Duke, page 9
“Okay,” she repeated the word and threw open the passenger’s side door to rush into the house before more could be exchanged.
Inside, she nearly toppled over top of Susan.
“You’re just in time.” Susan had a striped bag slung over her shoulder and a wicker basket in her hand. A chiffon scarf—which matched her long flowing swimsuit cover-up—pulled her hair away from her face, tied like the women from the sixties. Despite her attire and chipper attitude, her eyes looked heavy and her smile didn’t seem as bright as normal.
“In time for what?” Sage asked.
“We’re going to the beach.” Stone’s father, a rough-around-the-edges looking man whose bark sounded as frightening as his appearance, took the basket from Susan. “Goddamit, woman, you’re supposed to be taking it easy. Give that to me too.” He made a motion with his hand for her to pass him the striped bag, but she moved it further away from him.
“I can carry my own bag, you miserable man.”
“I’ll show you miserable if you don’t give me that damn bag.”
The door opened behind Sage and Duke’s body pressed up against her back. There was not enough room for her to move forward without knocking into Susan and Slate. Duke didn’t back away, instead only offered a low, “Sorry.”
His murmur made Susan look up from her tug-a-war with Slate.
Her eyes lit up at the sight of Duke. “How was your drive?” Slate won the bag at Susan’s distraction.
“Good. Successful. We did everything we intended to do.”
And more. They’d done so much more than what was on the agenda. The rumble of his words danced against Sage’s back and she bit her inner cheek to keep from responding.
No blushing, no grinning, no indications that only hours ago they’d been naked, legs entangled, kissing wildly in the country. It had been sexy as hell and she already wanted a repeat.
“Do they have a lead?” Susan asked, her eyes darting from Duke to Sage and back again, making her questions feel like another interrogation.
“No. Not anything concrete,” Sage said, tilting her head up to look at Duke. Susan didn’t need to know about the detective’s accusations. It would only worry her.
Duke’s eyes shot to Sage, confused, dark, and glinting with desire. For a man who lived with a stoic vibe, he wasn’t hiding his current emotions well.
He looked back to Susan. “Nothing concrete,” he agreed.
“And Celeste? Any updates?”
“She’s awake and I talked to her earlier,” Sage said.
Susan’s sympathetic smile touched Sage’s heart. With so much going on in the woman’s own life, she still managed to reserve space for Sage’s situation.
“That’s fantastic. All right.” She clapped her hands. “Go get on some shorts and swimwear, we’re going to the beach.”
“Actually, I think I’m going to lie down,” Sage said. “It was a long drive there and back ...”
“And I have some work to catch up on,” Duke added.
Sage squeezed past Susan. “I’ll just be in my room ... our room ... I mean, the room we’re sharing, not staying in together.” She needed to stop blabbering.
“Luckily for you, there’s a swimsuit in there.” Susan didn’t seem to notice the tension between Sage and Duke. “Change and we’ll meet you both outside.” Susan headed to the back door.
“But, I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” Susan cut her off. “The woman with cancer wants to go relax on the beach with the people she cares about, and that includes both you and Duke.”
It included Sage because of circumstance. The older woman felt sorry for her and although Sage wasn’t one to accept someone else’s pity, she couldn’t say no to Susan.
“I can’t wait,” Sage lied. “I haven’t been to a beach in a long time.”
Susan beamed with approval before her attention moved back to Slate. She reached for the bag, but he refused to give it back, ushering her out the door instead.
“That’s a low blow even for you,” Slate said, as the two walked outside.
When the door closed behind them, Sage looked at Duke. “I guess I’m going to go change first.”
He nodded. “I’ll wait.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” That seemed to be their new favorite word. Okay, we slept together. Okay, it didn’t mean anything. Okay, this is additionally more awkward than this morning. Okay, okay, okay!
She kept the discomforted smile on her face until she turned around and rolled her eyes all the way to the bedroom. Rummaging through the dresser drawers, she found a turquoise bikini, denim shorts and a tank top. She quickly shed her clothes and slipped the pieces on. Inside the closet, she found a white cover-up which she stuffed into a small tag with a towel left for her on the bed. Susan had done more than enough for them.
As she passed the mirror over the dresser, she stopped to stare at her reflection. Her face had been stripped of all makeup. She briefly wondered for the first time since her arrival if Susan’s daughter had some stored away she could use. Without product, her hair practically stood on end. It didn’t help that Duke had run his fingers through it more times than she’d brushed it in the last few days. She dug through the small dish on the dresser and found an elastic band which she used to pull her hair into a ponytail. She stepped closer to the mirror and her fingertips touched the cold glass tracing her eyes which were the same round fullness of her mother’s, and her lips, which were outlined the same shape of her dad’s.
Did Ally have their lips and Sage had never noticed? Or their dad’s eyes? Or his chin? Had Ally known she was Dean’s daughter all along or had she been blind-sighted this week like Sage?
What would happen next? Would she have a sister or an enemy? Did she want a sister? Would they all survive to find out?
Sage ripped her stare away with a shake of her head and walked to the door. Duke waited on the other side. His eyes roamed over her see-through white tank top, down her bare legs, and back up again. Heat radiated between them like a ribbon pulling them closer together.
Was he already ready for round two? Again?
She wouldn’t go down a road of indecisiveness with him again. She couldn’t when the end result had nearly killed her the first time. Duke’s betrayal, and the acceptance of her father’s abandonment, combined with the stream of drugs that hadn’t stopped from night to night had landed her in a dark place. A place she’d abandoned since—permanently.
“After you left I soaked up my mother’s money in coke, vodka, and years in and out of rehab. She would come to the hospital after a call that I’d overdosed at a party and wouldn’t know if I was walking out or leaving in a body bag.”
She took a deep breath to steady her words. Even after years of being clean, being in a support group, and healing from so many hurts, the topic was still difficult to discuss. She wasn’t embarrassed to tell him—he could have read about her spiral decline in any tabloid. Instead, she felt it necessary for him to understand how severe her crash to the bottom had been. She needed him to grasp she was no longer the same girl he’d known then. She couldn’t have a casual fling with him again ... not when she knew her feelings ran deeper.
“I don’t live in that world anymore where I was chasing my father around thinking I could convince him I was worth loving. Screaming for attention from anyone who appeared interested, like I did when I kissed you that first night. And the next night, and every opportunity we had to sneak around after that. After years of building myself back up, I recognize you were the best drug I had ever tasted.
“I’d known, deep down, even the night you said you loved me, that you hadn’t meant to. You may have cared about me, possibly even loved me on some level, but you never wanted more than sex from me. A man who wants more than sex would take a girl out on a date or spend the night with her in his arms.” Sage held her hands up to keep him from replying until she was finished. “Don’t get me wrong, this is not a whole fairytale ending sort of speech. I knew the truth all along, but when you broke it off, I just snapped inside. I blamed everyone. You, Bowie, my mom, my dad, anyone, because I didn’t know how to deal with my favorite drug being torn away from me.”
Duke took a step closer. “I should’ve had better discipline and never allowed that kiss to escalate into what it did. The same goes with today ...” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Don’t blame yourself. I could’ve said no.”
“You should’ve said no.”
“But I didn’t. I guess what all this dramatic, welcome-to-my-insane-life-that-you-didn’t-ask-for speech is trying to tell you is that I’m not the same desperate person now. I’m content and happy. I wake up most mornings excited to go work with my mom and see the regular, peculiar group of women she’s assembled to visit the shop and experiment with different tea concoctions.” Sage laughed as she thought about all the days the women called her out of her office to give her opinion on what usually tasted like a cup of liquid grass. She wouldn’t trade those moments for the world.
“As angry as I am that my mom didn’t tell me about Ally, I have to consider my own past downward spirals could’ve swayed her to be watchful of what she shares. Which also means that I can’t do ‘us’ again. Right now, in my life, my priorities are on track and I like the way they are.”
He nodded. “I’ve always known you were a brave woman.”
She smiled. “And I’m sorry about your family.” She wanted to reach out for him, but didn’t dare. As easily as they’d connected in the barn, she knew they could do so again here.
“You don’t have to worry about things between us.” His hand reached out and touched her hair. Her eyelids lowered, but never left his. His hand moved away, holding a piece of golden-colored hay between his fingertips. Sage reached out and took it from him, twirling it in her fingers.
“Does this mean you’re going to be nice to Bowie?” He sounded hopeful.
“No. She started it.”
“You started it.”
“Yeah, but she was mean.”
“You were mean.”
Sage smiled. “I liked you better when you didn’t talk.”
“I like it better when you smile.”
His compliment wasn’t a flirt, and that would be the way things had to be between them for this to work, platonic.
“Just for the record, Bowie was always a bit of a prude,” Sage said.
“I think it’s labeled caution.”
“Caution, prude, chicken ... call it what you want.”
He chuckled, a sound that healed a part of her. “Are you ready? They’re waiting.”
She gave a small nod, her eyes fixated on the small grain in her hand before she tucked it away in a pocket of the bag. If only it were as easy to tuck away the surfacing feelings toward Duke.
Chapter Sixteen
A FEW MINUTES later they met up with Susan, Slate, Stone, and Bowie, and then followed the flattened path through the bush behind the house that led to the private beach.
Duke had walked to the beach beforehand and scoped out the surroundings, deliberating how high the possibility of visitors stumbling up the path would be. There were neighbors on each side of Susan’s property, but the large acreage gave each property their own private beach area and high chances of not running into each other. The house to the north had a fence built around their property and the house to the south stood further away.
His previous exploration didn’t stop Duke from staying at the back of the lineup now as they weaved between the trees and long grass.
Sage trailed along beside him, like his new best friend, platonic but with a friendly bounce in her step. He sensed the resentment she’d carried before their visit to his childhood home had evaporated now. Her anger had turned to empathy. They’d hardly scraped the surface of all that had occurred in that house that night. She had no idea the coward he’d been, running away to hide before his father’s hands tightened around his own throat.
Even at his young age, Duke had sensed aspects of the terror around him. He could tell his father’s mood by simply observing the way he walked, breathed, talked, or even looked at any given moment. He anticipated the impact of his father’s punches before they made contact. He could predict whether the punishment would be mild or severe. His sense of foresight had been how he’d known to hide that day. None of his father’s actions had matched up to what Duke had been used to. He’d never seen the empty, distant look on his father’s face that he saw that day. A look that still haunted him in his sleep.
Regardless of his past and all the memories flooding back, he’d really screwed up today taking advantage of Sage in the barn. No excuse would release him of the guilt building up inside him. He battled a raging war of wanting to wrap his arms around her and never let go again, to hating himself for his lack of control when it came to her. Lack of control he could only label as the one thing he’d tried to avoid his entire life: love.
She’d said it plain and simple not five minutes ago and the simple word fit. She wasn’t a drug like she’d compared him to. He’d fallen in love with her all those years ago and even now he felt the same strong pull toward her. One he couldn’t—wouldn’t—explore. He was happy for her, and if he could get her back to her mother in one piece, he’d have done the best thing for her.
Besides, was his version of love actually the definition of love? He would be the first to admit he wasn’t like the average person. He found everyday casual encounters with people difficult. Things she defined as a serious relationship, such as having date or sleeping over without sex, scared the shit out of him. Hell, even last night he’d sat on the couch across from her and watched her all night instead of sleeping himself. He was pretty sure that wasn’t anyone’s version of love.
“You should’ve changed,” Sage said. “At least take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves.”
He was having a difficult enough time wishing she hadn’t changed. Her long legs teased him with her every step and the see-through tank top outlined the turquoise bikini underneath boosting up her large breasts. Breasts his mouth could still taste.
“I don’t need to change,” he barked. How undisciplined had he become that he couldn’t go for a simple walk with a client without desire playing a taunting game in his mind.
“We’re going to the beach. You’re going to be sweating buckets. Do you even own shorts?”
“Yes.”
“Do you wear them?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I work out.”
She smiled again and nudged his side. “Relax Duke. Think of this like a vacation. You can swim, roast on the beach, and collect beach glass.”
What the hell was beach glass?
“You should’ve seen him on his vacation,” Stone yelled over his shoulder. “It was painful to watch. Just the other night he broke some guys nose for harassing a girl at Bucks. He doesn’t know how to shut off work mode.”
“That asshole had it coming,” Duke said.
“You’re one to talk.” Bowie elbowed Stone’s side, nearly sending the sand chairs he had slung over his other shoulder to the ground.
“I’m not the one with the camera in my bag,” he teased back, wrapping his free arm around Bowie’s shoulder. She leaned into him and Duke found himself pissed off he couldn’t do the same with Sage. Pissed off she didn’t want him. Pissed off he’d been an idiot to think he needed to keep her at bay, when all along it had been him.
A motion at his side made him look down at Sage. She brought her finger to her open mouth and made gagging motions in silence. It cracked a smile on Duke’s face.
“That’s vacation mode,” Sage said. “A smile and swimming. A good dip in the water takes away all your worries.”
“You’re just full of wisdom today.”
She touched her hand to her chest. “I do actually know how to vacation.” She winked at him. “I’ll teach you.”
Duke looked ahead. “No.”
They reached the edge of the brush, and the sun beat down harder in the open space. Duke perused the sand for any footsteps that hadn’t been there the day he’d done his rounds. The trees circled around them, almost touching the water’s edge, but left a space on both sides of the shoreline only visible when you stood by the water.
They made a row of chairs. Duke helped anchor beach umbrellas in the sand for shade over the chairs, one for the cooler of drinks, and one for the food bags.
He was accustomed to being fully dressed in a suit and in security mode. He’d never paid attention to the fun his clients had, only attentive that no one interrupted them. Today he felt different. He couldn’t pinpoint if it was the result of visiting his childhood home or being in such close quarters with Sage. As he watched Stone carry a laughing, but objecting Bowie, to the water’s edge, he was certain, for a brief moment, he wanted to shamelessly feel all those emotions with only one woman.
What the hell was wrong with him?
If he wasn’t currently on the job he’d take time away to regroup his emotions and get them in check before he moved forward. He didn’t have the freedom to recharge, so he remained focused on his task: protecting Sage.
“I’m going for a walk.” Sage pulled her towel out of the bag and laid it over her chair before she plopped her bag on top. “Maybe we’ll find some beach glass.” She began walking backwards away from him, her eyes sparkling the same baby blue as the water behind her.
He followed and her smile widened. “See, you have no choice but to do what I do, go where I go. You’re bound to get into vacay mode by the end of the day.”
“I’ll stick to keeping you alive.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take off your jacket?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe rid your shoes and socks? Roll up your pants? Step in the water, Duke, it’s amazing.”
“No.”
She shrugged, turned to face the beach and kicked her sandals off along the way, paying no attention to where they landed. Duke stayed a close distance to Sage while his concentration split to four spots around them that required monitoring for unannounced visitors. These areas included each side of the beach edge where the space was open, the pathway they’d come down which could easily be traveled, and off to the right where he’d spotted an area where the grass looked worn down. Although his job involved mostly watching his client, he generally spent more time checking surroundings and other people’s behavior. With Sage, he found it a challenge to take his eyes off her.
