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Hard Choices
Allison Leigh
TRUTH RISES, ANNIE. STOP TRYING TO FIND IT THE HARD WAY.Annie Hess knew that the roiling clouds overhead had nothing to do with the storm that had already arrived. First the secret daughter she'd turned over to her brother to raise showed up, looking for answers. Then her brother sent Logan Drake, who'd scorned her youthful advances, to retrieve the girl! As Logan provided Annie shelter from the fierce winds raging outside, this former wild child saw how hollow her seemingly perfect life was. But when her secret came out, could the hard choices Annie and Logan had once made for love now lead them to everlasting happiness?
“Storm’s here,” Logan said.
It had been a long time since Annie had had any storms in her life—this one just happened to be a physical storm, rather than an emotional one. And she’d survived the emotional ones.
More or less.
She tilted her head to look up at Logan, only to find the dark cast of his eyes watching her through the gloomy light.
Annie was suddenly aware of the intimacy of their positions. Of the fact that his chest was pressed against her back. Hard, wide and feeling damnably perfect.
The kind of chest that could shelter her.
And had. Impossible memories of his warm touch, his rough sighs, slipped into her mind. Impossible, because he’d turned her away all those years ago. Impossible, because what they’d shared had lived only in her dreams.
His long fingers skimmed over her cheek and her mouth went dry. She shuddered and the warmth of him became something else entirely.
Dear Reader,
Breeze into fall with six rejuvenating romances from Silhouette Special Edition! We are happy to feature our READERS’ RING selection, Hard Choices (SE#1561), by favorite author Allison Leigh, who writes, “I wondered about the masks people wear, such as the �good’ girl/boy vs. the �bad’ girl/boy, and what ultimately hardens or loosens those masks. Annie and Logan have worn masks that don’t fit, and their past actions wouldn’t be considered ideal behavior. I hope readers agree this is a thought-provoking scenario!”
We can’t get enough of Pamela Toth’s WINCHESTER BRIDES miniseries as she delivers the next book, A Winchester Homecoming (SE#1562). Here, a world-weary heroine comes home only to find her former flame ready to reignite their passion. MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE KINGSLEYS returns with Judy Duarte’s latest, Big Sky Baby (SE#1563). In this tale, a Kingsley cousin comes home to find that his best friend is pregnant. All of a sudden, he can’t stop thinking of starting a family…with her!
Victoria Pade brings us an engagement of convenience and a passion of inconvenience, in His Pretend Fiancée (SE#1564), the next book in the MANHATTAN MULTIPLES miniseries. Don’t miss The Bride Wore Blue Jeans (SE#1565), the last in veteran Marie Ferrarella’s miniseries, THE ALASKANS. In this heartwarming love story, a confirmed bachelor flies to Alaska and immediately falls for the woman least likely to marry! In Four Days, Five Nights (SE#1566) by Christine Flynn, two strangers are forced to face a growing attraction when their small plane crashes in the wilds.
These moving romances will foster discussion, escape and lots of daydreaming. Watch for more heart-thumping stories that show the joys and complexities of a woman’s world.
Happy reading!
Karen Taylor Richman,
Senior Editor
Hard Choices
Allison Leigh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my daughters, Amanda and Anna Claire.
Always a joy, continually challenging
and the greatest of blessings.
ALLISON LEIGH
started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day. She has been a finalist in the RITA
Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.
Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.
Dear Reader,
I love books. I love to read them, puzzle over them, agree with them and disagree with them. But not until the past several years did I realize that in my process of devouring and enjoying these books, I was missing one particularly enjoyable element of the reading experience: discussing. And, interestingly enough, we readers, we lovers of books, don’t have to necessarily agree with each other about what a particular book is saying. That’s the beauty of it. We each take away from what we’ve read something distinctly individual. But even in the differences, we tend to find our common ground with one another. In the process of discussing a book, we take an activity that is ordinarily rather solitary and we touch others. And that, in a nutshell, is one of the reasons why I love to write. To reach out and, in some small way, touch someone.
Needless to say, I was particularly honored and pleased to learn that Hard Choices would be part of the Readers’ Ring. I hope you enjoy reading Logan and Annie’s story. I also hope the questions at the back of this book will jump-start your own enjoyable discussions!
Best wishes, and happy reading.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Discussion Questions (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
“Don’t.”
She nearly sagged with relief at the deep voice that came out of the darkness. But she didn’t sag too long; she took advantage of Drago’s momentary surprise and twisted out of his loosened grip. The whitewashed stucco snagged at her dress as she pushed away from where he’d pinned her into the corner outside the boathouse.
Drago’s surprise didn’t last long, though. His hand shot out and sank into her hair, yanking her back toward him. She cried out, twisting her ankle as she tipped back, scrabbling at his hold on her. Tears stung her eyes. Her skin crawled as his mouth touched her cheek.
“I said, don’t.” The voice came again.
It was all she could do not to whimper—in pain at the agonizing pull of Drago’s hand on her hair, in relief that maybe her own stupidity wasn’t going to be the end of her, after all.
The moment seemed excruciatingly clear. Drago’s breath on her cheek. Her own whistling between her clenched teeth. And the faint scrape of a shoe on the damp walkway.
Her rescuer.
She shifted, trying to alleviate the pressure on her scalp. “Let go of me, Drago. I warned you to leave me alone.”
He laughed softly, and slid one hand over her hip. “We had a deal, baby doll. Remember?”
She wriggled against his grip. “And the deal’s off. You’re dealing dr—ah!” She fell back against him at another vicious pull on her hair. She opened her mouth to scream, but suddenly, she was free. She stumbled, tried to right herself, but failed. She threw her hands backward to catch herself, but the sidewalk still met her rear with teeth-jarring force, and fresh tears clogged her throat, stung her nose.
Her hair streamed across her face. The curls she’d painstakingly ironed smooth were springing back to life in the damp air and she watched through them as Drago scrambled up from where he, too, had hit the sidewalk.
The man who stood over Drago was tall. Taller, even, than her brother, Will, who topped six feet. And he was dark. She didn’t need the golden light cast by the iron lampposts to tell her that his dark hair was just shy of ebony, or that he was tanned. Not a cultivated tan like that her father maintained to complement his tennis whites, either. But the hard, bronzed kind. The kind worn by a man who could drop a thug to the ground without so much as creasing the classic black tux he wore.
“Don’t move.” Despite the laughter and music floating on the night air from the wedding reception, his quiet voice could still be heard.
She held her breath and looked at Drago, not wanting to acknowledge her own fear of what he might do. But he subsided, sitting on the ground, glaring at her, as if the entire situation were her fault.
It probably was, of course. Most things that went wrong in the sphere Annie Hess occupied were her fault.
And now, she had Logan Drake—her big brother’s friend—to deal with as well.
“Are you all right?”
She gingerly brushed her hands together. Her palms stung like mad. She’d been trying to get Logan’s attention for the past two days, ever since he’d arrived for Will’s wedding. She hadn’t intended him to notice her in this manner, though.
“Annie.” Logan’s voice was a little sharper. “Are you all right?”
She pushed her hair out of her face and nodded. He was watching her, his expression neutral. “Go back to the house,” he said evenly. “Call 911. And get your brother or your father.”
Her stomach clenched. “No.”
Logan raised his eyebrows. “No?”
Drago smirked with satisfaction.
Annie wanted to kick herself. She’d been working like a dog to convince Drago that their relationship was over, that she didn’t care what happened to him as long as he left her alone. “I don’t want to cause a scene at Will’s wedding,” she said.
His gaze drifted over her and she shivered. “Then you shouldn’t have invited your boyfriend, here.”
“I didn’t.” She eyed Drago. He’d been the last person she’d wanted to see. And though she’d threatened him with the combined wrath of her father and brother, she’d failed to get rid of him on her own. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”
Logan’s lip curled. “Right.”
“Ah, baby doll, don’t lie to the dude.”
“Shut up, Drago.” She wasn’t going to sit there on the ground like a schoolgirl beneath Logan’s censorious look. But rising was hardly an easy task, given the tight fit of her thigh-length dress. And she’d be damned if she’d hike the thing up to her hips just to stand.
Not with the way Drago was leering at her. She was nearly positive he was high. Why else would he have been so intent on getting her alone? Despite the appearance she’d fostered to others, he’d known the terms of their deal, and it hadn’t included her.
Logan finally made an impatient sound and reached down, sliding his hands under her arms and lifting her to her feet as if she were some toddler who couldn’t find her balance on her own. But when his hands slid away from her again, her heart thudded and her skin prickled in an entirely adult way.
His gaze traveled downward from her face, and it took every speck of nonchalance she possessed not to shiver visibly.
Logan Drake was her brother’s friend. He was also her best friend’s older brother. Yet she could probably count on her hand the number of times she’d actually seen him, and those incidents had left their impression. This time was no exception. He was dressed in the same sedate black tux that all the groomsmen wore, yet Logan possessed an edge the others did not.
And there was nothing Annie Hess liked better than walking on the edge.
“Get out of here, Drago, or I really will turn you in to the cops, myself.” She didn’t look away from Logan as she spoke. She’d warned Drago that she’d turn him in, that she’d sic her father, the venerable judge George Hess, on him if he continued bugging her. He didn’t need to know what an empty threat it was. She’d already sought out her father—and her mother—during the reception, when she’d realized Drago wasn’t going to be so easily shaken.
Neither George nor Lucia—that’s Loo-sha, dear—had been remotely interested in setting aside their champagne or their friends’ company to assist their wayward daughter.
Again, her own fault. She’d taken up with Drago in the first place to annoy her parents. But that was before she’d realized he was into a whole scene she wanted no part of.
Annie walked the wild edge, but she wasn’t a fool, and she had no desire to acquaint herself with a jail cell; which was definitely where Drago was headed if Will’s warnings were to be believed. Since her brother was already ensconced in the prosecutor’s office, believing him wasn’t difficult.
“You’re not going to turn me in, baby doll.” Drago rose, flipping back his shock of gold-brown hair. He smiled, as cocky as he’d ever been. “You and me are two of a kind, remember?”
That uneasiness she didn’t want to acknowledge coiled in her stomach again. “Hardly.”
“Annie, go and do what I said.” Logan’s voice was inflexible.
She looked from him to Drago. Going to her father would be useless. And Will—well, Will was already annoyed with her. They’d always been a team. But now her brother had married the dazzling Noelle and Annie’s one claim to any semblance of family who mattered was gone. He’d chosen Noelle, and that was that. Just like Lucia had warned. Will would have a new life and the troublesome Annie would have no place in it. He had a golden career ahead of him with Noelle-the-perfect right beside him. “Fine,” she bluffed, and headed up the walkway. Her painfully high heels clicked on the stone.
The last place she wanted to go was back into the fray of the reception. Yet, if she hadn’t cut off her own nose to spite her face and flatly refused to be one of Noelle’s bridesmaids, Annie would be dressed in elegantly tasteful salmon silk and standing up there with the rest of the wedding party while Will and Noelle shoved raspberry-cream-filled wedding cake into one another’s mouths and Drago wouldn’t have had an opportunity to get near her.
“All right, all right. I’m going.”
She stopped and looked back. Drago was shaking his head, backing away from Logan.
“Stay away from Annie. Permanently,” Logan said.
Her heart stuttered.
Drago’s lips curled. “Wanting a little jailbait yourself?”
Annie winced as Logan’s fist shot out, clipping Drago’s jaw. Drago stumbled back, but didn’t go down. His smile was oily as he turned and jogged away, disappearing into the thick stand of trees that bordered the palatial Hess estate.
Logan looked ready to pursue him and Annie hastily darted back to him, grabbing his arm. “He’s an idiot. Let him go.”
“So he can get away with assaulting you?”
“He didn’t—” She exhaled. The truth was, she wasn’t entirely sure what Drago would have done if Logan hadn’t come along when he had. Before now, Drago had seemed content with the bargain they’d struck—she’d get him an in at her private school so he could pick up mechanic work on all the rich kids’ cars, and though in public he’d portray the totally inappropriate boyfriend, in private he’d keep his hands off her. “Look, I’m glad you came when you did. But I meant it when I said I didn’t want to cause a scene during the reception.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever walked away from creating a scene. What did your parents do? Threaten to disown you if something happened today?”
“My parents threaten to disown me every other week,” she assured blandly. The truth was, she hadn’t wanted to disappoint Will any more than she already had with her refusal to accept Noelle’s efforts at friendship. “Believe me, they’ll probably be disappointed when the day ends without me doing something to embarrass them in front of their guests.”
From the other side of the boathouse, where the enormous awning had been erected on the richly groomed grounds, applause and cheering broke out from the revelers.
“Is that why you wouldn’t go ask for their help?”
Annie kept her smile in place, but it took an effort. “As it happens, I did ask.”
He drew his eyebrows together. “And?”
She shrugged. “Well, Drago didn’t leave until just now, did he?” She didn’t like the look in his eyes. The one that seemed a little too close to pitying. “You should be back there.” She tilted her head in the direction of the party. “Will’s probably tossing the garter or something about now.”
“Why aren’t you back there?”
“What? To catch the bouquet?” She managed an uncaring shrug. “Not my style.”
His eyebrow lifted. “You’re seventeen years old. You don’t have a style yet.”
She nearly laughed. “I’ll be eighteen in a few months, and you know better than that. Annie’s style is to go wherever there is trouble, and if there isn’t trouble yet, there soon will be once she arrives.”
“Is that what you really think or are you just quoting your parents?”
Her smile faltered a little. “What’s the difference?”
Another burst of clapping and laughter sprang through the night. Logan’s steady, silent look made her feel positively itchy. “If you don’t like something, Annie, you’re the one who has the power to change it.”
“Annie’ll never change,” she assured. “My parents say that all the time.” She hated the way her throat felt, all tight. She focused hard on the empty champagne bottle lying in the grass beside the walkway until her vision cleared.
Then she nudged the bottle with the pointed toe of her red pump. “Pity about the champagne. It spilled out when I tried to hit Drago with the bottle. Such a waste.”
“I think you’ve already had plenty.”
“Me? I’m underage, Logan, remember? You don’t think I meant to drink it myself, do you?”
The corner of his lips tilted. “I’m well aware of your age, and yes, I do think you meant to drink it.” His voice was as dry as the imported bubbly.
The man was intoxicating. More so than any amount of champagne she might have consumed on the sly.
“That’s why you snuck down here by the boathouse, I suspect. To drink your little heart out.”
“How nice of you to notice.” She’d perfected that bored tone when she was knee-high to a grasshopper. But, when she languidly brushed her hair back from her shoulder and his gaze tracked the movement, she hid another little shudder.
“Oh, you’re noticeable, all right. Somebody should put you on a leash.”
Despite his wholly overwhelming appeal, she was more comfortable with this sort of exchange with him than any other. She didn’t want his pity. She wanted his hands on her. Simple.
Her lips curved. “Why, Logan. Is there a bit of kink hiding beneath your straight-arrow exterior?”
He didn’t look amused.
She exhaled, pouting a little, and walked closer to him. Her heels were so ungodly high that the top of her head nearly reached his chin. She tilted her head back a little, leaning toward him. Her heart was beating so hard that she wondered hazily if he could see it right through the wedge of skin revealed by the plunging V of her dress.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Giving you a proper thank you.” She pressed her lips to his jaw, settling her hand against his chest when her knees seemed too shaky to hold her.
“Fine.” His voice was clipped. “You’re welcome.”
He hadn’t moved, and she felt the heady beat of his heart right through the shirt he wore. Her palm still hurt, but the white silk felt unreasonably soft as she moved her hand down over his hard abdomen. Her lips tingled as she drew them along the hard, raspy line of his jaw. She rose on her toes, her mouth slowly, agonizingly nearing his. For an altogether too brief moment, his hand slid behind her neck, tangling in her hair. His lips hovered enticingly close to hers.
Then he suddenly set her from him, dragging her hand away from his belt as he pushed her back. “Dammit, Annie. You don’t have to behave this way, just for the sake of getting some attention from your worthless parents.”
Her defenses closed around her again like a vise. “You want me, Logan. I know you do.” She leaned toward him once more.
His hands held her off. “Grow up.” His voice was hard. “You’re a beautiful, selfish little girl who doesn’t think about anything other than what she wants.”
His words stung. Not because it was the first time she’d heard such accusations, but because they came from him. “And you’re saying you don’t want to kiss me? Touch me? Believe me, Logan, I know when a guy’s interested.” Her gaze ran over him.
“Is this what you do back at that expensive boarding school you and my sister go to? Convince yourself that any guy you throw yourself at is interested just because you’ve gotten a physical reaction out of him?”
The truth was, she hadn’t thrown herself at any man, until now. Everything up to then—the scores of boyfriends, Drago, the alcohol, the failed tests—had been just a front. A futile attempt to get kicked out of a school she’d loathed every minute of the three years she’d been there, to go back to parents who didn’t have time or interest in her, anyway. The only reason she’d been allowed home from Bendlemaier now was because of Will’s wedding.
“Don’t worry about Sara,” she said smoothly. Her roommate was at the exclusive school on scholarship, and despite the differences between them, they’d become good friends. “Your sister’s still as pure as the driven snow,” Annie went on. “And in a few short months, we’ll graduate from that godforsaken prison and be out of there altogether.” She smiled. “I’ll be eighteen and you’ll be, what? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? Come on, Logan. It’s only a few months away. Weeks, really. Don’t be so uptight.”
His eyes narrowed. “So what do you propose here, Annie? Go into the boathouse? We’ll just pull that excuse for a dress you’re wearing up another three inches and go at it, just because you think I want you? You’re my friend’s kid sister and I don’t care what you think I do or don’t want. If you want to get laid, go find that sleaze, Drago. He’s probably still hiding out there in the woods. I’m not interested.”
Without a second glance, he strode up the walk.
Annie leaned back against the stucco again, his words ringing in her head. There was truth in Logan’s words. She was selfish. She wanted what she wanted when she wanted it.
She looked out over the narrow gleam of water beyond the end of the dock. More laughter and cheering echoed on the night air.
If it hadn’t been for Logan, who knew what Drago might have done? Logan was the only one who’d noticed her absence, the only one who’d thought to investigate, and he didn’t even like her.
It was pathetic.
She should have just stayed at Bendlemaier.
She swallowed past the knot in her throat and pushed away from the boathouse. She kicked off her shoes and they disappeared into the night to land silently somewhere in the thick green grass.
Then she walked around to the front of the boathouse and went inside where the catering crew had stored the cases of champagne.
Nobody would miss another bottle.
Chapter One
There was no mistaking the sound of breaking glass.
Annie closed her eyes at the latest shatter and ordered her nerves to stop jumping all over the place. She didn’t even really need to open her eyes to move to the rear portion of the shop, though she did. She knew every corner, every surface, inside and out. But considering how edgy she’d been for the past two days, it wouldn’t have surprised her greatly if she did run into one of the chrome-and-glass display racks as she moved.
She stepped through the doorway that separated the stock-and workroom from the retail front of Island Botanica and took in the scene with a glance.
Bunches of lavender, rosemary and California poppy hung drying from the large grid-shaped rack suspended from the ceiling. And below the colorful, fragrant display a teenaged girl stood in the midst of broken dark-green glassware. “Are you hurt?”
Her niece looked down at the mess around her heavy leather boots. “That’s the third bottle I’ve broken.” Riley’s voice sounded thick, as if she were near tears.
There were no signs of blood and Annie’s heart began to settle again. She shrugged and plucked the broom from the hook on the wall and began sweeping up the shards. “It happens,” she said calmly. “Particularly with a concrete floor.” She realized her hands were trembling and tightened them around the broom handle. “Sara and I have joked about having the floor in here padded with foam because we’ve broken so many things.” She smiled a little. “Too impractical. At least concrete’s easy to sweep.”
The dozen bracelets around Riley’s slender wrist jangled as she tucked her waving blond hair behind her ears. She stepped out of the way as Annie swept. “Dad’ll pay for whatever I damage.”
Annie’s heart clutched a little at that. Since she’d unexpectedly shown up on Annie’s doorstep two days ago, Riley had not voluntarily mentioned either one of her parents. Annie had been the one to insist on calling Will and Noelle to let them know their daughter was safe.
As safe as she could be given that she was in Annie’s company.
She stopped sweeping for a moment. Started to reach out and touch Riley’s arm, but stopped.
Instead, she bent over the dustpan and swept the broken glass into it. Riley hadn’t been thrilled when Annie had insisted on calling her parents, but she hadn’t bolted, at least. “Don’t be silly. Nobody has to pay for anything.”
“Except you and Sara, cause now you can’t sell that.” The girl jerked her chin at the rain of glass that tumbled from the dustpan when Annie tipped it over the large garbage can. “Dad said you guys are barely keeping your heads above water.”
“Well, a broken bottle or two isn’t going to ruin us,” she said dryly. “It’s all right, Riley. Truly.” She began sweeping over the floor once more for good measure. “Why don’t you finish unpacking that crate of bottles and then we’ll break for lunch.”
Riley’s blue gaze flicked above Annie’s head and she knew the girl was looking at the plain round clock on the wall. “A little early for lunch, isn’t it?”
Annie shook the dustpan over the garbage can again before putting it and the broom back. “One of the perks of being an owner. Lunch whenever we want. I’ll take you over to Maisy’s Place. The cook there does a great lunch, and maybe we can still sit outside if the rain holds off.” She managed a smile, feeling lighter at the prospect. Trying to keep Riley occupied in the shop all morning had been harder than she’d expected. But the shop needed tending, even on a stormy day, and she hadn’t wanted to leave Riley alone. “Let me know when you’re finished with that crate.”
Threat of tears apparently gone, Riley nodded and reached again into the packing material that surrounded each bottle in the wooden crate. After a moment, Annie made herself go back out to the front of the shop. Riley didn’t need her looking over her shoulder.
It was quiet that morning, much as she’d expect it to be in the middle of the week. Turnabout’s small tourist trade picked up around the weekends, and the herbal shop, Island Botanica, Annie owned with her friend Sara Drake, picked up business then as a result.
Thank goodness for their mail-order trade, she thought faintly. If not for that exceptionally successful portion of their business, Will’s opinion would have been borne out, and there would probably be no shop at all. Which was an unbearable thought.
She picked up a dusting cloth and moved across the light pine floor to the display cases at the window. The shop was small but still had an airy, simple and clean feel to it that Annie loved as much now as she had when she and Sara had opened it five years earlier.
Sitting atop the clear glass shelves were their trademark green glass bottles, jars and matching tubes. A person could get almost everything from tonics to perfume at Island Botanica, and all of it was made right there on Turnabout Island. She turned a bottle so the silver print on the narrow ivory label could be seen more clearly and dashed her rag over a fingerprint smudging the shelf.
She glanced through the windows lining the front of the shop, glad to see the sidewalk was still dry, then looked up at the dark clouds in the sky. If it hadn’t been the middle of the week, she suspected that the threatening weather would have chased off any prospective customers, anyway. There was a storm moving in, no doubt about it.
Turnabout Island often had drizzly days, and the climate was ideal for the fertile fields that supplied the shop. But it wasn’t all that often they had such threatening clouds hovering overhead as they’d had for the past several days.
The clouds had rolled in the same day Riley had arrived. Annie had been a mess of nerves, dread and euphoria ever since. Her niece had run away from home, but instead of disappearing completely, she’d come to Annie.
Annie still didn’t really know why.
She twisted the cloth in her hands, turning toward the door as she heard the soft, tinkling bell that signaled someone entering. Her gaze had barely caught a glimpse of height and gleaming brown hair when Riley came in from the back.
“Auntie Annie, I’m finished with the—” Riley’s voice stopped cold.
Annie glanced at her. “Great, Riley. Thanks. Just sit tight for a minute while I take care of—” Her own voice broke off at the sight of their visitor. Her foot fell back a step and she bumped into one of the display cases after all. Bottles jangled ominously but she was so rooted in shock she didn’t even reach back to steady them. “Logan?”
“I warned them,” her niece said, lips tight. “I warned them not to come after me. So he sent you instead. I’m not stupid, you know. I recognize you from Mom and Dad’s wedding pictures.”
The man drew his eyebrows together as he continued watching Riley. “Excuse me?”
Riley didn’t lose her mutinous expression.
Annie felt as though her jaw must be near the floor as she gaped at the incomer. “Logan,” she said again. “Logan Drake?” It had been years since she’d seen him in the flesh. Years. She’d believed that he’d lost touch with Will shortly after Will and Noelle got married. And even though Sara had spoken of him from time to time, the sight of him was still like a flashback to another life. Another time.
Another Annie.
Finally, the man looked from Riley to her. “Hey, Annie.” The corner of his lips tilted and a fine spray of lines crinkled out from the corners of his unforgettably blue, thickly-lashed eyes. “It’s been a long time.”
Annie’s stomach dipped and swayed. She wasn’t sure who unnerved her more. Riley or Logan, who clearly wasn’t surprised to see her. “A long time,” she agreed faintly.
“You’re a friend of my dad’s,” Riley accused.
“Who’s your dad?”
Riley crossed her arms and stuck out her chin.
Annie started to push back her hair, realized she was still holding the dust cloth, and dropped it on the counter next to the cash register. “Logan—” even saying his name aloud felt odd “—this is m-my niece, Riley.”
“Will’s daughter?” Logan looked at the teen again. Assessing. “No kidding. Is he on the island, too?”
Riley rolled her eyes.
“No.” Annie quickly stepped closer to her niece. She didn’t entirely trust that Riley wouldn’t bolt. And though Annie knew the girl couldn’t get to the mainland from the island as easily as a person could hop a bus out of an ordinary town, she didn’t want to take any chances. She wanted Riley to go home, not run away again somewhere she couldn’t be found at all. “He and Noelle still live in Washington state,” she told him.
Then she looked at Riley, speaking quickly before whatever was forming on her niece’s lips could emerge. “This is Logan Drake. He might be an old friend of your dad’s, but he’s also Sara’s brother. I…I’m sure he’s here to see her and Dr. Hugo. He’s from Turnabout. Isn’t that right, Logan?”
His half smile didn’t waver. “I grew up here,” he confirmed.
“Bet you couldn’t wait to leave it. There’s hardly anything to do here, you know, even if it is part of California. There’s, like, only five cars on the entire island. It’s boring as hell.”
“Riley!” She sent Logan an awkward smile. It was true that Turnabout was not a large island. Situated well off the coast of California, it was barely eleven miles long and less than half that wide, with a single road almost exactly bisecting the island down the length. Annie didn’t own a car. Most people on the island didn’t and instead walked, rode bicycles, or occasionally zipped around in golf carts.
“Sara’s in San Diego for the week, I’m afraid,” Annie finally said. “She, uh, she didn’t say she was expecting you home.” Truth be told, Sara rarely talked about Logan anymore, and when she did it was to speculate over the source of the money he seemed to have—evidenced by the generous checks he’d occasionally send Sara’s way—or, more commonly, to bemoan his long absence.
That half smile of his, little more than a quirk at the corner of his lips really, hadn’t moved. For some reason, it made her uncommonly nervous.
“She didn’t know I was coming to visit,” he said.
She understood his clarification. He wasn’t home. He had no intention of staying. Though why he felt the need to clarify himself escaped her. It wasn’t as if he was there to see her. She knew good and well what his opinion had been of her. There were some things that were not in her memory banks from sixteen years ago, but his opinion of her wasn’t one of them.
Before she could stop the nervous gesture, she’d run her fingers through her hair. “Well, like I said, Sara is away. Riley and I were just heading over to Maisy’s Place for lunch. You’re welcome to join us.”
He looked at her thoughtfully and she swallowed. What was she doing? She didn’t ask men out to lunch, or to anything else, for that matter. Not anymore. Not even one on whom she’d once had an unrequited crush the size of the Cascade Mountains. Not even one who was the brother of her best friend.
“Oh.” Her brain belatedly kicked into gear with an explanation for that look of his. “Of course you’ll be wanting to see your dad, probably. I saw Dr. Hugo this morning when we came in to the shop. His office—well, of course you’d know where his office is.” She was babbling and felt like an idiot.
“Actually, lunch sounds good.”
For a moment, her heart seemed to stop beating. It had always been like that when Logan was around. Even back when she was only seventeen years old to his twenty-three. “Okay,” she said faintly.
Riley huffed, a sound halfway between a snort and a groan. Annie ignored it. She was only Riley’s aunt; pretending that she had a right to correct the girl’s atrocious manners was—
She broke off the thought, recognizing the words that had been silently streaking through her mind. Words that Lucia had used, too often, to describe Annie’s behavior, Annie’s attitude, Annie’s habits.
Nothing Riley did was atrocious, she reminded herself. The girl was a teenager, troubled enough to seek out an aunt she barely knew. The only thing Annie could do for her was to convince her voluntarily to go back home to her parents. As quickly as possible. Considering Riley’s statement just now that the island was boring, perhaps she should focus on that angle with the girl—
She realized both Riley and Logan were staring at her. Obviously waiting. Probably wondering what was wrong with her. She smiled weakly. “Right. Lunch.” She hurried into the back to get her wallet and grabbed the shop door keys as she came back out.
Logan and Riley were watching each other. It was a toss-up who looked more wary of the other. And now, because of her big mouth, they’d get to sit at a lunch table together. Joy, oh joy. She reached for the door only to find Logan’s hand beating her to it. She jumped a little and felt her face flush at the nervous reaction.
Riley glared at her.
Logan looked satanically amused.
She hurriedly locked the door and set off across the bumpy road. What she wouldn’t give for some of the mindless bravado she’d once had. She would have had a response for Riley’s smart-aleck attitude, and she’d have looked Logan right back in those ungodly blue eyes of his without having some desire to collapse in a puddle.
She sneaked a look over her shoulder at him.
He looked right at her. Her heart squeezed and she hurriedly looked forward again. Who was she kidding? Even at seventeen, particularly at seventeen, she’d been a puddle where he was concerned.
Riley was already nearly Annie’s own height. She easily caught up with her. “I don’t care whose brother he is,” she whispered, not altogether quietly. “I’ll bet you a million bucks that my dad sent him to drag me home.” A low roll of thunder underscored her words.
Annie looked up at the sky, half expecting lightning to strike right down from the roiling black clouds to the earth at her feet. Such an event would have been about as ordinary as having Riley and then Logan show up on Turnabout. She was acutely aware of the occasional scrape of his boot on the road as he walked right behind them.
She shivered. “You don’t have a million dollars.”
Riley made that impatient sound again.
“Well, maybe he is here because of your dad,” she acknowledged softly. Coincidences did happen in life, but for him to show up now? It was stretching it.
“I won’t go,” Riley said flatly.
Yes, you will, Annie answered silently. Thunder rolled again. The air seemed far too still and full of energy, lying in wait for some perfect moment to flash.
“Storm coming,” Logan said behind them.
Annie quickened her step, heading down the road to Maisy Fielding’s inn. As far as she was concerned, the storm had already arrived.
Chapter Two
“As I live and breathe. Is that my very own nephew, Logan Drake?” Maisy Fielding, all five-feet-nothing of her, stood in the middle of the entry to Maisy’s Place, her hands on her hips.
Despite himself, Logan felt amusement tug at his lips. Maisy Fielding was an aunt of sorts—her deceased husband having been his mom’s cousin—and she looked the same as she had the last time he’d seen her. The same corkscrew red curls, the same migraine-inspiring colorful clothes, the same hefty attitude screaming from the pores of her diminutive person. “That’s what my driver’s license says.”
She laughed heartily, then tugged his shoulders until he had to bend over her. She wrapped her skinny arms around him for a surprisingly strong hug. “Still have a smart mouth, I see,” she said, patting his back. “Running away from Turnabout didn’t change that a lick.” She let go of him, and peered up into his face, her expression shrewd.
He wondered what she saw. Whatever it was, she waved her arm toward one side after a moment, encompassing the lush landscaping that surrounded the main inn. “Surprised you haven’t managed to lose your license somewhere along the way. It took nearly ten years for the trees over at the corner to recover after you plowed that darned fool car of yours into them.”
Behind him, Logan heard Riley stifle a snort. Of laughter or disgust, he couldn’t tell. “Didn’t expect the brakes to go out, Maisy,” he said easily. “I managed not to take out the side of the inn at least.”
She laughed again, a sure sign that time could heal some wounds. Twenty-three years ago when he’d been a brand-new sixteen-year-old behind the wheel of a rattletrap car his father had forbidden him to buy, Maisy had been plenty mad about him mowing down her trees. She’d meted out her punishment over an entire summer of drudgery. He’d done everything from scraping paint off her kitchen cabinets to babysitting her precocious daughter. Back then, he’d preferred dealing with the paint to dealing with Tessa. She’d been a pain in the ass.
And he still felt badly that he hadn’t been around years later when she’d died. He’d only learned the news from Sara when one of her scarce letters had caught up to him.
“Well, if you’re here for lunch, come on in,” Maisy said, her eyes taking in Annie and Riley as well. If she saw anything unusual in Logan accompanying them, she kept it to herself, and Logan was glad. Maisy wasn’t known for keeping her mouth shut when she figured something was her business. “Grapevine must have a branch missing that I didn’t hear about you before seeing you.” She turned toward the building. “Hugo didn’t mention a word that you were coming.”
Logan held open the door for the females, ignoring Maisy’s reference to his father. “Business must be good. I remember you used to offer only breakfast.”
“More tourists coming to Turnabout. They needed to eat somewhere.” She walked straight through to an open-air dining area where at least two dozen other people were already seated at the round tables dotting the saltillo-tiled floor. “Sit anywhere you like. If it starts to rain, I’ll find you a spot inside. Somewhere.” She patted Logan’s arm and scurried back inside.
“Have a preference?” He looked at Riley, who ignored him, and Annie, who shook her head slightly. He headed to the table farthest from the other patrons. Seeing Maisy was one thing, but he had no particular desire to run into anyone else he might know. He was only there to clear his conscience, not renew old acquaintances.
He held out Annie’s seat, then habit had him sitting with his back to what passed for a wall in the dining area—a redwood trellis congested with climbing bougainvillea. A teenaged waitress he didn’t recognize brought them glasses of water with lemon slices in them and they ordered after she’d recited the day’s menu.
When she was gone, silence settled, broken only by the murmur of voices from the other diners. Logan looked around. The middle-aged couple with sun-burned faces and crispy-new vacation clothes at the table nearest them were having a softly hissed argument. To their right was a smaller table, occupied by a lone young woman. She was reading a paperback book, occasionally looking up and studying the other diners as she toyed with her soup bowl. It was obvious to Logan that she was more interested in the people around her than the contents of her bowl. Beyond her was a young couple. Honeymooners, if he was any judge. They couldn’t keep their hands apart long enough to eat their sandwiches, and beneath the iron and glass table, the woman was running her toes up and down the man’s ankle. Logan half expected to see her slide over into her partner’s lap.
He looked back at Annie. She was sitting quietly, her expression closed. Riley was studying her fingernails—painted such an ungodly black that it looked as if her hands had been caught beneath a ton of bricks.
The school picture that Will had shown him the day before had indicated how much she took after him, but in person the resemblance seemed less marked. Her expression tightened when she noticed him looking at her and she shifted in her chair, crossing her arms.
Classic defensiveness.
“I guess I don’t need to ask if you and Sara kept in touch after you two graduated from Bendlemaier.” Logan turned his attention back to Annie. He was perfectly aware of Riley’s increased defensiveness when he mentioned the school. Another thing that Will had clued him into.
He and Noelle wanted to send their daughter to the exclusive boarding school. But it was apparent that Riley liked the idea even less than Annie once had.
Annie’s smile looked forced. “I, um, I didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier. But we kept in touch when she went off to college. We’d talked often enough about wanting our own shop, and when the opportunity arose, we went for it.”
For some reason, Logan had assumed Annie had been in college with Sara. Showed how much he knew about his sister. He wondered if Sara had changed as much as Annie. Even though it hadn’t been in his plans—which were to do what needed doing and get out of there as quickly as possible—he had more than a fleeting desire to see his kid sister.
He’d talked to her a few times in the past ten years on the phone, but he hadn’t seen her in person in longer than that. He still remembered her expression the last time they’d seen each other. Confused. Hurt. It had felt like his skin was being peeled away to know he’d never come back to Turnabout to be any sort of brother that mattered. Instead, he called when the need to do so grew too great and sent her money to salve his conscience. After enough years, he could almost convince himself his system worked.
But he wasn’t there to deal with his family issues. So he studied Annie for a moment. He’d fully expected to see her, since Will had told him that his daughter was staying with her, but he hadn’t expected any of the feelings that had hit him when he did. “Your hair used to be longer, didn’t it?” He knew good and well how long it had been. Thick and shining, its wild white-blond curls had reached down to the small of her back. All those years ago, she’d used that mane like a weapon against any male in her vicinity.
“Yes.” She poked her fork into her water glass, spearing the lemon, which she squeezed back into the water. Her cheeks looked vaguely red. “You look pretty much the same to me.” She glanced at Riley, making him wonder what she was thinking. “A little older, but aren’t we all?”
“All this reminiscing makes me want to gag.”
“Then face the other way before you do, Riley, so you don’t ruin our lunches,” Logan suggested mildly.
She glared at him. It made him want to smile. She was very much like her aunt had once been. Full of attitude. The style of clothing had changed some in the past decade and a half, but she wore hers just as tightly and flauntingly as Annie had ever done.
He watched Annie’s down-turned head for a moment. There was nothing flaunting about Annie’s appearance, now. She had on a sleeveless khaki jumper that nearly reached her ankles over a short-sleeved white T-shirt. The dress was shapeless and the neckline of the shirt didn’t even reveal the base of her slender throat.
She wore a plain watch with a thin black band on her left wrist and no other visible jewelry. Gone were the jangling metal bracelets, the chains around her neck, the multiple sets of dangling earrings. Her brown lashes looked soft and naked and if she wore a hint of makeup, she’d done it too subtly for him to tell. When she’d been seventeen she’d seemed to pile on the stuff with a trowel.
“Geez. Take a picture, why don’t you?” Riley rolled her eyes and shook her head at him, her disgust obvious.
Annie looked up, her gaze flicking from her niece to Logan’s face. Then her cheeks flushed again. She moistened her lips and seemed about to say something, but the waitress returned, arms laden with their orders, leaving Logan to wonder what had caused that flush—if it had to do with the past.
She’d never seemed the blushing type before.
The last time he’d seen her had been at her parent’s palatial Seattle home, where he, along with the rest of the wedding party, had spent the night following Will’s wedding. He’d been pretty damned angry with her.
But even angrier with himself. Her youth could explain her actions. He’d had no such excuse.
“Pass the ketchup, please.”
He handed Riley the bottle, vaguely surprised by her politeness. But then again, attitude or not, she was Will and Noelle’s daughter. He watched her dump it over her French fries. “Like to have one French fry with your ketchup?”
She made a face then nodded. He took the bottle when she was finished, doing the same thing with his own plate. “Me, too.”
It earned him a studiously bored look.
Annie had ordered a salad. She stabbed her fork into it, moving lettuce and chunky vegetables from side to side, but not seeming to eat any of it.
“So, what did happen when you left Bendlemaier?”
She didn’t look up from her salad. “Not a lot.”
“How come you don’t still live on Turnabout, if you came from here?” Riley dredged a fry back and forth through her pool of ketchup.
“I had a job that took me elsewhere.” It was true enough, though hardly the entire truth. He had the sense that Riley had only posed the question to keep him from asking more questions of his own to her aunt. It struck him as oddly protective.
“What kinda job?”
“Riley, it’s none of our business.”
He shook his head at Annie’s protest. “I became a spy.”
“Yeah, right.” Riley rolled her eyes and scooped up her dripping French fry, licking her fingers afterward.
“Okay, I’m a consultant,” he said dryly. The lie had always been more palatable for people than the truth—even if he’d dared to share the truth with anybody who mattered. Even his associates had a hard time stomaching it. There were a lot of agents who worked for Coleman Black, the head of Hollins-Winword, in many capacities. But there was need for only one clean-up man.
“Consultant for what? Who?”
“Did you pick up that questioning technique from your dad? I always figured if he hadn’t wanted to be a lawyer, he’d have made a good cop.”
The teen wasn’t fooled. “That’s not an answer.”
“What happened with your law degree?” Annie finally spoke.
“I stuck it in a closet where it’s gathered a lot of dust.” He smiled grimly. He did practice law. Just in a manner most people didn’t want to be aware of. He’d felt that way himself many times. Until recently, though, he’d always been able to shake it, and get on with the job at hand.
A young woman with a white towel wrapped around her hips stopped by their table. “Anything else I can bring you?”
Logan shook his head. Riley sat back, her arms crossed. She’d eaten her ketchup-drenched fries and half her hamburger. Annie—who hadn’t eaten even half of the salad, smiled up at the waitress. “I think we’re fine, Janie. Thanks.”
The waitress moved away. She hadn’t been the one to serve them their meal.
“Who’s the girl?” he asked, watching after her. “She looks familiar.”
Annie followed his gaze toward the departing waitress. “Janie Vega. She helps Maisy out when things are busy. She’s actually a stained-glass artist, though. Has her own studio on the island.”
“Vega?”
Annie nodded. “I suppose you knew Sam Vega? She’s his younger sister.”
“I went to school with Sam.” Janie had been a baby back then.
“He’s sheriff now.”
Logan shook his head, truly surprised at that. “When we were young, Sam wanted off the island worse than I did.”
Annie toyed with her water glass. “When Sara said she hardly ever heard from you she wasn’t joking. Otherwise you’d have known he was the sheriff.”
Riley huffed again. “This is too old for words. I’m outta here.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll go back to your house or something.”
Logan watched Annie’s face. A dozen expressions seemed to cross it. Everything from alarm to reluctance to resignation. She passed her keys to her niece. “You can watch the shop until I get there.”
Riley slowly took the keys. “You trust me?”
“You’re not planning to go anywhere else, are you?”
Anywhere else like running away again, Logan interpreted.
“No.” She turned on her heel and strode out of the dining area. Logan watched her go, calculating how likely it would be for her to get off the island if she’d been set on doing so. He’d already talked to Diego Montoya who—as he’d suspected—still ran the only ferry on the island, only to learn the old man was already on the watch for Riley Hess. If the girl were to try to leave, she wouldn’t be able to do so on Diego’s boat. And fortunately for Logan’s current purposes, the other residents of the island seemed to have held to the strange tradition of not owning any kind of water-craft more sophisticated than a dinghy. Only a fool would attempt the crossing in that small a craft.
When Riley was gone, Logan looked back to find Annie watching him. She set down her fork and pushed aside the salad with an air of finality. Her expression was unreadable. “Riley was right. Will did send you. I wasn’t aware that you two were even in touch anymore.”
“I was in Olympia and happened to look him up. He told me Riley had run away.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Happened? Quite a coincidence. And how perfectly convenient that your consulting job allows you to head off to little-known islands whenever it suits you.”
“I’m between assignments right now.” It wasn’t often he found himself feeling defensive, and he’d be damned if he knew why he did now. His answer was true enough, though. Except he didn’t know how he could stomach another assignment after the last FUBAR. He’d told Cole that he’d needed a break, which was how Logan came to be helping out on what should have been a straightforward runaway case. Except that Will hadn’t been the one to ask him to help out. It had been Cole. Turns out his boss and Will had some dealings with each other. Dealings he hadn’t known about until now.
Despite that, however, Logan didn’t necessarily trust his boss to leave Logan to his task if his particular talents suddenly became necessary again. Cole’s priorities were simple. Hollins-Winword—and all that it stood for, all that it protected—came first.
Annie’s lips were pressed together. “Your job—whatever it is—doesn’t really matter, anyway. Will should have come after Riley himself.”
Logan didn’t necessarily disagree. Another argument he’d had with Cole and Will. “Your brother didn’t want Riley doing something even more drastic.”
“She threatened to run again if he came after her.”
“I heard.”
“But she needs to go home.”
The fine line of her jaw looked tight. In fact, everything about Annie looked tight. Uptight. It wasn’t a demeanor he’d have expected her to wear. “Is she causing you difficulties?”
“No. No, of course she isn’t.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t.
“Has she told you why she left home?”
“Riley doesn’t confide in me.”
He frowned. “Come on, Annie. Riley didn’t just run away and disappear. Fortunately. She came to you.”
Annie shook her head. She fiddled with her fork and spoon, neatly aligning them. “She’s just curious about her black-sheep aunt who is odd enough to live on a small island.”
Black sheep? She currently looked more like Bo-Peep to him. “Will and Noelle want to send Riley to Bendlemaier.”
“It’s a fine school.”
Logan watched her for a long moment. “You hated it there.”
“The academic program is—”
“You called it a prison.”
“—unparalleled. Riley is very—”
“You did everything you could to get out of there.”
“—bright. She’ll excel there.”
“Obviously you succeeded in getting out, since you’ve admitted you didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier.” He recognized her face. But the resemblance to the Annie of old was nil. “That’s probably what your parents said when they sent you there. That you’d excel.”
She stiffened. “You never did think much of me, Logan. But are you really comparing me to George and Lucia Hess?”
Impatience rolled through him. He leaned toward her across the small round table. “What the hell’s happened to you, Annie?”
“I grew up,” she said evenly. “What happened to you? You’re the one who pretty much disappeared after Will and Noelle’s wedding.”
If she knew, she’d keep him miles away from Riley. “This isn’t about me.”
“Nor is it about me. This is about Riley and the fact that you’re here to take her home because her father, my brother, couldn’t be bothered to come after her himself.”
“You know his reasons. He and Noelle are being cautious, given what Riley has threatened.”
“Do you really think that Riley doesn’t want her parents’ attention despite what she says to the contrary?” She sat back, seeming to realize that her voice had risen. “Okay, so fine. You’re doing your old friend a favor by retrieving his daughter. Actually, I’m surprised Will waited even a day to retrieve her, considering the unhealthy influence I’m bound to have on her.”
Her tone was even. Neither defensive nor sarcastic, but factual. She could have been reciting geographic statistics from an encyclopedia for all the emotion she showed.
It bugged the hell out of him.
Years ago, there had probably been a portrait of Annie in the dictionary beside the word precocious, but she hadn’t been a danger to anyone other than herself. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Will in person?” All Will had said during that very brief meeting they’d had—the only time they’d seen each other in more than fifteen years, in fact—was that Annie occasionally visited for Christmas, flying in and out just as quickly.
She lifted her shoulder. “Why does it matter?”
Because Logan already suspected that Will knew this Annie about as well as Logan did. Before he could get into that, however, he noticed someone entering the dining area.
He stiffened. Dammit.
“Maisy told me you were here,” Hugo Drake said, stopping beside their table. “I had to see it with my own eyes, though. I guess they must be building igloos in hell ’bout now since you were pretty clear that particular place had to freeze over before you’d ever step foot on the island again.”
He looked up at his father, a man he’d loathed for so many years he could barely remember feeling anything else for him. Hugo Drake was still a robust man, though the years had left their mark in the white hair, the fading eyes. But the old man still had an unlit cigar sticking out of the pocket on his shirt.
Annie had risen and was dropping bills on the table.
“Where are you going?” He ignored his father.
“Back to the shop.”
Her gaze darted between him and Hugo. He wondered what she was thinking. And he wondered why it mattered. He didn’t care who knew about his feelings where his father was concerned. The guy had made his mother’s life a misery. She’d downed a bottle of pills rather than stay married to him. Rather than hang around to finish raising her son and daughter.
Logan hadn’t hated living on Turnabout so much as he’d hated being Dr. Hugo Drake’s son.
He doubted all that many things had changed in the twenty years since he’d been to Turnabout, and he knew that particular thing had changed least of all.
He stood, picked up Annie’s money and handed it back to her. Right or wrong, he paid his own way in life. “I’ll see you later at the shop.”
Her lips parted softly. But he’d already put enough cash on the table to pay the check and was walking away.
He was on Turnabout for one specific reason. Because his boss had ordered it. And that reason didn’t include playing the prodigal son to the man he held responsible for his mother’s death.
Chapter Three
Logan wasn’t at the shop when Annie got there. Which surprised her and relieved her—and disappointed her—though she hardly wanted to dwell on that point. Given what little she knew about him now, and what she remembered of the man she’d once briefly known, she figured he wouldn’t stay away for long. He’d come to the island for a purpose. She couldn’t see him not fulfilling it.
Since they wanted the same thing—Riley to return home—she decided to blame any disappointment over his absence on that aspect.
Riley, though, was in the shop, sitting on top of the counter by the register, blowing pink bubbles in her chewing gum and watching her boots as she swung her feet in small circles.
“Has anyone come into the shop?” Annie put her wallet back in the cupboard.
“Nope.”
“Any phone calls?”
“Nope.”
“Any gorillas prancing down the street wearing pink tutus?”
Riley looked up, her latest bubble deflating around her small mouth. She plucked the sticky stuff from her lips and popped the wad of gum back in her mouth. “Yup.”
Annie smiled faintly. She tugged at her ear, rubbed her hands down her arms. “Riley—”
“Huh-uh.” Her niece hopped off the counter. “I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m not going back.”
“I wasn’t—okay, I was.” She studied the girl. “I haven’t pressed you about anything since you arrived, Riley.” She hadn’t known what to do. Had been nearly paralyzed from taking any actions—sensible or otherwise. But Logan’s arrival had spurred something. “Maybe if you’d just give Bendlemaier a chance, you’d—”
“Like you gave it a chance? I heard you tell that old dude you didn’t even stay long enough to graduate.”
She almost laughed. Logan was definitely not old. He was a mouthwateringly fit man in his prime. Which was not at all what she needed to be thinking about. Ever. But Logan had always had that effect on her. Even when he was scathingly telling her to grow up. “His name is Logan, he’s hardly old, and I did go to Bendlemaier for three years, whether I graduated from there or not. But this isn’t about me.”
Riley shook her head, and walked over to the display nearest the door. She picked up a bottle. Studied the label. Put it back and picked up another. “How come you never got married, Auntie Annie?” She ran the phrase together like it was one long word—anteeanee.
“Nobody ever asked me,” Annie answered, lost for something more appropriate. It was the last question she might have expected.
“You think women have to wait to be asked? My mom asked dad to marry her, you know.”
Annie hadn’t known that. But it seemed like something Noelle would be capable of doing. She wasn’t a woman to wait around for someone else to speak when there was something in her sights. Annie could appreciate that trait now, though she hadn’t back then. Not when she’d believed that beautiful, accomplished Noelle Reed was marrying Will and thereby taking away the only semblance of family that Annie cared about. “No, I don’t think women have to wait to be asked,” she told Riley. “But as it happens, there’s nobody that I’ve ever wanted to ask anyway.” She’d have to allow herself into a relationship of some sort, first.
“Do you have a boyfriend? A lover?”
Good grief, the girl was persistent. “No. I don’t sleep with men I don’t love.” She didn’t sleep with anyone.
“Why not?”
“Logan was right. You’ve learned your questioning technique from Will. Do you have a boyfriend?” Maybe it was more than just the issue of Bendlemaier that had driven Riley to run away from home.
“No.”
Relief dribbled through her.
“Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me date, anyway,” Riley added. “They’d just think I was out trying to have sex or something.”
“Sex! You’ve barely turned fifteen.”
“So? There’s a girl in my class at school—my real school, not that stupid Bendleboring—who is pregnant out to here.” Riley’s hands stuck straight out in front of her. “It’s disgusting. She’s stupid. I mean, hasn’t she ever heard of the pill? They sell condoms in machines in the bathrooms everywhere.” She dropped her hands and worked them into the pockets of her tight jeans, casting Annie a sidelong look. “Logan’d be your boyfriend if you wanted.”
“Your conversation is making me dizzy,” Annie murmured. From condoms to Logan? “Logan is not here to stay, obviously, and he’s not interested in me.”
“He stared at you all through lunch.”
Only because he couldn’t figure out what had happened to the wild Annie he’d known. And she hadn’t felt inclined to tell him that she’d buried her alive in an inescapable crypt. “Riley—”
“Was he your boyfriend before?”
“No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “He was your dad’s friend, Riley.”
Riley didn’t comment on that. Merely blew another enormous bubble that popped with a soft snap when she stuck it inside her mouth and bit down on it.
Annie let out her breath, feeling as chewed-up as the deflated bubble. “What if I talk to your dad about you not going to Bendlemaier? Will you go home, then? Riley, it’s the middle of the school year. You’re missing classes.” And unlike Annie had been, her niece was a stellar student. Another reason why her appearance on Annie’s doorstep seemed so shocking.
“So, I’ll go to school here.”
God. “That’s not what I—”
“That is a school we pass going into town from your house, isn’t it?”
Riley knew good and well that it was. It wasn’t large, but the brick building was obviously a school. “Yes, but it’s for the kids who live here.”
“You just want to get rid of me, too.”
She exhaled, exasperated. “Riley, nobody wants to get rid of you. But your home is with your parents. Whatever problem there is can be worked out.”
“Dad says you haven’t talked to Grandma and Grandpa Hess in more ’n ten years.”
Your dad talks too much, Annie said silently. “Will and Noelle are nothing like George and Lucia.” Thank heavens.
“Well, why can’t whatever problem you’ve got be worked out with them?”
She had no parental instincts inside her. She didn’t know how to deal with a young girl who—from Noelle’s reports—had been captain of last year’s debate team at her school. “Riley—”
“Never mind. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” She suited her words with deed and pushed out the door.
Annie followed her out. Fat drops of rain had just begun to fall. The air was redolent with the scent of an impending rainstorm—wet, dusty, earthy. She hurried across the narrow sidewalk onto the bumpy road. “That’s not what I said!”
Riley looked over her shoulder, continuing to walk away from Annie. “I just thought you’d care. But nobody cares. Not really.” She looked ahead, her boots picking up the pace.
Annie’s heart tore. She could actually feel the pain of it ripping through her. How many times had she felt exactly the same way? Only their situations were decidedly different. Her parents hadn’t cared. Riley’s did.
She swiped a raindrop from her cheek, darting after her niece, grabbing her by the shoulders. Forcing her to stop. “Everyone cares, Riley. Your parents were beside themselves with worry when I talked to them.”
“Right. That’s why they’re pounding down the door of your beach house.” Riley’s eyes were stormier than the sky.
And Annie knew, for once, that her instincts had been right on the mark. Riley had run away, but, despite her threats, she’d expected her parents to follow after her. A show of love. A grand gesture. Something to prove she mattered to them.
DГ©jГ vu, she thought wearily and prayed that this would be the only incident of it.
“You scared them, Riley. They believed your threats.” She chose her words carefully. Not wanting to worsen the situation, which—when it came to family matters—was what Annie had generally done exceptionally well. “But make no mistake. They want you back home. Where you belong.”
Riley just shook her head. Her blond hair was darkening from the rain, clinging wetly to her cheeks, making her look impossibly young. Vulnerable. “Why? They’re never around, anyway. Dad’s campaigning for work and Mom’s traveling for work.” Then she pulled out of Annie’s hold and kept walking.
“Where are you going?” Panic raised Annie’s voice.
Riley’s arms lifted then fell back to her sides. She never looked back.
“She won’t go far. Diego’s not going anywhere with this weather churning up the way it is.”
She jumped, startled at the deep voice. “Where’d you come from?”
Logan smiled faintly and lifted his chin toward the building not ten feet away from where they stood in the middle of the road. “Stopped in at the sheriff’s office to say hello to Sam. Couldn’t help but notice you and Riley out here.” He opened up the black umbrella he held and lifted it over her head.
Annie’s gaze followed Riley whose posture—even at the increasing distance—screamed dejection. “I need to go after her.”
“Take the umbrella, and get inside soon. Sam said the weather service thinks there’s gonna be a bad blow. Storms usually miss Turnabout, but better to be safe.”
She hesitated for only a moment. He was there to retrieve Riley, of that she had no doubt. So why was he allowing even a moment of time before doing so?
“Go, Annie,” he said quietly. “I’ll lock up the shop for you.”
She swallowed, turned and went.
It was raining in earnest when Annie reached her house about twenty minutes later. As she let herself inside, her heart was in her throat, nearly choking her. Then she heard the shower running in the single bathroom.
Uncaring of the rainwater dripping from her onto the ceramic-tile floor, she pressed her back against the wall in the hallway and listened to the blessed sound of the bathroom shower. She was shivering. Not just from the chill caused by the rain, but from the past that seemed to loom up in her face no matter how many times she tried to push it behind her.
She slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor and pressed her wet head back against the wall. Through it she could hear the hiss of the shower even more clearly, as well as the diminishing drum of raindrops on the roof. They grew more sporadic as she listened. Maybe the storm would pass by Turnabout, after all.
The thought was hopeful, but brief, being cut off by a long, crackling rumble of thunder.
From inside the bathroom came the squeak of pipes, the cessation of water, the metallic jangle of shower-curtain rings. By the time the door creaked open several minutes later, Annie was in the kitchen, a clean bath towel slung around her neck, her wet jumper replaced by a sweatshirt and baggy jeans. Riley finally came into the room, her expression wary as Annie pushed a chunky white mug across the breakfast bar toward her.
“What is it?” Riley’s voice was suspicious. “Not that weird tea you make out of weeds, I hope.”
Annie had quickly found that chamomile tea was not a hit with Riley. “Hot chocolate.”
“With marshmallows?”
“Is there any other way to drink it?”
Riley crossed to the bar and picked up the mug. She lifted it carefully. Annie thought she might be smelling it. She took a sip. Followed by a longer one.
“It’s good.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Mom’s hot chocolate is awful. No caffeine, no fat, no nothing.”
Annie lifted her own mug, her smile growing. Noelle was beautiful and model-thin. There’d been a time or two on Annie’s rare visits to their home when she’d heard Will admit to sneaking out for a cholesterol-laden steak and loaded baked potato behind his wife’s diet-conscious back.
Riley slipped onto one of the barstools and hunched over the breakfast bar, cradling the mug. “Mom says marshmallows are all sugar.”
“When we were kids, your dad wouldn’t drink hot chocolate unless the cup was nearly overflowing with marshmallows.”
“I’m a lot like him.” Riley made the announcement as if it were a sentence being pronounced. “Mom says that all the time. I’m just like him.” Her lips twisted as she peered into her mug.
“He’s a good person,” Annie said quietly. “You could do worse than be like Will.” Far better that than to be like Annie.
“How come you don’t have kids?”
Annie lifted her hot chocolate again and managed to singe her tongue drinking too deeply. It was early afternoon, yet the kitchen was darkening. She flipped on the light. “Some people aren’t cut out to be parents,” she finally said. “Fortunately, Will and Noelle are.”
Riley’s expression closed. She turned away from the counter, bare feet stomping across the tile. A moment later, Annie heard the slam of the bedroom door.
She cursed herself for pushing too far. Sighing, she put her mug on the counter next to Riley’s. Neither one of them had finished.
The sliding glass door that led out to the small deck drew her and she moved away from the counter. Outside, the ocean beyond the narrow strip of beach looked gray and forbidding. She opened the door anyway and went out onto the deck. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up. Heavy, dark clouds skidded overhead.
The chaise that had seen Annie through more sleepless nights than she cared to count was wet. She pulled the towel from her neck to dry it off, then threw herself down on the seat. The wind tugged at her hair, flinging it around her shoulders. The temperature felt as if it had dropped twenty degrees since that morning. She wished she’d thought to put on socks.
“I told you to get inside.”
Her head jerked. Logan had appeared around the side of the small house. He stepped around the elevated frame of her ancient water cistern. When her heart drifted back down from her throat, she chanced speech. “Which explains why you’re sneaking around outside my house.” Once again, she found herself wishing that he’d do what he’d come to do and go. It would be painful—like the worst kind of bandage being ripped off her skin. But at least it would be quick.
He came toward her, looking even taller from her half-prone position. The wind was doing a number on his hair, too. Blowing through the short, thick strands of dark brown to reveal a few strands of silver. He was as darkly tanned as she remembered. The contrast made his blue eyes seem even brighter. Logan—in the flesh—made her feel as edgy as he ever had.
The sooner he left, the better.
“Riley is inside. You should take her now. You wouldn’t want to get stuck on the island if the weather goes even more sour.”
“In a hurry to see her go, Annie?” His expression was considering. “Having a teenager around cramping your style?”
She swung her legs off the chaise and rose. “There’s no style to cramp. She doesn’t belong here with me. She belongs at home with Will and Noelle. Nothing’s going to be solved by her remaining here. Everybody, including you, knows that.”
“Maybe she just needs a breather. Don’t you remember needing a breather when you were her age?”
“When I was her age, I’d already been at Bendlemaier for months. And the last place I wanted to be was at home with George and Lucia.”
His lips twisted. He gave her a sidelong look that tightened her stomach. “Liar.”
She stiffened. “What?”
He moved, catching her chin in his big palm, tilting it toward him. She went stock-still, her senses going way beyond alert at the close, wind-blown warmth of him.
“You heard me,” he challenged softly. “When you were Riley’s age, you wanted nothing more than to live at home, to have normal parents who cared more about you than their careers, to go to the same public high school that Will had gone to.”
“I never told you that,” she said stiffly.
His thumb gently tapped her chin. “You didn’t have to tell me everything. It was obvious, Annie. And that night at the boathouse, you said—”
“I said a lot of things.” She felt exposed with her face firmly tilted up to his gaze. “And I was drunk,” she finished flatly.
“Nearly,” he allowed. “On champagne you had no business drinking.”
“Well, you were the only one who noticed.”
“That pissed you off, too, didn’t it?”
She stepped back, deliberately lifting her chin away from his hold. “It was a long time ago and has nothing whatsoever to do with the reason you’re here.”
“Are you so certain about that?”
Her knees felt weak. She refused to sit, though she wanted to. Badly. “Yes, I’m certain.”
The corner of his lips lifted in that saturnine expression of his that visited her too often in her sleep. Ridiculous, really. And maybe it was only because she simply didn’t get involved with men—hadn’t for more years than she could count on her fingers—that she was beset with memories of this one man in particular.
She’d humiliated herself with him at Will’s wedding reception, after all. Her youthfully inflated ego had convinced her that he must surely have had the hots for her, mostly because she hadn’t been able to look at him without feeling as if her nerve endings were on fire.
Well, he’d corrected her on that score.
He could have taken advantage of an impetuous and spoiled teenager intent on playing with fire, but he hadn’t. So, regardless of the wicked cast of his lips, Annie knew that Logan, like Will, was a straight arrow. Despite his devil-dark looks, he’d probably never even crossed the street against the light.
“Aren’t you curious, Annie?”
She snatched at the towel when a gust of wind picked it up off the chaise. She twisted the terrycloth in her hands. “About what? Riley’s real reasons for running away from home? It’s hard to believe it would just be Bendlemaier. Noelle says that Riley has made a small career out of negotiating things she wants or doesn’t want in life.”
“That’s all you’re curious about? Only Riley?” He stepped closer again.
Beyond them, a colorful beach ball hurtled over the sand, followed by a scrap of paper that hung on the wind. For some reason, the sight of them made Annie even more aware of the solitude of her house. Her nearest neighbors were more than a mile away.
She swallowed. “That’s all I can afford to be curious about.”
“Sounds awfully cautious for the Annie I knew.”
Her eyes burned. She blamed it on something in the blowing wind because she didn’t cry. Not anymore. “The Annie you knew no longer exists.” Her words were barely audible. “She learned her lessons the hard way.”
“What lessons?” He jerked his head up before his lips finished forming the question.
An awful buzzing whine had rent the air. Piercing. Loud. Annie nearly jumped out of her skin and covered her ears. “What is that?” She had to yell to be heard above the alarm, above the awful thunder that was suddenly crashing overhead, sounding as if mountains were collapsing.
His hand was on her arm, pushing her through the glass door he slid open. “That’s the emergency siren. A hangover from the Second World War. Get Riley.”
Annie had lived on Turnabout for five years. She hadn’t even known there was an emergency siren. She ran to the second bedroom and threw the door wide, calling Riley’s name.
But the room was empty.
Chapter Four
Annie’s heart stopped.
Riley wasn’t in her bedroom.
Before she thought about the idiocy of it, she darted into the room, looking under the bed when she knew perfectly well the only things that fitted under there were the shallow plastic storage boxes that contained a lifetime of photographs. She also yanked open the closet door. But all that was inside were her vacuum cleaner and clothing she never wore.
“Riley?” She stumbled around the twin-sized bed to peer out the window that overlooked the front of the house, only to jump back with a cry when a palm branch slammed against it, then screeched along the side of the house as the wind carried it.
Logan was there, arm sliding about her waist, bodily lifting her away from the shuddering windowpane. “Stay away from the glass.”
She was beyond listening, twisting away from him, nearly falling over the foot of the bed again as she ran into the hall, calling Riley’s name again, barely able to hear her own voice over the wail of the emergency siren.
Darkness seemed to have fallen in the span of minutes, broken by the hideous strobe of lightning that seemed too close and far too dangerous. “She’s not in the house.” Panic choking her, she headed toward the door, only to find Logan blocking her way. “I have to find her!”
“You don’t even have on shoes. I’ll go.” He reached for the door himself. It blew out of his grasp when he opened it, slamming back against the wall behind it before he caught it again. “Stay here. Inside. She can’t be far.”
He’d barely disappeared out the door before Annie ran into her bedroom. She shoved her feet into her tennis shoes and followed him.
Her sweatshirt was immediately soaked, her hair whipping around her head, nearly blinding her as she ran around the side of the house. The wind tore Riley’s name from her throat, and the siren wailed on and on and on, threatening to madden her.
Where was Riley?
Logan had headed up the path that passed for a road in the front of the house. Annie took the beach behind the house instead. Squinting against the sand that managed to blow despite the deluge of water pounding down on it, she ran past the black, cold fire pit, all the way down to the frothing, roiling edge of water. Peered right and left, staring hard between flashes of light, her heart beating so viciously she felt ill. “Riley!”
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