Claire sat in the back of the courtroom. She wasn’t sure if seeing her would make Larry feel better or worse, so she was erring on the safe side. She’d driven to Dorchester that morning after serving breakfast for the six tourists staying at the Inn. Hunter had called her the night before and told her he’d be in court this morning, but the judge had already called it to order and he wasn’t in sight.

As the judge began to read the charges against Larry, Claire thought about how much had happened in two weeks. She’d hit Hunter over the head and knocked him out, harbored a fugitive, met with a motorcycle club, had sex about a dozen times…for the first time in ten years… and frighteningly enough, she was falling in love with the man partly responsible for her father’s being in court today. She wished that she could feel good about falling in love with him, instead of feeling guilty. When she was with him, it was all wonderful. He was funny and sarcastic, gorgeous and so hot in bed. He was smart and brave and sexy. He was everything. Everything except for the father who she was about to lose because of him, and when she wasn’t with him, that’s all she could think about.

“Do you understand these charges, Mr. Donovan?” the judge was asking Larry when Claire’s thoughts came back to the present.

“Yes, your honor,” Larry said. Claire had brought him a gray suit. She’d bought it new for him, in the same size as the last clothes she’d bought for him only a few months before. The suit hung on his thin frame like his body was a hanger. He’d lost so much weight. Claire wasn’t sure if it was stress, or the drugs he’d been using, but he didn’t look healthy and she worried about how his health would fare in jail.

“How do you plead?”

Larry looked at his attorney. Claire’s heart hurt as she watched him. He was so much like a child in a man’s body. He needed her to take care of him. He looked lost. The attorney nodded and Larry opened his mouth to enter his plea when suddenly the courtroom doors were thrown open and a man in a big cowboy hat and shiny cowboy boots walked in. Claire barely noticed him for the man behind him in his own shiny cowboy boots. It was Hunter, and he gave her a little smile and a wink before the judge yelled, “What is this? Who are you?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the man with Hunter said. “My name is Harold Myers and I’m with the U.S. Marshal’s office. I have an order to take my witness into protective custody.” The man held up a piece of paper and the judge motioned him forward. Claire was confused. She was looking at Hunter for answers, but his eyes were on the marshal and the judge. Larry’s attorney and the state prosecutor had both approached the bench as well. She looked at her father and his eyes were on her. He looked just as confused, if not more so. She tried giving him a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t sure she had it in her at the moment. The judge read the paper the marshal gave him and then he looked up at Larry.

“Mr. Donovan?” Larry turned back to face the judge. “I’m remanding you into the custody of the U.S. Marshals. This case is dismissed by the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Good luck to you.”

“What? I don’t understand,” Larry said. He looked at his attorney. The man was still in conversation with the prosecutor; neither of them looked happy. It was Hunter who leaned over the barrier and whispered something to Larry that not only seemed to comfort him but made him smile. Larry looked back at Claire and suddenly his face was radiant. What the hell was going on?

Larry gave Claire a little wave as the U.S. Marshal led him out of the courtroom. The prosecutor and defense attorney were madly shuffling papers and Hunter was coming toward her. “What just happened?”

“Larry has knowledge regarding a federal case, so they’re taking him into protective custody until he can testify.”

“I’m confused.”

Hunter smiled and reached for her hand. She took his. His left arm was still in a sling, but God did she love that right one. He led her out of the courtroom and once they were outside he said, “The bodies of Georgie and Charles Winters were just discovered in a trailer in Connecticut.”

“Bodies? They’re dead?”

“Yeah, and they were killed by the same man that kidnapped Angel. Because this man crossed state lines to commit a crime, the Feds took over the case. Because Larry has intimate knowledge about Georgie, Chuck, and by proxy, Josiah Miller, he’s going to be one of their star witnesses when they catch him.”

“And until they catch him?” Claire could tell by Hunter’s jovial mood that he thought Larry was better off with the Feds, but she wasn’t sure why until he guided her a few steps away from the courthouse and said:

“You see that big gold building there?”

“Yeah, it’s a hotel, right?”

He nodded. “It’s a four-star hotel, and that’s where Larry will be holed up until they need him to testify.”

Claire didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She threw her arms around Hunter’s neck and hugged him tightly. “Thank you.”

He laughed. “You’re welcome, but it wasn’t all my doing.”

“I’m sure it was most of your doing. Do you have work, or can you come back to Rockport with me?”

“I’m free. What did you have in mind?”

She smiled. “I’d rather show you.” Hunter shuddered in her arms. God, she loved that.

* * *

Hunter would have never said it to Claire, but he was disappointed when she didn’t take them straight back to the Inn. The whole way to Rockport he was thinking of all the things he wanted to do to her body but before he realized it, they were in Rockport…downtown. She parked the car and like an excited little girl she said:

“I want to show you my town.” Hunter didn’t tell her that he’d been there quite a few times as a kid. It was a beautiful little town, if a little quirky. He liked it, but he liked making love to Claire more. He tried to look happy as he responded:

“Great!”

She took his hand and they started walking down the main street. It was dotted with museums and art galleries and after the second one, he realized that she was planning on taking him into every one of them. He told himself to suck it up and try to have fun. Life wasn’t all about sex and motorcycles…or at least that’s what his mother told him.

The third building on the street was an artsy little coffee shop. She pulled him into it and ordered some fancy designer coffee. Hunter humored her and took a drink. “Holy Christ, that’s good,” he told her honestly. It tasted like coffee with caramel and maybe a little bit of chocolate. He’d drunk the whole sixteen ounces before they got to the next gallery, and he wanted to go back for more. He wasn’t sure if it was the coffee/crack, or the gallery, but the third one was definitely a charm. It was filled with charcoal drawings of nature, and Hunter was fascinated by the way someone could draw something freehand in such intricate detail.

By the time they left the third gallery, he had a genuine smile on his face. The next shop made saltwater taffy and he bought two huge pieces. He ate one all by himself and it only added to the crack effect of the coffee. By the time they got to the famous red fishing shack that he remembered loving as a kid, he was snapping pictures and acting like a stupid tourist. He was surprised at how good it felt to just have fun, out in the fresh air, with a beautiful woman, without sex being involved at all. Well, there were the stolen kisses in front of the lush and colorful gardens and flower boxes, and by the time they got to Bearskin Neck, he had felt her up a few times as well. Bearskin Neck was a peninsula that jutted out into the harbor. It had stores and gift shops and more galleries. The houses themselves were works of art, and as they walked Claire told him the history of some of them that dated back as far as 300 years. They walked down past a gorgeous neighborhood until they reached the beach, where the white sand opened into a beautiful view of the open sea. They walked along the sand until it turned into rocky outcroppings and the weather started to grow cold. Hunter enjoyed the walk back the most because Claire cuddled up into him, letting his body block the icy wind.

When they made it back to downtown they ate seafood in a cozy little restaurant that looked out over the harbor. There was a fat seal sitting outside their window and Hunter barked at it until it barked back. Claire giggled at him and told him he was crazy again, but she seemed to be enjoying herself more than he’d ever seen her. Maybe it was having the stress of Larry’s being in trouble taken off her shoulders. Whatever it was, Hunter was glad. Her face was glowing and her smile lit up his world. He knew he was falling in love with her and he was surprised that it didn’t even scare him.

After dinner Hunter ordered a drink and Claire ordered coffee. He finally decided it was time to ask her:

“Why don’t you drink?”

She sighed and looked out at the harbor. She made a silly face at the seal and then finally looked back at him. Her blue-green eyes swam in his as she said, “It’s kind of a depressing story, are you sure you want to hear it?” He nodded and reached across for her hand.

“I want to know everything about you. Maybe one day I’ll even get what you see in Larry.” He winked at her and she laughed.

“That one might be harder to explain. But about the drinking. My mother was married to a man when I was ten years old. I was so happy because I’d always wanted a father and he was so nice to me. He treated me like a princess and took me places and bought me things. When I was twelve years old, he offered me a drink. He had a dry martini every night after work, and I liked being close to him and having things that were just between us…so I accepted it. From then on, every day before my mother got home from work, he’d make us a drink. That went on for two years. By the time I was fourteen, I didn’t need just that one drink, and he knew it. He started buying an extra bottle of vodka and he didn’t say a word when it disappeared by the end of the week. My grades were failing at school and I was getting into stupid trouble. I brought a boy home with me one day when I was fifteen and he and I drank the whole bottle of vodka. We were about to have sex when my stepfather came home and caught us….” She turned her face away and Hunter saw her swallow a thick lump in her throat. He already wanted to kill this guy, even before she said, “He said that if I was ready to have sex, it was going to be with him. He said that I needed to pay him back for everything he’d done for me.” A tear escaped her pretty eyes and rolled down her cheek. Hunter’s blood was boiling and his heart was aching for the young girl she’d been and the innocence she’d lost. “For the next two years, until I was seventeen, we had sex every day. I drank more and more to be able to stand it. I was so ashamed and I felt so guilty. I was almost relieved the day my mother came home early and caught us…but God, it was so hard. She threw him out and she told me it wasn’t my fault. But she never looked at me the same and in my head, I thought I could hear what she was thinking about me…and it was all bad. I started sleeping around and I stayed drunk all the time. Two months before I should have graduated from high school, she poured my drunk ass into a car and drove me to rehab. I left there sober, but when I went home, I still couldn’t look my mother in the eye. She had a new boyfriend too and he seemed nice, but I was afraid of him. I was afraid of myself and most of all, I was afraid of what she thought of me. That’s when I decided to come and find Larry…and here I am, ten years later.” She wiped the tears off her face and Hunter tried to find words for what he was feeling. He ended up with:

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. God, it makes my heart hurt and my stomach sick. Honestly, it makes me want to find him and kill him.”

Claire smiled as another tear rolled down her cheek. “It doesn’t make you think less of me?”

“Are you kidding? It only proves what I already knew about you. You’re one of the strongest, most resilient women I’ve ever known. I think I’m falling in love with you, Claire.”

She sucked in a shaky breath and then let out a little sob. Hunter wasn’t sure what that meant until she said, “I think I’m falling in love with you too.”