Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel (21 page)

If it had been located anywhere else, such as on Cape Cod, or more locally, on Harborview Drive in Shelter Bay, Tess would have found it charming. But with the tumultuous sea draped in fog and the angry sky behind it, it could have been on the cover of one of those gothic novels her mother had devoured like chocolate truffles.

Unfortunately, the long-forgotten memory was a brief flash replaced by the claps of thunder and bolts of sulfurous lightning her imagination had conjured up. A man who made his living writing about things that went bump in the night could not have found a more suitable place in which to spin those eerie tales of darkness.

While the outside of Nate’s house might bring to mind an earlier era, the interior updated the Victorian style with a more modern Pacific Northwest vibe. As she entered the front doors, she found herself looking across a long room through a wall of windows that offered an expansive view of the sea.

The foyer table had been created from polished thunder eggs set in concrete. Thunder eggs, Oregon’s state rock, were spheres created from volcanic ash that were usually the size of baseballs and looked ordinary on the outside. But when sliced in half and polished, they revealed stunningly intricate patterns of agate, jasper, or opal. The tabletop sat on a huge twisted base of driftwood that could have come from the beach out the window. A floating wooden staircase with a black steel railing curved up to a second floor.

“This is stunning,” she said as she glanced around at the many stylized Northwest Native American paintings hanging on the high walls.

He put their luggage down on the vast expanse of bamboo flooring. “You sound surprised.”

She shrugged. “I expected you wouldn’t go for anything ordinary. I didn’t realize it would be so…” Her voice drifted off as she sought a word that wouldn’t insult him.

“Understated?” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Let me guess. You were expecting either an overdecorated monument to the god of conspicuous consumption or maybe a man cave with a pool table in the center of the room and lots of dead animal heads hanging on the wall.”

“Maybe the second,” she admitted. “Just a bit.”

“Lucas Chaffee did a great job with the building. I’ve always loved living by the sea, and fortunately, we shared the same vision.”

“While it might be a sea house, it’s undoubtedly nothing like what you grew up in on Orchid Island.”

“Same ocean, entirely different vibe,” he agreed. “If I still lived on the island, I’d probably never get any work done because the weather’s pretty much the same year round. Here, during the long, wet winters, I’m stuck indoors.”

“I can’t imagine writing by the fireplace, staying warm and dry in the midst of storms would be a hardship,” she suggested.

“You won’t get any argument from me there. Although the view from my upstairs office can be distracting. Originally, in the style of the times, the house was cut up into lots of small rooms. But we knocked down the walls to make the downstairs all one open space. And since it faces east/west, I get the morning sun and the magnificent sunsets that named the place at the end of the day.”

He’d also flooded the walls with soft light from sconces and recessed lighting in the ceiling, which would brighten the coast’s gray days. A telescope stood on a tall tripod by the window.

“Let me show you upstairs,” he said. “So you can unpack.” Picking up her suitcase, he headed up the stairs.

Tess paused as she came to the landing with the same tall bay windows. A window seat upholstered in sea blues and coral, which she suspected reminded him of home, invited a person to sit and read or just watch the waves rolling in.

Down below she could see the hulking remains of the captain’s shipwreck that had inspired so many stories. Including Freebird Sullivan’s rock opera currently playing to sold-out crowds on Broadway.

“You probably have a great view of the whales from here,” she guessed.

“Amazing. Since it’s on the migration path, we get a lot of passing whales along with Shelter Bay’s resident ones. Summer and winter, it’s like having the Nature Channel right outside the window. Last year a young orca got off course and ended up in the bay at Christmas. That was probably the most exciting thing that’s happened here in a long time.”

“I saw that on the news,” she said. “And was glad the story had a happy ending.”

“That’s the only kind allowed here,” he said.

“Try telling that to Captain MacGrath the next time you talk with him,” she said. Then immediately regretted both her words and her tone. “I’m sorry. That came off harsher than I meant it.”

“You’ve been under stress,” he said. “Which probably has been keeping you from getting any sleep lately.”

“Sleep has definitely proven a problem,” she agreed as she followed him down a hallway to a guest bedroom. “But it’s not only because of Vasilyev.” The bedroom was as inviting as the rest of the house, with a black wrought iron and wood sleigh bed that also offered a view of the sea. The furniture was a deep, rich espresso that contrasted with the warm cream walls. “You were a distraction,” she admitted.

“That’s a start. And back at you on the distraction. I was going crazy thinking about you while I was on that damn tour.” When he stepped closer, common sense told Tess to move away, but her feet seemed bolted to the floor: “We both have a good idea where this is headed.”

“My life’s already complicated enough.” The last thing she needed was to get involved with a man who made her feel as if she were slowy sinking into quicksand.

“Now see, I wasn’t thinking complications. But fun.” When Nate traced her lips with a fingertip, Tess trembled as she remembered the feel and taste of his. “However, I’m easy. We’ll be friends first,” he decided. “Because I think you need a friend.”

“A friend with benefits?”

“That’s up to you. I’m up for starting slow with an easy, social relationship. Share stuff about our day. And our families, like we’ve already done.” Her unruly heart skipped a beat as he tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Maybe even go out to dinner from time to time after you put that Russian mobster away for good.”

“But not like a date,” she qualified. “The kind that goes from two spoons sharing a decadent dessert straight to bed.”

“That works for me,” he said. “But not until you’re ready.”

“That assumes I’ll ever be.” At least her head wasn’t. But other parts of her body that had gone neglected for too long had definitely perked up and were taking notice. “And I already have all the friends I need.”

His eyes held hers as his hand trailed slowly, provocatively down her throat. “Now there’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart.”

Her knees were weak again and her head had begun to spin. If she hadn’t known better, Tess might have thought that she actually was coming down with, if not pneumonia, at least the flu. That could explain why her body was feeling like a furnace.

They were close. So very, very close. She could practically feel the beat of his heart echoing her own. Which of them had moved?

She swallowed. “Dammit, Nate…”

He could feel her trembling. The idea that he was the cause of it gave Nate an undeniable feeling of power. He enjoyed knowing that he’d made Tess experience the same unreasonable hunger, the same unruly desire for him that he’d suffered for her. Experience assured him that with a bit of sensual lobbying, with a few kisses, a tantalizing touch here and there—and there, as well, he thought as he took in her inviting body—they could be sharing that bed. Right now.

But then what? Once Tess had given in to impulse, how would she feel about him afterwards? And more importantly, how would she feel about herself?

“Friends,” he repeated, as much to himself as to her. “That’s what we should be working on.” He forced a smile that was at odds with his need to grind his teeth to dust. “Why don’t you unpack?” His fingers traced the shadows below her eyes. “I have some work to do. So you may as well take a short nap.”

He skimmed a hand over her hair. Then, after turning on a gas fireplace, he left the room.

The urge to go running after him and drag him back to this room, to this bed, had Tess convinced that she really must be crazy. If she had any sense she’d turn around and head back to Portland as fast as a hired car could carry her. There was, of course, the threat of bodily injury from her anonymous caller. But something even more vital would be endangered by her remaining here, under the same roof with Nate Breslin. Her heart. Tess reminded herself of all this as she unpacked.

Outside the house, the storm continued. Inside, she remained warm. And secure. As exhaustion finally caught up with her, although she never,
ever
took naps, she pulled off her boots, changed into dry clothes, slid between the sheets, and immediately fell asleep.

*     *     *

Two hours later, she woke to a room that was oddly cold.

Climbing out of the bed, Tess went over to the windows, thinking the wind must have blown one open. But they all remained tightly fastened.

A slight movement drew her wary gaze to a corner of the room, and Tess watched, fascinated in spite of herself, as Captain Angus MacGrath gradually materialized.

He had to be a hallucination. Brought about by the wailing wind and the images conjured up by an overdose of Nate’s backlist novels she’d downloaded while he’d been away on tour.

Tess closed her eyes, murmuring a small, desperate prayer that when she opened them the vision would be gone. No such luck.

“If you don’t mind,” she said hesitantly, still finding it difficult to believe what she was seeing, “I’d like just a moment.”

The vision—she had yet to accept that it was her great-great-grandfather—nodded obligingly.

Tess’s cautious but avidly curious gaze moved from the top of his capped head to the toes of his boots. The captain was not as tall as she might have suspected from the freewheeling stories about him. And his black beard was sprinkled with streaks of silver.

If asked to describe a ghost, Tess would have given a standard answer—a filmy, white, indiscriminate apparition with neither true form nor substance. The man standing before her was nothing like that.

His body was firm and decidedly muscular, his eyes, as they studied her, burned with interest and a certain intelligence that she found as appealing as it was impossible. As if deciding that he’d given her enough time to digest his unexpected appearance, the apparition suddenly spoke.

“I was wondering when Breslin would get you to weigh anchor and show up here,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. Tess decided that if a ghost could look smug, MacGrath was pulling it off. “Took him long enough,” the captain muttered with disdain. “If it’d been me, I’d have shanghaied you that first day.”

Tess jutted out her chin at the blatantly chauvinistic statement. “Like you did Isabella?”

A dangerous fire flashed in his dark eyes. “Marriage to a common seaman wasn’t good enough for the rich and beautiful Isabella Lombardi,” he replied bitterly.

Her mind whirling with family stories, Tess forgot that she was carrying on a conversation with someone whose presence she would have refused to believe in only minutes earlier. “I suppose she told you that?”

“She did,” the captain countered. “But I should have known she was playing me for a fool all along. All a man had to do was look at all those society toffs hanging around her like lovesick puppies to know that she’d marry into her own kind.”

He looked around the room. “I built this house to give Isabella a fine home. A home she’d be proud to be the mistress of. And I would have, too,” he said emphatically.

“How can you expect me to believe that? After you put a curse on her? Not to mention all the women of the Lombardi family who would follow her?”

The captain scowled as he rubbed his beard. “Hang it all, woman, sometimes a man says things in the heat of anger he doesn’t mean. How the blue blazes was I to know my ship would go down before I could take those blasted words back?”

His annoyance was so intense, the frustration in his eyes so real, Tess found herself believing him. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? You’re matchmaking, trying to make a love match for a Lombardi woman to make up for what you did to my great-great-grandmother. So you can escape whatever plane it is you’ve gotten yourself stuck on.”

As if deciding that he’d already said too much, the captain faded away before her eyes, leaving Tess to wonder if she’d imagined the entire episode.

No, she concluded as she finished unpacking, the captain had been real. Or as real as a specter could possibly be. And as unlikely as it sounded, she had the feeling that Nate had been telling the truth all along.

The captain was responsible for their meeting; he’d somehow, using whatever woo-woo tricks ghosts possessed, put thoughts of Isabella, whom Tess undeniably resembled, into Nate’s head until he had no choice but to find the woman who’d been haunting his dreams.

Tess was well aware that the captain and Isabella’s romance had been anything but idyllic. Stories had been handed down of tearful recriminations, reconciliations, and more arguments. She was willing to believe the captain’s claim that he had intended to return and marry her great-great-grandmother. But fate and a vicious storm had intervened, leaving him to spend eternity watching the results of his ill-tempered curse.

Despite her loyalty to her family, despite her always having given far more credence to that ridiculous curse than common sense allowed, she found her heart going out to the hot-tempered seaman.

Wanting to share her amazing experience, she went to find Nate.

The kitchen, which opened up to the rest of the main floor, was definitely not for someone accustomed to takeout and microwave dinners. It had been designed for a chef, and the man standing at the island holding a shiny steel-handled knife that looked more dangerous than many that ended up in crime scene photos, seemed perfectly comfortable there.