radiant smile made a dull ache expand in his chest. “Do you think Walt still works at the Shop and Save?”
“I know he does. I don’t go back to Harbor Town often, but, when I do, I always see Walt. He’s a standard fixture. He and my mother chat almost every day, which is code for exchanging juicy news.”
Her glance ricocheted off him at the mention of his mother. The light from the lobby chandeliers made the dark gold highlights in her brown hair gleam when she lowered her head. “Well…you know how small towns are.”
“Yeah, I do,” he replied gruffly.
She stirred beneath his stare. The moment wasn’t as awkward as it was tense. Charged. He waited, wondering what she would say. He was having trouble finding words himself. He and Mari were almost strangers to each other now. It was odd, the paradox of connection and distance he felt with this woman, as though they each stood on the opposite side of a great chasm of grief, joined only by a thin, ephemeral thread.
Still, that cord was strong enough that it had tugged at him this afternoon when he’d seen the newspaper article about the San Francisco Orchestra playing at Symphony Hall; it had made him ask his administrative assistant to buy him a ticket to the performance. It had fueled his impulsive decision to follow Mari to her hotel.
He nodded in the direction of a crowded lounge. “Can I buy you a drink?”
She hesitated. He was sure she was going to say it wasn’t a good idea. He might have agreed with her five minutes ago, before he’d been stunned by the visceral impact of standing so close to her…of seeing her face.
“I have a suite. There’s a separate room where we could have a drink and talk. I mean…if you’d like,” she added when he didn’t immediately respond.
Seeing the slight tremble in her lush lips had mesmerized him.
He blinked, wondering if he was seeing things he wanted to see, not reality. In eyes that reminded him of rare cognac, he saw the glow of desire, a heat that hadn’t been entirely stamped out by the weight of tragedy.
“That sounds like a great idea.”
She nodded, but neither of them moved. The bond he’d shared with Mari since they’d been sunburned, carefree teenagers in Harbor Town—a bond formed by love and battered by grief—chose that moment to recall its strength and coil tight.
He stepped forward at the same moment she came toward him and enfolded her in his arms. A convulsion of emotion shook her body.
“Shh.” His hand found its way into her smooth, soft hair. He fisted a handful and lifted it to his nose. Her scent filled his head. Desire roared in his blood.
“Mari,” he whispered.
He pressed his mouth to her brow, her eyelid and cheek. He felt her go still in his arms when he kissed the corner of her mouth. She turned her head slowly, her lips brushing against his. Their breaths mingled. A powerful need surged up in him, its primal quality shocking him. He possessively covered her mouth.
When he lifted his head a moment later, she was panting softly through well-kissed lips.
“Lead the way, Mari.”
“I can think of a thousand reasons we shouldn’t do this,” she whispered.
“I can only think of you.”
She put her hand in his and they headed toward the elevators that led to the rooms.
Chapter One
Five weeks later
Mari understood, for the first time in her life, the full meaning of the word bittersweet when she returned to Harbor Town after nearly fifteen years. The feeling strengthened when she left the empty office complex on the north end of town and saw Lake Michigan shimmering through the trees.
“We’re not far from Silver Dune Bay here, are we?” she asked Eric Reyes as he paused beside her. She waved goodbye to Marilyn Jordan, the real estate agent who had just shown them the commercial property.
“Fancy a swim, do you? It’s hot enough for one, that’s for sure.” His grin faded. “Mari? Are you okay? You’re very pale.”
She brushed a tendril of hair off her sweaty brow and steadied herself by leaning against the wall of the building. She swallowed thickly, trying to calm the nausea swelling in her belly.
“I’m fine. I think I caught a bug. The guy who sat next to me on the plane was coughing nonstop for the whole trip.”
Eric studied her through narrowed eyes. Mari was suddenly reminded that her friend was a doctor, a very gifted one by all accounts.
“It’s nothing, Eric,” she assured him. “It comes and goes. I’m sure this heat isn’t helping matters any.”
She stepped away from the wall, willing her queasiness to ease. She didn’t have time for illness. This was a trip she’d needed to make for a long time, and she’d planned to complete her mission in a quick and dirty fashion. Because of her impulsiveness with Marc Kavanaugh five weeks ago, her desire to take care of business and get out of Harbor Town as soon as possible only intensified by the hour.
She forced a smile and walked with Eric toward his sedan.
“Were you one of the daredevils who used to jump off Silver Dune? It’s got to be a forty-foot drop to the bay,” she reflected as Eric unlocked the passenger door of his car. In her mind’s eye, she pictured her summertime best friend Colleen Kavanaugh leaping off the tall dune without a backward glance, her long blond hair streaming out behind her like a golden cape.
Mari had always been a little in awe of the Kavanaughs’ fearlessness. All the children had seemed to possess that indefinable, elusive quality that Mari thought of as American royalty—the golden, effortless beauty, the easy confidence and quick smile, the love of a dare, a fierce temper and an even fiercer loyalty to those they loved.
“It’s fifty feet, actually,” Eric replied once she was seated in the car. He shut her door and came around to the driver’s side. After he flipped the ignition, he immediately turned the air conditioning on high to cool the stifling interior. “And yeah, I took the leap plenty of times in my day.”
Took the leap.
Mari had only had the nerve to leap once in her life. She still could see Marc staring down at her, his mouth quirked in a sexy, little smile even as the rest of his features were softened in compassion for her fear.
Stop thinking so much, Mari. Just jump.
She had jumped, back when she was eighteen years old. It’d been the summer her parents had been killed.
Foolishness had caused her to take a similar reckless leap five weeks ago in Chicago. As a thirty-three-year-old woman, Mari hardly had the excuse of a girlhood infatuation any longer, yet something fluttered in her belly as she clearly recalled Marc pinning her with the blazing blue eyes as he fused their flesh. She heard his desire-roughened voice in her ear.
I’ve waited for this for fifteen years, Mari.
She
