“That’s where you’re wrong.” He lifted her chin and gazed into her eyes. “I know you’ve got a big enough heart to not hold a grudge against the boy who set into motion an event that changed your whole life. I know you have a best friend who cares enough for you to warn me not to hurt you.”
“Tegan?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “The night of the auction. She pulled me aside when I first arrived and said I was free to date you, but if I hurt you, she’d ‘kill me.’”
“But we weren’t even seeing each other then.” She made a mental note to have a talk with Tegan.
He held a palm up toward the sky. “Take it up with her. Leesa, people don’t protect those who don’t deserve it. Not like that. You’re right. I don’t know everything there is to know about you, but I want to. I know you lost the one man who knew you best, and I can only imagine what that feels like. I want to be there for you and to get to know you just as well. I want you to feel safe and secure in our relationship. Most of all, I want you to never feel alone again.”
“How have you stayed single all this time?” She couldn’t imagine anyone dating him and not wanting to stay with him forever.
He laughed at that.
“I’m serious. You’re handsome. You’re romantic. You’re too good to be true in lots of ways.”
“I told you there was good with the bad. I’m a workaholic. I go in early, and before meeting you, I worked late every night. And I’m sure I’ll be working late nights again. That’s just who I am. Hopefully less so, now that we’re together, but…” He shrugged.
“Those are hardly reasons for a town of pretty beach girls not to vie for your attention.”
He dropped his eyes in a shy way that tugged at her heart. “They do. I don’t mean that in a bragging way, but I get my fair share of offers.” He handed her the guitar and moved behind her, wrapping his arms around hers and helping her hold it properly as he spoke. “I can’t explain why no one has made me feel the way I do when I’m with you.”
She liked the feel of his chest against her back, his arms circling her, and his big hands guiding hers onto the neck of the guitar and around the base.
“There are things about the heart no research in the world will ever figure out.” He kissed her cheek. “Maybe you were destined to experience that awful accusation and I was fated to be on call the night Tegan injured her ankle.”
“That’s a depressing thought.”
He arched a brow.
“Not the meeting you part,” she explained. “That I could have been working so hard and all that time the accusation was looming in my future.”
He placed his fingers over hers and helped her strum the guitar. “Yes, if you think of it that way, it is. But what if there’s more to it? What if our destiny has nothing to do with the difficult things we go through and everything to do with the effect of our actions on other people?”
She chewed on that while Cole explained about frets and tuning pegs and feeling, rather than reading, music. And she wondered, what if she was looking at the whole mess too selfishly? Was there such a thing? She worried about Andy often, but her mind always came back to the devastating effects his actions had on her life.
“Do you believe that?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know what I believe. I’d like to think that everything bad, everything you went through, has some sort of silver lining. For example, if Kenna hadn’t wanted a different lifestyle, I might never have met you. Selfishly, the upside of what happened to you is that I was able to meet this amazing woman, who I might never have had a chance to meet otherwise. I have to think there’s a reason things happen, because the idea of you enduring all that you have and losing everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve kills me. If there’s no good to come of it, and bad things just…happen, well, isn’t that worse?”
Leesa stilled his hands and leaned back against his chest. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the steady beat of his heart.
“I think you’re my silver lining, too,” she said. “This whole thing scares me. How fast we’re moving, how much I’m feeling. My past looming, like it’s going to come out of the shadows at every turn.”
She turned to him, letting the guitar slide to the blanket. She didn’t want to tell him that ever since hearing his father’s thoughts on the past, she’d been wondering if she should try to gain some closure. Maybe go back to Towson and at least try to get Andy to admit that he’d lied, which she had to believe would help them both on some level. A heavy conscience was no good for someone trying to heal—emotionally or physically. Instead she pressed her lips to his and let the depth of his kiss, the exploration of his hands, and the intensity of their emotions transport her away to a dreamy state where nothing else existed.
Chapter Thirteen
LEESA LAY IN Cole’s arms, listening to the sounds of the sea as they sailed in through his bedroom window. Once they’d started kissing, she hadn’t wanted to stop, and when he’d invited her to come back to his place, she hadn’t hesitated to accept. It was still dark out, and she should probably get up, go back to Tegan’s, and try to sleep for a few hours, but she didn’t want to move. Not when Cole was holding her so lovingly against his warm, naked body and she was happy for the first time in ages. Too happy to care about how tired she’d be in the morning.
Cole’s house was exactly how she’d imagined it would be, open and understated, with more reading materials than anyone could ever dream of—from medical journals and novels to magazines featuring sports, boats, and news. The furniture was clearly high-end, but it wasn’t flashy or ornate. It had the subdued elegance of masculinity that came from dark wood and warm colors. Hardwood floors were home to large planters, and every bookshelf was littered with family photographs between rows of books.
Her eyes skipped across his dark wooden dresser, where bottles of cologne were placed next to his watches—two with dark bands, one with gray, which she’d noticed when they’d first come into the bedroom. There was an oversized chair built for two by the French doors that led out to the deck off the bedroom, and she wondered how many women had cuddled up in it beside him like she wanted to. As she lay there thinking these things, drinking in his private oasis, her mind traveled to his family. How strange it was that Cole would be so monogamy minded while his brother Sam, he’d said, was anything but. She wondered if that had something to do with their birth order or if it were something more.
Her thoughts moved to his parents. She’d noticed how they were always catching each other’s eye, smiling, touching every chance they got. Cole obviously had loving role models, as she’d had with her father. She’d been working so hard since she’d lost her father that she hadn’t realized how alone she’d felt. And since being here, she hadn’t felt lonely at all.
Cole stirred beside her, tightening his grip around her middle and nuzzling against her. She could get used to this, falling asleep draped in Cole, drenched in his open, giving self. He’d been so happy that she’d agreed to stay over, and still, somewhere deep inside her, his father’s words bounced around, unsettling her reverie. We can run from our past, but we can’t really move forward until we accept it. Pain and all. Would she ever be able to accept it? Put it to rest? Move forward without fear? Was it fair to be with Cole if she couldn’t?
The breeze picked up Cole’s scent, and Leesa closed her eyes and breathed him in. When she opened her eyes, she gazed at Cole’s sleeping face. There was kindness there, even while he slept, in the soft lines of his lips and the lack of grooves across his forehead that angry people sported even when relaxed. For the millionth time in too few days she thanked her lucky stars that she’d taken Tegan up on her offer and come to Peaceful Harbor. She’d been at her wit’s end in Towson, struggling to figure out the right thing to do: take the job in Baltimore and try to make a go of it despite what had gone down, change careers but remain in Towson, or move away altogether. Every day she spent with Cole she felt herself inching in the direction of making this move permanent—and in the next moment she’d second-guess herself. They were in the early stages of their relationship. The honeymoon stage, everyone called it. Could this kind of happiness last? More importantly, could it ever erase the lingering fear of her past ruining it all?
She closed her eyes again, this time pushing those uncomfortable thoughts away and focusing on the feel of Cole’s nakedness against her. The hair on his legs tickled her skin. His chest was pressed firmly against her side, every breath bringing a whisper of hot air across her bare breasts. His muscled forearm rested over her ribs, brushing along the underside of her breasts. One of his feet was tucked beneath hers, and the eager press of his arousal, which never seemed to go fully flaccid, warmed her outer thigh. Her nipples tightened with the memory of his tongue sweeping over them, the gentle suck of his mouth that had nearly made her come before they’d even made love. Breathing harder now, she felt herself go damp between her legs. Lord, what this man did to her was sinful. Sinfully delicious.