25. Fisher
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
fisher
“Get your shit.”
The tight fist that’s been locked around my heart since Sutton and I walked into the house to find Libby gone has finally released. She’ll come home with me, and she’ll be safe.
She purses her lips like she’s going to argue, but before she can, I angle in for a kiss again.
I don’t want to fight. I’d much rather she melt into me and let me make her feel good.
The desire to claim her, to hear her cry my name as I sink inside her, is out of control.
But she needs to be ready. She still hesitates when I touch her, so she’s not there yet.
But with any luck, she will be. I need her to want me with the same desperation that I crave her.
The moment I run my tongue along the seam of her lips, she parts and lets me in.
Her mouth is warm and willing, causing my quick distraction to turn into something more.
Unable to resist, I pull her in until the swell of her breast is pressed against my chest. I live in this moment, where Libby feels like mine, tuning everything else out.
The sigh that slips out of her mouth settles deep in my bones.
Damn, I could kiss this woman from now until the end of time.
When I pull back and see the desire swimming in her endless blue eyes, I almost give in, but then I remember Sutton.
Home alone.
And someone is trying to hurt Libby.
“Get. Your. Shit,” I repeat. “Get everything you’ll need to stay.”
She blinks at me, still stunned. “For how long?”
Forever is on the tip of my tongue, but I catch myself before I scare her. “Until we figure out who is fucking with you.”
Uncertainty flashes in her eyes, like maybe she would have preferred if I’d said forever. But without a word, she nods and rushes to her room.
While I wait, I peer out the window, checking the area around the houses. It looks like it’s just us. Bing is still splayed out on my front porch where I left him when I stormed over, and the camera will notify me of motion. But until both girls are under my roof, I won’t feel settled.
I’ll have to explain Libby’s continued presence to Sutton, but I don’t know how to do that, because I want Libby in my bed tonight. With me. For reasons that I can’t admit to my eight-year-old.
The last thing I wanted was to leave Libby this morning.
Waking up with her in my arms was like waking up from a dream, only to find I’m now living it.
The way her body curled into mine, my arm wrapped around her, my palm flat on her soft skin, was addicting.
However, when Wilder called at six thirty, I knew there was an issue.
His winter lobstering days make him an early bird gets the worm kind of guy, but he knows I’m rarely up before seven.
So the second his name flashed on my phone’s screen, my heart took off and fear swamped me. Sutton was my first thought, though the news that Libby’s brake lines were cut wasn’t a whole lot less stressful.
And knowing someone is trying to hurt her, not just scare her, makes me desperate to keep both my girls close.
So after a quick trip to question Ryder about the golf cart, I picked up Sutton from Mrs. K’s house. On the way back, I told her about the accident—though I may have played it down to keep from worrying her—so she’d understand why Libby was at our house again.
I rub my hand over my face and squeeze my eyes shut to block out the memory of the moment I discovered Libby was once again gone.
“Ready.” Her voice chases away the pain and lights my body up with anticipation, with this deep desire to keep her close, to touch her.
She appears with a bag in one hand and another slung over her shoulder, along with her phone and her computer. Though she puts up a fight, eventually, she lets me carry her bags.
“Libby!” Sutton launches herself at the woman who is quickly becoming her favorite person. “Fisher said Putt-Putt broke and crashed, and that you hit your head—” She zeroes in on the bags in my hands, confusion creasing her forehead.
“She found a nest of spiders at her house this morning, so she’s staying here until we get them all out.”
Sutton’s blue eyes narrow like she’s working through something. When I’m certain she’s going to tell me my nose is growing, she only shrugs. “Makes sense.” She takes the smaller bag from me and turns to Libby, head tipped back. “Can you stay in my bed this time?”
“No,” I bark. Unless Libby says otherwise, the woman is sleeping next to me.
Libby raises a brow, her lips kicking up on one side.
“It’s too small,” I add quickly.
Sutton crosses her arm and gives me a look I can only imagine I’ll see a lot more of when she’s a teenager, and shit, is it terrifying. “It’s the same size as yours.”
“But you have more pillows. Plus”—I tip my chin to my dog who has now settled in the corner on the big pillow he uses for naps—“Bing sleeps with you.”
Sutton scoffs. “Only when you tell him to.”
“And I plan to tell him to tonight.”
“ Fine .” Sutton draws the word out, as if I exhaust her.
Libby pulls her lips in on themselves like she’s fighting a smile, and as Sutton disappears, she leans close to me. “Subtle, Sheriff.”
“Don’t give me shit.” I stomp up the stairs, fighting a smile as the sweet sound of her laugh follows me.
The pink designer luggage might not exactly match the simple navy plaid comforter and curtains, but the tension eases out of my neck and my shoulders relax a fraction at the sight of her stuff in my room. It feels like Libby is finally where she’s supposed to be.
Maybe it doesn’t make sense—the Hollywood star belonging in a small white house on an island in the middle of nowhere Maine—but I no longer care about what does and doesn’t make sense. Because I’m almost smiling as I stomp back down the stairs.
“Oh, guess what?” Sutton says.
The girls are settled at the bar that separates the kitchen from the living area, breaking into the scones Sutton and I brought home from the inn.
Libby pauses with a pastry halfway to her mouth. “Mrs. K agreed to make the stew you wanted for dinner?”
I groan. There is no way they’ll be okay skipping Sunday dinner at the Knowleses’ tonight. Dammit. I sigh at the loss of the quiet evening at home I was envisioning. One filled with the girls’ laughter and stolen kisses when Sutton isn’t paying attention.
“No, she’s making roast.” Frowning, Sutton waves a hand. “But that’s okay, because as of this morning”—she leans forward and stage whispers—“the water is officially fifty-eight degrees.”
“Oh no.” I jump into the conversation.
“Come on .” Her face falls, her expression morphing into the pout she’s been using against me since she was five. “You said once I was eight, I could try .”
Jaw locked, I take a deep breath in through my nose.
I hate the Monhegan Goodbye. This fucking island.
“I said you could do it one time, and only when Wilder is doing it. Not by yourself, and he’s taking his boat to the mainland today.
” Because I strong-armed him into going to get the parts to fix Putt-Putt.
Jesus, she’s even got me using the ridiculous moniker now.
“Not fair,” Sutton whines.
“What are you talking about?” Libby’s head swivels back and forth between us.
“It’s a fun tradition.” She side-eyes me, then cups her mouth and whispers.
“Fisher thinks it’s dumb.” She pops up straighter in her seat, one brow arched, like she’s daring me to deny it.
“It’s so cool, though. It’s called the Monhegan Goodbye.
When the last ferry of the day pulls away from the island, the islanders jump off the dock into the water and wave to the boat. ”
“Oh.” Libby lights up.
Knowing exactly where this is heading, I step closer. “No.” When both girls look at me, I stare Libby down. “I’m serious. You have a concussion. You’re not doing a ten-foot leap into ice-cold ocean water.” I eye Sutton next. “And you are not doing it without an adult.”
Sutton bats her eyes. “You could do it with me.”
“Pigs will fly before I jump into that ice bath.”
Sutton’s shoulders slump, and even Libby’s face falls.
“But…” I sigh. “Since we have dinner at Mrs. K’s tonight, we can swing by and watch the others jump.”
“Doesn’t it look fun?” Sutton asks Libby for the tenth time as we trudge back up the hill.
Blue and a few other islanders came out tonight to perform the first of many of the summer’s Monhegan Goodbyes.
Libby nods, her eyes sparkling. “And there is this energy in the air. It’s like this exciting tingle.”
My focus lowers to Libby’s bare legs. That’s exactly how I felt when she walked down the stairs dressed like that earlier.
Like the air was suddenly charged, and when she came into sight, the current zapped through my entire body.
The way she strutted down the steps, her legs on full display in the short white dress, her hips calling to me, nearly knocked me on my ass.
Thank fuck Sutton was still upstairs, because there was no stopping the urge to touch her.
Of its own volition, my body practically floated across the room.
Like a compass finds its true north, she drew me to her.
To feel her, to touch her. To kiss her lips and fall under her spell.
I was a glutton for punishment, letting her tease me.
Hell, she’s been teasing me since the moment she arrived.
Her presence alone is the most exquisite torture.
I claimed her mouth, and she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close.
There was no resisting the need to run my hands up and down her bare thighs.
I teased the hem of her dress, taunting her, tempting myself.
The whimper that slipped through her lips had my dick begging to be released from my damn jeans.
Libby shivers, the vibration pulling me from my reverie.
I glance over and find her watching me with the intensity I feel after reliving our moment together earlier.
Like she’s thinking about the way I skated a thumb across her panties the instant before Sutton flew down the stairs, interrupting us.
“Blue gets to jump every single time.”
I blink, putting the past away, determined to remain focused on the conversation with Sutton. The ferry. The idiots jumping into the water and waving to the summer people heading back to the mainland while the rest of us are forever on vacation.
“He says he hasn’t missed a single Monhegan Goodbye since he was six years old.” Sutton sends me a pointed look. “I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
“Once Eddy gives me the-all clear, I’ll jump with you,” Libby promises.
“Yes!” Sutton spins in a circle, and I groan.
“Don’t be such a grouchy bear.” Libby bumps her shoulder into my upper arm.
I snag her hand and lace our fingers, only to realize that Sutton has zeroed in on our connection. Fuck.
Her lips tip up into an almost smile before falling flat again. Then, without looking at either of us, she takes off running, her pigtails flopping around her head. “Come on, Bing. I’ll race you to Mrs. K’s.”
Libby clears her throat, drawing my attention. “It’s okay to loosen the reins a little, even when it feels scary.”
My body tightens in response to the comment.
Sutton is already limited in so many ways.
She’s never seen a busy city street. She’ll never play soccer with a group of kids her age.
She won’t drive off on her own the morning of her sixteenth birthday.
She won’t graduate from high school with a whole class of kids.
She misses out on enough. I do not need to hold her back more because I’m afraid to lose her.
I swallow. “I know.”
Libby squeezes my hand and gives me a small smile.
“Come on.” Shoulders relaxing, I put my hand on the small of her back and guide her up the steps of Mrs. K’s porch. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I love Sunday dinner. I don’t know why you always act like it’s going to be such a chore.” She giggles, the sound floating away on the breeze.
“Because it’s always a shit show.”
And a shit show it is. The main event begins the second we’re all settled at the table.
“Look what I picked up from the Amazon,” Blue announces.
“Ordered from Amazon,” Eddy corrects.
Without acknowledging his granddaughter, Blue places the two dark green trays on the table.
Eddy’s eyes go wide. Libby gasps. Mrs. K groans. Wilder, naturally, laughs.
“Do not put those on my table.” Mrs. K points at the already frozen ice trays.
“What? I thought pine tree–shaped ice would be perfect. Fitting for Maine.” Blue’s eyes dance with mischief. He knows damn well that the water has been frozen in the shape of anal plugs, not trees.
“I want a Christmas tree ice.” Lindsey claps.
“Me too,” Sutton chimes in.
Mrs. K and Eddy both watch in horror as Blue drops the “trees” into the girls’ cups before moving on.
With the largest piece hovering over Libby’s glass, he smirks at me. “It’s a bit of a tight fit here. Fisher might need to work it in better.”
I shake my head, biting back a laugh. Libby is doing her best not to smile. Under the table, I pat her thigh. She shifts, but instead of pulling away, she crosses her legs, trapping my hand between them.
All I’d have to do is shift my pinkie just a little…
“Th-thanks,” Libby stutters as my finger brushes the lace of her panties. Instead of pushing my hand away, she flexes her thigh muscles, holding me in place.
My dick jumps in my pants. Fuck, this is going to be a long-ass dinner.