He couldn’t say when seeing Lauren at the end of the day became a necessary part of his routine. Forward his calls, drive patrol, feed the cat, sit on his boat as the sun went down, and listen to Lauren talk about her day. Unlike a lot of people, she always had something interesting to say.
Plus... sex. With no trouble at all, he could picture Lauren, hot and glowing, naked and coming, in his bed. In his life.
At least until she left.
The thought caused a twinge. More than a twinge, if he was honest.
But he knew better than to try and kid himself. He wasn’t seventeen anymore, clinging to a summer romance when summer was over, making stupid promises that he wouldn’t keep.I’ll call. I’ll write. I’ll visit.
Not going to happen. When Lauren was gone, she was gone.
But maybe he could talk to her about leaving a toothbrush or something at his place.
Wet asphalt hissed under his tires as he turned onto the inn road, lined with gnarled oaks and tall pine.
Lauren was standing on the front porch of the Pirates’ Rest deep in conversation with some guy in camouflage. Army, not Marines, Jack saw as he parked by the gate.
Which meant the guy, whoever he was, wasn’t a buddy of Luke’s.
Jack got out of the SUV just as Lauren threw herself into the guy’s arms.
What the hell?
The soldier grinned and patted her back awkwardly.
Young guy, Jack observed. Seventeen? Eighteen? Not much older than the bored rich kid he’d left sitting at the station.
Jack stopped at the bottom of the porch steps—See? Nothing to prove—and caught the kid’s eye.
The soldier dropped his arms in a hurry.
Lauren turned, her face shining. “Jack!”
That glowing look made him feel better. Not that he was suspicious or anything.
“Lauren,” he acknowledged. He looked at the soldier. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Joel. Private Joel Johnson,” she said, patting him on the arm with as much pride as if she were the kid’s mother. “Joel, Chief Jack Rossi.”
Johnson. Jack’s shoulder blades tightened. He kept his face impassive. That was the name of the bank robber. The one whose family she was sending money to. And wasn’t Joel the kid who’d been pulled in on the job by their uncle in the first place?
“What brings you to Dare Island, soldier?” he asked.
“Just finished Basic at Fort Jackson, sir. I’m on my way to Virginia to start AIT and stopped by to see Lauren.”
Advanced Individual Training.
Jack narrowed his eyes. “A little out of your way, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Five and a half hours. My mom drove us up.”
Lauren started. “Your mother’s here?”
Ben’s mother blames me, she’d said to Jack that first morning on his boat. Because the woman’s brother was dead and her older son was in jail and she had to blame somebody.
A deeper color swept under the boy’s sunburn. “Not here. She’s waiting at the restaurant. The Fish House. I walked up from there. But she brought me, all the way from South Carolina. That says... That means a lot. She knows what we owe you.”
Lauren shook her head. “You don’t owe me a thing.”
