Sean strode up the silken sand that rolled easily from beneath the soles of his shoes. His mind swirled. Who would have thought a woman could have vanished on such a small island?
“Then again, she was a cop. Is a cop. Hell, I don’t know. She’s good at vanishing when she wants.”
His vision sharpened and he latched onto a figure striding his direction. He knew that stride and the body attached to it. Intimately.
Putting himself in her path, he waited for her to look at him and realize he was there.
She slowed to a halt, eyes expressionless as she watched him. “Doyle with you as well? I mean, what’s a day without all three of the O’Malley brothers sticking their noses into my business?”
“I’m sorry Flynn got to you.”
“I don’t need you to protect me, Sean. I’m a big girl.”
He raked her with his intense gaze. “I see that. Where have you been?”
“You seem to be under the impression I’m supposed to tell you where I’m spending my time and who I’m spending it with.”
He narrowed his focus. “That’s not what I said, or meant.”
“I can’t do this, Sean. We had some sex, let’s leave it at that. Leave me alone.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Won’t, not can’t?”
“Oh, I could but I don’t want to, ergo, I won’t.” He stepped closer. “I fucked up by giving you those papers, Rica. I took the coward’s way out.”
While he’d thought her expression was blank, it flattened out and he realized it hadn’t been, it had merely been contained.
“Answer something for me.”
“Anything.”
“If you hadn’t run into me on the beach, would you have reached out to me about this?”
Lord help him, he longed to say yes, but he wasn’t going to lie to her. “I’d like to think so.” He noticed her gaze shuttered a bit but her features didn’t slip. For a moment. Then sadness spilled into her eyes and that tore into him, harder than the news of how badly he’d messed up his knee.
“That’s what I thought. I can’t do this again, Sean. Seeing you is a reminder of what I lost. I not only lost the boys but I also lost you and I can’t go through that pain anymore.”
Okay, he was wrong, he could feel worse. And he did. “Rica,” he said, holding out his hand.
She stumbled back, shaking her head. “No. Do you know what it’s like to go through that?”
He shoved his hand through his hair. “Of course I do. They were my boys as well, in case you’d forgotten.” How could she even think he didn’t know what it was like to go through that?
Rica shook her head, looked around and he knew the second when she decided to hell with it, in regards to the people around them. Those blue-green eyes of hers sharpened with lethal intensity as that focus lasered into him. “I haven’t forgotten. They were spitting images of you, with my eye color. I’m talking about after. You had your family. Your brothers. I was alone. My family was you and you pushed me away. All of you. Maybe not Doyle but we weren’t ever close. Flynn didn’t give a damn about me, and when you gave me those papers, it was clear you didn’t either.” She stepped closer and pointed at him. “So all I had was my work to throw myself into, and that was after I had to move out of your house.”
Well, look at that, he could feel even lower.
Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. Tears lingered at the corners of her eyes. “I loved you, Sean, more than I ever thought I could love anyone. Then Riordan and Rourke came and my heart grew bigger. When that asshole killed them in his drunken idiocy—my world shattered. Not saying yours didn’t. Like I said before, you were an amazing father, Sean. I may hate how you treated me but I will never let you feel like you were ever less of a father.”
“Then let me make this up to you.” He rubbed his chest, Christ, it hurt. “Let me prove to you I can be the man I should have been then.” He reached out to her, clasping her wrist. “I never stopped loving you.”
“I know you said all that’s needed is love but this isn’t the case. I will always love you, Sean. You were the father of our children, you’ll always be special to me for that. I can’t say we weren’t electric together but no, I won’t go down that road again with you.”
The first tear fell, as she pulled free. She dashed it away with the back of her hand.
The agony in her face ripped him apart.
She walked away, head down as if the weight of the world were on her slender shoulders.
He stared after her until he could no longer see her weaving throughout those gathered along the beach.
“That didn’t look like it went well.”
Sean turned to glare at his brother only to find Flynn wasn’t alone. Doyle stood beside him, behind his brother, a slender woman with wavy chocolate brown hair, yanked back in a ponytail, waited a bit farther back.
“You do realize there are times when you’re not wanted, right?”
Flynn’s smile was cold. “Always.”
Doyle shushed him and neared. “I’m going to invite her to dinner tonight. I suggest you figure out what exactly you are going to say to make this right.”
“What more can I do? I told her I loved her and I wanted a chance to do right.”
Gesturing at the brown-haired woman, Doyle cocked an eyebrow. “My agent, Marissa Barr.”
Sean nodded at her but didn’t say much more. He needed to be alone.
αβ
Rica leaned over the edge of the woven basket as the hot air balloon took her over Mimosa Key. She very nearly checked out and left, to hell with the money but something kept her here. Each time she tried to put things in her bag, five seconds later she was yanking them out just as fast.
She’d needed a change of scenery. What more could she do than be above it all? The world took on an entire new meaning. All down there was small and quiet, looking peaceful from where she floated above them.
The water so crystal, she could stare for hours. The sun sparkled upon it and she was again struck by the beauty of this area. So different from the north where she currently resided. Not that Northern Minnesota wasn’t without beauty of its own, for there was plenty. However, to not have the cold winters and snow that made her wish she didn’t have to get out of bed in the morning, might be something to think about.
Snowboarding and snowmobiling shouldn’t be all that different from waterskiing and jet skiing. She could learn. And it would be a nice difference, if she got a job here working as security.
She closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sun allowing it to warm her through and through. Tomorrow would be her extremely rough day. It was the day she had buried her boys.
After thanking Zoe Bradbury for the ride, she made her way back to her room. Sleep, right now, she just needed to sleep.
Her phone rang as she unlocked the hotel door. Without checking the screen, she answered, “Sandford.”
“Rica, it’s Doyle.”
She nudged the door shut with the heel of her foot. Of course it was. “What can I do for you, Doyle?” She put the phone on speaker and proceeded to strip down to nothing before heading to the bathroom where a long hot shower was in order.
“I’m inviting you to dinner tonight. And I would hate for you to say no. I’ll play any guilt card I have to.”
“I was just going to eat a quiet meal by myself.” One O’Malley brother was a force to be reckoned with. All three in the same room…dangerous.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it because I was a shit brother-in-law, but we are family. And as such, I expect you here. Don’t make my agent be the only female in the room.”
She turned on the water and rolled her eyes. “I’m sure your agent can hold her own against the lot of you.”
“I’ll have a car pick you up at six.” Doyle was gone before she could refuse once more.
With a deep groan, she hung up the phone and stepped into the cascading hot water. On as hot as she could handle it, she stood there, hoping it would take away her increasing pain. It never did but she always held onto hope.
After she finished, she dried off then wrapped up in a robe before crawling into the comfortable queen bed. She had to get some sleep today because she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping at all tomorrow night.
She woke pressed tight against a hard-male body. Even as her self-preservation instincts took over, her body told her exactly who lay beside her.
Sean.
He lay against her back, one arm curved around her midsection, the tips of his fingers inside her robe along her belly. “I know you’re awake, Rica.”
“Breaking and entering is a crime you know, Sean.” There wasn’t any way to explain how right it felt being in his arms.
“I love you, Patricia Sanford. I want you to be my wife once more. I want to do this right by you and keep you with me for the rest of our days.”
Tears burned her eyes. She settled her hand on his forearm, stroking absently. “You know I never go to their graves on the day we buried them.”
“I never saw you there. Why didn’t you?”
“I was scared to face you and your brothers if you happened to be there then. After I left, I would swing through at least once every three months there. I have flowers delivered to both every month.”
He pressed his lips against her neck and she shivered with anticipation. No other man could do what he did to her. Sean carried her to such planes of pleasure, even like this. Her core throbbed.
“Do you ever wonder what they would be like now?”
“Only every day. I met a little girl today who was about a year or two younger than they were and it nearly broke my heart.”
“I wish I could fix it all, Rica.”
She squeezed his hand, the first of her tears falling. “You can’t. It wasn’t meant to be, for whatever reason, He needed them in Heaven with him.”
Sean rolled her so they were face to face. His eyes were honest and straightforward as he stared at her. “I need you in my life with me. I know you asked me before if I hadn’t seen you would I have said what I did. I want to say I would have come to that, but I’m a hardheaded man and it most likely would have taken me much longer. But yes, I would have come to this. I’m yours, forever. My heart will never belong to another as it has to you.” He cupped her face. “As it does to you.”
“I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore, Sean. I did an interview here for a resort security job, but I’m not sure I want to do that. I live on the other side of the country from you.”
“I’m not a resident here, Rica. I’m visiting Doyle who wants me to move here but I don’t have to. Northern Minnesota is nice this time of year.”
She snorted and laughed. “No, it’s not. The flies and mosquitos are terrible and it’s already freezing at night. Before long, yes, we have the leaves changing but soon, the feet and feet of snow will be there.
“Give me a chance, Rica.” He captured her lips.
She sighed into him, splaying her hands along his chest. She didn’t want to go to dinner at his brothers. She didn’t want to face tomorrow alone and with him, she didn’t have to. “I was ordered to dinner by Doyle.”
“We can be fashionably late,” he murmured as he undid the belt on her robe. He skimmed his hand down over her belly until he covered her slit. Two fingers pushed inside her as she whimpered, shifting to better accommodate him.
“We can be unfashionably late for all I care.”
“Tell me yes, Rica. Please.”
“One day at a time, Sean. I want to say yes, so badly and not just to giving you a chance, but I’m scared.”
“Trust me to be here for you, I meant what I said, Rica. I’m forever yours.”
She held his gaze until her lids fluttered closed, because she couldn’t hold his look anymore. The intensity was too much for her to handle. She’d been a wife, a mother, a border patrol agent, perhaps now was the time to figure out how to be her. How to enjoy life once more. And if that meant revisiting this part of her past, well, she did love him, so it couldn’t be all bad could it? She didn’t think so.
While she couldn’t verbally formulate the words he needed this moment, she put it all into her kiss as she welcomed him deep inside her body. She loved him. He loved her.
Perhaps that was all they needed.
About the Author:
Aliyah Burke is an avid reader and is never far from pen and paper (or the computer). She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached . She can also be found on , , , and . You can follow her on her , , or at .
She is married to a career military man. They are owned by four Borzoi. She spends her days sharing time between work, writing, and dog training.
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