Undertow: Building Sanctuary, Book Two (3 page)

The barb struck its mark, as she must have known it would, but Victor refused to let her see just how much. “If you’re worried about the state of your friend’s heart, best check with the wizard she’s given it to.”

“Joan, stop.” Seamus closed his hand around her elbow and drew her toward the door. “Victor is more of a danger to his own heart than Simone’s.”

Friend or not,
alpha
or not, Victor was going to punch Seamus in the face for saying it out loud. Later. “You two tend to your own hearts and leave mine and everyone else’s alone. We have better things to do on this damn island than matchmake. Things like survive.”

Seamus ushered Joan through the door, then turned and faced Victor. “We
will
survive, but we also have to consider life beyond that. I don’t want everyone on this island alive but miserable. Especially not my friends.”

Victor would worry about life beyond survival when he knew survival was assured. “One miserable winter isn’t going to kill anyone. Not even your friends.”

“Suit yourself.” Seamus ducked his head with a nod. “I’ll see you in the morning. If not, when you return.”

“Have a good night, Seamus.”

His old friend followed Joan into the night, leaving Victor to make his way down the path toward the dock and the solitary row back to the privacy of his sailboat. The winter was cold already, even now when it had barely begun. A long, miserable winter indeed, and something told him the cold wouldn’t just come from the outside.

If he’d been a different sort of bastard, he might have been willing to take advantage of the bevy of young women whose instincts drove them toward the stronger wolves. Plenty looked at him with hungry eyes, and he flattered himself that not all of that hunger was for safety and protection. A selfish man might pick one of those sweet, pretty girls and while away the winter in a less lonely bed.

Too bad the sharp edge of responsibility cut both ways. Any safety he could offer would be a lie. Taking one of the girls before she’d found her footing would be abusing the instincts he’d been born with, instincts their corrupt Boston alpha had brutalized until none of them knew the power that came with the gift of their trust.

They’d learn. Even if it meant Victor had to beat every last man on the island to give them the space to do it.

Every man except the one he longed to test his strength against. Victor’s hands clenched, and he forced himself to relax them as he rose. He might like the idea of chasing the wizard around the island, but James wasn’t using anything against Simone but his too-damn-pretty smile.

Simone felt pulled to Victor because his wolf could meet hers. Protect hers. No instincts drew her toward James. In fact instinct very likely demanded the opposite, proof enough that she cared for the man in all the human ways that mattered. Human ways Victor would respect, even if it killed him, day by day.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe Victor could give her someone to connect to—show her a man instead of a wolf. Maybe he could try the radical fucking experiment of talking to her.

It was worth a try. If it didn’t work, there’d be plenty of time for a slow death by honorable retreat.

Chapter Three

Simone had never noticed how small Victor’s sloop really was. It looked huge compared to the boat Guy used to fish, but it seemed to shrink with each passing minute as they sailed toward Searsport.

Victor brushed by her again to adjust a length of sail here, or to secure a rope there. She tried to stay out of his way, but it seemed there was no such thing on a boat. Every time she moved to a new spot, that was where he needed to be.

Finally, she broke the uneasy silence. “Is there someplace where I can be less of an inconvenience?”

He hesitated, his gaze flicking to the cabin door, which remained closed. After a brief moment, he nodded to it. “If you’re cold, you can go down below. I should have offered before. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not cold.” She’d worn extra layers in preparation for the trip, but so far the weather had been surprisingly pleasant. “What I am is in the way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

For once, Victor smiled, and it lit up his brown eyes. “A little, but not as much as you think. Not unless I’m bothering you.”

“No.” Certainly not enough to go below deck to his cabin. She already knew he slept there, and envisioning him between the sheets, waiting for— “I’d like to stay up here.”

“Fair enough.” He eased past her, brushing her arm with his. “We’ve got another two hours of sailing, at least. Maybe we could come up with something to talk about.”

Simone blinked. “You want to talk to me?”

He actually winced. “Christ, am I that much of an inadvertent bastard?”

“No,” she insisted immediately, but she couldn’t think of anything else to reassure him. Instead, she stared up at the clouds overhead and struggled for an inoffensive topic. “We could talk about the weather.”

“We could. See anything interesting in the clouds? Dragons, monsters…pretty ladies?”

He was flirting with her. She couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips any more than she could stop her teasing response. “No. I do see a handsome but forbidding man, though.”

“Well that rules out Guy. The man couldn’t forbid water from running uphill.”

“He does carry a certain ease about him,” she agreed. It was an ease Victor lacked, but it hadn’t kept her from being drawn to him. “Forbidding doesn’t always mean bad things. The sea is as forbidding as it is beautiful.”

“I love the sea.” It sounded like an admission, quiet and a little self-conscious. “I grew up in the west. On the plains. The prairie goes on for miles.”

“Really?” This tiny glimpse was more than he’d ever willingly shared before. “I traveled through once. On the train, going to California. With all that grass, it felt like being out in the middle of the Atlantic.”

“Mmm.” He did something with one of the ropes that inched the sail to the side, and the canvas snapped under the strong wind. “I was a cowboy for a while. Not the best job for a werewolf, but at least I healed fast.”

The urge to close her eyes and imagine him roping calves, covered in dirt and sweat, was almost overwhelming. “Did you like it?”

“Wasn’t quite as glamorous as the stories make it sound, but it was a job. My nephew still owns the ranch, though it’s not much to see right now.”

She wondered if the ranch was like the rest of the drought-plagued land she’d heard about, dust-dry and overworked and blowing away in the wind. Maybe it was whole, dead but still rooted together and waiting for rain. “Bad times come and go,” she whispered. “They can’t last forever.”

“No, they can’t.” His voice held sorrow. Exhaustion. “Werewolves have long memories, though…and times are pretty bad.”

What had happened to put that look in his eyes? What had driven him from his home, all the way to New England? Maybe he would share it, in time. For now, Simone felt as though the slightest push too hard could shatter the fragile truce they shared.

So instead of questioning him, she smiled gently. “You’ve been a cowboy and a bootlegger. What else have you been, Victor Bowen?”

“Farmer. Smuggler.” He returned her smile, a hint of mischief sparking in his eyes. “Gambler. That was fun. More fun than lobster fisherman.”

He had a beautiful smile, one that shocked the truth out of her. “I’ve never been anything.”

Both of his eyebrows crawled toward his forehead in an expression of polite disbelief. “You and Joan have done quite a bit.”

“Joan has.” She hadn’t meant to sound so lost. Ashamed. “I just follow along after her.”

“That’s what makes them alpha,” Victor replied, tone firm. “She and Seamus both. Being strong or dominant or just stubborn, none of it matters compared to that spark. They want to lead. No shame in following someone like that.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“No perhaps about it, doll. Guy may be easygoing, but he’s a strong wolf. So am I, and a lot of the men who follow Seamus. Doesn’t say anything bad about us, just good things about him.”

What he couldn’t know was that Simone had been the same way before meeting Joan. She’d allowed herself to be swept along, with no real control over her own life. “Right.” She tilted her face to the sky and the clouds again. “There’s one that looks like a ball gown.”

He didn’t try to change the subject back. “My brothers would have counted that as a pretty lady.”

She couldn’t resist a wink. “Because it curves in all the right places?”

“Like all the best things in life.”

Sometimes, like now, he looked at her like he wanted her, after all. Like she belonged in his arms. “Too bad I’m not wearing a fancy dress. You could be my Prince Charming.”

“A prince with a dubious past, maybe.” He looked away from her, reluctantly enough to light a warm glow of hope inside her. “You don’t need a beautiful dress. You make trousers and paint spatters elegant.”

I want you to kiss me.
An ill-advised plea, because it would only renew the uneasy tension between them. “Thank you.”

A gust of wind snapped the sail again, filling the suddenly awkward silence. Victor studied the horizon, then cleared his throat. “I think we might have a squall headed this way. Might be best for you to go below and stay out of the rain.”

Before she could argue, a fat drop of rain splashed on her cheek, followed by another. Simone laughed and rose. “Consider me convinced. Yell if you need me.”

The area below deck was small, just shy of cramped. A sleeping berth occupied much of the available space, its width smooth and neatly made up. She sat on the edge of the bunk, unable to resist the urge to run her fingertips over the coarse blanket.

It was warm, but too rough. Victor needed a quilt, something heavy enough to hold off the chill but more comfortable than the loosely woven wool. The blanket would make decent batting, though, and perhaps she could talk him into letting her sew something—

A dangerous train of thought, far more so than her earlier imaginings of him naked in this very bed. One was about sex, pleasure, and the other…

Intimacy.
The small cabin heated quickly, and Simone peeled off her coat. A wooden crate wedged beside the bunk held books, and she lifted them one by one, curiously examining the titles.

The crate held everything from travel journals to several works of Shakespeare. A crisp ten-dollar bill had been placed in a battered copy of
Macbeth
, and she opened the book to the scene, late in the play, of soldiers marching on Dunsinane Castle.

Had he put the bill there for safekeeping, or did it mark his place? She laid the book back in the crate, and it brushed free a photograph which had been tucked behind a slat.

It featured a large group—a family, judging by the resemblance—bearing the careful smiles and stilted poses of a studio photograph. The father and mother were easily identifiable, and she counted thirteen children, with ages ranging so widely that some were no longer children at all.

Like Victor, who stood tall at the back of the group, looking only a few years younger than he did now. Simone studied his face, even drew her fingers across it before snatching her hand away.

These were Victor’s personal things, his
private
things, and she had no right to be rifling through them. He’d offered her the hospitality of his cabin. She couldn’t repay it by nosing around in his belongings.

Simone replaced everything and stretched out on the bed. The warmth of the cabin combined with the movement of the boat lulled her, but even more comforting was the way she could smell Victor on the blanket and pillow.

As she drifted off, she had to admit that his scent, more than anything else, was what soothed her into sleep.

They sailed into Searsport harbor under an overcast sky. Victor had a feeling that Simone had drifted to sleep, cocooned in the warmth of his bed, but that was an image so stirring he didn’t dare give fantasy the weight of reality. It would be bad enough to return to sleeping there with her scent wrapped around him, a scent that wouldn’t fade for days.

A part of him—and not a small part—warmed in anticipation.

Slim had come through with the first part of their deal, at least—securing a slip for him in the busy harbor. Victor docked without hassle, tying off with the help of a young, hungry-looking boy who probably expected a few pennies and went wide-eyed when Victor pressed two quarters into his small, dirty hand. The boy folded his fingers over the treasure before anyone else could catch a glimpse, and Victor hid the ache in his chest beneath a smile.

The boy shoved the coins into his pocket, murmured his thanks, and departed so fast the wooden dock trembled under his tiny worn shoes. Victor hopped back onto the boat and spent a few moments steadying himself with the boring minutiae of tying down sails and checking lines, using the comforting routine to find his balance.

Guilt intruded, just as it always did. All too easy to see a cousin or nephew in that young boy’s place, hanging around docks or city street corners, desperate for any job that might put a few cents more in the family pocketbook. The last word from the family farm had been more desperation, more poverty.

He’d sent more money than the place was worth over the past few years. The first three times he’d had it returned, his proud, upstanding family unwilling to accept money earned in a life of crime. Then the crops had failed in 1930, and the next letter he sent came back only with stiff gratitude. Proof of the depth of their desperation. Proof of
everyone’s
desperation.

In his darkest moments, he could almost understand how so many of the werewolf packs had gone so bad, so fast. Maybe civilization among wolves had always been the dream, and this was what they were meant to be. Savage, desperate beasts, fighting over the scraps the weak were unable to protect.

Instinct revolted. He fisted both hands and dragged in a deep breath, tasting rain—or even snow—on the biting, salty air. Brooding could wait until he’d gotten Simone into town, hopefully ahead of the coming storm. With his head full of plans for finding an inn and making the most of their time on the mainland, Victor almost forgot what would be waiting for him when he eased open the door.