Close Up (21 page)

“Is that your motto?”

“Screen saver.”

She laughed. “Liar. Your screen saver is probably the universe or the Big Bang or the solar system.”

Wow. She really did know him. “For your information, it’s the aurora borealis. What is yours? A kitten? Many, many pairs of sexy high heels?”

“I don’t have a computer.”

Oh, my God, was that even possible? “How do you exist?” he asked, feeling more than a little horrified. “Why not?”

“I can’t afford one. Besides, my phone does everything I need.”

“Sure, in miniature size. You’re probably destroying your eyes.” He promptly decided he was at least buying her a tablet. This wasn’t the Dark Ages. “But anyway, what is your phone wallpaper then?”

“It’s a kitten. In a high heel.”

They both laughed.

That right there was the very reason they belonged together. They knew each other better than anyone else.

“Come here,” he said, putting down the bottle of champagne.

Kristine gave him a flirty smile. “Sit down. I want to be in your lap.” Her look was not sincere, but seductive. “I’m cold.”

“Oh, is that right?” Sean took a seat. “Come here, baby, let me warm you up.”

“Are you going to throw another log onto the fire?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

He did that and a whole lot more.

16

K
RISTINE AWOKE SLOWLY,
splayed across Sean’s chest. It was warm in his bed, the steady sound of his breathing relaxing. The room was still dark, but that gave no indication of what time it was, because of the trees surrounding the cabin. She yawned, then jumped at the sound of a hard knock on the cabin’s door. Maybe that was what had woken her initially, because the knocking sounded urgent now, as if whoever it was had previously attempted contact.

Who the hell could that be? And why were they knocking on the door when Kristine was naked? Yikes.

“Sean.” She sat up and shook him.

“Huh?” His eyes flew open and he looked startled, before focusing on her and sliding into a smile. “Hey. Morning.”

He was pulling at her head, clearly wanting a kiss, but there were more important matters at hand. “Sean, someone is knocking on the door.”

“What?”

The knocking came again, backing her up.

“Who the hell is that?” he asked with a frown. “It must be the neighbors.” With a sigh, he threw the covers back.

It made Kristine feel monstrously exposed so she shot out of bed and quickly rifled through her suitcase for clean panties, a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. Sean pulled on jeans over nothing and wandered into the living room, hair sticking up, expression still sleepy and vacant.

“Why the hell are you here?” Sean was saying, the open sliding door letting in a significant draft.

It was chilly this morning. Kristine ran her hands through her hair and went for her purse, determined to comb out her snarls. Whoever the visitor was, Sean wasn’t thrilled to see him, so hopefully he’d be gone in a minute.

“No coffee yet?” a voice asked, and it sounded as if whoever it was had come into the house.

Damn it. Kristine wasn’t wearing a bra. A little warning would be nice. She turned around, her purse in hand, and almost dropped it. It was Liam, Sean’s brother, a little taller, a lot broader, than when she had last seen him.

He came up short when he saw her, his smile falling off his face. His eyes bugged out. “Kristy?”

Wonderful. “Hi, Liam, how are you?” she asked, giving him a wan smile.

“I’m, uh, fine.” Liam glanced back at his brother, clearly confused.

Sean looked as if he had indigestion.

“How are you?” Liam added, as if he had suddenly realized that was the polite inquiry to make.

“Great, thanks.” She dug into her purse, eyes on Liam. “I heard you got married and had a couple of babies. Congrats.”

“Thanks, yeah, it’s uh...great. How about you? You married, kids?”

That was enough to break the tension for Kristine. She burst out laughing. “Liam! I clearly spent last night here with Sean, so no, I am not married and I do not have children. Somehow I don’t imagine your brother is the type to sneak married women off to the woods for weekend seductions.”

Liam’s face flushed. “I didn’t mean... I’m sorry, I guess that was stupid. But I didn’t want to assume that you...”

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” she told him. “My hair looks like I’ve been electrocuted.”

Liam grinned. “Well, the lake gets windy. I didn’t want to make assumptions.”

“Whether anything went down or not, I would imagine a husband would object to a wife spending the night alone on an isolated island with a man she used to be married to.”

“Well. When you put it like that.” Liam shook his head. “I don’t imagine I’d be thrilled with Mary doing that. In fact, I think I would kill the guy.”

Sean went to the kitchen counter and opened a cupboard, fumbling around for a coffee filter. “Liam, you’re an idiot. And if you want to get technical, Kristy is married. To me.”

“What?”

“Oh, yeah, that thing.” Kristine dragged a brush roughly through her hair. Show no mercy to those tangles. “Didn’t Sean tell you? We forgot to get divorced.”

“How do you forget to get divorced? And you’re telling me the two of you are seriously still legally married?” He looked astonished, and maybe a little horrified. Liam sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. “I mean, I knew for the first few years, but I guess I just figured you did it eventually.”

She supposed that wasn’t a huge stretch. At a certain point, Sean’s family had probably stopped asking, and unless it was a bitter divorce, it wasn’t an occasion to throw a party or anything. His brother had clearly just assumed he’d dealt with it. With her. Their marriage. Which they hadn’t.

“Yes, we are still married,” Sean said. “Kristine had papers served to me this week, so that’s how we bumped into each other.”

“So you decided to come to the cabin and...”

“Why are you here again?” Sean interrupted, dumping an indiscriminate amount of coffee grounds into the filter. “I’m pretty sure I told you yesterday to stay out of my hair.”

“Because you’re not answering your phone and your secretary called Mom and Dad and told them you’re missing because she can’t get ahold of you. Your phone is off and she said your phone is never off. It scared the bejesus out of Mom. Fortunately, I saw you yesterday, so I was able to reassure them you are alive, just playing hooky, apparently. So I’m here again to tell you your secretary thinks you’re dead. It was just a courtesy on my part, and you really should appreciate it, damn it.”

“Oh, my God,” Sean muttered. “What, I can’t take a day and a half off without the world coming to an end? Am I such a workaholic that my turning my phone off for a day means foul play?”

“Seems that way.”

So much for their leisurely Sunday. Kristine tossed her brush back into her purse and headed for the bedroom to grab her bra and a sweatshirt. She needed to make a pit stop outside.

“Where are you going?” Sean asked suspiciously, as if she might make a break for it off the island now that they’d been discovered.

“To the ladies’ room,” she told him.

“Oh.” But then added, “Come here.”

“Why?” She’d just glanced at herself in the mirror and while she was shockingly free of makeup and suffering from shiny nose syndrome, there was nothing he needed to swipe at or pull away, like a hair, twig or an eyelash.

“Because I want to kiss you.”

Hello. Someone was just letting it all hang out in front of his brother. Granted, she’d made it darn clear to Liam that she and Sean had slept together, but that wasn’t the same thing. Private sex and morning cuddles in front of the family were two totally different animals, and the second one very well could bite them.

She would have to skirt the table and walk ten feet just to kiss him, all while Liam stared. No thanks.

“Just make the coffee. I’ll be back in two minutes.”

He made a face.

On her way by the couch, she snagged her purse so she could check her phone and powder her nose. Not that it would help her look anything less than well-loved and wrecked, but it would make her feel better.

She pulled her phone out of her purse as she went down the steps to the grass, and almost fell when she saw how many missed calls and voice mails she had. “What the hell?”

The first was an indignant call from her mother. “Kristine. Honestly. That exhibition was a debacle. I’m sorry I went.”

Well, so was she. Kristine rolled her eyes as she arrived at the bathroom and opened the door. The incinerating toilet still scared her a little, but Sean assured her it was not going to spontaneously combust on her bottom.

The second message was from her boss. Uh-oh. On a Saturday?

“Kristine, I need to discuss a very important issue with you immediately.”

So not good. The pit that seemed to have lessened in her gut since she’d arrived on the island the day before came back full force.

The next voice mail didn’t help. “Kristine, where are you? I need you to come downtown and bring me five thousand dollars for bail money.”

With those words from her mother, Kristine stood straight up off the toilet in shock and horror. Her phone slipped off her shoulder and almost fell into the waterless toilet bowl. “Damn it!”

Her phone bounced across the floor, which wasn’t particularly clean. “Oh, eew.” When she picked it up, she saw the screen was dark. “Oh, no.”

Yep. A few frantic swipes and pushing the power button on and off and it was clear the phone was busted. She was already broke and couldn’t afford a new one. Let alone five thousand dollars in freaking bail money. Was her mother insane?

Abandoning her phone and everything else behind in the bathroom, Kristine fast-walked back to the cabin. She had no idea what she was going to do. She’d never been to the county jail before. Was bail negotiable? Did her mother have some assets she could use as collateral against the bail?

She was halfway through the cabin door when she realized she’d left her purse in the bathroom. Not that it mattered. Her purse held pressed powder, five lipsticks, a hairbrush, gum and three dollars in change. One credit card that was maxed out and a Nevada driver’s license where she looked like a serial-killer clown. That orange lipstick had been a poor choice.

Sean and Liam glanced at her when she came in.

She stopped in the doorway, panic crawling up and threatening to overwhelm her. “Ebbe is in jail!” she blurted.

* * *

S
EAN WAS PULLING
on a T-shirt and wishing he’d had about three more hours of sleep. Not that he would trade the activities that had kept him up for half the night for anything, but he wished Liam had waited until about noon to head on over and ruin his day.

“I can’t believe my secretary called Mom,” he said to his brother. He supposed he paid Helen to be on top of things, but he didn’t recall requesting a babysitter. He wasn’t allowed to go off the grid for a weekend?

But he knew the truth was he never had. Not in the six years Helen had worked for him. It wasn’t that outrageous to think he was dead. At least it was reassuring to know Helen cared about him as a human being and not just the source of her income.

“I can’t believe you’re here with Kristy,” Liam hissed, glancing over his shoulder as if she might appear behind him mysteriously. “Are you crazy? You were a walking disaster when the two of you split up. You want to go through that all over again?”

What he didn’t want was his brother bringing up his biggest fear. “We were kids then. We have a little better sense of what we’re getting into now. Besides, we’re just taking it one day at a time.”

Or something like that. “Now, thanks for letting me know I need to call Helen, but will you please go home? Mary must be pissed off that you left her alone with two babies on a Sunday morning.”

Liam just shook his head. “You’re not thinking about Mary’s feelings. You’re thinking about your dick.” He did stand, though. “I don’t blame you. Kristy always was a hot one, and she looks just as good now as she did ten years ago.”

“Watch your mouth. That’s my wife you’re talking about.” He said it as a joke, but realized immediately he actually meant it. “And you have no right to be looking at any woman but Mary, you tool.”

“Oh, relax. I’m just giving you a hard time.” Liam shrugged. “But seriously, just make sure you know what you’re doing.”

“I think I’m the older brother.”

Whatever Liam was going to say was lost when the sliding door flew open so hard it bounced back on the track and hit Kristine in the arm.

“Ebbe is in jail!”

Oh, God. Reality reared its ugly head again.

That basically was the nail in the coffin of their weekend. “In jail for what?” Sean reached for his coffee mug, wishing he could slip some whiskey into it. Not that it would help.

“I have no idea. She just left me a voice mail saying she needs me to bail her out, but then I was so freaked I stood up and dropped my phone next to the toilet and it broke.”

“The toilet? Which one? The old outhouse or the incinerating toilet?”

“The incinerating toilet. What difference does it make?” She raked her hands through her hair. “Oh, my God, what am I going to do? We’re like five hours travel time away. We have to pack up and go.”

Sean sighed.

This really wasn’t how he’d pictured this day unfolding.

His vision? A slow morning spent waking up Kristy with kisses and his cock inside her, then cuddling, more kissing, all followed by coffee. Then more sex.

“I can give you a ride back to the mainland,” Liam offered. “It will be faster in my boat than Sean’s. I’ll be outside when you’re ready.”

“Oh, God, I can’t afford a new phone,” Kristine said. “But neither can I afford the five thousand bail money.”

As Liam went outside, Sean tried to hug Kristine, but she was stiff and anxious. “She didn’t say what happened?”

“No. But my boss also called and said she had to discuss something very important with me.” Kristine groaned. “I just know Ebbe went back to the gallery and I’ve been fired. I want to kill her.”