Blurring the Lines-nook (5 page)

“So you’ve come to bore me to sleep?” I shifted on the bed to make room.

“Exactly.” He stretched out next to me like we were both lying on the grass under
a starry night but managed not to touch me. Boundaries. Good. “Now close your eyes.
You’ll want to picture this one.”

My lids fell shut. “Don’t tell me about Miss Georgia.”

He laughed softly, and in the dark, it was such an intimate sound that I found myself
holding my breath. The last time I lay in bed with someone, it had been that final
night with Harris. But there’d been no laughter that night. No quiet talks. He’d come
home late after a business meeting, reeking of whiskey. I’d been half asleep already
and annoyed that he hadn’t called me. He’d kissed me on the forehead, and I’d mumbled
good night. Maybe if I’d reached out…

But before I could let myself spiral to that dark place, Burke began to talk. I snuggled
into my spot, knowing his deep voice would soothe the jagged thoughts in my head.
It always did.

“They say the Atacama Desert is the driest on Earth. They weren’t lying about that.
The thirst it stirs in you is impossible to describe. I would lie there at night and
wonder if it was possible for your blood to turn to powder in your veins, and I’d
fantasize about sweet tea and all the cold things I wished I could drink. But no moisture
in the air also means no clouds. So the dome of stars that stretched over the land
could make you forget the extreme conditions for a while. I would try to count them
when I couldn’t sleep. But they were endless, an infinite blanket of tiny pin pricks
all shining down, daring me to try to quantify them. It made me feel small. Insignificant.
Can you see them?”

I stared at the image in my mind’s eye, picturing Burke lying awake in that desolate
place beneath the stars, me there with him, feeling insignificant together. “Yes.”

“And it was so quiet yet so alive at the same time. The wind. The sound of night things
going about their business…”

My mind drifted as I imagined the scene he described. The warmth of his body made
the large bed feel cozier, more familiar, and the sound of his voice was lulling and
soft. I burrowed deeper into the covers and turned on my side, facing that voice but
not opening my eyes.

I never heard the end of the story.

~Burke~

Burke shifted onto his side in the bed, yanking the covers with him. Looked like insomnia
could be catching. He’d left Gretchen’s room two hours ago, after she’d drifted off
mid-story, and he’d been halfway asleep himself at the time. But as soon as he’d gotten
up to come to his room, restlessness had clawed at him. He hadn’t liked leaving her
alone. The burglar alarm was set, but he still worried she’d sleepwalk in the night
and trip or bang into the furniture.

Plus, every noise in the condo stalked him tonight. His ceiling fan was making some
new clanging sound. The refrigerator seemed louder than normal. And somewhere in the
building, a smoke alarm in need of batteries kept beeping. It was like everything
had conspired to keep him awake.

Ha. Maybe Gretchen was right and his brother was haunting them after all. Harris would
be livid that his little brother had kissed his woman—and had enjoyed it way too much.
It’d taken every bit of Burke’s restraint not to pull her body to his, show her exactly
how much he wanted her. Feeling her grab for him, open for his kiss. Fuck, that’d
been hot.

But he’d felt like a world-class asshole afterward when Gretchen had looked so upset.
He didn’t doubt that she’d returned the kiss willingly, but he’d seen the defeat in
her eyes when reality had set in. This was a no-fly zone for her.

He wasn’t surprised. He’d been down this road. They’d kissed once before, and though
it had felt right to him even back then, Gretchen had ended up with his brother anyway.
And he and Harris had always been as opposite as two people could get, so she’d made
her preferences clear. Gretchen liked that quiet, serious type. His brother had worn
suits, gotten the right degrees, and had the big job. He’d taken to New York City
like he’d been born there—Mr. GQ. He’d even purposely worked on losing his accent
during college so that no one would mistake him for some good ol’ boy.

Burke would never be so sophisticated or refined. He didn’t
want
to be. Harris had been the pedigreed one. Burke was the mutt. He liked adventure,
getting his hands dirty, and embracing his Cajun roots. Punching a clock every day
at an office and answering to some boss? Welcome to hell. So, of course, that was
what Gretchen saw when she looked at him. The wild one. The one who’d never settle
down. The friend you didn’t take seriously.

And, honestly, if that was all it was—an incompatibility of personality types—he’d
be okay with that. He couldn’t and wouldn’t change who he was. That wouldn’t be fair
to either of them. But regardless of what type of guy Gretchen thought she preferred,
there was no denying the heat between the two of them. There’d been nothing fake about
that kiss. So whether she saw him as a viable option or not, the attraction was there.
Even if she was afraid to act on it.

She’d said she didn’t want to lose him as a friend, but he didn’t think that was the
real reason. They were both mature enough to work their way through issues if they
slept together and kept it casual. So maybe she was worried about it becoming more
than that. It could also be some misplaced loyalty to Harris—that even after he’d
left her, she wouldn’t betray him that way.

Or it was worse.

Maybe this was her self-imposed life sentence for not saving Harris. She wouldn’t
have relationships. Period.

That theory worried him the most—that this was unending penance. He’d seen it in her
eyes sometimes, heard it in her voice—that ugly, black guilt. No matter what everyone
told her, she still felt some responsibility for Harris’s suicide. She was too much
of a perfectionist not to. And the way Harris had done it had only enforced her belief
that she held some blame. Why else would he set it up so that she’d find him? Why
would he hurt her like that?

So now she was punishing herself. She stayed in her house unless it was to meet Burke
or go to the shop. She’d stopped painting. She didn’t even let herself off the hook
at night. Memories haunted her, keeping her awake and wearing her down.

The girl needed to give herself a goddamned break. She needed some light in her life,
some fun, a fresh start. Anything. But if their kiss was any indication, she wouldn’t
allow herself even a taste of that if left to her own devices.

Burke flipped over again and stared toward the window. The silvery moonlight had turned
everything in his bedroom into shades of gray and black, and his ceiling fan blew
the curtains and the papers on his desk with a monotonous, steady rhythm. It was if
the room was breathing around him, watching him watch it. A chill raised the hairs
on the nape of his neck. Nice. Now
he
was getting haunted house thoughts. Ridiculous. Was this what Gretchen did every
night? Lay in the dark as the shadows melted and morphed around her? No wonder she
was getting spooked. The active quiet of the middle of the night could freak out anyone. 

Fucking ghosts
. Maybe he should just turn on the TV. He could catch the replay of
SportsCenter
and drift off to sleep that way. He stretched toward the bedside table. But before
he could reach the remote, a metallic
thunk
sounded from near the window. The sudden break in quiet made him jump, and he pushed
himself onto his elbow.

“The hell?”

It wasn’t Gretchen. The noise hadn’t come from far away. It’d been inside the room.
He flicked on the bedside lamp and after his eyes adjusted, he let his gaze travel
over the room, trying to pinpoint where the noise had come from. His attention landed
on a heap of material behind his desk chair. He released the breath he’d been holding
and scrubbed a hand over his face, his pounding heart mocking him. Yep, he was officially
a dumbass.

He’d hung his pants over the back of a chair, and they’d fallen to the floor along
with his belt. The noise had been the heavy buckle hitting the hardwood. How terrifying.

With a sigh, he shoved the bed covers to the side and got up to grab the pants. But
when he draped them over the chair again, an envelope fell to the floor. He bent and
picked it up. The invitation to Eden. He’d tucked it in his pocket and had forgotten
to e-mail them after everything had happened with Gretchen. He tapped it against his
palm, ready to toss it in the trash like he had the others, but for some reason, he
couldn’t do it.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stuck his finger beneath the seal. He’d only opened
the first one and that hadn’t been overly informative. Maybe this one would give him
a better idea of what the place was about. But when he pulled out the thick stationary
and unfolded the pages, there were no photos or promo material. It was simply a handwritten
letter.

Dear Mr. Brennan,

I would like to formally extend an invitation to you to visit the Island of Eden.
I know we’ve reached out to you before, but I understand that you’re a busy man and
timing isn’t always right. This time, I hope it is. In fact, I know it is…

“The fuck you do,” Burke mumbled, annoyed at the presumptuous statement.

But this isn’t only an invitation for you. It’s for the person in your life who needs
an escape even more than you do. I know you have someone in mind. In fact, I bet you’re
thinking of her as you read this.

That chill Burke had chased off came back in full force.

I assure you that once you arrive, you and your guest will have all you could want.
And more than you can ever imagine. The island knows what you need and leaves no one
wanting. Enclosed you will find confirmation numbers for two plane tickets and instructions
on how to travel to the island.

You are an adventurer, Mr. Burke. Don’t miss out on the kind of adventure Eden can
bring you.

Burke stared at the letter, kind of creeped out but also damn curious. It sounded
like whoever had sent this had done some recon on him. Maybe the owner had talked
to Dex and had gotten info out of him somehow. How else would this stranger know things
about him? How would he know that Burke would have a woman in mind for this trip?
Or that he preferred women at all? And if this dude was pedaling some mystical, woo-woo
island, the skeptic in Burke was all too intrigued about how they could pull that
off without being exposed as frauds.

He’d done a number of adventure trips where groups stayed in places purported to be
haunted. Places that made their money off legends worked hard to keep that spooky
factor up by providing atmosphere and tragic stories of the location’s history. But
beyond that, guests did the heavy lifting by filling in the blanks in their minds
when it came to the actual “paranormal” experiences. A breeze became a cold hand.
A normal, everyday sound became a voice. A natural light blur in a camera became a
spirit. Burke found it amusing how we could so easily trick our minds.

But how could some beautiful, sunny island in the Atlantic could pull that off? This
would be something altogether different. They weren’t promising eerie atmosphere and
ghosts. They were promising something much harder to pull off — magic. That this island
could meet every need you had in some mystical way. Yeah, okay.
The island knows what you need
was a fun tagline, but his guess was that they provided the generic things that all
people needed or desired for a vacation — relaxation, breathtaking scenery, great
food, loads of alcohol, and probably lots of sex.

If those were covered, most people would walk away with a “magical” experience.

He’d looked up the place online after the first invitation and hadn’t been able to
find much on it. Apparently, it was beyond exclusive. But what he’d gathered from
the little he could find was that it was about decadence and indulging in all ways.

It was the opposite of the kind of trips he usually took where it was all about survival
and thrills in extreme circumstances. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny that
the thought of sweeping Gretchen away to some luxurious island wasn’t damn appealing.
No one could use that kind of break more than she could right now. But what if they
showed up and it was a kinky sex resort or something?

Not that he was opposed to that kind of thing, but he wouldn’t want to put Gretch
in that position. She’d said she couldn’t kiss him tonight. Taking her away for a
week to Get Your Freak On Island would not be the best I’m-cool-with-just-being-friends
response from him. She’d never forgive him.

He tossed the invitation on his desk and climbed in bed. No. He’d have to find some
other way to get Gretchen living life again. He flicked off the lamp and settled beneath
the covers. He’d figure it out tomorrow.

But right as he was finally drifting off, the click of a handle and the squeak of
his bedroom door dragged him back into awareness. He blinked, trying to focus, and
flipped over. In the hazy darkness, a shadowy figure moved his way slow and steady.
His breath caught.
Oh, shit.

He shifted to sit up, but before he could, his visitor moved next to the bed and lowered
itself to the edge. The scent of vanilla shampoo wafted his way.

“
Gretch
?” He rolled fully onto his back to look up at her.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she slid under the comforter, draped her arm over his
waist, and cuddled up to his bare chest. A soft, contented sigh escaped her.

He froze, all of the air leaving his lungs. She snuggled against him, warm, sweet-smelling,
and soft. Everything in him yearned to wrap her in his arms. But he lay stock still,
not daring to put his hands on her. She was sleepwalking, and he had no idea how to
fix it.