Sandover Beach Melodies: Sandover Island Sweet Romance, #3

By Emma St. Clair

She broke her own rules: you can't fall in love when you're on the run...

 

Sandover Island seems like the perfect place for Mercer to escape her past, but she knows it's only a matter of time until her past catches up to her. She isn't safe, not even in Beau's strong arms, as tempting as they are.

 

The harder Beau pushes at Mercer's walls, the stronger they seem to be. She gives him an inch, then steps back a mile. He knows she's worth the fight, if only she will give him her trust. 

 

Just as Mercer finally begins to give in, the truth of her past barrels into her present. The question isn't whether their love will survive, but will Mercer… 

 

Sandover Beach Melodies is the third in an interconnected series of Christian romances following a group of friends on a small-town beach island. Welcome to Sandover!

 

Trigger warning: This book deals with the topic of past domestic abuse, with little graphic detail.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma St. Clair
• Release date: Apr 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393719762

Book preview

Chapter One

Mercer sat bolt upright in bed, screaming. The sheets tangled around her legs and she kicked her legs, pushing away. She had to move. He was coming! She rolled out of bed, hitting the floor with a thud. The contact shook her fully awake.

The nightmare fell away, but left her panting. Mercer was not at Jeff’s house in Greensboro anymore, but on Sandover Island in her garage apartment. Jeff wasn’t here. He didn’t know where she was and was not coming to find her.

Yet.

She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her forehead on them, trying to calm her breathing. It didn’t get easier, not after six months. The nightmares were less frequent, but no less terrifying. Tears wet her cheeks and her T-shirt was drenched in sweat. There was a gentle knock on the door.

Mercer? You okay? I thought I heard screaming.

So, she wasn’t quite alone. Emily had moved in just a few days before and Mercer kept forgetting she had a roommate. She cleared her throat, hoping her voice would stay steady. Just a bad dream. I’m sorry if I woke you.

She hadn’t thought about the nightmares when she invited Emily to rent out the second bedroom. The apartment was small and the walls were thin. This wasn’t the first nightmare since Emily moved in, but it was the first one Mercer had woken from this badly. Usually she just panted in quiet, frozen terror until the fear died down.

No worries. I was up. Need anything?

Nope. Thanks.

Mercer heard Emily’s door close. Muffled music started up again behind it. The bathroom separated the two bedrooms thankfully, because Emily didn’t seem to sleep. At least, not much. Between her music and Mercer’s bad dreams, nights were becoming a lot more active around here. A regular party, she thought darkly.

Groaning softly, Mercer got up and stretched her arms above her head. It was just after two in the morning. Way too early to get up for the day. But once she had one nightmare, going back to sleep usually meant more followed. Normally she watched something on TV. If she fell asleep with a show or movie on, her body tended to stay out of the REM cycle. If she did that now, she would have to explain to Emily. Having a roommate was going to be tricky.

Mercer began to move through a series of stretches. She didn’t turn on the light, just in case Emily came back out. There was enough moonlight filtering through the blinds for Mercer to see the rug in front of her. Her fingers itched to play guitar, to feel the bite of the strings against her fingertips. After not being able to play for a few years, her calluses were still building up. She did her best song-writing in the middle of the night. Or, at least, she had.

What was she thinking inviting Emily to live with her?

For the past six months, she’d built a quiet life on Sandover Island. A private life. She had a group of friends but had managed to keep them on the surface. She adored her boss, Jackson, and had just started to get to know his fiancée, Jenna. Jackson had invited her to church, where she met his friends Beau and Jimmy and Cash. The four musketeers, as Mercer sometimes thought of them.

It wasn’t lost on Mercer that most of the people she knew here were guys. When she left Greensboro, she never thought she would get close to a man ever again. Maybe not women either. But the people she met on Sandover were kind and honest. Refreshing. Her past hadn’t given her much confidence that these kinds of people existed in the world. Mercer thought she could just exist on her own, building a solitary—and thereby safe—life.

God, apparently, had other plans. Now she had Emily, who still felt very new but felt like a battering ram against Mercer’s walls. Emily didn’t seem to care about things like personal space or privacy. Not a bit. The more she pushed, though, the more Mercer felt herself wanting to just let go. Maybe it was time to start actually trusting the people around her. The thought made her mouth go dry. Because when it came to trusting the people around her, there was one person she desperately wanted to open herself up to.

Beau had been pressing at her boundaries for months now. With a lot more patience and finesse than Emily, but then, if he had tried it Emily’s way, Mercer would have run without looking back. Instead, Beau gained her trust with his warm smile, kind eyes, and willingness to let friendship unfold slowly. Though she suspected he might want more. Hoped, really. Mercer wanted more, a realization that shocked her when his first smile sent her heart into overdrive. As much as the idea of a relationship after Jeff scared her, being around Beau woke things in her she never thought she’d feel again.

It was getting harder to keep up her walls. Mercer constantly reminded herself that they were for her own safety, as well as Beau’s. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get to know the handsome, funny, and trustworthy firefighter. In a perfect world, she and Beau would already be dating. If she had listed the qualities she wanted in a guy and plugged them into some kind of matchmaking app, it would have come up with Beau. She had trouble understanding why he was still single, or why he might still be interested in her.

Once he knew her history, he probably wouldn’t be. Whenever she remembered that, it sobered her and helped her keep Beau at arm’s length. He was too good for her, that much she knew. Probably on their very first date he would ask one question about her past and then bolt from the table. If she was honest, anyway. And to keep herself safe, most of the things she shared with people, including her name, were lies.

That’s why she had silent arguments with her heart, telling it to stop speeding up when she saw him. It wasn’t working. Her heart didn’t care for logic. It cared about the way Beau’s eyes lit up when he saw her and the way his smile tilted up just a little more on his right side. She loved his broad, strong shoulders and the way the muscles in his arms made his sleeves so tight. Her heart fluttered at the way he always spoke so sweetly, trying to draw her into conversations, always interested in what she thought. Even when she did her best not to say much. Her heart seemed to have forgotten Jeff and how that ended.

Mercer feared any day now Beau was going to ask her out and she would say yes. Everything in her wanted that. Everything except her fear. The fear is what had kept her safe, so she had to listen to it. Not her heart. Fear had become like logic to her. It kept her protected and safe. She had to trust it.

Mercer moved into a cobra pose, pushing her chest off the ground and arching her back. The stretches were a combination of yoga and martial arts warmups she’d learned watching YouTube. Before she left Greensboro, she wouldn’t have been able to take any classes and there were very few options On Island. She felt strong now. Stronger, at least. Enough to defend herself against Jeff? No. But hopefully he’d never come, at least, not outside of her nightmares. There, he came for her almost every single night. She would never be strong enough in her dreams or fast enough to run away.

The music from Emily’s room became louder and clearer suddenly. She must have opened the door. Mercer moved silently into downward dog, seeing the shadow of Emily’s feet move past the door to the kitchen and living area. Did she ever sleep? Any time Mercer woke up, there was a light on or music playing faintly. That couldn’t be her normal reality, but after just a few days living together, it seemed to be.

Mercer slowly stood, raising her arms above her head. Even stretching made her break out in a light sweat. The AC in the garage apartment was the only downside. It didn’t ever seem to fully cool things down. Jeff had been one who liked to keep the air on arctic levels, so even in summer, Mercer had to sleep in sweatshirts. At first, she had loved never being cold in the apartment. Heat felt like freedom. But now that it was approaching summer, her first one here on the island, Mercer wasn’t sure she’d keep feeling that way.

Forget pretending to sleep. Mercer threw open her door and walked out into the main room of the apartment, a living room and kitchen combination. It wasn’t even big enough for an actual table, but there were three stools along the kitchen island. Emily looked up in surprise. She was making a sandwich. Oh, hey! Couldn’t get back to sleep?

Mercer shook her head and filled a glass. No point in hiding this. Nope. I should have warned you. I get nightmares. Sleep doesn’t really work well for me.

Well, if you’re ever up late and want to hang out, I’m game. I don’t sleep much normally and right now I’m too hyped up with all the big life changes. My brain won’t turn off. Want to watch a movie or a show?

Sure.

Cool. Can I get you a sandwich? I’m making grilled goat cheese and tomato.

Mercer’s stomach answered for her, grumbling loudly. They both laughed. I guess that’s a yes on the sandwich. Thanks.

She sat down on one of the stools, watching Emily slice tomatoes. When she moved in, she hardly had more boxes than Mercer had when she left. One of the only things Emily added to the kitchen was a fancy coffee maker and the panini press. Mercer had to ask what it was. It seemed like an odd thing to bring when you had very few possessions, but when Emily handed her the grilled sandwich on a plate, she could totally understand. It elevated sandwiches to something totally amazing. Mercer had grown up bouncing from foster home to foster home. She couldn’t remember anyone ever making her a grilled cheese. This felt like an indulgence.

This is my version of cooking, Emily said, sitting down on the stool next to Mercer. Fancy sandwiches. You can never go wrong. A good cheese and nice slice of bread and—boom!

Boom is right. This is amazing. Mercer licked tomato juice that was running down her wrist.

I know we didn’t really talk about duties and such, so I don’t know if you wanted to cook separately or cook together or split groceries. I don’t want to assume.

I hadn’t thought about it. I’ve never had a roommate before.

The words were out of her mouth before she realized the lie. She’d never had a real roommate before. Various foster siblings didn’t really count. Neither did living with Jeff. Though at first the arrangement was supposed to be more like roommates, it turned quickly into something awful. He had been more like a prison guard. Mercer didn’t get to decide things like how to handle grocery shopping. He told her what to do and she did it. Or dealt with the consequences.

Technically speaking, though, he had been her roommate. Now she had told another lie. Guilt and shame rose in her throat as tears stung her eyes.

Mercer hated lying. She hated it almost as much as she hated the life she had before this one. With every lie she told in her new life, Mercer added another brick to the wall between her and other people. The thing with her lies, though, was that the bricks weren’t attached with mortar. They were just stacked. Her walls weren’t structurally sound. When one lie was discovered, it would be like pulling a brick out from the wall, and the whole thing would collapse. One day, she knew that her hastily bricked-up wall would come down, likely crushing her underneath the weight of her lies.

Emily spoke around a bite of sandwich, not noticing Mercer’s internal panic. I lived in an apartment with a bunch of models in New York City the size of this kitchen. If we didn’t all kill each other, you and I will be great. I did pick up a few tips. Like, it’s good to manage expectations about basic things. Those are the ones that cause the conflict usually. Things like whether you share food, or you only eat what you buy. Who takes out the trash and cleans the bathroom. Whether it’s okay to leave dishes in the sink or not. Dumb small stuff becomes huge over time.

I can see that. She really could. Dishes left in the sink—hers or Jeff’s—meant an open-handed slap. Clothes on the bedroom floor would have been a hard shove. Eating food when Jeff wasn’t home hadn’t been a problem. He had simply installed locks on the pantry and fridge. Her stomach had shrunk to the point that after she left, it took almost a month to start eating more than one meal a day. He’d even put in cameras to watch what she did when he wasn’t home. There was even a livestream set up, so he could be watching her at any moment from his fancy law office. The terror had been constant. The rules were largely unwritten. She discovered them when she broke them and faced the consequences.

Mercer swallowed thickly. The sandwich wasn’t going to go down. She pushed away the plate and picked up her water, draining the cup in a few long swallows.

Was the sandwich not okay?

It was great. I guess I’m just not as hungry as I thought. She stared down at her fingernails, clipped short. They dug into the fretboard when she played guitar otherwise. Some guitarists kept them long, at least on the right hand for finger-picking. Mercer used her fingertips for picking. The sound had less clarity, but she preferred it. Her songs that used picking were more subdued and the softer sound fit better anyway.

So, you’d be okay if I printed up a basic list of tasks and expectations? I promise I’m not trying to be super fixated on this. I do tend to be more on the neat side. Except my car. It’s a disaster. Don’t ask me to explain my inconsistencies. Anyway, I’d just prefer to head problems off before they start. I like you. I don’t want to mess this up.

Mercer glanced at Emily, then away. She didn’t want Emily to know how much it meant to hear those simple words: I like you. For normal people, that was a small thing. Mercer couldn’t find the words to say it back. Embarrassing. This was just friendship. How could she ever handle a relationship again, saying I love you if she couldn’t tell a friend I like you.

You won’t screw it up. I like the idea of a list, thanks.

That seemed to be enough. Emily nodded, then took both the plates into the kitchen. Tossing the rest of Mercer’s sandwich, she rinsed the plates and put them both in the dishwasher. Too bad we don’t have a dog.

Huh?

A dog. Just to clean the plates. It was a silly thought. Emily waved her hand dismissively.

But Mercer’s brain caught on that idea. A dog. One of her foster families had a dog, a giant white one. Fluffy and huggable. He’d slept at her feet in the bed, at least until the woman—Mercer refused to call her mother, even with the foster label in front of it—realized the dog had been sleeping there. That ended that. A few weeks later, she had been put back in the system. She’d missed the dog more than any of the foster families she ever had.

What kind was it? She racked her brain. A Great Pyrenees—that was it. She had looked it up one time after she was on her own. Puppies were almost eight hundred dollars. There’s no way she could afford that. Jackson paid her well as the store manager, but Mercer needed to keep putting money away. One day she’d have to leave Sandover and needed to prepare. She thought that staying in North Carolina would be akin to hiding in plain sight. Surely, Jeff would assume she ran far and fast.

But it made her too nervous knowing he was only a few hours away. She wanted to have enough cash built up that she could have an easier time leaving than it had been six months ago. Without Jackson’s kindness in giving her a job and leasing her this apartment with zero references, she would have been in trouble. She had prayed for help. God answered in the form of Jackson and this island, but next time, she wanted to be more prepared.

Next time. She hated the thought. Especially sitting here companionly with Emily. Her roommate, her friend. She thought about Beau and what it would be like to have him hold a door to a restaurant for her on a date, putting a strong hand on her lower back as he followed her through. What if she didn’t need to run? What if she could stay?

Emily noticed Mercer’s long pause and her eyes widened. You’re seriously thinking about this.

She was. A dog felt more permanent. It felt like a statement to Jeff, saying that she wasn’t afraid. I think I’d like a dog.

Mercer hadn’t planned to say those words. They were true, but she wasn’t going to say them. Emily seemed to have that effect on her. She needed to do a better job keeping up her defenses. Whether she was doing it on purpose or not, Emily seemed to be wiggling her way right into Mercer’s life, skirting completely around the wall she’d built. Or maybe she was bulldozing it. Mercer definitely was cracking.

Emily bounced on her toes, but then her face fell. Can we, though? I mean, this is your place, so I haven’t seen the terms of the lease.

Mercer smiled. I think the landlord would be okay with it.

It’s Jackson, isn’t it?

Yep. We can ask him at work tomorrow. Mercer yawned. Maybe I’ll skip the movie after all.

Emily opened and shut a few cabinets, as though taking stock of what Mercer had. It wasn’t much. Some dishes. A cheap set of silverware, a few basic pots and pans. The fridge usually held condiments, milk that might be out of date, and a bag of apples.

Probably a good idea. I don’t want to crash on my first day. You really think Jackson would be okay with us having a dog?

Jackson was serious about business, but he was a big softy otherwise. Mercer didn’t know his stance on pets, but he had not once said no to something she’d asked for. Not that she asked for a lot. Nervousness made her stomach tighten. I think so, but I mean. I’m not sure, actually. We’ll find out tomorrow.

"You’ll ask him, right? I couldn’t on my first day. We don’t have to do this.