Prince Charming Can Wait (Ever After) (7 page)

The low rumble of a motorboat engine penetrated her thoughts. Startled, she looked up as the red bow light of a boat moved slowly toward her dock. For a split second, she didn't move, too shocked by the sudden flashback to the night eight years ago when Preston Hayes, the out-of-town summer resident she'd had a crush on for years, had picked her up at the town dock on their first date, sweeping her off for a night on an island that had cemented her as his.

"Emma?" Harlan's low voice drifted over the water, and sudden electricity flooded her.

She lurched to her feet, her heart hammering as she saw his broad silhouette guiding the boat right toward her.

She was like an angel in the night.

Harlan couldn't take his gaze off Emma as he cut the engine, letting his boat drift in toward her dock. He'd been out for one last tour of the lake, one last night to remember the town that he'd made his home for the last five years. He'd expected to feel relief, but he hadn't. He'd felt strangely melancholy, as if he was leaving before he was supposed to. Instinct had taken him past Emma's small cabin, as he'd done on so many other sleepless nights.

This time, for the first time in two years, she'd been outside. The way she'd been huddled up in that huge blanket had caught his attention, as if she were a broken bird stranded on land. He hadn't intended to approach. Hadn't planned to say anything. But the boat had drifted right toward her anyway.

"Harlan?" She grabbed the bow of the boat as it bumped her dock, jerking him back to the present.

He caught one of the pilings on her dock, anchoring the boat as the blanket slid off her shoulders. In the moonlight, he could tell she was wearing a white tank top with straps so thin they looked like they would snap under the faintest breeze. Her black shorts were boldly short, revealing so much more leg than he'd ever seen from the woman who wore long skirts and blue jeans every day of her life, or at least on every day that he'd seen her. Her hair was down, tangled around her shoulders, as if it were caressing the skin she'd so carelessly exposed to the night.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Her voice was throaty and raw, and he realized she'd been crying.

"Couldn't sleep." He leaned on the piling, not daring to get out of the boat, not when the need to play the hero was pulsing through him so strongly. All he could think of was folding her into his arms and chasing away the demons haunting her. "You?"

"Same." She hugged herself, her huge eyes searching his. The moonlight cast dark shadows on her face, hollowing out her eyes and her cheeks.

"Want a ride?" He asked the question without intending to, but found himself holding his breath while it sat in the air, waiting for her response.

"To where?"

He shrugged. "Nowhere. I'm just driving."

She looked back at her cabin. "I was just—"

"Crying. I know. Going back inside will help, do you think? Or maybe getting the hell away from life for twenty minutes would be better?"

Defiance flared in her eyes, and her shoulders seemed to lift. Without a word, she grabbed the corner of the windshield and set her bare foot on the edge of his boat. Silently, he held out his hand to the woman he'd never touched in all the years he'd known her, except for last night. She met his gaze, and then set her hand in his.

Jesus. Her skin was like the softest silk, decadent in its fragility, tempting in its strength. He closed his fingers around hers and helped her into his boat. Her hip slid against his side as she stepped in, and electricity sizzled through him.

She caught her breath, glancing at him as she moved away to sit in the passenger seat.

Harlan said nothing. He had no idea what to say. Not to her. Not to this woman. Not in this moment. So, instead, he restarted the boat, reversed it, and then unleashed the throttle. The boat leapt forward, slicing through the water with a boldness that was probably irresponsible in the dark.

But he knew the lake, every inch of it, and the moonlight was bright enough to guide him.

He didn't feel like being careful. Not tonight. Tonight he wanted wind. He wanted water. He wanted freedom. And he wanted the woman sitting in his boat.

Harlan cruised the lake for almost an hour.

They didn't speak, for which Emma was grateful. She had no idea what to say to him, to this man that she'd seen around town for years, but never actually had a conversation with until last night. She knew a little about him from Astrid, knew that he'd come to Astrid's aid when she'd had no one else to help her, but even Astrid had never been able to unlock the secrets of her brother.

For a long while, Emma stopped thinking about anything. She just closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat, letting the wind whip at her. Though it was a warm night, it was chilly in the boat, but she didn't feel like stopping. There was just something liberating about being out on the water, nowhere near land, with nothing but a broad expanse of black sky and white stars above her head.

Eventually, however, she could not resist a peek at the man standing beside her. Harlan was standing at the wheel, one hand on the steering wheel, one arm draped over the windshield. The wind was whipping his dark hair, and his white tee shirt was flapping against his steel-hard body. There was no fat on him, just raw, solid muscle, as if he were a machine that had been created for physical labor. His jaw was hard as he scanned the lake, his face stoic and impassive. There was nothing soft about him, nothing approachable, but she didn't feel scared with him.

Maybe it was because she'd seen the turmoil in his eyes the night before, the humanity that was beneath his cool exterior.

He turned his head to look at her, and awareness leapt through her as she met his intense gaze. Without a word, he pulled back on the gearshift, and the boat slowed instantly, sinking into the water as it eased to a stop. He cut the engine, and there was no sound except the gentle lapping of the water against the hull.

Around them was nothing but water. Further away were the dark shadows of the wooded shoreline. During the day, houses would be visible dotting the shore, but at this hour, it was just blackness, with only an occasional outdoor light glistening in the dark. It was early July, and the summer residents were descending upon the town, opening up their houses and filling the region with energy.

But right there, on the lake, it was just the two of them.

"Why were you crying?" Harlan asked, without preamble, without any of the delicate tact that a person was supposed to have.

Weirdly, she wasn't offended. It was almost a relief not to have to pretend. Out here, in the darkness, it seemed like reality was so far away. She felt as if secrets that were whispered would disappear into the night, never to haunt the day. "Because I was sad."

"Why were you sad?" He was still standing at the wheel, one arm draped over the windshield, but he was watching her intently, so focused she could feel the heat of his gaze on her.

"Just a lot of stuff coming down on me at the same time." She shrugged, not wanting to rehash details that would just make her cry again.

"Tell me one of them."

She sighed, his insistence almost a relief. She didn't know how to bring someone else into her struggles, but somehow, he made it easier. "Because I was officially divorced yesterday."

He looked away, staring across the lake. "You loved him." His voice was flat.

"I once did, until I realized that he was a manipulative bastard."

He turned his head toward her again. "Did he hurt you?"

"Physically?"

He nodded once. "Yeah."

"A little."

His jaw ticked, and he looked across the lake again. "Do you know what that makes me want to do?"

She watched his grip tighten around the wheel. "What?"

"Kill him."

Emma started to smile, then realized he wasn't kidding. She stared at him. "You're serious."

"Yeah."

Weird emotions swirled through her, including an inappropriate rush of excitement that this man, this intensely potent man, would actually want to come to her defense. At the same time, there was a ripple of wariness that he could actually even conceive of killing another person, and then admit it so calmly. Preston had been like that, hiding his true self behind a display of glitz, charm, and wealth. Not that Harlan was glitzy, or even charming. But he didn't exactly have a tattoo on his chest that announced that killing people was his first reaction to hearing about a bastard ex-husband.

He said nothing for another moment, and neither did she. Finally, she spoke, "Have you killed people?" The moment the question was out, she was horrified. What kind of question was that? It was rude, and, if by some horrible twist of fate, the answer was yes, she did not want to know that while she was stranded on a boat with him.

Harlan didn't respond, and a cold chill burrowed into Emma's bones. She began to shiver, and she knew it wasn't from just the temperature of the air. "I think it's time to go back—"

"I have skills," Harlan said quietly, keeping his attention focused on the distant shoreline. "Useful skills. People pay me to do things."

A cold draft of foreboding began to pulse at her. "What kinds of things?"

He finally turned his head to look at her. His eyes were dark and inscrutable. "Tell me a secret, Emma. Something dark. Something terrible. Something that you've never told anyone else."

Her heart began to pound. "I don't—"

He sat down suddenly on the driver's seat, facing her. His knees went on either side of hers, and he leaned forward, taking her hands in his, his gaze searching hers. "People get kidnapped," he said. "Paying a ransom isn't always the right choice. I go find them. I get them out. I bring them home. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I shoot people. Sometimes I get shot. At some point, I'm not going to walk away alive."

She stared at him, her heart pounding in her throat. His hands were tight around hers, like a vice. He was so intense in his body language, crowding her space with his size and strength. It was intoxicating, even though she knew she should probably be afraid. But she wasn't. She actually wanted to scoot forward in her own seat and get closer to him, as if his intensity was calling to her, igniting her own emotions. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because someone has to know." He leaned closer, his shoulders bunched. "Someone needs to know when I don't come back. Someone has to miss me."

She swallowed. "Astrid—"

"—has finally found peace after a life of hell," he said. "I won't bring this to her plate."

Emma had a sudden sense that he'd never told anyone, ever, what he was telling her now. "Why me? Why now?"

"Because I need to." He slid his hand behind her neck, pulling her so close that his face was against hers, his cheek just barely brushing against hers.

"Oh." She closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath. "That's where you're going tomorrow? On a mission? That might kill you?" The words caught in her throat, and unexpected grief seemed to surge through her.

"I have a feeling," he said quietly.

"Then don't go." She pulled her hand free of his and gripped the front of his shirt. "Then don't do it."

He didn't look away, didn't back off. "It's the only thing I do."

"You're a real estate agent. You're a brother. An uncle—"

"No." He wrapped his hand around her fist, holding her hand to his chest. The heat from his skin seemed to burn right through his shirt, searing her palm. She tore her gaze off his chest and looked at him. There was such haunting agony in his eyes, such tormented isolation, that she felt her own heart break for him.

He didn't belong in this world, in this small town, just as how she always felt she didn't fit into her life either. She had tried to be the good wife and failed. She knew what it was like. She understood him.

He relaxed under her gaze, and a small smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. "You get it," he said softly.

"I still think you shouldn't go. Not if you think you might die. You have to listen to your instincts." She thought back to the night of her marriage, while she'd been standing in the foyer of that beautiful church. "I knew something was wrong," she said softly. "Right before I married Preston, I was suddenly terrified. I felt like something was going to leap out of the earth and swallow me up." She managed a small smile. "I thought it was nerves, but it wasn't. My instincts picked up on something, and I didn't listen." She met his gaze. "If you feel like this mission will go bad, don't go."

He studied her, and she grimaced, bracing herself for his harsh retort that she didn't have the right to talk to him like that, or to make judgments about his life. Harlan was a man that practically bled independence. No way would he tolerate her offering her opinion—

"My father died alone," he said softly, surprising her with a confession instead of hostility and condemnation. "He died in the woods, and no one knew or cared that he was gone. I found him two months later. He'd been half-eaten by scavengers, rotting away two miles from the town he'd lived in his whole life. No one cared. No one looked for him. He just lay there, injured, waiting to die, and knowing that no one gave a shit."

Her heart tightened. "That's so sad."

"I don't want that to be me."

Emma touched his face, her heart aching for him. A man like Harlan would never talk of these things, not with strangers, not with women. She knew that, and yet in the darkness, on the eve of what he thought was his death, the words came. "Astrid would look for you—"

"She didn't. I've been gone for almost a year, and she let me go."

"That's not fair. She sent emails, and you didn't answer—"

"Not the same." He gripped her wrist. "It's not the same."

"Well, you have to reach out and—"

"Marry me, Emma."

She froze, sudden terror careening through her. "
What?
" She must have heard wrong. She must have—