Born to be Wild

“I dumped you?” Celia stopped in her tracks. “Excuse me, but I seem to recall you being the one who dropped off the face of the earth.” Then she started walking again, fast, and despite his superior size, he had to take large strides to catch up with her. “Why are we arguing? As you pointed out, it’s ancient history. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

He could feel the anger slipping free of his control and he clamped down on it, gritting his teeth to prevent another retort. It made him remember gritting his teeth in a very similar manner—but for a very different reason—just a short while ago, and he pulled up a vivid mental image of himself smacking the heel of his hand against his forehead. How stupid would I have to be, he lectured himself, to care about what happened when we were still practically kids? He wasn’t any more interested than she was in resurrecting their old relationship.

“No,” he said softly, definitely. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

They walked in awkward silence for a few hundred yards.

“Who’s Mr. Brevery?” It was an abrupt change of topic but he wanted to show her how little he cared about the past.

Celia cleared her throat. “Claudette’s employer. He’s put up here every October for at least a half dozen years.”

“And Tiello?”

Her mouth twisted. “Playboy. Too much money and too much time to waste. This is the third year he’s visited us in the fall.”

The same probably applied to him in her estimation. So what? He’d stopped caring what Celia thought of him long ago. “So why were you out on the water with no lights?”

She looked around and he realized she was checking to be sure no one was near. “I’d rather tell you when we’re inside.”

Inside. She was going to invite him into her house. Although he knew she was only doing it because she’d entangled him in whatever little scheme she was up to, he still felt a quickening interest, as if he were still a teenage boy who saw a chance to score.

She broke your heart, remember? You’re not interested.

Right. That’s why you came back after you stopped by Saquatucket in late August and found out she was still around.

“Here,” she said. She pushed open a gate in a low picket fence and led the way up a crushed-shell path to the door of a boxy Cape Cod farmhouse-style home. The place clearly was an old Cape treasure. She paused on the stoop to unlock the door, then pushed it open and beckoned to him without meeting his eyes. “Please come in.”

Formal. She was nervous. About having him around? About what he’d interrupted? He told himself it didn’t matter. “Nice place,” he said. When she was young, she’d lived in one of the most modest cottages on the Cape. This house probably was on the historic register.

The living room was furnished with heavy pieces in shades of creams and browns, with an irregularly shaped glass coffee table mounted atop a large piece of driftwood. Over the mantel hung a painting of the harbor as it must have looked a hundred years ago, with small fishing boats moored along the water’s edge, stacks of lobster pots and nets piled haphazardly and a shell path leading to small, boxy cottages similar to the one in which he stood. There was a bowl filled with dried cranberries on the coffee table, and as he watched, she switched on additional lights.

“Thank you.” She hesitated. “It was my husband’s family home for four generations.”

“Your husband the harbormaster.”

“Yes.” She sounded faintly defensive. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No.” He flopped down into a comfortably overstuffed chair without invitation. “I’d like an explanation.”

Two

Celia took a deep, nervous breath, trying to calm the fluttering muscles of her stomach. What on earth had possessed her to involve Reese in this mess? She’d reacted instinctively, knowing she’d had no time to waste. And knowing Reese was safe. The one thing she did know was that he couldn’t possibly be involved. That would have required him to be in the area in the last few years.

“I was looking for drug smuggling activity.”

“Drug smugglers?” He sounded incredulous. The faint air of hostility she’d sensed from him disappeared as he sat up straight and stared at her.

She perched on the edge of the couch and clasped her hands together. “It’s imperative that none of the clients along the dock learn about it.”

“Why?”

“It’s possible that someone moored here could be a part of a drug operation.”

“So when I came along and blew the whistle, you decided to use me as a cover?” Reese’s eyes were intent, unsmiling.

She shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do. You were shouting loud enough to wake folks on the other side of town.”

The side of his mouth twitched, as if he were struggling not to smile. “Sorry.” He leaned back against the rough fabric of the chair, stretched out his long legs, then looked at her skeptically. “Drug smuggling?”

She popped up off the couch, uncomfortable with his questions and annoyed at the derisive tone. “I’m not crazy,” she said defensively. “You’d be amazed at the amount of illegal stuff that goes on around here.”

He laughed aloud, but she had the sense that he was laughing at her rather than with her. “I’ve been in dozens of harbors along dozens of shorelines and, believe me, I’ve seen more kinds of ‘illegal stuff’ than you could imagine. I’m just wondering what you think you can do about it.”

“Maybe nothing.” She carefully looked past him, hoping her face wasn’t too transparent.

“Celia.” He waited until she reluctantly dragged her gaze back to mesh with his. “You could be putting yourself in serious danger. Drug runners are criminals. They wouldn’t think twice about hurting you if they caught you spying on them. Leave the investigation to the law enforcement guys who get paid to do it.”

She wanted to laugh, an entirely inappropriate reaction, and she bit the inside of her lip hard. If he only knew! “I’ll be careful,” she said.

“Careful isn’t good enough.” His tone was harsh. “Do you think I’m kidding about getting hurt? This isn’t a game—”

“I know it’s not!” Her voice overrode his. “They killed my husband and my son.” Dear God, help me. She couldn’t believe she’d blurted that out.

The words hung in the air, still stunning her after two years. She collapsed again on the couch like a balloon that had lost its helium, putting her face in her hands. An instant later she realized that Reese’s weight was settling onto the cushions beside her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. A large, warm hand settled on her back and rubbed gentle circles as if she were a baby in need of soothing. “I am so sorry, Celia. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t expect you would.” She pressed the heels of her palms hard against her eyes, pushing back the tears. She wasn’t a crier; tears accomplished nothing but making you feel like you needed a nap to recharge the batteries you drained bawling. “It was just local news.” Except to me.

There was a small silence. “Tell me what happened.”

She hadn’t spoken of it in a long time. Not even to Roma, who she knew worried over her silence. But for some reason, she felt compelled to talk tonight. Maybe it was because she had a certain degree of familiarity with Reese due to their shared past. Maybe it was because he hadn’t known her family and therefore could be less emotionally involved. Most likely it was because she knew he wouldn’t be around long and it wouldn’t matter.

Drawing in a deep breath, she sighed heavily and shifted back against the couch, her hands falling limp in her lap. Reese sat close, his arm now draped along the back of the couch behind her shoulders. It should have bothered her, but the numbness that had been so familiar in that first horrible year of her bereavement was with her again, and she couldn’t work up the energy to mind.

“We only had been married for two years when Milo’s dad passed away and Milo was asked to take over as harbormaster. He’d been raised on the pier and he knew the work already.” She smiled briefly, looking into the past. “He was good at it. Everybody liked Milo.”

Reese didn’t speak, although she saw him nod encouragingly in her peripheral vision.

“Our son was born three years later. We named him Emilios, like his father and grandfather. Leo was his nickname. I had worked at the marina but I stayed home with him after he was born.” The numbness was fading and she concentrated on breathing deeply and evenly, forming the words with care. Anything to keep from letting the words shred her heart again.

“When Leo was two, Milo mentioned to me that he thought there was something funny going on down toward Monomoy Island. One night in September he came home and told me he’d called the FBI, that he was pretty certain some kind of illegal contraband was being brought ashore.”

“That was smart.” Reese’s voice was quiet.

“He didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “After he showed them where he thought the action was happening, he stayed away. The federal agents got a lot of information from him and that was it. Almost a year passed and nothing happened that we knew of. We figured they probably were proceeding cautiously, starting some kind of undercover operation. And then one day Milo took Leo with him on an errand over to Nantucket. Halfway across the sound, their boat exploded.”

Reese swore vividly. “What happened?”