Meant to Be (11 page)

“How can you say that about your own brother?”

“Because it’s true.” Joe looked out over the water. “I love my brother, but that doesn’t mean I understand him. He’s running after something, and you don’t look like the run-alongside type. You look more like the type to get run over.”

“Lucas is sweet and generous, and he loves me.” She waited until he met her eyes again. “And there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious.”

“Nothing wrong with it at all,” he said, adjusting his mirror. “So long as you keep your priorities straight.”

“And what makes you think Lucas doesn’t have his priorities straight?”

He turned to meet her eyes. “He’s not here, is he?”

Beth clamped her mouth shut, causing a muscle below her left ear to twitch. Breaking eye contact, she faced forward and crossed her arms. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

The look on her face told him he’d hit a nerve. Possibly one she’d been ignoring. “You ready to do the tourist thing?”

She glared at him once more then dropped her hands into her lap. “Let’s go see a lighthouse.”

B
eth argued with Joe while he filled the gas tank on the Jeep and continued all the way to their destination. On the inside. On the outside she remained quiet and calm. Which meant the argument wasn’t really with Joe. It was with herself.

Why isn’t Lucas here?

You know he had to go back for that case. His work is important.

So are we. We’re important. When are we going to come before the job?

We are important, and Lucas shows us all the time. He’s sweet and generous and takes good care of us.

What are we, four years old? We don’t need to be taken care of. We need to come first. Who cares if he makes partner?

Lucas cares, and that means we care now, damn it. We are not going to think bad thoughts about Lucas when he’s not here to defend himself.

He’s never here and he never asks what we’re thinking, so what’s the difference?

“That’s enough.” Beth didn’t realize she’d said the words aloud until Joe hit the brake, jerking them all forward.

“What’s enough?”

Stupid brain. Now look what you’ve done.

“Nothing. Sorry. I was thinking about something else.” Focusing on the distance, Beth realized she could see the top half of the lighthouse rising up behind a row of trees. “Are we here?”

Joe undid his seat belt. “We’re here.”

Beth turned to unhook herself and caught the view of Joe’s khaki shorts pulled tight over his butt as he climbed out of the Jeep. No guy with a butt that good should wear baggy pants.

We are not looking at Joe’s ass.

What? It’s a really nice ass.

“Are you getting out?”

Beth jumped in her seat when Dozer stuck a damp nose against her ear. “Yes. Of course,” she said, wiping her ear on her shoulder. Joe opened her door, giving plenty of room for her to hop out without the threat of bodily contact. At least they were on the same page with that aspect of the day.

Joe headed around the back of the vehicle to what looked to be a long, railed pier on land. Following behind, in an effort not to focus on Joe’s stellar butt, Beth worked up a mental picture of Lucas’s butt in his dress pants. She’d always liked a man in a suit, and Lucas always looked good in his. Which made sense since he spent a great deal of money making sure they were perfectly tailored.

So what if Lucas wasn’t there? So what if Joe seemed to know where Lucas should be when Lucas didn’t?

No. Lucas needed to be in Richmond, and she would not fault him for that. His dedication and ambition were
two qualities she loved about him. But there was more to her fiancé. He protected her, taking command of any situation. No need to stress about how to handle things or what choices to make, because Lucas handled everything. No worries. No questions. No doubts. No one pushing her out of her comfort zone.

Your comfort zone is boring.

Shut up.

Moving her eyes higher, Beth also noticed Joe had really broad shoulders. Solid. Wide. Lucas’s shoulders weren’t quite so broad, but he was leaner than Joe. Not that she was comparing the two. Though broad shoulders were nice to hold on to.

Okay. Time to find a new focus. Which was easy with a majestic white tower standing less than fifty yards before her. The lighthouse was wide at the base and tapered to a narrow top, upon which sat a small glass enclosure. A black railing wrapped around the top, creating what must be an amazing observation deck.

Made of whitewashed bricks, broken only by a small window near the bottom and another midway up, the structure looked to be taller than the five-story office building in which she worked back in Richmond. Even from a distance, Beth had to tip her head back to see to the top.

“Can we go up there?”

“Nope, no climbing.”

“Why not?” she asked.

Joe held his hands up in the international sign for innocence. “Don’t look at me. The Park Service deemed it unsafe years ago. During the season you can check out the
base, but that’s not for two more weeks. You’ll be gone by the time they open to tourists.”

Beth tilted her head back again and watched a pair of seagulls perform a flying dance around the point. Beth never imagined she’d envy a couple of seagulls, but in that moment she did.

Joe walked on, leaving her staring like a gaping tourist. She hurried to catch up. “Does the light still work?”

“It does, but it’s not the spinning light you’re probably thinking of. This one gives off a steady beam you can see about fourteen miles out.”

The closer they walked, the more difficult it became to look up and keep her balance at the same time. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the brick structure. Other than a brief glance at what she believed to be the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse the day she drove down, she’d never seen a lighthouse in person before.

The artist responsible for the pencil sketch she’d bought from Lola had done a beautiful job capturing the details of the brick and stone and small outbuildings. But a picture couldn’t compare to the real thing. To see buildings this tall in a city packed with skyscrapers felt natural. A structure this high and solid standing guard on a tiny island held more wonder. As if God himself had planted the tower in this spot.

“When was it built?” she asked Joe, further breaking her promise not to act like a tourist.

“The original one was just a pole, and it stood on a different spot. That was in the 1700s. The shifting of the channel kept making the light obsolete, forcing the early settlers to relocate it several times.” Joe gave her a gentle nudge to the
right, saving her from tripping over an unnoticed branch. “One of them was struck by lightning, but I can’t remember when. This one went up in the early 1820s.”

“Amazing. I’m not sure which is more fascinating, the lighthouse itself or the history behind it.” Beth imagined the generations of sailors, not to mention pirates, who must have used this beacon to safely reach land. For some odd reason, strolling the same ground as pirates gave her an unexpected thrill.

“You like history?” Joe asked, sounding slightly less bored.

“Love it,” she said. “My favorite field trips in school were our yearly treks to Jamestown and Williamsburg.”

“Did you grow up in Richmond?”

Beth hadn’t intended the conversation to become about her. Even Lucas didn’t know the details of her early years. Mostly because he’d never asked, but she’d also never volunteered the information. She’d tell her fiancé. Someday. Didn’t mean she had to tell his brother.

“Around there. Do you use this light to navigate when you’re out on the water?”

If he caught her deflection, Joe didn’t mention it. “Nah. We’ve got modern navigation equipment. We don’t need the lighthouse anymore.”

“Oh.” Beth realized Joe was smiling with the effort not to laugh at her question. Which was a pretty stupid question now that she thought about it. She couldn’t help but smile back.

If Beth shot him any more of those smiles, Joe was going to have to end the tour and head home for a cold shower. Not that the woman could ever look hard, and she wasn’t very good at angry either, but when she smiled like that, like she actually liked him, her face softened and her eyes glowed like lightning bugs dancing over the water on a warm spring night.

Good God. He’d just compared her eyes to lightning bugs. Next he’d be writing love notes and drawing little hearts over the
i
’s.

Giving Beth distance to explore what felt like his own backyard, Joe pondered his brother’s catch. The woman continued to destroy every assumption he’d made about the kind of woman who would marry Lucas. An interest in history usually meant an interest in people more than things.

A woman attracted to Lucas should have been more interested in shopping and getting off the island as soon as possible. Beth ignored the shops, except Lola’s, as far as he knew, and had yet to give an excuse for why she should head back to Richmond. Something she could have easily done with Lucas gone.

If he didn’t know better, Joe would say Beth liked Anchor Island. Which made no sense at all, so he ignored the thought. But what he couldn’t ignore was Beth’s unwillingness to talk about herself. His question about where she grew up seemed simple enough, but she’d changed the subject faster than a bluefin hitting fresh bait.

What didn’t she want him to know? And was she keeping the same details from Lucas?

Asking Lucas what he knew about his fiancée wasn’t an option. Asking Patty what she’d learned would send up more red flags with his dad. Joe would have to dig for answers another way.

“I think I’ve gotten all the pictures I wanted,” she said, sliding her cell phone into her pocket. “The horses are next?”

“The horses are next.” Joe reached for the small of her back as they moved toward the parking area, then realized what he was doing and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll warn you now, if Chuck isn’t working, we’ll be stuck on the small observation deck like the other tourists.”

“Who is Chuck?” she asked as she climbed in behind Dozer.

“Chuck Brighteyes works with the horses. His ancestors go back to before the colonists landed around Roanoke Island.”

“Is that where the Lost Colony was? I saw that in one of the flyers Patty gave me.”

“They call it the Lost Colony, but they were never lost; they simply moved before others came back for them.” Joe made a right onto Highway 12. “The myth keeps the tourists coming, but like most of history, it’s twisted for modern-day purposes.”

“I’d still love to go see it,” Beth said, sighing like a teenager talking about the latest heartthrob. “I can’t imagine doing what those colonists did. Leaving their homes and all they knew to move to a primitive, unknown world.”

Her words brought back a memory of the day Cassie had handed him an ultimatum. With a mocking laugh, she’d declared she’d rather die than live on his primitive island.
Since he’d rather die than live without it, the end of the engagement was an inevitable next step.

“They had their reasons. Besides, primitive just means simple. I, for one, prefer simple.” Joe could feel Beth looking at him, but kept his eyes on the road.

“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. I just think they were brave for doing it.”

“Yeah, they were.”

Silence fell over the Jeep for the rest of the short drive up the island. Joe went back to figuring out how he’d get Beth to talk about her past. Like when coaxing an animal to cooperate, he’d need to gain her trust. But that would mean spending more time together. Not the most comforting thought.

Then he got a better idea. Sic Sid on her. Girl talk wasn’t Sid’s forte, and since she already didn’t like Beth, convincing her to play friendly wouldn’t be easy. But, if she understood she was doing it for Lucas, she’d go along.

Sid could find out what Beth was hiding, then if there was anything Lucas needed to know, Joe would tell him. A man deserved to know who he was marrying before getting to the end of that aisle. However Joe felt about Cassie, at least she’d revealed her true bitch nature before he found himself shackled for life. For that he’d be forever grateful.

Pulling onto the dirt road next to the horse pens, Joe knew the absence of trucks parked by the barns meant no getting past the gate. “We’re not getting close to the horses today. At least not this morning.”

“Your friend isn’t working?” Beth asked, straining to see over the pen walls. “Can I still see the horses?”

“Sure,” Joe said, pointing toward the raised deck to the right, “you can climb up there and take all the pictures you want. Just let me park in the lot across the highway so I don’t block the gate.”

As soon as he killed the engine, Beth’s feet were on the ground. At the back of the vehicle she turned to Joe, still sitting behind the wheel.

“Are you coming?”

“I’ll stay here with Doze. You go on over.”

“Oh. All right then.”

Joe took a seat on the back gate of the Jeep and barely noticed Dozer panting in his ear. Beth’s white skirt, what there was of it, swung from side to side, then tightened across her ass as she climbed onto the platform. So much for thinking distance would put his body back in check.