The Love Shack (9 page)

“Want some help? I don’t have to be back at the station until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.”

“No.”
She softened her voice. “No, I couldn’t ask you to do that on your day off.” And yes, though she’d agreed to be his plus-one for the wedding-related events, she needed to discourage this casual dropping-by. The plus-ones were for determining how well the weaning-off was going...but if there was never any true separation, then how could she judge?

“I don’t mind.”

“I do.” She bustled around, tying a sweatshirt at her waist and scooping her purse off the countertop. “Now if I can only find my keys,” she muttered.

Brushing by her, Teague strode into the kitchen. He popped open the narrow pantry door, rummaged a moment and then his hand emerged, dangling a bristling set of keys. “Here you go.”

She frowned at him. It wasn’t the first time he’d retrieved her missing ring. “How do you do that?”

“It’s easy. If you get in late, you come home and make a cup of tea. It was Movie Night with your teacher group yesterday evening, ergo, you absentmindedly left your keys on the shelf beside the Celestial Seasonings.”

“Ergo,” she repeated, admiring, but added, “I don’t always make tea once I get back.”

“Only when it’s late, like I said. If they go missing after a session at the gym, look beside the bathroom sink—you always wash your hands the minute you return from your weight-lifting class. Following a run to the grocery store, check the refrigerator.”

“I’m not sure if I’m more annoyed by my predictability or by my lack of discipline. A smarter woman would have some kind of dish to set them in by the door.”

“One of your few imperfections, Pol. Cut yourself a break.”

Oh, she’d been far, far from perfect. “Still, I don’t see how you can be aware of things I don’t know myself.”

He shrugged. Then he gave her a two-fingered salute. “Later, Gator.”

Gator. His private name for her that had morphed somehow from her protest against him using the inevitable and unimaginative “Pollywog.” That he used it now made her look more closely at him. “Wait.” There was something about the way he held himself... “Are you hurt?”

He halted halfway to her front door and glanced over his shoulder. “Nah. Just tired.”

Polly narrowed her eyes. Teague never talked about his job as a firefighter, unless it was to share a joke he heard at the station or to discuss what he should make when it was his turn for dinner duty. Yet she’d be a ninny not to assume he witnessed violent, disturbing things when he went out on calls. They couldn’t all be kittens in trees.

Her instincts told her that today he was having trouble doing that compartmentalizing that Griffin had mentioned the other night. He needed a distraction, and she didn’t have it in her to withhold it. They were both public servants, after all.

“You really want to help in my classroom?”

He turned to face her, a smile breaking across his face. “I would be happy to.”

And she was happy to have him, she told herself. Using an extra set of hands didn’t mean her real plan had changed. Yes, she was still giving up her foolish dreams of him, even if he sat beside her as she drove them to the elementary school that was in the center of the beach town up the highway.

She led him toward her classroom and unlocked the heavy door. “Some of the buildings are pre–World War Two, and while they’re being updated I’ve been assigned to another on the other end of campus.”

He took in the stack of boxes she’d already filled. “You’ve made progress.”

“I’ve been packing a little at a time,” she said. “It’s mostly the reading area that’s left.” With a nod, she indicated the far corner, separated from the main room by a floor-to-ceiling peeling plywood facade shaped and painted to look like a whale’s yawning mouth. “Though I won’t be sad about leaving ol’ Jonah behind. I inherited him from the previous teacher, and if you ask me, kids aren’t all that excited about going into the bowels of a mammoth mammal to enjoy their books.”

Grabbing up a couple of empty cartons, she ducked beneath Jonah’s flaking, pearly whites. Teague followed, and they both approached the shelves of books set against the walls. Floor cushions were scattered about for those children brave enough to read inside the whale. Teague took one of the boxes from her. “Is there a method...?”

She waved a hand. “Just how you find them on the shelves would be great. I may reorganize them differently in the new classroom. I’m trying to decide if I want to come up with an enticing theme for the reading niche or just go the simple route. The truth is, I don’t have the skills to construct anything on a Jonah scale.”

His first handful of books made a soft thud against the cardboard. “What would you choose instead of a whale?”

“A castle, maybe? Something that would ignite their imagination.”

“I remember from my visit last year that they’ve got imagination to spare.”

She laughed. The kids had wanted to know if he had a Dalmatian, if he’d ever rescued someone stuck in a toilet—that was from last year’s resident bad boy, Barrett—what he dressed as for Halloween since so many kids dressed up like the fireman he was. “Still, I try to infuse excitement into anything that has to do with reading or letters. We even use my old pom-poms. Boys
and
girls.”

He stopped. “Huh?”

“Close your mouth, Mr. Macho,” she said, grinning at him. “We have arm gestures that represent the alphabet. The kids can’t wait to be the class cheerleader of the day—the one up front with the big tufts of plastic streamers.”

“I’d like to see that,” he said.

“I’ll arrange for a demonstration when you come in again on Career Day.” When
you come in.
Damn, she thought, replaying the words in her mind. That wasn’t separation, now, was it? But she couldn’t deny her kindergarteners one of their favorite visitors. Firefighters were the rock stars of the five-year-old set.

Teague removed a full box from the reading area and came back with an empty one. As he scooted past her, his foot knocked over a lidless plastic bin, spilling its colorful contents. “Oops. Sorry,” he said.

“No problem.” They both knelt, both reached for the same piece of red-and-white fabric. Their fingers tangled.

An electric spark seemed to jump between them. Her gaze lifted to his face and she saw that he was staring at her with a new, dark intensity. It scrambled her pulse, evaporated the air in her lungs and made her want to lean forward. Lean into him.

He shot to his feet, breaking the contact. “Whoa... I...” His hand rubbed his face and he shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “What’s that?” he asked.

“I...” He wanted her to explain that combustible reaction? Then she noticed he was looking at the red-and-white item in her hands. “Oh.” To cover up her fluster, she jammed it onto her head. “It’s part of a costume. Cat in the Hat. I wear it when we read Dr. Seuss.”

His brows rose. “You wear the whiskers and the tail, too?”

She stuffed the hat back in the plastic bin. “And the red bow tie, if you must know the truth.”

He returned to emptying the shelves of books. “I didn’t think you could still surprise me, Polly,” he murmured.

What did that mean? Was he referring to what had just happened when they touched, or did he merely mean her penchant for dress-up? “I’m a woman of mystery,” she told him.

“What, you’ve got a Mata Hari costume in there?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

When he focused again on the books, she plucked out a pinafore, a mob cap and granny glasses from the costume bin and quickly put them on. “Not Mata Hari—Old Mother Hubbard.”

Turning, he burst into laughter. “Really, Pol? You go to all this trouble?”

“And more,” she said. From one of the higher shelves, she picked out a binder. “Check out last year’s class album. Among other things, I dressed as Raggedy Ann, a friendly pirate and, of course, one of Maurice Sendak’s wild things.”

Teague looked over her shoulder as she turned the pages. In each she was surrounded by last year’s kids, all who would be in first grade next month. She sighed. “I’ll miss them.”

“They’re damn cute,” he agreed, then sighed himself.

Turning her head, she scrutinized him through Mother Hubbard’s glasses. “What’s up?”

“Just thinking. You know I want kids.”

He never failed to mention his interest in having a family. “Most men your age aren’t as eager as you are.”

“Yeah. But I’ve told you about my childhood—the whole lonely only thing was just that...lonely. I’d love a do-over with my own tribe...rushing off to soccer games or swimming lessons. Squabbles over Scrabble. Campouts in the backyard telling ghost stories.”

“You can have all that.”

“Gotta find the right woman,” he said. “And for a time I thought...Tess had those four adorable kids. It was as if she and her family were made just for me.”

Polly swallowed, trying to lubricate her suddenly dry throat. “That was David’s family. David and Tess’s kids.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his hand over his hair.

“And other people’s kids don’t stay that adorable for long.”

He slanted her a look. “Pol, your job is other people’s kids. You seem to think they’re pretty adorable.”

“Mmm.” She shut the album and turned away from him to place it in the bottom of an empty box.

“Polly?”

When she didn’t answer, he put his hand on her shoulder and spun her to face him. “What is it?” he asked. His fingers took hold of her chin, to tilt her face toward him. “Something’s wrong. What aren’t you saying?”

You’re an idiot!
she wanted to yell.
Here I am, a woman who clearly likes kids as much as you do, who has similar interests and priorities.
Had he not felt that sexual jolt when they touched? Did he not see her at all?

Or was she too entrenched in the Polly-the-pal role?

“Pol?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, backing away from him. Nothing that she seemed able to change. Her hands reached around for the pinafore bow, preparing to untie it...then they dropped to her sides.

Was that where she’d gone wrong? The role-playing? Here she was, hoping to attract a man, and the only time she stepped out of her part as Pal Polly, she dressed up as Old Mother Hubbard.

Maybe it wasn’t time to surrender her dream, but time to modify her strategy. Instead of continuing as the comfortable, never-make-waves friend, she would force him to consider her in an entirely different light. In a few days she’d agreed to be his plus-one at an engagement party thrown by Tess.

Polly would go there, dressed to kill and determined that Teague finally see her as a sexy female.

CHAPTER NINE

February 15

Skye,

It seems particularly dark tonight. An interpreter I’ve often used lost both legs and an eye this morning when the car he was traveling in ran over an explosive device—one of those IEDs you say you’ve been reading so much about. I went by his house to give some money to his family. With him unable to work, his wife and children will have a hard go of it. I met them a few months ago and spent an afternoon with his sons helping build a jump for the skateboard they’d been given by a homebound marine. Their mother fussed about the sport’s danger to her boys, but her husband and I laughed it off. “What’s the worst that could happen?” we said. Skinned knees, sprained fingers, they were nothing compared to what we’ve seen.

The oldest boy is twelve. When I visited today, I gave him and his little brother all the chocolate and gum left from the last package my mother sent. That’s all I had for this now traumatized family: a fistful of cash and another of foil-wrapped sweets. The twelve-year-old thanked me politely, though, then drew me aside. Could I find work for him? he asked. Maybe he could interpret like his father. When I asked if he wasn’t afraid to take on such a dangerous job, he told me that skateboarding had given him courage.

I know the feeling well. The adrenaline rush of risk-taking is damn addictive. But that’s not why his father had been in that bombed car this morning. He’d merely been trying to support his family.

I’m off to a place I know where they’ll pour me some good Russian vodka. They serve it in teacups and I plan to drink several, getting drunk and staying grateful that my choices and decisions don’t affect a wife and children.

Gage, who hopes you’re now not regretting our correspondence

Dear Gage,

Of course I’m not regretting our letter exchange! I’m so sorry to hear about the interpreter. But remember, although you might not have a wife and kids, you do have family you’re close to...and friends! Be careful with yourself for us.

The package with this letter contains treats I hope you like...or will like to share. Please at least chew one square of bubble gum yourself and remember the Crescent Cove Bubble-Offs we used to hold (though I think it was Griffin who was always named Official Chew Champ, right?).

Last, the time difference between us is almost twelve hours, so this morning I lit a candle for you...during your night. Although I’m on the other side of the world, I hope a little of its glow somehow reaches you.

Yours, Skye

In her role as the Crescent Cove postmistress, Skye approached the home of Rex Monroe, the ninety-plus-year-old who had lived full-time at the cove for as long as she could remember. She took a path that skirted the rear of the cove bungalows, avoiding the more direct beach route. Rex’s place was situated near No. 9, and she didn’t want to give Gage a chance to see her.

She didn’t want to give herself a chance to see him, either. He’d probably feel obliged to address her embarrassment over the interlude in his office and then she’d feel like an idiot for avoiding him. And
then
they’d be back where they’d started...spending time together during which she experienced quivers of desire that were totally wrong.

Because they were for the totally wrong man.

She wasn’t so messed up that she didn’t
want
to see herself as a sexual being again, but she wasn’t convinced that one topless climax could be deemed a cure. And failing in front of Gage—with Gage—in some well-meaning attempt on his part to usher her through a complete, start-to-finish sex act could utterly ruin her self-esteem as well as the special relationship they’d had these past months.

It was better to keep her distance now, and once he was gone from the cove, they could restart their conversations—via paper and from thousands of safe miles away.

As she came around the side of Rex’s bungalow on her way to his front door, she heard familiar voices. Jolting back, she was forced to press her hand against the ocher-colored stucco to retain her balance. Gage was there, sitting with the elderly war reporter on his front porch.

The sound of more distant shouts and whoops had her peering around the corner again. Men were on the south bluff, some of them still climbing the path up the side, others perched at various stopping points. Shaking her head, Skye grimaced. None of the posted warning signs had ever reduced its lure, but she made a mental note to tack up one or two more.

“I haven’t seen you up the cliff this visit,” she heard Rex say to Gage. “First thing you and your brother did every summer was see if you could jump from a higher point than the year before.”

“We did a lot of stupid stuff when we were kids,” Gage replied.

“I wouldn’t disagree with that. You’re lucky I didn’t have you hauled off and sent to juvenile hall.”

Gage laughed. “Instead, you had that police officer come to the cove and give us his version of ‘Scared Straight.’”

The old man harrumphed. “Someone had to look after your mother’s interests. That poor woman was at her wits’ end, especially with your father only coming to the vacation house on the weekends.”

“So you made sure you were a nosy, interfering neighbor.”

“Nosy! Interfering!”

“What? Did I hurt your feelings?” Gage’s voice was laced with amusement. “I thought you considered nosy and interfering among your very best qualities.”

Rex made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smothered chuckle. “Well, you’re much more polite than your twin. What a foul mood he was in when he first came to No. 9.”

“I heard about that.”

“And he went cliff-jumping, even though you think that’s kid stuff now. Jane went, too, once.”

“Jane? What the hell? He should be more careful with her.”

“I don’t know the whole story,” Rex said. “But I do know he loves her, though she deserves far better.”

“Told her that myself. Said she should choose the handsomer twin.”

“As if you’d settle down,” Rex scoffed.

“As if I would,” Gage replied.

Just another excellent reason for her to keep that distance from him, Skye told herself. Though he said he wasn’t the settling-down type, though she
knew
he wasn’t the settling-down type, it was better not to give her heart even a chance to wish differently.

“Your next assignment’s already set up?”

Gage grunted in answer.

“You don’t seem so keen to go,” Rex observed.

No? Skye risked another peek around the corner. Gage had his head tipped back against the wall, and his eyes were closed.

Rex nudged him with a leather-clad foot. “Son?”

“I’m keen, I’m keen,” Gage replied without moving a muscle. “But give me a break. I’m only a couple of weeks into my R and R. Don’t want to think about work right now.”

“Hmm,” Rex said. “I didn’t know you considered your life’s work, well...work.”

A weighty silence descended. “Nothing’s changed,” Gage finally said, his voice tight with tension. “I love what I do. Can’t wait to get back to it.”

Frowning, Skye studied the now-hard lines of his face. While she was aware he’d been saddened by the wounding of the interpreter, and before that, the death of his friend Charlie, she’d never sensed the edginess that was infecting today’s mood.

Maybe she should invite him over for dinner and—

No. That’s exactly what she wouldn’t do. When he was safely away from the cove, back doing what he loved in some foreign place that offered him the challenge and the risk that he always seemed to crave,
then
she’d attempt getting him to open up.

“Your brother’s not going back to danger.”

“He had a hard time of it,” Gage said. “I thought about coming to the States when he got behind on the memoir—I knew something was wrong then. He needed a good kick in the butt.”

“Jane provided that.”

“Yeah. I think she screwed his head on straight.”

“There’s a little more to it, though,” Rex remarked. “Your brother...well, what he suffered has gone by a lot of names over the years. Battle fatigue. Combat stress.”

“He told me he’s getting counseling for PTSD.”

Skye would have felt guilty for eavesdropping, but Griffin had mentioned it to her himself. She’d become close to Gage’s twin and his wife-to-be, and they both were quite open about the challenges Griffin had faced upon his return from war.

“What about you, son?” Rex asked.

“What about me?”

“As Griffin finally accepted, you don’t have to be holding a gun to have an acute reaction to difficult, violent, frightening experiences.”

“It’s different for me. Griff’s job was to see it all, feel it all, tell it all. I’m more of an observer.”

“He thought that, too—that his reporter’s objectivity gave him some sort of immunity. It didn’t.”

“But he didn’t have a camera, like me. It’s like armor...it’s a layer between me and what I see. It keeps me safe.”

“Not safe from everything,” Rex murmured.

Another of those heavy silences descended. Then Gage cleared his throat. “No, I’ve not been safe from everything. But I’m going back, Rex.”

“Nobody’s stopping you,” the elderly man said, his voice mild. “What
is
the next assignment, then?”

“I’ll be taking photos for an in-depth piece on ransom farms.”

“What the hell are those?”

“The kind of moneymaking venture that comes up anytime, anyplace there’s haves, have-nots and a law enforcement body that is either corrupt or overwhelmed by other concerns.”

“Kidnapping,” Rex said.

“Yes, and on a large scale—for monetary, not political purposes. Dozens of people at a time held for ransom in remote locations. Organized crime groups use abandoned buildings, isolated caves, sometimes underground bunkers.”

“Well, damn,” Rex said. “No wonder you need the R and R if that’s what you’re looking forward to. You’re sure you don’t want to rethink that return?”

“It’s a story that’s got to be told. It’s what I need to do.”

Skye moved off then, Gage’s inflexible tone yet another warning about the risks of getting too close to him. Goose bumps pricked her skin as his words played again in her head.
I’m going back, Rex... It’s a story that’s got to be told. It’s what I need to do.

What she needed was to stay clear of him, no matter how curious his moods or how compelling his allure.

* * *

“I’
M
GETTING
MARRIED
barefoot,” Jane announced idly as she and Skye and Polly wandered through the shoe section of one of the mall’s department stores.

Skye shared a startled glance with Polly, then stared at the bride-to-be. Had she misheard? “Uh, barefoot?”

At Jane’s matter-of-fact nod, Skye blinked. “But that’s...that’s just wrong,” she finally said. “We all know you’re about the shoes.”

“Exactly why I’m not wearing any on my wedding day. I was making myself crazy trying to find the exact right pair.” She made a face. “It was Griffin’s idea, actually, which is when I realized I was making him crazy, too.”

“Yet another reason to avoid the love thing,” Polly murmured. “A woman shouldn’t have to give up her shoes.”

“I didn’t
have
to,” Jane said. “And I merely am giving them up for a few hours. But the love thing put the wedding thing into perspective. Though I’m looking forward to the day, it’s the rest of our lives that truly matter.”

Polly shrugged. “Me? I’m still taking shoes over love.”

Skye raised her brows. “Pol, how has that love avoidance actually worked for you?”

“Let’s get to the dress department,” the other woman said instead of answering. Her ponytail bounced as she headed for the escalator. “I have a job to do.”

A girls’ shopping trip had certain hallmarks. The promise to reveal every item tried on. The hysterical outburst behind a locked dressing room door when something that looked fabulous on the hanger turned into a colossal flop when worn by a real body. The begging of the flop-dressed’s friends to please, please let them share in the horror.

After laughing so much all three shoppers cried, just a little, it was time for a lunch break. They didn’t leave the mall, as Polly and Jane were still on the hunt for outfits to wear to the upcoming engagement party being thrown by Griffin’s sister, Tess. They opted for the department store’s small café.

While waiting for their salad orders to arrive, Skye’s phone buzzed, indicating a text message. She scooped it up without a thought, then froze when she saw who it was from.

He hadn’t tried to contact her in the four days that had passed since that...that episode. She looked up, aware her friends were paying attention. “It’s Gage.”

Jane’s gaze sharpened. “He’s reached out?”

“What do you mean?” Skye asked.

“He hasn’t been returning Griffin’s calls. Set his twin sense to jangling again.”

Skye’s belly clenched. Her instincts had been screaming at her last month when he’d gone silent—but at the time he’d been halfway across the world. Communication could be unreliable, he’d pointed out when he’d arrived at the cove, and she’d been so relieved to see him she’d let it go.

But now he’d gone AWOL again? Of course he was still living at No. 9; she knew that, as she’d seen him visiting with Rex that one afternoon. It did seem suspicious, though, that he’d avoid talking to his twin.

“Aren’t you going to see what he says?” Polly asked.

But the distance thing had been working so well!

Her reluctance must have shown on her face, because her friend smiled a little and said gently, “It’s just a text.”

“Fine,” she muttered, feeling foolish as she brought up the message.

Miss u.

Oh.
The words pierced her heart. A liquid ache poured into her veins and everything inside her went soft, including her determination to dissociate from him.
He misses me.
Her fingers fumbled trying to type a speedy response.
Miss u 2.

We’re good?