Christie Ridgway - Beach House No. 9

She imagined his hands on her, winding rope around her wrists and ankles, and another flare of heat shot over her skin. Her palms were sweating, and she buried them in her pockets. Oh, Jane, she told herself, looking away from his tight jaw and angry eyes, we’re definitely not in the library stacks anymore.

“This is ridiculous.” He was muttering again, and now he began to pace about the room. “There’s got to be some way for me to get out of this.”

Thoughts of bondage fled. Jane was here so Griffin wouldn’t get out of this! If he ducked his obligations, she’d lose her chance to recoup her reputation. Worse, some might misconstrue his failure as a result of something she’d done. If she left Crescent Cove without seeing Griffin through to his deadline, her good standing would be further harmed. Irretrievably, maybe. No doubt Ian Stone would be the first to proclaim that she’d left yet another author in the lurch.

Alarm refocused her mind on important matters, and she crossed to the album that Rex Monroe had delivered to her. “Griffin’s tear sheets from Afghanistan,” he’d told her, meaning copies of every article published during his embedded year. She’d been eager to read through the pages, figuring that by familiarizing herself with what he’d written she’d be better able to help shape his memoir.

“The only way to get out of this,” she told Griffin in a firm voice, “is by getting to your contractual obligation. By telling this story.” With that, she flipped open the volume.

On Our Way, the first magazine article’s headline read. Beneath it was a photo of Griffin, clean-shaven, smiling, his arm around an exotic-looking, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. The caption identified her as Erica Mendoza.

“On our way,” Jane repeated. Puzzled, she looked up.

Griffin’s gaze swept over the photograph, then settled back on her. “You didn’t do your homework like a good governess should, did you, Jane?”

“Uh… Maybe not.” His agent had phoned, and she’d leaped at the opportunity, then rushed to Crescent Cove once she’d realized Griffin wouldn’t take her calls. She touched a fingertip to the lovely face so close to his in the picture. “Who’s this?”

“The original book deal was supposed to be like the articles themselves,” he answered. “A ‘he said, she said’–style account of our embedded year.”

“He said, she said,” Jane repeated. “Our embedded year.”

“Right,” Griffin agreed, his voice impassive. “Our embedded year. He said, she said.”

She waited, watched him take a breath.

“But now…” Griffin said. “She’s dead.”

CHAPTER FOUR

GRIFFIN WATCHED Jane rock back on her heels as shock settled on her face. Such an expressive face it was, those big eyes wide, her soft lips parting on a sudden breath. She had a baby’s skin, fair and fine-pored, molding the delicate bones of her cheeks and the clean edges of her jaw. Despite her bluster, her fragility didn’t stand a chance against him.

Hell, he bet he’d have her running by nightfall.

“What happened?” she asked.

“That story you’re so eager for me to write, honey-pie?” Griffin gestured at the album of collected magazine pieces, though he avoided glancing at the photo of Erica. “I better warn you, it’s got blood and gore.”

Jane flinched. For a second he thought he might have scared her off with just that, but then she drew out one of the dining chairs and took a seat. A cool cucumber once again. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

A sudden urge to bolt cramped his gut, but he rode out the impulse. This was one of two memories of that year he didn’t have to stave off with rock ’n’ roll blasting through a pair of earbuds or the monotone chatter of news from his big-screen TV. While an auto’s backfire could have him crouching to protect himself from small-arms fire, or the cry of a seagull take him straight to the nights when the monkeys shrieked from the craggy mountains surrounding the base in Afghanistan, thoughts of Erica raised a wall between him and the rest of the world.

“We each had a different sponsoring magazine, both owned by the same publishing company,” he said, moving back so he could lean against the nearby wall. “The newsweekly was paying my way. Erica was the first embedded war journalist on assignment for what’s generally considered a women’s fashion publication.”

Jane glanced at the collection of tear sheets. “Brave lady.”

“Dogged.” He didn’t want to examine too closely right now what, exactly, she’d been so determined to accomplish, so he pushed the question away. “It’s a man’s world out there. Every ten or fourteen days, we rotated to a slightly larger base for a chance at a hot meal and water to wash with, but the rest of the time it was MREs and our own sweat. The guys pissed into PVC pipes stuck in the ground.”

Griffin eyed Jane, trying to picture her among the soldiers in his platoon. Erica had been bold and bawdy, coping with the almost-adolescent sexual bravado of the young men by telling jokes so dirty they could almost make him cringe. Jane, on the other hand… She’d probably faint dead away.

As if reading his mind, the blonde straightened in her chair, her eyebrows drawn together and down. “Don’t stop on my account. Three summers in a row my dad hauled my brothers and me out to the Arizona desert while he conducted fieldwork studying an elusive reptile. One of my first jobs in this business? I assisted a man ghostwriting the autobiography of a notorious metal band’s lead singer. To get ‘color,’ I rode with them on their reunion tour bus for a month. I might look sheltered, but I assure you that’s not the case.”

Her annoyance bemused him. “What elusive reptile was that?”

She didn’t blink. “The Black-and-Green Spotted Hootswaggle.”

“You made that up.”

Her little movement might well have been a flounce. “So? I’ve forgotten its real name. My father always says I have no head for science.”

Yet she’d survived those arid summers and then four weeks with the kind of band infamous for debauchery. “Did you, uh, date any of those band members?”

“Well, I did make sure I had all my shots up to date before the tour—you know, rabies, distemper, smallpox and the like—but no, tempted as I was by scrawny men wearing leather pants and hair extensions.”

She made him smile. Not only was she funny with her dry way of delivery, but for some reason it pleased him to know some ancient lecher with a groupie list a mile long hadn’t touched the baby skin, kissed the tender mouth.

That mouth that was part silent star, part very bad girl.

“But we’ve gotten off the subject,” Jane continued.

Damn it, she made him do that too, Griffin realized. He was supposed to be sending her on her way, not smiling at her.

The governess gestured at the tear sheets again. “We were talking about Erica.”

In his mind’s eye he saw the women who had populated their remote outpost. It wasn’t the single real one he pictured, however. Instead he saw their other female companions—the naked centerfolds taped to the plywood walls, their humongous breasts and big white smiles fly-speckled, their expressions creepily come-hither as their paper selves watched over the boys ever ready to risk their lives. One young man had a morning ritual of kissing the paper nipples for luck.

“Erica…” Jane prompted again.

He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “A patrol was going out to search the valley for weapon hoards and ratlines—foot trails that are enemy supply routes. The night before I’d been on the same kind of mission myself.”

“But this time was different?” Jane asked.

“There’d been radio chatter.” He looked down at his feet, aware of his own blank tone. Glad that he felt just that way inside. “That day, she shouldn’t have gone with them.”