Johnny scrambled down the hill above the shore, his boots skidding on the loose gravelly sand. He’d never seen any sight so welcome as the sheriff’s department SUV parked at an angle behind the abandoned black truck just off Shoreline Drive.
As he’d quartered the island, searching desperately for some sign of the truck that had tried to run Tessa and him off the road, the thought that haunted Johnny’s mind was … what if he was looking in the wrong place?
When he’d noticed Angie missing, all those years ago, he’d wasted precious minutes tearing the house apart from top to bottom, and it had cost him his sister. The most precious thing in his life … until now.
So when he’d pulled in next to the sheriff’s car and followed the tracks down toward the water, Johnny had been filled with relief. Not only had he managed to find the truck, but now he’d have backup with whatever went down.
He thought he was prepared, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he reached the muddy edge of the shore and stared out across the water.
There was a boat floating in the ocean, rocked by the movement of the water, and completely empty of human life. Tessa was gone.
His heart stopped. It was his worst nightmare come to life. He staggered a few paces into the water, barely registering the frigid temperature, but a hand on his shoulder pulled him back.
“Coast Guard is coming.” A tall, serious-faced woman in a tan uniform with a gold star clipped to the belt pointed past him to the large boat steaming toward the smaller craft. “She called from her phone, let us know exactly where to send them.”
“My wife,” Johnny gasped, the words tasting like ashes and brine. “Tessa. I think she was in that boat. Did you see what happened to her?”
“She jumped in, and the man jumped in after her. No, sir— Wait!”
But Johnny couldn’t wait. He’d caught a glimpse, only a flash, of movement on the far side of the empty boat. Tessa was out there. And she wasn’t alone. She needed his help.
Tearing off his jacket and shoes, Johnny waded into the water and started slicing his way toward the boat with fast, clean strokes. His shoulder muscles warmed up, loosening and propelling him through water so cold, it felt like knives against his skin. Tessa was in this water, trying to stay afloat, trying to stay warm. He pushed himself harder until he was close enough to pause, treading water, to scan the water around him.
The Coast Guard had beaten him to the boat, and they were loading a gray-haired man in sodden flannels onto their deck, but Tessa was nowhere in sight. Johnny’s vision dimmed, history repeating itself in the most sickening, soul-killing way possible, but he kept looking.
And there! A flash of pale, chilled skin, a waving hand behind him, closer to shore. Johnny threw himself toward the person he’d spotted. When he got to where he thought she’d been, he searched the murky depths with frantic eyes but saw nothing.
Swirling his hands through the water, he dove once, twice, three times, forcing his burning eyes open … and on the fourth dive, his fingers caught on rough fabric.
He clamped down and hauled upward with all his strength, using great, scissoring kicks to shoot them up toward the sun-dappled waves above. Breaking the surface of the water, he dragged in a breath and pulled the sodden, limp form of his wife into his arms.
Tessa’s head sagged toward him, her lips a terrifying shade of blue. He kissed her, shocked at the chill of her skin.
“Come on, honey, come on,” Johnny chanted as his fingers sought out her pulse. There—distinct and strong enough to make Johnny’s legs momentarily go numb with relief.
He kicked them awake in time to keep him and Tessa from sinking.
“Johnny.” Her lashes tickled his cheek. “You’re here. What are you doing here?”
“I came to rescue you,” he said, unable to stop himself from nuzzling her cheek. “But that turned out to be unnecessary, since you’d already rescued yourself. And called out the Coast Guard to capture your abductor.”
“My father!” She stiffened in his arms, trying to raise her head to peer around and simultaneously nearly drowning them both.
Once Johnny got both their mouths above water once more, he said, “Your father? It was your dad who’s been following us?”
She nodded miserably, tufts of wet hair sticking up all over her head and making her look like an angry owl. “He said … Oh, Johnny, it was awful. I guess after I ran away, my mom left him? And it seemed like he blamed me for it, even though from my memories of growing up in that house, I can tell you that Mom was never happy. But still, he wanted her back. And I guess he thought that if I came home, she would, too.”
“And he was willing to take you by force, if you wouldn’t go with him willingly.” The rage filling Johnny’s chest was more buoyant than a life jacket.
She shivered against him, her legs tangling briefly with his before floating away. “I thought I was on my own, that you were gone and wouldn’t be riding to the rescue this time.”
“And you got yourself free and called for help.” A pang shot through Johnny’s belly but he forced himself to smile at her. “You’re an amazing woman, Tessa Alexander. You don’t need me to save you. Maybe you never did.”
“I’m still glad you’re here.” She whispered it like a secret, like a confession torn from the depths of her soul, and Johnny wasn’t too proud to clutch her close. He savored the cold rub of her nose under his ear, the hot wash of her breath against his neck.
She was alive. She was safe. And she was no longer his.
Where the hell did they go from here?
Tessa shivered in his arms, her teeth chattering lightly, and Johnny snapped out of it. He knew exactly where Tessa was going from here—to the hospital, to get checked out.
“Sheriff,” he called over Tessa’s shoulder. “Can you call the paramedics?”
“Already done,” the uniformed woman assured him. “They’re dropping Miss Patty off at the docks to get water-taxied over to Winter Harbor General, then they’re on their way here.”
Tessa’s fingers clutched at Johnny’s shoulders. “Miss Patty! What happened?”
Johnny glared at the sheriff, who grimaced and mouthed “Sorry” before striding away to supervise her deputies as they cuffed Tessa’s father and read him his rights.
“Miss Patty is going to be fine,” Johnny said soothingly. “But she had a little run-in with your father while he was looking for you, and she got a bump on the head.”
As if unconsciously, Tessa’s hand lifted to the side of her own head, just behind her left ear. “Oh, no,” she moaned, swaying against him. “This is all my fault.”
Alarmed, Johnny brushed her fingers aside to explore the spot behind her ear. He found some swelling, but no blood, and said a quick silent prayer to hurry the paramedics in their direction.
“It’s not your fault,” he told Tessa firmly.
“How can you say that? If I had never come here, my father would never have followed me. He and Patty would never have even met, and he never would have done anything to her. Now she’s hurt, maybe hurt really badly, and it’s all because of me.”
“First of all, Miss Patty is a tough old bird, and it’s going to take more than this to slow her down. And secondly, take it from someone who’s spent a lot of his life shouldering the blame for every damn thing that happens in his vicinity—it’s no way to live, honey.”
“But if I’d just been home, with Patty,” Tessa fretted.
“He might have hurt her anyway,” Johnny pointed out. “I can’t see Miss Patty sitting quietly by and letting him haul you off. Can you?”
That brought a watery smile to Tessa’s face. “No. I guess not. But—”
“But nothing,” Johnny said firmly. “The only person to blame for what happened today is that man in the back of the cop car. You couldn’t control his choices or his actions. I hope you can accept that, and find some peace with all this.”
A stubborn look glittered in Tessa’s blue eyes. “I’ll work on accepting that I’m not responsible for every bad thing my father did, if you’ll do the same.”
Johnny opened his mouth to argue that it wasn’t the same, not for him, but he shut it with a snap. Maybe … Tessa had a point. Maybe it was time for Johnny to give himself a break and look for the kind of peace he wanted for Tessa.
Maybe he’d never get over his sister’s death. It wasn’t the kind of thing a man could move on from, and he wouldn’t want to—it would be too much like forgetting her. But somehow, in that moment when he pulled his wife from the freezing waters of the Atlantic, something inside Johnny shifted. Lightened.
As if a hand had reached down from above, showed him where to find Tessa, and lifted away a burden he’d been carrying for so long, he hardly knew it was there until it was gone.
“Maybe you’re right,” he finally said, and had the satisfaction of watching Tessa’s eyes go round with surprise. “It’s a deal. I’ll work on it if you will.”
“Deal.” Tessa pulled away to put her hand out and shake on it, but Johnny’s hands closed reflexively over her hips to keep her close. His tight clasp squeezed water from her pockets, drenching their legs.
Tessa gasped and laughed, then stopped suddenly. “Oh! That reminds me. I’m mad at you.”
Johnny’s heart lurched sideways as she reached her hand into one pocket. She pulled out a sodden mass of paper, and wrung it out like a dirty dishtowel.
She shook it out and Johnny recognized the page from their divorce papers. The page with his signature at the bottom, the ink running down the paper like dark blue tears. Tessa met his eyes, arched a brow … and tore the soggy paper cleanly in half.
Blood pounding, Johnny stared at her. What did that mean?
“You divorced me!” Tessa’s brows drew together, aggrieved. “How could you do that?”
Hope was a sharp knot in Johnny’s throat. “You … you asked me to. Several times.”
“And you chose the morning after we first made love to finally listen to me?” Tessa whispered fiercely, cheeks reddening beneath the pallor of her damp, chilled skin.
“I thought it was what you wanted.” Johnny felt the half-truth burn like a coal in his chest, forcing him to add, “And I thought you’d be better off. Without me. I’m dangerous.”
The furrow between Tessa’s brows got deeper. “But … divorcing me wouldn’t have kept me safe, even if the threat you sensed had truly been a result of your work with the ATF.”
Johnny shook his head reluctantly. “It’s nothing as rational as that. I just … I don’t know. I’ve been going off half-cocked a lot, ever since I got here. I don’t always trust myself.”
“That’s too bad,” Tessa said, holding his gaze steadily. “Because I trust you. With everything I am, and everything I have. And we might have work to do, a lot to learn about each other still, but I know one thing down to the bottom of my soul. I’m not better off without you. I’ve tried it, and I can survive. But I want more than that now. I want to live. I want to love, and be loved.”
Johnny’s hands were sliding up her back and curling her to him before he knew what he was doing. Their mouths found each other, cool and sweet and clinging. The kiss did more to warm Johnny up than a wool blanket and a fifth of whiskey.
He cupped her face in his hands and told her what he’d realized in the moment when he thought he’d lost her.
“I do love you, you know. I didn’t know I had any heart left to give, after my sister died. But whatever I have, whatever I am … it’s yours.”
Tessa, who hadn’t cried once during the entire ordeal with her father, suddenly burst into tears. Johnny knew exactly how she felt. Everything he felt and wanted to say welled up in him, surging into his mouth like the waves crashing against the Coast Guard boat off the shoreline.
But as he held Tessa to his chest and savored the feel of her against him, there was really only one thing to say.
“Tessa. Honey.”
She looked up, smiling through her tears, more beautiful to him than she was the day he first met her. “Johnny?”
With his thumbs, he brushed the tears from her cheekbones. Staring into the endless pools of her hazel eyes, he felt his life come full circle.
“Theresa Mulligan Alexander. Will you marry me? Again?”
* * *
Everything Tessa had ever wanted was right here, in her arms. The thought dried her tears in a hurry, although the emotion that started them remained just as close to the surface of her damp, shivering skin. Standing on that sandy bank, she felt stripped down to the essentials, confronted with the reality of life’s fragility.
How close they’d come to losing everything, to losing each other! Tessa felt the same stunned relief she would have felt after dodging a bullet.
Lacing her fingers together behind Johnny’s neck, she said, “I will marry you, Johnny Alexander. As many times as it takes, until we get it right. But I think the second time is going to be the charm.”
He laughed and kissed her again. Tessa closed her eyes and forced herself to memorize everything—the texture of his lips, the heat of his tongue, the rasp of his stubble. The joy in her heart, the desire in his hands, the love they shared.
It was a nearly perfect moment of happiness. But Tessa knew, better than anyone, that the marriage proposal wasn’t the end of the love story. It was only the beginning. And as Johnny smiled against her mouth and held her tightly, Tessa opened her eyes and looked straight into her future.