Read Online Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross - Free Book Online Page A

century ago?”
    “I can see that your work would make you cynical,” Nate allowed. “And granted, it does sound like an outrageous story. But it’s not fiction.”
    “I don’t know what game it is you’re playing here, Mr. Breslin—”
    “It’s Nate,” he reminded her. “We shared a lunch, which you didn’t finish. And you can deny it until doomsday, but we’re also somehow personally connected through the captain. I’d say that allows you to call me by my first name.”
    “I don’t want any connection with you, personal or otherwise.”
    “Hey.” He held up both hands as they reached the steps of the courthouse. “I didn’t ask the guy to put you in my dreams, okay? I’m just trying to figure out why.”
    “If he has done that—and I’m not admitting for a moment that I believe your crazy claim about his existence to be true—it’s not me who’s been appearing in your dreams.”
    Nate’s right brow rose in an unmistakable sign of irritation. “I suppose you have a better explanation for that sketch? A drawing I did before I’d ever met you?”
    “I can’t explain what possessed you to draw it in the first place,” Tess admitted reluctantly.
    “Now we’re getting somewhere. So you’re willing to admit that some indefinable force is responsible?”
    “No.” Tess shook her head. “As I said, I’ve no idea why you drew it. But whatever the reason, you’re way off base.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “ You’re the one with the vivid imagination,” she tossed back as she started up the stone steps of the courthouse. “You figure it out.”
    Nate frowned, not wanting to let her get away quite yet but knowing he had no choice. How cooperative would Tess be if he made her late for court? Not very. In fact, considering how seriously she took her work, she’d probably never speak to him again.
    But, dammit, he’d been right. She knew. Somehow, in some unfathomable way, he and Tess Lombardi were mysteriously linked. And the captain, as he had suspected all along, was the key.
    Just as he was trying to figure out his next move, Tess appeared to take pity on him.
    “The sketch is of my great-great-grandmother,” she informed him over her shoulder. “So if your dreams have honestly been haunted by a Lombardi, it’s Isabella, not me.”
    As she turned away again, Nate watched her with a mixture of lingering irritation and masculine appreciation. She might act like the Marine drill sergeant he’d suffered under for all those weeks of basic training after he graduated from college, but Tess Lombardi had the best legs of any woman he’d ever met.
    “You may think you’ve had the last word, Counselor,” he murmured. “But believe me, lady, we’ve only just begun.”
    Nate was smiling as he left Portland and drove back to Shelter Bay. Tess might have been right when she’d suggested it was her ancestor who’d been playing a starring role in his dreams night after night.
    But now that he’d met Isabella’s intriguing great-great-granddaughter, if the woman thought he was going to simply write the entire experience off as a case of mistaken identity, she wasn’t nearly as intelligent as he’d already determined her to be.
    Oh, no. He and Tess Lombardi weren’t finished yet, Nate vowed.
    Not by a long shot.

12
    “Traitor.”
    Alexis glanced up at Tess, her expression giving nothing away. “I heard things went well in court today. Congratulations.”
    Tess leaned forward, resting her hands on the surface of her friend’s desk. “You conspired with Nate Breslin to trick me into lunch.”
    “Ah. I take it he caught up with you?”
    “He did,” Tess muttered.
    “You don’t sound particularly pleased. You can’t tell me the food wasn’t great.”
    “The food was excellent, as always. It was the company that left a great deal to be desired.”
    Alexis began straightening the correspondence in her out basket. “That’s odd,” she murmured. “Nate is usually a