22. Caleb
TWENTY-TWO
Caleb
I was so fucking turned on. I wanted her. Every inch of her. To taste her skin. To hear her moan. I was ready to shred every piece of her clothing and mine and fuck her on the kitchen counter until we were breathless and needed to come up for air.
Her lips were soft and so damn kissable. But her tits? God, I loved touching her and licking her. There was no way we could hold back this morning, not after how we both let last night get out of hand. It never should have happened that way.
Dinner with my parents had been exactly what I had hoped for. They got along. They liked each other. The conversation was easy and flowing. Jacob was Jacob. She was getting her footing again after what he had let slip about the different assignments around the country.
We would get better at communicating. We would figure the rest of it out together. Right now, all I wanted was her naked body under mine.
The instant I heard the car, I knew exactly who had interrupted us.
“Dean.” My jaw clenched.
“Oh shit. He always shows up like this.” Margot scrambled to put her shirt back together.
I had no idea how I was going to turn around. My shorts were tight against the hardness of my cock. I needed a fucking minute to get my body under control.
Margot pushed past me and hopped off the counter. I braced myself on the countertop, trying to breathe. The ache was painful. I wanted her and I wanted that asshole to stop dropping by unannounced.
“Don’t worry. The door is locked. I’ll meet him on the porch. Why don’t you get some water?”
She knew exactly what my problem was without me having to explain that I couldn’t move. I nodded, and she headed out to greet him. I took a few more deep breaths and walked to the fridge for cold water. I chugged a couple of glasses before I knew I was steady enough to join them on the porch.
I opened the door. Dean sat in the corner. He had spread files across the table. He looked up at me with a cocky expression.
Margot’s head whipped around. I saw the look in her eyes. Something wasn’t right. The way she had looked at me five minutes ago was long gone. This was something entirely different.
“Dean?” I gave him a quick nod.
“Is this true?” she asked.
I stepped onto the porch. “Is what true?” I had no idea what was going on.
Dean cleared his throat. “I’ve been doing some research work on Margot’s behalf. As her attorney. She asked me to look into a few things for her.”
“Okay. And what’s this about?”
Margot crumpled one of the sheets of paper in her fist and shook it at me. “Is this true? Are you the Island Stewards, LLC?”
It was like someone had tied an anchor to my body and dropped me off the side of a ship. I was sinking fast to the bottom of the ocean.
“Caleb? This money. It’s from you, isn’t it?” she pressed. The accusation was rhetorical. She already knew the answer.
I glared at Dean. “What are you doing? What are you trying to do?”
He scoffed. “I’m just doing my job. Following the law. Something you are not doing by putting Margot in this position.”
A shot of fear ran through me. This was not fucking happening. I had done my due diligence. Set up two different LLCs with the help of my brother’s advisor. This was supposed to protect me and Margot. How had Dean figured it out?
“What difference does it make where the money came from?” I asked. It was a weak defense, but I wanted to throw up as many shields as I could.
“Because I know you don’t have this kind of money. It came from Carrie, didn’t it? You took the money she kept pushing on you.” There were tears in Margot’s eyes. “You swore you didn’t.”
Dean looked at her, then me. “Wait, where did the money come from? From someone you know?”
I shook my head, trying to warn Margot not to say another word. “From the mom of the little boy we rescued.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t believe you would do this. God dammit, Caleb.”
“I was trying to help you. I was trying to do a good thing. You were drowning in debt. Debt you didn’t deserve. It was killing you. I had to do something. You wouldn’t accept my help or anyone’s help. Even Dean’s,” I growled at him.
She whirled on me. “But Carrie? You know there are strings attached to that money. You know all she wants is to sleep with you! That is her only objective. It has been since she met you in the hospital.”
I saw the smile appear on Dean’s face. I needed to get this under control fast. She didn’t know what she was doing, but Margot had already fed him what he’d been looking for for years. A way to hurt me.
“Let’s go back inside and talk about it,” I pleaded.
“I can’t talk about it right now. I need you to go.”
I lunged toward Dean. “You did this.”
“Don’t!” Margot screamed.
Dean backed up with a terrified look on his face. “I will call every cop on this island. You know I have their personal numbers.”
I exhaled. “You know she needed this money.” I stared hard into his eyes. “But you don’t care, do you?”
“I represent my client. And if she has received money that was not legally available or has broken a federal statute, then…”
“Federal statute? What are you talking about?” I barked. “It helped her save the marina. She can stay on Marshoak now.”
I hated the pompous look on Dean’s face. “Bribing an officer? You took money, man. You can’t do that. And if the mother implies there was some kind of relationship. A sexual one?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. I didn’t sleep with Carrie. Margot knows that.”
Dean shook his head. “You are the one who put Margot in danger by accepting funds you had no right to take. She then used those funds to pay taxes to the government, Officer O’Connor,” he snarled my name with such spite I wanted to slug him.
I rubbed the side of my face to keep from forming a fist and punching him anyway.
“I didn’t take your damn spot in the Coast Guard.” I gritted my teeth. “This revenge plot you’ve had going since then is fucked, man.”
“What?” Margot’s voice sounded as if it were in a faraway tunnel. “What revenge?”
I turned to her. “You know this thing that you’ve asked about… why Dean and I don’t get along? Yeah, well it’s because he blames me for taking his commission in the Coast Guard. I haven’t been able to explain to him why he’s wrong. It’s not how it works. If he didn’t make it in, that was on him.”
Dean spat back, “You’re a legacy Coast Guardsman. Of course, it’s how it works. They only had one post on Marshoak Island. Who was going to get it? You, the legacy.”
“You could have gone somewhere else, Dean. You could have taken another commission. I didn’t take your spot.”
He chuckled. “Well, doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
“It seems to matter to you. You’ve been holding this grudge for a long time and trying to come at me any chance you get.”
“Dean?” Margot questioned. “Why would you care so much about being in the Coast Guard. You have a successful law practice. I’m so confused right now. I thought you liked being a lawyer.” She sat on a wicker chair, noticeably getting more upset.
“You’re right. I do have a successful practice. But there was a time when I wanted to do something else. Something different than my dad. I had my own plans. My own dream that wasn’t the family business. I wanted to be on the water. But Caleb made sure I didn’t get the slot. I deserved it. I was qualified for it.” He glared at me. “And you took it from me.”
The truth was, we had never openly spoken about the Coast Guard until this moment. I couldn’t believe it was coming out in front of Margot. He admitted it. The jealousy. The grudge. The anger. The years he has whispered in the cops’ ears about me. I’d known he’d put a target on my back, but it wasn’t until now that all my theories and paranoia were confirmed. He had been waiting for years to get back at me for taking the dream he had. He thought it had always been my fault.
“Not true. You’ve had it wrong all this time. That’s sad.”
“Stop it!” Margot jumped up from the wicker. I heard part of the battered chair crack against the jolt. “I’ve known there was bad blood between you two, but this is crazy.” Her eyes cut from Dean to me.
I wanted to explain more to her. On the heels of last night, I couldn’t imagine she wanted to hear it.
We all turned when a big truck pulled up at the marina.
“That’s the drink machine I ordered.” She sighed. “I have to go out there and meet him. This was supposed to be a good thing.” She paused at the screen door. I knew she wanted to say more, only I didn’t know if it was going to be directed at Dean or me.
Quietly, she stepped off the porch and let the door slam behind her.
I growled at him. “Don’t do this to her. Don’t make her lose the money and what she’s trying to build here. She’s finally getting her footing. She’s finally making plans that will work. You have no idea how excited she is about staying. About planning Movies on the Marsh. About having a home for the first time since her mom died.”
Dean started to shove the files into his briefcase. “I’m not the one who took something I shouldn’t have. You can’t blame me for this. You did this to her.”
“I can blame you for hurting her.” I looked over at Margot. She was talking to the drink machine driver.
“Again, not my doing. I uphold the law. I took an oath.”
“Oh give me a fucking break. This isn’t about your moral character. This is about me.”
“Does it really matter?” His eyebrows rose. “You let that woman with the kid pay you. I’m not the one with moral issues.”
I clenched my fists at my sides. Carrie had been a problem from the minute we met her. I never regretted saving Lucas. I regretted staying in the hospital. I regretted going over to her house for dinner. I’d ignored my instincts, and it had cost me. Only, I didn’t know yet what the final price was going to be.
“I need to go. I have another meeting.” Dean had collected the rest of his papers.
“Don’t let me hold you up.” I stood in front of the cottage entrance so he had plenty of room to leave through the porch.
He headed out to leave. There was nothing else to say. I wasn’t going to be able to stop Dean from whatever the next part of his plan was. I had to sit back and wait.
Margot was still working with the driver on the drink machine. I walked over.
“Need any help?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I can handle this. I’ve got it.”
He was trying to position it next to the new ice cooler. He was having a hard time getting it level. If it wasn’t on even footing, the drinks wouldn’t dispense properly.
“Hold on. I think I have a solution.” I jogged off to the shed and returned with a one-by- four. I instructed the man to tip the machine forward. I slid the wood beneath the two front legs, and he lowered the machine back down.
He placed the level on top, and we smiled. He laughed. “That will do it. Not permanent, it will keep your drinks from getting stuck.”
“Thank you.” Margot smiled tersely. I knew she wasn’t happy I had jumped in, but he didn’t have a solution for her.
She signed an order receipt, and the drink truck was off the property in a matter of minutes.
I turned to her. “I don’t want to leave like last night.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “What have you done, Caleb?”
I sighed. “I wanted to help. Carrie wouldn’t give up. She gave Gabe a bag of cash. An untraceable bag of bills. She wouldn’t take it back.”
Margot’s eyes widened. “That was cash money?”
I nodded. “She wasn’t going to stop. She came to my room. I thought the only way was to do something good with the money. You need it. You couldn’t get out from the taxes.”
“You should have told me,” she pleaded. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“You wouldn’t have taken it.” I shrugged. “Believe me, I wanted to tell you, but I wanted you to have it. I wanted this to work for the Blue Heron.”
“What’s going to happen now?” she asked.
I looked out over the water. “I guess it depends on what Dean does with the information. He doesn’t have to do anything. He could just let it go.”
“How likely is that?” She wanted to know.
I touched the side of her face. “I don’t care what he does as long as you and I are okay.”
She stepped into my arms. “We are okay.”
My heart thumped against my ribs. God, if I lost her, I didn’t know what I’d do. For once, she hadn’t pushed me away.