Alyssa found the cabin easy enough. A sapphire hued beauty nested in a stunning little curve of private beach.

Unloading her things from the SUV, she hauled them in to the bedroom, set them down by the door and sighed. Swinging in to town, she'd picked up the required essentials for Cleo-cat food, litter box and dishes for food and water. Grateful to be out of the carry-on, Cleo stretched, walking along the back of the couch where she curled up, her tail flicking contentedly.

            Stroking a hand across her gorgeous pelt, Alyssa hefted a bag of groceries to the fridge and loaded in the essentials. pleased that the island offered an array of organic produce, she purchased local apples and blueberries, a few heads of kale, some ripe tomatoes, onions, garlic, a bag of milk, stick of butter, a dozen eggs-free-range of course, and, lastly, two bottles of wine. One red and one white.

            Tomorrow she'd visit the butcher and get her hands on lean cuts of beef and some fresh sea food. She was by the coast, after all, and Haven was bound to have exceptional assortment of fish. The space was small and the appliances dated, but she'd manage well enough on her own. She liked to cook. Enjoyed the process of being in the kitchen. All the tastes and textures and smells.

            Perhaps the one thing she'd shared in common with their mother. A weird ache filled her and even after three years since she'd passed, Alyssa wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the whole matter. A massive rift had formed in their relationship somewhere around the time Alyssa had turned twenty-seven.

            The age when the blinders had come off and a lot of things Alyssa had excused or refused to acknowledge in her youth were suddenly impossible to ignore. Or brush off. Years of repressed resentment flooded her in an instant, compelled by some stupid, stray remark. And just like that-the flood gates had opened.

Things had never been the same for her again.

            They had never had what one would call a big family. Only one aunt to speak of, a single cousin. Annelise and Alyssa had never known their father's side of the family-or even who their father was, aside from the last name they shared: Sloane. A single set of grandparents who lived in another country and passed away sometime when Alyssa and Annelise had started high school.

            They'd only ever always had each other...

            Alyssa shrugged off her melancholy mood, popping open the bottle of red and poured out a coffee mug full-since the cupboard didn't have much of anything else by the way of stemware. She'd rectify that later-maybe tomorrow, and pick up some inexpensive glasses. If she was going to be here for three months, in self-imposed exile, Alyssa intended to be comfortable.

            There was no television, she mused, exhaling heavily. Odd, considering the place was owned by a man, but then supposed that if he only came here to write, a TV would pose a major distraction and likely get in the way of accomplishing that task.

            But there was an impressive array of CD's lined up in a tall glass fronted case. Marshall had good taste, she thought, perusing the selection. Alyssa skimmed her finger along the slender spines until she found something that sparked an interest.

#

            Exhausted, Ethan slunk into the driver's seat of his rover, slammed the door behind him. Fucking hell the day had been brutal. Between the lawyer twisting his balls and handling a couple of pretty distressed parents, he was mentally and emotionally drained.

            Priya Singh had taken the falling of the hammer hard. And it had hurt him, too, to drop it so heavy. But setting his personal sympathies aside, the girl had made poor choice in the company she'd kept and actions had consequences. Ji Kim was following through with pressing charges, and rightly so. Ethan had promised to see the little shits paid, only he hadn't banked on the ringleaders wiggling out of his fist so quickly.

            The lawyer had done his job and done it well. While the case itself had gone rather quickly, the paperwork tied him up for most of the day, and the lawyer for another hour longer than he wanted to spend. The boys were out soon after and laughing all the way to the ferry where their parents waited to pick them up.

The girls, however...

            Ethan planned to leverage what he could to help ease some of the load-community work and probation hours, but it was still going to be a long hard road ahead of them.

But with his shift rolling to an end, there was nothing more he could for them today. So Ethan pressed his hands to his eyes and just...breathed. Layer by layer, degree by degree, he willed his body to relax. To ease. Sluicing off the tension like soap in the shower.

And had almost found his calm, happy place a second before his phone shrilled. Snarling, he snatched it from the passenger seat.

"What?"

"Sorry, but we got a call in," Sheryl said, all apology. "Thought maybe you'd want to take it?"

He bit back the groan. And the curse. "I'm off the clock."

"No shit," Sheryl tossed at him, not amused with his tone. "But it's from Mrs. Matheson."

"Lemme guess," Ethan sighed, angling his rear view mirror for better sight lines, "Neighbours talking above a hoarse whisper?"

Sheryl laughed at that, a sharp, throaty sound. "Close. This time she says its noise coming from the little cabin in the cove. The one your brother owns."

Ethan scowled at his reflection, dropped his hand to the steering wheel. Given the day he'd just had, thoughts of rambunctious punks running amok streaked through his mind. And it wasn't unusual for a couple to shimmy in through a crack open window-hauling beers and music to have an impromptu party at someone else's expense.

"I'll check on it," he said, turning on the engine he pulled the gear into drive. "I'll call in if there's anything suspicious going on, otherwise no news is good news and I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."

"Ten-four, chief."

The drive didn't take him long, though it was pulling him in the opposite direction of home which only soured his mood more. The day had been long and grating and the last thing he wanted to do was deal with one of Mrs. Matheson's bullshit complaints. Given the fact that just about everything seemed to warrant her dialing in to his precinct to complain and otherwise rant, it was no wonder her husband had decided enough was enough and took off near fifteen years ago.

But this was Marshall's property and when it came to family, Ethan would always put them first above his own wants and needs. Even if right now he desperately craved a cold beer and an hour on his porch with his dogs, listening to nothing but quiet.

As he neared his destination, sun slashed hard over the horizon, the sky a deepening array of blazing red and gold over a stretch of calm waters. The days were growing shorter, the water rougher. And here the cove sat, a picturesque little wonder, facing the high cliffs of Eva's property.

The same cliffs he'd dove from in the dead of night to help save the woman his brother loved and risked life and limb to haul out of the roiling waters. The same woman who'd pitched herself, and the man who'd come to kill her children, over the side-a thirty foot drop into sea and the rocks below.

            A dangerous act of bravery that had earned Ethan's unflagging respect. Far as he was concerned, whether or not Eva and Marshall were actually married, she was family now. Chosen family. And that was something infinitely precious about that.

            Music thumped loudly, and inside the car he could hear the trembling of bass and strong guitar chords. So for once Mrs. Matheson wasn't crying wolf. There really was some hooligan blasting music in the cove.

            Opening the door, he turned his ear to the rising notes and lilting voices. It didn't take long for him to recognize the bars to the Killers greatest hits.

            Locking the doors, Ethan slid his keys into his back pocket and strolled down the sandy path, over the rise. As he rounded the bend, the cabin came into view and there, whirling around on the beach, was a girl. Arms spread and head tossed back, dancing. As the music rose, and the rifts turned jagged, she leapt into the air, tossing her hair and kicking her feet like an eighties retro-groupie letting loose at a concert, he noted a bottle of what he presumed to be alcohol wedged in the sand near the front steps.

            Ready to break out the cuffs on the grounds of underage drinking, breaking and entering along with public recklessness, it wasn't until he was close enough to see the shapes and angles of her face, an impressive and vaguely familiar one, that Ethan realized this wasn't an adolescent but a grown woman.

             Made even more apparently by a rather impressive figure. Whipping around, hair flying around her face, she slowed, stopped, her gait a bit unsteady from the abrupt transition. When her hands rose to her face, swiping her hair out of the way, Ethan was struck by the full impact of that face he'd only up to now captured fleeting a glance of.

As their features were near enough to identical, there was no mistaking that this was Eva's twin. And despite the striking similarities-from the shape of her eyes, the angles of her cheeks and nose-that was where the similarities began and ended. It was the differences that captured Ethan's eye. Held it.

She was nothing like Eva.

Hair skimmed her chin in an edgy biased cut, a thick stripe of purple running on the left that he found suited her. She was curvier than Eva, too. Her legs bared in denim shorts revealed strong legs, all lean muscle that enhanced a womanly figure.

"Can I help you, sheriff?" she asked, nodding to the gun at his hip.

"I'm officer Davies, a local cop with precinct one," he said, holding out a hand. "But as I'm off the clock, just Ethan. I take it you're Alyssa?"

She closed the distance, large and expressive eyes locked to his. At this close range he could make out a ring of green haloing the pupil.

"Ethan Davies." Her voice had a sexy little rasp as it caressed his name. All smoke and velvet. It stroked up his spine, stirring dormant nerves to awaken. Taking his pro-offered hand she shook once before letting go. "You're Marshall's brother?"

Palm tingling, Ethan flexed his fingers; her touch just as magnetic as her voice. "One and the same."

She pushed a stubborn bit of hair behind her ear again, revealing multiple piercings and where her sweater dipped-hanging casually off one shoulder, his eyes lowered to a diamond stud embedded in the dimple of her throat.

An oddly intriguing little thing. And sexy. Why? Ethan didn't have a single foggy fuck, but it was. And his body responded accordingly. Wondering what other little gems he might uncover beneath her clothes.

Fucking hell. Was he seriously already mentally undressing the woman? God it must have been a harder day than he'd realized.

"The same Ethan Davies that was supposed to pick me up from the dock this afternoon but ditched me at the eleventh hour?"

Ethan cleared his throat, feeling more than a bit sheepish which was strange as his reasons for shirking off the task had been entirely justifiable.

"I thought you were supposed to stay at the main house, with your sister?"

Alyssa shrugged that bare shoulder and Ethan's belly clenched. God dammit, the hell was wrong with him?

"Last minute decision. I like being on my own," she said though her eyes were not entirely honest. He saw more there then she was letting on. Ten years with a badge, Ethan knew how to read people. Even the most difficult and prickly.

"Fair enough."

The edges of dying light pushed around her and Alyssa had to remind herself to breathe. This man was...well, gorgeous.  An arrow straight nose with sharp, angular features framed by waves of almost black hair.It was the kind of face that gave a woman ideas and the sort of body that made her want to act on them.

Casually dressed in dark jeans and black shirt, were it not for the gun and badge on his hip she'd never have guessed him to be law enforcement. Except for maybe the eyes. Against his tanned skin they shone, a shrewd and sharp blue. They honed in with laser efficiency and she imagined he could peel away a person's skin and see their soul.

"Something tells me you didn't come all this way to introduce yourself," she said, reaching for something, anything, to pull the conversation away from where her thoughts wanted to take it.

"No," he answered, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. His stance all confident masculinity without any ego. "I'm here in an official capacity."

Surprise and confusion was underscored with excitement at the thought of this man slipping her into handcuffs. And Jesus effing Christ, evidently she was long overdue for a good lay. "I've only been here a couple of hours and haven't broken any laws that I'm aware of."

"We got a noise complaint," he said, nodding off in the general direction of the rise where houses backed on to the rocky shoal. Beyond them music streamed from the cabin-Mr. Brightside echoing across the beach. Though it was loud, Alyssa believed at the very least she couldn't be faulted for taste.

"The music." Smiling, she rolled her teeth over her bottom lip. "Sorry. I figured the cove was sequestered enough I could get a little...crazy."

"Truth is it's not that loud, but Mrs. Matheson, as you're going to learn, isn't the easiest sort to get along with. During the summer months she takes off to visit relatives in Poland. Though who the hell can abide the woman visiting for that long must be a saint, but after that she's a badger with a tugged tail on her best day. You'll need to dial it down otherwise you'll see more of me than you can handle."

He'd meant it innocently enough, but Alyssa could only hope the flash of heat that bloomed inside her didn't show in her eyes when they lifted back up to his.

"Duly noted." She mimed a salute, and then stepped back into a lazy retreat. Needing distance because clearly being too close to the likes of Ethan Davies had an effect on her that was all desire and zero commonsense.

"Take it easy, Sheriff."