Sanctuary(72)

He saw Jo sitting on the grand front steps, her head resting on her drawn-up knees. she lifted it when she heard his jeep, and he saw all the ghosts in her eyes.

"We can't find her." she pressed her lips together. "Ginny."

"I heard." Not knowing what else to do, he sat beside her, draped an arm around her shoulders so she could lean against him. "I just came in on the ferry."

"We've looked everywhere. Hours now. she's vanished, Nathan, just vanished, like-" she couldn't say it. Wouldn't say it. And, drawing a breath, slammed the door on even the thought of it. "If she was on the island, someone would have seen her, someone would have found her."

tilt's a lot of ground to cover."

"No." she shook her head. "If she was trying to hide, sure, she could keep one step ahead. Ginny knows the island as well as anyone, every trail and cove. But there's no reason for that. she's just gone."

"I didn't see her on the morning ferry. I kicked back and slept most of the way, but she's tough to miss."

"We already checked that. she didn't take the ferry."

"Okay." He ran his hand up and down her arm as he tried to think.

"Private boats. There's a number of them around-islanders and outlanders."

"she can pilot a boat, but none of the natives report one missing. No one's reported one missing, or come in to say they took Ginny out."

"A day-tripper?

"Yeah." she nodded, tried to accept it. "That's what most people are starting to think. she got a wild hair and took off with someone. she's done it before, but never when she was scheduled to work, and never without leaving word."

He remembered the way she'd smiled at him. Hey, handsome. "she was hitting the tequila pretty steady last night."

"Yeah, they're saying that too." she jerked away from him. "Ginny's not some cheap, irresponsible drunk."

"I didn't say that, Jo, and I didn't mean that."

"It's so easy to say she didn't care, didn't give a damn. she just left without a word to anyone, without a thought to anyone." Jo sprang up as the words tumbled out. "Left her home and her family and everyone who loved her without a second thought for how sick with worry and hurt they would be."

Her eyes glittered with fury, her voice rose with it. she no longer cared that it was her mother she spoke of now. No longer cared that she could see by the sober and sympathetic look on his face that he knew it.

"I don't believe it." she caught her breath, let it out slowly. "And I've never believed it."

"I'm sorry." He got to his feet, put his arms around her. Though she shoved, strained against him, he kept them firm. "I'm sorry, Jo."

"I don't want your sympathy. I don't want anything from you or anyone else. Let me go."

"No." she'd been let go too often and by too many, Nathan thought. He pressed his cheek to her hair and waited her out.

she stopped struggling abruptly and wrapped her arms tight around him. "Oh, Nathan, I'm so scared. It's like going through it all again, and still not knowing why."

He stared over her head to the rioting garden of snapdragons and Canterbury bells. "Would it make a difference? Would it help to know why?"

"Maybe not. Sometimes I think it would make it worse. For all of us." she turned her face into his throat, pathetically grateful that he was there, that he was solid. "I hate seeing my father remember, and Brian and Lexy. We don't talk about it, can't seem to bring ourselves to talk about it. But it's there. Pushing at us, and I guess it's pushed us away from each other most of our lives." she let out a long sigh, lulled by the steady beat of his heart against hers. "I find myself thinking more about Mama than Ginny, and I hate myself for it."

"Don't." He touched his lips to her temple, her cheekbone, then her mouth. "Don't," he repeated and slid more casity and more deeply into the kiss than he'd intended.

she didn't pull away, but opened to him. The simple comfort he'd meant to offer grew into something with the backbeat of urgency. His hands came up, framed her face, then slid down her in one long, slow caress that made her stomach drop away to her knees.

The need that rose up in her was so sweet, so ripe, so huge. she wanted nothing more than to fall into it. Where did this come from?

she thought dizzily. And where could it go? she wished suddenly and with all her heart that they could just be two people drowning each other in this slow, endless kiss while the sun dipped low in the sky and shadows grew long and deep.

"I can't do this," she murmured.

"I have to." He changed the angle of the kiss and took her under again. "Hold on to me again, for just a minute," he said when her arms dropped limply away. "Need me again, for just a minute."