Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

keys, which, dammit, should have been in her hand all along.
    *     *     *
    It didn’t take long for Nate to regain his equilibrium. Limping painfully, he followed after her.
    “Damn!” Slowed by what he hoped weren’t broken bones in his foot, he was forced to watch the silver Audi roar out of the parking lot and disappear around a corner. He’d lost her again.
    Hours later, back at the house, with a package of frozen peas pressed against his swollen but unbroken nose and his foot aching like a son of a bitch, he sat alone in the dark, staring out at the sea. High above the silvery water, in a midnight-black sky, a bright circle of light haloed a full werewolf’s moon.
    Or a lovers’ moon, Nate amended silently, his fingers tightening on the slim wallet he’d discovered lying on the asphalt by the seawall. The photo on her driver’s license gave him the name of the woman who’d been haunting him. The laminated courthouse pass gave him her occupation.
    Finally. As he smiled with grim satisfaction, the air in the room turned icy.
    “I figured you’d show up sooner or later,” Nate said grumpily. “I don’t suppose you feel like explaining what Deputy District Attorney Teresa Lombardi is doing invading my dreams?”
    A figure, clad in the dark garb of an old-time seaman, slowly materialized in front of the window. Nate waited, having grown used to MacGrath’s penchant for the dramatic.
    Having a ghost as a housemate didn’t necessarily disturb Nate. He’d returned home from war with a few of his own, and Sax Douchett had shared a story about having his former battle buddies show up and follow him around when he’d first arrived back home in Shelter Bay.
    Still, he’d initially worried that the captain might resent his home being occupied after over a century of having the ramshackle, falling-down place to himself.
    But when there were no accidents, when contractor Lucas Chaffee’s renovation stayed on schedule and was completed without a hitch, Nate had relaxed, deciding pragmatically that the captain had as much right to the place as he did. And hey, maybe the guy was grateful for some company after all that time alone, stuck haunting the formerly crumbling halls.
    Then the dreams had started.
    “Teresa Lombardi,” Nate repeated dryly. “Does the name happen to ring a bell?”
    “Belay that notion,” the captain answered grumpily. “I’ve never even met the blasted woman.”
    “Give me an effing break,” Nate complained. “I know you’ve been somehow putting her into my dreams. What I want to know is why .”
    His harsh, demanding tone had the captain’s dark eyes filling with open re-sentment. Turning on his booted heel, he walked through the tall window, disappearing into the moonlight.
    Nate swore softly. “For a supposedly tough, seafaring man,” he called out, just in case the captain was hovering within hearing distance, “you can sure be damn sensitive.”
    Shaking his head with mute frustration, he remembered the wallet. Deciding he had nothing to lose, Nate reached out and picked up the phone.

7
    Tess’s heart didn’t stop its wild beating until she was safely inside her townhouse with the double deadbolts locked. Although her fingers ached from having clutched the steering wheel too tightly all the way back up the coast and across the mountains, she was home. Safe.
    She took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Breathed it out again. Then repeated nine more times. Feeling steadier, she turned on the gas fireplace, went over to the kitchen, poured a glass of Lombardi Pinot Blanc from the bottle in the fridge. She then settled down on the couch to listen to a Celtic Woman CD that never failed to calm her after a difficult day.
    The wine had taken her cousin Gabriel two years to develop. A bright, crisp white that delivered aromas of orange flower, star fruit, almond and apricot. As she sipped the refreshing, mood-brightening wine, Tess instructed her whirling mind to