Close to Home Part 11

Johnny, who'd offered to drive because he would have offered to do anything for Tessa and it was the first thing that sprang to mind, gripped the steering wheel with grim focus. All he wanted was to jerk it to the right and pull them off the road, lean over the gear column and convince Tessa she was wrong with his hands, his mouth, whatever he could ... but she didn't want those things.

She wanted his heart. And that would be fine, except Johnny was pretty sure he didn't have one.

His heart and soul-his ability to love the way Tessa wanted-had been burned out of him years ago, long before he ever met her.

So Johnny kept driving and he kept breathing, even though the loss of hope felt like having his ribs prized open with a bone spreader. Looking at Tessa only made it worse, but he couldn't stop himself. His gaze moved from front windshield to side mirrors to rearview to the woman staring out the pa.s.senger side window on a ceaseless rotation.

"Can you please drop me off at the bakery?"

Her quiet voice broke the silence that had gripped them since his offer to drive her home had been awkwardly accepted. Johnny battled the hot spurt of resentment at the mention of the shop that was taking his wife from him.

It was so much more complicated than that, he knew. But still. He didn't think he'd ever be able to look a sticky bun in the face again.

"Sure. No problem," he said, working to keep his tone even and free of blame. They were still about fifteen minutes out from the center of town, where the bakery was. If these were some of his last moments with Tessa as his wife, Johnny wanted to savor them. Even if it hurt.

He was casting around for something to say, some topic that would allow him to hear Tessa's sweet, husky voice without starting World War III all over again, when a truck in his rearview mirror caught his attention.

Big and covered in enough rusty patches that it looked almost more brown than black, the truck's engine roared as the vehicle sped up behind the smaller car too quickly for him to make out more than a vague impression of the driver as a burly man with a knitted cap pulled low over his brow.

"What's this jacka.s.s up to?" Johnny wondered aloud, firming his grip on the wheel and keeping a steady pace despite the way the truck was riding his tail.

"That's weird." Tessa frowned at her side mirror. "People on the island are pretty considerate drivers, usually. They have to be-the sheriff's department hands out tickets like candy, trying to keep speeding down. For the wild horses, you know."

Johnny did know. The bands of wild horses that roamed Sanctuary Island stayed away from the roads, for the most part, but it wasn't uncommon to see them grazing alongside the verge. They were wild creatures and Johnny didn't trust them not to leap out in front of his vehicle, which was why he'd been driving so slowly and carefully.

Definitely not to prolong this alone time with Tessa. That would be pathetic.

A sharp tap against his rear b.u.mper jolted Johnny into cursing. He steadied the car and spared a glance to show him that Tessa was fine, if a little pale. "Maybe pull off to the side of the road and let him go around you," she suggested.

No way was Johnny stopping and risking getting into an altercation with a driver as aggressive as this guy while Tessa was in the car. Not wanting to alarm Tessa any further, though, all he said was, "Here, I'll pull as far right as I can."

Johnny slowed even further as he did so, rolling his window down far enough to stick his arm out and wave the guy around him. The truck's engine revved threateningly, huge wheels grinding on the dirt road as the truck zoomed alongside Johnny. Jaw clenched, he glared over at the other driver, but the height of the cab put him at an angle where Johnny couldn't see more than the knit cap on top of the guy's head.

"Jerk," Johnny muttered as the truck pulled past them. His grip on the wheel was just about to relax when the truck driver cut his wheel to the right and clipped the front b.u.mper of the sedan hard enough to send the smaller car into a spin.

The rental car's tires skidded on the icy slush lining the sides of the road. Pulse thundering and adrenaline churning, Johnny breathed out slow and forced the steering wheel to turn steadily in the direction of the skid when all he wanted to do was stomp on the brakes.

Beside him, Tessa was gasping with fear and clutching at her seat belt where it had locked tight against her chest, but Johnny zeroed every inch of his focus on bringing the car to a controlled stop.

The whole thing was over in seconds. Their car shuddered to a standstill with its nose buried in the scrubby, brown shrubs at the side of the road while the truck roared away in a cloud of dust and gravel.

Johnny dropped his hands from the wheel, his fingers cramped and stiff. His pulse thundered in his ears, blood high and pumping with the terror he hadn't let himself feel before. He practically lunged sideways in his eagerness to get his hands on Tessa, to check her over and make sure she was unmarked, unharmed by the last few minutes of dangerous driving.

Sweeping his palms up her arms and over her shoulders, tracing her neck and up into her hair to feel for b.u.mps or knots or cuts ... the litany of potential injuries running through his head drowned out everything else for long, breathless moments. Finally a firm grip on Johnny's wrists brought his frantic gaze down to meet Tessa's.

"I'm okay," she was saying, over and over. Her tone was urgent, thin with the dregs of shock, but steady. "Johnny, look at me. I'm fine. I'm okay. We're okay."

"That truck," he gasped, fury roaring up to burn away everything else. "What the h.e.l.l was that guy doing, I've got to go after him..."

Tessa's slim fingers tightened around his wrists. "You do not," she said emphatically. "You need to stay here with me."

He framed her face with shaking hands, noting the chilly pallor of her skin and the trembling of her mouth. "You said you were okay."

It came out harsh, accusing, but Tessa didn't flinch away. Instead, she gave him a tremulous smile and said, "I am, because you kept me safe. Like you always do."

Johnny couldn't resist the temptation to kiss her. He didn't even try. For all he knew, this was his last chance to taste his wife's sweetness and imprint the memory on his tongue.

Once she recovered from this near miss, she'd go back to being through with him. He had no doubts about that. What Johnny doubted now was whether he could bring himself to leave Sanctuary Island, knowing that he might be leaving Tessa in danger.

Because whoever that truck driver was, he'd just deliberately tried to run them off the road. And this car? It had been sitting out back, behind the b.u.t.tercup Inn for the past few weeks. Long enough for anyone on the island to see it there and start a.s.sociating it with Marcus Beckett.

Everything came back to Marcus Beckett. And this was more than a gut feeling-this was Tessa's life in danger.

Panic, pure and mind-altering as a hit of heroin, gripped Johnny by the throat and throttled his rational mind to a standstill. Johnny breathed in the powdered-sugar-and-vanilla scent of Tessa's hair and struggled to rein himself in. But then she pulled away, cheeks pink and eyes darting away from his, and Johnny was left with no anchor in a rough sea. Without Tessa in his arms, he had nothing.

Nothing but the animal instinct to protect his mate. At all costs.

The front door of the b.u.t.tercup Inn opened with a bang, startling Marcus into cracking his head on the underside of the bar.

Cursing fluently, he threw down the power drill he was using to attach hooks to the front of the bar and came to his feet in a snarling rush of bad temper, only to stop in his tracks when he saw who was there.

"Oh," he said rudely. "It's you."

"It's me," Quinn replied. She looked unforgivably perky in a bright orange softball jersey, which should have looked weird with her red-gold hair, but somehow didn't. "I'm here to help out."

What is it with people thinking I need help? Marcus wondered grumpily. Used to be, he exuded an air of competence ruthless enough to keep him an island unto himself. Well, for the most part. Burying the memory of the one person who'd never let him get away with being strong, silent, and surly, Marcus pulled the handkerchief from his back pocket and swiped it over his forehead. "Don't need any help. Come back when there are customers to serve. Or feel free not to come back at all."

Quinn dumped the backpack she was carrying onto the floor, rolling her eyes. "Oh, stop. We already had this conversation. And I won! I'm hired. And my cla.s.s was canceled today, I volunteered at the barn yesterday, so ... I'm all yours. Where should I start?"

Backpack. Cla.s.s. How young was she, exactly? "Go do your homework someplace else. I'm busy here."

"I see that." Tucking her hands into the pockets of her cutoff shorts, Quinn wandered closer to squat down and peer at the hooks. "What are these for?"

"Jackets, scarves, ladies' purses. Whatever."

"That's smart. And convenient for your customers." Her eyebrows went up, as if she hadn't expected Marcus to have any interest in creating a pleasant experience for his bar's guests. Which, okay. Fair enough.

"Keeps their c.r.a.p out of my way." Marcus picked up the drill and went back to work, intensely conscious of the lithe young figure of the girl at his back.

The schoolgirl at his back. Get her out of your head, you dirty old man.

"How did you think of that detail?"

Her genuine interest was hard to resist, but Marcus did his best. "It's a pretty common feature at a lot of bars. You're probably too young to know about that."

"I'm twenty-five!"

With his back to her, Marcus allowed his eyes to slip closed on a silent curse. Ten years. He had ten years on this girl. And they were ten hard years. He shouldn't look twice at her. h.e.l.l, he shouldn't look once at her-she shouldn't be anywhere near a man like Marcus.

"Congratulations," he grunted. "Now get out of here."

Before I do something we'll both regret.

Her feet retreated without another word, and Marcus told himself he was glad. It was good he'd run her off. He was still struggling to believe it when the sound of hammering startled him into dropping the silver hook he was about to install.

With a sense of inevitability, he looked over his shoulder to see Quinn teetering, perched on a stepladder to reach high enough to hang the set of antlers he'd found at the antique store down the block over the door to the bar. As he watched in disbelief, she leaned back as if to get a better view while straightening the mounted rack, and overbalanced.

Faster than thought, Marcus was on his feet and across the bar, ready to pluck her from the air as she tipped backward with a cry of alarm.

"I've got you," he said into the cloud of red hair behind her ear.

"Thanks." She sounded breathless with surprise and the lingering fear of falling, her heart rabbiting away against his forearm where he'd grabbed her to pull her into his chest. But when she turned in his arms, it wasn't fear flushing her cheeks that delicate pink color.

They were pressed together from shoulder to knee. For the first time, Marcus realized she was taller than average for a woman. He was a couple inches over six feet, and the top of her head came to about his nose.

Which meant all it took to line up their mouths was a slight tilt of her pert, dimpled chin.

Temptation bit hard, clenching Marcus's guts and sending his blood flooding south in a thick, heavy pulse. Her eyelids lowered to half-mast, cornflower-blue eyes gleaming as her hands stole around his shoulders to dig into the muscle there. The p.r.i.c.k of her kitten claws sent a chill of heat racing down Marcus's back, but it was the pleased smile tipping up the corners of her strawberry mouth that made him push her away.

Okay, he pushed her out to arms' length. That was as far as he could manage, apparently. His hands refused to let go of her completely.

"We're not doing this," he told her. He wished his resolve were as firm and steady as his voice sounded.

She had the audacity to link her fingers at the nape of his neck, as if refusing to be pushed away. "Why not?"

Too many reasons to name. They jammed in Marcus's throat, fighting to get out. Unfortunately, the first one to untangle itself was, "I'm too old for you."

Her lashes swept down, long and darker than he'd expect for a redhead. "Maybe I like older men."

The throaty purr went straight to Marcus's head like a shot of Irish. His hands flexed on her shoulders, aching to reel her in, but he resisted with a halfhearted sneer. "I'm not interested in helping you work out your daddy issues."

He saw her reaction to that burn across her nose and cheekbones. Angry flush is different from s.e.x flush, he catalogued automatically.

But instead of jerking out of his grasp and telling him where he could get off, Quinn shoved in closer. The front of her denim-clad thighs rubbed against Marcus's, the tiny bit of friction producing enough heat to start a fire in the giant, empty fireplace at the end of the bar.

"You're not that old. Maybe a little crotchety, but I can work with that."

Marcus stared down into her face. It was a surprise to find the stubborn set to her lips such a turn-on. He was cracking up, after everything that had happened. That was the only explanation.

Lost for words, Marcus could always count on his body to act. He relaxed his grasp on her shoulders, finger by finger, and let her go without allowing himself to shiver at the drift of silky, red-gold hair over the backs of his hands.

She c.o.c.ked her head to one side, scrutinizing him with a level of piercing intensity that made Marcus feel like he was on the wrong end of a sniper rifle's scope.

"How about if I promise not to fall in love with you?" Quinn asked, her tone all bright inquisitiveness.

The floor beneath Marcus's boots felt as if it had a slight slope to it that he'd never noticed before. He ought to get a level in there, check it out, he thought vaguely as Quinn's question reverberated through his head.

He crossed his arms over his chest to hide the way his hands shook with wanting to reach out for her once more. "Love isn't on the table."

"Right. Like I just said." She arched a brow, a knowing smirk at the corner of her s.e.xy mouth. Marcus experienced something uncomfortably like whiplash ... but in his pants, not his neck.

"I'm absolutely not looking to settle down anytime soon," Quinn scoffed. "My life is just getting started. Why would I want to tie myself down by getting married or something?"

The M-word raised every red flag Marcus had. He instinctively backed up, raising his hands as if warding off a feral cat, only to see Quinn roll her eyes.

"Oh, stop it. I'm saying I have no idea if I ever want to get married," she protested. "Much less right now. You might not have noticed, but I like to keep my options open. What I do know, though, is that you're hot. Even hotter than I remember-and believe me, broody teenaged you made a big impression on the girl next door."

Talk about hot. Marcus tugged at the frayed collar of his battered cotton T-shirt. He hadn't worried about fixing the air conditioner yet, since it was still spring, but now he was regretting it.

"I want you," Quinn said boldly, stalking forward to curl an arm behind his neck as if it were the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Her words puffed warm against his cheek as she nuzzled in to whisper, "Every way I can have you, over and over, until it's not fun anymore. No strings, no expectations, and definitely no falling in love."

Marcus shook his head like a man waking up from a dream. He fisted one hand in the waves at the back of her head and pulled, lightly enough not to hurt, but rough enough to drag a heated moan from Quinn's throat. Glaring down into blue eyes gone smoky and slumberous with desire, Marcus felt himself backslide.

A good guy would pat Quinn on the head and send her away to find a bright, happy, uncomplicated boy her own age to play with. A good guy would fire her and ban her from the bar to keep from ever being tempted to slip. h.e.l.l, a good guy probably wouldn't be tempted in the first place.

So much for being a good guy.

Quinn's lower lip pouted open gently, her breath coming in sharp and fast, as if she knew she was about to get her way. But if they were doing this thing, if Marcus was giving up on his bid to straighten up and fly right, they were going to do it his way.

She wanted a kiss, he knew, and he gave her one-but not on the lips. Dropping his head, he closed careful teeth over the soft skin of her neck, just above the collar of that stupid sweater. Instead of biting, he sc.r.a.ped his teeth lightly. Triumph and satisfaction rocketed through him at the high-pitched sound of shock she let loose. Her hips nudged forward, blindly seeking. Marcus dropped his hands to keep her still, but she was impossible to control. One endless leg lifted and curved around his backside, notching them together, hard to soft.

Without warning, Marcus slid his hands around her hips to cup the perfect round apple of her bottom. She squeaked when he picked her up and moaned when her back hit the doorjamb, but she locked her ankles behind his back without hesitation. Propping her elbows on his shoulders, Quinn got her hands on his head and angled his face up to hers.

Frank l.u.s.t, straightforward and simple, stared back at him from Quinn's eyes. She knew what she wanted, Marcus understood. He wasn't going to push her past some invisible boundary. She wanted whatever he wanted to give her.

Marcus had known plenty of women. Beautiful, elegant, worldly women. Women who were his equal in age and experience, women who knew how the game was played.

And yet nothing in Marcus's life had prepared him for the punch of l.u.s.t he got from seeing that look on Quinn Harper's bright, open face.

It was official. Marcus was a bad, bad man.

But as he finally gave in and savaged her mouth, he couldn't find it in himself to care.

Chapter 14.

Tessa is in danger. Tessa is in danger. Tessa is in danger.

The words beat in Johnny's blood, sharp and incessant and undeniable. As long as Marcus Beckett roamed the island, with his shady past and his volatile temper acting like a magnet for trouble, Johnny could never feel right about leaving Tessa alone here.

Johnny felt like he was losing his grip on reality, actually feeling it slip from his fingers. The worst of the darkness that had covered him during his undercover a.s.signment was back. But it was even more consuming, now, because it wasn't his life or even his sanity that was on the line here-it was Tessa. And there was nothing that mattered more. Nothing Johnny wouldn't do to protect her.