Carla Neggers - The Harbor

"I'd have fired you the first time I caught you without a weapon while you were on duty." His presence made her writing space seem even smaller, more intimate. "You disengaged from the work, didn't you?"

"Over time. It didn't happen all at once."

He sat on the chenille rug and stretched his legs out straight, crossing his ankles an inch from her hip. "I can understand how Stick Monroe and Luke Castellane could see themselves as your protector-Luke because of his loyalty to Olivia, Stick because of his loyalty to you."

"Luke's protecting himself. Anyway, I can take care of myself."

"That's not the question. It's not about you. It's about them and their relationship to you, to your father, to your aunt. It's a tough position to be in. For all of you." He watched her a moment, then the corners of his mouth quirked. "Especially for them. You're noncompliant."

"Not me." She smiled. "I'm good at taking orders."

But he'd gone serious on her. "You're more out of control than I am."

Her throat caught at the quiet truth of his words, and she looked away, staring out at the harbor. It was dusk, the water still, glasslike, reflecting the moored boats and the bright leaves of trees on the shoreline.

"If Teddy Shelton knows anything about who killed my father, why-"

"Let the state and local police figure it out. If they choose to, they can bring in the bureau. Zoe, you have to stand down. You have to let people do their jobs, let them help you. You ran last year because you knew you couldn't keep it up, you had to back off."

She shook her head. "I ran because I knew the answers to my father's murder are here in town, not outside. That's what people want to believe. That's why they're all so nervous around me." She shut her eyes and inhaled, then exhaled slowly. "I just want to know why he was killed, J.B. Who did it."

"I know."

"And then I want a normal life." She tried to concentrate on her breathing and not to relive the image of Kyle Castellane flying toward her, Teddy Shelton shooting at her. She'd had no idea he was armed, hadn't even considered it. Law Enforcement 101. "All this past year I told myself coming home was a normal thing to do and nothing would happen. I could make my peace with Dad's death and figure out what comes next in my life. I could live here. I could eat blueberry pancakes every morning."

"Everything you've just said makes sense."

She managed a halfhearted smile. "Not the blueberry pancakes."

"Zoe-"

"I knew it wasn't true. I knew I couldn't just come back here and it'd all be normal again."

She looked down at her bandaged wrist. He'd helped her put on a fresh bandage, but since she wasn't hurting as much when he did it, she'd responded to even his slightest touch. Another reason she'd bolted up to the attic. That was what it was, she thought. A place to hide. Her writing, too, was a place to hide.

"Well," she said, "I guess I anticipated dodging bullets and having my car stolen, but I sure as hell never expected to go kayaking with an undercover FBI agent."

J.B. moved his legs closer to her. "It's not the kayaking that's got you off balance."

"You're not going to give me an inch?"

"Honey, I'm not giving you a millimeter. And no more undercover work for me. They won't put me back in. I've done my bit. Nearly didn't make it back this last time."

"Won't you go stir-crazy at a desk?"

"I'll learn yoga. Get exercise." He smiled. "Have a proper sex life." Zoe tried not to let him get to her. Stick was right.

J. B. McGrath was a powder keg. "What about emotional commitment to others?" she asked lightly. "That was something you could avoid undercover. If you're just a regular FBI agent-"

"I'll never be that." "Do you talk to your superiors that way?" "I've got a place in Washington, and there's talk of having me put together a UCA training course." "UCA means undercover agent. The FBI and its acronyms." "You'd have been an NT. New Trainee."

"I'd have made it through the academy, you know. I didn't drop out because I was afraid of failure. I dropped out because-"

"Because you had Jen Periwinkle in your head."

Maybe he had a point. Maybe she'd gone into a tailspin not just because of her father and Aunt Olivia, but because she wasn't meant to stay on the course she was on.

He stared out the attic window, and she wondered what he saw when he looked at the harbor, the docks, the boats. He wouldn't see her father lumbering along the waterfront, her aunt with her cane as she set out on a bright morning to borrow books from the library. It'd be like if she were in Montana. She'd see an unfamiliar landscape, beautiful, but one that didn't conjure up images and memories. He'd never known his grandmother. Posey Sutherland wasn't real to him the way the best friend she'd left behind in Goose Harbor was real to Zoe.

"You know when it's time to stand down," he went on quietly. "You don't think you'll know when you're so into the work that's all you can think about, but when the time comes, you know." He leaned his crossed ankles closer to her, touching her thighs with his toes. "As for emotional commitment to others-right now I'm committed to keeping you from doing something stupid."

"That's not emotional."

"Oh, but it is."

She scowled at him, but couldn't sustain it and smiled. "You have no sense of romance."

"Look who's talking, the hard-bitten Mainer."

"I'm not hard-bitten. I know how to knit."

"And you have a tattoo of a rose on your left hip."

She gasped in spite of herself. She could see he knew he'd get to her with that remark. He smiled, cocky, pleased with himself, and pushed aside a half-dozen pillows and crawled over the rug to her.

"Right about here," he said, slipping the waistband of her pants down over her hip. "A beach rose. Pink."

"It's my own design." Her voice seemed disembodied, her mouth suddenly gone parched. "I had it done a couple weeks ago. It hurt like hell. One hot little needle prick at a time."

"Did it take long to heal?"

"It's healed now. It itched, and I had to beat it with a rolled-up newspaper-"

"Zoe."

He skimmed his fingers over her tattoo. She inhaled. "What?"

"You don't have to say anything. Just relax." He kissed the edges of the rose, flicked his tongue over her skin, whispered, "Trust me," and eased her shirt up, trailing his mouth up her hot skin.

He reached her bra, and she fell back into the pillows, not protesting when he undid the front clasp and exposed her breasts, took first one nipple, then the other, between his lips. Finally, he found her mouth, kissing her deeply, saying more words of comfort, desire, assurance, words she absorbed but couldn't quite make out, aware only of her own overwhelming desire and urgency. He eased her shirt up over her head, her bra off her arms, and held her close as he drew her pants over her hips.

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he said.

But the feel of his hands against her bare skin had her head spinning, her body aching. She held him, his sweater soft, his chest warm and hard against her breasts. "Don't stop."

He dispensed with her pants, laid her back against the pillows and gazed down at her with a frankness that made her self-conscious. But she didn't pull away, didn't grab a pillow and cover herself. He positioned himself alongside her, stroking her gently, boldly, until she was unaware of anything else, just his touch, her response.

"I want…"

But she didn't finish, instead rolling onto her side so she could slip her hands under his sweater. She felt his hot skin, then probed lower, immediately seeing, feeling, that he wasn't immune to what was happening between them.

He pulled off his sweater first, then his pants, and he came to her, taking her hand and placing it on him, letting her stroke him, touch him. He was thick, hard, sleek, and when she lay back onto the soft rug, he came with her, onto her.