned out to be a font of untapped information about the inn because she had been coming to it for literally decades.

“I carried her tray to her room the other morning when she wasn’t feeling up to dining in the dining room,” Mike said simply.

“Ah, then you rode to the rescue,” Stevi told him, putting it into the chivalrous kind of language that the older woman would have appreciated. “She responds well to that. So, everything and everyone, apparently, is running smoothly thanks to your efforts. Ergo, there’s no need for you to keep on repaying a debt that’s already paid up.”

Mike inclined his head. “Your father referred to it as doing good deeds.”

“Okay...” Her voice trailed off as she waited to see where he was going with this.

Mike climbed down the ladder. He needed to move it farther along, to the next post. Because Stevi was slow to step back and give him enough room, they wound up filling each other’s space again.

For a brief, heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again, the way he had that night on the beach.

But they weren’t shrouded in darkness this time. Moreover, it was eleven o’clock in the morning and they were out in broad daylight when anyone could happen by and interrupt them.

The moment disappeared.

“I almost stepped on you,” he commented as she took a step back belatedly.

“Almost,” Stevi agreed, her voice subdued as she took another step back, doubling the space between them—enough so that he could move the ladder without hitting her.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“My fault,” she said, taking what blame there was. Collecting herself, she cleared her throat, hoping she hadn’t turned a shade of red as a wave of embarrassment ebbed through her. Trying to draw attention from the fact that she had been right in his way in the hope that he
would
kiss her again, she said, “You’re doing a nice job, by the way.”

He grinned. “I can hit a nail with the best of them.” And then he asked, “This your idea, by the way?”

“The Fourth of July?” she deadpanned. “No, I think a bunch of guys in powdered wigs started it a couple hundred years ago—but I might be wrong.”

Bringing the ladder over to the next post, he tried to stabilize it again. “No, I mean the celebration, wise guy.”

“That was originally Dad’s idea,” she explained. Positioning herself on the other side of the ladder, she helped him find the most level area. “He wanted to do something for the guests who were staying here at that time of year. We’ve held a Fourth of July celebration here for as long as I can remember,” she said, thinking back over the years. “I just took over a few years ago because, well, Dad is a wonderful man but he’s not much at innovation, or sparkle.”

He paused on the second rung to look at her. “Sparkle?”

“You have to have sparkle at an event. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“And you bring the sparkle.” He could well believe that. She seemed to do it every time she entered a room. She certainly did it whenever she entered his room, or what was temporarily his room, he silently corrected, climbing farther up the ladder until he was level with the row of streamers.

“I find the sparkle to bring to it,” she told him. “Dad started out by putting me in charge of finding the fireworks—he could never find the ones that really lit up the sky. My first year in college, I knew these people on campus who could get some great fireworks so I bought some to bring to Dad. Little by little, he gave me more responsibility and along the way, I found I had a knack for planning events.”

Shading her eyes, she looked up at Mike. Memories from the past came flooding in, mingling with the memory being created right now. The one that featured him.

A sadness suddenly took hold of her. She struggled out of its grip. “Although this might be my last one,” she told Mike.

“You quitting the event planning business?” he asked her, hammering in the last nail on the post.

She didn’t answer his question directly. Instead, she said, “I was thinking of going to New York.”

“For a visit?” he asked, then looked down at her. “Or permanently?”

“Haven’t made up my mind yet.” She thought she had. She’d been leaning toward a move—and then he’d turned up and the game board suddenly changed, causing her to reevaluate everything. “I paint,” she explained.

He climbed down the ladder again and looked at her. “I know.”

Stevi stared at him. She’d never mentioned anything and she doubted if anyone else had. There were times she was certain no one took her dedication seriously.

“How—”

“The paintings on your bedroom walls,” he said. “Also in the reception area and the dining room. Your signature is in the corner on all of them.”

“You noticed them?” Most men didn’t pay attention to details like that. They saw a room in its entirety, not the various things that went into creating that room.

“Hard not to. They’re very good.” She might not be an artist who broke the rules, but in his estimation she definitely had talent.

“Thank you,” she murmured, feeling color begin to creep up along her neck again. She tried to turn away so he wouldn’t notice, but that would be even more noticeable, she thought.

He’d made her uncomfortable, Mike realized, and changed the subject. “So, about the Fourth of July.”

Relieved to be back on neutral ground, Stevi asked, “What about it?”

“Is this celebration just for the guests at the inn, or do a lot of other people attend, as well?” He tried to sound nonchalant as he asked the question, but he had a reason for trying to find out just who would be on the grounds.

Because she could feel that she was still blushing, Stevi busied herself with preparing the lanterns that were to be hung next.

“Mostly it’s for the guests, but some of Dad’s friends drop by, as well—which is a bigger group than it might sound. Dad likes to be on good terms with everyone. That’s why you’re liable to see some local firefighters and members of the police department drifting around the back lawn, as well.

“They stop by as friends,” she clarified, “not in their professional capacity.” She paused for a moment, unaware of the impact that her words had just had, then asked, “You’ll come, won’t you?”

Served him right, he thought. Served him right for becoming lax and forgetting just who and what he was. He couldn’t let his guard down even for a minute, and he had. He couldn’t allow them to pay for his error in judgment.

“I don’t know,” he answered guardedly. “I might be gone by then.”

“But it’s only a week away,” she reminded him. She didn’t want to sound as if she was trying to make him stay—but she really was. If he had no hard-and-fast plans, why would he feel that he might just take off before the week was out? Was it something she’d said? For the life of her, nothing came to mind.

“I know,” he said carefully, progressing to another post and climbing up again, “but I feel like I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

“Why would you think that?” she asked. “Has anyone said anything to you?” That would be the only reason for his sudden change of heart, she thought. Otherwise, his abrupt shift made no sense—it didn’t anyway, she told herself.