CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

Brooke let out a soft moan.

Gideon was lying on top of her. Naked. Sweating and whispering that he wanted to make love to her, his hard body undulating against hers. She felt the rapture of his touch, wanted him desperately, ached for him there, on the island, with the sound of the surf seeping through the windows. She sighed as his fingers surrounded her nape, tangling in her hair, pulling her close. But in the distance, over the cry of seagulls, she heard another voice . . . a girl's voice, calling for help.

"We have to go," she told him, trying to push him away, but he was strong and wouldn't release her. As she stared into his eyes, she saw evil lurking in their gray depths.

"Brooke," he whispered, shaking her, "I'll never let you go . . . Brooke . . ."

"Brooke?" Neal's voice. Loud. Worried.

Her eyes flew open.

She was in bed, yes, but in Seattle, not on the island.

And with her husband, not Gideon Ross.

Thank God.

"Are you okay?" Warm fingers touched her shoulder.

She rolled over to find Neal beside her in the familiar room lit only by the clock's digital display and the city lights visible through the window. "You were whimpering."

Oh. God. "Was I?"

"And restless, rolling around." The twisted sheets were a testament to his words.

"Bad dream," she said. "Nightmare."

"About?"

"Marilee," she said quickly. "I can't remember the details, but she was in some kind of trouble." A quick lie as the particulars of her dream were fresh. Imprinted. And scared her to her bones.

"The only trouble she's in is that her mother won't let her go on a date with an older boy."

"And her father would?"

"No. We settled this." He levered himself up on one elbow and his face was more visible in the weakest of light from the window. The dim glow exaggerated his bold features, making his deep-set eyes appear more guarded, his nose more prominent, his beard shadow darker. "But I like it that you're the bad guy."

If you only knew, she thought. "Nice of you."

He tugged at the covers; she'd wound herself in the bedclothes. "Not nice, but practical." Once the sheets were straightened over both of them, he snuggled up against her, his long body spooning hers as she faced the window again. "Better?"

"Yes," she said, grateful for his strength. Theirs had been a far-from-perfect marriage, but she did care for him. And a once-passionate marriage that had seeped into indifference, even infidelity—was that so unusual? They'd weathered a lot of storms right from the get-go, but they were still together, if tentatively, the tether of matrimony that bound them frayed but not severed.

Yet.

She nestled into his warmth and felt his arms surround her, his big hands cupping her breasts, pulling her tight to hug against him. This was right, she told herself, noticing how her knees bent perfectly inside his. As she sighed, she sensed his arousal, felt his erection against her buttocks, noticed that he was fingering her nipples until they responded, which they did.

She closed her eyes.

For the first time in a long while, she welcomed him.

An hour after their lovemaking, Brooke was still restless. Neal, as always after sex, was sleeping soundly, snoring a bit, dead to the world, while she was keyed up, her nerve endings afire. She slid from beneath the covers and moved quietly down the stairs, her ankle aching a bit. Without switching on any lights, she padded to the kitchen and the French doors leading to the deck.

The dead bolt hadn't been turned.

So the house was unlocked.

Anyone could climb up the stairs from the backyard and walk into the kitchen and . . . She bit her lip. Was this how Gideon had gotten inside? This was the way they all let the dog out, and during the day it was usually unlocked.

Well, no more. She'd keep the house locked tight day in, day out. Now, still bothered, she stepped quietly onto the deck. This time she didn't hesitate but found her pack of cigarettes and lit up. Years ago, she and Neal had shared a cigarette after lovemaking. Now they never did. Neal was a holier-than-thou ex-smoker, and the phrase her grandmother always used, "There's nothing so self-righteous as an ex-sinner," came to mind as she took a deep drag. The cigarette was stale but hit the spot. She leaned over the rail to stare at the distant city lights, seeming to float in the darkness of the early morning. She heard a scratching and turned to see Shep on the other side of the glass door. "Oh man, did I wake you?" she asked, opening the door. The dog stepped out, paused for a quick pat, then made his way to the steps leading down to the backyard, waddled down them, and disappeared.

Brooke rotated her stiff neck. Her body ached from the accident with the jerk in the Porsche—Gustafson—and, of course, from her scuffle with Gideon.

Scuffle?

More like a fight to the finish.

And that worried her.

Was it the finish? Was it over? Now that she suspected Gideon had invaded her house and taken her private things, she had a deeper look into his obsession. How far would he go? The question, one he'd posed earlier, rang through her mind. Her physical injuries were evidence of how disturbed he was.

Gideon had been quiet ever since the struggle on the sailboat, but she wondered how long it would last. If it would.

And when had he been in her house—when had he been in her bedroom? Before she'd broken it off with him? Maybe because he'd sensed it was coming. No matter how gobsmacked he'd acted when she'd called and then gone to his sailboat for their confrontation, she'd hinted before in the last few weeks when he'd wanted to make plans, and many times she'd made excuses. Maybe he'd had access all along and had taken the items one at a time so she wouldn't notice.

Was it possible?

He'd had the nerve to show up on her doorstep, facing her and her family, so why wouldn't he sneak around?

Once more she mentally kicked herself for not vetting him before getting involved with him. She'd been such a moron!

She should have done a lot more research on him and wondered why she hadn't. Probably because she didn't really want to know.

After receiving the package with the bracelet and charm she'd done a little digging on the Internet, doing a perfunctory google search and scraping the surface of social media. Nothing there. Then she searched the registrations at local marinas for a boat named the Medusa.

As luck would have it, she discovered the location of the boat, the owner registered as Gideon Ross.

That matched.

So she checked it out by driving to the marina.

From the parking lot on that gray April day she caught sight of the craft, a gleaming white sailboat with the name Medusa scripted on the transom. She decided to get a closer look, to actually climb out of her Explorer and walk onto the dock so she could see the boat more closely. The artwork curving around the side of the sailboat was an artist's rendering of Medusa's serpent-infested head captured in the arms of a jellyfish. The snakes and tentacles were wound together, caught in what appeared to be a death struggle.

"Wow," she'd said under her breath, studying the disturbing scenario. "Dark."

This was his boat?

Sure enough. Because as she looked past the weird art to the deck above, she saw him stretching to clean the windows of the cabin, the hem of his sweatshirt rising over the waistband of faded, torn jeans.

She felt awkward being there but told herself she had a mission. So, with one eye on the threatening sky, she made her way along the dock to the boat.

"Hey!" she yelled, standing close to the sailboat as it undulated with the dark water of the sound. "Hey, Gideon!"

He kept washing the windows, seemingly unaware of her.

"Gideon!"

"He can't hear you."

She turned and spied an older guy on the deck of his own boat, a smaller vessel moored on the other side of the dock.

His bald pate was rimmed with red hair turning gray and he was hauling buckets of bait. He set down one bucket on the deck of his boat and pointed to one of his ears. "He's got those ear thingies in. Always."

"Earbuds."

"Whatever they're called." He picked up his bucket again, and she caught sight of the shiny scales of some dead fish as water sloshed over the pail's rim. "He can't hear a goddamned thing." He shook his head. "Washing windows on a day like today. Waste of goddamned time, if you ask me."

She headed up the gangway and stepped onto the boat. Gideon's face was etched in concentration, lips flat, eyes narrowed as he rubbed at a spot on the window with a towel. Then, as if he'd sensed her presence, he looked over his shoulder and noticed her, his hair catching in the salty breeze. Slowly, a smile crept across his jaw. "You found me."

"Yeah."

Straightening, he nodded. "I wondered." He dropped the towel into a pail on the deck.

"What?"

The lift of one shoulder. "If you'd bother."

"I had to."

One eyebrow raised, encouraging her as the wind kicked up and her hair blew over her face.

"Because—because I wanted to return this." She brushed her hair from her eyes, then dug into her purse, came up with the tiny package containing the bracelet. She handed it to him. "I can't take it."

"Why not?"

"It's—it's not appropriate."

"If you say so."

"I do. I don't know you. And I'm . . . I'm . . ."

"What?" he asked, seemingly amused at her discomfiture.

"Well—"

"Let me guess. Because you're married," he guessed.

Nodding, she said, "Yeah, I guess that's it."

"And he would be—what? Offended? Or . . . jealous? He'd get angry?"

She thought about Neal and wondered if he'd even care. These days Neal's interest in her had waned. Big-time.

"Would he hurt you?" Gideon asked, his smile fading, his expression changing to concern as the first drops of rain began to fall.

Neal?"No! Never." She shook her head vehemently. Neal was a lot of things, but violent? No.

"But he wouldn't like it," Gideon guessed, glancing at the sky.

"Uh—maybe not. But more likely he wouldn't notice," she admitted, then regretted the words. She shouldn't confide anything to this man, this stranger.

"Oh." He nodded, as if agreeing with himself as the dark clouds scudded in the sky. "So then why bring it back?" he asked as the rain continued, the wind picking up.

"It seemed like the right thing to do."

"It doesn't seem right to me. It's a gift. And I can't return it. It's engraved." He held it out, the tiny charm dangling, but she took a step back, rain starting to fall in earnest, pummeling the deck. She felt the cold drops hit the top of her head and flipped up the hood of her jacket.

"Then you keep it. Seriously. I can't take it."

"Look." He held up his hands, the box still gripped between his fingers of one hand, the bracelet twined in the other. "It's not a big deal. Nothing all that significant, okay? It's just that I saw you looking at it just before we—you know."

"Bumped into each other."

"Collided," he corrected, shouting over the wind.

"Okay, collided." She too raised her voice.

"Hey!" He glanced at the sky. "It's really coming down. We should go inside."

"No. I have to go." She took a step toward the gangplank, then looked over her shoulder. "How did you know my address?"

Again the flash of a grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I saw it when your wallet was open. Your driver's license."

"And you remembered it?"

"Yeah." The boat was rocking. "Come on." He didn't wait for her to argue but grabbed her hand and led her down a short flight of stairs to a small cabin. Though she told herself she was crossing some invisible threshold to a point of no return, she followed. Inside was a tiny suite of wood-paneled rooms, a salon with a galley nearby, and a bathroom, or head, beneath the stairs. Through an open partition she caught sight of the foot of a bed, the head of which, she guessed, was tucked into the prow.

"Coffee? Or tea?"

"Oh no, I don't think—"

"Wine, then, or a beer?" He cocked an eyebrow.

"Definitely not. I just came by to drop off the bracelet."

His glance told her that was a lie. "And you were curious."

"No, I—well, maybe a little." It seemed unreasonable to avoid the truth.

He walked to the small galley, found coffee in a carafe, and poured two mugs.

She wanted to protest but didn't. "Sit," he said, nodding to the built-in couch near a foldout table. She did. After setting the cups on the table, he said, "You can take off your jacket."

"I'm not staying."

"Still—it's wet."

"Fine." She slid out of the rain jacket and he hooked a finger under the collar and hung it on a peg near the stairs, next to a scuba-diving suit. He yanked off his sweatshirt and put it on a nearby hook and she saw his bare torso, flat abdomen, and muscular shoulders, the way his jeans hung low. She forced her nose into her cup but couldn't force herself to look away as he snagged a black T-shirt from the row of hooks and slid it over his head.

She felt a flush climb up her neck and did finally turn her attention to a porthole but caught his reflection as he forced his arms through a flannel shirt that he didn't bother buttoning.

Once more she tried not to stare and instead wrapped her fingers around the warm cup and pretended interest in anything but him. On a little hook she spied a necklace, beads, and what looked like a hook made out of bone. "What's this?" she asked, and he glanced at her, saw her fingers touching the hook, and for just a heartbeat seemed to tense. "Something I picked up in Polynesia," he said dismissively.

"You sailed there?"

"A long time ago."

Before she could ask more about it, he swung the desk chair around, the one piece of furniture not currently bolted down, and straddled it. "Tell me about yourself," he suggested, picking up his mug.

"Not much to tell."

"No? So indulge me." He cast a look to the windows. "Until the storm passes."

"I can't stay long."

"It'll be over in half an hour."

"And you know this—how?"

"Years at sea and," he yanked a phone from his pocket, "a handy weather app."

"Isn't that cheating?"

His gray eyes twinkled. "And what would I know about cheating? For that matter, what would you?"

She felt heat climb up the back of her neck. "Probably too much," she admitted, thinking of Neal and his attraction to his coworker, their rumored affair. A woman new to the firm and younger than his wife. And then, of course, there was what had happened years before.

He was intrigued. "Tell me."

"I don't think so." She set her cup on the table. "Look, I really need to go. I just came by to drop off the bracelet. Thank you for it. Very thoughtful of you, but I just don't want to give anyone the wrong idea."

"Meaning me?"

"Meaning anyone," she said and stood. She swept her purse from the floor and reached for her jacket. She started for the stairs. When she was on the first step he caught her hand and spun her around. She found herself staring at him at eye level. Her heart fluttered and she gasped as he leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek. "That's for taking the time to find me."

She gulped. "No problem." And then she raced up the remaining steps and out into the windswept, wet day. The clouds were parting and the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle. She felt the urge to pause and look over her shoulder, but she knew it would be a mistake. She kept walking until she reached her SUV. Once in the interior she stared through the rain-spattered window to see him on the deck of his sailboat, legs braced and parted, the tail of his flannel shirt flapping in the breeze. He found her gaze and grinned, that knowing, almost cocky grin she found far too sexy.

Stop it, she told herself, not liking the turn of her thoughts.

She switched on the ignition and rammed the Explorer into gear, nearly peeling out as she raced away from the marina. Her fingers were tight over the steering wheel, her pulse pounding in her brain.

What are you doing, Brooke? Whatever it is, stop it now!

She drove home, her mind spinning.

She shouldn't be thinking about him. Should not!

But she did.

A lot.

Late that night, after searching him out and spending time with him on the boat during the rainstorm, she'd been too keyed up to sleep. Just as she'd done tonight, she'd sneaked downstairs and out the back door to the deck in search of a cigarette. That time the lighter she kept with her pack in the birdhouse refused to ignite. Frustrated, she'd gone inside to search for her purse for a backup. There, she'd discovered the package she'd thought she'd left on the boat with Gideon.

Sure enough, within the package was the bracelet.

She'd been stunned at the time.

And slightly, silently thrilled.

Without thinking, she'd clasped the links over her wrist. Even in the half light from a moon peering from behind gauzy clouds, the bloodred stones had winked and glittered, portending a future she couldn't possibly have foreseen.