HiddenDepths (12 page)

“It’s just the supply boat,” Evan cautioned.

“I don’t want anyone to see me.”

The little motorboat was approaching fast but still would be
far enough away for the occupant not to discern there were two figures on the
cliff instead of one. She crouched down to the grass automatically and the look
of pity he cast her way hurt. But she did not stand up.

“Go into the cottage.” He gestured to the crumbling stone
building behind them. “I’ll meet the boat down at the beach.”

She didn’t care at this point that he witnessed her furtive
run toward the structure. He already must think her no better than a cornered,
frightened rabbit. When she got to the cottage, unlocked of course, she paid
its interior no mind, posting herself by the side of the window, alert to see
who was approaching the island. Although from the vantage of the cottage close
to the cliff, she could make out where the beach met the water, she couldn’t
see much else. Glancing distractedly around, she saw the binoculars hanging on
the wall and grabbed them. Excellent.

She pointed them to the beach, where Evan with his usual
easy stride was making his way toward the boat that just then pulled up alongside
his own boat on the dock. A girl jumped out of the boat to tie it to the dock,
her long blonde hair whipping around her.

A gorgeous girl. And though she could not hear what the girl
was saying, her bright smile said it all. Great. Another female falling at Evan
Reynolds’ feet.

“Hi, Cassie.” Evan jumped down into the boat to get the
packages while she tied up the boat. Climbing back onto the dock, box in hand,
he said, “I got them, Cass. You don’t need to dock. I’m all set.”

She gave him a pretend pout, apparently trying out another
of her flirty looks on him. “You’re no fun. I was going to stay all afternoon
and let you have your wicked way with me.”

Evan couldn’t help but smile at her usual taunt. “But then
I’d have to get my groceries somewhere else because your father would be
hunting me with a gun.”

Cassie Bailey was a beautiful girl, tall and tanned and
blonde with a killer smile and a natural way about her a guy could really
appreciate. Some
other
guy, not the guy who was planning on buying
groceries at her father’s store for the rest of his life. He didn’t need that
complication. Plus, Cassie was only nineteen and though some men liked younger
women—his father for one, in his heyday—Evan wasn’t so inclined. She reminded
him of the kid sister of a friend in college he had always had to steer clear
of since she seemed to have targeted him for her first big crush and was
determined to lose her virginity with him.

Cassie, from the knowing way she talked and the fact that
kids seemed to mature pretty fast in these small towns despite the stereotype,
had probably already lost her virginity. But Evan wasn’t interested in letting
her bone up on her technique with him.

She was in short shorts today, despite that it was cool for
this time of year, and a halter tied around her waist. Cassie was sexy. No
doubt about it. But he’d never even been tempted by the possibility of hooking
up with her. He didn’t mind being a sport about the ongoing flirtation, though.
It was kind of cute.

“You’re breaking my heart, Evan.”

“I don’t believe it. Girls as pretty as you don’t have a
heart when it comes to men.”

He turned to walk back up the dock, hoping they could leave
it at that.

“Do you really think I’m pretty, Evan?” The plaintive voice
behind him stopped him. What was it with chicks? No matter how good looking or
smart or funny, they all seemed to harbor some deep insecurity when it came to
guys. Whereas guys, no matter how ugly or stupid or dull-witted, seemed to
consider themselves great catches. It apparently was Mother Nature’s way of
giving a break to the poor slobs comprising the male half of the human race.

Maybe that was why he’d been so attracted to Andrea Prentiss
in the first place. Well, not in the first place. Then he’d just fucked her
because he thought he was entitled to and she was so sexy. But when he had
gotten to know her as Andrea Prentiss, even for as short a time as that was,
she had seemed so confident, as if she didn’t give a damn about what he or any
man thought of her. To see her scared, as she had been since she’d gotten here,
just pissed him off even more.

He turned back to Cassie, and despite fishing for the
compliment, she put on a saucy smile.

“Of course I think you’re pretty, Cassie. I’d have to be
blind not to think you were pretty.”

“Tommy says you’re gay,” she offered, referring to the
asshole kid he’d seen lurking around her a few times when he was at the store.

“And if I was that would concern Tommy
how
? Is he
looking for a date with me?”

She laughed. It would probably be easier if he let her think
he was gay. But she had to learn that she didn’t have to come on to every man
she met and that it was okay if she didn’t hook up with them. More than okay.
Better. Better that she value herself more highly and have sex only when she
felt something for the guy.

Christ, he was feeling old right now.

“I’m going to tell Tommy you said that. It’s going to make
him so mad.”

“Tommy is a jerk, Cassie. You deserve better.”

“Like you,” she pointed out and he shook his head wearily.
“Why don’t you like me, Evan? I want to know.”

“I do like you. That’s the point. That’s why I wouldn’t want
to mess it up.”

But the look on her face told him he probably was messing it
up. He was familiar with hero-worship. This was so what he didn’t need right
now.

He turned his back again. “So get lost, beautiful.”

And then he walked briskly back to his house, hearing the
motorboat pull away.

Without unpacking the groceries, he headed back to the
cottage on the cliff. Why there was even a cottage on the island he didn’t
know. It hadn’t been habitable when he first got here and it wasn’t much better
now, the windows long since having lost their glass and the stone walls
crumbling a bit. But he had put a padded bench in and a table and some other
bare necessities. He liked to read in there once in a while. And now that he
had finished every home improvement imaginable on the lighthouse itself, he
didn’t doubt that he would turn to this structure next. He needed physical
labor to keep him occupied.

Wondering if Andrea had fallen asleep, he found her wide
awake as he entered the cottage, watching him. “She’s gone now,” he said.

She nodded. “Is that your girlfriend?”

“Cassie? Hell no.”

“Why not? It seems like it would be extremely convenient.”

“On the contrary, it would be extremely
in
convenient.”

“Meaning what? You’d have to see her after you had sex with
her because she delivers the groceries?”

“Yeah,” he said immediately, only at the last second
realizing what a jerk that made him seem like. But hell, it was true. “Her
father owns the main store in the nearest town and she’s barely legal.”

“She looked pretty legal to me. Or do you really just sleep
with whores?”

Actually, he pretty much did these days, Andrea Prentiss
being the glaring exception even if he hadn’t been clued in to that fact
initially. He chose not to take her comment as picking a fight with him. “I’m
not interested in relationships with women usually, just sex. Paying for it
seems fairer all around.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Come on. Let’s go back to the house.”

“Are you sure your little blonde girlfriend isn’t lurking
around?”

“What the hell’s your problem, Andrea? You saw the boat
drive away. Don’t get paranoid on me. Or even more paranoid than you already
are.”

“Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to
get me.”

“Thanks for those words of wisdom.”

“I don’t believe in monogamy,” she offered, apropos of
nothing.

“What?”

“Really. It’s always seemed the most ridiculous concept in
the world to me.”

“I’m not sleeping with Cassie.”

She laughed—a funny, completely-not-like-her sound. There
was too much wildness in it to sound like Andrea Prentiss. “I mean it. I really
don’t care. I always wondered why men got so caught up on the concept.”

Evan neglected to point out that men usually weren’t the
ones caught up on that, but he wasn’t following her train of thought too well
anyway, so he hesitated to jump in.

“I mean ‘crime of passion’ and all that. Why would anyone really
care if they came home and found their spouse in bed with somebody else? What
the hell difference would that make to anything?”

Well, he sort of saw why it might be annoying.

“I mean if you loved the person, what would it matter? And
if you didn’t love the person, well…what would it matter? Sex has nothing to do
with anything.”

“Let’s go back to the lighthouse. I think you need a nap.”

“I’m not your fucking puppy!”

He went for her arm and she slapped him, hard. So hard it
whipped his head back and he gasped. Nobody had ever hit him. He didn’t have a
very physical family and he was never the roughhousing kind of boy at school.
As an adult, he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who got in bar fights either or
anything.

So, shit, he never realized how much it hurt to get hit like
that. He held a hand up to his burning cheek. “Why the hell did you do that?”

She went to slap him again and he caught her hand,
bewildered. “What is wrong with you?”

“You have no idea,” she spat out.

It was a struggle to keep her from hitting him again and he
wound up just putting his arms around her in a bizarre parody of a hug, holding
her so tight to his body she couldn’t get a hand free to lash out at him again.
But it didn’t turn him on. Sex was the last thing on his mind. She was shaking
so hard, he thought she might be sick.

“Shh, stop,” he soothed. “Stop, Andrea.”

“My name isn’t Andrea,” she managed to get out through her
wild squirming.

He put his mouth to her ear. “So what is your name?”

But she didn’t answer. Finally, she just sagged against him,
as if the went left her sails or something.

“If I let you go are you going to talk calmly about this?”

“Are you going to hit me?” she shot back over her shoulder,
stunning him.

“Hit you?” He let go of her immediately. “Christ, no. Of
course not.”

Hitting a woman was inconceivable. For as long as he could
remember, that lesson had been drummed into him, by his mother, his maternal
grandfather, hell, even his old man would never stoop so low as to hit a woman
and he had run through women like water back in the day.

“Has someone hit you, Andrea? Is that what you’re telling
me?”

“I’m not telling you anything. And stop calling me Andrea. I
can’t stand it anymore.” Her hands went up to block her ears and she crumpled
to the floor, so unlike the cool Miss Prentiss he barely believed it was the
same woman.

“Okay,” he conceded, crouching down beside her, gently
taking her hands from her ears, holding them though they were ice cold. “I
won’t call you that anymore.”

She took a deep breath and then seemed to come to herself,
looking around blankly. When she rose to her feet, he followed her, letting go
of her hands as she tugged them away. After that comment about hitting her, he
felt as if he should tread lightly, it was so outside his experience.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

“There’s no need to be sorry, Andr—”

She looked up, embarrassed at his sudden stumble. “I don’t
know why I said that. You can call me whatever you want. What does it matter
anyway?”

Her real name was the least of his concerns right now. “I
would never hit you. I would never hit a woman. That’s so wrong.”

She nodded dully. “Of course. Of course.”

God, she didn’t believe him. What did that say about where
she had been?

“Whoever hit you was a sick bastard.”

“I didn’t say anyone had hit me,” she responded in a way
that made him think it was automatic.

“You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know, to
believe, I would never lay a hand on you or any other woman in violence. I
swear it to you.”

She said nothing. It had come out too formulaic, too Boy Scout–like
anyway. He needed to make her understand.

“My mother will swear it to you,” he added urgently,
desperate for her to believe him.

She gave him a small smile. “And a mother always knows,
doesn’t she?” she said obliquely.

“Oh sweetheart.” He pulled her to him, rubbing her back,
ridiculously gratified that she put her head on his shoulder.

“The worst monster I ever knew had a mother who loved him.
Still does, for all I know. Thought he could do no wrong. How he felt about her
I was never quite so sure. But we all come in this world the same way, Evan,
the monsters and those of us trying to stay out of their way.”

He wanted to kill whoever had left her like this. And it
wasn’t a metaphor. He wanted to kill him. With his bare hands.

And by God, he would.

“Not quite the cool, collected Miss Prentiss now, am I?” She
was echoing his thoughts.

“Well, you’re not an uptight, prissy ice queen.”

“Is that what you thought of Miss Prentiss?”

It was eerie the way she talked about herself in the third
person sometimes.

“No. I thought she was wonderful. And I think the girl in
front of me is even more wonderful still.”

“I’m not surprised you don’t want to have relationships with
women. They’d be stalking you for life, you’re so sweet.”

He hugged her tighter and buried his face in her hair. It
was an open question who would be stalking whom for life here.

Tommy O’Neal watched Cassie Bailey drive the speedboat into
the boat house next to her father’s grocery store.

“Why do you let that little slut jerk you around?”

Tommy glanced sideways at his cousin Patrick, a year older
and about one hundred I.Q. points stupider. “Cassie’s none of your fucking
business, Pat. Remember that.”

He held his palm open for the five hundred bucks Pat had
collected from the bet Tommy had placed and Pat handed it over sullenly. “I’d
say what she needs is a hard fuck up against the—”

The words were swallowed in the constriction of his fleshy
throat as Tommy grabbed his cousin’s collar and jerked tight. “What did I just
say?”

Pat gurgled a little and nodded and Tommy released him,
stuffing the hundred-dollar bills in his jeans pocket. “Get lost.”

Pat looked sullenly toward the boathouse. “You going to come
by Rita’s tonight? She’s got some great dope.”

“No.”

Tommy crossed the dirt road and entered the beat-up old
boathouse that sat next to Bailey’s Grocery Store just as Cassie was tying down
the boat and nimbly jumping out. She looked up. “Oh. It’s you. What do you
want?”

“Stop flirting with me, Cassie. It’ll go to my head.”

“Ha ha. You’re hilarious.”

Cassie Bailey was all long tanned legs and high full boobs
and yards of shiny golden hair. He ached just to look at her, by which he meant
his cock throbbed and his palms sweated and his heart, such as he had one, beat
a hell of a lot faster. He knew it was just lust, but he couldn’t shake it.
He’d been in whatever he was with Cassie Bailey since he had come to live with
his cousin’s family, finally thrown out by his worthless old man, six years
ago.

“Since your tits are spilling out of that top and your
shorts barely cover your pubic hair, I take it you were delivering groceries to
that asshole Reynolds.”

She shrugged, a little smile on her makeup-less face. Girls
like his cousin Pat’s Rita slathered on the mascara and foundation and lipstick
and didn’t look half as perfect, half as glowing, as Cassie did from just the
effects of the wind and the sun. “I was delivering groceries, yeah…among other
things.”

He took a deep breath. He was getting really good at
controlling his emotions around her. He always had been around anyone else but
she used to be able to push his buttons with the most casual of comments. He
could hold it off now. Not that he didn’t feel as if his head might explode at
the casual reference to her giving it to Reynolds.

Even though he knew she was lying.

“Reynolds must have the staying power of a rabbit, then,
since you’ve barely been gone long enough to make the round trip out to his
island.”

She glared at him, putting her hands on her hips, and he
could feel his glance unwaveringly riveted to the tiny waist and strip of
tanned skin at her navel. “Are you spying on me, Tommy O’Neal?”

He smiled. “Why would I waste my time doing that?”

“You tell me!” She huffed by him and he caught her elbow
lightly, pulling her into the vee of his legs. Though she went unresistingly,
she continued to glare at him. “What do you want, Tommy?”

Christ, what didn’t he want from her? But he wasn’t going to
beg her for it. He had half the girls in the town sucking his dick whenever he
felt like it. For whatever reason, girls had always been dragging him into bed
with them at the slightest encouragement. He didn’t need Cassie Bailey.

But she was different. She always had been. Since that first
day in town when he had gotten the crap beaten out of him for not allowing one
of the older boys to take his lunch money and she had pushed through the crowd
and stopped the fight, just a tall skinny girl with long blonde braids and more
guts than he had ever seen in full-grown men. He had been fascinated by her as
she toted him along to her father’s store and climbed on a stool to get the
first-aid kit, scolding him to hold his head up so his nose wouldn’t bleed more
than it had to. Fascinated and more than half in
whatever
with her from
that very first moment.

Although he consoled himself through the years since that he
must just want to get into her pants.

“Maybe I don’t like to see you throwing yourself away on an
asshole like that, Cassie.”

“Funny. He said the same thing about you.”

So she had seen him. Tommy clamped his jaw shut, the better
to keep from giving away how much that disturbed him. She watched him all the
while, big blue eyes fastened on his face, until he said casually, “I’m
surprised he even knows who I am.”

“I told him you said he was gay.”

He had tossed that out casually, just to needle her. It said
enough about her inexperience with men that it seemed to bother her. He doubted
Reynolds was gay, although that would be nice as far as he was concerned. He
didn’t know what Reynolds’ deal was, why he didn’t take Cassie up on what she
was obviously throwing his way. Maybe he was just a nice guy.

The asshole.

“He wanted to know if you wanted a date with him.”

Tommy laughed, which seemed to disappoint her. She scowled.
“What? Do you?”

He tugged her closer in yet another repetition of this
relentless dance of theirs. “I’m not exactly on the fence with my sexuality,
Cassie. But if you want me to prove it to you, I’d be more than happy to.” He
could feel her light breath at his neck as he leaned in to her to whisper that
in her ear and he slid his hands carefully around her waist. His erection
roared into force and he held the rest of himself rigid, knowing he had zero
control where she was concerned. Zero control and absolute control, both at the
same time. So while he was aching for her, he wouldn’t make any move on her. No
real move on her anyway.

Like tugging that flimsy top down and taking one of her
pearl-pink nipples in his mouth and sucking, hard. He knew they were pink only
because she had flashed him once in anger and he had cherished the memory, sick
fuck that he was.

She didn’t move away. It was as if once she realized he
would let her set the pace, she relished frustrating him, keeping him near but
nowhere near enough.

She took a breath that sounded shaky and, God help him, she
pressed her lips to the crook of his neck. In automatic reaction, he pulled her
a little closer, close enough for her to feel his erection against her flat,
smooth stomach. They had done this a few times before, gotten this close, and
if she followed her usual pattern, she would pull away in a huff any second
now.

He waited.

“You get hard just holding a girl in your arms, Tommy?” she
asked in a little voice, stepping closer.

He held off a groan and looked down at her, more turned-on
by just this slight contact with her than he was when he was jamming his dick
into any other girl.

He wanted to say something snappy or full of bravado or even
disgustingly coarse. But all he whispered was, “I get hard just looking at you,
Cassie. Thinking of you.”

Lame. Oh Christ, so very very lame.

“Why? I know you’re screwing anything in a skirt in this
town. Even that disgusting Mrs. Rafferty.”

Eliza Rafferty, a highly sexed thirty-something divorcee who
gave head like a pro, wasn’t what any red-blooded male, himself included, would
exactly call disgusting. More like soft-core porn material. But he neglected to
defend her to Cassie. She meant nothing to him. Less than nothing.

And Cassie meant…

But he couldn’t put it into words. Couldn’t say it. Didn’t
even know what he meant.

“Aren’t you?” she prodded.

“Aren’t I what?” he asked, dazed.

“Screwing other women.”

“Cassie.” He leaned in to kiss her and she jerked her head
back.

Tommy O’Neal stared down at her through those dark black
eyelashes, his deep blue eyes glittery, his hands light and restless against
the bare skin of her midriff. And his reputedly huge penis hard against her
stomach.

The jerk.

He did sleep with everything that moved. Always had. While
he was trailing after her, pretending to be her friend, he was kissing every
other girl in their class and then more than kissing and way beyond just their
school.

The jerk.

The gorgeous jerk. He’d been the most beautiful boy she’d
ever seen. Bleeding and scrapping and tough, but with those big blue eyes and
high cheekbones and black curls. Beautiful. Though if she had ever called him
that to his face he would have been horrified. He was so proud back then. Still
was probably, but he hid it better. And his betting and undoubtedly not-quite-legal
other extracurricular activities kept him from being as poor as he was in those
days.

She had a crush on Evan Reynolds. Of course she did. What
girl wouldn’t? He was rich and gorgeous, a romantic figure all alone on that
island of his. But as much as she flirted with him and mooned after him, it was
a crush like you’d have on a movie star.

It was different with Tommy. She dreamt about Tommy. She
felt jittery when he was close. Depressed when he wasn’t.

And deathly jealous. So jealous there was barely a girl in
town she didn’t hate for having been with him.

Pushing him away at the thought, she stepped out of his
arms. “Go find Mrs. Rafferty or one of your other groupies. I’m not
interested.”

He let her go easily and shrugged. “That’s your story and
you’re sticking to it, eh?”

“Shut up.” Grabbing an oversized sweatshirt from a hook, she
slipped it over her outfit. Putting up with Tommy’s smart remarks about
throwing herself away on Evan Reynolds was one thing. Getting the same similar
disapproving look from her dad for wearing such a skimpy outfit to deliver
groceries was another. Ever since her mom had died when she was little, she and
her dad had been pretty tight. Hardworking, quiet and not very demonstrative,
Greg Bailey nonetheless loved his only daughter. Cassie knew he did and knew he
wanted the best for her too.

Well, that made two of them, even if she for one had no idea
what that was. “You better get lost, Tommy.” As much as her dad wouldn’t
approve of her crush on Evan—if he even noticed it, that is—he was livid at the
mere sight of Tommy O’Neal hanging around Cassie. Always had been. He seemed to
be convinced Tommy planned to leave her pregnant and unwed or some such
Lifetime movie thing. No danger of that. For one thing, Tommy was famous for
never doing it without a condom. And for another, he was famous—in her book
anyway—for never doing it with her.

Unwed and pregnant! Hell, she’d probably go to her grave a
virgin at this rate.

“I mean it, Tommy. You’re not my dad’s favorite person, in
case you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah, I have, but maybe he should start paying a little
more attention to the rich guy who lives out in the middle of nowhere that his
daughter has the hots for. Maybe he ought to be chaperoning you or delivering
the groceries out to that damn island himself or something.”

“Maybe he doesn’t care because Evan’s rich.”

“Bullshit!” Tommy snorted.

Cassie took the side door into the grocery store, noticing
her dad behind the counter talking to a beautiful, older blonde lady.

She glanced quickly at Tommy, who had followed her in
despite her warning, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the woman. Luckily,
beautiful as she was, she was too old even for a male slut like Tommy
apparently. Although her dad was paying an undue amount of attention to the
fancy woman, flashing one of his rare smiles.

“So do you know my son?” the woman was asking.

“Sure. Of course I do, Mrs. Reynolds.”

“Please, call me Amanda. Mrs. Reynolds is not my favorite
term of address. I just kept it after the divorce because I wanted to have the
same name as my son and my ex-husband wouldn’t let me change his name, the
horrid man. Of course Evan Evans wouldn’t have really worked anyway.”

The woman laughed, an attractive titter that seemed to
captivate Cassie’s dad. He hadn’t even noticed his own daughter was in the
room.

“I’m back, Dad.”

“Oh Cassie, come here. I was just mentioning you to Mrs.,
er, Amanda here.”

Was her dad actually blushing? God. How ridiculous.

The woman turned her megawatt smile their way. “Oh, you must
be Cassie. My goodness, how very lovely you are, my dear. You better keep an
eye on her around my son, Greg,” she added in a playful aside. “As wonderful a
boy as he is, he is a Reynolds man.”

“Just what I was saying,” Tommy muttered, drawing her dad’s
attention for the first time.

“Is there something you wanted, O’Neal?”

“Me? No. I was just, ah,” he grabbed a tube of toothpaste
from a shelf, “shopping.”

“Well, get on with it, then.” Her dad turned to Amanda
Reynolds. “Your son isn’t who I’m worried about,” he added with a wry look.

“Oh I can see why,” she responded in a conspiratorial
whisper. “I was always glad I never had a daughter. So much trouble trying to
keep them out of one lothario’s way or another, isn’t it? Evan’s half sister
was a little terror on that score. My ex-husband certainly got his comeuppance
trying to keep her in line, although she’s recently made a very nice match.”

Her ex-husband this. Her ex-husband that. How pathetic. The
old gal was so totally still in love with the guy. Two seconds of conversation
with her and it was obvious. Cassie had a weird sense of parallelism for a
second—Gosh, she wasn’t as obvious as that about Tommy, was she?—before she
remembered to be indignant that her dad and this woman were talking about her
as if she wasn’t even there.

“Tommy has a right to shop here too, Dad. What’s your
problem?”

“My problem is he doesn’t look like he’s shopping, Cass. My
problem is he looks like he’s chasing after you, like always. That’s my problem.”