Page 43 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
In the dim light of the moon shining through the portholes, cutting through the fog, she saw the full grief and exhaustion and something that looked dangerously close to tenderness in his eyes. “Didn’t I? Shade’s dead. My partner, my best friend. I told myself I could protect her. I couldn’t. And now you’re in this—his mess, my guilt—and I’m supposed to stand by and let you face Laurel Tide?”
Her throat tightened. “That’s not your choice to make.”
He gave a small, humorless laugh. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t tried to keep my distance? I lost that battle the moment you walked onto the docks. I wanted you gone because I never wanted to feel for anyone again. I don’t want family or friends or… you. But I can’t walk away now.”
She didn’t answer. The space between them pulsed with everything unsaid.
Then, without another word, Rone moved to the bed and lowered himself onto the edge. The mattress dipped under his weight. He patted the space beside him, his voice rougher now, quieter. “You should get some rest.”
For a long moment, she just stood there, torn between instinct and exhaustion. Then she gave in, not because she was weak, but because she was tired of being strong every second of her life. She climbed onto the bed, careful not to brush against him—but he didn’t make her keep her distance.
When her head hit the pillow, he shifted, stretching one arm along the headboard, the other resting lightly over the blanket between them. It was protective, not possessive. A gesture of promise, not claim.
Still, when the silence grew too long, when her pulsewouldn’t slow, she whispered, “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to protect me.”
He turned toward her then, and his hand found hers. His thumb brushed her knuckles, slow, steady. “Maybe not,” he said. “But I want to.”
Something in her chest splintered—hope, maybe. Or fear.
He hesitated, then lifted his hand, letting it trail up her arm until it settled lightly against her back. The warmth of him seeped through the thin fabric of her shirt, easing the chill that had burrowed deep in her bones.
She exhaled, a shaky breath that turned into something close to surrender. Then, with a small, uncertain movement, she curled into his side. His arm came around her, solid and sure, and she felt the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek.
The steady beat of his heart grounded her. His body heat pushed back the cold that had been sitting inside her since the shooting. When his fingers stroked slow circles along her side, her muscles finally began to loosen, her breathing to even out.
Her eyes fluttered closed—but before she drifted off, his lips brushed the crown of her head. It was barely a kiss, more breath than contact, but it sent a wave of warmth through her body, a pulse that had nothing to do with fear.
She longed to turn, to hold him, to forget the danger outside these thin walls and the monsters beyond. But then his voice came, rough and quiet in the dark.
“I can’t fail you,” he whispered. “I won’t let you take a bullet. It’s my turn to die.”
She wanted to tell him that love wasn’t armor, that he couldn’t keep the world at bay by sheer will. But the words tangled somewhere in her throat, lost to the quiet rhythm of his heartbeat under her ear.
And though she told herself she wouldn’t—couldn’t—trust that kind of closeness, she stayed right where she was.
The room seemed to shrink around them, the air too thick, too still. His breath stirred a strand of her hair against his chin, and that small, human thing unraveled the distance she’d tried to keep. When she finally looked up, his gaze was waiting—steady, unguarded, threaded through with something she didn’t dare name.
“Isobel,” he said, low, rough, like her name had edges that cut his throat on the way out.
Her heart stuttered. “Don’t,” she whispered, though her voice betrayed her, soft where it should have been steel.
“I’m trying not to,” he said. His hand lifted, hovering near her cheek but not quite touching, as if even that might break the fragile truce between them. “But you keep looking at me like you want me to fail.”
A shaky laugh escaped her, part disbelief, part longing. “And if you do?”
His answer came trembling between confession and prayer. “Then it’s already too late.”
She should’ve stopped him. Should’ve pulled away before his fingers brushed the side of her face, before his thumb traced the line of her jaw like it was something sacred. But the world outside had fallen away—no danger, no past, no lies. Just this moment, this man, and the truth neither of them wanted to face.
He leaned in, slow, giving her every chance to move. She didn’t.
His lips found hers—warm, careful, heartbreakingly gentle. The kiss wasn’t desperate; it was surrender. A promise they shouldn’t make and couldn’t keep.
For a breathless moment,Rone forgot the world.
Forgot the gunfire. The files. The lies. The tide that had carried them here.
Her lips were soft against his, hesitant at first, then searching, the kind of touch that asked for truth and forgiveness all at once. His hand slid to the back of her neck, feeling the tremor there, the pulse that matched his own. Every instinct that had been honed toward survival flared and twisted into something more dangerous—want.
