He threw her a quick glance, eyes narrowed, interested—the first time, Charlotte suspected, that her presence had actually registered with him.
“Champion?”
“Show champ. Many times over.” Maybe she ought to sing Maggie’s praises a little. The Lab had not made a good first impression by running off and not coming back when she was called. “Lots of ribbons. Obedience trophies, too.”
Liam Connery made a nasty noise in his throat, and the boy glanced at him. “You want me to go get ’em, Liam?”
“Better do that, Jamie. Scout’s got one thing on his mind right now, and it isn’t his dinner.”
He turned and stared at her finally, sizing her up—a little rudely, in Charlotte’s opinion. In the past five minutes, she’d had second thoughts about everything. First love! This man was a lout. A hunter, from the looks of the gun, even though she didn’t see any ducks or anything. But the gun had to be for something. He wasn’t even polite. He was rude, he was bossy—and she didn’t like the way he referred to Maggie as a bitch in heat, even if she was.
Charlotte was doing some serious readjusting. So much for the romantic first-crush reunion story— Zoey and Lydia would die laughing when they heard about this.
The boy began to slide down the hummock toward the dogs. She stepped forward, anxious to take some kind of action, too. “Wait! I’ll go with you.”
“Ma’am—?”
Charlotte glanced back. Liam stood silhouetted against the sky, holding out his jacket, which he’d taken off.
“Better wear this.” He hitched one shoulder toward the beach, and Charlotte automatically looked that way.
Her clothes! The tide had inched in far enough now that the water had reached her sweater and jacket. As she watched, an incoming wave slurped up the sand, smoothly covered her clothes, released them and then slipped back down the sand into the sea. Charlotte could have wept. Everything—everything!—was going wrong.
She might as well accept his offer. Her teeth were chattering. As she walked toward him, his eyes narrowed again, focusing on her face. Recognition? A hint? No way. She’d never have known him if the boy hadn’t mentioned his name, and fifteen years ago he hadn’t even been aware she existed.
He held the garment, and she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Without a word, he pulled it up on her shoulders and around her neck. She avoided his eyes. The dog by his side never missed a move, watching everything Charlotte did, every gesture. He had yellow eyes—kind of creepy.
“Th-thanks,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself in the cozy flannel lining. It was an oddly intimate thing to do: give her his coat, which was huge on her and still warm from his body. A very generous gesture. She took back her first impression.
Okay. Still rude, maybe. But generous.
“You stay here. I’ll go get your stuff.”
Still bossy, too. Charlotte opened her mouth to say she’d go get her clothes herself, but he started toward the beach before she could speak. The brown dog followed him. She clamped her lips shut and stared miserably in the direction the boy had taken. Jamie reached down and grasped Scout by the scruff of the neck. He snapped on a leash and made a grab for Maggie, who danced around them both, tail high. Scout shook himself vigorously then barked, straining to get free again. Jamie hung on tightly, thank heavens.
“Maggie!” She thought she’d try again, to no effect. “Come!” Maggie didn’t even look her way.
Charlotte noticed that Liam had picked up her clothes but, instead of walking back to join her, was heading toward the boy. The wind had come up. She couldn’t hear anything they said but saw Liam dig into the pocket of her jacket and extract something shiny, which he handed over.
Her car keys!
He talked to Jamie for another minute or so, then strode toward her, while his young cousin began to drag Scout down the beach in the direction of her vehicle, with Maggie happily cavorting behind, showing off for her new boyfriend, who tugged enthusiastically at his leash. Both dogs were yipping and whining with excitement.
Charlotte felt faint. Maggie had abandoned her without even a backward glance. Where was Jamie taking them?
She was freezing, but she felt she had to make some kind of move. She took a few steps forward and nearly fell down. Her legs were stiff, her lips numb.
Liam hiked the gun he still carried higher on his shoulder and tossed something up the dune toward her. Ugh, her wet sneakers. She stuck her sandy feet in them, grimacing at the unpleasant sensation.
“This way,” he called, and veered to the north, gesturing to her to follow him. The brown dog fell into step at his left side.
She planted her feet firmly. She wasn’t going anywhere, not until she knew what was happening.
He glanced over his shoulder and with an expression of pure annoyance turned around and walked back.
“Problems?” he asked from a distance of about twenty feet, at the base of the dune.
She gazed down at him, thinking he looked like he’d stepped out of an outfitter’s catalog, with his hunting clothes, his sturdy boots, his gun, his windblown hair. “Uh, what did you do with my car keys? And where’s my dog? Where are we—?”
“You can warm up at my place.” He waved an impatient hand in the direction he’d been walking. “Ten minutes on the other side of this headland. It’s cold, and your clothes are wet,” he went on, frowning. “Okay? Jamie will drive. He knows a shortcut that—”
“Does he have a driver’s license?”
Liam sighed loudly. “He’s been driving since he was twelve. He’s taking a back lane through the fields,” he explained slowly, as though he were dealing with a simpleton. “A private road. Perfectly legal. He’ll meet us at the house. Now, are you coming?”
What choice did she have? She could have stayed where she was and—and what? She had no dog, no keys, no car, and her sopping wet windbreaker and sweater were still in his hand. What was she going to do—wrestle them away from him and run? Run where? And why? She was wearing his jacket. He was just being hospitable, offering her a place to warm up out of the wind and the cold, maybe even a cup of tea. Jamie would be there in a few minutes; it wasn’t as though she’d be alone with this rather intimidating man and…what if she was? She was twenty-eight years old, well able to take care of herself.
For pity’s sake, what did she think might happen?
“Okay. I—I’m coming,” she called out, hoping it sounded fairly ordinary, or at least as though she’d just had a cramp in her foot or a stone in her shoe or there’d been some equally good reason that had prevented her from following him immediately.
She stumbled down the dune, keeping her arms around herself to hold the jacket, which reached past her hips, against her skin. The wind had increased, whipping her hair across her face, and the clouds had darkened. A serious storm coming? She was chilled to the bone.
Liam, as expected, was no gentleman. He strode ahead, his dog at his side, obviously familiar with the lay of the dunes and, when they entered the woods, each twist and turn of the path. Only occasionally did he glance back.
She did her best to keep up. She had a sudden giddy vision of Hansel, with her as Gretel scurrying behind him, two children lost in the magical dark woods, scattering bread to mark their way, crumbs that were immediately gobbled up by the birds.
She might well be Gretel, blindly stumbling along, but the analogy stopped there: Liam Connery knew exactly where he was headed. All she had to do was follow him.
CHAPTER THREE