Crosby glanced up, giving his head a small shake. “No one important.”
I simply met his gaze. “If the amount of tension that just ran through your shoulders is any clue, it was someone important.” Crosby broke our stare and looked out at the ocean, at Shelter Island getting smaller in the distance. “You don’t get to have it both ways, Crosby.”
He flicked a quick glance in my direction. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t poke and prod and want to know things about my life and then not answer a simple question like who’s calling your phone.”
A muscle in his cheek ticked. “Fair point.”
I gripped the railing, leaning into the wind. “You get to choose which way this plays out. We either talk, or we don’t. We can keep the physical and leave the rest behind.” That’s what I should’ve wanted. To get the high of sex with Crosby without the complication of him knowing things that I didn’t want to divulge. But, somehow, the idea made me incredibly sad.
Crosby’s eyes flared with a heat that seemed to make them almost glow. “Poking at you is too fun to let it go. You’re the most fascinating woman I’ve met in a long time. Maybe ever.” He sighed, rubbing at the scruff along his jaw. “It was my ex-fiancée.”
My body gave a swift jolt. Crosby had been engaged. It didn’t match up with the man I’d thought him to be. He was too reckless, never thought about the future, lived only in the moment. But I’d realized over the past couple of days that what I truly knew about Crosby would fit in my pinky finger. “Do you know why she’s calling?”
Crosby returned his gaze to the ocean. “My closest friend, the one she cheated on me with, dumped her. She expects me to come crawling back.”
I let out a low whistle. “Do you want her back?”
“I’d rather take a header off the back of this boat and aim for the propellers.”
Now there was a hint of the Crosby I knew. “She’s not taking ‘no’ too well?”
“I don’t think she’s ever heard the word before.”
My mouth curved. “Maybe we should set her and Grant up, they seem to have that in common.”
Crosby turned towards me. “He cheated on you?”
“He did.” Once word got around that Grant and I were done, the lovely Lacey Hotchkiss had shared that they’d been sleeping together off and on since the ninth grade. I knew there were others, but the fact that he’d been intimate with someone who had been so cruel to me had almost been more than I could take. But things only got worse from there. “I can’t really bring myself to care about the cheating. But he was my first love—what I thought was love, anyway. Those relationships always carry their own special brand of scars.” Mine were just deeper and uglier than most.
“I guess Alicia was my first love. We met while I was in law school at some charity gala. That should’ve been my first clue to run for the hills. But she was beautiful, charming, fragile. I liked being the one she leaned on. But I never had enough of what she needed.”
“And what was that?”
“Money, success, power. Those were her drugs of choice. She has this pathological need to be at the top of the food chain. I just didn’t see it until it was too late. Have you ever had one of those moments that changes the entire way you view the world?”
“I’ve had two of them.” When Grant left me. And when I lost my girl. I thought I’d never hurt worse than when Grant walked away without a care in the world. But the Universe had a funny way of showing you just what was important. I’d never known what true pain was until the day I lost my daughter.
“I’m sorry.” Crosby had gotten close without me even noticing it, that vital heat seeping out around him. “I’m sorry so many people have let you down. Hurt you.”
“I’m not.” I slipped my hands into the pockets of Crosby’s fleece, bringing us even closer. “It showed me what was truly important in life. Who I could really trust.”
“That’s a high price to pay for those gifts.”
But Crosby was wrong. My mother being a crap mom, disappearing and never even bothering to send a birthday card, Grant breaking my heart and spitting on the pieces…that hurt, but it was a teaching kind of pain. I was grateful for it. But losing my girl before she even had a chance to breathe her first breath? Nothing would ever cost as much as that unfulfilled promise.
That life stolen.
20
Crosby
The weekend kept playing over and over in my mind. Not even a lunchtime ride down the toughest trail on Mount Orcas seemed to clear the image of Kenna’s face from my mind, her eyes filled with a pain that I could only describe as soul-deep.
I wanted to know everything. Every last person and event that had put that agony there. But Kenna would only give me so much. We’d spent Saturday evening tangled in her sheets, but then she’d kicked me to the curb. It was as if she had this invisible countdown clock when it came to time with me, while I always wanted more. And it wasn’t just more time touching her skin, losing myself in her body. I wanted Kenna everywhere and in any way I could have her.
The thought tweaked an itch beneath my skin, the one that wanted to drive back to the mountain and do the ride all over again. The energy that seemed to hum beneath the surface of my skin, growing twitchy at the idea of wanting more with anyone. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. The woman was mysterious, intriguing. That was all. We’d have our fun, and then we’d leave it as friends. Kenna wasn’t exactly giving me any signals that she wanted more, quite the opposite actually.
I smiled as a vision of Kenna popped into my mind, hair mussed and sleepy-eyed, telling me I needed to leave so she could get the eight hours she needed. She’d refused to even get out of bed, telling me there was a spare key in the cabinet by the door so I could lock up. I’d done as instructed, but I was keeping the key.
My phone rang through my truck’s speakers. I braced myself to see a Boston number on the screen, but it was Penny. “Hey, Pen.”
“What is this message you left me? You want me to reschedule all of your afternoon appointments?”
I winced. “Sorry, something came up. It’s important.”
I heard the sound of our office coffee maker in the background. “Important like you decided you needed to go climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, or important like someone’s in trouble, and you need to help?”
I grinned at the windshield. “More like the latter, but Kilimanjaro isn’t a bad idea. Maybe I’ll see if I can talk Ford into training for that.”
“Crosby McCoy, if you even think of trying to climb a mountain that people have died on, I will put salt in your coffee for weeks.”
“All right. No Kilimanjaro.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure.” After spending most of Saturday with Zoe, I was still concerned about her foster placement. Something wasn’t sitting right, and it was time I did a little nosing around. I’d come up with an excuse to stop by unannounced, some paperwork that I needed to go over with Zoe. I just hoped my concerns were unfounded. Seeing and hearing about the worst in people sometimes made me a touch suspicious. But I’d rather that paranoia than letting a child be hurt or neglected.