“Tor?”

The faint note of uncertainty in her lover’s voice solidified Tory’s determination. She blinked once and turned back, her eyes clear and her face composed. “It’s all right, baby.” She brushed her fingers over Reese’s cheek and leaned forward to kiss her softly. “It’s all right.”

The crunch of tires over the seashells lining their driveway reverberated like gunshots in the still room. Despite herself, Tory jerked at the sound. Her eyes met Reese’s.

“That’s Bri,” Reese said unnecessarily.

“I want to come with you to the airport.” Tory’s voice shook.

Worry, not anger, Reese thought. She started toward the bedroom door, Reggie asleep on her shoulder. With her free hand she caught Tory’s. “We already decided, Tor. It’ll be easier for you and the baby if…”

“Nothing is going to make it easier for us.” The quick flash of pain in Reese’s face stopped the next words before they could be spoken. Nothing except you not leaving. “I’m sorry.”

Starting down the stairs, Reese shook her head. “No. Don’t say that.” At the front door, she turned and held out the sleeping child. “I’ll call you as soon as I can. I don’t know when that will be.”

“I understand.”

Bending, Reese kissed Reggie’s forehead, then gently encircled Tory’s waist, drawing her near. She brushed her lips over Tory’s once, then again, lingeringly, as she smoothed her hands up and down Tory’s back. “I love you. Both of you…so much.”

Then Reese stepped back and reached for her duffel.

“Wait!” Tory carried Reggie to the sofa, where she laid her down and nestled a cushion beside her to prevent her from rolling off. Swiftly, she returned to Reese and put both arms around her neck, pressing close. With her hands in Reese’s hair, she found Reese’s mouth, cleaving to the long hard lines of the familiar body. With a soft moan, Tory kissed her, a deep probing kiss that spoke more of promises than passion. When she lifted her mouth away, she searched the blue eyes that held her soul. “I love you. I need you. Reggie needs you. You be safe, and you come home. Do you understand?”

“I will,” Reese said, her voice hoarse and her body trembling. “I promise. I will.”

A moment later, Tory stood in the doorway, the baby in her arms, watching her lover stow her duffel bag in the back of the police cruiser, thinking of the things they hadn’t spoken of. In less than an hour, Reese would be on her way to the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, pending deployment of the 8th Battalion of the II Marine Expeditionary Force. In a matter of days, she would be in Iraq. As an experienced ranking officer with training in the military police force, Tory knew that Reese would be in the heart of the battle zone.

The police cruiser turned left from the driveway onto 6A, heading toward Provincetown and the tiny airport at Race Point. As the taillights faded from sight, a terrible sadness settled in Tory’s chest. The baby stirred in her arms, and Tory gently kissed her forehead.

“It’s going to be all right.”

She wasn’t certain how that could be, when it felt as if her heart were breaking, but she would never stop believing in Reese and the life they had made. Reese would come home, because anything else was unthinkable.

Bri switched off the ignition, popped the trunk with the inside lever, and jumped out of the cruiser almost before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. She was hauling the duffel out of the trunk when Reese reached her.

“Let me give you a hand,” Reese said.

“I got it,” Bri said in short, clipped tones.

Reese covered Bri’s hand where it gripped the canvas strap and squeezed gently. “Hold up a minute.”

Bri stood still, her body stiff, her face averted.

“What’s on your mind?” Reese asked.

“Nothing.”

“Bri.” Reese’s voice was gently chiding.

“We should go. Get you checked in.”

Reese glanced through the glass doors into the main room of the tiny airport. The lights inside seemed unnaturally bright, illuminating the plastic chairs and serviceable all-weather carpet with harsh honesty. The room was empty save for two airport employees and a security officer. “Not much of a line.”

Bri shrugged.

“This is no time for silence between us.” Reese rested her hand on Bri’s shoulder, and as had happened only once before when Bri had been much younger, she was taken off guard when Bri launched herself into her arms. Reese circled Bri’s narrow waist and held her hard against her chest while she stroked the back of her head with her other hand. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”

“Everyone is always leaving.”

It must feel that way sometimes, Reese thought. Your mother. Caroline. Me. Bri’s face was turned away so that Reese couldn’t see her, but she didn’t need to to know her blue eyes would be clouded with misery. “Caroline came back. So will I.”

“I know. Sorry,” Bri mumbled.

Reese pulled away just enough to let Bri stand on her own, but she kept her arm around her. “I’m going to miss you something fierce.” She tapped Bri’s chin. “Look after yourself.”

Bri nodded. “I know you’ll be really busy, but maybe sometime…”

Reese patted her chest pocket. “I’ve got a list of important e-mail addresses right here. Yours is on top.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Bri straightened. “So I’ll be talking to you.”

“You will.” Reese bent down and hefted her duffel. “Ready?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Carter heaved herself out of the deck chair where she’d been sitting most of the night. After Rica had left, she couldn’t sleep, so she’d opened another beer and returned to the deck, trying to sort out her thoughts. Allen was playing the odds as far as Rica was concerned…betting that because Rica was the only child and the presumed next in line to head the Pareto family that Rica was actually involved in the business. It was a reasonable assumption, but there was very little hard evidence to substantiate the theory. A few surveillance photos showing known mob affiliates entering Rica’s gallery, making purchases or deliveries, was hardly proof of anything. Rica was on a first-name basis with some pretty heavy hitters, but her primary interaction with them was at family gatherings, precisely because they were friends of the family whom she had known since she was a child. Not damning in itself.

Despite having gotten close to some of Pareto’s highly placed captains, Carter had yet to hear anything suggesting that Rica was giving orders or involved in any of the Pareto enterprises.

“Christ, I’ve been at more important meetings then she seems to have been,” Carter muttered. At some point when she had finally admitted that she just couldn’t face her empty bed and her tangled thoughts, she had gotten up to get a jacket. She’d sipped her beer, watched fingers of clouds flirt with the moon, and replayed the feel of Rica’s mouth against hers.

Despite the cold, she’d dozed on and off, and now the first blush of pink teased along the horizon. She went back inside, changed into shorts and running shoes, and headed toward Herring Cove. She needed to run off the beer and sweat out the heat that Rica’s kiss had stirred in her belly, because she had a feeling it might be a long time before she got that close to the elusive Mafia heiress again.

Rica struggled beneath Enzo’s suffocating weight. His breath was hot on her neck, his hands rough on her skin, his hard lust bruising her flesh. She jerked her face away from his mouth and came awake with a gasp.

Shivering, she threw the covers aside and pulled a robe from a nearby chair. Wrapping it quickly around herself, she opened the French doors to her deck and stepped out into the dawn. The sky flamed purple and orange as the sun rose over the water. She braced her hands on the wooden railing and breathed the crisp salt air, letting it cleanse her. Closing her eyes, she touched her lips and remembered the soft glide of Carter’s mouth.

For just a moment, she regretted not sleeping with Carter the night before. If she had, she would not have met Enzo and been reminded of his unwelcome touch. If she had let Carter complete her seduction, she could have lost herself for a few hours in the comfort of shared desire. It wasn’t something she allowed herself often, and usually she limited the liaisons to women she knew only casually. Somehow Carter felt like more than that already.

As the erratic beat of her heart steadied and the queasiness left her stomach, Rica took in the peaceful vista that stretched from below her home to the ocean. A lone runner jogged along the footpath that snaked through the dunes on the water’s edge. In the distance, a needle-thin red kayak crested the waves, headed toward Race Point. Overhead, a small twin-engine plane climbed into the sky on its journey to Boston.

Alone on her deck, Rica felt an inexplicable connection to those solitary souls as they shared the beauty of the dawn.

Chapter Twelve

Carter stopped in the nearly empty parking lot at Herring Cove to catch her breath and to watch the last of the sunrise. A few RVs and a Jeep Cherokee were the only vehicles in sight. As she bent forward slightly, breathing deeply, inhaling salt and spray and the indefinable taste of the sea, she watched a kayaker paddle to shore. The kayaker climbed out into the surf when the craft was a few feet from shore, stumbling a little before grabbing the edge of the cockpit for balance. Carter saw then that the kayaker was a woman, and it looked as if she was having difficulty getting the craft onto the beach.

Carter started across the sand, and, as she came closer, realized that the moisture on the woman’s face was more than sea spray. She was crying.

She was also very beautiful. Waves of auburn hair fell to her shoulders, surrounding an oval face with delicately arched cheekbones, a fine straight nose, and a sculpted jaw. Despite the early hour and the predictable chill, she wore shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt beneath her PFD. When she stripped off the vest and tossed it into the cockpit, her damp T-shirt clung to her high, full breasts. Her arms and legs were nicely toned and the rest of her figure followed suit. She had some kind of brace on her right ankle. Carter lifted a hand in greeting. “Can I help you with that?”

Tory blinked and brushed at the tears on her cheeks. When she’d seen the taillights of the cruiser disappear into the dark and realized that Reese was really gone, she’d known she wouldn’t sleep. She had bundled up the baby and taken her to Jean and Kate’s. They were used to her showing up at all hours when she had an emergency call and Reese was working, so they had taken Reggie and spared her any questions. Kate had given her a long look, and maybe whatever she had seen in Tory’s eyes had been answer enough. The tears had been very close to the surface even then.

Once out on the water and settled into her rhythm, she had been fine, really. When the plane had lifted off and climbed slowly in a low arc above her head, she had watched, paddle resting across her bow, and imagined Reese looking out the window. “Be safe, baby,” she had whispered.

Even on her way back she’d held on to some of the harmony she always achieved when her mind and body became one with the sea. It wasn’t until she’d scanned the parking lot, unconsciously expecting to see Reese’s cruiser as she had almost every day in the years they had been together, that the vacant spot where Reese should have been waiting blossomed inside her chest to leave her feeling hollow. And she had lost her battle with the tears.

“I’m sorry,” Carter said gently and started to back away when she got no answer. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No,” Tory said hoarsely, “that’s all right.” The churning waves dragged at her kayak as she awkwardly pulled it higher onto the sand. “You’re not.”

Carter reached for the strap on the nose of the kayak. “It’s pretty cold out here. Aren’t you freezing?”

“I’m still warm from paddling. I’ve got a jacket in the car.” Tory held out her hand. “Tory King.”

“Carter Wayne. Hello.” Carter took note of the gold wedding band, still wondering about the tears. Since she couldn’t think of any way of asking that wouldn’t be awkward and embarrassing, she kept silent as they carried the kayak the rest of the way up the beach and lifted it onto the roof rack of the Jeep Cherokee she had passed in the parking lot.

“Thanks. I’ve got it from here,” Tory said as she looped the tie-down straps through the front and rear handles and secured them to the bumpers.

“Okay. Nice meeting…” Carter stopped when a police cruiser slammed to a stop behind the Jeep and a young woman in uniform jumped out. Carter wasn’t sure why, but the look on the officer’s face was decidedly mistrustful.