Laddie whimpered and began wagging his tail. He looked up pleadingly at Gray.
“Not this time. Come on.”
The calming scent of salt water filled Gray’s lungs once again. He tucked a shell in his pocket, stood and started for the lighthouse at the end of the beach. Laddie jogged alongside without complaint, distancing himself from Gray only long enough to skirt a log of driftwood strangled by seaweed. His ears perked at the sound of that toddler giggling in the distance, but he stayed on course for home.
The poor dog adored children, so much so that there were times when Gray could have sworn his expressive face and eyes seemed to say, “When are you going to get me some human kids of my own to look out for?” Yeah. That wasn’t happening.
His past had ceased to exist five years ago, and the only people who’d come close to being family since then were Mandi and her grandmother Nana. His throat constricted and a sudden gust of wind slapped against his chest, forcing him to exhale. As of three days ago, Nana was no longer with them, a fact that still felt surreal. Nana was gone. There would be no more waving to her during his evening jog or stopping by for an afternoon cup of coffee. There would be no more deals or compromises where Nana would insist on his coming over for a home-cooked meal and he’d agree only if she let him pick up groceries for her. She would no longer be there to comb the beach for turtle nests with him at the crack of dawn—her favorite activity and time of day. As for Mandi?
Gray muttered a curse as he passed the white, two-story beach cottage that everyone knew as Nana’s house. Raised on solid posts, like most homes here because of tropical storms and hurricanes, it stood much taller than a standard two-story and boasted just a touch of Victorian flair with gingerbread trim along the upper gable and around the small turret-style attic. That tiny space was more of a lookout and storage nook than a full room, according to Nana, who had always kept it locked. It was the window to the room just beneath it that caught his eye now. Nana had always referred to it as Mandi’s room, even if she had technically lived with her father. That room beneath the attic space had been Mandi’s spot, made cozy with an old sofa, painting easel and numerous canvases stacked against the wall. It had been her hideaway. The one place he knew he could always find her if her father had been giving her a hard time about seeing too much of Gray. Well, John Rivers got what he wanted.
Man, Gray had come so close—dangerously close—to giving up everything after Mandi had left him at the altar. His veterinary practice, his new life at Turtleback...his fake identity. Everything, just to win her back. But doing so wouldn’t have endangered only himself. It would have put anyone he cared about in danger, too...something the WITSEC—Witness Security Program—marshals had drilled into him with horrifying, gory visuals and stories about federal witness protection cases where cover had been blown—voluntarily or involuntarily. Ironic that revealing the truth had caused him to be sentenced to a life of secrets and lies. He was lucky that he’d been allowed to continue his career as a vet under a different name, but any record of his completing veterinary school through the US Army or serving as a vet with the US Navy Marine Mammal Program or even his very short time in the Department of Defense research division was essentially gone. That history didn’t belong to Grayson Zale. Nor did any chance at a truly normal life beyond outward appearances.
He took to jogging the eighth of a mile from Nana’s to the path that led to the old Turtleback Lighthouse and the adjacent one-story “ranger” cottage where he lived. Unlike other lighthouses along the Outer Banks, this one wasn’t a famous tourist destination. In fact, the powers that be made sure it was clearly marked as not open to the public. A metal sign hanging on a wooden post near the clearing welcomed wanderers with a firm warning that the landmark wasn’t structurally safe, that it was undergoing restoration and that trespassers would be prosecuted.
There were no heavy security fences around the property. That idea had been nixed by WITSEC on the grounds that it would draw more attention to him than it was worth. Hiding in plain sight was essentially a more effective plan, which meant no added security fences that would only raise eyebrows. There was an old double-wide gate with a short, open-ended fence to either side where the main road led to the property, but it was nothing more than an entrance marker. Anyone could get around it, so he had a hidden surveillance camera on the property, just in case people got too curious. The few times he’d run into intrigued hikers, he’d told them he lived there as an authorized curator and guard, and then sent them off. As for townsfolk, they believed that lack of proper funding was the reason no major restorations had happened yet, including the high cost of relocating the lighthouse to a safer spot, farther away from the shore, as had been done with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. There would be no safer spot. At least not for him. There wouldn’t be any major restorations either, because opening up the place to tourism was out of the question.
Laddie trotted up the steps to the cottage door and nudged the brass box that held mail. He could tell when it was empty or full and he knew the scent of the mailman wasn’t a threat. Or it wasn’t supposed to be, not just because of the Postal Service’s reputation, but because, as Gray understood it when he first moved here, the delivery guy had been cleared.
He grabbed the mail, unlocked the door and waited for Laddie to follow him inside.
“Hungry?”
The dog responded with his usual half grunt, half yodel. Dog-speak. Gray chuckled as he poured kibble into the food bowl and put fresh water in the one next to it. He didn’t know what he’d do without Laddie. Having him around the past few years had made life manageable.
“We rescued each other, didn’t we boy?” He scratched Laddie behind the ear and got a dog smile in return. “I still have you. It doesn’t matter that Mandi will be here for the funeral. I can deal with it. Life’s been just fine without her.”
Funny how lying to himself had become just as natural as lying to everyone else. Or maybe repeating those words to himself had become more of a mantra. Life’s just fine without her. God knew he’d relied on that mantra during Mandi’s short and infrequent visits from up north to see Nana over the past couple of years. Most of the time, she had convinced her grandma to go visit her instead—a blatant avoidance of him.
He was guilty of steering clear of her too, though, down to not grabbing coffee at the local bakery whenever she was in town for a couple of days. He told himself he was avoiding gossip and proving to everyone in town that he’d moved on, but the fact was that one look at her and every stitch he’d tightened around the wound she’d left would unravel. He was strong and resilient, but there was only so much a man could take.
He glanced at the clock. Sheesh. Ten already? He scrubbed his hand across his face. So much for dropping by the office to make sure everything was under control. He needed to shower and change in time for the funeral. She’ll be there. You can’t avoid each other this time. Yeah. He knew that. A fact that had been gnawing at him for two days now.
As if having his life turned upside down when he’d been placed in the witness protection program, and again when Mandi had gone runaway bride on him, wasn’t enough. Now Nana was gone. Nana...the one person who’d accepted him unconditionally...who’d treated him like a son and who’d taught him about rescuing endangered sea turtles by tending to their nesting grounds along her private stretch of beach and the sands that extended beyond the town limits. Nana was gone and the one person who understood and felt the depth of that loss the way he did was Mandi. But it didn’t matter that a part of him wanted to reach out and console her or that he desperately needed to talk about Nana and share memories about her with Mandi. No way would he open his heart, even a crack, and let Mandi in. He was a survivor. Burned once and all that. Others would be at the funeral, including Mandi’s father, John Rivers, Nana’s only child. They could console her and give her support.