Close to Home Part 20

"I'm counting the minutes." She leaned harder against the door, imagining him on the other side doing the same. She loved him so much, her heart felt sore and swollen with it.

"Just count to ten," he reminded her with another soft laugh. "And remember, I love you. No matter what. You'll never be alone again."

That was a little ominous, Tessa thought, raising her eyebrows as she listened for the sound of his footsteps retreating down the hallway. After ten seconds, Tessa reached for the doork.n.o.b and turned it.

The door swung wide, and there on the threshold stood Tessa's mother.

Naomi Mulligan was older, her face lined with the cares and trials of a lifetime of hard work and regrets. Her thick hair had gone fully gray, and her figure had rounded to a softness that had never been possible during the years of Tessa's bare-bones childhood. But it was unmistakably her.

Everything inside Tessa cried out in recognition. A sob tore its way from her chest. "Mom," she cried, and nearly fell across the threshold into her mother's open arms.

Naomi's embrace was as strong and sure as Tessa remembered. Tears came in a torrent, a flood that had been dammed up for years, suddenly released in a river of relief. She felt her mother's tears against her own cheek, and the two women clung together for several long minutes.

"My sweet girl," Naomi whispered, voice choked and thick with emotion. She pulled back far enough to frame Tessa's face between her hands. "You grew up so beautiful and healthy."

Tessa's heart broke a little. "Yes," she a.s.sured her mother. "I got treatment for the seizures, and they finally stopped completely a few years after I ... after I left. I wrote letters, I wanted you to know I was okay."

Naomi dropped her hands from her daughter's face, pain tightening her features. "I never got those letters. I had left the community by then."

"I can't believe you left. I never thought you would."

A strange expression crossed Naomi's face. "Sweet girl. Do you really think I could have stayed? At that place, in that life-the life that had endangered my daughter and made her think she'd be safer running away than staying with us? And the worst part of it was that you were right. You were better off without us."

Tessa grabbed the tormented woman by the shoulders. "I had to leave, and I'm not sorry I did-I can't be sorry for any choice I made that led me here, to the life I'm building on Sanctuary Island with the man I love. But Mom, I wasn't better off without you. I missed you every day."

Naomi covered her eyes with her hands, shoulders hunching. "Oh. To hear you say that, after all the ways I failed you. I should have stood up to your father much sooner. I should have been stronger, I should have gotten us both away."

The words healed a ragged wound in Tessa's heart, allowing compa.s.sion and forgiveness to flow into the breach. "You were afraid. The community was the only way of life you knew. And Dad was..."

She broke off, suddenly unsure how much her mother knew about the events of the past few weeks.

"Your father is a bully," Naomi said bluntly. "He wants to control everything and everyone around him, even if it means crus.h.i.+ng the life out of them. And don't worry, your young man filled me in on how far Abe was willing to go to get me back under his thumb. I'm so sorry, darling. So very everlastingly sorry that I couldn't protect you from him."

Tessa wrapped her mother up in a forgiving hug. "You didn't make his choices for him," she said, repeating the mantra she'd been working with lately. "And you did the best you could, under really difficult circ.u.mstances. I always knew that, Mom."

Blinking away tears, Naomi shook her head. "Where did you get that big, wide-open heart?"

"Well, not from Dad." Tessa smiled at her mother, who tentatively smiled back. "Come on, come sit down with me. We have a lot of years to catch up on."

"Yes, I want to hear all about the man who tracked me down-the man you're marrying!"

"Technically, we're already married ... it's a long story."

Naomi clutched her hand. "I'm not going anywhere. We have time."

The barn was crammed with people. Their "small, private" ceremony had bloomed into a town-wide celebration. Loyal bakery customers chatted to Windy Corner Therapeutic Riding Center employees on white folding chairs set up among the hay bales. Brad Garner, his buddy from the ATF, was there with his wife, and they'd gotten drawn into an animated conversation with Quinn once she finished handing out the programs and studiously ignoring Marcus Beckett. Marcus sat impa.s.sively at Miss Patty's side, in the very front row by the pile of saddles they'd moved to make room for the ceremony, and didn't move except to keep Patty from getting up to greet every new person who arrived.

Johnny stood underneath the hayloft, breathing in the scents of sweet hay, leather, and horses. They'd asked to say their vows at Windy Corner, because without that place, they wouldn't have made it this far. Dr. Voss had smiled so broadly when they asked, Johnny had thought her cheeks might split.

Now Johnny stared out over the smiling crowd of half-familiar, very friendly faces, and wondered when he was going to start feeling nervous.

G.o.d knew, he hadn't been smart enough to be nervous the first time he married Tessa. He'd been so sure he knew what he was doing, caught up in the practical implications and the satisfaction of helping someone who needed him. It wasn't until a few years later that he realized what he'd done-that he'd tied himself for life to a woman he couldn't touch. A woman who made him burn for her, without even realizing she was the spark that lit him up.

He'd a.s.sumed he'd be nervous in this moment, as their second wedding ceremony was about to begin. After all, now he knew what he was getting into. He knew how much Tessa meant to him. He didn't know exactly what their new life together would look like, but he knew it would be different from everything that came before.

Yeah, it seemed like he should be feeling some nerves. But he just wasn't, he mused as someone at the back near the open barn doors picked up a guitar and began to pluck at the strings. It was the man from the hardware store, Johnny recognized with a start. The one they called King, who wore a funny toy crown and sat playing checkers all day and picking up gossip. It turned out that checkers and gossip weren't King's only interests. The music he coaxed from that guitar sent warm chills down Johnny's spine. He felt as if the man's fingers were reaching into his chest to pluck at his heart.

A ripple went through the guests, and Johnny's heart quickened. Everyone stood up, so he couldn't see at first, but in the next instant, he caught a glimpse of Tessa. His wife.

She walked down the aisle between the chairs in a simple cream-colored sundress, and she was so beautiful, she dazzled him. Her smile was radiant, her eyes bright and clear when they locked on his. He couldn't look away, and it took him a full minute to realize that she was walking with someone.

Johnny's chest filled with satisfaction when he saw that Tessa was arm in arm with her mother. It looked like his gift had gone over well.

When the two women reached the front of the barn, Naomi hugged and kissed her daughter, then stepped close to Johnny. "Thank you," she whispered fervently as he bent down to embrace her. "For loving her as much as she deserves to be loved, and for bringing me here to be a part of this special day."

"I'd do anything for your daughter," he said quietly. "I'd give everything I am to make her happy."

"From what she tells me, you already have." Naomi patted his cheek and went to sit down while Johnny turned to Tessa.

She held out her hands to him, and he took them. In a husky undertone, he whispered, "It's a real struggle not to bend you back over my arm and kiss the breath from your body, right here and now."

He was rewarded with a s.h.i.+very sigh and a slow lowering of Tessa's lashes. Her lips parted in the smile of a woman who knew all about pleasure. "Patience," she murmured. "Let's declare our love and commitment to each other in front of all the people who matter most to us in this world. And then you can have whatever you want."

"I already have everything I want," he told her. "I have a second chance. A new life. And you."

"We have each other," Tessa said, smiling with tears sparkling in her eyes. "Forever."

Epilogue.

One month later ...

The knock on the door roused Marcus from his intent contemplation of the last half-inch of whiskey left in the bottle.

"Go away," he growled, pulling the bottle closer. He wasn't sure where his gla.s.s was, but it didn't matter. He could drink straight from the bottle. He was alone.

As usual.

He settled deeper into the tattered, secondhand armchair that had come with the apartment over the bar when he bought it. The chair was uglier than sin, splotched with giant pink flowers on a mustard-yellow background, but it was comfortable and it reclined. He could sleep in it. Better than he slept in his bed, these days.

Marcus was just thinking about ditching the last of the whiskey in favor of shutting his eyes for a minute or two when the knock came again. Swearing violently, he swung to his feet and immediately rammed his bare heel into the heavy leg of the side table.

He kicked the offending table aside with a screech of wooden furniture on hardwood floor, and stormed over to wrench open the door.

"What?" he barked, and then he saw who it was.

Quinn Harper stood in his doorway with a backpack over her shoulder and a deeply unimpressed expression on her lovely face.

She looked good. He'd managed to successfully avoid her for weeks by throwing himself into his renovations. What with one thing and another, the way this island had sucked him in and distracted him with new friends and old ladies in jeopardy and whatnot, the opening of the b.u.t.tercup Inn was behind schedule.

In the last few weeks, he'd made real progress on his bar. His new life's ambition to become a hermit wasn't going as well, but it was a work in progress, too.

In a blur, Marcus realized what he probably looked like to Quinn. A sad, old man drinking alone in his darkened apartment, too out of it to bother with shoes or a s.h.i.+rt. Her gaze drifted down and Marcus became intensely aware of how low his unb.u.t.toned jeans hung on his hips.

Meanwhile, she looked as fresh and wholesome as a gla.s.s of milk. Quinn hadn't spent the last few weeks drinking herself to sleep every night. She'd spent some of that time in the sun, if her new freckles were any indication. Marcus wanted to map them with his tongue, to see if her gold-tinted skin tasted any different than the creamy paleness he'd had his mouth on a month ago.

Quinn raised her brows and Marcus resisted the urge to b.u.t.ton up, or to retreat inside for a s.h.i.+rt. Instead, he leaned his arm on the doorjamb above his head and regarded her with a defiant sneer to cover the way his body was suddenly working feverishly to metabolize the alcohol in his system.

"Couldn't stay away?"

Something flared in her blue-green eyes, like sunset glinting off the bottom of a pool. For the first time since they met, the open book of Quinn's expressive face was closed to Marcus.

"My parents came home this afternoon," she said briskly. "So now I need a place to stay and I happen to know the studio next door to you is available. I'd like to rent it, please."

Marcus snorted. "Right. I'm not one of your gullible little college boyfriends, sweetheart. Find someplace else."

He started to close the door in her face, but Quinn stuck her sneaker-clad foot in the crack and said, "You think I'd be here if there were anyplace else on this entire island available for rent? It's the high season. There's nothing. Give me the keys. I'm moving in next door, and you know my rent will be paid on time because I took the job at Windy Corner."

That was something, at least. Marcus tried to believe that result was worth the way he'd broken up with her. "Good. I'm glad."

She rolled her eyes at his reluctant semicongratulations. "I don't give a c.r.a.p if you're glad. I didn't do it to make you happy."

This time, Marcus held back the snort of amus.e.m.e.nt. He knew d.a.m.n well she didn't care about making him happy. If she did, she wouldn't be here right now trying to emotionally blackmail him into renting her an apartment. But he couldn't say any of that without admitting the truth.

He was weak, where Quinn Harper was concerned.

Apparently, he'd stood there silent long enough for her patience to run dry. She pressed her lips together, her jaw tight. "Please," she ground out. "I can't stay in my parents' house. My mother and I get along better when we don't share a roof, I need my own place, and this is it."

Weak. He was weak.

Without a word, Marcus reached into the bowl on the table by the door and grabbed the keys Johnny had dropped off a few weeks ago. He tossed them to her and she caught them one-handed.

The smile she gave him didn't reach her eyes, but that was for the best. A real smile might've forced him to reconsider this incredibly stupid, self-hating move.

"Thank you. I'll be the perfect tenant," she promised, already backing across the hall to her own-G.o.d, what had he done?-her own apartment. "You'll never even know I'm there."

"Good," he said, and slammed his door closed. With a deep sigh, Marcus leaned his forehead against the smooth, cold wood. Very cool. Very mature.

From outside his door, he heard the distinctive sounds of the key jiggling around in the studio apartment's tricky lock. Quinn cursed softly under her breath, but before Marcus could talk himself into going out there and helping her, she got it.

The door across the hall opened and closed, leaving silence behind. But it wasn't the same empty silence that had messed with Marcus's head for the past four weeks.

No, this silence was full of Quinn, seething and jumping with all the things they still hadn't said to each other, all the things he still wanted to do to her. Abruptly, Marcus missed that hollow, crus.h.i.+ng silence from before. It had hurt, like having a car flipped over to crush his chest, but it had been bearable.

This? The knowledge that Quinn Harper was in the apartment right across the hall? This was going to be a nightmare.

And if anyone knew about nightmares, it was Marcus Beckett.

Catch up on the Sanctuary Island series by Lily Everett!.

Available now from St. Martin's Paperbacks.

ALSO BY LILY EVERETT.

Sanctuary Island.

Sh.o.r.eline Drive.

Homecoming.

Heartbreak Cove.

Home for Christmas.

Three Promises.

Home at Last (coming in March).

Praise for the Sanctuary Island series.

"Sanctuary Island is a novel to curl up with and enjoy by a crackling fire or on a sunny beach. It's a beautifully told story of hope and forgiveness, celebrating the healing power of love."

-Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author.

"I didn't read this book, I inhaled it. An incredible story of love, forgiveness, healing, and joy."

-Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author.

"A heartwarming, emotional, extremely romantic story that I couldn't read fast enough! Enjoy your trip to Sanctuary Island! I guarantee you won't want to leave."

-Bella Andre, New York Times bestselling author of the Sullivan series "Well-written and emotionally satisfying. I loved it! A rare find."

-Lori Wilde, New York Times bestselling author.

"Fall in love with Sanctuary Island. Lily Everett brings tears, laughter and a happy-ever-after smile to your face while you're experiencing her well-written, compa.s.sionate novel. I highly recommend this book, which hits home with true-to-life characters."

-Romance Junkies.

"Redemption, reconciliation, and, of course, romance-Everett's novel has it all."