CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Getaway

 

 

A scratch on the door sounds as I’m zipping my jeans. Expecting Jilly, I throw open the door, ready to grab her into my arms.

Instead, the small, black-haired woman who let me into the house the first day of my visit stands trembling, wringing her hands.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” I say.

“It is all right. I am sent to escort you to breakfast with Ms. Vickers’ aunt.”

“Now?”

“If you’re ready.”

“Lead on—what is your name?”

“Carolina.”

I follow Carolina down hallways I haven’t explored, to the opposite wing from where my guest room is. She taps on another door, and a woman calls for us to enter.

A tall woman in a pantsuit the color of the roof tiles stands beside two chairs, a table set for a meal between them. She motions me in and indicates a chair.

“I’m Jillian’s Aunt Bink, and I’ve been very excited to meet you.”

This is one of Jilly’s favorite people. With her rosy cheeks and ready smile, she’s easy to like. Even given the formality of the room, she manages to set me at ease. “Jack DePaul. I’m happy to meet you, too.”

She sits in the chair opposite mine and leans forward, conspiratorially. “I’ve seen marked changes in my sister’s girl this past month. I think it’s your fault.”

If Aunt Bink only knew the effect her niece has had on me. “She’s a remarkable woman.”

“Yes, she is. I wanted to apologize for stealing her away from your construction site.”

“No need.”

She looks down at her hands. “I wasn’t very supportive of Jilly taking your job, I’m afraid. I worried that it would interfere with what she was trying to accomplish with the harvest.”

“Nuclear war wouldn’t have interfered. She had things to prove.”

“Exactly. You understand.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You’re from North Carolina?”

“Yes.”

“Is that where you’re taking her on your getaway?” She picks up the silver coffee pot in one hand and a cup and saucer in another.

I lean toward her, my eyes narrowed. “I’ve told her the destination’s a secret. Are you Jilly’s spy?”

“Hee, hee, hee, my goodness, no. I’m just a nosy old lady who loves her niece.” She pours coffee into the cup.

She’s lovely. And, I’m betting, lonely. When I take Jilly, her world will shrink that much more. “How about if Jilly and I send you a postcard?”

She sets down the pot and the saucer. “Young man, I think you’re a scalawag.”

I laugh outright at that. I doubt anyone else this century has been called a scalawag. If I hadn’t loved pirate lore when I was a kid, I might not even know what a scalawag was. “Better a scalawag than a rapscallion.”

She clasps her hands together against her chest. “Oh! Marvelous. Welcome to the family, Jack DePaul. If I were twenty years younger, I’d be taking you on a getaway.”

I take the cup of coffee she passes to me and take a sip, eyeing her over the rim. For some reason, the thought of Aunt Bink whisking me away doesn’t make me as nauseous as maybe it should. I’m beginning to see where Jilly gets her spunk.

“And I’d make sure we had a good time,” she adds with a wink.

“You’d be too much for me to handle,” I say, winking back at her.

“Take good care of Jillian. You will bring her back, won’t you?”

The question catches me off guard, because I’ve been pondering it myself. Sure, I’ll be bringing her back. The better question would be…when? Aunt Bink doesn’t need to know that yet. “I promise to bring her back.”

After breakfast with Aunt Bink, I search out Nate’s study for a little fortification.

Jillian’s at her father’s desk. “What’s up?” I ask, coming to her for a kiss.

“Just finishing my article. I want to upload it today. Wanna read it?”

“Read it to me.” I pour a little amber fluid into a glass.

“It’s only 9 AM, and you’re pouring Scotch? Ah. Aunt Bink?”

I toss back the slug of liquor and grin. “She’s a pistol.”

“That’s for sure. I bet in her day, she was a force. Okay, ready to listen? Here goes.”

Four days and twelve hundred miles later, I pull Ol’ Blue into its bay in my garage, beside the BMW and my Ducati. It feels good to be home. I’m itching to sleep in my own bed, surrounded by familiar things and the ocean that pulls me back every time I have to leave on a job.

“We’re here,” I whisper in Jilly’s ear, careful not to startle her awake.

She sits up in the seat beside me, blinking slow like a sleepy cat. She stretches her arms out in front of her and yawns. I open my driver’s door and climb out, flexing the kinks out of my back.

“We’re at the ocean?” she asks.

“Yep. It’s too dark to see it tonight. But it’ll be there in the morning.”

She hops out and reaches for her bag behind the seat. When she joins me, I take it from her and lead the way to my elevator. We take it to the top floor.

“Bedroom’s this way.”

Once in my room, I drop the bags and open the curtains so in the morning, the view will be clear. The colors of sunrise over the Atlantic are my favorite on Earth.

“Hungry? Thirsty?”

She shakes her head, looking tired and lost and so beautiful. Turquoise eyes eating me up, sending riots of want shooting through every muscle. My fingers find their way to her hair, threading in tight, holding her in place for my mouth, now inches from hers. “I’ve been dreaming of this for a thousand miles, wildcat.”

Her hands grip my wrists, holding on, bracing herself as desire pulses between us. “Kiss me, Jack. A kiss for every one of those miles.”

A groan that’s been building since I first met this woman rolls from deep in my chest. “Even if it takes the rest of my life.”

My lips touch hers to seal the promise, and we’re fused, our heartbeats merged with each other’s. Surging with the timeless rhythm of the sea.

That’s all it takes—one soft kiss—to ignite all the passion between us. Clothes seem to disintegrate on touch. Bed gapes, begging to be filled. Fingertips uncover secrets, every sigh’s a precious gift.

I enter her, moaning her name. Her body absorbs my invasion again and again, each thrust cauterizing lust, transforming it, pleasure so intense our bodies cannot—will not—contain it. Until, as urgently as it began, my name on her lips, desire is slaked, oblivion welcomed.

In the morning, Earth fresh and new, colors stream through the wall of windows, calling us to greet the day.

Sitting on the corner of my bed, facing the misty water and sky, I pull Jilly backward onto my lap, onto my hardness, an arm banding the fulness of her breasts, my other hand caressing her where we’re joined. Quietly, gently, we worship each other.

And when I’m eventually privileged to hold her release in my hands, I know—beyond doubt—that we are one. In every way.

She rests against me, her back to my front, her hair cascading down my arm. Sheer contentment pulses inside me, somehow allowing room for something bigger, more important, stretching my chest. My nose finds its burrow in the side of her neck, and I breathe in her scent of flowers and sunshine and temptation while nuzzling behind her ear. “I love you, Jilly.”

Her arm reaches back to caress the back of my head. “You’re sure?”

I kiss her temple. “I’m sure.”

“’Cause you know, once I say it back to you, it’s for life. Done deal. No wiggling out of it later.”

If possible, I fall a little more. “It’s the other way around, love. You’re already inside me, lighting all my dark. Once you tell me you love me, I’m never letting you go.”

“Forever?”

“Even longer.”

A gull floats by, lazily banking outside the window, gliding on air, like my heart. The sky’s lightening up, bright yellow searing through the mist of dawn, promising a beautiful new day.

In the midst of that glory comes her whisper.

“I love you, Jack.”