Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (13 page)

Hannah shifted her gaze to the blue sky above the bay where snow-white gulls swooped and dove for their supper. She easily imagined what those poor fish felt like in the instant before the predator plucked them from the sea. Her gaze slipped to Drew's bare feet and she checked just to make certain he hadn't grown talons during the past ten years.

No talons. However, his steps certainly appeared determined. She braced herself for the attack she fully expected him to launch.

He didn't disappoint her. "Why have you come?" he demanded, finally halting within arm's reach of her.

Calm, Hannah. Remain calm
. "I have something to ask you."

"So ask." He folded his arms and leaned closer.

Hannah forced herself not to take a step back. Licking her lips, she tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear and tried to overcome her dismay. Calm, ha. The man could intimidate a shark.

And I'm more shrimp than shark at the moment.

What had happened to the storm that had blown ashore—blustery, powerful, and forceful? This wasn't going at all as she had planned.

"Well?" he said, a definite sneer in his tone.

"Drew, I…" Her voice trailed off as she searched for words.
I'm glad you put your clothes on? I missed you? I was wrong to leave you? I wish I could turn back the clock
?

"You what?"

No, she couldn't say that. She had not come here for that. Besides, speaking those words would be ten times more difficult than getting out the request she'd come so far to make. She looked him in the eyes, swallowed hard, and said, "I represent the Texas Historical Preservation Society. We are a group of concerned citizens dedicated to ensuring that the history of our state is not lost to the annals of time. As you probably know, the capitol burned two years ago, and in addition to the building, that ravaging fire claimed a number of historically significant documents, including the state's only copy of the 1836 Republic of Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico."

Drew started to laugh, softly and, Hannah thought, bitterly. "That's why you've come? The Declaration of Independence?" His laughter grew louder. "The irony of this moment slays me."

"Irony?"

He nodded. "That you of all people would value that particular document enough to make this particular request."

She felt a breeze of strength whisper through her. "Maybe, Drew, it's because of who I am and what I've done, or more importantly what I
failed
to do, that I recognize the value of independence more than most."

This time he was the one who looked away. Drew shoved his hands in his back pockets and turned to face the water. For a long moment the only sound to be heard was the gentle wash of the waves against the sand and the high-pitched call of the seabirds from on high. Finally, he spoke. "Do you remember the story behind that piece of paper?"

Sensing his need to repeat it, Hannah answered, "Bits and pieces. Would you tell me again?"

He drew a deep breath, then said, "It's been almost fifty years now since my grandfather stood as witness to the signing of the declaration at Washington-on-the-Brazos. The new government kept one copy, then President Sam Houston asked for volunteers to take the other four to leading towns around the country in order to spread the news more quickly. My grandfather jumped at the chance to do his part and almost immediately, he left for Bastrop. He did his duty and showed the declaration to every person he met along the way. Three days after the fall of the Alamo, he finally made his way home—just in time to die. Turned out he showed the prized document to a Mexican spy. They fought and my grandfather killed him, but he received a mortal wound in the process."

Drew kicked a tuft of grass with a bare foot and continued, "My grandmother packed up the declaration with the rest of her husband's things and fled her home barely ahead of the Mexicans."

"In the Runaway Scrape," Hannah added, remembering the term for the time of mayhem when a large part of the Texas population abandoned their homes to escape the advancing enemy army.

Drew nodded. "They eventually settled along the coast Over time, accidents and illness have taken every Coryell but me. That's how the declaration came to me, and I have kept it safe ever since."

"So you do still have it?"

"Of course. It's no longer on this island, however. I won't risk it to a gulf storm."

He paused for a moment, his gaze following the white splash against brilliant blue of a seagull in flight. "It is my most prized possession, Hannah. That's why I shared it with you when I made you my family. It's all I have left of them."

He turned his head and stabbed her with a stare. "And you want to take it away from me."

Drew's feet pounded against the sand as he ran along the edge of the lapping surf. Emotion rolled through him, providing fuel for the physical exertion he demanded of his body. Anger, bitterness, disappointment—each were part of what drove him. But the underlying energy, what added the most fuel to his fire, was self-disgust.

Damn him for a fool for thinking she might regret having left him.

At various times throughout the past decade he had indulged in fantasies in which Hannah spent her life pining away for him. Whenever he got to feeling lonely, missing her and wondering about her, he'd tell himself she undoubtedly spent the majority of her days regretting her choice. He'd imagined meetings with her at which she'd fall at his feet and beg his forgiveness. He'd daydreamed of reunions at which she threw herself into his arms and begged him to take her back. He'd visualized coming home from the office one day and finding her naked in his bed, naked in his bath, even naked on his boat, pleading with him to save her from a sorry life by taking her and making her his own.

Instead she showed up wanting not him, but his family heirloom.

"Idiot," he puffed out. You'd think a man would outgrow childish fantasies. You'd think he'd put the ache of a broken heart behind him. "Sap-skull."

Drew picked up his pace, running full speed to keep from thinking, until his lungs gave out and forced him to slow to a walk. Finally he stopped, bent over, and breathed deeply, collecting both his breath and his thoughts.

This was ridiculous. All these feelings were ten years old. It was foolish to allow them to plague him still. Of course, seeing Hannah again had stirred them up, but it was time to put them to bed.

Bed. The word hit him like a sailboat's boom.

Slowly, he straightened. He focused his gaze on an ungainly brown pelican taking flight from the beach in front of him as a deliciously wicked idea took root in his mind.
Why not? Why the hell not
?

Turning around, he headed back toward his cabin. He turned the notion over in his mind, weighing the pros and cons, debating the sense of the entire idea.

It was mean. Ungentlemanly. Contemptible, even.

But the woman owed him.

Hannah Mayfield owed him for the broken ribs, the broken dreams. She had cured him of falling in love. Since he'd never fallen in love again, he'd never married again. Never fathered children. He liked children, liked them a lot. Hannah had cost him a family. She owed him.

"And I know just how to make her pay."

Approaching his cabin, he saw her sitting primly atop the three-legged stool he liked to sit on while whittling. When she saw him, she stood and faced him. Looking at her without a fog of anger clouding his vision, Drew was caught by surprise at the picture she presented. Hannah could easily have been a mermaid come ashore.

Her wet dress clung to her like a second skin, outlining her generous, eye-candy curves. Her blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on the surf. Her chin was up, her shoulders back, and her lips… oh, her lips… were pursed in a delicious little pout that shouted to a man,
Kiss me
!

It took all Drew's strength not to comply that very instant.

She licked those lips and said, "Drew, please. Can we talk?"

Talk. Yeah, they could talk. That could be part of it. Talking was good. Touching was better. Lots of touching was lots better.

Because that was his price.

The woman owed him that much. She owed him the touching and the wedding night he'd been denied and the honeymoon that had been stolen from them. Maybe then, finally, he could get her out of his system once and for good.

It was, he thought, an inspired idea.

Drew sauntered over to the water-filled washtub where earlier he had dropped the wooden creel containing the speckled trout he'd caught that morning. Removing the wooden box from the water, he carried it and his polished oak tackle box down toward the water. Only then did he condescend to speak to his former wife, calling over his shoulder, "All right, Hannah. If you want to talk while I'm cleaning my lunch, feel free.'

She followed him to the board propped between two rocks at water's edge where he set down his slight burdens. He threw back the creel lid, revealing the fish, then from the tackle box he removed a razor-sharp fillet knife. Glancing up at her, he said, "Well?"

Hannah inhaled a deep breath that attracted his gaze to her bosom. This time, Drew licked his lips.

"About the declaration," Hannah said. "I knew it was special to you, but I admit I didn't realize how special. I bet we could come up with a way to make it palatable for you to turn it over to the state if we put our heads together and gave it some thought."

Heads wasn't what Drew had in mind to put together.

"Actually, I've already figured it out," he told her, lifting the fish from the creel.

Hope, relief, and the flash of another emotion he couldn't put his ringer on bloomed in her expression. "You have? What is it? Are you going to give me your copy of the Republic of Texas's Declaration of Independence?"

"That depends." He placed the trout on the cutting board.

"On what?"

"You, Hannah. On how bad you want it. On the price you are willing to pay."

The intelligent woman took a wary step backward. "Price?"

Drew nodded. "I heard your sailor say he would return in three days. I'm curious as to why you thought you needed that particular amount of time, but all in all, it suits my purposes."

"Purposes?" she said with a squeak.

He nodded and waited, drawing the moment out, savoring the sweet taste of retaliation mixed with anticipation until she put her hands on her hips, blew a frustrated sigh, and demanded, "What purposes?"

He buried the fillet knife in the board. "It's my price, Hannah. I want you to be my wife—in every sense of the word—until that sailboat comes back to get you."

Her chin dropped and her arms fell to her side. Shock rang in her voice as she asked, "Are you saying you want
…
?"

"Sex, Hannah. I want three days with you in my bed."

For a long moment, she simply stared at him. Then, seconds before she reacted, her eyes flashed a warning. Hannah reached for the cutting board, but surprisingly, she didn't go for the knife. In one fluid motion, she lifted the speckled trout by the tail and drew back her arm.

Drew didn't believe she'd actually do it so he didn't move at first, and then it was too late.