Allie brushed Bri’s arm with her fingertips. “You make me crazy hot, you know.”

Bri said nothing.

“When you wouldn’t touch me last night, I thought I was going to die.” Her voice was husky, her eyes slightly glazed. “I had to make myself come. I couldn’t help it.”

Bri looked away. Her heart hammered wildly.

“Did you hear me?”

“No,” Bri rasped, her stomach clenched so tight it hurt.

“It only took one touch. I imagined it was your mouth.” Allie drew a trembling breath. “I came so hard…”

Bri sat up suddenly and swung her legs outside the bed. She was shaking. Hoarsely, she said, “I gotta go. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Next time, though,” Allie rested a palm on the center of Bri’s bare back, “I want it to be you for real when I come.”

Reese came quietly down the stairs, mindful of the blanket-wrapped figure on the sofa. Moving carefully, she crossed to the kitchen and slowly began to assemble the coffeemaker.

“Can I help?” a soft voice asked from behind her.

Turning with a smile, Reese shook her head. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No.” Caroline’s eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and too-recent tears. “Is Tory up?”

“Not yet. She’s sleeping in.” Reese pulled coffee from the refrigerator and unwrapped the bag. “I finally talked her into working only a half-day on Saturday. She’s going in this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry that I showed up unannounced last night,” Caroline said in a small voice. She slid onto the stool and propped her elbows on the counter, resting her chin in both hands. “I didn’t think I could make it all the way back to Manhattan, and I didn’t know where else to go.”

Reese stopped what she was doing and came around to take a seat next to the young blond. “Don’t apologize. I’m glad that you came. You can always come here.”

“Bri’s staying here, too, isn’t she?”

Surprised, Reese nodded. “How did you know?”

“Her motorcycle jacket is on the coat tree.” Caroline’s voice caught on the next words. “She never gets very far away from that. I…” Quickly, she turned away as the tears she thought she had finally exhausted began again. In a whisper, she murmured, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Reese waited, wanting to touch her but uncertain if she should, desperately trying to fathom what had happened. Bri had cut out right after their shift ended the night before—said she was headed to Barnstable for a class get-together. She’d never mentioned Caroline was coming in for it. And then Caroline showed up in the middle of the night here, clearly shaken and having been crying. When she’d said she didn’t want to talk, they’d put her on the couch and gone back to bed. What the hell is going on?

Softly Reese asked, “Where’s Bri?”

Caroline shook her head, keeping her face turned away. “I don’t know.”

“What’s going on with you two?”

“Everything has turned upside down in the last four months. I didn’t even realize Bri was unhappy. Maybe I should have,” Caroline said shakily.

“She didn’t say anything?”

“She hardly ever does. She’s always been…she keeps things inside.”

“You knew she wanted to be a police officer, though, right?”

“Yes,” Caroline replied. “I just thought it would be later. We both thought school in New York would be so great.”

“Maybe she did, too, at first. Maybe it took leaving here to realize that this is where she belonged.”

“I thought we belonged together,” Caroline said sadly. Her eyes were liquid with more tears, but she stubbornly held them back.

Reese blew out a breath and wished desperately that Tory were there instead of her. She was certain there were things she should be saying, or something that she should be doing. “She must have thought that leaving New York when she did was the right thing to do.”

“How could that be? How could it be better for us not to be together?”

Caroline’s voice was agonized, her confusion so clear that Reese’s insides twisted. She sighed and rubbed her face with both hands, searching for a way to explain something she didn’t fully understand herself. “If I were Bri,” Reese began as she struggled to put words to the emotions, “I would want to feel like I deserved you. I would want to feel like…you could be proud of me.”

“I’ve always been proud of her,” Caroline said, startled. “She’s strong and brave and…” the image of Bri with the strange woman the night before flickered into her mind. It was so painful that she lost her voice.

“Maybe,” Reese added quietly, “she can’t believe that you could be proud unless she’s proud of herself.”

They stared at one another silently until Reese grinned ruefully. “I’m not too good at this, am I?”

“I think you’re wonderful,” Caroline whispered.

“Look, maybe I can…talk to her.”

“No.” Caroline rested her fingertips on Reese’s knee. “Thank you. Really. But I need to talk to her.”

“She should be back soon. She’s got a shift coming up later this afternoon.”

“Maybe she’s busy,” Caroline said softly, wondering as she had been throughout all the sleepless hours, where Bri had spent the night. Oh, what am I going to do? Maybe I’ve already lost her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It took Bri close to an hour to walk from Allie’s bungalow back to the Breakers and pick up her bike. It was just after ten in the morning when she reached Reese and Tory’s. As she sat straddling her bike, staring up at the house, Carre appeared at the top of the stairs leading down from the rear deck. Looking pale and wan, she wrapped her arms around her chest and stared at Bri.

After pocketing her keys, Bri quickly pulled off her helmet and dismounted. She was shaking, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with the lingering vibrations from the powerful engine and the ride down. Taking a deep breath, she walked up the path and climbed the stairs. She stopped one step below Carre, putting them at eye level, and whispered, “Hey, babe.”

“Hi, baby.”

They stared at one another, a foot of space between them, a million unsaid words and a thousand unhealed hurts keeping them apart.

“You look like hell,” Caroline murmured.

“I feel like that, too.” Bri stuffed her hands in her pockets because she wanted to touch her so much.

Caroline looked away, swallowing hard. “Let’s go someplace so we can talk.”

Ten minutes later, Bri slowed and brought the bike to a halt at the far end of the parking lot at Race Point. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but the two of them didn’t walk toward the marked trail toward the beach, but headed instead down a narrow path that lead toward the lighthouse. Ordinarily, they would have held hands, but this time they walked side by side in silence. When they reached the lighthouse, they climbed around to the far side and settled with their back against the wall, close together but not touching. The dunes spread out along the wild coast below and the ocean filled their view.

“I don’t understand what’s happening with us, Bri,” Caroline finally said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to leave school? Why didn’t you talk to me about it first?”

Bri stared straight ahead, unblinking, until the tears that trembled on her lashes were carried away on the wind. Her voice was low as she answered. “I was afraid you’d talk me out of it.”

“I might have tried,” Caroline said with a shaky laugh. “You could have waited until the fall, when I…left for France. We could have had all this time together.”

“I had to do it now.”

“Why?” Caroline asked vehemently. “I don’t understand why.”

“Because I was afraid once you left I wouldn’t be able to do it.” Bri’s voice was harsh, wild.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m afraid when you leave I’m going to…” suddenly, Bri put her head down on her knees and laced the fingers of both hands behind her neck. Her words were nearly lost in the rush of air that blew off the ocean. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything without you.”

“Oh, baby,” Caroline murmured, putting her arm around Bri’s shoulders. “You can. You can do anything.”

“Not without you.”

“But I’m not leaving you.”

Bri’s head jerked up and her eyes met Caroline’s. “You don’t know that!”

Shocked, Caroline stared at her. Her first instinct was to protest, because it was unthinkable. But then she realized that Bri didn’t know that, didn’t believe that. “I love you. I have never loved anyone but you. I don’t care how long I’m gone, or how far away from me you go. I am not going to stop loving you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bri exclaimed.

“No? Where were you last night?”

Bri blinked and her blue eyes darkened. “Jesus, Carre.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Caroline asked, her voice a strangled whisper.

“I…” She wanted to make the truth disappear. She wanted the night to do over again. She wanted not to have felt what she felt. “Almost.”

“Oh Bri,” Caroline moaned. “Oh, god.”

“Carre—”

Caroline got unsteadily to her feet. She moved a short distance away and stopped, her back to the wall of the stark white tower, holding herself with her arms around her body, trembling in the chill sea breeze. “I can’t…I can’t even think about it right now. Take me back to Tory’s.”

Bri finally found her voice and jumped to her feet. “Carre. I didn’t. “

“I saw you, Bri,” Caroline said softly. “I know you wanted to.”

“I don’t know how that happened. I didn’t go there meaning for it to happen. I was…lonely.”

“I’ve been lonely, too. And I wasn’t the one who left.”

Heart sinking, Bri watched Caroline turn and start up the path that led back to the parking lot. For a moment, she considered not going after her. Maybe if they never left this spot, they could turn back time to that magical moment four years before, when a simple kiss had turned on a light in the darkness of her despair.