“Why didn’t you go to Scotland?” Morgan asked. “You were invited.”
“A little matter of proving to my dad that I’m ready for the work force.”
“Instead of college?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s gonna be a tough sell. King’s big on education.”
“I’ve been thinking about a compromise. My dad would like to see me in Harvard, of course, but I was thinking maybe I could do like Harmony, Destiny, and Storm, and go to Salem State while I work and live here. That way, Jake and I could spend weekends on the island with Dad and Harmony, and I wouldn’t be leaving Jake behind for school. I’m not free to go just anywhere. I grew up without a parent; I don’t want Jake to, even for a few years when I’d see him on weekends.”
Morgan nodded. “Makes sense, and compromise is good.”
“Tell my dad that, will you?”
“Sure thing, but Regg, you might make your father a counteroffer.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell him what you want to do, then tell him that he can send Jake to Harvard.”
Reggie fell against the counter. “You’re a genius.”
“Who’s a genius?” Destiny came into the shop through the house. “Morgan, I’ve got a few suitcases on my bed. Can you bring them down to your car? They’re a bit heavy.”
“I’ll bet.” At the top of the stairs, he stopped in front of a framed painting of the abbey Meggie had attended as a boarder, the painting’s main focus, the tower where she slept.
He wondered, hoped, that Destiny’s young mind had psychically confused the collapsing towers.
“Hey, what’s taking you so long?” she asked from behind him.
He pointed to the picture.
“I painted that fifteen, maybe twenty years ago. Does it look familiar?”
“Meggie went to school there.”
“Eerie.”
“Everything you paint is eerie.” He took a deep breath and tried not to growl. “Have you always painted only what you see in your mind? You couldn’t have been there one day and painted it later?”
“Where is it?”
Where
was
it,
he corrected in his mind, because her question had given away her lack of knowledge. “Gorham, New Hampshire,” he said.
She shook her head. “Never been there, but what does it matter that I painted Meggie’s school?”
“She died there.”
Destiny’s unexpected sob surprised him. He pulled her close.
“Now I know that I was truly meant to be at the Paxton Island Lighthouse with you and Meggie,” she said. “I’m more certain of it than ever. Meggie’s been gone for how long, now?”
“Too long. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“THINK you’ve got enough luggage?” Morgan asked, packing Destiny’s suitcases into the trunk of his pride and joy, though she, herself, was quickly taking the Mustang’s place in his heart.
He figured it was okay to like a woman more than he liked his car. No commitment involved. Just a matter of like, right? Sure, right.
“This trunk is getting full. I might have to put some of your luggage in the backseat. You brought another portfolio? Why?”
“The way you recognize my pictures is starting to creep me out, so I thought we could look at these together.”
“I’m not sure I’m up for that.”
“To balance the scales, and take our minds off more serious matters, I filled a suitcase with toys.”
“Don’t you think we’re a bit old for toys?”
“Sex toys.”
Morgan’s head came up so fast, he hit it on the trunk lid. “You have my attention.”
“Nothing like the way I will when I take them out to play.”
“As a freshly deflowered virgin,” he whispered, “I feel compelled to point out that anything you say could put you in an awkward position, like up against the car.”
“Words are powerful,” she said, “on any sexual journey, but since Jake is watching through the window, I think I’m safe.”
Destiny went back in the shop to say good-bye to Reggie and Jake, but she took her time. He used it to call his parents in Rockport. Not that his dad was likely to answer. His mother wouldn’t allow it, so basically, he was calling his mother. He’d rather stick a fork in his eye.
“Hi, Ma, it’s me. How are you? Besides, being disappointed in me, I mean.”
Her list of random complaints didn’t surprise him, but she ticked him off, as usual, because he was sick of hearing them.
“No, I can’t make it in time for lunch. It’s too far away. I wouldn’t have time to drive up there.
“What do you mean, Dad’s sick? He’s never sick. Does he have a temperature? Does he need to see a doctor?” Morgan listened to his mother and smacked his head on the headrest three times before responding. “Yesss, if you make it a late lunch, I could make it in time and see Dad for myself.”
He held in his impatient sigh while he listened to her personal health grievances, a long diatribe, all in her head, because she was healthy as a horse, according to her doctor.
When had she grown so negative? So bitter? He barely remembered her any other way. Made him wonder, not for the first time, why his father had married her.
Destiny saw him on the phone when she opened the car door, so she got in quietly and left the door ajar so as not to slam it.
“I have to go, Mother. See you in a few hours. Right.” He hung up and looked at Destiny. “Calling them backfired. They, no, my
mother
wants me to come for a late lunch, which she’ll try to stretch into staying for supper.”
“No problem. I’ll be happy to spend the day with Reggie and Jake while you’re with them.”
Morgan knew, like he knew his nightmares, that his mother would try to talk him into staying for a few days, so she could try and talk him into going back to the priesthood. “Come with me and meet my parents. Not that it’ll be a pleasant experience, but there’ll be a lot less pressure on me with you there.”
“So you want me as a buffer between you and your parents?”
“My dad’s pretty great, except for the fact that he lets my mother call the shots. It didn’t take me long to figure out why he spends so much time in the garage refurbishing old cars.”
“So that’s where you got it.”
“Absolutely. I learned to hide at a young age. Meggie could get under the hood with a wrench, too.” He covered Destiny’s hand. “I’d like your company, Kismet, honestly, but it would help that my mother would
never
ask me to spend the night if I had a woman with me.”
“Okay, I’ll go, but I have to go back into the house to change my clothes.”
“Why?”
“To make a good impression on your mother.” Destiny got out of the car and disappeared into the house.
No woman
he
brought home could possibly make a good impression on Olive Jarvis, but there was no point in telling Destiny and spoiling the ocean view on the drive up there.
Morgan only hoped that his mother’s heart could stand the shock of him bringing a woman home.
He was just thinking that he should have given Destiny some clothing guidelines when she came back, and he got an instant wishbone.
He went around to her side to open the door for her. “Is that what you’re wearing?” On any other woman, a white dress covered by a lacy white sweater tied at the waist, and ending in a row of lace vees at her hips, would exude innocence, not sex. But Destiny would look smokin’ in a sack.
She’d further buried any semblance of innocence with the length of her dress. It had none. Her miniskirt revealed legs that went on forever and ended in a pair of beaded strappy spikes. She exuded pure hot sex. At least sex is what he thought about when
he
looked at her.
She had pulled her hair back on one side with a white feathered clip, her curls flowing down her other side to cover one breast, like a mermaid. Hotter than shower sex.
She frowned at the way he looked at her and reexamined her outfit. “I wore white. Virginal. Pure. To make a good impression.”
“Sorry, Kismet. Didn’t work.”
“How should I have dressed?”
“To make my mother like you?”
“Of course.”
“Like a nun.”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Nope.”
“I fixed my hair so it wouldn’t
look
like we just had sex in the shower.”
“But we did.” And somehow, his mother would sense it. He opened the car door for Destiny to get in, blaming himself for her outfit, but his lust-mushed brain forgot why blame was necessary when she looked so hot.
“Your parents don’t have to know we did.” She pulled in her long legs, and he wanted to hump them. Great.
“Kismet, the last time they saw me, I was a celibate. I’m bringing home a sex goddess, and I can’t stop smiling. I think they’re gonna figure it out.”
“So what if they do?”
“Pestilence, flood, famine, even locusts, or so my mother will predict, only because it would be a sin for her to throw herself off the roof.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
DESTINY scowled. “Hey, I came out here all excited about meeting your parents.”
“That’s what worries me. I like you, Kismet. I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”
“They can’t be that bad.”
He got into the driver’s seat. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“I hope she’s at least a good cook. We never did have breakfast.”
He pulled into traffic. “I ate an ice cream cone with Jake.”
“Before lunch? Reggie’s gonna
love
you.”
“Oh, she already does. I took him to a pet store.”
“Jake told me. He also told me the difference between girl dogs and boy dogs then he asked me if I wished I had a peanut. Speaking of which, I’m starved.”
Morgan did a double take. “For peanuts, or my peanut?”
“Both.”
He shook his head. “Do you want to find a light bite to hold you over?”
“Nah, I raided my candy stash and ate a few gummy penises.”
Morgan swerved and nearly drove off the road. “Pardon?”
“What? You never ate a candy tit?”
“Oh sure, we ate them all the time at the seminary and rectory.”
She fished in her purse and pulled out her candy bag. “Here, want a couple of penises to hold you over?”
He shuddered. “My balls are shrinking just hearing about them. Geez, don’t show them to me.”
She made sure he watched as she bit one in half.
“Cannibal!” he snapped. “Such a beautiful sense of humor, Kismet. Too bad it’s about to be extracted, without Novocain.”
“I doubt it.” For fun, she showed him the pink penis lollipop she planned to torture him with, later. “Maybe if I suck on this along the way,” she suggested, “you’ll calm down?”
Morgan did a double take. “You’re enjoying this.”
Destiny scooted over and rubbed his thigh, higher and higher. “It’s called seduction by association.”
“I never heard the term, but I can tell you that it works.”
“I made it up.”
“No, Kismet, you stood it up. But it damned well better behave at my parents’ house, and that goes for you, too.”
“What could go wrong?”
He nearly missed a right turn. “You cannot bring phallic candy into my mother’s house. Empty your purse into the glove compartment.”
“What, you think she’s gonna smell sin in my purse? She can’t be that strict.”
“My mother is certifiably devout. I come from the ‘buried bathtub shrine in the front yard’ persuasion. She calls it a grotto. My father isn’t as kind. He adds ‘plucking’ to the shrine with the original spelling.”
“I’ve seen those. They’re not so bad.”
“My mother has worn black since the day I left the priesthood. She’s in mourning for my vocation.”
“Sounds like she needs to get a shrink and a life.”
“She needs my father to—”
“What?”
“Grow a pair. I’d think they never had sex, but I know they had it at least once, about thirty-one years ago, or I wouldn’t be here, unless Meggie and I were adopted?”
Morgan and Meghan. The babies from her nightmare being christened together. “The priest uncle who baptized you. He was your
mother’s
brother, wasn’t he?”
Morgan said nothing as they drove through the Endicott College campus, and she caught peeks of the ocean on the right. “I love New England in the fall. So, he was scary, that uncle, right?”
Morgan shook his head. “So, you came to the lighthouse to keep from spending time with me in Scotland. Why?”
“Change of subject noted. How about that? We went to the same place to escape being paired with each other socially, and we ended up paired sexually, instead. You think maybe we would have ended up having sex in Scotland?”
“I don’t think so. Not with all our relatives around to watch and comment.”
Destiny sifted through her purse. “You’re right. I’m convinced that our being at the lighthouse together was meant to be, in more ways than one, especially with Meggie there. You were furious the night I got there. Are you still?”
“Hades, no. I got laid. I’ve been waiting all my life for y—for sex.”
“You’re such a romantic.” Destiny stuffed her X-rated candy into his glove compartment. “You’re right, though. In Scotland, we’d still be looking daggers at each other, with our family shaking their heads in disappointment.”
“They can’t know. We’d never live it down if they knew. Swear you won’t tell your sisters.”
“None of our family can know, except for Reggie and Jake, who already know.”
“Slam it.” Morgan made another turn along the coast-line. “Technically, they’re your family, not mine, I realize, but when you meet my parents, you’ll see
why
I joined yours, and made the lighthouse my getaway.”
They passed a cemetery that made Destiny’s heart pound. The way Morgan glanced at it, out of the corner of his eye, confirmed her suspicion. “A family is never the same after the loss of a child,” she said.