Wilful Desire: Heart's Ease, #5

Chapter 1

The air was rancid with sweat—the kind of sweat only a mix of adrenaline and an honest-to-Jesus fear for your life could create. At moments like this, his body was hypersensitive. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, its descent toward his eye diverted by his dense eyebrow. He wanted to move. Wanted to face whatever was waiting beyond the closed door. But this wasn’t his show to run. Will Walsh focused on his commanding officer, waiting for the signal to move. 

The sound of gunfire from somewhere behind him did nothing to ease the tension, even with the call of clear a split-second later. Will closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his heart rate, then opened them slowly, allowing a false calm to wash over his body, relaxing too-taut muscles that needed to be ready to react.

Behind the door, that metal beast only four feet away, he heard the thunk of cargo being moved. They needed to break that sucker down now when they could be certain that at least one bastard didn’t have a semi-automatic trained on the door awaiting their arrival.

Dawe, his CO, locked eyes with him. A slight nod. The only sign he needed to hustle. 

His foot connected with the door, an intense kick he’d practised for this very task. He had long, thick legs, and it wasn’t far into his training for the Maritime Tactical Operations Group that Dawe had given Will’s legs their own nickname: Battering Rams. Still, one kick at the door barely moved it. Another. And another. On the fourth kick, it caved. 

With the balance of a lynx, he regained his footing and advanced. 

On the floor. Hands behind your back, he yelled. "Haut les mains!" he repeated. In the Caribbean, there was a good chance French was this guy’s native language. 

Will trained his C8 rifle on the lone occupant of the room as the man dropped to the ground, hands wrapping behind his head. A quick survey of the crates and Will knew their intel was right. There was enough coke in this room to fuel a hundred Wall Street wolves for a year. 

Clear, Dawe yelled. I’ll take him above deck. Go slow. Wait for backup before putting those rams to use again.

The rush of boarding the rickety fishing boat was wearing off. The initial part of boarding a vessel was an intense flurry of establishing command and control. You didn’t know if someone was going to start shooting the moment you came over the top. But it was searching below deck that was the real thrill. 

It always reminded him of playing spotlight when he was a kid. Other kids played the nighttime game in the woods around their houses. But Will had never played by the rules. Even then. Why hide in a droke of woods when there was a host of boats tied up to wharves all along the shore of Heart’s Ease? Soon his friends caught on, and the game became more secretive. Any of their parents would have lost their minds if they knew what the boys were up to. And one girl. Always that one girl. 

Will pulled his mind back to the present. No time for thinking about home now. For thinking about her. 

Hell, there was never a good time to think about her. 

Walsh. We need your skills here. Bouchard’s thick French-Canadian accent echoed from above. 

He peered down the hall. All clear down there, b’ys? Will hadn’t totally lost his Newfoundland accent in the twelve years he’d been in the Navy. 

We’re good, Johnson called back. 

Will slung his firearm over his shoulder and climbed the short few rungs to the deck. At the bow, three of his teammates had the crew on lockdown, their faces deadly calm, defying anyone to attempt to move. 

Bouchard waved him to the stern. 

I don’t need your rams, my friend, he said with a wicked grin. It’s your other gift that’s required.

Shit. 

It never failed. If there was fish on board, Will was the one who was going to have to deal with it. The first time they’d opened a hold of fish, three of the Navy’s finest, most elite, had puked all over the deck. Will had been the one to search and clear the hold. The stink of fish didn’t bother him. Especially in the cooler waters of the North Pacific where they’d initially trained. But in the heat of the Caribbean sun, even his guts rolled from time to time. 

Given the threadbare nets hanging limply overhead, and the number of roaches he’d seen scurry away below deck, he didn’t hold out much hope that the crew of this boat were career-minded, professional fishermen. Fishing was an excuse to be at sea. The drugs below were the real catch. 

He took a deep breath, pointed his gun at the hatch, and nodded for Bouchard to lift it open. It would surprise the shit out of him to find anyone down there, but desperation caused stupid people to lose what little sense they had. 

It was devoid of human life, but ripe with rotting fish, likely put there before the boat even left whatever hellhole it called home and ignored ever since.

I want your steak next time the mess fires up the grill, Will said.

Bouchard’s face was pale. "How can you even think of food with that nauséabond?"

It’s a gift, he said and lowered himself into the furnace of stench.

An audible squish broke the silence as he landed above his knees in snapper. He pitied whoever was doing laundry. 

Toss me down something to move this crap around with, he called up to Bouchard. 

Watch your head, his friend said, handing a shovel down to him. 

Slowly he stirred the fish around, looking for signs of hidden goods. Call it a sixth sense or penchant for lucky hunches, but he always trusted his gut, and this time he was certain he’d find something. Likely guns. Drug smugglers sometimes dabbled in gun-running. They’d store the weapons in watertight plastic. He’d know it when his shovel made contact. 

He tossed the fish around, jabbing the shovel through the slime and gills, waiting to strike the contraband. It should feel hard. Instead, he hit a soft, big mass. It felt like a big fish. Maybe a swordfish? A shark? Curiosity got the better of him, and he dug through the fish to see what it was. 

And then, Will Walsh did something he’d never done in all his years at sea. He threw up. Fell to his hands and knees and puked in a way he didn’t know possible. Less than a foot away from where he emptied his stomach was the bloated face of a woman. A woman who resembled Mae so closely she could have been her sister. 

Will wasn’t heading home to Heart’s Ease because of his grisly discovery. He wasn’t taking stress leave, even if his dreams were haunted by a bloated face with matted, curly black hair. Hair that struck too close to home. But it was good timing that his leave came a week after he’d boarded La Maria.

No one in his right mind left the tropical climate of the Caribbean in February for the winter mess of the North Atlantic. Unless you happened to have a mother who guilted you into coming home for the christening of your niece. 

It was a little over two years since Will had seen his family. Or anyone else in Heart’s Ease. He’d missed his sister’s wedding. He’d missed the birth of his first niece. And most importantly, he’d missed the funeral of Jerome Mercer. Yet another promise he’d made to Mae that he hadn’t managed to keep.

Mae Mercer. His first love. Hell, his only love. And his only regret. 

He didn’t think about her all the time. Certainly not daily. Maybe nightly. But he was a lonely man at sea. He couldn’t control where his thoughts went at lights out. 

Easing the gas pedal back to a respectable hundred and twenty, he saw the turn ahead for Route 80. He had about forty-five minutes to decide what he should do once he got home. No one knew he was coming. It was always best that way. Sometimes leave didn’t pan out. Other times, he didn’t pan out. Going home wasn’t easy for him. It was a reminder of his failure. One time he’d made it as far as Old Shop before turning around and going back to St. John’s. It had taken him two days to get up the guts to go home and face Mae. Face Jerome. But there was no Jerome now. And he had no idea if that made things better or worse. 

The way he saw it, there were three options. Go to the house he’d grown up in and surprise his parents. Go to Elsie’s and hide away in his cabin for a while. Or go to Mae and, well, who the hell ever knew how that would turn out? It was his fault. He couldn’t make up his mind what he wanted from her. 

Of course he wanted to touch her. He couldn’t be near her without wanting that. But the guilt of leaving her afterwards always sent him into a dark place. There was a time when he’d wanted her to reject him. Turn him away from her bed. But she never had. No matter how long Will had gone without calling or emailing. Or how they’d fought. No matter how mad she got, she never said no to his touch. But that was before he’d earned a first-class medal for asshattery. 

This time things were different. This time there would be no happy reunion. He had no idea what he’d do when their paths crossed. Scratch that. He had no idea what she’d do. She’d made it pretty clear the last time they’d spoken that as far as she was concerned, they were through. 

The problem was, even if the days of Will and Mae were long past, he still owed it to her to give his condolences. Would she accept them? Or was it too little, too late? 

Numbness started to set in. It always happened not long after he hit land and the civilian world. In the past, he relied on Mae to help him ease back. But he’d put the kibosh on that. 

There was only one thing he could do when he pulled into Heart’s Ease. He needed to talk to Elsie. 

Elsie. Thank God for his sister. She never pressured him. When he needed space, she knew it. Instinctively. She’d always had his back. Covered up all his screw-ups. Helped perpetuate the family myth that he was a good guy. 

He’d go to the inn first. Maybe his parents would be there. Then he’d fall into bed at the cabin with a roaring fire and wake up in the morning with a plan. Get his land legs back, and his civilian head screwed on tight before making any big decisions.

Chapter 2

Mae had a philosophy about fate. To be honest, she had a philosophy about a lot of things, but fate was one of the strongest. It was very simple. Shit happened. And there was no reason for it other than bad luck. Bad things didn’t happen to good people. Bad things weren’t a punishment. Bad things were as likely to happen as good things. There was a fifty-per-cent chance that anything in life was either going to go well, or it was going to implode. Because of this, Mae had no fear. There was no point in worrying about what-ifs. If the arse was going to fall out of ’er, then it would. But there was no point in not trying. Because the odds were as strong that it might actually work out.

This philosophy coming from Mae Mercer might have surprised the people of Heart’s Ease, who thought that she’d seen more than her fair share of bad luck. But they only knew of the circumstances around Mae’s life. They didn’t know all the good things that had happened to her as well. And she was more than content to leave it that way.

Take this moment. 

Someone who believed in fate might think there was a perfectly good reason why her pipes had frozen solid. A believer in fate would say it was a sign that she should finally get up the gumption to move out of Heart’s Ease. She didn’t have to live here anymore. There was nothing keeping her here. Money wasn’t an issue. She could go to St. John’s. Halifax. London. New York. Tokyo. But while she’d spent time contemplating moving, there was a small part of her heart that couldn’t do it. All the rational and convincing reasons to get out were no match for the flutter in her heart when she’d walk past the school and recall the time Will had professed his love for her the very first time. They were eight. 

But there was nothing memories of Will Walsh could do right now to fix this problem. 

She slammed the lid down on the well. What a weird world she lived in when a dry well was preferable to the reality of fifty feet of frozen copper pipes in the dead of winter. Ignoring the ice she knew lay hidden under the snow, she trounced back to the house, stamping the snow off her boots before marching to the small galley kitchen and grabbing every pot with a lid she could find. Her work was given a frustrated soundtrack by the old tomcat that had made it his mission in life to ensure Mae never forgot he was underfoot and ready to eat. 

I’ve had enough of demanding men in need of care, she said to the ginger tabby. One more peep out of you and you’re going back to wherever you came from.

Still, she made sure he didn’t escape when she left the house. It was starting to snow, and she didn’t want the old cat to freeze outside.

The drive from her place to Heart’s Ease took about five minutes, and it gave her time to think about where she could go to get some water. It was tempting to go back to her old house—the house she’d lived in her entire life until this past fall. But she didn’t want to go there now and bother the new family that had bought it for way more than it was worth. 

She’d have to suck it up and go to Martin’s and face the inevitable nagging. 

Maybe she’d get lucky, and he wouldn’t be home. He didn’t come home every day for lunch. A minute later she spotted his Corolla in the driveway. There was no help for it. Until she could get a plumber to jury-rig a makeshift pump from the well to the house, she needed water on hand.

Hello, Martin said, holding the door open for her as she balanced an armload of pots. Coming to make me lunch? He leaned in and kissed her cheek before lightening her load.

You wish, she said, suppressing the grimace that wanted to come out. Her days of cooking for any man were long over. I’m on a much more mundane mission.

She filled him in on her predicament and wasn’t surprised at all by the look of horror on his face.

I don’t know why you insist on staying there until you can get it in livable condition. You know you are welcome to stay here.

Welcome for now. Until everyone started talking about how the principal of the school was living with a single woman.

You’re not a single woman, he said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck.

I am a single woman, she said. Do you need me to explain it again?

He laughed. I’m not going to argue with you today. I’m too happy to see you. Seems like forever since I’ve seen you. How about I come out this evening and take a look at the well? And I’ll bring you more water. We’ve got some empty water jugs in the faculty room I can fill up and bring with me. The big twenty-litre ones.

How long was it since she’d spent a night with Martin? Long enough. There was no harm in it. As long as he didn’t get too attached. 

That would be nice. Any time after seven is good. I should be done work by then.

The editing business is going well?

She shrugged. It’s okay. 

Mae walked to the sink and began filling up the pots.

Are you okay? Martin laid a hand on her arm.

Fine. Just have a lot of things to get done today, and I didn’t need this delay.

How many clients do you have now?

Living a lie had its downsides. Mainly because when Martin asked about her work, she refused to talk about what she actually did and instead had to concoct stories about a fictional enterprise. 

A handful. It was always better to avoid specifics. But there are overlapping deadlines. 

That was the truth. There were always overlapping deadlines. She loved it. 

Then let’s get you back to it. The sooner you finish, the sooner we can enjoy our night.

God love Martin. He was too good to her. She wished she could love him. But that part of her heart was irreversibly broken. If she were a better woman, she’d leave him alone and let him find someone who deserved him. But she was lonely. And Martin was the only comfort she had on a cold winter’s night. 

Together, they loaded up a plastic bin with the pots and carried it out to the truck. Only a little water sloshed out. 

You sure this is enough? he said as he slammed the tailgate closed. 

She nodded. "It’s