“No, I don’t. You’re here—”
“That’s karma or something. I can’t explain it.” He grimaced, as if the thought of trying to explain how he’d ended up at the Wild Raspberry made him miserable. “Whatever Summers is hiding, it’s more than a social lie.”
“Like telling me you’re staying home in bed when you’re actually packing for Nova Scotia?”
“That was a strategic lie. I knew you wouldn’t leave me alone otherwise.” He had a sexy glint in his eyes that he seemed able to produce at will. “You didn’t, anyway.”
“You can be alone after you’re over the shooting.”
“I was over the shooting once I knew the bullet missed.”
Jess didn’t argue with him and instead related her conversation with their fellow guest. O’Malley looked disgusted. “I hate wife-beaters. I knew a guy my first year on the force who beat up his wife and kids. He was a good cop. No one wanted to believe it, but it was true.”
“What happened to him?”
“He went through anger management—after his wife packed up herself and the kids and got out of there before he could do more damage. He lost his job. He screwed up a lot of lives, including his own, before he figured out he was the one who had to change. Most guys don’t ever figure that out. It was an eye-opener for the rest of us, seeing that a guy we respected was capable of beating up on his wife and kids.”
Jess glanced back at the porch. “If Summers has a thing for Marianne and has lied—”
“She’s not going to like it.”
“He seems to admire her a great deal.”
“Maybe.” O’Malley tilted his head back and smiled. “The sun and sea agree with you, Stewart. You’re looking good this afternoon.”
“I wish I could say the same for you.”
“I don’t look so good?”
“No. You look like you had a bullet whiz past your head a couple of days ago.”
He shrugged. “You still think I’m sexy.”
“Where did you get the idea—”
“Uh-uh. You can’t take it back. I heard you whisper it when we were in the sack—”
“Not so loud!”
He grinned broadly. “Shy?”
“I just don’t need to be reminded. You’re the lone-wolf type, O’Malley. Two seconds with you, and people know it.”
“Lone-wolf type? What the hell’s that? I like women.”
“My point, exactly. Women. Plural.”
He stared at her as if she’d just turned chartreuse.
“I don’t want to fall for a guy like that,” she told him.
“Hey. Lone-wolf. A guy like that. I think I’m being categorized here. You’re not the only one who did some talking that night—”
“Yours was just of the moment. You were pretending to be what I wanted you to be.”
He stared at her. “Stewart, where are you getting this stuff?”
But after his recent brush with death, Jess didn’t want to get into an intimate, emotional talk with him. She didn’t regret their night together, but she’d made the mistake of letting him know that she was attracted to him on a level that just wasn’t smart. He’d responded in kind, but she knew better than to take what he’d said to heart.
No wonder he’d run off to Nova Scotia.
She squared her shoulders. “I followed you up here as a concerned colleague, nothing more.”
“Uh-uh.” He sounded totally disbelieving. “You didn’t kiss me like a concerned colleague—”
“Well, you’d been shot at. I thought I could indulge you that once.”
“It was a charity kiss?”
“Something like that.”
He grinned at her. “Then I’ll have to figure out a way to get another.”
CHAPTER THREE
O’Malley dragged Jess out for dinner and a scenic drive through beautiful Lunenburg with its restored historic houses, narrow streets and picturesque waterfront, then on along the coast, past lighthouses and coves and cliffs. When they arrived back at the Wild Raspberry, Jess found a book in the library and settled on the front porch. She looked content, not so worried about him. O’Malley felt less jumpy, less as if he could—and should—run clear across Canada and not come up for air until he got to Vancouver.
Not that the dark-eyed Boston prosecutor on the front porch had a calming effect on him.
Suddenly agitated, he stormed down the steps and walked across the road to the water. The tide was going out, seagulls wheeling overhead, a cool breeze bringing with it the smell of the ocean. The sun had dipped low on the other side of the island, and dusk was coming slowly.
He spotted Marianne Wells sitting on a large boulder, her knees tucked up under her chin, her arms around her shins as she stared out at the Atlantic. Not wanting to disturb her solitude, he veered off in the other direction, heading down to a shallow tide pool forming amidst the wave-smoothed rocks as the water receded.
“Detective O’Malley?” Marianne jumped up off her boulder and trotted down to him, her agility on the rocky shore impressive. He paused, waiting for her to catch up to him. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
She didn’t jump right in with what was on her mind, but nodded at the tide pool. “It’s amazing—it never changes. I’ve come out here every day since I got here. I had the house, friends—hope. I’m one of the lucky ones.”
“I understand you’re a survivor of domestic abuse.”
“My husband started out by isolating me from my family and friends. He worked on my self-esteem, belittling me, telling me I was ugly, stupid, going into rages when I made even the tiniest mistake—” She took a breath, but didn’t look away from him. “He didn’t hit me at first. That came later.”
“How long were you with him?”
“We met a year before we married. We were married for seven years.”
“No children?”
She shook her head. “That helped when it came to making a clean break with my abuser. Visitation access often becomes another way for abusers to continue to control women. And children…what they see, their own lack of control…”
“It’s a vicious cycle,” O’Malley said.
“I gave up a lot when I decided to do something about my situation. There’s no denying that I didn’t. It’s not just challenging the violence that takes courage, but deciding to give up the status quo and embrace an uncertain future.”
“I’ve been to too many domestic-abuse crime scenes. Are you worried this guy’ll come back?”
“A tiny bit less with each day he doesn’t. I’m prepared for that fear to go on. I’ve found ways to live with it. I have a lot of support.”
“You’ve done a good job with your place here.”
She smiled, but without looking at him. “I didn’t think I could do it. I thought I’d fail. A part of me believed he was right about me. But I got up each morning, and I did what I could. Then I got up the next morning, and I did a little more. Bit by bit, it came together.”
“You