No Other Love (A Walker Island Romance, Book 2) (2 page)

Morgan had been thirteen years old when Grams had passed her the makeup bag before one of her dance school’s productions of
Swan Lake
and said, “You’re better with makeup than I am, dear. Will you take over?”

Morgan could still remember how much fun she’d had that night. She’d never been able to dance as beautifully as Paige could, but she’d done a fabulous job of turning her sister into the black swan, disguising her natural features so well that people had commented on the makeup almost as much as Paige's excellent dancing.

It was strange, Morgan found herself thinking, that a career that had led to a national TV slot could start so simply. Or that she would find herself back on Walker Island about to embark on the biggest challenge of her life.

Almost as if coming home had always been inevitable...

CHAPTER TWO

Before Morgan stepped into the school's main hallway, she quickly reread her intern's résumés on her phone. She’d gone over them months ago when her sister Emily had sent them over from the school, but between Morgan’s busy shooting schedule and negotiations on her makeup line and TV show, she hadn't had a chance to refresh her memory.

Their grandfather had built the Walker Island school in the 1950s, and it had always felt like a second home to Morgan and her sisters, who had often curled up in the soft chair in their father's office while he graded English papers or worked on planning another school trip. Even now, he was away for a few more weeks with his students, showing them the important literary sites around Europe.

She looked down the long lines of lockers, easily imagining students running off to their classes before the final bell rang. The nearest set looked the same as they had when she had been a student, right down to the stickers the janitor still hadn’t been able to peel off. Again, Morgan found memories moving up through her, the past coming back all too easily. Particularly that night when she and Brian had snuck away from the senior prom, not waiting for the announcement of prom king and queen. It just hadn’t seemed important. Not when all she wanted was to be alone with him, especially when she'd known how close they were to saying good-bye to each other. He belonged on the island and would clearly never be as happy anywhere else, but she knew she'd never truly be happy if she
didn't
leave and find out what else there was in the world for her.

Even love hadn't been able to change that.

Still, though their relationship had been doomed from the start, Morgan could remember how much time she’d always spent getting ready for school as a teenage girl, fixing her makeup, making sure she looked just right for him. Brian, on the other hand, hadn't had to do anything to look just right. Athletic and tanned with sandy blond hair and a gorgeous smile, he always looked great.

If she closed her eyes, Morgan could almost hear the strains of
You and Me
by Lifehouse playing in the background, just as it had when they had left the prom that night. The lyrics had seemed like they had been written for her and Brian—two people who couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other, who felt like their hearts were spinning around and around whenever they kissed.

Morgan could still remember everything about that night, right down to the decorations they’d used on prom night, a combination of vines and wild flowers that Morgan had helped to grow on the Walker acre of land. It had probably been so cheesy, but at the time it had seemed simply beautiful.

Just like the moment when Brian had pulled her into this space between the lockers and kissed her. Even after all these years, Morgan could still remember the instant that their lips had met. It hadn’t been even close to their first kiss, but it was the one she always remembered when she thought about him. He had reached up to the decorations, breaking off a small section of flower-covered vine, twisting it into a circlet that he had settled onto her head. His own version of the prom queen’s crown. It had been such a simple thing to do. So perfect for the moment. So Brian.

“Forget the prom, Morgan. What matters is that you’ll always be
my
queen.”

“Always?”
Even after I'm gone?
she'd thought, but she hadn't wanted to ruin everything by saying it aloud. Not when it would happen all too soon.

But he hadn't paused, hadn't had to think about his answer. He'd simply said, “Always,” and then kissed her again, both of them pouring their entire hearts and souls into the kiss. One that they both knew would be one of their very last.

She had never wanted to hurt him, had even tried early on in high school to keep her distance in the hopes of avoiding an inevitable breakup when her dreams to see more of the world eventually overshadowed everything else. But in that moment on prom night in his arms, all she'd wanted for a few precious seconds was to live the dream where she was his, he was hers, and everything was simple. Where it was so easy to be young and in love and no one had to make hard choices.

She sighed, knowing that for all she'd tried over the past seven years to tell herself that she didn't have any regrets about leaving the island—and Brian—coming back to the places that were special to them made it
really
hard to keep believing she wasn't lying to herself.

She wondered what Brian looked like now. Probably as gorgeous as ever, she mused with a pang in the center of her chest.

Two figures came around the corner toward her. Morgan assumed the dark-haired girl was Natalie Fields. She was wearing glasses, carrying a folder and managing to look about as serious as was possible for a seventeen-year-old girl to look. Morgan had asked Emily to recruit kids with an interest in science on the basis that a lot of makeup production was chemistry and the horticulture involved in gathering the ingredients would involve plenty of knowledge of biology.

Natalie certainly fit the bill, and her internship application and high school achievements made it sound like she was a future Marie Curie in the making. Not only was she a straight-A student, but she’d also taken extra-credit biology and had written a very well-researched paper on environmental gardens. With luck, that would make her the perfect assistant when it came to helping to design and cultivate the old Walker plot for the project. The only question mark Morgan could think of was whether the girl would mind leaving the classroom and getting her hands dirty in the garden.

The boy walking beside Natalie was at least a foot taller, with youthful, good-looking features and his hair cut short. Clearly, Tad Burrows was going to be a great help in the brawn department as they farmed the garden. Emily had told her that Tad was the football team's star kicker. His grades, while far from awful, weren’t exactly in Natalie’s league, which made him a little hard to figure out. For Natalie, being Morgan’s intern made perfect sense. It showed colleges that she was serious about a scientific career, gave her experience to bring to employers, and helped her to make contacts in the makeup world if that was what she wanted to go into later. Tad, on the other hand, had clearly been focusing on football so that he could get an athletics scholarship. Nothing in his application suggested that he had any previous interest in gardening or science.

She was about to say hello and introduce herself when a third figure came walking around the corner...and Morgan's breath caught in her throat.

She’d been wrong. Brian wasn’t as gorgeous as ever. He was
better
looking than he had been before. He still had the muscular poise of an athlete, and his hair still fell in that unruly, boyish mess, but his features were more rugged now with a wiser, and definitely more confident, edge to his appearance.

For several seconds, Morgan couldn't manage to do anything but stare at him. She could have looked into those deep-blue eyes practically forever, and judging by the way that Brian was looking back at her—

Natalie moved to stand right in front of Morgan and thrust a hand out at her. “It’s
such
a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Walker. I’ve been looking forward to the chance to work with you ever since I heard about the opportunity. I watch your segment on TV whenever it comes on, and I just
loved
what you did with the makeup on that zombie movie you did last year. I mean, the way you made them look half-dead and really
good
all at the same time was amazing, and I'm just in awe of you and all that you've accomplished so far.”

Tad shook her hand, too. “Thanks so much for this opportunity, Ms. Walker. We're really excited about working with you. Aren't we, Coach Russell?”

Brian finally smiled at her, and for all that he'd changed, it was exactly the smile Morgan remembered. One that melted her from the inside out.

“It’s good to see you again, Morgan.”

“It’s nice to see you again, too, Brian.”

Just that quickly, seven years disappeared as sparks jumped between them again. Sparks that were even hotter and wilder than they had been before.

CHAPTER THREE

My God, Morgan was beautiful.

Morgan had been a pretty girl, but now she was every inch a stunning woman. More worldly. More confident. Wearing designer clothes, her gorgeous blond locks styled into glossy perfection.

But despite those changes, it was her eyes that struck him most. There was still the same restlessness there. The same need to find something bigger. Something
more
. It was one of the things he'd loved about her...even though he'd also known that one day it would be precisely what would pull them apart.

“Are there any celebrities who look, well, normal without their makeup on?” Natalie was asking Morgan as they stepped into Brian’s office.

Morgan laughed. “I can't name any names, but yes, there definitely are. Most of the time, the image you see is just the finished product, one that takes quite a lot of time and professionals to create.”

“Who’s the most famous person you’ve worked with?” Tad asked next.

Morgan looked a little tired, Brian thought, even though she was answering the kids’ questions brightly enough. He had always been able to spot the fatigue in her movements, the slight darkness under her eyes. Obviously, she hadn’t managed to snatch one of the afternoon naps she'd always loved so much when they were kids. Morgan had been able to fall asleep almost anywhere. She’d fallen asleep in the library when they were supposed to be studying, in classes when no one was watching, even occasionally in the corner at a party. Once during a family picnic when all of the other Walkers had been bustling around, Morgan had fallen asleep beneath a corner of the red-checkered tablecloth. Her sisters had liked to joke that she had to be part cat to curl up and sleep anywhere like that.

He'd always thought that they’d been right. After all, Morgan was not only beautiful, graceful and tender…she was also far too fiercely independent to ever want to remain in one spot for very long.

“There's something I don't totally get,” Tad said. “How did
you
get to be famous when you're just doing makeup for other people?”

“Tad!” Natalie exclaimed. “Ms. Walker does
amazing
work, not just with normal people like you and me, but with stars, too. She's the best in the business!”

“I know that,” Tad said, his face turning a little red as he belatedly realized he'd put his foot in his mouth. Especially in front of the girl that he clearly had a major crush on. “I just don’t understand—”

“How that translates to fame?” Morgan finished for him. “I’m not sure I understand it myself, some days.” She laughed again, and the sound warmed every part of Brian that had been cold for the past seven years. “I was very much in the background as a makeup artist until I started doing the TV makeover segments and a few of my online how-to videos went viral. I’m just glad it
did
end up working out like that, though, or I might not have such a good job now.”

But was she truly glad that she was famous now? Because as they headed through to Brian’s office, maybe most other people wouldn’t have seen it—it was obvious that neither Natalie nor Tad did—but being the focus of their awestruck questions was obviously making Morgan uncomfortable. There was that note of tension under the surface that Brian had always been able to spot. Morgan was doing her best to answer the kids’ questions, but it seemed to him that having to play the celebrity wasn’t quite as easy for Morgan as it would have been for someone who had truly been chasing fame rather than adventure.

Brian could remember that look well, the way she'd closed up a little bit every time someone had made a big deal about her being a Walker when they were kids. From the “I know your sisters” comments, to the looks she got from those on the Peterson side of the old island feud, to the tourists who had treated her as if she were one of the island’s attractions.

But then, maybe the difference with her fame as a makeup artist was that it came out of doing what she loved, whereas the Walker family fame simply lumped her together with her sisters and tied her down to the past. And Brian knew as well as anyone how little Morgan liked being tied down.

“Nice office,” Morgan said, looking around the small space that Brian occupied when he wasn’t in a classroom or out on the field coaching. It was a little disorganized at the moment with stacks of books along one wall, football plays written up on a board at one side, and enough assorted piles of paper on his desk that it was hard to see the wood beneath. “It's great that you're the football coach,” Morgan added while Natalie and Tad found space to sit.

“I also teach science,” Brian explained, since she had to be wondering why he was involved with her interns. “Your internship falls under the science department, and since one of our interns is also a football player, I was the obvious point of contact for you on this.”

Actually, he’d volunteered for it. Not that anyone else on staff seemed to mind. Even Morgan’s sister had been surprisingly okay with it. Probably because she knew how interested Brian was in seeing Morgan again. After all, her sisters had been almost as upset as he was when Morgan left the island immediately after graduating high school.