Authors: Virginia Kantra

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #General

Immortal Sea (8 page)

BOOK: Immortal Sea

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“Liz,” he repeated, not quite making it a question.

“Dr. Rodriguez.”

Not sick, Morgan thought. Muscles he was not aware of tensing suddenly relaxed. She was a doctor.

“
I start med school in the fall,
” he thought he heard or remembered. “
Part of the plan.
”

“I would like to tell her myself,” he said.

“We-ll, I don’t know . . .”

He held her gaze, granted her a smile. “Please.”

She looked away, flustered. “I’ll, um, see if she has a minute.”

Picking up a folder marked with brightly colored stickers—HOP, he read—she bustled past a bank of metal cabinets into the building’s bowels.

Silently, Morgan opened the door that led from the waiting room and followed her down the hall.

“Liz?” The woman in pink stood in a doorway at the end of the hall, her back blocking his view. “There’s a man here to see you.”

“He’ll have to make an appointment.” He recognized her voice. Strong and smooth, without a trace of the local accent. “Is that the Hopkins file?”

The woman in the doorway shifted to hand off the folder, and Morgan got a look past her into the room. Big desk, small chair, stacks and stacks of paper.

And her. Liz. Dr. Rodriguez.

She was sitting in a small, armless chair, her legs crossed, her hair caught up in a clip, her hands busy with the file. He thought her body deserved better than those straight, dull trousers, that loose white coat.

He knew her, though. His pulse quickened. He
remembered.

Elizabeth.

No longer young, despite the slim shape of her and that shiny hair. Her eyes were still deep brown and intelligent, her face a smooth oval, her jaw slightly squared. But the creases in her neck and the lines at the corners of her eyes were a subtle reminder of time passed and years lived. Beneath a swipe of color, her lips were pale and firm.

He moved so she could see him, so she would be forced to acknowledge him. “Hello, Elizabeth.”

His sudden reappearance had an effect on her, too, if not the one he hoped for.

Her chin rose as she looked him over. She set the file on her knee, her movements sharp and compact. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s been an accident,” the woman in pink answered for him.

Elizabeth’s face drained of color. “Oh, God. Zack?”

Seeing the genuine fear in her eyes, Morgan felt an unexpected pang of remorse. But his ruse had gotten him past her first line of defense. Any means was acceptable to the appropriate end.

“Zack is fine,” he said. He assumed. “It’s your car.”

Her white-knuckled grip on the folder eased. “My car.”

“In the parking lot.” He strolled forward, taking possession of her space, subtly crowding the other woman from the room. “The window is broken. I noticed it as I was walking by.”

Brown eyes narrowed in suspicion. “And you thought you would force your way back here and tell me.”

He flashed his teeth. “I have never found it necessary to use force.”

The female behind him gasped in excitement. The one before him was made of sterner stuff.

“All right, you’ve told me. Thank you. Nancy, can you get Chief Hunter on the phone? I need to file an accident report.”

He admired her self-possession. But he would not be deterred. “We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” She stood, reclaiming her space. The movement brought her closer to him. He could smell hints of lemon in her hair and on her skin. Fresh. Astringent. It suited her. “Chief Hunter can get in touch with you if he wants your statement.”

“About Zachary,” he said.

She froze for a small, betraying instant. He watched as her pulse throbbed in her throat.

Her gaze flicked behind him. “Nancy? Chief Hunter, please.”

Her assistant retreated down the hall.

Elizabeth’s jaw set, strong and square in her otherwise delicate face. “I can’t talk to you now. I’m working.”

“This is more important.”

“Not to my patients.”

He leaned a shoulder against the door jamb, blocking her in. “I will wait.”

“No.”

“Or I could come by your house,” he suggested.

“No
.
”

Their gazes locked. Fear and frustration warred in her eyes. But he had left her no choice. He did not think she would risk having this first confrontation within earshot of her family.

“All right.” She conceded with surprising dignity. “I get off at four. I’ll meet you someplace.”

“I am staying at the inn. You could join me for dinner.”

“I can’t. I have to get home.”

He wondered suddenly if she had a man at home, expecting her.

“You are married.”

Her firm lips pressed together. Parted reluctantly. “Widowed.”

Ah. “Recently?”

“Three years ago.”

He was aware of a faint satisfaction, almost relief. Not that the existence of a husband would have mattered. The boy was his. “Then there is nothing to prevent you from joining me.”

She sucked in her breath.

“Dr. Rodriguez, I’ve got Caleb on line three,” her assistant called.

“Thank you, Nancy.” She took a step forward.

Morgan did not budge from the doorway.

Her gaze held his for one heartbeat. Two. Beneath the lemon fragrance on her skin, he caught a subtler, salty note like panic or desire.

“Drinks,” she snapped. “Four-thirty. I’ll meet you in the bar at the inn.”

Morgan shifted out of her way. “I look forward to seeing you.”

It was true, he thought as she stalked past him without a word.

Not simply because their meeting would bring him another step closer to his goal. He was . . . intrigued by her. Attracted by warm brown eyes and a cool smile, by strong shoulders and delicate hands.

The years between were nothing to him. He had not changed.

Yet as he watched her walk away, her hips barely suggested by the shape of her coat, her dark hair bundled at the base of her neck, he was aware of the passage of time like the beating of his blood or the rush of angel wings.

She was grown, changed, different. Better armored and more interesting than the girl who had sex with him sixteen years ago.

Deep in his belly, he felt a tug of curiosity, a quick, hot coil of lust. How else was she changed? And what would it take to persuade her to have sex with him again?

Liz adjusted the rearview mirror, smoothing on her lipstick with a trembling hand.

Oh, God.
She met her overbright eyes in the mirror. What was she doing? She was
not
fussing with her face like a twenty-one-year-old primping for the first date they’d never had.

She wasn’t that stupid. Not anymore.

Even if he was the most compelling man she’d laid eyes on then or in all the long years since.

She jammed the top on her lipstick and zipped her purse shut. She just wanted to look presentable, that was all. Put together. In control.

Satisfied with her rationalization and her appearance, she slid out of the car and locked the doors, ignoring her broken back window.

The Inn at World’s End was a sprawling white Victorian perched on the bluffs north of the harbor. Neglected gardens and old, storm-weathered trees surrounded the spindled porch and rolling green lawn. The owners, Caroline and Walter Begley, were transplants from Boston. Liz had already noticed that they catered more to the yacht crowd than to the islanders.

Which suited her just fine. She didn’t need the entire island speculating about the new doctor’s after-hours rendezvous with some hot stranger in the bar.

The Reef Bar had a separate entrance off the crumbling parking lot. Liz tugged on the heavy wooden door, grateful for the room’s low lighting.

The Reef’s walls were decorated with fishing nets and neon beer signs. At the bar, a couple of lobstermen in flannel shirts and faded ball caps provided additional local color. The rest of the scattered clientele was a mix of pastel stripes and plaids, a blur of tans and topsiders. The women wore white denim skirts and capris, the men salt-faded polos from L.L. Bean.

Alone in a corner booth facing the door, Morgan sat, his black shirt blending with the shadows, his pale hair capturing the light.

Liz met that gold-rimmed gaze and sucked in her stomach.

She threaded through the tables, head high. In control. “What do you want?”

He raised his brows at her bluntness. His lips curled in a thin smile. “You used to prefer some preliminaries. Sit down.”

Her cheeks burned. Her hand tightened on the strap of her purse. She didn’t let men—she didn’t let anyone—boss her around. But she was attracting attention, standing here. She dropped onto the bench and lowered her voice. “How did you find me?”

“I recognized your vehicle. Drink?”

She glanced up as the waitress appeared beside their table, a fresh-faced college student who looked too young to serve alcohol. The girl smiled hopefully at Morgan, clearly ready to give him whatever he wanted.

Like Liz sixteen years ago.

She winced. “I don’t need anything.” This wasn’t a date. And she wanted a clear head.

“You look like you do. Another whiskey,” he instructed the waitress.

“Wine.” She didn’t have to drink it. “A glass of pinot grigio,” she ordered, and tried to hide her annoyance when the girl waited for Morgan’s nod before moving away.

Liz cleared her throat, the edge of her determination blunted. “Well.”

“Yes.”

“Here we are.”

“Indeed.”

The faint mockery in his voice made her fist her hands in frustration. “What are you doing here? What do you want?” she repeated.

“To see you.”

“You haven’t seen me in sixteen years,” she said baldly.

“To meet my son.”

Her stomach jumped. For one wild moment, she was tempted to deny he was Zack’s father. He couldn’t know. He had no proof. But the impulse died stillborn.

He wasn’t stupid either.

“Is this some midlife crisis thing?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon.”

She pressed her clammy hands together in her lap. “You didn’t care about the possibility of fathering a child sixteen years ago. It’s a little late for you to come forward claiming . . .”

He raised his eyebrows. “Paternity?”

“Concern.” Their eyes locked. She leaned forward across the table. “Which makes me wonder what happened to change your mind. Life-threatening illness?”

“I don’t get sick.”

“Divorce?”

He held her gaze. “I never married.”

Her heart gave an inconvenient kick. Oh, damn. He could have added, “
No one could ever compare with you.
” Or, “
I was waiting to find you again.
”

But he didn’t, so she couldn’t even accuse him of lying.

The young waitress returned to set a glass of wine in front of Liz and lingered. “Anything else? Another Scotch?”

Morgan shook his head without glancing up.

She pouted freshly glossed lips, twirling the ends of her blond hair around her finger. Morgan didn’t seem to notice. “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

“We will,” Liz said. “Thank you.”

The girl smiled quickly, uncertainly, and left.

Liz sighed. Had she ever been that young? That hopeful and unguarded?

Yes.

She looked across the table again into Morgan’s eyes, dark and bright as a night full of stars, a night sixteen years ago when she was young and foolish and aching with possibilities.

He looked exactly the same. Broad nose, sharp jaw, lean cheeks. His upper lip was still narrow, the lower one full, curved, and compelling.

She yanked her mind back. Okay, this was bad.

“I don’t even know your name.” Had she said that before, sixteen years ago?

“Morgan.”

Another memory, of sitting upright in her hospital bed, staring blankly at the application form for Zachary’s birth certificate. FATHER’S NAME.

Unknown,
she had written, the point of her pen gouging the paper.

“Last name,” she said.

He hesitated. “Bressay.”

His accent, faint and indefinable, roughened on the word. She cocked her head. “What is that, French?”

“Scottish.”

She waited. Sometimes listening encouraged patients to talk better than asking questions.

“Bressay is an island north of Scotland. Settled by the Viking longships.”