Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel Page 17

  He’d also flooded the walls with soft light from sconces and recessed lighting in the ceiling, which would brighten the coast’s gray days. A telescope stood on a tall tripod by the window.

  “Let me show you upstairs,” he said. “So you can unpack.” Picking up her suitcase, he headed up the stairs.

  Tess paused as she came to the landing with the same tall bay windows. A window seat upholstered in sea blues and coral, which she suspected reminded him of home, invited a person to sit and read or just watch the waves rolling in.

  Down below she could see the hulking remains of the captain’s shipwreck that had inspired so many stories. Including Freebird Sullivan’s rock opera currently playing to sold-out crowds on Broadway.

  “You probably have a great view of the whales from here,” she guessed.

  “Amazing. Since it’s on the migration path, we get a lot of passing whales along with Shelter Bay’s resident ones. Summer and winter, it’s like having the Nature Channel right outside the window. Last year a young orca got off course and ended up in the bay at Christmas. That was probably the most exciting thing that’s happened here in a long time.”

  “I saw that on the news,” she said. “And was glad the story had a happy ending.”

  “That’s the only kind allowed here,” he said.

  “Try telling that to Captain MacGrath the next time you talk with him,” she said. Then immediately regretted both her words and her tone. “I’m sorry. That came off harsher than I meant it.”

  “You’ve been under stress,” he said. “Which probably has been keeping you from getting any sleep lately.”

  “Sleep has definitely proven a problem,” she agreed as she followed him down a hallway to a guest bedroom. “But it’s not only because of Vasilyev.” The bedroom was as inviting as the rest of the house, with a black wrought iron and wood sleigh bed that also offered a view of the sea. The furniture was a deep, rich espresso that contrasted with the warm cream walls. “You were a distraction,” she admitted.

  “That’s a start. And back at you on the distraction. I was going crazy thinking about you while I was on that damn tour.” When he stepped closer, common sense told Tess to move away, but her feet seemed bolted to the floor: “We both have a good idea where this is headed.”

  “My life’s already complicated enough.” The last thing she needed was to get involved with a man who made her feel as if she were slowy sinking into quicksand.

  “Now see, I wasn’t thinking complications. But fun.” When Nate traced her lips with a fingertip, Tess trembled as she remembered the feel and taste of his. “However, I’m easy. We’ll be friends first,” he decided. “Because I think you need a friend.”

  “A friend with benefits?”

  “That’s up to you. I’m up for starting slow with an easy, social relationship. Share stuff about our day. And our families, like we’ve already done.” Her unruly heart skipped a beat as he tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Maybe even go out to dinner from time to time after you put that Russian mobster away for good.”

  “But not like a date,” she qualified. “The kind that goes from two spoons sharing a decadent dessert straight to bed.”

  “That works for me,” he said. “But not until you’re ready.”

  “That assumes I’ll ever be.” At least her head wasn’t. But other parts of her body that had gone neglected for too long had definitely perked up and were taking notice. “And I already have all the friends I need.”

  His eyes held hers as his hand trailed slowly, provocatively down her throat. “Now there’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart.”

  Her knees were weak again and her head had begun to spin. If she hadn’t known better, Tess might have thought that she actually was coming down with, if not pneumonia, at least the flu. That could explain why her body was feeling like a furnace.

  They were close. So very, very close. She could practically feel the beat of his heart echoing her own. Which of them had moved?

  She swallowed. “Dammit, Nate…”

  He could feel her trembling. The idea that he was the cause of it gave Nate an undeniable feeling of power. He enjoyed knowing that he’d made Tess experience the same unreasonable hunger, the same unruly desire for him that he’d suffered for her. Experience assured him that with a bit of sensual lobbying, with a few kisses, a tantalizing touch here and there—and there, as well, he thought as he took in her inviting body—they could be sharing that bed. Right now.

  But then what? Once Tess had given in to impulse, how would she feel about him afterwards? And more importantly, how would she feel about herself?

  “Friends,” he repeated, as much to himself as to her. “That’s what we should be working on.” He forced a smile that was at odds with his need to grind his teeth to dust. “Why don’t you unpack?” His fingers traced the shadows below her eyes. “I have some work to do. So you may as well take a short nap.”

  He skimmed a hand over her hair. Then, after turning on a gas fireplace, he left the room.

  The urge to go running after him and drag him back to this room, to this bed, had Tess convinced that she really must be crazy. If she had any sense she’d turn around and head back to Portland as fast as a hired car could carry her. There was, of course, the threat of bodily injury from her anonymous caller. But something even more vital would be endangered by her remaining here, under the same roof with Nate Breslin. Her heart. Tess reminded herself of all this as she unpacked.

  Outside the house, the storm continued. Inside, she remained warm. And secure. As exhaustion finally caught up with her, although she never, ever took naps, she pulled off her boots, changed into dry clothes, slid between the sheets, and immediately fell asleep.

  * * *

  Two hours later, she woke to a room that was oddly cold.

  Climbing out of the bed, Tess went over to the windows, thinking the wind must have blown one open. But they all remained tightly fastened.

  A slight movement drew her wary gaze to a corner of the room, and Tess watched, fascinated in spite of herself, as Captain Angus MacGrath gradually materialized.

  29

  He had to be a hallucination. Brought about by the wailing wind and the images conjured up by an overdose of Nate’s backlist novels she’d downloaded while he’d been away on tour.

  Tess closed her eyes, murmuring a small, desperate prayer that when she opened them the vision would be gone. No such luck.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said hesitantly, still finding it difficult to believe what she was seeing, “I’d like just a moment.”

  The vision—she had yet to accept that it was her great-great-grandfather—nodded obligingly.

  Tess’s cautious but avidly curious gaze moved from the top of his capped head to the toes of his boots. The captain was not as tall as she might have suspected from the freewheeling stories about him. And his black beard was sprinkled with streaks of silver.

  If asked to describe a ghost, Tess would have given a standard answer—a filmy, white, indiscriminate apparition with neither true form nor substance. The man standing before her was nothing like that.

  His body was firm and decidedly muscular, his eyes, as they studied her, burned with interest and a certain intelligence that she found as appealing as it was impossible. As if deciding that he’d given her enough time to digest his unexpected appearance, the apparition suddenly spoke.

  “I was wondering when Breslin would get you to weigh anchor and show up here,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. Tess decided that if a ghost could look smug, MacGrath was pulling it off. “Took him long enough,” the captain muttered with disdain. “If it’d been me, I’d have shanghaied you that first day.”

  Tess jutted out her chin at the blatantly chauvinistic statement. “Like you did Isabella?”

  A dangerous fire flashed in his dark eyes. “Marriage to a common seaman wasn’t good enough for the rich and beautiful Isabella Lombardi,” he replied bitterly.

&nb
sp; Her mind whirling with family stories, Tess forgot that she was carrying on a conversation with someone whose presence she would have refused to believe in only minutes earlier. “I suppose she told you that?”

  “She did,” the captain countered. “But I should have known she was playing me for a fool all along. All a man had to do was look at all those society toffs hanging around her like lovesick puppies to know that she’d marry into her own kind.”

  He looked around the room. “I built this house to give Isabella a fine home. A home she’d be proud to be the mistress of. And I would have, too,” he said emphatically.

  “How can you expect me to believe that? After you put a curse on her? Not to mention all the women of the Lombardi family who would follow her?”

  The captain scowled as he rubbed his beard. “Hang it all, woman, sometimes a man says things in the heat of anger he doesn’t mean. How the blue blazes was I to know my ship would go down before I could take those blasted words back?”

  His annoyance was so intense, the frustration in his eyes so real, Tess found herself believing him. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place.

  “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? You’re matchmaking, trying to make a love match for a Lombardi woman to make up for what you did to my great-great-grandmother. So you can escape whatever plane it is you’ve gotten yourself stuck on.”

  As if deciding that he’d already said too much, the captain faded away before her eyes, leaving Tess to wonder if she’d imagined the entire episode.

  No, she concluded as she finished unpacking, the captain had been real. Or as real as a specter could possibly be. And as unlikely as it sounded, she had the feeling that Nate had been telling the truth all along.

  The captain was responsible for their meeting; he’d somehow, using whatever woo-woo tricks ghosts possessed, put thoughts of Isabella, whom Tess undeniably resembled, into Nate’s head until he had no choice but to find the woman who’d been haunting his dreams.

  Tess was well aware that the captain and Isabella’s romance had been anything but idyllic. Stories had been handed down of tearful recriminations, reconciliations, and more arguments. She was willing to believe the captain’s claim that he had intended to return and marry her great-great-grandmother. But fate and a vicious storm had intervened, leaving him to spend eternity watching the results of his ill-tempered curse.

  Despite her loyalty to her family, despite her always having given far more credence to that ridiculous curse than common sense allowed, she found her heart going out to the hot-tempered seaman.

  Wanting to share her amazing experience, she went to find Nate.

  30

  The kitchen, which opened up to the rest of the main floor, was definitely not for someone accustomed to takeout and microwave dinners. It had been designed for a chef, and the man standing at the island holding a shiny steel-handled knife that looked more dangerous than many that ended up in crime scene photos, seemed perfectly comfortable there.

  “I just met the captain,” Tess announced upon entering the spacious room.

  Nate looked up and treated her to that smile she knew very few women would have the strength to resist. He, too, had changed into well-worn, faded button-fly jeans torn below the knee, and tonight’s fisherman’s sweater was black.

  “I figured he’d show up sooner or later,” he said easily as he put a glass of white wine in her hand. The bottle, she noted, boasted a Lombardi label. One of the more expensive estate ones that Gabriel had first experimented putting a screw cap on. “So did you two hit it off?”

  Tess took a sip of the golden Chardonnay. “I think I insulted him.”

  Nate’s laugh was rich and warm and deep. “I’d love to have seen that. What did he do? Hit the roof? Or march off through the wall?”

  Tess knew that if anyone had told her two weeks ago that not only would she talk with the ghost of a long-departed relative, but she’d be calmly describing the conversation later with someone who also had met the spirit, she would have told them that they were insane. Perhaps, she considered yet again, she and Nate were the crazy ones. But Tess didn’t think so.

  “Neither. He just disappeared into thin air. It was as if Scotty had beamed him up.”

  Nate nodded sagely. “He does that sometimes. Actually, the captain’s quite the ham. He goes in for the theatrical, although, in my opinion, he has an unfortunate tendency to overact.”

  The words had no sooner left Nate’s lips than the copper pans hanging from ceiling racks over the island suddenly began to shake violently. An unearthly chill that Tess now knew preceded the captain’s appearance permeated the air.

  “See what I mean?” Nate said, shooting Tess a grin. “Nice of you to drop in,” he said easily. “But I can handle things from here, Captain.”

  The pans instantly ceased their clatter, and the chill departed as quickly as it had arrived. Tess shook her head in bemusement. Nate, on the other hand, acted as if nothing unusual had occurred.

  “That would drive me crazy,” she admitted, running her fingernail around the rim of the glass. “Always wondering whether or not he was lurking around, spying on me.”

  “That’s not his style. The captain’s quite discreet. And when he does show up, he always announces his presence—which you’ve already discovered—with a certain in-comparable flair. So for the time being, we’ve got the place to ourselves,” Nate assured her. “Why don’t you sit down and relax.” He gestured toward a barstool. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  Tess sipped her wine, watching in reluctant awe as Nate minced a shallot with sure, rapid strokes. Had she even attempted such a feat, she knew she would have lost at least one finger.

  “I never would have pictured you in the kitchen,” she said as he began whipping the minced shallot into a bowl with butter. The bedroom was more likely. Oh, yes, Tess could definitely picture Nate Breslin in the bedroom.

  Nate’s eyes danced with a devilish gleam as he proved that they were on exactly the same wavelength. “As terrific as I am in the kitchen, you should see me perform in some of the other rooms of the house.”

  The implication was there, just waiting for her to pick up on it. Tess decided to pass. “I’ve had enough surprises for one day,” she murmured.

  He reached into the vast stainless-steel refrigerator and retrieved a bunch of what she recognized as fresh thyme. She’d never actually bought any herself, but she’d seen it in the supermarket on the shelf above the bagged lettuce that usually went brown in her fridge before she got around to pouring bottled dressing on it.

  “And here I thought you were an adventurous woman.”

  If coming here didn’t prove her adventuresome spirit, Tess didn’t know what would. Her actions could, of course, also be described as foolhardy. Then there was her little run-in with the captain. Still vaguely unsettled by the idea of the captain’s ghostly presence, Tess fell silent as she observed Nate’s culinary skills.

  He dropped some linguini into a pot of water he’d already set to boil, then minced the thyme and stirred it into the butter and shallot mixture. Tess couldn’t help but admire his easy, deft, and practiced movements.

  “I hope you like salmon,” he said as he turned on the stovetop grill, then put asparagus in another tall pot to be steamed.

  “I love it,” she said distractedly. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?” he asked, turning down the heat under the asparagus with one hand while stirring the pasta with the other.

  “Keep track of everything like that. Whenever I try to cook, I always feel as if I’m that guy in the circus, trying to keep ten plates spinning at a time.”

  Nate chuckled. “Practice, I guess. I never really thought about it. Don’t you like to cook?” he inquired, eyeing her curiously as he oiled the salmon, sprinkled it with coarse salt with lemon zest, spread the butter on it, and put it on the grill.

  “If a meal doesn’t boil in a bag or warm up in a microwave, it’s out of my le
ague.”

  Her father was a dedicated meat-and-potatoes man. Growing up in a home without a mother’s influence, Tess had learned to prepare three basic meals. If a man expected anything other than hamburgers, steak, or meatloaf from her, he was bound to be disappointed.

  “I enjoy puttering around in the kitchen after a day’s writing,” Nate said cheerfully as he checked the pasta, zested some lemon to go with the parsley he’d already chopped, took down two plates, and refilled her wineglass, all with an economy of movement that left her momentarily spellbound.

  Who knew a man cooking could be so hot?

  “Though it’s a lot more fun cooking for two. I figure being willing to do all the cooking makes me good husband material.”

  “If you’re into marriage.” Although she wasn’t in the market for a husband, Tess admittedly found the idea of coming home to food like this every night more than a little appealing.

  “I thought most women were.”

  “I’m not most women.”

  “I’ve already figured that out for myself.” He took the asparagus out of the pot and dropped the spears into a dish of ice water. “But that was admittedly a sweeping generalization for which I apologize.”

  “Accepted.”

  A now familiar comfortable silence settled over them as she sipped her wine and enjoyed watching Nate work.

  “Speaking of everyday household tasks,” he said, “how are you at doing laundry?”

  Tess shrugged. “What’s to do? You throw the clothes in the washer, dump in some detergent, and push the button. The entire setup takes one, maybe two minutes. Anyone can do laundry, Nate.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered. “You’re not the one with a drawerful of Day-Glo pink underwear.”