Book 27 Renewal After Dark #8
Sarah and Kelsey laugh.
“Mom, Kelsey needs some help with her hair. You’d be willing, right?”
“Jeff!”
“Of course, I would!”
“Oh, my God. I didn’t want him just to blurt that out.”
“Why not?” he asks. “You need help, and my mom is right there. Now, you’re all set.”
“What am I going to do with him?” Kelsey asks.
“He’s always been unmanageable,” Sarah says. “It’s a baby-of-the-family thing.”
“Hey! That’s not true.”
“Oh, please,” Sarah says. “You had every one of us wrapped around your little finger from the minute you were born.”
“It’s not my fault I was impossibly cute.”
“Yes, you sure were, and you still are.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re thankful I didn’t die.”
“That’s right. And, Kelsey, honey, anything you need, just let me know. You’re part of our family now.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Grandchamp. It’s really nice of you to say that.”
“My name is Sarah, and I mean it. You’re family. It would be my pleasure to help you with your hair.”
Duke makes double the amount of food he normally would and asks if McKenzie wants dinner delivery. When she responds yes, he brings her dinner.
“This has been the best day ever.”
“What else happened?”
“Including you and Sierra, I now have seven new clients.”
“Wow. That was fast, but I’m not surprised. Everyone needs you. But what about your job with Tiffany?”
“I got fired.”
“What?”
“When I told her what was happening with the bookkeeping business, she hired me to do hers and fired me from the shop. She said being self-employed is the best and that I’ll have more business than I can handle.”
“She’s right.”
“First time I ever got fired,” she adds with a big goofy grin that makes everything inside him go soft with affection for her, except for the one part of him that was most definitely not soft.
His insides have never gone soft over anyone like they do for her. “You’re really making a mess of me, MK.”
“A good mess?”
“I think so.”
“You’re not sure?”
“It’s all so unprecedented, I don’t know what I am.”
“Are you happy?”
As he looks up at her gorgeous, sweet, sexy face, he realizes he’s never been happier than he is right in that moment. “Yeah, I’m happy.”
And then she kisses him and makes it even better.
“I want to be with you. I want to end the best day I’ve ever had with you.”
What in the world can he say to that? “Can we bring Jax over to my place?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He won’t wake up?”
“If he does, he’ll go right back to sleep.”
“Okay, then…”
“Should I get him?”
Duke feels good about having tried to do the right thing, but the time for talking is over. “Yeah, I think you should.”
Jack Downing finds Billy Weyland floating in about six feet of water in the southern corner of the Great Salt Pond.
Blaine accompanies Jack to the gym to tell Morgan, Billy’s brother, that his brother has been found. Morgan, who’s about thirty-five, with dark hair tinged with gray on the edges, is folding towels behind the registration desk. His expression goes blank when he sees them coming. “You found him.”
“We did,” Blaine says. “Please accept our condolences on the loss of your brother.”
Morgan’s dark eyes are rimmed with red from a week of sleepless nights and unbearable stress. “Goddamn it, Billy.”
“We’re so sorry,” Jack says.
“Thanks for all you guys and the others did to find him. That stupid son of a bitch.” Morgan’s eyes fill with tears. “How could he go and leave me here all alone?”
“Is there anyone we could call to come over and be with you?” Blaine asks.
Morgan shakes his head. “It’s just me—and him. Or it was.”
“The coroner will come from Providence,” Blaine says. “They’ll perform an autopsy and then release him to the funeral home of your choice on the mainland. We can give you some suggestions.”
“Sure, that’d help. Thanks.”
“When they’re done, they can send him back over on the ferry if you want to bury him here on the island.”
“There’s nowhere else he’d rather be.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Blaine says.
Jack hands Morgan his card. “Call if there’s anything at all I can do for you.”
Morgan shakes hands with both of them. “Thanks again, you guys, and to everyone who was part of the search. Please tell them…” His voice breaks. “Tell them I appreciate it.”
“We will.”
As they depart from the gym, Jack says, “I feel bad leaving him.”
“I do, too, but we’ve done what we can for him.”
Duke and McKenzie move Jax to the spare bedroom at his house and end up in bed together. She’d felt safe with him long before they got naked, and that allows her to let go of the worries that are usually part of the first time with someone new. She relaxes and wallows in the pleasure.
A sound from another part of the house has her eyes opening while Duke goes still on top of her.
“Duke! Wake up!”
Is that Sierra?
“What the fuck?” He pushes himself up and off McKenzie, reaching for a pair of sweats from the foot of the bed. “Sorry. I’ll be right back.”
He leaves the room and closes the door behind him.
McKenzie pulls a throw blanket over her and tries to hear what they’re saying as she hopes against hope that she hasn’t misjudged him.
When Duke asks Sierra about why she’s there so late, he realizes she’s drunk and upset. Duke tells her he’s busy. Sierra asks if McKenzie is at his house and starts to leave. Duke stops her and asks what’s wrong. “They found Billy.”
Duke gasps. “Oh, damn.”
As a daily regular at the gym, Sierra had been closer to him than Duke was. “I’m sorry. I was so hoping he’d be found alive.”
“I know. We all were. His poor brother. Did you know it was just the two of them? Their parents and sister all died young.”
“No, I didn’t. That’s so sad.”
A few minutes pass before Sierra has pulled herself together to the point where she can speak. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have barged in on you like that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Is something other than Billy upsetting you?”
“It’s going to sound so stupid.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“You have better things to do than listen to me freak out.”
They’ve been friends a long time, and he’s never seen her freak out, which is why it’s so upsetting to see her in such a state.
She wipes her face and seems to force herself to look at him.
“Remember that I told you this is going to sound stupid…” She takes a deep breath and then releases it.
“As we get, you know, deeper into our thirties, I guess I had it in my mind that if it never happened for us, we might, you know, end up together.”
Duke stares at her almost as if he’s seeing her for the first time. Her confession shocks him.
“I told you it was stupid. Seeing you with McKenzie kind of forced me to confront some things, and… I’m sorry. I never should’ve come here and barged into your house like that.”
“You’re welcome here any time. You know that.”
“I do. I know that.” She glances at him through the loose strands of her hair. “I’ve made everything weird between us now, haven’t I?”
“No, but you’ve surprised me. I didn’t know you thought of me as your backup plan.”
“Don’t put it that way.”
“Isn’t that what it would’ve been, though?”
“I guess, but I care about you too much ever to think of you in those terms.”
“And I care about you, but not like that. Believe me, there’ve been times when I wondered what was wrong with me that I wasn’t asking you out or trying to make something happen with you.
But it was the word “trying” that always stopped me.
If it was going to happen between us, it would have. A long time ago.”
“Yeah, I know, and you’re right. My meltdown has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me realizing that time is moving on, and my life isn’t what I hoped it would be at this point.
That’s on me, not you.” She stands. “I’ll go.
I’m sorry I interrupted your evening. McKenzie seems like a nice person. I hope you guys will be h-happy.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“Don’t be silly. I can get myself home.”
“I’ll drive you. Just let me grab my keys.”
She sighs. “Fine.”
Duke goes in to tell McKenzie he’s driving Sierra home. She offers to go to her apartment. He pauses, feeling as torn as he’s ever been between where he wants to be and what he needs to do for a longtime friend. “The only thing I want in this entire world is to be here with you. Please, don’t go.”
She smiles, and some of the earlier warmth returns to her eyes. “Okay. I won’t.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Can I ask you something?” Sierra asks on the ride home.
“Yeah, sure.”
“What is it about her that does it for you?”
Duke huffs out a laugh. “Everything. Every fucking thing. She’s smart, funny, sexy, practical and an amazing mother. She’s bossy as hell and tells me to wear a helmet on the bike, and I do it because she cares. That’s why she’s making me do it.”
Sierra turns toward him in her seat. “You’re wearing a helmet?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, this is serious.”
“I think it could be.”
When he gets home, he jogs from the truck to the door and rushes to the bedroom to find McKenzie curled up in a ball, fast asleep in his bed, hands placed angelically under her face.
The sight of her sleeping in his bed comes with an overwhelming feeling of rightness. As he gets undressed, he hopes she’ll make herself comfortable in his bed and his life. He checks on Jax before he crawls into bed next to her, putting an arm around her.
She sighs and relaxes into his embrace, as if she knows it’s him and that she’s safe.
This night hasn’t turned out the way he’d thought it would, but she’s sleeping in his arms while her little boy sleeps in the next room.
Having them there is like having a dream he hasn’t dared to entertain come true. He wants to close his eyes and dwell in that perfect place for as long as he possibly can.