Sanctuary(73)

she couldn't resist it, couldn't deny either of them, so she held close and held tight and let the moment spin out around them. Dimly she heard tires spin on the road below. Reality slipped back in and she drew back.

"I have to go."

He reached out, took her by the fingertips. "Come back with me. Come home with me. Get away from this for a while."

Emotions surged into her eyes, filled them, made them intensely blue. "I can't."

she backed up, then rushed up the stairs, closing the door behind her quickly and without looking back.

Yirby-six hours after Ginny had failed to show up for work, Brian dragged into the family parlor and stretched out on the ancient davenport. He was exhausted, and there was simply nothing else to be done. The island had been searched in every direction, dozens of calls had been made. Finally, the police had been notified.

Not that they'd seemed terribly interested, Brian thought, as he studied the plaster rosettes edging the coffered ceiling. After all, they were dealing with a twenty-six-year-old woman-a woman with a reputation. A woman who was free to come and go as she pleased, had no known enemies and a predilection for taking strolls on the wild side.

He already knew the authorities would give the matter a glance, do the basics, then file it.

They had done a bit more than that twenty years before, he remembered, when another woman had vanished. They'd worked harder and longer to find Annabelle. Cops prowling the island, asking questions, taking notes, looking soberly concerned. But money had been involved there-trust funds, property, inheritances. It had taken him some time to realize that the police had been pursuing an angle of foul play. And that, briefly, his father had been the prime suspect.

It had scared the hell oat of him.

But no evidence of foul play had ever been found, and interest eventually waned. Brian imagined interest would wane in Ginny Pendleton's case much sooner.

And he'd simply run out of things to do.

He thought fleetingly about reaching for the remote, switching on the television or stereo and just zoning out for an hour. The parloror the family room, as Kate insisted on calling it-was rarely used.

It was Kate who'd chosen the casual and comfortable furnishings, mixing the deep, wide chairs, the heavy old tables, the stretch-out-andnap sofa. she'd tossed in colorful floor pillows, with some idea, Brian imagined, that the room might actually be too crowded now and then for everyone to have a traditional seat.

But most often, the room was occupied by no more than one person at a time.

The Hathaways weren't the gather-together-to-watch-the-eveningnews type. They were loners, he thought, every one of them, finding more excuses to be apart than to bond together.

It made life less ... complicated.

He sat up, but lacked the energy to distract himself with someone eisc's news. Instead, he rose and went to the little refrigerator behind the mahogany bar. That was another of Kate's stubborn fantasies, keeping that bar and cold box stocked. As if the family might stop in after a long day, share a drink, some conversation, a little entertainment. Brian gave a half laugh as he popped open a beer.

Not bloody likely.

With that thought still lying bitter in his head, he glanced up and saw his father in the doorway. It was a toss-up as to who was more surprised to find himself faced with the other.

Silence hung in the air, the thick and sticky kind that only family could brew. At length Brian tipped back his beer, took a long, cold swallow. Sam shifted his feet, hooked his thumbs in his front pockets.

"You finished for the day?" he asked Brian.

"Looks that way. Nothing else to do." Since just standing there made him feel foolish, Brian shrugged his shoulders and said, "Want a beer? "

"Wouldn't mind."

Brian got another bottle from the fridge, popped the top as his fa their crossed the room. Sam took a swallow and fell back on silence. It had been his intention to relax his mind with a few innings of baseball, maybe knock back a few fingers of bourbon to help him sleep.

He had no idea at all how to have a beer with his son.

"Rain's come in," he said, groping.

Brian listened to it patter against the windows. "It's been a pretty dry spring."

Sam nodded, shifted again. "Water level's dead low on some of the smaller pools. This'll help."

"The outlanders won't like it."

"No." Sam's frown was a reflex. "But we need the rain."

Silence crept in again, stretched until Brian angled his head. "Well, looks like that uses up the weather as a topic. What's next?" he said coolly. "Politics or sports?"

Sam didn't miss the sarcasm, he just chose to ignore it. "Didn't think you had much interest in either."

"Right. What would I know about such manly subjects? I cook for a living."