Between Here and the Horizon(68)

He was walking toward me, chin dipped down, staring at me from under those dark brows of his—Sexy. So goddamn sexy—and I couldn’t help it. Adrenalin fired through me like a bullet leaving a gun, tearing everything apart in its wake. “I’m not bored,” he said slowly, his voice low. “I haven’t been bored for a single second in your company, Lang. From day one, you’ve intrigued me.”

“Harassed you. I’ve harassed you. You said it yourself.” I was looking over his shoulder, trying to figure out how to slip by him, across the room and out the front door, but it was as if Sully could sense my thoughts. He sidestepped, shaking his head, tutting. “How long do you have left on the island, Lang?” he asked.

“Three and a half months.” I should have stammered. My speech always let me down when I was nervous, and right now I was terrified. I should have been tripping up over my own tongue at every turn, and yet I somehow got the words out in one go.

“Three and a half months. Right. So, do you think we should really be wasting any more of the little time we could be spending together?”

Shock.

I was in shock.

Sully looked serious. The intensity pouring off him had me reaching for the wall behind me, trying to make sure I didn’t slide down it and collapse into a pool onto the floor. “You know us spending time together in that way isn’t a smart move. On my part, or on yours. You’re right. Three and a half months is such a short amount of time—”

“It’s enough time to get to know each other.”

‘It’s enough time to fall for someone. Hard. And then what? I go back to California, without the children, without a job, and with a broken heart?” I shook my head. “No, Sully. This doesn’t end well.”

“You don’t know how it ends,” he retorted. “And I can guarantee you, you won’t have fallen for me by the time you leave this place. I won’t let it happen. I can protect you from it.”

“How?”

He closed the gap between us again, moving slowly. “By letting you get to know me. By showing you my true colors.” He gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, staring at my earlobe like he wanted to feast on it. “And I’ll crank up my * super powers to the fiendish setting. That ought to do the trick.”

I looked up at him defiantly, searching his face. Did he believe his snarky comebacks and his sharp-edged tongue would be enough to hold back the tides of something that already felt unstoppable, like the wave of a tsunami rushing in to shore? I studied his face for a long time, willing myself not to lean into his hand and close my eyes. Sully gave nothing away. His face was blank, his eyes mirrors, only reflecting myself back to me in their dark depths, betraying nothing of him at all. His lips were pressed tightly shut—that was the only thing that gave him away. He was holding his breath.

Pushing away from the wall, I stooped down and grabbed my purse from the floor, then hurried past him before he could stop me. “I’m sorry, Sully. I have to go.”

“Lang?”

I didn’t turn back.

“Ronan and I fought all the time,” he rushed out. “We raged, and we gouged, and we kicked the living shit out of each other, but through it all we always still loved each other. After what he did with Magda, though…there was no coming back from that. It changed me. I’ll admit I’m not the man I used to be. But you make me feel…f*ck.” He stopped, growling under his breath. “You make me feel like I might be able to find that man again, the man I was, before Magda and before Afghanistan, and it scares the shit out of me. I don’t even know if I want to be him again. So…don’t walk away for good. I get it if you have to walk away for now. But make sure you come back, okay? This isn’t done yet and you know it.”





CHAPTER TWENTY





Snow Angels





Three days. Then a week. Then two.

December arrived, and with it snow. Wet, slushy snow that didn’t stick for long and made the roads a nightmare to drive on. Everything felt gray and dismal, especially my mood. Rose commented on my downcast spirit a few times, then gave up trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It was when Amie asked why I was so sad all the time, and was I going to go away like her daddy and her mommy had, that I realized enough was enough. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had two little people to consider, and moping around, feeling sorry for myself because I’d been stupid enough to develop a serious attraction to a man who was essentially poisonous, was only going to make them anxious and unhappy.

So I cheered the f*ck up.

Connor got a part in the school nativity play. He had two lines, so it didn’t matter that he’d joined the cast at short notice. He rocked the part of Shepherd No. 2, and both Rose and I cried a little when he took a bow at the end of the performance, grinning from ear to ear. I’d never seen him smile. Not like that. Not like he was a normal, trouble-free seven-year-old, playing with his friends, looking forward to Christmas.

Another week.

Jerry, the boatman, decided to sail back to the mainland early and didn’t tell anyone he wouldn’t be coming back until the day after Christmas, so the inhabitants of The Causeway were scrambling through the few small grocery stores that remained open on the island, trying to find last minute presents for each other along with ingredients for their holiday dinners.