Page 1 of Our Little Secret
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
Seattle, Washington
October 2022
“How far would you go?”
Gideon’s words stopped Brooke short. She was already late and she felt the seconds ticking by. Turning in the small cabin of his sailboat, she found him where she’d left him, lying on his bed, his tanned body entangled in the sheets, dark hair falling over his forehead.
“What do you mean?”
He pushed himself upward, levering on an elbow, muscles visible beneath his tanned skin, gray eyes assessing. As if he knew. Outside a seagull cried, and she caught its image flying past masts of neighboring sailboats, then skimming over the gray waters of the bay.
Tell him. Get it over with. End this now!
“For something you wanted,” he said, and he wasn’t smiling. “How far would you go?”
“I don’t know.” She finger combed her tousled hair, then started for the short flight of stairs leading to the deck. “Pretty far, I guess.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I really have to go.”
Tell him.
“Wait.” He rolled off the bed, and she noticed his tattoo, a small octopus inked at his nape, barely visible when his hair grew long. He caught her wrist, spinning her back to face him. A little over six feet, he was lean and fit, his skin bronzed from hours in the sun. “Why don’t you ask me?” he said and he leaned down to touch his forehead to hers. His fingertips moved against the inside of her wrist and his pupils darkened a bit.Tell him!that damned inner voice insisted.Tell him now!
“Ask you?”
“How far I’d go.”
Her heart started beating a little quicker, his fingers so warm, the boat rocking slightly under her feet. “Okay,” she said, and hated the whispery tone of her voice. “Okay. How far would you go?”
“For something I wanted? For the person I was supposed to be with?” His gaze locked with hers and the breath caught in the back of her throat. The walls of the boat’s tiny cabin seemed to shrink, and for a heartbeat it was as if they were the only two people on earth. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “I would do anything.” She swallowed hard.
He repeated, “Anything.”
“Anything?” She couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice.
His gaze held hers. “If I had to, I would kill.”
Seattle traffic was a nightmare.
And she was late.
Of course.
Not only had she chickened out and not told Gideon that what they’d shared for the past few months was over, she was running late. Again.
“Come on, come on,” she said, as much to herself as to the other drivers in the snarl of vehicles clogging the streets. She drove her SUV through the knots of vehicles, slipping from one lane to another, then turning her Explorer onto a steep side street, hoping to avoid the crush heading to the freeway.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered as she caught up with a huge red pickup that inched forward. She glanced at the clock on the dash. She was supposed to be at the school in five minutes. At this rate it would take an hour! She pounded on the horn just as they reached a construction site.
The pickup, laden with a load of cordwood, eased past the orange cones guarding a wide hole in the asphalt as a bearded construction worker held up a stop sign. Though his eyes were shielded by aviator sunglasses, he glared at her through the windshield, daring her to try to slip past.
She didn’t. Waited. Impatiently drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while a monstrous backhoe, alarm beeping, backed into the street, then moved forward. It was a warm day for October in Seattle, sunlight streaming through her dusty windshield. And the backhoe seemed to inch its way across the street.
“Oh, come on!”
She wouldn’t make it.
