Four Relentless Days. Elle James
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it was after it first happened. The guests keep me from getting sad.” She turned to him. “So thank you.”
The starlight shined down on her face, illuminating her bright eyes, making them sparkle despite the melancholy droop to her lips.
Harm had the sudden urge to pull the woman into his arms, to hold her and make the hurt go away. But she was still grieving for her husband. It wouldn’t be right for him to embrace her.
She dipped her chin. “I guess I miss him more at night, when I slow down from the day’s activities. The past week has been particularly difficult with everything happening at once.”
Harm couldn’t resist. He opened his arms. “I’m not your husband, but I have strong arms.”
She gave him a wobbly smile and stepped into his embrace. “Thanks.” Talia rested her hands on his chest and pressed her forehead to his breastbone. “I didn’t realize how much I missed having a hug.”
“My pleasure,” he said, his tone soft, gentle, as calming as he could make it. The moment she’d stepped into his arms, he realized his mistake. He’d gone a while without female companionship. Her body pressed to his made him hyperaware of that neglect.
She was the perfect height, the top of her head coming up to just beneath his chin. He rested his hands at the small of her back, amazed at how narrow her waist was in comparison to the swell of her luscious hips and breasts. His blood heated and his groin tightened automatically.
Yeah, holding this woman, who still grieved her husband, might not be his smartest move.
For a long moment, Talia stood in his arms. Eventually, she turned her head and laid her cheek against his heart.
He pressed her closer, fully cognizant of even her slightest move. Conscious of his own proximity and desires, he fought to hold himself back from making an idiot of himself.
“Why are you still here at the resort? Why didn’t you leave when your husband passed?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I loved Michael. Leaving here would have been like leaving him all over again. I thought about selling, but I just couldn’t. This was his dream. He saw beauty in every living creature. For the most part, so did I. But when one of his beautiful creatures killed him, I had a hard time seeing them as purely beautiful.”
Finally, he set her at arm’s length and brushed a strand of her dark hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “Are you okay for now?”
She nodded and then looked up into his eyes. “You’re kind. Thank you.”
“For what? I should be thanking you. It’s been a long time since I’ve held a beautiful woman in my arms.” He clasped his hands together to keep from pulling her back against him.
“Look at us. All this talk about me and my lost love...what about you?” Talia asked.
Harm stiffened. “What about me?”
“You say you haven’t held a woman in your arms for a long time.” Talia pinned him with her wide-eyed stare. “Why not?”
His jaw tightened. “I have a job to do. Women aren’t part of it.”
“But you have to have someone to come home to.”
“Why?” He waved his hand. “Don’t answer that. My job precludes relationships. Besides, unlike you, I don’t believe in true love. It doesn’t exist.”
“Oh, but it does.” She touched his shoulder. “It’s that feeling that you can’t live without that person, that your life is better for having him in it.”
“And when he leaves, sends you a Dear John letter, just walks out of your life or dies?”
She smiled. “You thank God you had him for the time you did.”
“But you said you couldn’t live without him. Yet, here you are.” He raked her with his gaze. “You appear to be very much alive to me.”
She chuckled. “I am. And I had to learn how to live without him, but I wouldn’t trade my time with Michael for anything.”
“If you believe in love, are you going to fall in love again? Knowing what could happen?”
“I don’t know if love can happen for me again, but if it does, I’m not going to pass it up because I’m afraid of losing him. I’d be stupid to walk away when there is so much happiness to be gained.”
“And so much sorrow...” he reminded her.
Talia nodded. “True, but feeling so deeply is a sign that we’re very much alive. If I push past the sorrow, I remember the happiness and it’s all worth it.” She laughed. “I’m sorry. You’re a guest. I shouldn’t be bringing you down with my troubles.”
“You didn’t. I’m just curious. If you’re finally getting over the sorrow, what’s keeping you up at night? When we were here a couple weeks ago, other than the poachers, I didn’t get the feeling you were unhappy.”
“I wasn’t.” She stared out at the night again. “Everything seemed to be getting back on track. And then...strange things started happening.”
He studied her silhouette, noting the frown pulling her brow lower. Normally Harm avoided deep conversations, preferring to remain uninvolved. But Talia had been through so much, and she seemed like a genuinely nice lady. He wanted to get to the bottom of her troubles. “Strange? Like strangers showing up? Or hinky strange?”
She laughed. “Hinky?” Her smile soon faded. “Actually, hinky kind of describes it.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” She stepped away from him and wrapped her arms around her middle. “As the locals would say, the resort has some bad juju going on.”
Harm crossed to the swing and sat. He patted the space beside him. “Tell me about this bad juju.” If it was anything like what he’d been dreaming a few minutes ago, he could understand her concern.
She hesitated before joining him. As she settled, her movement set the swing in motion, gently swaying in the dark.
Again, Harm might have been better off going into the kitchen alone.
Talia’s warm thigh rested against his, and with every sway of the swing, he caught a whiff of her perfume.
“Yesterday, we found native paintings on the doors of the cabins.”
“Graffiti?” Harm asked.
“In a way. Only the content was threatening.”
“How so?”
“They’d painted an owl swooping down over several people.” She snorted. “Stick figures, nothing too dramatic, but enough to scare away the guests who’d been staying in the cabins.”
“Why?”
“I had hired new guards to protect the perimeter. They swear they saw no one sneak past them into the compound. They got to the guests before I did and spooked them by telling them about what omen the images foretold.”
“And what does an owl mean in the local folklore?”
She stopped the swing with a foot on the board of the veranda and stood. “It doesn’t matter.”
Harm stood and rested an arm over her shoulder, cupping her arm with his hand. “You can’t scare me. I’m a crusty old SEAL. I don’t believe in bad juju. But I do believe in bad people who like to frighten women and children.”
She squared her shoulders, shrugging off his grip. “I’m not easily frightened, either, but when it scares my guests, it threatens me and my livelihood.” She lifted her chin and faced Harm. “Around here, if an owl flies close to you or a loved one, it means someone is going to die.”
“You don’t believe that hooey, do you?”