Free In the Waning Light by Loreth Anne White Page B

shift of the wind.

CHAPTER 6
    Blake had changed. Rougher and more rugged, he’d filled out, muscled up. Fine creases fanned from the corners of his deep green eyes, and lines bracketed his wide mouth. He was sun browned, windblown. He looked like he’d seen and done things. War. Foreign skies. A man of the sea and wild places. Yet there was something beneath his powerful exterior that seemed somehow . . . fractured. This man who knew her probably better than anyone left in this world did—or could—appeared to have hidden wounds of his own.
    The onslaught of feelings—guilt, remorse, affection, kinship—was so contradictory, so sudden and powerful, it slammed the guts right out of Meg, forcing her to slowly seat herself on the wet log, not quite trusting her legs. A memory simmered to the surface—racing down the gangplank and onto the dock, making for her family’s little tin boat . . .
    Where are you going, Meg?
    None of your business . . .
    If she’d made it his business, would everything be different? Time stretched. Gulls wheeled and screeched.
    She found her voice. “I’m sorry about Bull,” she said softly. “I . . . I had no idea you were back. The last I heard was that you’d enlisted.”
    “I did. Day after you left. Served as an army medic. Several tours. Long, long tours.” A smile creased his face, putting dimples into his cheeks. He opened his hands, palms up. “And look at me now—here I am. Back home on the bay.”
    Wind swirled, sending the old weather vane above Crabby Jack’s squeaking against rust. The deck down in the water below groaned under a tidal surge. Lucy the Lab sighed in resignation and lay down at Blake’s boots in front of the fire. Then, his words almost a whisper, he said, “God, you look good, Meg.” He cleared his throat quickly. “I saw you on TV a couple of weeks back, on that Evening Show . And Rose Thibodeau has your new book in her storefront window. She’s going to want you to come and do a signing or something now that you’re here.” His smile deepened. It put light into his eyes. But it was surface. Because in those eyes Meg read deeper currents. Old hurts.
    It twisted her gut.
    Her gaze dipped to his forearms. They were tan, the hair on them gold. They rested on thighs thick as her waist. His legs were splayed apart, his big hands clasped together. The sight and shape of him so familiar, yet not. A strange sensation rippled hot through her, like an ache. For home, lost things. And it came with something trickier. Darker. Sexual. She swallowed, slowly lifting her gaze to meet his eyes.
    “So, what does bring you home?” he prompted.
    Home. What in the hell was home, anyway? “I came to write Sherry’s story.”
    “Sherry’s story? As in a book ?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So, it’s work that brings you here?” A hint of derision, disappointment, glinted in his eyes.
    She looked away, out over the bay. An osprey hit the water with a smack, surfacing with a writhing fish, droplets glittering in the sky as the bird rose with its silvery catch. “To tell you the truth, Blake,” she said slowly, watching the osprey flap off, “I don’t really know what brings me here. I just needed to come back for a while. I need to see my aunt, sort out the house. The city has been sending warnings. They’ve threatened to take action if I don’t do something.”
    “It is an eyesore.”
    “I know. I drove by last night. In the dark it looked bad enough. I can only imagine what it looks like in broad daylight.”
    “And what’s with the camper?”
    “It’s sort of my office. The plan is to park it at the old house while I fix things up: power wash the walls, put in new windows, see what the interior looks like.” She met the intensity in his eyes, and heat flushed into her cheeks. “I didn’t want to stay there alone last night. The gate is locked anyway. So . . . I came here.”
    He weighed her carefully with his gaze, taking a measure of her