Born to be Wild

Celia could only be grateful that her friend hadn’t perceived her pain. Leaning both elbows on her desk as she sank into her chair again, she pressed the palms of her hands hard against her eyes, refusing to shed the tears that wanted to spring free.

After two and a half years she didn’t think of them as much now, Milo and Leo. Only a few times a day as opposed to a few times a minute. The agony had faded to a dull ache—except for momentary flare-ups like this one. Often, they were triggered by Roma’s three children. She suspected her friend knew it, because Roma didn’t bring them around as much as she once had.

But Celia refused to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of her life, which was what she’d have to do to avoid seeing children. She loved Roma’s kids and her husband, Greg. She’d lost her own family but that was no reason to cut Roma’s out of her life. Still, sometimes it was hard. Just…so hard.

She turned her mind away from the thoughts because she couldn’t stand them anymore. Lord, she couldn’t believe Roma’s news.

Reese. On the same small piece of land with her. She’d given up all hope of ever seeing him again years ago. But before that…before that, there had been a time when Reese Barone had been so much a part of her that she’d never even imagined she could have a life that didn’t include him.

Reese. Her first love, the boy with whom she’d spent a carefree long-ago summer making love and sailing every moment she wasn’t working. Looking back, it was easy to see that she would never have fit into Reese Barone’s world on a permanent basis. She had been a fisherman’s daughter, a motherless girl who knew more about where the best stripers were than she did about fashion or feminine pursuits. She’d been seventeen to his twenty-one, a local Cape girl who’d only ever been to Boston on a high school field trip, inexperienced and easily won.

They couldn’t have been more different. He was the grandson of a Sicilian immigrant whose ambition and drive had brought the Barone name both fortune and fame. Second of eight children in a large and loving family, Reese was born knowing how to make money. Well-traveled, confident, he’d had no lack of females vying for his attention. Why he’d been interested in her would always remain a mystery.

Reese. She’d heard rumors that he’d been disowned by his family years ago. He’d gotten a girl pregnant then refused to marry her. Had it been a girl like Celia, she had little doubt his prominent, wealthy family would have reacted with such ire. But the girl supposedly was a debutante whose family was close to the Barones, and his refusal to marry her had set off a Barone family explosion the reverberations of which had been heard clear up to the mid-Cape village of Harwichport where they made their summer home.

Reese. Ridiculously, it still hurt to think of him. Were his eyes still that beautiful shade of gray that could turn as silver as a dime or as stormy as a rough sea? Was his hair still long enough to blow in the ocean breezes that filled the sails?

Don’t be silly, Celia. You remember a fantasy. Maybe her memory had embellished on eyes that were really quite ordinary. Maybe the hair had silver in it now. Maybe that lean, whipcord body had softened and filled out a little too much. Maybe—

It didn’t matter. He’d sailed away without a word to her after the news of his impending fatherhood had trickled out to the Cape from Boston. She’d been left with the realization that she’d meant nothing more to him than a little convenient summer sex. The only good thing she’d had to cling to was that he hadn’t gotten her pregnant.

Although…

There was a tiny, traitorous part of her that had regretted, for a very long time, that he hadn’t. He wouldn’t have stayed, but she’d have had a little piece of him to hold on to.

That part of her had softened when she’d married Milo and had melted completely away after she’d finally gotten pregnant and had Leo. She couldn’t honestly say she’d forgotten Reese, but she hadn’t entertained any more thoughts of ever seeing him again.

Well, it was probably a moot point. She briskly straightened her papers again, then reached for the phone. She had work to do.

Thirty minutes later, one of the young men who worked for her at the marina skidded to a halt just inside her office door. “Hey, Mrs. P.! You gotta check this out! There’s an eighty-footer coming in. I swear it looks brand new!”

Celia rose from her desk, quickly pasting a semblance of a smile on her face as the kid babbled on about the incoming yacht. Most of the staff had worked for Milo before she’d taken over, and she hated for them to see her blue. Their spirits rose and fell right along with hers.

She went to the door eagerly, glad for the distraction. The kid was easily impressed, but if he was right, she wanted to see the yacht. The young worker said it was one of the newest models available—and one of the costliest. Extraordinary wealth was common in the area around the Cape but a brand-new yacht built to spec from any of the top makers was worth a close look. If only to drool over.

Walking to the door of the shack, she stepped out onto the pier, shading her eyes from the morning sun as she squinted southeast toward the opening of the small harbor. The sleek silhouette of a cruiser glided in and she watched as one of her staff directed its captain to a slip then waited until the boat was tied up. A man leaped from the deck of the yacht to the pier and conferred with the dock worker for a moment, and she saw the boy pointing her way.

The man came striding up the pier toward her. He was tall and rangy, with wide shoulders and a lean, easy movement to him that would make a woman look twice. His dark hair gleamed in the sunlight—

And her heart dropped into her stomach where it promptly began doing backflips. The man coming up the pier was Reese Barone.

She barely had time to recover, to gather her stunned sensibilities into some semblance of a professional attitude. Thank God Roma had warned her that he was in the area.

“Hello,” she called as he drew near. “You need a temp mooring?”

“I do. I’d really like to get a slip at the dock if you have one available for short term.” The voice was very deep and very masculine, shivering along her hypersensitive nerve endings like the whisper of a feather over flesh. He extended a hand. “Celia. Dare I hope that you remember me?”

“Reese.” She cleared her throat as she took his hand, giving it one quick squeeze before sliding hers free and tucking it into the pocket of her windbreaker. Was it her imagination that made her feel as if her palm was tingling where their hands had met? “Welcome to South Harwich. It’s been a long time.” There. Nice and noncommittal.

“Thirteen years.”

She couldn’t look at him. “Something like that.”

“Exactly like that.” There was almost a thread of anger in his low tone, and it startled her into looking at him. Instantly, she was sorry. His eyes weren’t nearly as ordinary as she’d hoped, but as extraordinary as she’d remembered. Thick, dark lashes framed irises of gray. At the moment they looked as dark and stormy as his voice sounded. Crackling energy seemed to radiate from him. What could he have to be mad about? He was the one who’d taken off without a word.

“Mrs. Papaleo?” Angie, her office assistant, stuck her head out the door. “Maintenance is on the phone.”

Maintenance. She needed to take the call. She had to get the fourth piling replaced; it hadn’t been the same since that boat crashed into it on the Fourth. Angie could help Reese. Twenty-two and supremely capable, Angie Dunstan had worked for the marina since before Milo had died. Angie could charm a bird from its tree—and she’d be delighted to entertain Reese. Let her deal with him.

“I have to go,” she said to Reese. “Come on in the office and Angie can show you what’s available.”

“You’re the harbormaster?” There was a definite note of skepticism in his voice.

“Yes.” A small thrill of pride lifted her chin as she turned and headed back up the pier. But she couldn’t ignore the sensations that tingled through her as she walked. She could almost feel him behind her.

Well, it didn’t matter. He’d asked for temp space, which meant he’d be gone again in a few days.

“How long have you had the job?” he asked from behind her.

She didn’t turn around or slow down. “Over two years.”

“Somebody retire? I can’t even remember who worked this marina.”

She was at the door of the office by now, and she took a deep breath, turning to meet his eyes squarely. And just as it had in the old days, her stomach fluttered when those gray eyes gazed into hers. “My father-in-law was the harbormaster for years,” she said quietly. “When he died, my husband got the job. Then the selectmen offered it to me after Milo passed away.”

“I heard you were widowed.”

She nodded. God, how she hated that word.

“I’m sorry.”

She saw something move in his eyes and she looked away quickly. Compassion from Reese, of all people, would do her in. “Angie, how about putting Mr. Barone in the Margolies’ slip along pier four. They won’t be back until May and they gave us permission to rent it out on a temp basis.” She gave a perfunctory nod of her head without meeting his eyes again. “Enjoy your stay.”

Enjoy your stay.

That night, lying in the stateroom of his boat, Reese’s teeth ground together at the memory of Celia’s glib words. She’d blown him off as easily as she had thirteen years ago. No, he corrected himself, even more easily. Last time, she’d had her father do it.

Father. That led to thoughts of other things she’d said. Father-in-law. He knew, on an intellectual level, that time had passed. But he didn’t feel any older. And Celia still looked much the same. It was hard to believe she’d married and buried a husband since he’d seen her last.

Had she had something going with the Papaleo guy that summer while she’d been with him? His memory of this marina was vague, since his family had always kept their crafts at Saquatucket, but he could dimly recall the wiry Greek fellow who’d kept things in order years ago. He had an even less reliable memory of the man’s son, no more than another wiry figure, possibly taller than the older man.

No. If she’d cheated on him, he’d have known it. He’d been sure of Celia back in those days. She’d been his. All his.

He swore, gritting his teeth for an entirely different reason as his body reacted to the memories, and flipped onto his back.

Celia. God, she’d been so beautiful she’d taken his breath away. Today had been no different. How could that be? After thirteen years she shouldn’t look so damned good. She was thirty—he knew she’d just had a birthday at the end of September.

The thought pulled him up short. Why did he still remember the birthdate of a woman he’d slept with years ago for one brief summer?