Sanctuary (9 page)

When she wrapped her legs around his waist, rocked her body against his, he was lost.

“I want you.” He tore his mouth from hers to race it along her throat while the waves tossed them about and into a tangle of limbs. “Damn you, Lex, you know I've always wanted you.”

Water flowed over her head, filled it with roaring. The sea sucked her down, made her giddy. Then she was in the dazzling sunlight again with his mouth fused to hers.

“Now, then. Right now.” She panted it out, amazed at how real the need was, that tight, hot little ball of it. “Right here.”

He'd wanted her like this as long as he could remember. Ready and willing and eager. His body pulsed toward pain with the need to be in her, and of her. And he knew if he let that need rule, he would take her and lose her in one flash.

Instead he slid his hands down from her waist to cup and knead her bottom, used his thumbs to torment her until her eyes went dark and blind. “I've waited, Lex.” And let her go. “So can you.”

She struggled to stay above the waves, sputtered out water as she gaped at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I'm not interested in scratching your itch and then watching you walk off purring.” He lifted a hand to push back his dripping hair. “When you're ready for more than that, you know where to find me.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“You go work off your mad, honey. We'll talk when you've had time to think it through calm.” His hand shot out, grabbed her arm. “When I make love with you, that's going to be it for both of us. You'll want to think about that too.”

She shoved his hand away. “Don't you touch me again, Giff Verdon.”

“I'm going to do more than touch you,” he told her as she dove under to swim toward shore. “I'm going to marry you,” he said, only loud enough for his own ears. He let out a long breath as he watched her stride out of the water. “Unless I kill myself first.”

To ease the throbbing in his system, he sank under the water. But as the taste of her continued to cling to his mouth, he decided he was either the smartest man on Desire or the stupidest.

 

 

JO had just drummed up the energy to take a walk and had reached the edges of the garden when Lexy stormed up the path. She hadn't bothered to towel off, so the little sundress was plastered against her like skin. Jo straightened her shoulders, lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, how's the water?”

“Go to hell.” Breath heaving, humiliation still stinging, Lexy planted her feet. “Just go straight to hell.”

“I'm beginning to think I've already arrived. And so far my welcome's been pretty much as expected.”

“Why should you expect anything? This place means nothing to you and neither do we.”

“How do you know what means anything to me, Lexy?”

“I don't see you changing sheets, clearing tables. When's the last time you scrubbed a toilet or mopped a damn floor?”

“Is that what you've been doing this afternoon?” Jo skimmed her gaze up Lexy's damp and sandy legs to her dripping hair. “Must have been some toilet.”

“I don't have to explain myself to you.”

“Same goes, Lex.” When Jo started to move past, Lexy grabbed her arm and jerked.

“Why did you come back here?”

Weariness swamped her suddenly, made her want to weep. “I don't know. But it wasn't to hurt you. It wasn't to hurt anybody. And I'm too tired to fight with you now.”

Baffled, Lexy stared at her. The sister she knew would have waded in with words, scraped flesh with sarcasm. She'd never known Jo to tremble and back off. “What happened to you?”

“I'll let you know when I figure it out.” Jo shook off the hand blocking her. “Leave me alone, and I'll do the same for you.”

She walked quickly down the path, took its curve toward the sea. She barely glanced at the dune swale with its glistening grasses, never looked up to follow the flight of the gull that called stridently. She needed to think, she told herself. Just an hour or two of quiet thought. She would figure out what to do, how to tell them. If she should tell them at all.

Could she tell them about her breakdown? Could she tell anyone that she'd spent two weeks in the hospital because her nerves had snapped and something in her mind had tilted? Would they be sympathetic, ambivalent, or hostile?

And what did it matter?

How could she tell them about the photograph? No matter how often she was at sword's point with them, they were her family. How could she put them through that, dredging up the pain and the past? And if any of them demanded to see it, she would have to tell them it was gone.

Just like Annabelle.

Or it had never existed.

They would think her mad. Poor Jo Ellen, mad as a hatter.

Could she tell them she'd spent days trembling inside her apartment, doors locked, after she'd left the hospital? That she would catch herself searching mindlessly, frantically, for the print that would prove she wasn't really ill?

And that she had come home, because she'd finally had to accept that she was ill. That if she had stayed locked in that apartment alone for another day, she would never have found the courage to leave it again.

Still, the print was so clear in her mind. The texture, the tones, the composition. Her mother had been young in the photograph. And wasn't that the way Jo remembered her—young? The long waving hair, the smooth skin? If she was going to hallucinate about her mother, wouldn't she have snapped to just that age?

Nearly the same age she herself was now, Jo thought. That was probably another reason for all the dreams, the fears, the nerves. Had Annabelle been as restless and as edgy as her daughter was? Had there been a lover after all? There had been whispers of that, even a child had been able to hear them. There'd been no hint of one, no suspicion of infidelity before the desertion. But afterward the rumors had been rife, and tongues had clucked and wagged.

But then, Annabelle would have been discreet, and clever. She had given no hint of her plans to leave, yet she had left.

Wouldn't Daddy have known? Jo wondered. Surely a man knew if his wife was restless and dissatisfied and unhappy. She knew they had argued over the island. Had that been enough to do it, to make Annabelle so unhappy that she would turn her back on her home, her husband, her children? Hadn't he seen it, or had he even then been oblivious to the feelings of the people around him?

It was so hard to remember if it had ever been different. But surely there had once been laughter in that house. Echoes of it still lingered in her mind. Quick snapshots of her parents embracing in the kitchen, of her mother laughing, of walking on the beach with her father's hand holding hers.

They were dim pictures, faded with time as if improperly fixed, but they were there. And they were real. If she had managed to block so many memories of her mother out of her mind, then she could also bring them back. And maybe she would begin to understand.

Then she would decide what to do.

The crunch of a footstep made her look up quickly. The sun was behind him, casting him in shadow. A cap shielded his eyes. His stride was loose and leggy.

Another long-forgotten picture snapped into her mind. She saw herself as a little girl with flyaway hair racing down the path, giggling, calling, then leaping high. And his arms had reached out to catch her, to toss her high, then hug her close.

Jo blinked the picture away and the tears that wanted to come with it. He didn't smile, and she knew that no matter how she worked to negate it, he saw Annabelle in her.

She lifted her chin and met his eyes. “Hello, Daddy.”

“Jo Ellen.” He stopped a foot away and took her measure. He saw that Kate had been right. The girl looked ill, pale, and strained. Because he didn't know how to touch her, didn't believe she would welcome the touch in any case, he dipped his hands into his pockets. “Kate told me you were here.”

“I came in on the morning ferry,” she said, knowing the information was unnecessary.

For a difficult moment they stood there, more awkward than strangers. Sam shifted his feet. “You in trouble?”

“I'm just taking some time off.”

“You look peaked.”

“I've been working too hard.”

Frowning, he looked deliberately at the camera hanging from a strap around her neck. “Doesn't look like you're taking time off to me.”

In an absent gesture, she cupped a hand under the camera. “Old habits are hard to break.”

“They are that.” He huffed out a breath. “There's a pretty light on the water today, and the waves are up. Guess it'd make a nice picture.”

“I'll check it out. Thanks.”

“Take a hat next time. You'll likely burn.”

“Yes, you're right. I'll remember.”

He could think of nothing else, so he nodded and started up the path, moving past her. “Mind the sun.”

“I will.” She turned away quickly, walking blindly now because she had smelled the island on him, the rich, dark scent of it, and it broke her heart.

 

 

MILES away in the hot red glow of the darkroom light, he slipped paper, emulsion side up, into a tray of developing fluid. It pleased him to re-create the moment from so many years before, to watch it form on the paper, shadow by shadow and line by line.

He was nearly done with this phase and wanted to linger, to draw out all the pleasure before he moved on.

He had driven her back to Sanctuary. The idea made him chuckle and preen. Nothing could have been more perfect. It was there that he wanted her. Otherwise he would have taken her before, half a dozen times before.

But it had to be perfect. He knew the beauty of perfection and the satisfaction of working carefully toward creating it.

Not Annabelle, but Annabelle's daughter. A perfect circle closing. She would be his triumph, his masterpiece.

Claiming her, taking her, killing her.

And every stage of it would be captured on film. Oh, how Jo would appreciate that. He could barely wait to explain it all to her, the one person he was certain would understand his ambition and his art.

Her work drew him, and his understanding of it made him feel intimate with her already. And they would become more intimate yet.

Smiling, he shifted the print from the developing tray to the stop bath, swishing it through before lifting it into the fixer. Carefully, he checked the temperature of the wash, waiting patiently until the timer rang and he could switch on the white light and examine the print.

Beautiful, just beautiful. Lovely composition. Dramatic lighting—such a perfect halo over the hair, such lovely shadows to outline the body and highlight skin tones. And the subject, he thought. Perfection.

When the print was fully fixed, he lifted it out of the tray and into the running water of the wash. Now he could allow himself to dream of what was to come.

He was closer to her than ever, linked to her through the photographs that reflected each of their lives. He could barely wait to send her the next. But he knew he must choose the time with great care.

On the worktable beside him a battered journal lay open, its precisely written words faded from time.

With a quiet sigh, he hung the print to dry and turned on the white light to better study it.

“Annabelle,” he murmured. “So beautiful. And your daughter is the image of you.”

He left Annabelle there, staring, staring, and went out to complete his plans for his stay on Desire.

T
HE ferry steamed across Pelican Sound, heading east to Lost Desire. Nathan Delaney stood at the starboard rail as he had once before as a ten-year-old boy. It wasn't the same ferry, and he was no longer a boy, but he wanted to re-create the moment as closely as possible.

It was cool with the breeze off the water, and the scent of it was raw and mysterious. It had been warmer before, but then it had been late May rather than mid-April.

Close enough, he thought, remembering how he and his parents and his young brother had all crowded together at the starboard rail of another ferry, eager for their first glimpse of Desire and the start of their island summer.

He could see little difference. Spearing up from the land were the majestic live oaks with their lacy moss, cabbage palms, and glossyleaved magnolias not yet in bloom.

Had they been blooming then? A young boy eager for adventure paid little attention to flowers.

He lifted the binoculars that hung around his neck. His father had helped him aim and focus on that long-ago morning so that he could catch the quick dart of a woodpecker. The expected tussle had followed because Kyle had demanded the binoculars and Nathan hadn't wanted to give them up.

He remembered his mother laughing at them, and his father bending down to tickle Kyle to distract him. In his mind, Nathan could see the picture they had made. The pretty woman with her hair blowing, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement and excitement. The two young boys, sturdy and scrubbed, squabbling. And the man, tall and dark, long of leg and rangy of build.