First Time in Forever Read online

  His gaze didn’t shift from hers. “Did you look at the stories?”

  “No. I wasn’t in the mood to mull over your career success. I was too busy wondering why you’d chosen to keep it from me. And the answer is pretty obvious.”

  “Emily, listen—”

  “I listened when you suggested Lizzy and I join you for lunch. I listened when you said I could trust you. I told you everything. And you’re such a good listener, aren’t you, Ryan? So good at parting people from their secrets. For a while I thought you had a gift with people, but now I realize it’s one of the tools of your trade. You even won a prize for it. Tell me, is sex another part of your superior technique to get people to tell you everything?”

  His face was blank of expression. “You know it isn’t.”

  “I don’t know anything.” She felt an ache deep in her gut because even now part of her wanted to believe that what had happened between them was real. “All I know is that you lied.”

  “I was going to tell you. I was waiting for the right moment.”

  “And when was that going to be? When you’d told everyone the whereabouts of Juliet Elizabeth Fox?” She saw the brief flare of anger in his eyes.

  “Do you really think I would do that?” He stood up so suddenly the chair scraped on the floor. “Hell, Emily. I’ve been doing everything I can to make the two of you feel safe here.”

  “For what purpose? So that you can tip off a journalist as to exactly where Lana Fox’s child is living and get the credit? Is this what you journalists call an exclusive? You deliberately withheld information about yourself. If your past had no impact on the present, then why didn’t you tell me the truth? You told me about your childhood, about your brothers and sisters, your parents, Agnes—but not once did you mention that you used to be a journalist.”

  He swore under his breath and ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Listen—” He broke off and scowled as the door to his office opened, and Kirsti put her head around. “Not now—”

  “Sorry, boss.” Kirsti slunk away, closing the door behind her again, and Emily turned and walked toward it.

  “You didn’t need to send her away. I’ve said all I have to say.”

  “Good. So now it’s my turn. Sit down.”

  “There is nothing you have to say that I can possibly want to hear.” She reached the door at the same time he did, and he stretched past her and pushed it shut with the flat of his hand.

  “Except the truth. You don’t have to believe me, but you’ll at least listen.” He was standing so close to her she could smell that elusive male scent that made her knees weaken.

  “Why are you suddenly so keen to tell me the truth?”

  “Look around you, Emily. What you see is a man who has plowed every last dollar and cent into this business and this island. I’m not a journalist. I haven’t worked as a journalist for four years, and even when I did I wasn’t reporting the sort of story you’re describing.” There was a hardness to his jaw and shadows in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before.

  Or maybe she hadn’t been looking.

  “So why didn’t you mention what you used to do?”

  “Because it isn’t part of my life now, and once I discovered why you were here, I knew I couldn’t talk about it. You needed someone to trust, and if I’d told you, you wouldn’t have trusted me.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t have. But that should have been my choice to make.”

  “Brittany trusts me. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  “She should have told me the truth instead of telling me you were a friend.”

  “I am a friend. And the reason she didn’t tell you is because she didn’t think it was relevant.”

  “You were a journalist! How can that not be relevant? And whatever has happened before, I need you to be honest with me now, for Lizzy’s sake, if not for mine. Should I be worried? Have you told anyone she’s here?”

  He hesitated for a second too long. “I made one call after that day you saw the photo in the newspaper, but only to try and get a sense of how interested people were.”

  Her heart started to race. “You called someone?”

  “An old friend. And he didn’t know why I was calling.”

  “How do you know? What if he guesses? They could come here.”

  “The media is losing interest. Lana was the story, not her child. They’re not going to come.”

  “If they do—if they find her and scare her—there is no quick way off the island. If they come, where do I run to?”

  “You won’t need to run. They won’t come.”

  “That first day when you came knocking on my door—” it was painful to ask the question because she was afraid of the answer “—it wasn’t because you were looking for Lizzy?”

  “I’ve told you. Brittany asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  “Why would you agree? I’ve known you long enough to know you don’t do anything that doesn’t suit you. What is this relationship you have with Brittany that you’re willing to put your life on hold to keep an eye on a stranger? What do you gain from this if it isn’t a story you can sell? She told me that you owe her.”

  He gave a tired smile. “That’s a private joke.”

  “I’ve had enough of private. Exactly what do you owe her?”

  He turned and paced across to the window of his office to stare out over the water. “I was best man at Brittany’s wedding.”

  Of all the things she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. “Her wedding? The wedding? So you’re friends with the bastard who walked out on her at the end of their honeymoon? Oh, my God.” A suspicion formed in her mind. “We saw him. He was flying the plane Skylar took last weekend. I recognized him. The first thing Brittany did when she arrived at college was pin a large photo of him on the wall to remind her never to be stupid about a man again. I stared at his face long enough to be able to recognize him when I saw him in person. Did you know he was back here?”

  “Yeah, I knew. Zach is the best pilot you’ll ever meet. He owns his own plane now and flies the mega-rich to their yachts and beach cottages. The rest of the time he does his own thing, and it so happens he’s chosen to base himself on Puffin Island.”

  “He was flying for Maine Island Air.”

  “He helps them out sometimes. I didn’t think it was something that needed mentioning as Brittany isn’t here anyway, and their marriage was over before it started.”

  “You are the master at withholding information.”

  “Whereas you clearly support the principle of full disclosure, so by all means go ahead and tell her he’s here if you think that’s going to make her day and lift her mood.”

  She knew it wouldn’t. “If you were best man, then you must know him well. Are you two still friends?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. “Friendship isn’t something you throw away just because someone makes a bad decision.”

  “Bad decision? You don’t think he should have left Brittany?” She saw tension ripple across those wide shoulders and he turned to look at her.

  “What I think,” he said slowly, “is that he should never have married her in the first place. That was the bad decision.”

  “So why does Brittany blame you?”

  He gave a humorless smile. “Because I knew it was a match made in hell. He got cold feet and wanted to ditch her on her wedding day, and I drove him to the wedding instead of the airport because I knew she’d be devastated. I didn’t want him to hurt her. Turned out he did that anyway, and I made it worse. Ditching her at the altar would have been a hell of a lot less complicated than ditching her at the end of the honeymoon.”

  It was a lot to take in.

  “What about the rest of it?” She forced herself to ask one more question. “Did Brittany tell you to kiss me? Was that part of the deal?”

  His eyes darkened. “You know it wasn’t.”

  “I don’t know anything, Ryan. And I don’t know you.” Wit
h those quiet words she turned and left the room.

  *

  HE WAITED UNTIL he knew Lizzy would be in bed and then knocked on the door of Castaway Cottage, unsure whether she’d even open it.

  The island was folded in mist and darkness, and behind him he could hear the rush of the sea against the shore. He was thinking how much courage it must have taken to choose this place as a refuge, when the door opened.

  Emily’s feet were bare, and her hair fell soft and loose around her face.

  She didn’t look pleased to see him, but he’d braced himself for that.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “We’ve said all there is to say.”

  “I want to show you something. Give me five minutes. If you still want me to leave after that, I’ll leave.” The thought of what he was about to do made him feel as shaky as an alcoholic who hadn’t had a drink in a month.

  She stared at the box in his arms and opened the door a little wider. “Lizzy is asleep.”

  “Good, because this is between us.” He carried the box through to the kitchen. Given the choice, he would have destroyed it long ago, but he knew keeping it meant a lot to his grandmother.

  He put it down on the table next to one of Lizzy’s paintings, a classic child’s drawing of a house with smoke coming from the chimney. There was a garden, drawn with careful strokes of green, and a curve of custard yellow sand next to an ocean bluer than anything he’d seen in Maine. It was obvious to him that this was his grandmother’s house. The innocent charm of the picture jarred uncomfortably with the dark reality he’d placed next to it.

  He stood for a moment with his hands on the box.

  He’d chosen to live life looking forward, not back, and he didn’t relish what he was about to do.

  “That’s Agnes’s box.” She stood next to him, waiting. “I already know what’s in it.”

  No, he thought. You don’t. “I want you to take a look. Read.”

  “I don’t need to read.”

  “You wanted to know about my past.” He felt distant and detached, as if someone else had climbed into his body. “This is my past.”

  “Which you try and forget. Why? Do you regret the stories you wrote?”

  “No. But they stay with you.” He flipped open the top and gripped the back of the chair until his knuckles were white. “Especially that one.”

  She stared at his face and then down at the file. In slow motion, she picked up the clipping on top. Award-Winning Photojournalist Killed in Kabul?

  “We worked with a translator and a driver. Together we made two trips into Iraq and four into Afghanistan. Me as foreign correspondent, Finn as a photojournalist.”

  There was a long silence. “You were a war reporter?”

  “I met Finn on my first day in Baghdad, and we hit it off right away. We had an ongoing argument about which was the better medium for telling a story—words or images. He said that I wrote about the truth whereas he showed it. Neither of us wanted to be embedded with the troops. We wanted to be free to tell the stories we wanted to tell. The ones other people weren’t telling.”

  She sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Ryan—”

  “After a British journalist was killed, Finn decided he’d had enough. He said we’d ceased to see beauty in the world, only the bad and the ugly. Everything we saw was distorted and discolored by conflict. He wanted to take photographs that didn’t involve human suffering. I talked about this place all the time, and we were always making plans. I was going to run a sailing school, and he was going to use his photographic skills to raise awareness of the importance of marine conservation. On really bad days we decided we’d open a bar together and drink our way through the profits.” He stopped and heard the scrape of the chair on the floor as she rose to her feet.

  A moment later a glass of water appeared by his hand.

  He took a sip, embarrassed by how much his hand was shaking.

  “We were about to fly home, but I wanted to do one more story, so we went with our translator and fixer to a local village. Finn was joking that he was going to sail my yacht while I did the work when our vehicle was hit.” Just for a moment he felt it again, the blinding flash and then the white and the lack of sound. “We were close to a military base. A helicopter pilot risked his life to get us out of there, but it was too late for Finn. He was killed instantly.”

  Her hand reached across and covered his, slim warm fingers sliding between his.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I was the one who was sorry. If it hadn’t been for me, we would have been on our way home. I was the one who pushed for one more story.” Even now, four years later, the knowledge left a bitter taste in his mouth and the gnawing agony of guilt. He reached into the file and pulled out a photograph. “This was one of his last photographs.”

  She removed her hand from his and took the photograph. “It’s very powerful.” She stared at it for a long moment and then placed it carefully back in the box and closed the lid. “You were badly injured?”

  “Bad enough. I had serious internal injuries and my shoulder was messed up. I was in and out of hospital for four months. I had eight rounds of surgery. And I was a difficult patient. Ask Agnes and Rachel. They took the brunt of it.” He stared at the file. “Rachel was home from college for the summer and she virtually moved into my hospital room and stayed there with me until I was discharged. The first day back on the island, she forced me to get dressed, and I managed to walk as far as the harbor before having to sit down. My legs wouldn’t hold me and my shoulder was agony. Every day she made me get up and walk a little farther until eventually I was walking as far as the lighthouse. I had no idea my little sister could be such a bully. When I was strong enough to walk as far as Shell Cove, she decided I should start swimming. I remember the day she and Alec forced me to go sailing. It was a perfect day, and I felt the wind fill the sails and knew this was where I wanted to stay.”

  “So the sea healed you.”

  “In a way, but I think it was more about the people. Before I left the island I couldn’t wait to get away. I felt trapped, I was going crazy. I thought anywhere in the world had to be better than this place, living among people who know everything from how much you weighed when you were born to what you liked to eat for dinner. Then I discovered differently.” He licked his lips, not sure whether by being economical with his words he was sparing her the detail or himself. “I guess you could say my priorities changed. An honest person would probably say it was a shame I had to be blown up to discover something I should have known all along.”

  “I think we don’t always see things clearly when we’re living in the middle of something.” There was a long silence. “I owe you an apology.”

  “No. I’m the one who owes you an apology for not being honest, but I was afraid you wouldn’t trust me. And I wanted you to trust me.”

  “Because you feel you owe Brittany.”

  He could have told her the truth. He could have told her that the reason he couldn’t stay away from her had nothing to do with Brittany, but that would have led the relationship in a direction he suspected she wasn’t ready for it to go. And he wasn’t sure he wanted it to go there, either.

  Whatever she thought about her suitability for the role of parent, she’d shown herself to be fiercely protective of Lizzy. That fact alone meant he should stay the hell away from her.

  “That’s right.” He kept his face blank. “I owed a friend a favor.”

  “The other night—”

  “You had a bad experience. Neither of us was thinking straight.” Finding willpower he didn’t known he possessed, he stepped back and reached for the file. “I should go. I have a pile of paperwork waiting for me before I turn in. If you need anything, you know where I am.”

  He saw something flicker in her eyes. Hurt? Confusion? Either way, he saw her register the dismissal and draw the conclusion that his attentions had all been driven by nothing more than a Good Samaritan i
nclination and a debt owed to a friend.

  It was a measure of her inexperience that she believed his words over her own instincts.

  If she’d looked into his eyes, she might have questioned it because he was pretty sure that the words coming out of his mouth were not backed up by the expression on his face.

  He wanted to drive her back against the wall and kiss her until she could no longer articulate her own name. He wanted to strip off those clothes and fill his hands with those voluptuous curves.

  Instead, he ground his teeth and walked to the door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A SPELL OF hot weather brought tourists flocking to Puffin Island. They spilled off the ferry, a riot of color and smiles, overloaded with bags, children, strollers and equipment for all weather. Some came by car, some as foot passengers, and most of them headed for the beaches close to the harbor. The waterfront was crowded, the restaurants full and the locals talked about how this was the best start to a summer season they could remember in a long time.

  The bay was busy, the water dotted with boats of all shapes and sizes, from the majestic schooners that Lizzy called pirate ships to sleek racing boats and small pleasure crafts.

  “Can we see the puffins?” Lizzy paused on the harbor, watching as a crowd of people queued to board one of the many trips around the island to Puffin Rock. “Ryan said he’d take us.”

  “He’s very busy.” It had been over a week since she’d seen him, and she’d been trying desperately to put him out of her mind. It was hard, just as it was hard to think up excuses to stay away from the water.

  Emily looked at the boat bobbing in the waves and felt sick. She was getting a little more confident each day, but was still a long way from taking Lizzy on a boat trip. “Is there anything else you’d like to do?”