Sig laughed.
"Nope. We're going to rough it. Beef stew, hash and eggs, lots of lobster. I think we'll manage."
' If you need anything"-- " We'll call Emile. Don't think Matt's going out to a deserted island with a pregnant woman and no phone. "
They finished loading the boat in a flash. Emile promised to look after their car, and Matt tossed him the keys. For weeks he'd operated in Sam Cassain's and Henry Armistead's shadows, sometimes one step behind, at other times two steps ahead, always trying to keep from pulling his family into what he believed he'd created when he'd funded Sam's efforts to bring up the Encounter's engine. Yet without him, Henry's act of sabotage would have gone undiscovered.
"Oh," Sig said, turning to Emile, "Mom said to tell you she and Dad are coming up tomorrow to help with the new cottage. We stopped in Camden on our way up. She says you'd forget to put in a bathroom without her."
He smiled.
"She doesn't know how I survive with out her."
"And did Riley tell you? Dad wants you to be on the maiden voyage of the Encounter II."
His old eyes misted, and he nodded solemnly. Riley had forgotten about her father's message. She wasn't surprised. She hadn't been thinking clearly.
The boat pulled away, and Emile said, "So, John, I hear you're going back to the FBI."
"Yep. I've been assigned to the Boston office."
"Heading up a new domestic terrorism unit's what I hear."
Straker smiled.
"My father exaggerates."
"Well, don't plan on Riley here pressing your FBI suits. She doesn't iron."
"Hell, she doesn't clean. She's a scientist. Me, I cook, clean, capture bad guys." He grinned.
"The perfect man."
Riley was at a loss.
"Straker" -Emile climbed into the BMW. "Fun having a rich granddaughter," he said.
"I'll see you two later."
He backed the car up to his skeleton of a cottage, and Straker eased closer to Riley.
"You look as if you've just been caught in a whirlwind."
"I have been," she said.
"You want to tell me what's going on?"
He held up a paper bag.
"I have marshmallows and a fire ready to be lit on a narrow stretch of beach not far from here."
"You've been thorough."
"Always."
"Straker, if you want to stay up here in Maine, I can" -He shook his head, cutting her off.
"Toasted marshmallows, fire. Then we'll talk."
The narrow stretch of beach was a short walk from the dock, where she'd put in her kayak what seemed like a million years ago. True to his word, he had a fire built. He lit the kindling and stuck marshmallows on green sticks. She could smell the smoke, feel the heat of the fire on her face. It was romantic, healing.
He held a marshmallow in the flames, watched as it caught fire.
"Rumor has it you like your marshmallows charred on the outside and gooey on the inside." He blew out the flames.
"Your men, too."
"Sig. That rat fink. Is that what she told you? Well, I haven't had that many men in my life."
"Too busy rescuing whales?"
She shook her head.
"Too busy being busy."
He handed her the blackened marshmallow. It was perfect, just the way she liked it. He touched her lips, kissed her lightly.
"I love you, St. Joe. I think I always have."
"Even when I hit you with that rock?"
"You've always been willing to take me on. You don't back down, you don't let me intimidate you, even if you are a little spit of a thing."
He smiled, kissed her again before she could protest about being called little. He said close to her mouth, "Back in the spring after I got shot, I came to the island because my world was closing in on me.
You've opened it up again."
"I don't think anyone's said anything more wonderful to me. Straker, the past ten days while you've been out here plotting and God knows what else" -Her breath caught. "I tried to imagine going on without you..." She looked into those gray eyes, past the scars and the hardness to the kind, strong man she had fallen deeply, forever in love with.
"But I couldn't. I didn't want to."
He put another log on the fire, the bright, hot flames glowing on his face. He sat back, moved in close to her, so that she could smell the sea and the sawdust, see the scar she'd given him when she was twelve, and he said, "Whatever demons we face from here on out, we face together." isk that named names. bert's inheritance from her er home was ransacked, people started turning up lebody wanted the disk iugh to kill for it!