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Like One of the Family
Kimberly Van Meter
White beaches, blue waters…St. John is paradise for most. But not for Lora Bell. Her childhood home is a source of painful memories and obligation. And this visit isn't likely to change anything. She's here to deal with a mountain of trouble at her family's resort, her grandfather…and Heath Cannon, the guy she'd rather forget.Being around Heath reminds Lora of another side of herself–the less serious, more carefree side. And while that might be a welcome change, this is not the time. She has to be strong to make the tough decisions required to save the resort. So these feelings need to stop. Now. But it may be too late. Because those beaches, the water and Heath seem to be changing everything.


Trouble in paradise
White beaches, blue waters…St. John is paradise for most. But not for Lora Bell. Her childhood home is a source of painful memories and obligation. And this visit isn’t likely to change anything. She’s here to deal with a mountain of trouble at her family’s resort, her grandfather…and Heath Cannon, the guy she’d rather forget.
Being around Heath reminds Lora of another side of herself—the less serious, more carefree side. And while that might be a welcome change, this is not the time. She has to be strong to make the tough decisions required to save the resort. So these feelings need to stop. Now. But it may be too late. Because those beaches, the water and Heath seem to be changing everything.
“I could fire you right now.”
“Do it, then,” Heath dared Lora. “But let me tell you something else so you can make an informed decision. If you do that, you’re going to have a storm on your hands that not even you will be able to handle. I’ve been running Larimar for the past year but beyond that, I own the gift shop downstairs, and Larimar doesn’t have enough money to pay me off.”
Lora stared, shock in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head. “Why don’t you take a moment to really look at Larimar and see all the changes that have been made since you’ve been gone? Someone had to do something to start making some money, because the one with the marketing degree…well, she was unavailable.”
With that, he stalked past her. He was done with her for the day. If he stood another minute in her presence, he’d choke on his own frustration—or choke her.
Dear Reader,
I love difficult people. There is something so subtle and nuanced beneath the surface of bad behavior that has always fascinated me. When you pick at the behavior, eventually you see the motivation beneath, and it gives you additional insight to that person. In my experience, most often the prickliest people have the softest hearts. What a fascinating contradiction, yes? I think so. And difficult people make for very interesting characters!
With this book you’re about to meet the Bell family, starting with Lora Bell. She’s the epitome of difficult. Known as a hard-nosed businesswoman, Lora is merciless in the boardroom, but she struggles to relate to her sisters as they try to save Larimar, the family resort in St. John. Add to the mix a special man from Lora’s past whom she can’t bully or forget, and you have a love story just waiting to happen.
This newest cast of characters has already stolen my heart. They feel as real to me as my own family. I had the privilege of traveling with my family to St. John in the Virgin Islands to research the location and I’m happy to share my experience through the Family in Paradise trilogy. Look for the next book later in 2012.
Hearing from readers is a special joy. Please feel free to drop me a line via email through my website, www.kimberlyvanmeter.com, or through snail mail at Kimberly Van Meter, P.O. BOX 2210, Oakdale,
CA 95361.
Kimberly Van Meter
Like One of the Family
Kimberly Van Meter

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kimberly Van Meter wrote her first book at sixteen and finally achieved publication in December 2006. She writes for the Harlequin Superromance and Harlequin Romantic Suspense lines. She and her husband of seventeen years have three children, three cats and always a houseful of friends, family and fun.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u9a55ddb4-b487-5faf-983e-700617045d75)
CHAPTER TWO (#u092c7c3d-8cd2-54d6-9626-a231491d6ecc)
CHAPTER THREE (#u6f6f6183-762b-501e-a497-61903e841bc1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uc69a7d1b-59ce-50c1-adb9-1ef061f9dc6e)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u3bbc4a80-e540-5242-a775-dd5d884bbac4)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE©WARM, SALTY©BREEZE lifted Lora Bell’s hair from her damp neck as she stepped from the ferry platform after docking in Cruz Bay, St. John. She knew the fierce humidity would wreak havoc on her carefully maintained cut and color so that by the time she reached Larimar, which was only a short drive out of town, the curl she fought to tame would spring to life with a vengeance.
Home sweet home, she thought sourly, pausing to quickly wrap her shoulder-length hair into a messy knot at the back of her head. Everywhere she looked paradise stared back—calm, azure water lapping at spun-sugar beaches, vibrant green foliage rimming the shorelines—but Lora really saw something different. She saw obligation, poverty, decaying infrastructure, greed and corruption leaking through the cracks in the cement and stinking up the air like the open-air Dumpsters that everyone used to dispose of their trash. And she was angry as hell that situations beyond her control had dragged her home against her will.
Although quieter and more low-key than St. Thomas, St. John still saw its share of tourists and Lora was reminded of this fact as she navigated the throng of people walking by with their coconut-rum concoctions, clutching at wide, floppy straw hats in an attempt to shield their skin from the tropical sun. Unlike them, Lora wasn’t here on a pleasure cruise.
She jerked her Louis Vuitton rolling luggage over the worn plank dock and continued, her steps quick and purposeful, toward the man awaiting her by the Jeep Wrangler her family had purchased many years ago and that had begun to wear its age like an embattled war veteran. She didn’t bother hiding her frown when she saw the Jeep but Lora knew it was pointless to complain. Island cars were a special breed. The more banged up, the more street cred they acquired. But it’d been quite a while since she’d lived on the island and she much preferred a smoother ride nowadays, such as her company’s sleek Lincoln Town Car, which had always been at her disposal when she’d been the company darling.
How the mighty have fallen. She gritted her teeth against the unexpected sting of moisture in her eyes and focused again on the problems facing her in the here and now. The long flight had been excruciating enough with nothing but her rapidly deteriorating sense of self to keep her company; who was she without her punishing work schedule to keep her busy? Who was she if she wasn’t out there making mincemeat of anyone who stood in her way? Just as she discovered that the answer was not to be found at the bottom of a Chardonnay bottle, it was not here, either. All that awaited her in St. John was more problems. She could only hope her problems in Chicago would wait—the ones greeting her in St. John would not.
Her gaze searched and settled on the one man she’d hoped she wouldn’t see. Given that her luck had been somewhere in the toilet region, she shouldn’t have been surprised that Heath Cannon would be the one to pick her up from the ferry.
Coincidentally, he wore the same expression of put-upon pique as she felt. Great. So they were both pissed. This ought to make for an uncomfortable ride to the resort. She met his hard stare with one of her own—intimidation was a tactic she had perfected. “I still don’t understand why you couldn’t take care of this situation until I could get here when my schedule allowed,” she said to Heath who neither offered to take her bag nor cracked a welcoming smile in spite of being her ride. Not that she’d expected or needed such niceties, of course. “I can’t imagine that Lilah couldn’t handle whatever is going on.”
Lilah, the younger of her fraternal twin sisters, had moved back home three months ago with the intent to help their grandfather with the resort, but apparently the job was too much for her flighty little sis and all hell was breaking loose with some sort of calamity. She swore under her breath when the wheel of her luggage snagged again. When Heath still hadn’t said a word, she gave him an irritated look. “Are you even listening to me? Why’d you come, anyway? Why couldn’t Lilah pick me up?” she grumbled, mostly to herself. She hated feeling as if she were to blame for this mess simply because she’d failed to jump at the slightest mention of a shadow on the horizon. But Heath was making it quite clear that he blamed her. The knowledge pinched and in turn, angered her further. She wasn’t to blame and she certainly wouldn’t accept the burden just because others were incompetent. “Well?”
“Lilah had things to do,” came his curt reply as he rounded the Jeep to the driver’s side. “So that left me holding the short straw.”
As in, neither had wanted to pick her up. Nice. They were in an all-fired hurry to get her here but now that they’d succeeded they wanted to avoid her like the plague? Real mature. And just like Lilah. The spoiled brat. Everyone made allowances for the twins but when it came to Lora, she was expected to be the iron maiden, impervious to every slung arrow. She bit back a sarcastic reply and instead ignored his statement. She wasn’t going to waste her energy sniping at Heath. She had precious little of it after the exhausting travel day. It was too hot and humid and she wanted nothing more than to stand under a very cold shower for at least five minutes.
Heath, fit as a surfer with nothing better to do than ride the waves and pick up bikini-clad chicks, remained silent, which suited her perfectly. The less they interacted, the better. He looked as she remembered from her childhood and subsequent sporadic visits home, though she didn’t quite recall the muscle cording his shoulders and the way his broad chest tapered to slim hips. She yanked her carry-on, lifting it onto the backseat of the Jeep before climbing in, still angry over the entire situation and the wretchedly bad timing in regards to her career.
Oh, wait, what career? She winced inwardly at the recollection of what had gone down only a handful of days ago when her boss had not-so-gently fired her after losing a major, multimillion-dollar account to a competitor. The memory, fresh and humiliatingly devastating, caused a sick roiling in her stomach that completely soured the airline-issue ham sandwich she’d choked down during her flight. And now this? Family issues were the last thing she wanted to deal with, but Lilah and her grandfather had made a right mess of the family business and she had to clean it up or else lose everything.
Reversing her decision to remain quiet for the drive, she said, “I know it’s difficult for you to comprehend but this is the absolute worst timing for me.” She needed to be doing damage control to find another job before news of her untimely and involuntary exit rippled through the grapevine. Marketing was such an incestuous little circle with everyone knowing everyone else’s business because oftentimes, the person sharing the hotel bed was the same person you were trying to seduce information from about the competitor. Once word spread about her firing, one of two things would happen: either her former company’s competitors would start sniffing around, making offers because—prior to her unfortunate lapse in judgment—she’d been the best in town; or they’d treat her like the plague because, in this economy, no one could afford to hire someone who lost accounts. Period. Thus the need for damage control. Closing her eyes for the briefest of moments to recollect herself, she opened them when she realized Heath was talking.
“He’s your grandfather and he needs you,” Heath said, his voice a strong yet low timbre that hinted at the temper he was holding back.
She glared even as a slight shudder, undetectable to anyone aside from herself, danced along her backbone. Since when was it okay for Heath Cannon to reprimand her like an errant child? Damn him for being so self-righteous. He had no idea what she’d been through in the past week. She was tempted to tell him to zip it but she held the impulse in check by the smallest grace.
“I’ve been trying to get you to come for months and you’ve ignored every call, every email, every letter. Until now.”
“Well, excuse me for misplacing a little faith in my sister to handle what was happening here,” she shot back, reaching up to hold on while Heath took the Jeep out of town and up the winding road to the resort. “How was I supposed to know that little Miss Butterfly Brain would flake when it mattered most?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Why not? It seems to fit. You forget I’ve known her her entire life,” she said drily.
“Oh, then should we start calling you by what you’ve been known for?”
She cast a sharp glance his way, knowing full well how she was perceived both on the island and elsewhere. For lack of a better word: the Bitch. She wasn’t naive and she wasn’t sensitive about it, either. She firmly believed that strong women were often labeled out of insecurity. She lifted her chin. “Yes, well, I’m here now.”
“Yes, finally.”
“There you go being dramatic again,” she muttered, adjusting the thin band of her watch against her skin, hating that every square inch of her skin was damp. She could already feel sand in all sorts of places it didn’t belong. “You said Pops was about to lose the resort. Something about back taxes and a lien against the property, which honestly isn’t something I’m going to freak out about until I’ve had my lawyers take a look.” Oh, damn. She no longer had lawyers. The company had a vast stable of lawyers at its disposal, something she’d learned to take for granted, which is why the statement had rolled so blithely from her tongue. But why admit that to Heath, she thought churlishly, the heat and the situation leaching away the last vestige of grace available to her. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it sound,” she snapped, wiping at the sweat dotting her hairline. She’d forgotten how awful the island humidity was. It felt as if a big, wet elephant were sitting on her chest. Just the act of breathing was a chore. How had she ever lived here without keeling over in a drippy, soggy mess?
“If it were just the taxes, I wouldn’t have taken your precious time,” Heath said, the caustic note in his voice hard to miss and stinging just a bit. “You knew that Lilah wasn’t up to the job,” he said, not even trying to hide the accusation in his tone. “She was in way over her head and now…”
“So what is it then? What weren’t you willing to tell me about Pops unless I came? Lilah wouldn’t say, either.” Well, Lilah wasn’t exactly speaking to her at the moment, not after Lora berated her within an inch of her life for not handling things herself, which may have been a little harsh but she’d deal with that later.
Heath’s mouth firmed and he seemed to falter under her direct query. His obvious hesitation gave her an odd, apprehensive tremor in the pit of her stomach. What could be so bad that Heath didn’t just spit it out? Oh, God, not cancer… Her fear conjured images of her mother and grandmother dying and she felt sick. “Just tell me,” she said, the words tight in her mouth but it was becoming hard to breathe.
He shook his head, waving away her fear. “On the outside, Pops is healthy as a horse,” he said, confusing her. He shot a quick assessing gaze her way, then finished with a sigh. “It’s not his body that’s failing. It’s his mind. Pops has early onset dementia. He’s losing it and I don’t mean in the general sense that he’s becoming forgetful at times. He… Well, you need to see for yourself.”
A chill washed over Lora. Pops? Dementia? Her grandfather was the only father figure she and her sisters had since their biological father decided he couldn’t handle being a daddy any longer and split, which was followed with impeccable timing by the death of their mother from cancer. It’d been a double tap of anguish with a nice sledgehammer slam just for fun. There were parts of her childhood she’d purposefully blocked out. Her parents splitting, both voluntarily and involuntarily, was a particularly painful topic that she rarely visited.
Lora didn’t dare risk a glance at Heath. She didn’t want to see his condemnation. She heard it in his voice plain as day. If it was true that her grandfather was slowly losing his mind and she’d left Lilah and Heath to deal with it, she could understand why they were so pissed at her. Wouldn’t she feel the same? Yes. A small part of her wanted to rail at fate for being so cruel to her family. Wasn’t it enough that cancer had struck twice? Now they had dementia to deal with, too?
She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat but she refused to let Heath know he’d struck a nerve. She made a living by concealing the tiniest flicker of unease or distress and she’d found a certain usefulness for the ability in her personal life. She focused on the road. “Last time I checked you were a handyman, not a doctor. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“You’re a piece of work,” he muttered, throwing the car into the next gear without finesse, causing her to jerk against the seat belt. “Chicago is the perfect place for someone like you.”
“Is that so? And why is that?” she asked without a trace of humor to soften the sarcasm in her tone.
“Because all the snow and ice is perfect for the frigid bitch you’ve become. I can’t believe you and Jack are related and, frankly, if anyone else’s name had been on the legal documents I would’ve gladly given them the information. As it is, you’re the one listed as the next of kin in the event something were to happen to Jack, and obviously Lilah isn’t cut out for this kind of stuff. I didn’t have much of a choice,” he added with a dark scowl.
Lora stared out at the passing scenery, ignoring the sharp stab of hurt his words caused. As the oldest sister, she had assumed the responsibility of the family estate, such that it was, if one resort could be considered an estate, but Pops had never made it a secret that he wanted his little “sugar birds” to inherit the resort when he passed. With her other sister Lindsey, Lilah’s twin, in Southern California doing the actress thing, it seemed appropriate for Lilah to come and help out since she was the only one of the three who was still searching for a career—and failing miserably—but Lora hadn’t imagined that things could implode so badly with Lilah at the helm. “Just drive, please. I didn’t fly all the way here from Chicago to listen to you lecture me.”
She longed to pinch the bridge of her nose to stem the sudden pounding in her sinuses caused by too much flora and fauna all at once, but she’d allow nothing that would betray her discomfort or the nagging sense of guilt that she’d shrugged off her responsibility and dumped it on her baby sister when deep down she’d known it wasn’t a good idea. But honestly, the woman had to grow up sometime and now had seemed as good a time as any, particularly when Lora had been too busy to attend to the issues herself.
“Yes, ma’am,” Heath replied, the flip tone smacking in the face of his obvious anger. He kept his attention on the road, for which Lora was inordinately glad; it kept them from suffering through too much eye contact.
It hadn’t always been like this between them, though the time when they’d actually been friends seemed far away now. She supposed she might’ve been to blame for the change, but it was so long ago she saw no point in picking apart history to reminisce.
In an effort to ease the silence filling the car like a throat-clogging perfume, Lora asked, “So…how are things on the island? Everything seems pretty much the same as when I left.”
“Small talk, huh? You sure you want to try something out of your field? I know your penchant for success in all things. I’d hate to witness your attempt at niceties crash and burn so badly.”
“I’m just trying to be civil.”
“Don’t bother. I lost any respect I had for you four months ago when my last email went unanswered and I had to sit in the urgent care with Pops after he’d wandered out and fell and hit his head. He needed twenty stitches, by the way.”
Pops had fallen? Lilah hadn’t told her. “I don’t recall that message,” she said stiffly, shifting against the uncomfortable squeeze her conscience gave her for losing Heath’s message—not intentionally, she’d been buried under deadlines, meetings, dinner appointments and whatnot of her hectic life, she was tempted to point out—but she held her ground. “Neither you nor Lilah must have tried very hard. I’m always accessible as you discovered when you sent me the certified letter demanding I come home over this situation with the resort.”
He cut her a short look and snorted. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind. If I want to get your attention, a certified letter is necessary.” Heath scrubbed at his head, irritation hardening his features. “I always wondered why Pops put you in charge of his affairs. Something tells me you must hide that predatory nature of yours behind pretty smiles for the old man because if he saw what I see…he’d likely change his mind, right quick.”
Pops adored them all. Their mother, his only daughter, had given him three little sugar birds that he’d delighted in spoiling. And it was true, she did soften her natural inclination to go for the jugular when she was around Pops. She narrowed her stare at Heath for his spot-on observation.
“My relationship with my grandfather is none of your business,” she said sharply. “I fail to see why you’re so up in arms over a problem that doesn’t truly concern you. It’s not as if anyone asked you to take on my family’s problems. If you’re so bothered by the way I am, then by all means, find some other family to attach yourself to.”
At her rebuke, he stiffened and she felt the overwhelming urge to apologize. It seemed her mouth didn’t know when to rein it in or offer mercy. She struggled not to grimace. That was similar to what her former boss had said to her when he fired her. According to Stan Brothers, CEO of The Pershing Group, Lora lacked tact, and was unnecessarily abrasive. Of course, Stan hadn’t cared when she’d been bringing in the big accounts, only when she’d lost one account. Okay…if she were being honest, the biggest account The Pershing Group had ever managed but was that truly enough to warrant termination? Realizing her mind was traveling off topic, she returned to Heath with a barely restrained sigh.
“I thought everyone on the island was supposed to be easygoing and nice. What happened to you?”
Heath’s mouth tipped in a slow smirk that didn’t quite reach the storm of his hazel eyes. “You happened, Lora Bell. Plain and simple…you happened.”
* * *
HEATH©NEARLY©BIT©HIS tongue in half as he let the words fly, wishing he’d just held to his earlier decision to keep his mouth shut for the duration of the car ride and then move on after he’d deposited her in the driveway. But the minute he’d seen her, looking stiff as steel, poured into the tailored business suit that was ridiculously overdressed for the humid tropical climate, he’d been unable to listen to his own good advice.
Seeing the woman made it difficult to remember the girl.
She hadn’t always been chipped from granite like she was now. Hell, he didn’t think she remembered that fact or if she did, she didn’t much like to be reminded. Maybe that’s why they’d always rubbed each other wrong. He knew a few of her secrets, even if she pretended otherwise. He remembered a girl with tears on her face, struggling to hold it together for her sisters’ sake on the day of her mother’s funeral. Lindsey and Lilah had been looking to her for strength and she was determined to give it to them, even if she’d had nothing left for herself.
He remembered laughter between two kids, running along the surf, and eating fresh coconut when they were hungry. He also remembered the way she’d looked at him, as if he were the funniest, brightest, most awesome boy alive. He remembered a basket of food when he’d been most certainly about to starve.
That’s how he remembered Lora Bell. And damn it, that might’ve been the moment he lost a tiny piece of his heart to her, too.
Sometimes he wondered if he’d imagined all of it.
The woman she’d become wasn’t even a shadow of the girl she’d been.
Everything changed when he’d returned to the island after a year of being gone.
Suddenly, he’d become just the boy who did odd jobs for Pops, the unwelcome presence at the dinner table on some nights, or the lanky teen who’d burned with humiliation as Lora dismissed him as any kind of romantic possibility.
He was ashamed to admit there was some small part of him that hoped he’d see a remnant of the girl she’d been so long ago even though it’d been years since she’d put in an appearance. He was an idiot for hoping—he knew—but buried deep, that hope still flickered, even if it was a very dim ember.
“You know if you weren’t so damn difficult all the time, people might have an easier time liking you,” he bit out in spite of himself.
“You suffer under the mistaken assumption the opinions of others matter to me,” she replied simply. “I couldn’t care less what other people think of me. You’ve known me long enough, surely you remember that about me.”
He gritted his teeth. “I also remember you being a bit nicer at one time.”
She seemed momentarily shaken by his admission, as if they’d both quietly agreed to never talk about the times before he left for St. Thomas for a year, and within a heartbeat she’d stuffed away any hint of discomfort or raw feeling.
“Your memory is flawed.”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged with a shrug. “But doubtful. However, why you would take pride in being so difficult, I don’t understand. You know, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar and spreading a little goodwill might be helpful considering you haven’t been on the island for some time. You never know where you might need help.”
She leveled a short look his way. “Thanks for the advice I didn’t ask for. I take pride in being efficient. If you consider that being difficult, then so be it. As far as needing goodwill…I don’t see how that applies. I’m here to solve a problem, not run for mayor.”
Ah, hell. Why did he even try? She was a lost cause. “Fine. Whatever. Just trying to help.”
“Your help would’ve been useful before I was required to hop a plane and put my life on hold,” she said evenly, staring straight ahead, though her grip tightened ever so slightly on the roof handle, betraying something. Heath couldn’t be sure if his comment had struck a nerve or she just really had to pee and she wished he would drive faster.
“Yeah, well, I guess if you were more efficient about getting your messages, we might not be in this mess now.”
He expected a cutting retort but she remained silent. Whether she secretly agreed with him or she simply had run out of steam to argue, he didn’t know.
One thing was for sure, he was pretty certain whatever had been lodged in his heart for all those years was dead and gone. Now he was just here for Pops. He loved the old man and would do whatever was necessary to help him—including putting up with Lora.
Lilah had tried to mop up the mess but she’d been out of her element and completely clueless as to how to keep a resort running while her beloved Pops held imaginary conversations with her long-dead Grams. Actually, he felt kinda bad for the kid. Lora had put her in a bad spot and now was ready to crucify Lilah for failing.
Time for damage control. If there was a way he could reel back the words he’d carelessly uttered, he’d do it. Barring that, he needed to focus attention on what mattered.
“Listen, here’s the deal. Pops loses time. One minute he’s totally fine and acting like the Pops I’ve known since I was a kid but then he slips and he’s not in the here and now.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means sometimes he thinks Grams is still alive,” he answered grimly.
Lora exhaled softly, shocked by his admission. He knew how close Lora and Grams had been. Losing her had been nearly as tough as when she’d lost her mother. When she spoke again, her voice was strong, betraying nothing of whatever she was feeling inside, leaving him to wonder if she had a shred of humanity left in her. “Well, we’ll just have to remind him of reality. Grams died ten years ago. We can’t let him marinate in fantasy. That can’t be healthy.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s better than watching him lose her over and over again. When you tell him that Grams is gone, it’s as if she’s just died.”
“Oh,” she breathed, and this time her voice softened and real distress was etched on her face. He found that a good sign. Maybe there was hope for her yet. “What can we do for him? Is there medication he can take? What does the doctor say?”
“Well, if you’d come when I first started calling…you’d know.”
She pressed a delicate finger to her temple and waved him off. “Yes, yes, I’m the big bad bitch and my sisters are irresponsible twits. We’ve already sufficiently covered that topic. Time to move on before my head explodes. Something in the air is making my sinuses riot. Do you have any allergy medication at the resort?”
He was tempted to say no, but he wasn’t that big of a jerk. “Yeah,” he said.
“Oh, good,” she said, relieved, closing her eyes. “I propose we postpone this episode of the I Hate Lora Bell Show until I’ve had a chance to stop this pounding in my head. I have enough to deal with as it is, I don’t need sparring with you added to the list just yet. I’ll keep quiet, if you will. Deal?”
“Fine by me,” he muttered, pissed that she was ending what he hadn’t planned on starting in the first place. “Welcome home.”
Good as her word, she buttoned her lip, content to finish the drive in silence, although his mind stubbornly continued to hit him with what was to come.
No doubt she thought she’d make whatever fixes she figured were necessary and then jump on the next ferry out of here. She was going to discover, quite quickly, it wouldn’t be that simple.
If only she’d shown up sooner…maybe things might’ve been put right more easily.
Now? It’d be a miracle if Larimar wasn’t sold out from underneath their feet.
And if that happened? It would surely send Pops toppling over the ledge of sanity and into the land of no return.
He hoped Lora couldn’t live with that on her conscience.
But risking a glance at the woman seeming to drowse in the island heat, he couldn’t help but fear that a conscience was the first thing Lora had sacrificed for that high-powered career of hers, and if that was the case…likely Larimar was screwed.
And by proxy…so was he.
CHAPTER TWO
HEATH©PARKED©IN©THE©SMALL spot designated for the resort vehicle, and Lora sprang from her seat, eager to get away from Heath and his condemning scowl.
She went to grab her bag but Heath was already jerking it free from the Jeep, being none too gentle with the expensive luggage. Lora reached for the handle, exasperated. “A little care, please? This probably cost more than what you make in a month.” He shot her a quelling look and she immediately felt bad for the comment, but her temper was in full control of her mouth, and frustration had dissolved whatever portion of empathy and common courtesy she’d possessed before she’d even landed at Charlotte Amalie Airport in St. Thomas.
“Sorry about that,” she muttered, in an attempt to soften the insult but Heath had already turned his back on her. She could almost see the disgust he felt for her emanating from him in waves with each step that carried him farther away. Fine, be that way, she wanted to shout even knowing she’d been the one to snap first. What was it about Heath Cannon that made her act like a ten-year-old? She’d fired people for less.
All right, so let’s get this over with. Maybe with any luck she’d have this crisis figured out before the week was out and she could hop another plane back to Chicago before her hair permanently frizzed into an iguana’s nest of knots. As far as Pops went, she couldn’t believe that his mind was deteriorating. He was the smartest man she knew. Likely, his memory gaps were simply a product of the natural aging process. For crying out loud, if she didn’t have her BlackBerry to keep her on track she’d forget plenty of important things, but that didn’t mean she had dementia. Everyone seemed to be pulling a Chicken Little. Chances were that the sky was not actually falling.
Larimar—named after the agate stone found only in the Caribbean that locals claimed had magical qualities—came into view with its swaying tropical foliage flanking the entrance with bay rum and giant kapok trees creating a green canopy of various shades. Bright wild flowers dotted the underbrush and lizards of all kinds darted away from the approach of human feet.
She’d thought her pique would insulate her from nostalgia but the minute she crossed the threshold into the airy lobby of Larimar, her high heels clicking sharply on the travertine tile floor, memories drifted from hidden corners like the smell of coconut suntan lotion on the ocean breeze. Lora halted, her eyes closing for just a moment as her Grams floated into her mind’s eye and her beloved voice echoed in Lora’s mind.
“Little Miss Bell, have you had at least one hour of fun at the beach today?” Grams had asked one day when she found Lora studying instead of doing what every other kid was doing during summer vacation. Grams had gently closed the book, her eyes smiling but faintly serious as she instructed Lora to go act like a teenager for once. “Go get into some trouble, but not too much trouble, mind you. Just enough to make interesting memories to giggle over when you’re an adult. And for land’s sake, get your nose out of those books.”
Lora had been focused on her grades, not goofing off or finding boyfriends like most of her friends, or twin sisters for that matter. Lindy was a shameless flirt who basked in the adoration of every pair of male eyes that crossed at the sight of her bouncing around in her tiny bikini; Lilah, the younger twin by one minute, had also enjoyed her share of boys clustered around her, though she’d been more carefree about her love life, choosing to float through relationships until the wind took her elsewhere.
Oh, Grams… Lora took a quiet moment to collect herself, shaking off the memory of her beloved grandmother with effort. Of all things, she missed Grams the most.
Grams had been the calm in the storm that had become Lora’s life when they were forced to move to Larimar after her father abandoned them. Lora’s mother had been so heartbroken, so lost after her husband split. And then, shortly after they’d arrived in St. John, the cancer diagnosis had followed. It had seemed a colossally bad cosmic joke but it’d been no joke. Her mother had died with little fight. In fact, it had seemed to Lora that her mother had simply given up. For that, Lora found memories of her mother difficult. More so than memories of Grams. At least with Grams, Lora had plenty of great memories to temper the sad ones. Intellectually, Lora knew it wasn’t fair to judge her mother based on the memories of a ten-year-old girl, but she did anyway. Just one more reason Lora was known as the Bitch, she supposed.
But Grams was gone—the problems facing Larimar were in the here and now and that’s why she’d come.
Her lids flipped open and she purposefully walked toward the front counter where a dark-skinned woman she didn’t recognize sat in reception.
“Welcome to—”
“Not necessary.” She cut the woman’s spiel in half with a wave of her hand, ignoring the startled look at her abruptness. Glancing around, she looked for someone she knew. “My name is Lora Bell. Can you tell me where my grandfather or my sister Lilah is? I need to see them at once.”
“I know who you are,” the woman said, her voice thick with the local Crucian accent common to the island. Her stare narrowed and the judgment in her expression caused Lora to pause. “You finally come to help Mistah Bell? ’Bout time.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Mistah Bell needed ya and ya too busy to make time for him.”
She was being schooled by the receptionist? What next? Lora made a mental note to start looking for a replacement right away. “You seem to know a lot about me, but I know very little about you,” Lora said coolly. “What is your name?”
“Celly,” the woman answered, her chin rising. Her dark brown stare neither flinched or shifted away, and Lora knew this woman felt fairly confident in her position and wouldn’t scare easily. Fabulous. With the luck Lora was having, her grandfather had probably written this Celly into the will. Good gravy. She felt a cloud at her back and her pessimistic attitude certainly wasn’t helping.
She forced a brief smile. “Can you tell me where to find my grandfather?”
“Mistah Bell in de back,” the woman answered with a small sniff. “You know your way?”
Lora ground her teeth, irritated. “Of course. I did grow up here, you know,” she muttered, gripping her luggage handle, then said over her shoulder, “We’ll be talking again soon, I’m sure.”
“I look forward to it, missy,” Celly called back.
Oh, I bet you will, she thought blackly. She had a feeling if she didn’t put finding a new receptionist on top of her list, Celly was going to give her an earful that Lora definitely wasn’t in the mood to hear.
The back terrace was attached to the part of the resort that was reserved for the Bells and afforded a breathtaking view of the ocean. Larimar was a spacious four-plex with access to a secluded private beach via a short walk but the Bells’ section of the resort opened to beachfront property right off the terrace. It’d been Grams’s and Pops’s favorite part about Larimar; they’d often eaten their breakfast of papaya and coconut right there, followed by a quick dip in the water. Grams had been a water dog. Pops had often joked that he’d married a mermaid without her tail.
There, sitting at his wicker breakfast table, sat Pops, the empty chair opposite him pricking unexpected tears from Lora’s eyes as the loss of Grams hit her hard all over again. Maybe it was because her life was a mess and Grams had always known how to settle her “Little Miss Type A” as she’d lovingly called Lora, or maybe it was because her cycle was near and she was prone to bursts of emotion at the oddest moments, but sadness swamped Lora before she could guard against it. Thankfully, Pops was oblivious and simply grinned his jack-o’-lantern smile and exclaimed with pure pleasure at the sight of her, “There she is! Come here, my sugar bird.” He rose and gathered her into his embrace as if she were still a child and not a grown woman of thirty-two. But God bless him, her grandfather was her lifeline to sanity and she clung to him as if she was afraid to let go. He drew away, his blue eyes brimming with pride and not the least bit unclear—maybe they were all wrong about Pops and his supposed dementia—and she felt a bit of the tension ebb from her shoulders. “So good to see you, Lorie,” he said, his use of her nickname causing her to smile. No one but Pops was allowed to call her Lorie. She purposefully eschewed nicknames in her business life for fear that it might weaken the lines she drew to keep business and personal separate. Not that she had much of a personal life to keep separate but it was a good policy. Of course, all that went out the window the minute she saw Pops. He could call her whatever he liked.
“You look the same, Pops,” she said, somewhat relieved. When Heath had told her Pops was beginning to suffer mentally, she’d imagined a diminished shell of the robust man she’d known her entire life. But the man standing before her looked the same as he always did, like someone who still rose with the sun and worked as hard as he played. Lora smiled, straightening her tight skirt before taking a seat opposite her Pops. “You don’t age. Must be the clean island air. Or the rum,” she teased.
Pops winked and whispered conspiratorially, “Well, I have a secret but don’t tell your Grams…” Lora’s breath caught painfully in her chest and her smile froze but Pops didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward, saying, “I slather on a bit of that pricey lotion your Grams buys from her catalogs. That stuff really works. Keeps my skin looking smooth as a baby’s behind. And smells good, too. But let’s keep that between me and you. If your Grams found out she’d never let me live it down.”
Tears filled her eyes before she could stop them. She swallowed and forced a smile, gentling her voice as she said, “Pops, remember…Grams died ten years ago.” Lora placed a hand on his, squeezing in a show of support, hoping he’d snap into reality with the reminder.
But Pops didn’t snap or bounce or any such thing. He broke.
His expression faltered, confused, and Lora tried to mend things with more logic. “Pops, she’s in a happy place now. And she wouldn’t want us to waste tears when she’s no longer in pain and—”
“I just saw her this morning,” Pops said, his voice shaking, his eyes darting as if trying to find the truth in the memory. Turning accusatory, he looked disappointed in Lora and that nearly crushed her. “Lorie, why would you say that? Your Grams is fine. She’s doing just fine. Clean bill of health.”
“No, Pops,” Lora said, her own voice clogging with tears. “She died of breast cancer ten years ago. She found a lump and it had already moved to her lymph nodes. Grams died—”
“Stop saying that!” he demanded, his voice roughening as he rose from his chair to get away from her. Lora’s heart hammered hard in her chest and she didn’t know what to do. Her Pops had never been short with her in her entire life. She didn’t recognize this man and it broke her heart. “Lana,” he called out, going in search of Lora’s grandmother and leaving Lora to stare in horror and dissolve into tears.
And that’s how Heath found her.
* * *
THE©WORDS©DANCED©ON©HIS tongue, I told you so, but he wasn’t that big of an ass. He ought to walk away and leave Lora to soak in her own misery. Although his brain told him to go, he couldn’t quite get his feet to obey. He sighed, knowing he was about to try and console a wolverine of a woman and was likely to get his hand bit off, but he couldn’t just walk away when she was clearly heartbroken.
“As long as we play along that Lana is still alive…he’s the same old Jack. It’s when reality is forced on him that he balks and freaks out. Lilah makes sure to keep Grams’s things clean, even going so far as to put a load of folded laundry on the bed for Pops to put away like she used to. Lilah also started replacing some of the lotions and stuff that Grams used so that Pops wouldn’t get thrown off.”
Lora wiped at her face. “You’re continuing an elaborate farce? Doesn’t that seem the slightest bit inappropriate?”
He flung his arm in the direction Pops had gone, growing angry all over. Damn the woman. Didn’t she see that Pops needed that illusion? “It’s a small price to pay for his happiness. The man means everything to me. I’m willing to play along for his sake.”
“This is awful,” she said, shaking her head in horror. “You can’t keep pretending Grams is going to walk through the front door because she’s not going to! She’s gone. He needs to come to grips with that.”
“He doesn’t have the mental agility to do that any longer. The harder we push, the worse his dementia becomes. Lilah and I agreed, it was best to let him have his fantasy. Besides, who’s it really hurting?”
She stared. “Who’s it hurting?” she repeated incredulously, but even as she said the words, she stalled, and he knew the truth of it. It hurt her to pretend Grams was alive. Lora had never truly dealt with the pain of losing Grams. She just stuffed it down in that locked box where she put everything that was painful in her life and then never opened it again. “It’s not right,” she finished lamely.
He softened in the face of her subtle vulnerability. He knew that Grams had always been Lora’s safe haven, her voice of reason. Losing her had been a blow to her emotional foundation. “The good news is, it doesn’t last long,” he said, trying to reassure her. “By dinner, he’ll go back to thinking Lana is here and she’s just out shopping or taking care of Larimar business.”
Lora’s head shot up and her look of open distress at being caught in such a vulnerable position robbed her of words for a moment. But that moment didn’t last long. Soon enough her mouth tightened as her stare narrowed. “That’s the good news?” she said, grinding any residual moisture from her eyes and smoothing the tiny skirt as if the motion alone could release the wrinkles that a long plane ride and the humidity had created. “This is a nightmare. There is nothing good about it. How long has he been like this?”
He shrugged. “A year, give or take a few months.”
“A year?” She stared. “Why didn’t someone call me?”
“We did. Remember?”
Her blank stare may have fooled someone else but he knew right at this moment she was searching her memory, looking for some way to refute his blunt statement. Heath knew as much as she did that she was wrong. She’d flat out ignored every bit of correspondence that’d come her way when it’d come from her sisters or himself. He knew it—and better yet—so did she. Still, he was curious how she planned to wiggle her way out of that knowledge.
He waited, one brow lifting in question and she had the grace to flush. Unable to hold his stare, she looked away. “Fine,” she conceded grudgingly, eager to move on. “What’s being done about it? This pretense isn’t a long-term solution.” She pressed her fingers to her temple, and he remembered her mentioning a headache earlier. For a second, she seemed to waver on her feet and Heath started forward but she shooed him away with a murmur of annoyance at her own reaction. “Damn humidity is getting to me. I need to change and get something to drink before I can think straight.”
“Your room is in the same place,” Heath said, his mouth firming. Still the same hard-nosed woman she ever was. He held back the irritation that swelled when he remembered how he’d once thought the sun rose and set in her eyes. What a fool he was then. Things had certainly changed. “I assume you remember how to find it?”
She shot him a look that said his sarcasm wasn’t appreciated, then gripped her luggage handle and trudged past him, her back ramrod straight.
He didn’t know why Lora had been the one that’d always caught his eye. Even though her sisters were pretty in their own way, there’d been no one prettier than Lora in his opinion. When he thought of all the ways he’d tried to catch her attention, to get her to see him as more than the poor island boy who did odd jobs for her Pops…ugh, it twisted his gut in disgust.
The first thing he remembered about Lora Bell was that impossibly dark hair streaming down her back like a waterfall at midnight. Lora, her sisters and their mother had arrived by ferry to St. John wearing sadness as plainly as their summer tanks. Except Lora—no, in her little face, he saw a cold knot of anger that twisted beneath the layer of grief. Whereas her younger sisters were wide-eyed with apprehension at their new surroundings, Lora had taken it in with the air of a soldier grimly going to battle. Looking back, he suspected Lora had been a different child before her father skipped out on them and her mother had died of cancer a year later. As they’d grown closer during those first few months, he’d known a different side of her, a softer side, so he’d been doubly shocked and brokenhearted when she’d given him the cold shoulder on his return. It hadn’t been his choice to leave the island; his parents had abandoned him and he’d gone looking for them. It wasn’t exactly a typical situation but Lora knew none of that. He’d never told her and she’d never been interested enough to ask.
That’s not true, a voice whispered, reminding him of that day…
Stop! Resurrecting a childhood memory wasn’t going to help him deal with the Lora Bell of today, he growled to himself. Annoyance at his own useless mental sojourn down Useless Memory Lane, made him want to do something reckless, like give Lora a piece of his mind for neglecting her family when they needed her the most. But as much as it would feel good to abrade her for her actions, he knew the satisfaction would only last a moment. The Bells would stand by Lora—as they should—and he’d lose out on the only family he’d ever known.
He drew a deep breath but his chest remained tight. Lora had only been back for less than an hour and already she was turning his life upside down. The smart thing would be to keep his distance. If they weren’t around each other, they couldn’t rub each other the wrong way. Sounded like a plan—even if Heath knew following through was going to be damn near impossible. What Lora didn’t know was that Heath had been running the resort in a shadow capacity since Pops had started to show signs of dementia creeping on. He knew more about the day-to-day operations of Larimar than any of the Bell girls. And as soon as Lora found out, he was willing to bet his firstborn, she wasn’t going to like it.
* * *
THE©FOG©IN JACK’S©MIND scared him. Why would Lorie say that her Grams was dead? Why would his sugar bird say something so mean-spirited? He’d known Lorie to be a little on the no-nonsense side, unlike her sisters who were happy-go-lucky most times. “Lana?” he called out again, the silence bouncing back at him scared him more. “Lana? Where are you?” he said, rounding the corner to her favorite sunning spot. Maybe she went to town to get supplies, or even Lorie’s favorite beef pâté from Simon, the guy who made them from scratch in his kitchen and sold them out of his cooler. A smile found him as the explanation for Lana’s absence made sense. Lana always went out of her way for her sugar birds. Of course, that’s where she was. Relieved, he let his fear and confusion melt away and detoured to the shop where he could hear Heath tinkering on something. Jack had known Heath since he was a skinny, starving boy hanging around the resort looking for work.
He entered the shop, smiling as he saw Heath pounding out some nails from a board he was going to repurpose for something else needed for the resort. Heath was no skinny boy now. The boy had morphed into a strong, able man whom Jack and Lana considered family even though they didn’t share a drop of blood. If only Lorie saw what they saw in the man. “Whatcha working on, son?” he asked, forgetting his earlier moment and eagerly looking to Heath. The man was a whiz with his hands. If it could be built, Heath could build it. If it needed fixing, Heath found a way to fix it. Larimar was lucky to have him and Jack knew it.
“Just a new mailbox. I found this in a stack of wood being tossed out. Thought I’d fix the mailbox out front,” Heath answered, his focus on pulling the nails from the wood. But Jack knew the man pretty well and could sense something was eating at him.
“Lorie’s home,” Jack said, brightening. “You ought to see her. She’s pretty as the day is long. You remember, Lorie, don’t you?”
Heath jerked a short nod and continued to work but Jack wanted to chat. The boy worked too hard. “Let’s take a break,” he suggested, smiling. “What’s the drink of the day today? Is it that vanilla rum and banana drink that tastes like a banana smoothie with kick? I love that drink. Very refreshing, yah?”
“You go on ahead, Jack. I’ve got to finish this and then get on home.”
“Stay for dinner at least,” he said, liking the idea of Heath seeing more of Lorie. He and Lana thought the two would make a great couple. Although Lana said Lorie was too focused on her career to ever consider the slow, laid-back life on the island but Jack held out hope. His sugar bird had island in her blood. She just needed to be reminded what made it special.
Heath gave the offer some consideration before shaking his head. “Sorry, Jack. Another time, maybe.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Jack said with mock seriousness. “All right, I’m off to find out if Lana brought home an extra pâté, or two. I’m starved.”
Heath gave him a tight smile and short nod, then went back to pounding nails.
CHAPTER THREE
LORA©CLOSED©THE©DOOR behind her, leaning against the wood. Pops was losing his mind. There was no getting around that fact when the evidence had just slapped her in the face. Her breath hitched in her chest as the pain spiked in her heart. How could she pretend for Pops’s sake that Grams was still alive when she’d worked hard to put that grief behind her so that she could cope with the loss?
No, Grams, no…I can’t pretend you’re still here…it’ll kill me… Lora sank to the floor and clutched her knees to her chest, hating how lost she felt. Losing Grams had been far more painful than losing her own mother, if that was possible.
She remembered her mother’s funeral as if watching a scene from someone else’s life. The memories she had of Lisa Bell were fogged and distorted, snatches of a life she barely recognized. At one time, her mother had laughed with joy but the Lisa Bell Lora remembered had tears in her eyes from her husband’s abandonment. Lora hated her father for that. Cancer had taken her mother, but Lora always believed that a broken heart had been the true killer.
Lora shuddered, gulping against the tightness in her chest. She was stronger than this, she told herself fiercely. Get up! Get off this floor and stand tall. There were people depending on her to figure things out. Wiping the tears from her face, she struggled to her feet with the fragile resolve of someone pulling themselves together with little more than grit and determination. This, too, felt familiar.
Snatches of her earlier conversations with Heath came back to taunt her without mercy. Why did he bring out the worst in her? Granted, she wasn’t a girl who was known for her niceties but there was something about Heath that had always made her snarl.
But even as the thought ran through her head, something nagged at her. No, she hadn’t always disliked Heath. In fact, once… She shrugged off where her mind was going. It was so long ago, she could hardly remember how she’d felt then about Heath Cannon. All she knew was that today he rubbed her the wrong way. And he seemed stuck to her family like a pervasive mold.
Lora dragged her luggage to the bed and swung it on the bed. She popped the lock, slid the zipper open and threw open the top. Everything was packed with military precision, making it easy to find what she was looking for—her bikini and cover-up. Grateful to get out of the constricting and smothering business attire she wore for the plane, she made quick work of slipping into her island clothes, then put away her packed clothing into her dresser. She didn’t plan to stay long but she never kept her clothes tucked in her luggage. She liked everything to be where it belonged, if even for a short visit. After she’d hung her blouses and put away her luggage, she took a quick survey of her room. Nostalgia tugged at the corners of her mind but she pushed it away. She’d spent half her childhood here, in this room. Her mouth softened as a small smile threatened. She closed her eyes and drew in the soft scent of coconut suntan lotion that seemed a part of the wicker furniture and let the peace that followed permeate her soul, if even for just the barest of moments. She would allow herself that small comfort.
The sound of her youngest sister’s voice echoed below in the terrace. Lora’s eyes opened. She needed to speak with Lilah immediately and seeing as Lilah had failed to meet her at the ferry, that told Lora her baby sis had deliberately avoided her to circumvent a confrontation. Well, time to get this out of the way… .
Lora headed downstairs to have a chat with the youngest of the sugar bird Bells.
* * *
LILAH BELL©HAD©WATCHED her sister disembark from the ferry from her perch at the Rush Tide Bar and Grill. She’d pleaded with Heath to go and pick up Lora for fear of what her older sister might say to her in light of her failure. Lilah chewed the side of her cheek, her stomach gurgling in distress at the turmoil causing havoc in her intestines. She’d always had a persnickety tummy, as Grams used to call it, which had resulted in Lilah being the pickiest eater. Lilah knew she gave off the impression of being frail, so most people continued to baby her, except Lora.
And while Lilah sometimes chafed at the way people coddled her, Lora had made her realize that people babied her because she was incapable of handling a true crisis. Her failure at being able to navigate the obstacles facing Larimar and necessitating the SOS call to Lora only served to deepen her own disappointment in herself. And frankly, her oldest sister was the last person she wanted to see right now. She certainly didn’t need to hear Lora berate her for letting things get this bad.
So, she’d begged Heath—who had his own issues with Lora—to get her from the ferry. Yes, it’d been cowardly, but Lilah hadn’t cared.
She could only imagine the fireworks that’d accompanied that car ride.
But Lilah knew she could avoid Lora for only so long because the island was a mere nine miles wide and eventually, the odds were that they’d bump into each other.
And that moment had come, she realized as Lora descended from the private section of the resort to meet Lilah’s wary gaze. If it’d been Lindy, Lilah’s twin, there’d at least be hugs and exclamations of affection before the shouting. At twenty-eight, Lilah shouldn’t be afraid of her oldest sister, but her stomach was roiling even as she forced a smile.
Of course, Lora looked stunning as she always did, if it weren’t for the grim set of her jaw. Lora had changed from the plane into island clothes, though she didn’t look local. Too much time in the corporate world had sharpened Lora’s gaze as if she were constantly looking for the angle people were trying to use to their advantage. It saddened Lilah to see how much her sister had changed—and not for the better. In that moment, she deeply missed Lindy, but her twin was off in Hollywood, well on her way to becoming famous.
“How was your flight?” she asked, trying for some sort of civility before the fight began. Lora’s lips pressed together before she cocked her head to the side with an expression of exasperation. Lilah sighed. “So no small talk first? Okay. I missed you, too. We should probably go into Pops’s office to do this.”
Lora nodded and turned to pad barefoot into Pops’s tiki-themed office. Lilah had always loved Pops’s laid-back style to business, but now that she’d been thrust into the management department, she’d realized a more orthodox style would’ve been easier to step into. As Lora would discover, Pops had left a nightmare to untangle when it came to the books. But as they entered, they found Heath sitting in Pops’s chair. This wasn’t an uncommon sight for Lilah, but it certainly was an unwelcome shock to Lora, as evidenced by her hard stare.
“What are you doing?” she queried sharply to Heath, and Lilah sent him a silent apology for her sister’s rudeness. Lora looked to Lilah for an answer, crossing her arms and looking sorely vexed, as the islanders would say. “Last time I checked you were a handyman…now you’re sitting in my grandfather’s chair? I want an explanation and I want it now.”
“God, Lora, stop treating Heath like he’s a criminal or something,” Lilah muttered, knowing Lora wasn’t going to like the explanation. Heath had been stepping in for some time to help and Lilah had been terribly grateful. He’d always been like the older brother she never had and she cared deeply for him. The fact that Lora had treated him as if he were beneath her notice had pissed off Lilah. “He’s sitting at Pops’s desk because he’s been helping me keep Larimar afloat. You know I don’t have a head for business and Heath does.”
“Oh, really? Since when? I hardly consider doing odd jobs as having the business acumen necessary to run a high-end resort,” Lora answered back, focusing her laser stare on Heath who only stared back, the heat between the two enough to fry an egg. “You can bet that I’m going to have a chat with Pops about this but something tells me you probably convinced him—in his current confused state—to let you take over as you saw fit. Well, I can tell you right now, that ends now.”
“Lora!” Lilah exclaimed, horrified that her sister would imply such a thing. If she only knew… “You haven’t been here. You haven’t seen what Heath has done for Larimar. Maybe if you took a phone call every once in a while I wouldn’t have had to ask for Heath’s help. Unlike you, he found the time to take an interest in what’s been going on.” Tears stung Lilah’s eyes and she couldn’t hold them back. She’d never been good at yelling at someone, least of all one of her sisters, but she couldn’t sit there and allow Lora to believe the worst of Heath when he’d been nothing but kind to this family. Lora looked unmoved by the sudden show of tears, as if she’d expected some sort of reaction from Lilah, and the knowledge that her older sister knew her that well only served to pour salt in the wound. Seaming her mouth shut, Lilah spun on her heel, only too eager to get away from the ugliness in the room. If her sister wanted to be a coldhearted bitch, then she could deal with the fact that no one liked her or could stand her company for more than five minutes—including her sisters. “I’m sorry, Heath,” she muttered as she ran from the room. Whether she was apologizing for abandoning him in the moment or because Lora was such a she-beast, Lilah wasn’t sure. She just knew she was sorry.
* * *
HEATH©WATCHED LILAH©FLEE the room and he felt compelled to follow, if only to see if she was okay. Lilah was like his little sister and the fact that he felt more protective over her than her own flesh and blood only served to stoke the banked anger.
“You sure know how to alienate every single person you come into contact with. Tell me, is this how you conduct yourself in Chicago at your big fancy corporate job?” he asked with a calm he certainly didn’t feel. He wanted to put his hands around her slim neck and shake some sense into her, but he willed that white-hot anger into an icy calm, using a tactic he’d seen Lora use more than once.
At the mention of her career, he almost thought he saw a bit of an inward wince, but that was impossible. Lora Bell was a shark who ate guppies that had the misfortune of wandering into her pool. A show of vulnerability wasn’t in her nature. “Nice try at deflection. Now that the hysterics are over, can you tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“Simple. As I told you earlier, your grandfather started to lose time about a year ago and when that happened, he forgot to pay bills. Of course, no one knew this until the water and power was shut off one day. I discovered months’ worth of bills that had been stuffed into your Grams’s in-box, which at first I thought your Pops was simply using as an easy place to remember where to put the bills, but then I realized, he was following what he used to do when your Grams was alive.”
“She always paid the bills,” Lora finished in a murmur, her fingers massaging her temple. “So how many bills were behind?”
“Everything,” he answered, sugarcoating nothing. “And that prompted me to look a little more deeply into the finances and the taxes. He hasn’t paid in years. The government started sending letters six months ago. That’s when I started calling you. When we received this—” he picked up a letter from the desktop and tossed it to her “that’s when I sent the certified letter to get your damn attention.” He paused a minute to let her read the letter. “Because I’m not family and I don’t have power of attorney on the estate I couldn’t negotiate on Pops’s behalf. Unfortunately, we needed you for that.”
He knew the letter word for word. It said that if the back taxes weren’t paid in full by the end of the quarter, the government would seize the property for payment against the debt.
“Oh, God,” Lora breathed, true distress on her features. He wished he could feel some sort of satisfaction for her finally admitting that the situation was serious, but he was too worried to feel anything but anxiety. For him, there was more at stake than his loyalty to the Bells. Two years ago he and Jack had went into business together and Pops had invested a fair amount of capital—money that Pops didn’t have to give, which Heath didn’t discover until it was too late. Pops had taken money socked away for the estate taxes and given it to Heath instead. Once Heath had discovered the source of the money, he’d felt sick inside. In essence Jack had banked Larimar’s future on the belief that Heath’s business would thrive. At least, that’s what Heath wanted to believe. But there was a dark shadow of doubt that lurked, that Jack had already been slipping in his mental abilities when they’d struck the deal, and if that were the case, it would appear to Lora that Heath had taken advantage of her grandfather. The very idea made him ill—but he knew he’d have a helluva time trying to convince Lora otherwise. He braced his knuckles against the desktop and stared at Lora. “Listen, we can stand here and snipe at each other all day but it’s not going to solve anything. We both want the same thing—to save Larimar. I say we work together to that end and put the personal stuff aside.”
Her stare narrowed at his suggestion and he felt filleted. “Why do you care so much? This is my family’s problem. Not yours. I can’t imagine that you’re so attached to being a handyman. Surely there are other handyman jobs out there that you could get.”
His temper rose but he choked it back until he could talk without shouting. “Why does it matter? I care. Whether you like it or not, I love this family. And if that doesn’t jive with how you think I should behave just because I don’t share DNA, then too damn bad. I don’t care. I love them. Deal with it.”
She stared as if shocked by his admission but when she could find no fault with his statement, she backed down—if only incrementally. “Thank you for your help,” she managed to offer with a stiff show of gratitude and he knew it must’ve cost her soul to utter. She straightened and crossed her arms across her ample chest, which only drew his attention to the full swells barely contained in her bikini top hidden beneath the gauzy white cover-up. He jerked his gaze away as if what he saw had the ability to turn him to salt, and he mentally berated himself for looking at all. Lora held up the letter. “If I’d known it was this bad…I would’ve come sooner.”
It was as much of an apology as she was going to offer but frankly, it wasn’t enough. Her self-absorbed act needed to go. “You need to talk to Lilah. You’re too hard on her.”
“I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of my business with my sister,” she said, but he wasn’t afraid of her and continued.
“You knew when you put her in this position that she wasn’t up to the challenge. Hell, Lindy would’ve been a better choice and you and I both know that Lindy is as flighty as a butterfly on the breeze, but at least she wouldn’t have cracked under the pressure.”
“Lilah is a grown adult. I wish everyone would stop treating her with kid gloves,” Lora snapped, but he saw guilt in her eyes. “Besides, she’ll get over it. Nothing bothers Lilah for long.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s really sad that you don’t know your own sister.”
“Oh, and suddenly you’re an authority?” she mocked.
“More so than you,” he said bluntly.
“Watch it, Heath,” Lora murmured. “You’re treading on dangerous ground. My Pops may have a soft spot for you but I don’t suffer from the same feeling. In essence you’re my employee. I could fire you right now.”
“Do it, then,” he dared her in a silkily dark tone. “But let me tell you something else, so you can make an informed decision. If you do that you’re going to have a shit-storm on your hands that not even you will be able to handle. I’ve been running Larimar for the past year but beyond that, I own the gift shop downstairs and Larimar doesn’t have enough money to pay me off.”
She stared, shock in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head. “Why don’t you take a moment to really look at Larimar and see all the changes that have been made since you’ve been gone. Someone had to do something to start making some money because the one with the marketing degree…well, she was unavailable.”
With that, he stalked past her. He was done with her for the day. If he stood another minute in her presence he’d choke on his own frustration—or choke her.
CHAPTER FOUR
LORA©DIDN’T©KNOW©WHY but the weight of Heath’s judgment sat heavily on her shoulders. Why should she care what Heath thought of her relationship with her sister? Clearly, Lilah had Heath believing she was helpless, just like everyone else. Lora refused to feel guilty over her decision to make Lilah take on more responsibility for once. So what if Lilah had no real business sense, was it so hard to write a check and pay some bills? Lora silenced the ongoing argument in her head, annoyed that Heath had managed to make her feel culpable and wrong in the same breath.
She sat in Pops’s chair with a huff and started shuffling papers, looking for some semblance of order. She didn’t know where to start. She looked in the files and found folders with marked headings written in a clearly masculine hand. She knew Lilah’s handwriting was flowery and her Pops’s handwriting was an illegible scrawl that only her Grams could decipher, which meant Heath had sorted these papers and put them in order. She pushed away that acknowledgment, not ready to make amends with Heath just yet. It was childish and worse, she knew it, but she couldn’t quite deal with the feelings that rose when she thought of Heath’s honest admission.
He said he loved her family. Obviously, she was not lumped up in that admission. Lora sniffed. Who cared? She didn’t need nor want to be included in Heath’s affections. She had enough family, she didn’t need more. She paused. And what did he mean that he owned the gift shop? She put aside the tax file for the moment and started sifting through the other files. She found the gift shop and pulled it.
After she finished reading the paperwork pertaining to the business arrangement between Pops and Heath, she leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. She’d found the reason Heath had been so involved in her family’s affairs and it wasn’t so much altruistic as it was self-serving.
It shouldn’t surprise her. In the corporate environment, no one did anything without a reason—and it was usually because they served to benefit from the action. Why was she surprised Heath was no different?
Maybe because a part of her—locked away deep inside—hoped the man Heath had become had remained that trustworthy island boy who had watched her with furtive glances and rare smiles.
This paperwork showed that he was just a man—like any other—looking out for himself.
And for reasons she wasn’t interested in pursuing—it hurt.
* * *
HEATH©CAUGHT LILAH©AS©SHE was leaving, her eyes red but otherwise dry. She stopped and gave Heath a look of apology but shrugged. “I guess I knew that wasn’t going to go well,” she said, her voice scratchy yet soft. “I let her down. I knew it was coming.”
“You didn’t let anyone down,” he disagreed, still hot. “She put you in a position where you were doomed to fail. Don’t let her off the hook so easily. She has to shoulder some of the responsibility, too. It’s not right for her to make you assume the role you were never groomed to take. Pops always made it pretty clear that he thought Lora would take over the running of Larimar, which is why she’s on the estate paperwork.”
Lilah nodded, but she was plainly still miserable. His heart broke for the young woman and even though she was an adult and clearly not a little girl anymore, he gathered her in his arms and hugged her tight. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s all bark and no bite,” he assured Lilah, and she shuddered against him, clinging to him like a spider monkey. “She has a tendency to lash out when she’s backed into a corner. She’ll come to her senses and realize what a royal—well, for lack of a better word—bitch she’s been and maybe if an apology isn’t in her vocabulary she’ll at least show with her actions that she’s sorry.”
At that Lilah lifted her head and gave him a wry look. “My sister? Show that she’s sorry? I don’t think she knows how.”
“Well, one can hope there’s some shred of humanity left in her, right?” he joked, coaxing a smile from Lilah. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
He could tell she wanted to believe him but Lilah knew the score. She knew Larimar was in trouble and she knew he was doing everything he could to fix it but if Lora worked against him instead of with him—they might lose Larimar all together. And if that happened, Pops would lose whatever bit of sanity he had left.
And that would kill them all.
“Thanks, Heath,” Lilah said, pulling away. “Maybe you’re right. She’ll come around.”
As soon as she said it, they both realized how ludicrous the statement was and burst into rueful laughter just in time for Lora to round the corner.
Lora took in the two of them sharing an easy familiarity with one another and stiffened. A warning tingle went up his back and he realized a moment too late that she’d taken the situation and spun it in a completely different direction in her head. And to prove his fear, she observed in an icy tone, “I see you’re not only preying on an old man but a naive young woman, too. Tell me, Heath, are there no boundaries you won’t cross?”
Lilah looked shocked and simultaneously grossed out at Lora’s implication but before Lilah could defend his actions, he simply waved away her attempt with a snort of disgust Lora’s way, saying, “Don’t waste your breath, Lilah. Your sister is not only blind…she’s an idiot.”
And he stalked from the room.
* * *
LILAH©FELT©CAUGHT©BETWEEN two opposing forces and while her loyalty ought to be with her sister, she had to admit Lora seemed to be acting deliberately difficult.
“Why are you doing this?” she cried, angry. “Can’t you see that he’s been nothing but helpful through this whole ordeal? When you weren’t here, he stepped up and did everything he could to save Larimar.”
“Do you know about the deal he struck with Pops on the gift shop?” Lora asked.
Lilah winced, knowing how her sister would interpret the deal. “Yes. But you have to know that he would never do anything that would hurt Pops or the resort. This place and our family has been his family since he was a kid. You know this better than anyone and yet, you’re so willing to throw him under the bus. For what? So you can feel justified in your anger, or so you don’t have to deal with the fact that when we needed you the most, you didn’t come?”
Lora appeared shocked at Lilah’s impassioned speech, but no one was more surprised than Lilah. She wasn’t the one who took stands and got involved beyond the superficial. She hated confrontation and always sought to avoid it, but she’d reached her limit with Lora’s cold and cruel attitude and since Lindy wasn’t here to back her, she had to stand alone and tell her oldest sister the plain truth. What was the worst she could do? It wasn’t like Lora would ground her—or worse slap her—for her opinion. And it was high time she stood up to her, anyway.
“You don’t think it’s coincidental that he struck that deal when Pops’s mental acuity started to fail?”
“No one knew Pops’s mind was slipping. He hid it from all of us for a long time. When Heath discovered what Pops had done…he felt terrible. But don’t take my word for it, just ask him. He’ll tell you,” Lilah said, hoping she was right and that Heath would indeed, swallow his pride and tell Lora the straight truth about his guilt. But even as she knew that Heath never seemed to shy away from sharing personal information with her, there seemed to be some block between Lora and him. At one time, Lilah had wondered if Heath had had a crush on her sister but given the tension between them as they grew to adulthood, she discarded that idea. Instead, she settled on the notion that they simply didn’t get along, which was a shame because Heath was probably the only person on this planet that Lora couldn’t bully.
“Lilah…I know you have a soft spot for Heath but—”
“Stop. I won’t listen to you pile more bricks on Heath when you have no proof that he did something to swindle Pops. It’s ludicrous to begin with but I won’t listen to another word so don’t waste your breath. You can spend all the time you want trying to nail Heath to the wall or you can spend that energy helping us.”
“I am trying to help. Don’t you find it the least bit suspicious that Pops handed over all the money in the reserve account to Heath for his business when we needed that for repairs, taxes and other resort expenses?”
“No.” Lilah refused to budge. Lora wanted to vilify Heath, needed to, perhaps, for her own sake but Lilah wouldn’t take part. No, Lora would have to shoulder that burden on her own. “You need to take a good look at your motivation. As much as you say that you’re just looking out for Pops’s interests, you should look inside and see if that’s true. For what it’s worth, and I know you don’t value my opinion because I’m just the baby of the family, Heath feels more like family to me than you right now. If you go after him, you’re going after me, too, because I’ll stand behind him.” Lilah started to leave but decided to leave her sister with one final thought. “Oh, and before you start thinking something completely far afield like I’ve got the hots for Heath or vice versa, he’s like a brother to me and I love him as such. For the record, the only Bell sister he might’ve ever had eyes for was you. A long time ago, that is. Now? I think you pretty much destroyed whatever he might’ve felt for you. But that should suit you just fine, right?”
And then Lilah, her heart thudding quickly and painfully in her chest, left her sister standing in the hallway with her mouth open.
Welcome home, Lora.
CHAPTER FIVE
LORA©STARED©AFTER©HER©SISTER, wondering what had just happened.
First, if she could manage to get over the shock of her baby sister bawling her out when she’d never said a cross word to her in all her life, then she could focus on the bombshell Lilah had dropped as if it’d been common knowledge and not some major revelation.
Heath? What? Of course, it mattered nothing to her if Heath had once had a crush on her, but surely she would’ve noticed, right?
Lora searched her memory for evidence of this so-called fondness and something sat like a forgotten relic in the recesses of her mind. A flash of laughter echoed and the image of Heath’s twinkling eyes bounded back to her. Her heart warmed instantaneously until she remembered something else.
He’d left her when she’d needed him the most. She stiffened against the wave of pain that followed. It was the memory of her mother dying, a small girl’s heartbreak and the search in vain for the island boy whose shoulder soothed her most. It was the pain of abandonment and loss, the humiliation of being easily left behind; Lora shied away from it as if afraid of being burned.
Stop it. Stop wallowing in stupid childish thoughts that can help no one or nothing, she berated herself even as she floundered momentarily. In Chicago, she’d been able to be exactly what she chose to show people. Here, there was too much history to hide from and too many memories that followed. She’d preferred the anonymity of her windy adopted city. She’d even come to appreciate the loneliness that dogged her when she’d found herself a moment without work to fill it. Now that she’d returned home to the island, she was surrounded by everything she’d tried to run away from.
She barked a mirthless laugh tinged with embarrassment at the idea of Heath feeling anything but animosity for her because of the way she’d treated him. Lora stared at her bare toes, squirming privately at the feeling that admission caused. She hadn’t been friendly or nice to anyone, really. Lora had been hyperfocused on getting good grades so she could get into a top college and leave St. John. It wasn’t that she hated the island, but her dreams were bigger than the island could hope to sustain. She returned to the memory of doing homework—a lot—and Grams teasing her about missing out on her childhood to keep her nose in a book.
She picked at a mental image, unraveling it from her cache of treasures and exhaled softly at the wince of pain from its bittersweet sting.
“You’re such a lovely girl,” Grams had said one day, frowning, her eyes sad. “Don’t you want to go to the school dance with a nice boy?” she’d asked.
The high school had hosted a dance, something tiki-themed, of course, and Lora had been happy to miss it. The idea of mingling with the very people she sought to avoid during most days at school didn’t appeal. But Grams had been truly distressed at her choosing to remain home, which Lora had found odd. “Aren’t you glad I’m not running around giving you something to worry about?” Lora had said, hoping to coax a smile free from Grams’s worried frown. “Enjoy the calm before the storm that will be the twins when they get to high school. Trust me, at the rate they’re going through boys, they’ll have to start dating from the British side of the islands just to meet someone new.” She added with a shrug, “Besides, Grams, I don’t have a date. No one asked me.”
“How about Heath?” Grams had suggested, and now that she recalled the conversation she realized Grams had been a little quick to throw Heath’s name out there. Had she known, too?
Heath, the boy who had appeared at her family’s dinner table one night, obviously hungrier than she’d ever been in her life, the planes of his face sharp and angular from eating too little for too long, and she’d been shocked to see him after he’d virtually disappeared from her life overnight. After she’d recovered from the painful surprise, she’d pretended not to know him at all. It was easier than admitting that she’d been devastated when he’d disappeared. She’d had enough people abandon her in life; she didn’t need another.
And if she’d noticed the furtive glances her way, she didn’t acknowledge them. She supposed he had tried to make a few attempts at explaining his disappearing act but by that point, Lora had sealed her heart tight and wouldn’t listen.
If she’d been nothing but cold and dismissive, the twins, on the other hand, had been delighted.
“Can we keep him?” Lindy had asked, passing the fresh papaya with a grin. When Lora had gasped that her sister had even suggested such a thing, Lilah had simply chimed in.
“I’ve always wanted a brother,” Lilah had said in her soft, wistful voice that always managed to make it sound as if she were somewhere else in her head and not planted in the here and now like everyone else. “He seems like he’d be a very good brother.”
Grams and Pops had been vastly amused by the conversation while Lora had plainly been the opposite. Now that she remembered that day, she wondered how Heath had felt about being inducted into a family without so much as a voice in the matter.
She supposed he hadn’t minded—he was still hanging around.
Lora exhaled loudly and climbed to her feet, needing to clear her head. There was too much clanging around in her mind, too many variables to consider. The best course of action would require concise thinking.
Larimar was in serious trouble. And by Lora’s way of thinking, Heath was partially to blame. If he hadn’t talked Pops into that business deal, at the very least the money would be there so she could straighten out this misunderstanding with the IRS. But the reserve was terribly low—barely enough to cover a plumbing issue if the need arose—and that made her alternately nervous and angry.
Well, anger was something she was familiar with and even if she wasn’t proud that she’d been perpetually accused of shouldering a chip her entire life, at least she knew how to handle herself.
She didn’t have enough in her own personal accounts to pay off the debt and if Heath had the money, she was fairly certain he would’ve paid the debt by now. At the very least, to her knowledge, he wasn’t one to shirk his debts.
And, whether she liked it or not, Heath truly loved her family and they loved him.
So that left one option—an option she wasn’t comfortable with, but when backed into a corner one could either spit and scratch or surrender quietly to fight another day.
Lora flopped on her childhood bed, the scent of summer and sun surrounding her, and stared at the ceiling.
“Damn it,” she murmured, a well of frustration laced with something else. She’d have to put aside her grievances with Heath and work with him to fix this problem. However, as soon as Larimar was in the clear, she would be having a serious discussion with him about moving his business out of Larimar. If he wanted to be a businessman, he could peddle his goods elsewhere. She wasn’t interested in his success or failure—only that of Larimar.
Tomorrow she’d call a meeting with Heath and try to work out a solution together. A small, reluctant grin found her lips as she chuckled without humor. Grams was probably watching from her beach in heaven—giggling.
The mad woman had always enjoyed stirring things up.
* * *
HEATH©DOVE©ONE©LAST©TIME under the dusky waves as the sun crested the horizon, bathing the beach in soft amber-yellow light. He always swam with the morning light, enjoying the way the water muted the early chorus of bugs and birds welcoming the day with a cacophony of noise. The brief moment of stillness soothed his turbulent thoughts and he welcomed the respite.
He was a ways from the shore. Flipping on his back, he floated, gazing at the breaking dawn sky, loving his slice of heaven no matter how difficult it seemed to make a living. If it weren’t for tourists and the internet…he’d be screwed.
Sighing, he turned and made a slow, almost reluctant return to the beach, only to find Lora walking the shore, her white gauzy sarong swaying with the movement of her hips. She walked head down, gazing at her feet in the soft sugar-white sand as the water reached for her with each tidal surge. Her hair drifted down her back, rippling in lazy waves, the humidity curling her hair with wild abandon. Something in him clenched, twisting him in knots, a remnant from the time when he was a poor, neglected island boy with nothing to his name and even less to aspire to as both his parents had run off, leaving him to fend for himself at the age of ten.
What was it about Lora that made him want what she’d never offered? He’d been a fool then, but he wasn’t the same love-struck boy now. Today he saw her for what she was, a beautiful woman with ice in her veins.
“I brought this for you,” a voice whispered from his past, the hushed voice of a young Lora as she handed him a basket of fresh fruit and beef pâté. “The pâté is fresh. Pops bought it from Simon today.”
The sharp hunger cramping his belly roared like an angry beast at the sight of the basket and the knowledge that food was inside. He took the basket, not sure why she was being so nice. He’d seen her around the island in the square; she was hard to miss with that dark hair and exotic features, and he’d followed her home, curious to see where such a beautiful girl lived. Lora must’ve seen him creeping along the fringe of the private beach, but worse, she must’ve guessed the hollows in his cheeks weren’t natural. He’d like to say he accepted the basket with some sort of grace, but as he flushed with the memory, he remembered how it’d happened.
He’d torn into the basket and eaten the entire pâté before Lora’s astonished eyes with great gobbling bites, stuffing his mouth until he thought he might choke but he hadn’t eaten anything aside from what he could scrounge from the restaurant scraps for the past month. He might’ve been two steps away from death, if it hadn’t been for Lora’s basket.
And then, clutching the basket to his chest, he’d run away.
He’d come back the following day, seeing her at the marketplace buying fresh fruit. She’d caught sight of him and waved him over. He’d shyly thanked her for the food, but stopped short of telling her just how bad things were for him. She seemed to understand that he was holding something back and must’ve known what it was like to need to keep some things private, because she didn’t mention it again. In no time, they’d become fast friends. He’d meet her in the plaza and they’d spend the day romping around, swimming, fishing, sharing smoothies.
Until the day came when he’d come home and discovered his parents had truly taken off for good this time. He’d been terrified. So he’d tried to follow. With disastrous results.
It would be a year before he saw her again when Pops brought him to the resort on the guise of needing a young strapping boy to do the heavy lifting for him in the form of odd jobs.
That’d been the year Pops had unofficially adopted him.
Lora hadn’t been happy. In fact, she was so cold and closed off, he almost wondered if she remembered that he was the same boy that she’d saved from starving only a year prior. She’d rebuffed any attempt he’d made to explain, sending the message quite clearly that whatever they’d had before he left, hadn’t survived the absence. Which, honestly, if he hadn’t developed feelings for her, would’ve been fine. But that’s not how it had turned out. He’d been doomed to fall for Lora Bell because fate had decided his life hadn’t been filled with enough turmoil.
Man, when he thought of how many nights he’d stayed awake thinking about Lora…good God. It made him sick to think of all that wasted time.
Shaking off the memory with effort, he exhaled and walked from the water, startling Lora with his appearance, as he headed for the towel he’d hung on a tree. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as an involuntary, gasped squeak gave away her distress.
Probably because he was nude.
* * *
“WHAT©ARE©YOU©DOING?” Lora managed to blurt out, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing she could scrub her brain but it was no use, nothing would erase what she’d seen—Heath in all his morning glory—and she was fairly certain she was scarred for life. A growing heat in the center of her belly caused her to squirm as disquiet at her own reaction made her want to run away. But she couldn’t very well turn tail and run like a scared little rabbit just because she’d happened to catch Heath in his birthday suit. His wasn’t the first penis she’d ever seen, for crying out loud. But… she thought miserably, clenching her fists at her sides, she’d be a liar if she’d said she’d seen a larger one. Admitting such a thing made her want to grind her eyes out—and her brain—for even allowing the unfortunate observation. “This is a private beach…with guests. Please put some clothes on!”

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