It was bad enough how often he found her in his thoughts. Constantly. And that was with very little contact. But now? She would be in the cab of the truck. With him. And then at the house.
“What’s cordially mean anyway?” Willa asked Sean. Then she looked at him. “Is your grandpa really a king?”
Nathan chuckled, relieved that Willa’s chatter eased his apprehension. He wondered briefly if Sean could sense his unease. “You’ll have to see for yourself.” He looked at Sean. “I’ll drive you over. If that’s okay?”
“Oh.” Sean looked at her bare feet and cutoff jean shorts. “Uh, okay. Do you...want to come in and wait while we change?”
Willa didn’t give Nathan one solid second to decide. She bounded down the steps and grabbed his hand. “Come on inside, Captain Nathan,” she said, tugging his arm.
The little girl pulled him to a love seat and pushed him into it. “You can wait in here.” She threw him a grin then disappeared up the hallway. Sean hesitated.
“We’ll, uh...” she started to say. “We’ll only be a second.”
Then she, too, disappeared, but mother and daughter’s muffled conversation continued in another room.
Nathan rested his hands on his knees and looked around. Who are you, Sean Jacobs? Sparsely furnished, the old house reeked of spick-and-span clean. He should know; living in a house filled with present and past USCGs, where cleanliness and order ruled the roost, he recognized the tinge of lemon in the air. He wouldn’t say too clean, but...something along those lines.
A few unpacked boxes still remained, pushed against the walls. Through the archway, a kitchen faced the marsh and the dock beyond. Nothing hung on the walls. No pictures of family set on the one end table between the couch and love seat. The small, box-shaped wooden coffee table held a stack of hardback books, and Nathan leaned forward and lifted the first one. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The next, Treasure Island. Classics, and well used given the worn-out and dog-eared pages. On the inside flap, a neat cursive hand had written For my baby Willa with the wild imagination. Love, Mama.
It was, Nathan noted, the only personable item in the entire room.
He suddenly felt like an intruder. Someone...unwanted. A threat, maybe? Despite her acceptance of Jep’s dinner invitation, Sean’s hesitancy etched lines around her eyes, and those eyes flashed concern. Maybe after being around his loud, friendly family a time or two, she’d relax. Hell, maybe I will, too.
Just then, a thundering of footfall burst from the hallway, and Willa came to a screeching halt before him. The little girl wore what appeared to be an old-fashioned dress, a faded, old cream-colored thing with lace and ribbons. And the sparkly fairy wings, of course, accompanied by a pair of cowboy boots. He lifted one eyebrow.
“Nice dress,” he stated.
Willa’s grin exposed all of her straight little teeth. “My mama got it for me in a special shop that sells only really old things,” she informed Nathan. “That’s why it looks so yellow. And it cost ten whole dollars.”
Nathan cocked his head and inspected the aged material. “Hmm. That’s a pretty good deal. It looks at least a hundred years old.”
Willa’s grin widened. “You think so? Mama, did you hear that?” She turned as Sean walked into the room. “Captain Nathan says my fairy dress is at least a hundred years old!”
Nathan rose and his eyes rested on Sean’s. “That’s why it looks yellow,” he added, and threw her a grin. It felt awkward. Mainly because the look on her face spoke volumes. As in, she seriously didn’t want to be going with him to supper. A house full of strangers. He didn’t blame her, though. He imagined she’d rather stay out here, alone with her daughter, and kick around some ultimate pinecone. Whatever that meant.
Nathan then noticed that Sean had changed into a sleeveless sundress, white with little flowers all over it, falling to just above her knees and tied at the waist. On her feet she wore brown sandals. He realized how slender she was. And with her short dark hair and wide hazel eyes, she kind of looked like a pixie. A very pretty pixie. He’d keep that to himself, though.
“All right, well,” he said. “Let’s go meet the king.”
HAD SHE LOST all her good sense? Why on earth had she caved to Willa’s pleas?
She knew why. It wasn’t as big of a mystery as she tried to make herself believe. Willa’s happiness, the desire to stretch out her daughter’s carefree childhood for as long as she could. That was why. And, she admitted only to herself, Nathan connected with Willa. And Willa responded to that connection in such a positive way. Those big blue eyes lit up when Nathan came around, or when he passed their dock on his pirate ship. Despite the knowledge that, at some point, she and Willa would have to leave Cassabaw, Sean just didn’t feel like disappointing a five-year-old. Of depriving her of a little bit of normalcy, like a backyard barbecue with nice people. The fact that facing a handful of strangers clawed at her stomach in familiar way that usually meant back off, keep your distance.
Yet here she was with her daughter, sitting in an old pickup truck heading to supper. Not backing off. Not keeping her distance. With strangers.
Sean listened to Willa’s nonstop chatter with Nathan as he maneuvered down the crushed-shell-and-dirt path of their drive. At the end, he turned left onto the little coastal road, shrouded in oaks and Spanish moss, and shifted, metal grating and the truck giving a good jolt each and every time it went into a higher gear. Willa laughed, thinking it hugely hilarious. Sean’s head banged twice against the window.
Quietly, she observed.
Looked. Listened. And observed.
Classic rock played on the radio. The interior of the truck held an aged smell, but was clean. From the corner of her eye, Sean noticed the black T-shirt Nathan wore snugged tightly around his biceps as he held the truck’s wheel. Thick veins snaked over his hands, around his golden-skinned arms. She also noticed that around his neck he wore a leather cord with a medallion of...something. Made of silver. And his hair, bleached and weathered by the sun, pulled snuggly back from his face in a ponytail. Dark shades covered his unusual green eyes. Cautiously, she turned her head, ever so slightly, to get a better view of his profile, and when she did she noticed a silver scar jutting through his top lip.
Suddenly, those lips turned up at the corners, and on closer inspection she noticed Nathan had glanced her way.
“Taking inventory?” he asked.
“What’s inventory?” Willa echoed.
Nathan’s grin widened. “It means your mama was studying me,” he said.
Embarrassment heated Sean’s cheeks. “I was not.”
That only made Nathan chuckle.
“My mama studies everybody,” Willa said. “To make sure they’re not serial killers or anything.” Willa glanced at her. “Right, Mama?”
“Willa,” Sean scolded softly. “You don’t have to tell everyone our secrets, do you?”
Willa squinted as she gave that some thought. “Nope. I guess not. Just Captain Nathan.”
Sean’s gaze darted toward Nathan, whose attention was fixed straight ahead on the road, but his lips twitched.
He might be amused by Willa, but her exuberance and openness presented a real issue for Sean. Her mind raced. No doubt Nathan’s family—Nathan himself, more than likely—would ask questions. She’d become quite good at firing off appropriate answers without looking like she was totally making them up. But the older Willa got, the harder it was to bat off personal questions. Her daughter had eyes like a hawk and a sharp mind that missed absolutely nothing. Just like she had with Nathan, Willa would call Sean out on anything