Off Limits Marine. Kate Hoffmann
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to the ground when the church was struck by lightning. The people were too superstitious to rebuild, so they just scattered to other towns along the western shore.” She walked along the wall and then found a spot. “Here it is.”
Gabe stepped to her side and squatted to see some letters carved into one of the stones. “A.F. plus E.J. Annie Foster and Erik Jennings.” Gabe smiled. “He told me about this. This is where he proposed to you.”
Annie smiled and nodded. “It was really wonderful, but it didn’t go perfectly. He set up a little dinner with champagne and candlelight. And then he came back to the house to get me. But by the time we got back, then sun was going down and the mosquitoes were vicious. And when we got here, a raccoon was sitting in the middle of the table, enjoying our dinner. All we had left was the champagne. So he got down on one knee and asked me. And that was that. We carved our initials in the stone and ran back to the boat, the mosquitoes chasing us the whole way.”
“It’s a good story,” Gabe said.
“It is,” she said with a wistful smile. “I always thought I’d tell it to our children and grandchildren someday.” She walked over to one of the windows and stood in a shaft of light. “When I first got home, I used to come out here and talk to him. All the memories were so fresh and vivid and...perfect. I could still hear his voice.” She sighed softly. “Now the memories are vivid, but they’re also real. It’s not just a romantic proposal anymore. Now the mosquitos and the raccoon are part of it.”
“Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to happen?” he asked. “It helps you cope with your loss. Let’s you move on.”
“It’s happening so fast,” Annie said. Her voice grew soft and hesitant. “There are times when I can’t remember him at all.”
Gabe took a step toward her and reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll never forget him entirely.”
“But he’ll be replaced. Like he is now.”
Gabe frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Her body trembled slightly, and she shook her head. “All I can think about is your hand on my shoulder. How good it feels to be touched again. How every time you touch me, even in the most innocent way, I seem to get all warm and breathless. My heart starts pounding, and the only person I can think about is you.”
The confession seemed to take everything out of her, and for a moment he thought she was about to cry. Gabe drew her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”
Annie pulled out of his embrace, turning on him and holding her hands out in defense. “I don’t know. I don’t want to forget him. But the more time I spend with you, the harder it is.” She forced a smile. “We should go. It’s getting late.”
“No, we should talk about this,” Gabe insisted. “If this is going to be a problem, we can’t just ignore it.”
“Sure we can,” Annie said with a laugh. She turned and scampered out of the old church.
Gabe followed her, stumbling through the thick brush. He finally caught her at the water’s edge and grabbed her waist, pulling her back into his arms.
She stared up at him, breathless, the color high in her cheeks. He couldn’t remember a time when she looked more beautiful, or more tempting. “Don’t do it,” she warned, her chest rising and falling.
He’d let it go for now, satisfied with the progress he had made. Gabe wasn’t willing to risk her affection for a quick grope in the woods. He had a second chance; it would be foolish to waste it.
Gabe grinned, then took her hand and helped her back onto the boat. “This is going to be an interesting summer,” he murmured.
* * *
THE SOUNDS OF a hot summer night drifted through the bathroom window—the quiet chirp of crickets, the far-off bark of a dog, the sound of the water lapping against the dock. Annie hung her leg over the edge of the tub as she sank into the cool water, closing her eyes and sighing softly. A fickle breeze teased at the lacy curtains, and she drew a deep breath, smelling rain in the air.
She swirled her fingers in the water, stirring up the scent of lavender, meant to soothe her nerves. Annie had tried to forget the fact that she hadn’t seen Gabe in five days. During the week, he stayed on base. But on weekends, he was supposed to take up residence in her boathouse. It was now 11:00 p.m. on a Friday night, and he hadn’t turned up.
With a soft curse, Annie sank beneath the surface of the water. She had no right to be irritated with him. And yet she was. Was it wrong to enjoy his presence? She was surrounded by teenagers without anyone to really talk to. Gabe was interested in her life.
She dragged the washcloth over her arm. To be honest, it wasn’t just the conversation that she missed. It was the physical contact—the occasional touch of his hand that felt like a caress, or the warmth of his lips pressed against hers. She’d grown accustomed to the longing when she’d been married to Erik, but Gabe was different. With him, everything was new, more desperate, more intense.
They’d moved past the boundaries of friendship. The kissing and touching had burned that bridge. And yet she couldn’t call their relationship a romance. There was nothing of the typical trappings found in that kind of relationship—no flowers, no dinners out, no attempts at sweet gestures or flowery sentiments.
Instead, she felt as if she were caught in some no-man’s-land, focused on the physical pleasures of his touch, yet determined not to fall in love with the man. This wasn’t a romance, it was a...a fixation. An obsession. An infatuation.
She’d expected to feel guilty over her new fixation, but that feeling hadn’t set in yet. Annie had been without a man for nearly twenty months. Any woman, widow or not, would be restless. And faced with easing those feelings with a man as sexy and handsome as Gabe, how could she resist?
Maybe it was time to move on, at least in the physical sense. She wasn’t ready to fall in love again, and Annie wasn’t sure that there was a man out there to replace her dead husband. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t move on physically, that she couldn’t enjoy sex with another man. The physical contact would ease her loneliness, and when she was alone again, the memories would do the same.
Gabe was the logical choice. He was geographically available, he was physically attractive and, from all indications, he wanted her. They could indulge in a no-strings affair until she left on her sailing trip. The plan seemed remarkably simple. But how would she go about explaining her needs to Gabe?
After all the years of knowing him, he really didn’t know her at all. How would he react if she dragged him into her bedroom and seduced him? A giggle bubbled out of her throat. Annie wasn’t even sure how she would react. The thought of stripping his clothes off and pushing him back into the sheets sent a shiver skittering down her spine.
She drew a deep breath and waited for the guilt. But again, it didn’t come. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
The last conversation she had with Erik was months ago. After he died, Annie used to speak to him all the time. But those things that used to soothe her had gradually faded in importance. She was thinking about sleeping with another man. “Gabe,” she murmured.
An uneasy sensation washed over her. There it was. Guilt? Or was it indecision? She was lusting after her husband’s best friend. Certainly, there had to be something immoral about that. Annie pushed out of the water and grabbed a towel from a nearby rack, wrapping it around her damp body. She took another towel for her hair, then walked out of the bathroom to her bedroom, leaving footprints on the wood floor.
This didn’t have to be so complicated. They were both adults and they both had desires—desires that they could mutually satisfy. There’d be no doubts or regrets. And she’d get what she’d been so desperately longing for. The touch of a man’s hands on her body. The warmth of his kiss and the overwhelming sensation of feeling him