and third on the small tables that flanked the bed.
Where she would lie with Gage, the two of them tonight, naked together. Swallowing hard, she looked back at him. “I—” A sight over his shoulder gave her sudden pause. “Oh, no,” she said.
“What?”
“Oh, no.” She pressed her palm over her heart, which was thudding for an entirely different reason now. “They’re back,” she whispered, her body going cold, desire abating. “They’re back.”
Gage glanced behind him. “Who’s back? Honey, what—”
“The men,” she croaked out. “That man.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her finger shook as she pointed at a cottage up the beach. “The Rutherfords are supposed to be gone. They went up the coast for a few days. There’s someone in there—you can tell.”
“Maybe they decided to postpone their trip.”
She shook her head. “I waved at them as they drove off. Mary Rutherford called when they were an hour out and asked me to go in and check that the iron was off. I know I locked up behind me.”
Gage had turned fully around to inspect the cottage in question. Lights were on in the windows, and there was movement behind the drawn sheer curtains. “I’ll go check it out. You stay here.”
She clutched at him. “No! It’s dangerous. We should call the police, or...”
“And I will,” Gage said gently, “if I think there’s a problem. You go inside No. 9 and lock the door. I’ll be right back.”
Once he left, her stomach roiling with anxiety, Skye paced around the beach house’s living room. She turned on the overhead light, and while both the front and sliding deck door were locked, fear kept a stranglehold on her throat. Gage was out there, putting himself at risk. Cold at the thought, she grabbed up the crocheted throw hanging over the couch and wrapped herself in the fabric.
The act of covering up calmed her a little, and she sat on the edge of a seat cushion, rocking back and forth. The sound of the surf was loud in the room, and she tried breathing along with it, but nothing calmed her churning belly or her hyperactive imagination. It spun a dozen scenarios.
Trying to hide from them, Skye pulled the woolen throw over her head. She pressed her forehead to her knees and whispered to herself over and over and over. “It will be all right. It will be all right. It will be all right.”
At the rap of knuckles on glass, she jackknifed up, swallowing a shriek. Her brain hiccupped before she recognized Gage, standing on the deck. She scurried to the slider and fumbled with the locking mechanism. “Sorry,” she called, her voice anxious. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey,” he called through the glass. “Take a breath. Everything’s okay.”
When the door finally snapped open, she didn’t have the muscle power to slide it wide. Gage took over, then stepped inside, bringing the scents of salted air and wet ocean with him.
Her gaze ran over him. “Was it them? Did you call the police?” She darted around him to once again flip the lock. “Did they see you?”
“Skye.” He touched her shoulder.
She jerked at the contact, then whirled, her shoulders pressed to the glass. The fight-or-flight response tasted bitter on her tongue, and she stared at him, her bones rattled by tremors.
Gage went still. “Easy, easy. It wasn’t anything you’re thinking.”
“What...” She swallowed, trying to ease her dry mouth. “What...who...exactly was it?”
“Monica Rutherford, and a handful of her teenage friends.”
“Monica?” She was seventeen years old, going into her senior year at high school. The girl, her parents and her younger siblings had been spending a month at the beach for the past few years, an escape from the summer heat in the nearby San Gabriel Valley. “Her mom said she was going to be staying with a school friend while they took their short trip.”
“Monica and company thought it would be more fun to escape adult supervision by overnighting at the beach house.”
Skye let out a shaky breath. “Uh-oh.”
“Our young friend Monica has a healthy guilty conscience, however. The minute I arrived and mentioned you expected the house to be empty, she and her buddies couldn’t jump into their car fast enough.”
“Were they—”
“I didn’t see any signs of drugs or alcohol. They promised they were heading straight back to Pasadena.”
Skye stumbled to the couch, dropped onto it.
“I made sure the place was locked up tight,” Gage added. “That’s the end of it. They won’t worry you like that again.”
Eyes closing, she rested her head against