Hunted on the Bay by Amber Leigh Williams

Author:Amber Leigh Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-01-16T16:58:15+00:00

* * *

The air tasted like rain. The mist was thick. It had pressed itself against the windows of the bay houses. William almost lost sight of Desiree as the low clouds hemmed together, moving in a slinky, silent front off the bay. “Dez,” he called, sprinting to catch up. “Stop, Dez.”

He thought she would keep going. She took several more long-legged strides. Then she slowed.

He ran to catch up. His class schedule and late nights left little time for exercise. When he was finally even with her, he was panting. “I’m sorry,” he said in a burst. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

“Find out what? That you’re a liar?”

William knew excuses wouldn’t solve this. He’d cut her too deep. “I wanted to be sure. Especially after your first shift at the tavern. I didn’t want to put you through any more than you’ve already been through.”

“You weren’t wrong.” Pivoting so the bay was in front of her, she held the coat she’d never put on. She’d balled it over her stomach. Her hands were buried in it. “You were right. There’s other stuff, too. I’m sure Cole will tell you.”

“I don’t want to hear it from him.” Enveloped by cloud bank, he stood with her on the shore and wished she would look at him. “I’d like to hear it from you.”

She gave a low, sour chuckle. “I’d have liked to hear it from you, too. Not them. And not during an interrogation, of all things.”

“They don’t think you did anything wrong, do they?”

“I don’t know what they think,” she said shortly. “I hardly know what to think myself. I thought I was starting to understand what it is about this place. This town. This weird family dynamic you’ve got going on. How all of you—your family, the Brackens, Cole and Briar—are all tangled up in each other’s lives... But now...” She loosened a breath laden in grief and self-reproach. “Now I see how much an outsider I am. I’ll never know what it’s like to be part of what you’ve got, and I was stupid to think for a second I could even be on the margins.”

“Don’t.” He touched her. She was unresponsive. “You can be a part of us. There’s a place for you here if you want it.”

“What, because I’m most likely James Bracken’s love child?”

He blanked. “What?”

Desiree saw the shock reverberating through him. The lines of her brow dug deeper. “Why couldn’t you have just been honest with me?”

It was a plea, and it nearly broke him. “I thought I went about it right. I was wrong.”

“It’s typical. So typical.”

“What’s typical?”

“That yet another man could be so disappointing.”

He breathed into the silence, watching with her as the fog drifted across the water’s surface. Neither reached for the other. The white cloud wisps never dropped beneath their hovering line to test the water’s surface. They were together and yet, inexorably, apart.

William dropped his chin. “Please,” he said in a near whisper. “Please, Dez. Don’t leave over this.

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