Shoreline Drive (Sanctuary Island) Read online

  “I know what you meant,” Merry protested, voice gone high and breathless. She was still flushed, and Taylor wrinkled her nose.

  “Yikes. TMI.”

  “Oh, but it’s all okay when we’re talking about your boy problems?” Merry sent her an amused smile.

  “That’s different. Matt and I aren’t even friends, at the moment. We’re not doing the nasty.”

  “Good, you better not be. But for your information, it’s not nasty when you’re married,” Merry said primly.

  “It is when it’s your sister,” Taylor said daringly, and she felt something in her chest expand like a balloon filling with helium when Merry only rolled her eyes and laughed in reply.

  “Time for me to be a good wife,” Merry said, smiling as she started down the hall toward Java’s stall.

  “Good luck,” Taylor called, heart racing and full of the fun kind of nervousness. “Go give you husband hell for disobeying orders.”

  She raised her voice enough to carry down the hall and maybe give poor Dr. Ben a little warning. “Somebody’s in trooooouble…”

  After all, if she was going to be the bratty baby sister of the family, she had some lost time to make up for.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Give your husband hell for disobeying orders.

  “Oh, I intend to,” Merry muttered as she marched up to Java’s stall and peered inside. Her heart thumped erratically and her palms sprang damp and cold with fear at what she might see.

  Ben crumpled and broken on the ground, blood like thick black ink trickling from his head, trampled under the rampaging stallion’s unshod hooves.

  But once her eyes adjusted to the gloom and the haze of remembered terror cleared, what she saw was Ben, whole and perfect, standing with his back to the stall door as he ran competent, sensitive hands over Java’s quivering flanks.

  The stallion’s ears flicked nervously back and forth. He swished his tail as if brushing away a pesky fly, but otherwise he seemed calm.

  All the air went out of Merry in a silent whoosh, and she closed her jaw on the relief that wanted to explode out of her as scolding and recriminations. Any outburst could startle Java out of his complacence and have him acting out against the nearest threat … which would be Ben.

  She crossed her arms on the chest-high stall door, and watched quietly as Ben went through the rest of his exam. He spoke softly to the stallion as he worked, a low, murmuring undertone that sent shivers all through Merry.

  The last time she’d heard that tone from her husband was in the darkness before the sun rose this morning. He’d been smoothing his palms over her skin, making her writhe restlessly and arch into his touch, and while he gentled her down, he’d kept up a tender whispered commentary on how she looked in his bed, how she felt in his arms.

  By the time he finally reached the center of her body, Merry was nearly delirious with need.

  No man she’d ever been with had spent as much time as Ben. He studied her sensitive spots, which things made her moan and or cry out, as if he were preparing for an exam that would determine the entire course of his future.

  If Merry were grading him, he’d get an A-plus.

  Ben circled around the stallion and caught sight of Merry outside the stall. He looked guilty at being caught with Java for about half a second, but then his eyes narrowed.

  “I thought you’d be mad. What are you smiling about?”

  Merry hastily wiped the cat-in-cream expression off her face and replaced it with a stern scowl. “I am mad,” she whispered, so as not to spook Java. “This horse is still dangerous.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but she held up a hand to forestall it. “And more importantly, you promised me, Ben.”

  “You’re right.” He sounded supremely annoyed about it, but Merry could read anger at himself in the tightness of his mouth. The horse beside him picked up a hoof and stomped a little, nervously, and Ben put an absent, calming hand on his withers. Exhaling slowly, Ben attempted a sheepish smile. “I guess I’m not used to having someone worry about me.”

  “Well, get used to it,” was Merry’s advice. “Alex and I kind of like you. We want to keep you around for a long time.”

  That turned up the volume on Ben’s smile. “Where is the brat, anyway?”

  “With Auntie Ella. She wanted to spend some time with him—which is good practice for when she has kids of her own.”

  Ben shook his head. “You are really pulling for Ella and Grady to tie the knot and settle down right away, aren’t you?”

  “What are they waiting for?” Merry threw up her hands. “Alex needs a cousin to play with! And how fun would it be to plan another wedding?”

  The humor died out of Ben’s expression. Busying himself with checking Java’s hooves, his face was hidden when he said, “A real wedding, you mean? With more than two weeks to plan?”

  “No,” Merry said, more sharply than she intended, but good grief. This man. “That’s not what I mean, at all. Our wedding was perfect—I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Ben straightened, a slight flush in his cheeks from being bent over. Or maybe from her answer. “Except maybe to stop me from making that call to my parents beforehand.”

  There was the familiar sardonic tone Ben used whenever he mentioned his parents—but running underneath it was something else, something Merry couldn’t quite place. Hurt? Disappointment?

  She puzzled over it as Ben gave the stallion a farewell pat to the haunches and unlatched the stall door. She stood back to let him swing it open enough to slip out of the stall, admiring the swift economy of his movements. She could picture him in a hospital, performing some precise, difficult surgery that would save someone’s life. She didn’t say it out loud, but part of her could understand where Ben’s father was coming from in his inability to understand the choice Ben had made to leave the high-risk, high-reward life of a surgeon for the simpler existence of a country vet.

  “Have you heard from them since the wedding?” she asked instead.

  He shook his head over his medical kit. “It’s been a week,” he said tensely. “I would have thought my father would do something by now.”

  A week, Merry thought, with some amazement. It felt longer than seven days since she’d first crossed over the threshold of Isleaway Farm as Ben’s wife.

  Seven days of slowly learning what it felt like to be loved by Ben Fairfax. Seven days of playing with Alex at bathtime, all three of them ending up soaked and laughing; seven days of working side by side at the vet hospital, looking up from filing to catch Ben quirking that sweet half-smile across the office.

  And seven nights filled with the kind of passion Merry had spent years searching for—and only found once she finally stopped looking.

  She cleared her throat and refocused on the conversation. “Maybe your dad heard you, and he’s trying to respect your wishes and leave us alone.”

  “Maybe.” But Ben didn’t sound convinced. Shaking it off like a dog emerging from a dip in the lake, he hefted the strap of his kit over his shoulder and said, “Isn’t this supposed to be your day off?”

  “I came to talk to Mom about the fund-raiser, and then Taylor wanted to talk to me.”

  Ben, who’d heard all about the trials and tribulations of Merry’s attempts to connect with Taylor, arched a brow. “What did she want?”

  “She wants Jo and Harrison to get their act together and tie the knot, already. Really—I think she just wants to know that she has family. She’s not going it alone.”

  Ben cocked his head. “It’s good not to be alone. You know how glad I am to have you and Alex in my life—I benefited hugely from the fact that you wanted a partner in raising him. But I want you to know … I honestly think you would’ve been fine without me. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

  The words knocked all the breath out of Merry’s lungs. It was as if Ben had dug down to the bottom of her soul where she hid her darkest fear, and dragged it out into the
brilliant afternoon light.

  When she could speak again, she forced herself to hold Ben’s calm, steady gaze. “That means a lot to me. More than you know. Maybe you’re right and I would’ve been fine. But…”

  She swallowed, the feelings gripping her heart so new, so big, she was afraid to give them a name. Ben thought she was strong, though …

  “But maybe I don’t want to just be fine,” she said slowly, licking her suddenly dry lips. “Maybe fine isn’t good enough anymore. And with you, my life has a shot at being so much better than fine.”

  Not quite a declaration of undying love, but Ben lit up like a bonfire anyway. It was still new enough to give Merry a thrill when Ben put his arm around her waist and matched his steps to hers as they walked out of the barn to his truck.

  Someday, she promised herself, she’d figure out how to trust that this new life was hers to keep, that it wouldn’t be snatched from her at a whim. And when that day came, she’d finally be as strong as Ben thought she was.

  She’d finally open up her heart and let him read whatever was written there, word for word.

  For now, though, she’d settle for a ride home. She could leave her little sedan parked at the barn overnight. Climbing into the cab of the truck on the passenger side, she said, “So … Ella’s not dropping the baby off at our house until after dinner.”

  Ben’s lips quirked into the delighted grin that made him look like a naughty little boy. “I thought you were trying to entice your sister into settling down and popping out a kid! Dinnertime with Alex probably isn’t the best way to do that.”

  “Well, I don’t want her going into it completely blind,” Merry said generously. “She’s my sister, and I owe her a lot.”

  “So you’re letting her try to feed Alex as a warning?”

  “A gentle reminder,” Merry corrected him. “That there’s more to babies than dressing them up like dolls and cuddling them.”

  “Specifically, more goop.” Ben started the truck. “More bodily fluids, more screaming, and more mess of every kind.”

  A pang of fear struck her chest. They were teasing each other—this was only banter, the kind of back-and-forth that marked most of her conversations with Ben. He didn’t mean anything bad by it.

  Still, a little bit of defensiveness sparked in her belly. It was one thing for Merry to acknowledge how challenging it could be, at times, to live with a newborn. But somehow, it felt very different coming out of Ben’s well-shaped mouth.

  She couldn’t help searching Ben’s perfect, stern profile, but she tried to keep her voice light and easy. “Is that what you’ve learned from three weeks of living with Alex?”

  Ben nodded as he expertly maneuvered the truck and attached horse trailer up the driveway and out onto the main island road. “Yeah, that. And a few other things, too.”

  “Like what?” Merry braced herself for another joking complaint about how loudly Alex tended to screech first thing in the morning, or something similar.

  Ben paused long enough that Merry took her eyes off the dashboard and cast a curious glance at him. He pressed his lips together, appearing lost in thought, until he noticed her staring.

  With a wry grimace, he said, “I can’t come up with a way to make this sound less like something you’d find in a stupid greeting card, but living with you and Alex … taught me how infinite the heart is, in its capacity to love.” He cleared his throat. “My heart, specifically. I knew I loved Alex from the first moment I held him, but I never anticipated the way that love grows, every single day. It’s almost frightening—if it’s this big now, five months in, how big will it be by the time he’s ten years old? Fifteen? Thirty?”

  Heart swollen too big to allow her to catch a full breath, Merry smiled. “Don’t be afraid. I hear the love shrinks a little in the teens. That should make it more manageable.”

  “Personally, I don’t hold out much hope for that,” Ben said grumpily, downshifting with a jerk of his wrist. “Alex has spit up, peed and pooped on me, and deliberately mashed boiled carrots in my hair, and I still love him. Hard to imagine him doing something worse than that at fifteen.”

  Merry let out a shaky breath. “But even if he does, we’ll be there for him. And for each other.”

  Ben stilled. He kept his eyes front, but Merry saw the tight clench of his jaw before he relaxed enough to say, “I think that’s the first time you’ve talked about a future for us, together.”

  “It’s the first time, maybe in my whole life,” Merry said haltingly, “that I can see a way forward. That I know what I want my future to be.”

  There went that muscle in his jaw again, but this time he clamped down on the question fighting to get out of his mouth. Merry breathed through the fragile moment, in and out.

  She could be this brave, at least. Reaching out, she put her hand over his stiff, tense fingers curled around the gearshift.

  “I want my future to be here on Sanctuary Island.” She dragged the words up from the bottom of her heart. “With Alex, and my mother and our new family … and most of all, with you.”

  The truck took a curve that brought them out of the trees and onto the stretch of sparkling white beach that gave Shoreline Drive its name. Sunlight burst into the cab in a brilliant explosion of sparkling blue off the water.

  Merry blinked, dazzled by the glare, and when it faded she saw that Ben had slowed the truck and pulled over to the side of the road. She turned to him to ask what was wrong, but the look on his face stole the breath for words right out of her lungs.

  “I have to kiss you. Right now.”

  Ben was always intense, but the way he stared at her now, the force of his desire turning his gray eyes to molten silver, stopped Merry’s heart.

  He moved, reaching over the gear console for her, and Merry launched herself into his arms with a tiny cry.

  The kiss was fierce, almost savage, as if all the passion and need Ben normally kept so tightly chained had broken free. Merry met him with biting, sucking kisses of her own, her arms wound tightly around his neck and the gearshift digging into her stomach.

  Sunshine through the windshield warmed the side of her face and Merry let herself get dizzy on the cool water taste of Ben’s mouth, the strength of his arms and the heavy beat of his heart against hers.

  He hauled her that extra inch closer, and she caught her breath against the jab of the gearshift. It didn’t matter, she could ignore it—but that small gasp of something other than passion was enough to make Ben pull back, concern darkening his eyes.

  But Merry wasn’t done with him yet. “There are blankets in the trailer, aren’t there?” she asked, not even trying to hide the breathless want in her voice.

  “I married a genius.” Ben’s eyes glittered and she had to steal one last kiss from his luscious mouth before scrambling out of her seat belt and wrenching the passenger door open.

  “Last one into the trailer has to be on the bottom,” she crowed around a mouthful of giddy laughter.

  She heard Ben cursing as he wrestled with his door. Her booted feet hit the ground and she was off, running for the back of the truck. Putting out a hand to steady herself on the corner of the tall aluminum-sided trailer, Merry glanced out over the salt marsh stretching between the road and the narrow sliver of sand.

  There they were. The wild horses she’d seen on her first day, fresh off the ferry and completely entranced by Sanctuary Island.

  A band of six mares, shadowed closely by their young colts and fillies, grazed along the edges of the marsh, less than a dozen feet away from where Merry stood. The horses, used to the comings and goings of Sanctuary’s human residents, didn’t take much notice of her—all but one.

  The stallion, larger and rangier than his brood, lifted his shaggy head and met Merry’s gaze. With two graceful steps, the big bay placed himself between the truck and the nearest dam and filly, a pair of bright golden palominos who kept right on placidly foraging for tender shoots of cordgrass among the fading autumn f
oliage.

  Untamed wildness shone from the stallion’s dark eyes, deep and still in the brisk salt spray breezing in off the ocean. Merry stared, transfixed, heart drumming in her ears.

  The moment was broken only when Ben’s large, warm hand landed on her shoulder, startling her into looking away from the horses. “Merry?”

  He knelt in the open back of the trailer, a question dancing across his flushed face.

  Merry gave him the smile singing in her blood and took one last deep draught of the cleanest, purest air she’d ever breathed, before climbing up into the trailer beside him.

  “I won,” he reminded her hoarsely as he lowered her gently onto a pile of thick wool blankets that smelled of hay and horse. “That means I get to be on top.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Merry gasped as Ben kissed down her chest, his heat and strength covering her and enfolding her. “This feels pretty much like a win for me, too.”

  After that, there was no talking, other than the broken whisper of each other’s names and the occasional moan, masked by the wind in the bare tree branches and the distant lap of waves over sand.

  It was much later, as the afternoon light began to fade and dusk purpled the sky outside the trailer’s windows, that Merry finally said, “That stallion reminds me of you.”

  “My work here is done.” Smug satisfaction colored Ben’s voice as he crossed his bare arms beneath his head.

  Merry turned her face to hide her grin against the smooth, hot skin stretched over Ben’s ribs. “You dork. Not because of that.”

  “What then?” His voice was sleepy, and beneath her lips, his heartbeat had slowed from the frantic pace of moments past.

  Merry rubbed her cheek against that comforting heartbeat and murmured, “Because the horses live all over the island—the mares go where he goes.” One of Ben’s hands cradled her head, his fingers carding through the tumble of her hair.

  “They know they’re safe with him,” Merry finished softly, feeling the words reverberate through Ben’s chest. “He’s their home.”