Shoreline Drive (15 page)

Before Ben could disagree, Alex stirred and kicked, waking from his long nap with a smacking of lips and a big yawn.

“Here, I’ll take him,” Merry said, lifting Alex into her arms. Relief at avoiding any more revelations about his past and the brush of her hands against Ben’s chest made him long to grab her wrist and tumble her back down into the nest of quilt and pillows. But he’d already gotten away with enough today. He wouldn’t push his luck.

At the bedroom door, Merry paused and turned to look back at Ben. “I want you to know that it’s okay, and we don’t need to talk about this again. I think I understand enough that your proposal makes a little more sense.”

Aching with unspent desire, Ben hauled himself upright and frowned in the direction of the doorway. “What, exactly, do you think you understand?”

Merry gave him a smile as bittersweet as dark chocolate. “You want a marriage without emotions, and you’re sure you’ll never fall in love again, because you’re still in love with your ex-wife.”

Ben opened his mouth, a denial on the tip of his tongue—but he hesitated. What was so bad about the solution Merry had come up with for why Ben proposed? If it made sense to her and made her more comfortable, he’d be an idiot to contradict it.

God knew, he wasn’t eager to explain the real reasons behind the wreck of his marriage to Ashley.

*   *   *

On the bed, Ben’s jaw dropped, and Merry’s heart surged into her throat. Was something else going on? But no, he closed his mouth on whatever he’d been about to say, and Merry’s heart thumped back down into her chest where it belonged.

Merry glanced over her shoulder at the hallway. Escape beckoned. Raw and twitchy, all she wanted was to flee the intimacy of this moment and the enormous, oxygen-sucking overwhelmingness of Ben’s presence.

Just for a minute. That was all she needed to shore up her defenses and catch a breath that didn’t smell like Ben’s complicated aroma of peppermint soap and fresh-cut pine.

Merry slipped into the hall, expecting Ben to call her back, half dreading it and half hoping for it—but he didn’t.

Battling down a strange swoop of disappointment, Merry slipped into the guest bedroom and closed the door behind her. She settled in the rocking chair she was already starting to think of as the Nursing Station and got Alex going on his evening snack.

As Alex buttoned up his eyes and concentrated on doing his thing, Merry felt a buzz in her back jeans pocket. Contorting herself to retrieve her cell phone, she grinned to see a text from her sister.

Ella hadn’t sent a message in words. Instead, she’d snapped a picture with her phone’s camera and forwarded it, along with a series of seven excited exclamation points.

Looked like Ella had really and truly learned to stop taking life so seriously and to slow down enough to enjoy it now and then. Merry smiled down at the tiny image of her sister’s dimpled cheek pressed close to the rugged jaw of her new love, ex-search-and-rescue guy Grady Wilkes. If she squinted, Merry could make out the windswept coastline and Sanctuary Island’s ramshackle dock, unofficially nicknamed Summer Harbor.

Suddenly consumed with the need to talk to Ella, Merry hit number one on her speed-dial contact list before she could think too hard about the fact that she’d insisted on spending the night at Ben’s partly to avoid dealing with her older sister’s inevitable shock and disappointment with the whole quickie-marriage thing.

Every ring of the phone ratcheted up Merry’s tension until finally, Ella answered with a breathless, “We’re almost home! Are you coming to pick us up?”

Swallowing down a surge of emotion, Merry said, “No, sorry. Mom will be there, though, I’m sure.”

She could hear Ella’s frown over the crackly connection and the static of the ocean breeze. “You’re sure. Don’t you know? Aren’t you at Windy Corner with Mom? What’s going on?”

At that instantaneous note of concern and fierce protectiveness in Ella’s voice, Merry couldn’t help but smile. This was why she loved her big sister. Yes, Ella meddled, and yes, for years she’d been sure she could run Merry’s life better than Merry did. But the fact was, Ella hadn’t been completely wrong about that … and more importantly, when Merry was in trouble, there was no one on earth she could depend on more than Ella.

Merry knew, deep in her bones, as if it were written into their shared DNA, that Ella would always be there for her. No matter what.

That made it easier to say, “I left Mom’s house. I’m at Ben’s. We’re getting married.”

Closing her eyes, Merry pictured the shock on her sister’s face. Ella wheezed out, “Good Lord, Merry. I leave you alone for a few months and you go completely nuts!”

“This is not me being nutty,” Merry said. “At least, I don’t think so. I actually think I might be making the sanest decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

And then it all came spilling out, the words flowing as easily as they used to when Merry would get home from school, bursting to tell someone about her day—and there was fifteen-year-old Ella, making Merry’s afternoon snack and waiting to hear all about it.

“So I said yes,” Merry concluded, a little winded by the outpouring of explanations and background, justifications and reasoning. She was silent for a second, then said, “You think this is a terrible idea, don’t you?”

“That depends,” Ella said slowly. “Ben is a good guy underneath all the sarcasm and gruffness—I’ll never forget how hard he fought for you and Alex, the night he was born. But Merry, all this stuff about keeping emotions out of it … do you honestly think you can do that? You’re one of the most emotional people I know.”

“Which has gotten me into every scrap of trouble I’ve had in my life,” Merry pointed out, with an apologetic snuggle of her sleepy baby.
Even if it was worth it sometimes,
she told him silently.

“That’s certainly true.” Ella sounded thoughtful. The fact that she wasn’t yelling was a pretty big relief to Merry—Ella tended to react to worry and fear by attacking the problem, which sometimes translated to attacking the person having the problem. But Ella seemed to be actually considering the possibilities of this marriage, and a shiver ran like an electric current through Merry’s whole body.

“Oh my gosh,” she said numbly. “You’re not going to talk me out of this, are you?”

“Is that what you were hoping for?” Ella asked. “Sorry to disappoint you, hon. But the days of me making decisions for you are over. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf here. So I’m not going to lock you up to keep you from marrying Ben, if that’s what you want to do.”

Surprise stole all the strength from Merry’s body. Sagging back against the high, solid Nursing Station chair, Merry realized that until this moment, the engagement hadn’t felt truly real to her.

Ashamed, Merry grimaced. “In some secret corner of my brain, I think I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for you to show up as the Voice of Reason and put a stop to the whole thing.”

“That sounds like you don’t want to go through with it,” Ella replied, caution clear in her voice.

“No—I mean, I’m scared. It’s a big step, and most women would probably be thrown if they found out that the man they’re about to marry is still hung up on someone else.”

Even saying the words gave her a pang she didn’t understand.

“But that shouldn’t bother you,” Ella said, all rationality and logic. “Since you’re not in love with Ben. Right?”

“Right.” Merry bit her lip at how uncertain she sounded. “That’s not what this is about,” she said more strongly, to remind herself as much as to convince Ella.

“Okay, then. Look, I’m not going to make this decision for you. But if you want my advice, here it is: listen to your heart. You have the best, biggest, most generous heart of anyone I know.”

In the background of the call, Merry heard Grady’s rough, playful “Hey!”

“Not counting you, dummy,” Ella said, partially covering the speaker, but Merry could still hear her.

“Listen to my heart?” Merry huffed out a laugh, feeling as if the breath had been knocked out of her. “Boy, you
have
changed.”

“I know I haven’t always been the world’s biggest advocate for it, but recently I’ve learned that life is more than a series of smart moves. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is something a little risky and crazy. So what’s your heart telling you, Merry?”

Merry swallowed hard, trying to listen for her heart over the soft, homey sounds of Alex’s mouth working, the creak of the rocking chair, and the ocean breeze in the background of the phone call.

She sat and rocked and stared down at her son’s tiny, round-cheeked face, and felt certainty drop over her shoulders like a cozy blanket.

“I’m marrying Ben Fairfax.” It wasn’t the first time Merry had said it out loud, but it might have been the first time she actually believed the words. “I think it’s the smart move—and my heart…”

“Yeah?” Ella sounded choked up, which instantly got Merry’s tear ducts working overtime.

“It’s confusing,” Merry gasped. “Because my heart has steered me wrong so many times. But this time, I don’t know. For once, my head and my heart seem to be in agreement. Not sure what that means.”

“Oh, honey,” Ella said, sniffling. “I think it means my baby sister is about to be a bride! You have to let Mom and me help plan the wedding.”

As Ella launched into planning mode, Merry leaned her head against the high back of the rocking chair, grinned up at the ceiling, and tried not to think about the fact that the decision to marry Ben was a three-way tie between her mind, her heart … and her willful, unpredictable body.

Chapter Twelve

Right up until the moment Sheriff Shepard pounced, everything was going perfectly.

Taylor was nothing if not a veteran at planning ways to get into trouble, and having a willing accomplice for the first time since her childhood best friend was snatched away by his overprotective dick of a dad pushed Taylor to new heights of creativity.

She hadn’t stopped at enticing Matt Little out to her favorite spot on the island after curfew … she’d also snitched a three-quarters full bottle of rum from her dad’s liquor cabinet.

Matt had resisted at first. “Come on,” he’d said, leaning back on his hands in the gritty sand of Heartbreak Cove’s narrow strip of beach. “Do we really need alcohol to have a good time?”

With his jeans rolled up to his shins and his strong-boned bare feet burrowing into the wet sand and gently lapping waves, Matt looked like the poster boy for wholesome living. Trying to ignore the squiggle of doubt in her own belly, Taylor shrugged and flopped down next to him before uncapping the rum.

“You don’t have to. But I’m having some. After today, I could use a little help relaxing.”

There, that was a pretty good cue. Casting Matt a surreptitious glance from the corner of her eye to see if he’d caught her drift, Taylor inhaled and swallowed at the same time. Gasping a cough at the sting of rum down her throat, she doubled over her raised knees, eyes watering.

Great. How many ways could she embarrass herself in front of this guy? But Matt didn’t laugh and pound her on the back, or swipe the rum with a superior grin, the way Caleb might have. Instead, he laid one long-fingered hand gently over her spine and leaned closer with a concerned frown. “Hey, slow down. We’re already breaking curfew, right? So there’s no rush. We’ve got all night.”

He didn’t mean anything by it, probably, but the words still sent a hot shiver spreading out from that single point of contact between his palm and her back. His touch seemed to burn through the thin cotton of her tank top. Clearing her throat, Taylor breathed in and out for a slow minute, unwilling to sit up straight and risk Matt dropping his hand. But eventually he sat back anyway, so she did, too.

Doing her best to be nonchalant, Taylor took another, slightly smaller and more cautious sip, rigidly controlling her facial muscles against the automatic grimace. Despite her reputation, she’d never really gotten used to the harsh burn of straight liquor. “Fine, don’t have any,” she said, cradling the bottle to her chest as if it were precious. “More for me.”

Matt sighed, audible even over the whisper of the waves at their feet. “Hand it over.”

Cheeks burning with triumph, Taylor passed him the bottle. Electricity arced between them when their fingers brushed, and she imagined she could see white-blue sparks flying. The night was cool, at least sitting here in the breeze off the water, and for the first time all day, Taylor felt the twisty knot of emotion in her chest uncoil.

“I wasn’t even sure you’d be able to come out tonight,” she said, vividly aware of the warmth of his lean, denim-clad thigh mere inches from her bare legs.

“My mom and Dylan are still on their honeymoon.”

“Does that freak you out?”

Matt made a face. “If I think about it too much, it might. But no, I mean—I’m happy for her. She deserves to be happy.”

“Where’s your dad? Do you see him often?” As someone who’d lost a parent to cancer, Taylor was half fascinated, half shocked by families that split up on purpose.

Ducking his head made a shadow fall across Matt’s handsome face. “Nah. We talk on the phone sometimes, but I know my mom doesn’t like it. She gets sad or something—tense—whenever she knows I called him.”

“So don’t tell her,” Taylor suggested, digging her feet into the sand beside Matt’s.

The look he shot her was full of wry amusement, and the way his mouth twisted made her want to lean over and kiss that smirk right off his face. “You’re going to be a bad influence. I can tell.”

That’s right. And more fun than going to Bible study with stupid Dakota Coles and her self-righteous band of do-gooders. Snagging the rum bottle from Matt’s relaxed hand, Taylor lifted it to her lips. “What was your first clue?” she murmured against the glass rim.

Something hot and dangerous flashed through Matt’s eyes like heat lightning stitching across the sky, and Taylor’s heart slammed against her ribs.

Without breaking her stare, Taylor tipped her head back and swallowed another sip of rum. It went down easier every time, and she was starting to feel light-headed and a little dizzy.