The Inheritance Test, page 11
When his knees hit solid ground, he told himself he felt nothing but relief. He’d hoped for some elation and, even better, for the next step in this not-plan to reveal itself to him. Instead, the sickening fear that he’d failed Charlotte almost kept him there on his knees. There were so many things he should have handled differently, from not calling the race sooner to relying on the race committee for historical weather analysis. The sudden storm had blindsided him. And then she’d gone overboard and he’d abandoned the standard protocol of trying to bring the boat around to pull her out and just gone straight after her.
He staggered upright, setting her down beside him but keeping an arm wrapped around her. The cold pebbled her exposed skin.
“Just a few more steps,” he lied.
She gave him a look. “And then there’s a heated SUV waiting to whisk us off to a luxury hotel for a spa day?”
Okay, so she understood more than he wished she did. Rather than answer, he tugged her toward the beach, moving swiftly through the surf that swirled around their knees. The rain had finally started to ease up, but now they were out of the water, cold would be a big factor.
“You got any idea where we are?”
“Lost. Shipwrecked. Auditioning for a really bad TV reality show?”
She was trying to put a good face on things. He admired that about her, although he wished like hell that she’d been wrong on the first two counts. The narrow strip of beach hadn’t come with a convenient street sign. He’d also have taken a parking lot, or any sign of civilization at all. Instead he got wet sand bordered on one side by the still angry ocean and a marshy inlet on the other. He saw reeds and grass bending in the wind, a bedraggled lot of seabirds hauling ass overhead and more rain. What he didn’t see were lights, human habitation or a solution. His current best option was a rather stunted tree fifty feet up the beach.
He drew her up the sand toward the tree because something was always better than nothing. His years in the foster care system had drummed that lesson into him. They had the clothes on their backs. They hadn’t been blown off course to Canada or Cuba. And—he patted the dry bag clipped to his cargo shorts—he still had his wallet and his cell phone in its waterproof phone case. Unfortunately, when he pulled it out, he didn’t have service.
“Hey,” he said, gently tugging her underneath the tree. It had gray bark that made him think of elephants or seals and the branches offered some protection from the rain. She sank onto the sand and he bent down to look her in the face. “Stay here a moment for me, okay?”
“You want to define a moment?”
At some point they needed to talk about why she thought people either wouldn’t choose to stick around—her ex-fiancé came to mind—or wouldn’t come back for her, but now wasn’t that time.
“I promise I’ll come back, but you’re cold and tired and I can do this quicker on my own, which is better for both of us. You’ve fallen off a boat, swum for your life, and that SUV didn’t get the memo or it would be here, so let me take care of this, okay? Let me take care of you, Charlotte.”
“You did all those things, too,” she said, but she sat down on the sand where he indicated, wrapping her arms around her knees. She’d lost her sailing shoes and crew cap during their swim, but the rest of her was still covered in layers of quick-dry fabric. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He pressed his mouth against her cheek, not liking the way she shivered or the paleness of her skin. She was tapped out. “Hang on for me.”
“Go.” She waved a hand. “Find us a rescue party.”
He considered her for a moment, then draped his own, larger sailing jacket around her. “As you wish.”
* * *
After the longest ten minutes in the history of time, Declan jogged back. Charlotte was happy to see him, as her already low tough girl reserves were frozen through and through. She hadn’t even started to process what losing the race would mean.
“You still okay?” he asked. She didn’t know what he expected would have changed, but she warmed at the concern in his voice. Given her current state as a sea salt–flavored human popsicle, she’d take that warmth.
“Okay enough,” she said grimly. “And—thank you.” She grimaced. “For coming after me. For sticking with me.”
“Jesus, Charlotte.” He stared at her. “You need to work on your expectations.”
Sure. She’d do that later—after she’d warmed up all the way and could forget just how close she’d come to dying. Again. Since she preferred not to think about near death, she made a give-it-up gesture.
He sighed. “You want the good news or the bad news?”
For the record, she never wanted bad news.
She looked around them but, nope, no Four Seasons had miraculously sprouted while he’d been gone. She also didn’t see a car or any other sign of a rescue party. “The bad news is that we’re still lost and shipwrecked. Oh, and we’re out a million bucks, so perhaps we should start hunting for buried treasure.”
A smile lit up his face. “Yeah, but that’s also familiar news. The good news is that I found us something better than a tree.”
“Hey,” she said, patting the tree trunk. “Don’t malign him. He’s doing the best he can.”
“You want a lift?” He patted his back. “Hop on.”
She shoved to her feet, shaking her head. Of course she wouldn’t let him carry her. He’d already dragged her butt to shore, so she needed to pull some weight here. “I’ve got this. Where are we going?”
He gave her an assessing look, then nodded slowly. “Not far.”
He tucked her into his side, putting himself between her and the wind that blew off the ocean and straight through her wet clothes. A hundred yards up the beach, he cut away from the shore and through the dunes to where a weathered set of wooden steps cut through the sand. The thunderstorm was moving off, but so was the daylight.
The weathered house perched at the top of the steps. Shack might have been a more accurate description as it looked as beat up by the elements as she felt, with shingles peeling off the roof and a wide, wraparound porch full of ancient rattan deck chairs that listed suspiciously eastward and downward. She spotted no lights and, more disappointingly, no cars. They were still on their own.
Declan tugged her up the steps and straight to the front door, where he proceeded to bang hard enough to make the frame shiver and shake. She wasn’t surprised when no one answered. The Vineyard was dotted with summer places, owners coming and going as life and their work schedules permitted.
“You might want to turn your back,” he suggested. “If you’re squeamish about felony B and E.”
Beggars, choosers and all that. Shrugging, she swiped a large decorative conch from its place of honor and handed it to him. “Here you go.”
He raised an eyebrow but took the conch shell, which had either come from the granddaddy of all sea snails or been manufactured in China, and broke them in with a quick, hard blow to the doorknob.
Gathering the remnants of her energy, she followed him inside gratefully. The first floor was all one room, with windows looking out at the ocean on one end and a massive stone fireplace on the other. A large, L-shaped sofa and several mismatched armchairs were grouped in front of the fireplace. It was homey and unpretentious, furnished with finds from flea markets and attics. She wasn’t quite sure what the protocol was when you’d been shipwrecked and stranded on an absent homeowner’s beach.
Declan held up a palm and moved swiftly up the stairs to the second floor. Normally she would have protested his easy assurance that she’d follow his lead and stay when told to stay, but she wasn’t sure her legs would carry her up the stairs. She could hear him calling out a greeting, just in case the homeowner had somehow slept through their felonious entry. Sleeping sounded like a good plan. The best ever plan, in fact. She staggered toward the sofa, debating planting on it, wet clothes and all. There were no light switches and the air held a damp chill, even though it was summer. It was just their luck to have found a cabin with no heat or electricity.
Declan returned with an armful of blankets before she could summon the energy to lie down. “Strip.”
“Don’t I get dinner first?”
He grinned and tossed her a packet of dried fruit and a handful of granola bars. “Ask and ye shall receive. Strip. I’ll build a fire.”
Getting out of her wet clothes suddenly seemed like the best idea ever, so she peeled off her sailing leggings and the sodden scuba hoodie while he gave her his back to give her some privacy and built a roaring fire faster than she would have thought possible. When he turned back around, looking pleased as warmth started to wash over the room, she could barely hold in her sigh of pleasure.
Just admiring the scenery, she told herself. Who knew that what she really got turned on by was a guy who knew how to scavenge for groceries and build a fire? Looking wouldn’t hurt her.
And then when he busted her, she pretended it was the fire that had caught her interest. “Impressive, Hollywood.”
“Lots of practice,” he said. “My brother and I lit a lot of stuff on fire when we were teenagers.”
Casually, he stepped behind the sofa and stripped off his own clothes. She would have liked to see more, but the sofa back was high and he had to work to get the wet cargo shorts and T-shirt off. She caught a flash of some kind of thinner undergarment before she remembered she wasn’t looking.
“If you came over here and lent a hand, you’d get a better look,” he said. “I’m not the shy one.”
“Cute,” she said, tempted. But getting them both warm, dry and fed was more important right now. Plus, her blanket toga wasn’t exactly sexy lingerie. She padded into the kitchen that was tucked away in the back, trying to ignore the wet squelch as he took it all off, and rummaged around for two mugs and some water from an ancient plastic five-gallon jug.
When she came back, he’d wrapped a blanket around his hips and legs and had a second draped over his shoulders. It should have made him look ridiculous. Instead he looked ridiculously hot. Her libido promptly decided that they should hold a naked, sexy celebration of life.
Tamping down that thought, she shoved one mug at him. “Here.”
He took it and patted the sofa cushion beside him. “I saved you a spot.”
Instead of teasing her further, though, he handed her a granola bar and pulled his phone out of his dry bag, holding it up for her to see. No signal. They were good and stuck. Ignoring his invitation, she paced back and forth, ate her granola bar and failed to come up with a plan.
Imagine that.
Right now all she had was a list of disasters: a lost race, a wrecked boat and no way to fix the hole that George had put in Martha’s Kids’ budget. How could she not freak out?
“Hey.” Warm fingers braceleted her wrist, slowing her. “Come and sit with me, Charlotte.”
She let him pull her down onto the sofa and up against his side. She liked sitting with him. Being next to him. Okay, so she just liked him. A lot. And since thinking about that just freaked her out, she returned to her first topic. “No one knows where we are. We lost the boat. We lost the race. We just committed felony B and E. As days go, this one sucks.”
“It could be worse,” he said.
“How... No. Wait.” She slapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t tell me how it could be worse. That’s need-to-know information only.”
He pressed a kiss against her palm and gently shifted her hand away from his mouth. “Let’s make a list, Charlotte. Next steps. What we’ll do tomorrow.”
She stared at him. And lied her ass off. “You may be used to catastrophes and disasters, but this is my first time.”
“I’ll be gentle,” he said solemnly. “What’s the first thing we need to do after we fall off the boat and into the ocean?”
“Get to shore.” She gave him a look. “Find help. Take the world’s longest nap.”
“We’ve done the first one,” he said. “And now we’re helping ourselves. We’ve found shelter. We’ve got a fire. And hey, I’ve even made us dinner.”
“Sure,” she said, “but since no one knows we’re here, we’re also stranded.”
“But we’ve got six things crossed off.” He mimed striking through a line.
“Thank you again,” she blurted out. Was it smooth? No. But it was one-hundred-percent heartfelt.
“I was happy to help.”
“I—” She had no idea how to explain. And did she really want to?
“Don’t like water. Yeah. Believe me.” He scrubbed a hand over his still damp hair. “I get that. I know you don’t like to talk about things, but maybe you should talk about this one?”
It was possible that he was right.
She stared up at him, assessing her chances of getting out of this with her dignity—and her heart—intact. Not only was she far too close to his spectacular chest but, just possibly, she’d used up all of her luck on the whole falling-overboard-and-not-drowning thing. “Okay. So first of all, I suck at thank-yous, but I owe you this one. Thank you for jumping in after me.” She paused. “It was a stupid thing to do and you could have still won the race.”
“You wanted me to sail on and leave you there?” He sounded incredulous.
“Well, I was more thinking you could have fished me out before you sailed on. One-handed? Like a knight leaning down from his horse?”
He looked down, angling his face until he could see hers. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you. I made you a promise.”
“Well. Thank you. Again.” She paused. “Wow, this is awkward.”
“Do you know many people who would leave someone alone in the water? I’m asking for a friend here.”
Was she his friend?
“It happens,” she said carefully. “And as I’m an adult, I’m trying hard not to judge those people, okay?”
“Not okay,” he said. “Not ever. Also, Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“It will never happen on my watch and never to you.”
As promises went, it was a doozy.
“I knew you liked me, Movie Star.”
“Charlotte.” The way he said her name, rough and intense, melted something cold inside her. “Did something like this happen before?”
Thirteen
Charlotte opened her mouth. Closed it.
Declan knew that look. He’d seen it on his own face before he’d learned to hide it. It was the look of someone who’d been left. He hated that for her.
“I got left a lot as a kid,” he said quietly. “My biological dad left first, before I was born, so my mom always had work to go to—errands, a second or a third job. She’d leave Nash and me alone in the apartment with food in the fridge and a list of things we weren’t to do or touch. It took longer and longer for her to come back, though, so eventually I’d break the rules. In hindsight, she likely tried the best she could, but I was a kid and being alone was scary. I thought it was something I’d done wrong.”
“Was that when you went into foster care?”
“Yeah. And then a couple of years later, she died in a car accident. J.J. adopted me eighteen months after that.”
“That had to have been hard,” she said softly.
He didn’t like talking about those days. He’d been vulnerable then and now he wasn’t. Except that for Charlotte he might make a tiny exception. “I learned a lot in the years between my first home and J.J.’s. Mostly how to be tough and to stand up for myself. I got into a lot of fights and figured out that I liked the adrenaline rush. I liked it even more when I realized that fighting could be strategic, that it had a rhythm, a choreography of sorts. It all prepared me for the stunt work that led to my career, so I’m not complaining.”
“I’m glad it had a silver lining for you, but I’m sorry, too.” Her mouth quirked up ruefully. “And I know that isn’t the right thing to say, but yeah, that’s me. Queen of the conflicting emotions and poor phrasing.”
He pulled her closer. “J.J. was... Well, J.J. was his own kind of challenge. He chose to bring me home and then he spent a lot of time after that laying out the ways in which I’d turned out to be a poor choice. And when he got mad or criticized, I’d throw myself into my next adventure since I’d already disappointed him. I’m guessing your childhood wasn’t picture-perfect.”
She wiggled back an inch and stared at him. “Wait. Was your sharing a clever trick to make me share? Because I’m going to need more details if we’re trading life stories.”
He let out a low laugh. “Busted. But Charlotte, please tell me?”
“I was at a beach party,” she said quietly. “The adults were up on the bluff. It was a pretty important event. There were some people my father wanted to do business with and he’d warned me about staying out of the way. So I went down to the beach with the other kids and we horsed around in the surf. Nothing too out of control—it was all perfectly safe.”
He had some thoughts about the safety of unsupervised kids on a beach, but he kept them to himself.
“One of the other girls dared me to race her out to the mooring buoy and back,” she continued. “I agreed. I was always a bit shy and this girl was super cool. So there she was talking to me and actually asking me to do something with her. No way I’d refuse plus I was an awesome swimmer and I was totally going to kick her butt. We got in the water and someone called the start of our race and I really went for it. I didn’t realize until I tapped the buoy that I was out there alone.”
“She turned back?”
She shook her head. “She never swam at all. She was laughing on the beach with her friends. I never found out if the dare was a joke or if someone she was actually friends with had distracted her and she forgot about me. They went back up on the bluff and then I had to swim back alone. There was a rip current and I was too tired and inexperienced to get myself out of it. Eventually one of the other parents did a head count and figured out I was missing. When they spotted me out in the water, they called the local rescue team who retrieved me. My father was pissed off that I’d caused such a commotion.”
