Until Autumn Falls Read online

  With four loaves of lemon zucchini bread in the oven, Hilary turned her attention to making dinner. She liked to experiment with flavors and spices, and she’d seen a jerk chicken recipe on one of her favorite cooking shows.

  She sang along as she mixed together the onions, jalapeño peppers, nutmeg, brown sugar, and various other spices. Her heart felt light when unburdened by ex-boyfriends and her muscles weren’t so tight trying to keep her scars secret.

  By five, she had a plate of buttered zucchini bread and a steaming bowl of jasmine rice with her spicy jerk chicken on top. She settled in for a couple of hours of cooking shows, just like she usually did.

  All too soon, with her belly full and a repeat episode on the television, her thoughts made it back to Tripp. She wondered what he found so magical about fishing. Why the creatures under the sea got more of his attention than the women in Redwood Bay.

  Of course, she wouldn’t ask him either of those things. She wasn’t sure what she should ask him, and her mind circled around topics that would keep the attention off of her. As she contemplated the last few conversations she’d had with Tripp, she realized that they didn’t get along particularly well. He challenged her, and she pushed him.

  “You still like him,” she whispered to herself. She switched off the TV, dropped her empty dishes in the sink, and headed down the hall to her bedroom. Seven-thirty seemed like an insane bedtime, especially when the sun itself wouldn’t set for another three hours.

  She took a melatonin pill, hoping to trick her body into thinking it was time to sleep, and climbed between her sheets. Sleep took a long time to come, each moment filled with Tripp’s handsome face.

  Chapter Seven

  Tripp heard Jared come in and rolled over to check the time. Just after midnight. Honestly, Tripp was surprised Jared hadn’t moved in with his fiancée yet. Tripp had always liked Millie, and in his quest to support local businesses had commissioned several aprons from her. They came in handy for filleting fish or keeping his clothes clean when he stained furniture.

  He’d slept on and off for the past several hours, but as Jared’s footsteps passed and his bedroom door snicked closed, Tripp didn’t think he had a chance of dozing off again. He got up and went to his window, which faced west. Though his house sat too far inland to see the ocean, Tripp could see the moon. Three-quarters full and shining for all she was worth, the orb gleamed down at him, infusing him with white light.

  He rubbed his hands up and down his arms, wondering if he’d made a mistake by inviting Hilary onto his boat. The last woman he’d taken out on his trawler had ripped his heart out and left it bleeding on the pier. He certainly wasn’t interested in repeating that, not with someone who couldn’t easily leave town the way Erin had.

  “That breakup was as much your fault as Erin’s,” he said to his reflection in the window. He’d learned a lot about himself in that relationship, and some of it he hadn’t liked. He’d been working at taking more risks, working toward accomplishing his goals. If Erin could see him now, she wouldn’t call him a wash-up who had big plans with no way to back them up.

  Once she’d broken up with him and skipped town, he’d bought his uncle’s shop. Turned it into a furniture-making enterprise so he’d have work in the winter months and a fishing business to fulfill his dreams of owning boats and getting paid to spend time on them.

  Problem was, he’d achieved what he wanted. He’d given himself five years to turn a profit, and he’d done it in two. He needed new goals, but he couldn’t seem to come up with any. Last winter, when Jared moved back to town, Tripp had set a goal to create a sense of family with his cousins and his sister. But that had happened easily, with little effort on Tripp’s part. About that time, he realized how lonely he felt, and Jared moving in had helped with that a little bit.

  But as time went on, Tripp knew he wanted more than a cousin to come home to in the afternoon. He wanted a wife, a family, maybe a dog.

  Definitely need to get a dog, he thought. He’d heard dogs made great fishing companions, and he determined to look into getting one that weekend.

  With only a couple of hours until he needed to be at the pier, he packed his bag and a cooler of food, and headed across town.

  * * * *

  “Hello?” The feminine voice echoed through Tripp’s ears and bounced around in his brain. He wanted to wake up, but couldn’t.

  “Tripp?”

  He struggled to open his eyes, but everything beyond his sight remained dark. It wasn’t time to get up yet.

  “There you are.” The woman laughed, the sound delicious as it dove through him and ignited fire in his limbs. “Time to wake up.” Hilary’s light touch traveled up his arm to his shoulder. Her hair tickled his face. Her breath mingled with his.

  He reached for her, his new goal to kiss her until she moaned his name, but his arms swiped at empty air.

  “Tripp.” Not a question this time, and Tripp bolted into a seated position.

  Hilary’s curvy frame filled the doorway to his stateroom. She leaned her shoulder into it. “Are you awake?”

  “I am now.” He ran his fingers through his hair, the memory of her face so close to his wisping into cobwebs. “Sorry, I couldn’t sleep, so I came over to the boat and I guess I finally did doze off.” He reached for the lamp and switched it on, throwing light into the room and illuminating Hilary’s beautiful face.

  She looked timid, afraid. “I figured out how to get on the boat. That’s something, right?”

  “Sorry.” He stood and neared her. “I was planning to be waiting for you on the wharf.”

  She waved her hand, and in the small space, her fingers brushed against his chest. His breath seized; their eyes locked; a squeak escaped her glossed lips.

  “I brought you some bread.” She shoved it toward him, and he took it, the scent of lemons coming with it.

  “Thanks.”

  She laughed nervously. “It’s good. I may have eaten half a loaf last night by myself.”

  “You didn’t have to wear makeup,” he whispered. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to reach up and cradle her face. She wore a pair of tight jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, zipped all the way to her chin.

  “I wasn’t sure of nautical protocol.”

  He chuckled, the sound as foreign as it was welcome. “Middle of the night protocol dictates no makeup.” He wanted to see her fresh from bed, preferably his. A pin of panic pushed against his desires. He hadn’t woken up next to a woman in a very long time. Too long.

  Clearing his throat, he fell back a step. “If you’ll just go back through the galley, we’ll head back to the bow.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, her eyes trained on the floor, and stepped out of his doorway. She put her hands in her front pockets and pulled the fabric tight around her body, accentuating her narrow waist and the curve of her hips.

  Tripp swallowed hard but couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from her body. “That way,” he said when she reached a fork in the way. He set the bread on the counter in the galley. “Toward your right.”

  “That isn’t the way I came.”

  Tripp’s hand landed on her left ribcage and gently pushed her. She seemed to be a slab of ice, frozen to the floor, and she didn’t so much as move. Her chin dipped toward her shoulder, and Tripp ripped his hand from her body like her gaze had burned him.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “But the bow really is that way.”

  “What’s that way then?”

  “A couple of guest rooms. I take people out on week-long fishing expeditions. They stay down there. Jared and I bunk together in the stateroom and he does all the cooking.”

  “Give me a tour later?”

  “Absolutely.” He pointed to her right again. “Above deck that way.” By the time he stepped into the fresh air, his blood felt like someone had added a gallon of gasoline to his veins and struck a match.

  He busied himself getting the boat ready to cast of
f. Hilary’s eyes tracked him, and his fingers fumbled in places they never had before. After several minutes, he paused with his back to her and inhaled reason into his mind.

  So Hilary was on his boat. Didn’t mean she was Erin.

  “You okay?” Her hand came snaking over his shoulder and he turned toward her. A smile stole across his face, and with a tingle radiating through his chest, he tucked her into his side.

  “I’m okay now.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the floral, soapy scent of her hair. She laid her cheek against his chest, and everything in Tripp’s world righted itself. He wanted to hold her close in the early morning hours, kiss her when he came in off the ocean, make love to her before he fell asleep at night.

  He tightened his hand on her hip, his need to kiss her skyrocketing. Tripp tilted his head toward the stars, but they didn’t seem aligned. Still, he said, “You flirting with me so I’ll ask you out?”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t make me gut the fish.” She giggled and buried her face in his chest to muffle the sound.

  He encircled her in both of his arms and laughed quietly with her. “You have to do more than flirt to get out of gutting fish.”

  “What kind of more?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Tripp gazed down on her under the starlight. “Maybe answer some of my questions.” True fear passed through her eyes, but she nodded.

  “I want to, Tripp, I do.” Her chin wobbled and her eyes turned glassy. Tripp wanted to shelter her from her pain, her fear. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, wishing the contact could be skin to skin.

  He swiped his thumb along her cheekbone but it was dry. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can say ‘pass’ if you don’t want to answer.”

  “I’m scared.”

  With everything laid open between them, Tripp pressed his lips to her forehead, his eyes drifting closed with happiness. At least the happiest he’d felt in years. “Don’t be scared, Hil.” He stepped away to give himself room to breathe. “I love the early morning.” His voice sounded like he’d sanded his vocal cords. “It’s so peaceful.”

  They breathed together, and Tripp set the boat in motion. “We better get going. Those fish aren’t going to catch themselves.”

  The lapping water against the fenders filled the silent night, and Hilary didn’t go back to his stateroom to sleep. Tripp held his questions until he’d navigated to the spot where he’d mapped the halibut schools. “Come on back to the stern. Help me with the trawl.”

  Though Hilary looked like she could blow away in the wind, Tripp knew she possessed iron. Sure enough, she followed and helped him muscle the nets into the water.

  “Now what?”

  “Now we wait.”

  “There’s an awful lot of waiting while you’re fishing.”

  He cast her a sideways glance. “It’s the best time to think. There’s nothing like an awakening sky and the sound of ocean waves to clear your head.”

  “I like to go to the redwoods,” she said. “Sit there underneath them as they tower over me. They feel so powerful, and for a few minutes, I feel their strength too.”

  He nodded, hearing the wisdom in her words. “Hilary, if I asked you to dinner, would you go?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, nudging him with her shoulder. “I don’t eat dinner. Too late at night. I mean, I went to bed at seven-thirty last night so I could get up for this.”

  He grinned. “Lunch, then.”

  “Only if you let me cook for you.” Her hair flapped in the wind, and she tried to smooth it down.

  “I’m a terrible cook,” he confessed. “So if you want to cook for me, I’m not going to say no.”

  “It’s a date, then.” She ran the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip and gave him a smile. “When are you going to start with the hard questions?”

  He leaned against the railing of the boat and watched the white tips of the water as they caught the moonlight and threw it to the next wave. “Why don’t you tell me something you think will be hard to say?”

  “That’s not fair,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Everything’s hard for me to say.”

  “How about I start?”

  “Oh, Mister Perfect has something hard to tell me?”

  His chest tightened with an invisible band of pressure. “I’m not perfect.” He straightened and met her eye. Looked right at her. “I’m lonely.”

  Chapter Eight:

  Hilary blinked at Tripp, his words ringing in her ears. You make me feel less lonely. I like that.

  She still hadn’t responded. She didn’t quite know how.

  “Okay, your turn.” He resumed leaning on his elbows, those all-seeing eyes scanning the ocean.

  She didn’t even know where to start. She couldn’t just blurt out her secrets, and they certainly couldn’t be contained in only two words the way his had been.

  “I have an older brother,” she said. “He still lives in Miami. My mom and dad live there too.” Her voice echoed loudly in the quietness of the night. “I thought I’d never leave. I love Florida.”

  “Why did you?”

  She shivered, though the summer breeze wasn’t that cold and her jacket was zipped up tight. “I—I didn’t have a choice.”

  “But you chose to come to Redwood Bay.”

  “I didn’t know where I’d stay,” she said. “By the time I got here, I’d been on the road for months. I’d stay in a town for a month or so, but nothing felt right. When I got here, and I met you, I didn’t want to leave.”

  What she’d said looped in her mind. “I mean, that didn’t….” She shook her head. “You were nice to me when I got here. I’d…forgotten what it was like to have someone be nice to me.”

  Tripp slid his arm around her back and pulled her into his side. The warmth from his body seeped into hers, igniting her desire in under a second. “So I stayed. I learned how to sell fish, which was a dumb accident, by the way.”

  “What did you do in Miami?”

  “Nothing, my boyfriend—” Her voice suddenly stopped working. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Not even a squeak.

  Tripp gave her several seconds. Then several more. “You didn’t have a job in Miami?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you go to college?”

  Another shake no.

  “You literally did nothing?” He peered at her like a person couldn’t possibly fill all the hours in a day without a job, or going to school. When Hilary allowed herself to remember her life in Florida, she did realize how easy she’d had it.

  “I’d help my dad at the hotel sometimes.”

  “The hotel?”

  “He manages one in Miami. We lived on the top floor.”

  “Oh.” Tripp’s voice dripped with surprise. “I didn’t know people actually did that. Seems like something from a movie.” He glanced down at her. “People weren’t nice to you there?”

  “They were, before—”

  The pealing of a bell silenced her, sent her heart palpitating. As if confessing to Tripp that her boyfriend had attacked her and then spread rumors about her hadn’t already had her heart in fits.

  “We’ve got fish,” he said, striding toward the lines. “Grab some gloves. We gotta haul it in.”

  Hilary gladly traded the conversation for the salty spray and flopping fish. By the time they hauled in the catch and reset the trawl, the sun was starting to brighten the sky.

  Tripp reached for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “Thanks for coming fishing with me today,” he whispered.

  A thrill squirreled up her arm and down her back. She squeezed his fingers. “I don’t have to gut them, do I?”

  * * * *

  By the time they pulled into Tripp’s appointed spot on the wharf, he’d gutted and cleaned all the fish. She’d stood a few feet away as he moved through the catch like lightning. She probably would’ve been able to do one fish for every ten he did.

&n
bsp; He carried a cooler of ice to the pier and set it on his table. He tossed her a grin as he went back for the fish he’d layered in additional coolers. She waited at his stand to buy her catch for the day, a wad of cash in her hand.

  He looked at her with a blank stare. “You’re not paying today.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You caught it.”

  “I did not.”

  “Hilary—”

  “I didn’t pay for the gas, the ice, the nets, nothing.” She ground her teeth together and pushed the cash closer to him. “I need fifty pounds.”

  He pressed his palms on the table and leaned toward her, his muscles bulging with the movement. “Fine. But I’m paying for lunch.”

  She inched closer, the daring side of her she used to allow to surface coming out. “Of course you are. It’s a date.”

  He stepped back, a shocked look on his face. It quickly faded into satisfaction. “That’s right, it is. Where should I come pick you up?”

  “Oh, I was going to cook for you.”

  “You can do that tomorrow. Let’s go out today.”

  “Then I’ll be at home. I’ll text you if I won’t be.”

  “Sounds great. Noon?”

  “Sure.”

  He wrapped her fish and handed it to her. “See you then.”

  Hilary cradled her fish in both hands so she could carry it. Her convertible waited for her, and she may have added an extra swing to her hips as she walked away from Tripp. By the time noon rolled around, Hilary had delivered her lemon zucchini bread to Glenn and Nick, drunk a milkshake at Lucy’s, and swallowed as much of her chicken Caesar salad as she could stomach.

  She always ate before she went out with a man—at least she had while dating Dante. He expected her to be thin and flirty and invisible. She always had a drink in her hand, but she rarely tasted it. She never ate even if Dante ordered her something to eat.

  He ate, and he drank, and he did business. Her job was to look pretty. It had taken her months to discover that his “business” was drugs, and all the food he “bought” was actually free. Now she wished she’d eaten more.