SULLIVAN'S MIRACLE Read online

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

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  Chapter 1

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  November, The Beginning

  Driven by the storm, the waves of the gulf roared shoreward. Streaks of red and purple lingered low between sky and rolling water. Mary Elizabeth thought about walking out into that darkness, deeper and deeper, until it bore her up and carried her away.

  There would be an end to it.

  No more struggling.

  Thundering onto the sloping beach before her, the surging waves warred with the blackness of the ruby-smudged twilight. Elizabeth let a handful of powdery white sand sift from her fingers as she stared at the sky. Only the toss of white spray relieved the deepening purple.

  A lifting up, weightless. The way it had been when she’d learned to float in these sunshine-clear waters as a child. She could feel how it would be, that lovely, lulling weightlessness—the power of the storm surrounding her, sweeping her out to that thin line marking the curve of earth into space, sweeping her into peace.

  No more pain.

  So easy. So tempting, that floating away to sunshine.

  Her head would be a small dot in the vastness for a long time, and then it would disappear while the waves rolled on forever.

  Letting her thoughts drift, she inhaled the salty air blowing around her. Cold and filled with the taste of the gulf, that air stung her lips, her eyes, and burned her lungs. She coughed.

  And coughed once more, convulsively, as she breathed shallowly against the tearing pain in her lungs.

  She ground her hand into the beach, fighting for breath. Grit scratched her skin as she pressed her palm even harder into the wet sand beside her, focusing her fluttering thoughts. A froth of foam as cold as the windy blasts tickled her toes. She coughed hard, chest muscles straining. When she could finally breathe, she rested her head on her bent knees, exhausted.

  Retreating, the wave abandoned a curl of seaweed at her feet. Reaching toward the prickly strand, she felt it slip through her fingers on the next wave.

  That was how it would be. Just an easy sliding away.

  She was so tired, and there would be no more pain.

  Nothing, in fact, ever again.

  That, too. Never again to have Sullivan’s eyes light up as he saw her, his smile erase the loneliness from his face and dull the aching in her heart.

  Sand blew into her eyes. Sullivan. Hungry-eyed Sullivan with his guarded smile that warmed all the cold, frightened places deep inside her.

  Elizabeth sighed and lifted her head, watching the waves crash ever closer in the deepening darkness, her thoughts circling endlessly around Sullivan. She kept her gaze on that far distant horizon until it vanished, leaving before her only the billowing night and the onrushing tide.

  When the water was ankle high and her jeans soggy with sand, she shook herself out of her reverie. Shivering and coughing, she wriggled her toes, burrowing them under the sand. They looked like small, bleached prunes in the cloudy water.

  She laughed as she watched her feet disappear. Here she was, fanny-deep in water and shoveling her feet under the sand so she wouldn’t be cold. A laugh bubbled up again as the black humor of her situation struck her. How simple life was, really. If cold, the body sought heat. If hungry, food. The body’s needs were basic. Survival. Love.

  If you were lucky.

  Burying her ankles in the murky sand, she thought, too, about cowardice and fear, about the balance of pain and joy.

  She couldn’t remember one single time in her life when she’d ever flung caution to the winds. Not even the night Charlie, the town’s self-designated bad boy, had roared up to her porch on his motorcycle and flashed his wicked grin, daring her to come for a ride. With the smell of orange blossoms rising up all around her in the night air, she’d longed to fly out of her house and shriek down the driveway with him, wind whipping her hair back from her face, her arms tight around him.

  Her heart racing, she had hesitated, nudging the edge of the door with her foot, Charlie’s devil-may-care grin pulling her forward. She’d finally shaken her head. But underneath, oh, underneath, how she’d longed to taste the promise of Charlie’s smile.

  Now she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. Who’d have ever thought Charlie would become a banker?

  All those times she’d let life pass her by.

  Until Sullivan Barnett, who seldom smiled and who wasn’t anything like Charlie. Cynical and intense, Sullivan was everything Charlie had only pretended to be.

  She rinsed her sandy fingers in the eddies around her feet. Sullivan, storming into her life, never giving her a chance to hover in the shadows, wearing down her defenses with his need for her. Oh, Sullivan, she thought with something approaching despair, what in the world am I going to do about you?

  Drizzle from the scudding clouds mingled with spray. Sullivan had promised he’d return tonight. Turning her back to the storm, not wanting to hope, Elizabeth struggled to her feet.

  She’d sworn right from the beginning she’d never become dependent on him. Not fair. A tiny part of her acknowledged that she didn’t want to do that to herself, either. Equal was okay. Helpless wasn’t, not in her book of rules, at least.

  Coughing and shivering, longing for Sullivan with every breath she fought for, she sank to her knees in the surf, head bowed, her breath rasping in the whipping wind and spray.

  Coming out onto the deck of the beach house, Sullivan saw her hunched over at the water’s edge, her thin figure unmoving and blurry in the wavering dark.

  A sick dread sent him vaulting over the railing. As he grabbed the rough wood, a splinter drove into his thumb, but he hurried to her, his heart hammering. His shoes crunched on the sand, echoing the thud of his heart, and she must have heard him, sensed him, something, because, still on her knees, she turned and lifted her hand to shove her blowing hair back from her pale face. Sour bile rose in his mouth, but Sullivan slowed his steps. She wouldn’t want to see his terror.

  Making his way to her against the gusting wind, he worked the sliver out with his fingers and dropped it to the sand, all the time watching her, her wind-tossed hair gleaming in the fitful light, the shimmering curve of her throat, the pale shine of her cheek turning to him.

  His eyes never left her, and his hunger for her, powerful enough to rend him in two, frightened him. With her, he was whole. Without her.

  Hooking his shaking hands in his back pockets, hiding his fear, he sauntered up.

  “Damn it, Lizzie,” he drawled, watching her pivot slowly. “Had a hell of a time getting your door open. Thing’s warped to kingdom come and back. Why don’t you let me put up a new one?” He saw the exhaustion in her drooping posture and with an effort kept his mouth shut.

  “Hello to you, too, Sullivan.” Her smile was strained, but her low tone was still sassy.

  He wanted to grab her out of the damned water, wrap her in blankets and carry her all the way back to her house, but he knew she wouldn’t thank him if he did. Instead, pulling her out of the whirlpool of surf and steadying her, he patted her rear end through her sopping jeans and forced a grin. “Still a kid at heart, huh, Lizzie? Can’t stay out of puddles.” He tugged at her pocket, which was stuffed with shells. “Bet you couldn’t wait to shimmy out of your Sunday best when you were a little girl.”

  She smiled, her mouth a sweet arc, and the ever-present tightness in his chest loosened and let him pretend that they had forever.

  “All those lights.” He drew her closer, surrounding her with his arms, his chest, trying to warm her. In the semidarkness he saw the blue-gray shadows under her eyes, but he plowed on.

  “Hell, I could see
your house halfway down the island.” He rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms. “Place is lit up like a Christmas tree.” He heard the harshness in his voice, the edginess curling his syllables.

  A fragile weight, she leaned against him, and his heart beat heavy and slow with grief.

  “So, Lizzie, here you are. Windows wide open, lights blazing…” He anchored her hair with his palms, stepping so close he could feel her breath on his neck, hear the rasp and effort as she spoke.

  “My electric bill, Sullivan, not yours. I don’t like the dark.” Her voice was as soft as her fine hair blowing in the storm, touching him and making him ache in the loneliest part of his soul. “And don’t call me Lizzie.” Her mouth pursed, she added, “I don’t like that.”

  “I know. Why do you think I do it?” He rubbed her nose with his, his forehead lingering on her cheek, which felt cold against his heat. As he swung her up like a child into his arms, her sandy toes grazed his thigh. A yearning as old as man and woman slashed through him. “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie,” he taunted, whisking her cheeks with his chin.

  “Mean, you are, Sullivan Barnett.” She stuck out her tongue.

  Giving in to his craving, he trailed his lips down the line of her throat and skimmed the edge of her small ear as he turned to the beach house. “Damn straight. Meanest coot in town. But never to you, Lizzie.” Repeating her name like a mantra, he stroked the bristle on his chin against her nose.

  “No?” She brushed back a strand of unruly brown hair at his neck.

  He shivered at her light touch and turned his mouth to her seeking fingers. “Never to you.” He kissed the tip of her thumb.

  “But mean, even so.” Futilely she blotted at the rain on his face.

  Her touch said everything her words didn’t, everything he knew she would never say to him. He knew her better than she gave him credit for.

  “And wet.”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “Were you now?” Her fingers were summer butterflies against his throat.

  “Hell, yes.” He tightened his grip, and when she pressed her cheek against his sodden shirt, he laid his chin against her hair and swallowed the lump in his throat. “Had to get home to my Lizzie girl.”

  “Did you find out anything important?” She curled her fingertips into his shirt collar.

  He wondered if she realized how that small gesture betrayed her. “Nothing as important as coming home to you.”

  “I see.”

  “I doubt it. You’ve never understood what I feel about you.”

  She sighed, a wisp of air vanishing in the wind.

  A lone sea gull squawked overhead and tumbled to a landing at their feet. Holding her close to his heart, Sullivan started toward the cottage.

  “Put me down, Sullivan. I’ll walk,” she said.

  “No.” He pulled her closer. “I’ll be damned if you will.” His tone was as determined as hers.

  “Yes.” She touched his face and forced him to look at her. “I’ll walk.”

  She was only a slight weight in his arms, and he paused. Deep in her clear gray eyes, her spirit flickered like a candle in the windy darkness. Sullivan loosened his grip, his need to protect her second to her need. “You make me so damned mad sometimes, Lizzie, I could strangle you.”

  “I know,” she whispered, leaning against him. “Why do you stick around, Sullivan?”

  “Shut up.” He bent over her, holding on for dear life. After a long moment he said, “Do you want me to go?”

  She only shivered and burrowed closer. It was answer enough for the time being.

  He cleared his throat. “You going to beat me up if I put my arm around you?” He curled his arm around her waist.

  “We’ll see.” Her smile was shaky, but she leaned on him. “Just don’t go all macho on me.”

  He snugged her against his hip. “Fat chance.” Setting an easy pace, he tried to ignore his urge to hurry her out of the drizzle. If Lizzie wanted to do it her way, under her own steam, he’d help her. “You make me nuts, woman,” he muttered, clamping her to his side. “Damned if you don’t.”

  “I know,” she repeated. Wrapping her cold fingers around his, she clutched him as they made their way over the sand and grassy hillocks to the beach-house deck.

  When she stumbled on the bottom step, Sullivan muttered through clenched teeth, “Enough’s enough.” He glared at her. “You’ve proven your point. So you’re Wonder Woman. Now you can humor me.” Sweeping her into his arms, he took the rickety steps two at a time and kicked open the door.

  “All right.” Her voice was a faint rasp. “Wish I was built like her, though.” Her laugh stuttered into a cough.

  His step faltered.

  “It’s the storm, that’s all, Sullivan—the drop in barometric pressure. I’m fine.” She shut her eyes for a long moment, struggling for control.

  “Yeah, right. Damn your stubbornness all to hell, Lizzie,” Sullivan said, a low buzz of anger lending a snap to his words he didn’t intend. But rage churned inside him. Not pausing to flick on a light, he strode through the kitchen to the bathroom. Stupid. No rhyme or reason, but his Lizzie had this—this gunk in her lungs, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do.

  Stripping her out of her sand-encrusted clothes so fast she didn’t have time to object, he thrust her under the shower. As the bathroom filled with steam, through the shrouded glass of the shower door he saw her slump against the tiles. She stayed so still, her head bowed under the beating spray, that he climbed right in after her, shirt, shoes and all.

  When he opened the glass door, she straightened and looked up, a weary smile lighting her narrow face. “Look at you. Now who’s the kid?” Looking at his feet, which he’d nudged between hers, she chided, “You’ll ruin your shoes.”

  She plucked the white shirt away from his chest and loosened his tie. Her fingers shook as she tried to undo the knot, and his skin tightened where her fingers lingered. It had been that way for him from the first moment he’d seen her. As he turned her to the shower nozzle and grabbed the green-and-pink bottle smelling of flowers and Lizzie, he felt the slight tremble in her shoulders.

  “I can still afford to buy a new pair of shoes.” Sullivan squirted shampoo into his hands and worked it into her hair, pausing where her hair divided at her nape. Defenseless, that small patch of naked skin splintered his control. He traced each vertebra gently, grateful she couldn’t see his face where the skin around his eyes stretched tight and hot.

  “You’re crazy, you are, Sullivan Barnett.” She placed her palms against the tiles and peeked at him through her dripping hair, eyes wide and fatigued, but her spirit burning, burning with a fire all her own.

  He rinsed her hair as fast as he could, the strands slipping slick and smooth through his fingers, while her courage cut him like a thousand knives.

  “Crazy, huh? Well, that makes us a perfect pair.” He popped the door open and bundled her in a huge pink towel. “You with not enough sense to come in out of the rain and me taking a shower in my clothes.” In the fogged mirror, he saw the two of them, shadowy figures without substance, Lizzie pale and slim against his darkness, fitting him the way no one before her ever had, the way no one ever would again.

  Sullivan stared as he dried her. His hands were long and tanned against the pink towel, his fingers dark against her cool skin. As he worked, he knew the reality of her, felt her slender bones, touched her, while before him their ghostly figures wavered dim and unreal. In desperation, he buried his mouth against her smooth neck, tasted the clean, sweet essence of Lizzie O’Connell and held her, held her against the mocking reflection in the steam-clouded mirror.

  “You break my heart,” he whispered.

  She flinched. He knew she’d seen the desperation in his face, felt the desolation in his touch. “I never wanted to hurt you. Never.”

  Her words were so soft he barely heard them. But he wished he hadn’t heard them at all, because he was afraid of what they mig
ht mean. Tenderly he touched the tip of his tongue to the damp corner of her shoulder and pressed a kiss there. As her skin rippled beneath his mouth, he shuddered and lifted his head, his gaze locking on hers.

  Her expression was elusive, hiding her thoughts from him. “You know it will only get worse as time goes on.”

  He stared back at her through the mist that still blurred their images, and he couldn’t speak.

  “This isn’t working, Sullivan. For either of us.”

  She shook her head, wet strands of her hair caressing his lips, and he remembered nights with her silky locks sliding down his body, promising pleasure, the merging of their bodies bringing him closer to her than he’d ever been to anyone in his entire life, her touch completing him. The memory choked him with the cruelest pain he’d ever known.

  The shower door rattled in its metal track as he slammed his elbow against it.

  “Oh, Sullivan.” She lifted his knuckles to her cool lips and kissed them. “Nothing’s going to be any different. But I want us to be happy for now. If we can?” Clear gray pools with unshed tears, her eyes beseeched him. “I don’t want to think about next week. I can’t even think about tomorrow.”

  “Whatever you say, Lizzie.” He traced the outline of her face on the foggy mirror and leaned forward, pressing his chest against her back. “Whatever you want. Always.” He paused. “Forever.”

  She wiped away the steam veiling their faces. In the clear mirror, her gaze was strong and steady, filled with knowledge that unnerved him.

  As he carried her wrapped in the thick pink towel to her bedroom, she trailed her fingers along the sticky surfaces of old furniture and warped shelves, where bits and pieces of broken shells were arranged in careless heaps and circles.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, slipping her under the bed covers. He tipped his chin toward the bits of colored glass worn smooth by sand and water, the ridged shell fragments. “What kind of collection is this, anyway?”

  “My kind.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. “Yeah, shoulda figured.” His Lizzie had always been a sucker for the broken things in life. The kids in her daycare center, him. Why not shells?