Page 3 of Forged By Sacrifice

We pulled into the beach house. It was still the teal color we’d painted it six years ago. On the wraparound porch, stood a woman way too tall to be Ava. Not that Ava was short, but this woman was close to six-foot, easy. My heart leaped into my throat at the sight of her. Georgie. I’d had a hell of a time getting her out of my head after we’d met in New York City two years ago. It had taken me almost a year not to compare every woman I met to her. You would have thought that she and I had had earth-shattering sex with the way my body had seemed to pine after her.

But none of that was true. Georgie had barely given me a second glance when we'd met, and it wasn’t the cold shoulder that had had me yearning for her. It had just been her. Tall. Stunning. Confident. She’d hit me like a meteor falling from the sky. The first time we’d met, she’d had short hair with purple spikes and eyes that were pale and lavender-tinted. The second time we’d met, her eyes had been such a deep blue that they’d almost been the twilight, and her hair had been longer and as dark as a black cat. She was as lean and coiled as a cat, too. I’d been starstruck and stuttered like a teen with a wet dream. It had been embarrassing.

On the deck, she stood tall and slim like before with her dark hair blowing in the breeze. I instantly wanted to know what color she was sporting in her eyes. My entire body leaned forward as if just waiting to feel the tension and desire that I’d felt each time I’d met her.

“What’s she doing here?” I asked, trying to mask the longing I felt with nonchalance—and failing.

Eli looked at me over the top of his dark sunglasses. “Be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

“Not that kind of nice, douchebag. She’s one of Ava’s best friends. We don’t need you messing with her.”

“I won’t mess with her. I’m just surprised she’s here. I didn’t expect it.”

“We didn’t either. She called a couple weeks ago and then showed up all waiflike, needing a place to stay while she got some things sorted.”

“Waiflike?” I teased.

“Don’t start with me.”

I opened the door and got out. When I risked looking back at the porch, Georgie was gone, and I felt oddly disappointed even though I knew she’d still be inside when we got to the top of the stairs.

I grabbed my bag and followed Eli into the house. I’d barely taken two steps through the door when Ava practically assaulted me with a hug that felt like a gorilla jumping into your arms. Eli had told me once that she’d hardly ever been hugged as a kid. Nowadays, it was like she was making up for it. I squeezed her back.

“Mac!” Her husky voice was always a surprise, even after all the years I’d known her. You expected a vibrant woman like Ava to have a littler voice, almost giddy like her energy levels.

“How the hel?heck are you?” I asked.

“I’m really good. Glad that everyone is going to be here for the Fourth of July.”

“Are we partying here or at the bar?”

After she’d graduated from Juilliard, Ava had bought a bar in downtown Rockport called The Salty Dog. It had taken the last of her inheritance, from what I gathered from Eli. But with the money she had coming in from her royalty checks for the songs she wrote for the chart-topping sensation Brady O’Neil, I didn’t think she needed to work at all. She just liked to keep busy. I couldn’t imagine Ava ever standing still for too long.

“We’re still working it all out. We’ve got time,” Ava said and stepped back. Eli’s hand went immediately to hers, like they had been apart for days instead of the minutes it had taken him to come get me at the marina.

“I can’t believe you sailed all the way from D.C. by yourself. Isn’t that some huge nautical no-no?” Ava asked, pulling Eli with her into the kitchen where they’d obviously been working on some kind of Mexican dish. A pitcher of margaritas stood, sparkling with condensation.

I set my bag down and risked looking around the open living space. No Georgie. My stomach lurched again. I sat down at the counter and poured myself a glass, hoping it would do something to calm the insane patter of my heart. Ridiculous. In the war room, I’d been in situations that would have made most people keel over, and yet here I was, wanting to hurl at the thought of seeing one woman again.

“Sailing by yourself isn’t very smart,” I replied with a shrug. “If something happens to you, who the hel?heck is going to pull you from the dink? But Dani didn’t want to leave D.C. for three weeks, and all my other sailing partners were otherwise engaged.” I waved the glass toward Eli.

“Wait. You asked Eli to join you?” Ava asked, knife halting midway through her murdering of a tomato.

“I did.”

Ava turned to him, knife coming dangerously close to his shoulder. “You didn’t tell me Mac asked you to come with him.”

“Seemed ridiculous for me to fly to D.C. only to sail back to my own damn house.”

“That isn’t what he told me.” I winked at Ava.

“What did he tell you?”

“He was darn sure not going to use up weeks of vacation time without you.”

“Eli!”

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