Page 56 of Sea Swept (Chesapeake Bay Saga 1)

"I'm not joking. I was thinking two with an option for three." His mouth quirked at the look of blank-eyed shock on her face. "There, now you're getting scared because you're beginning to realize I'm serious."

"You—you're going back to Rome, or wherever, as soon as you can."

"We can go to Rome, or wherever, on our honeymoon. We're not taking the kid. I draw the line there. I might like to get in a couple of races from time to time. Just to keep my hand in. But basically I'm in the boat building business. Of course, it might go belly-up. Then you'd be stuck with a househusband who really hates housework."

She wanted to press her fingers to her temples, but he still had her by the arms. "I can't think."

"Good. Just listen. You cut a hole in me when you left, Anna. I wouldn't admit it, but it was there. Big and empty."

He rested his brow on hers for a moment. "You know what I did today? I worked on building a boat. And it felt good. I came home, the only home I've ever had, and it felt right. Had a family meeting and decided that we'd take on the insurance company and do what's right for our father. By the way, I've been talking to him."

She couldn't stop staring at him, even though her head was reeling. "What? Who?"

"My father. Had some conversations with him—three of them—since he died. He looks good."

Her breath was clogged right at the base of her throat. "Cam."

"Yeah, yeah," he said with a quick grin. "I need counseling. We can talk about that later—didn't mean to get off the track. I was telling you what I did today, right?"

Very slowly she nodded. "Yes."

"Okay, after the meeting, Phil made some smart remark, so I punched him, and we beat on each other for a bit. That felt good too. Then I talked to Seth about the things I should have talked to him about before, and I listened to him the way I should have listened before, then we just sat for a while. That felt good, Anna, and it felt right."

Her lips curved. "I'm glad."

"There's more. I knew when I was sitting there that that was where I wanted to be, needed to be. Only one thing was missing, and that was you. So I came to find you and take you back." He pressed his lips gently to her forehead. "To take you home, Anna."

"I think I want to sit down."

"No, I want your knees weak when I tell you I love you. Are you ready?"

"Oh, God."

"I've been real careful never to tell a woman I loved her—except my mother. I didn't tell her often enough.

Take a chance on me, Anna, and I'll tell you as often as you can stand hearing it."

She hitched in a breath. "I'm not getting married in Vegas."

"Spoilsport." He watched her lips bow up before he closed his over them. And the taste of her soothed every ache in his body and soul. "God, I missed you. Don't go away again."

"It brought you to your senses." She wrapped her arms tight around him. And it felt good, she thought giddily. It felt right. "Oh, Cam, I want to hear it, right now."

"I love you. It feels so damn perfect loving you. I can't believe I wasted so much time."

"Less than three months," she reminded him.

"Too much time. But we'll make it up."

"I want you to take me home," she murmured. "After."

He eased back, cocked his head. "After what?" Then he made her laugh by lifting her into his arms.

He picked his way through the wreckage, kicked a very sad-looking banana out of the way. "You know, I can't figure out why I used to think marriage would be boring."

"Ours won't be." She kissed his bruised head. It was still bleeding a little. "Promise."

Turn the page for a preview of

RISING TIDES

Nora Roberts's trilogy continues with a captivating new novel about the lives and loves of three brothers…

Months after their father's death, Ethan Quinn and his brothers were settled into the family home on Chesapeake Bay. But something kept Ethan from working through his grief: People were talking about the late Mighty Quinn—and his young son Seth. To honor the memory of the greatest man he ever knew, Ethan must clear his father's name once and for all…

"got us some nice peelers here, Cap'n." Jim Bodine culled crabs from the pot, tossing the marketable catch in the tank. He didn't mind the snapping claws—and had the scars on his thick hands to prove it. He wore the traditional gloves of his profession, but as any waterman could tell you, they wore out quick. And if there was a hole in them, by God, a crab would find it

He worked steadily, his legs braced apart for balance on the rocking boat, his dark eyes squinting in a face weathered with age and sun and living. He might have been taken for fifty or eighty, and Jim didn't much care which end you stuck him in.

He always called Ethan "Cap'n," and rarely said more than one declarative sentence at a time.

Ethan altered course toward the next pot, his right hand nudging the steering stick most watermen used rather than a wheel. At the same time, he nudged the throttle and gear levels with his left hand. There were constant small adjustments to be made with every foot of progress up the line of traps.

The Chesapeake Bay could be generous when she chose, but she liked to be tricky and make you work for it.

Ethan knew the Bay as well as he knew himself. Often he thought he knew it better—the fickle moods and movements of the continent's largest estuary. For two hundred miles it flowed from north to south, yet it measured only four miles across where it brushed by Annapolis and thirty at the mouth of the Potomac River. St. Christopher sat snug on Maryland's southeastern shore, depending on its generosity, cursing its caprices.

Ethan's waters—his home waters—were edged with marshland, strung with flatland rivers with sharp shoulders that shimmered through thickets of gum and oak.

It was a world of tidal creeks and sudden shallows where wild celery and widgeongrass rooted.

It had become his world—with its changing seasons, sudden storms and always, always, the sounds and scents of the water.

Timing it, Ethan grabbed his gaffing pole and, in a practiced motion as smooth as a dance, hooked the pot line and drew it into the pot puller.

In seconds, the pot rose out of the water, streaming with weeds and pieces of old bait, and crowded with crabs.

He saw the bright-red pinchers of the full-grown females, or sooks, and the scowling eyes of Jimmies.

"Right smart bunch of crabs," was all Jim had to say as he went to work, heaving the pot onboard as if it weighed ounces rather than pounds.

The water was rough

today, and Ethan could smell a storm coming in. He worked the controls with his knees when he needed his hands for other work, and he eyed the clouds beginning to boil together in the far western sky.

Time enough, he judged, to move down the line of traps in the gut of the Bay and see how many more crabs had crawled into the pots. He knew Jim was hurting some for cash—and he needed all he could come by himself in order to keep afloat the fledgling boat building business he and his brothers had started.

Time enough, he thought again, as Jim rebaited a pot with thawing fish parts and tossed it overboard. In leapfrog fashion, Ethan gaffed the next buoy.

Ethan's sleek Chesapeake Bay retriever, Simon, stood with his front paws on the gunwhale, tongue lolling. Like his master, he was rarely happier than when out on the water.

The men worked in tandem, and in near silence, communicating with grunts, shrugs and the occasional oath. The work was a comfort, since the crabs were plentiful. There were years when they weren't, years when it seemed the winter had killed them off or that the waters would never warm enough to tempt them to swim.

In those years, the waterman suffered—unless he had another source of income. Ethan intended to have one building boats.

The first boat by Quinn was nearly finished. And a little beauty it was, Ethan thought. Cameron had another client on the line—some rich guy from Cam's racing days—so they would start another before long. Ethan never doubted that his brother would reel the money in.

They'd do it, he told himself, however doubtful and full of complaints Philip was.

He glanced up at the sun and the clouds sailing slowly, steadily eastward, and gauged the time.

"We'll take them in, Jim."

They'd been eight hours on the water, a short day, but Jim didn't complain. He knew it wasn't so much the oncoming storm that had Ethan piloting the boat back up the gut. "Boy's home from school by now," he said.

"Yeah." And though Seth was self-sufficient enough to stay home alone for a time in the afternoon, Ethan didn't like to dare fate. A boy of ten, with Seth's temperament, was a magnet for trouble.

When Cam returned from Europe in a couple weeks, they'd juggle Seth between them. But for now the boy was Ethan's responsibility.

The water in the Bay kicked, turning gunmetal-gray now to mirror the sky, but neither the men nor the dog worried about the rocky ride as the boat crept up the steep fronts of the waves then slid back down in the troughs. Simon stood at the bow now, head lifted, the wind blowing his ears back, grinning his doggie grin. Ethan had built the workboat himself, and knew she would do. As confident as the dog, Jim moved to the protection of the awning, and cupped his hands to light a cigarette.

The waterfront of St. Chris was alive with tourists. The early days of June lured them out of the city, tempted them to drive from the suburbs of D.C. and Baltimore. He imagined they thought of the little town of St. Christopher's as

---