by Zoe York
The wordless twins followed.
“Well?” he asked after tossing back an ounce of generic scotch. Bridal suites should be better outfitted than that. Jesus. He winced at the aftertaste.
“The hotel staff are on it. They’ll arrange for the gifts that people want to leave for Tori to be stored until she’s ready to collect them, and the food will be redirected to a local shelter,” Elspeth said, hurriedly.
“And everyone knows that it was Stephen’s fault,” Caroline added.
Like that fucking mattered. Logan shook his head. “And is everyone gone? Can Tori go home without running into anyone?”
“Maybe give it another hour.” Elspeth licked her lips. “What should we do about the honeymoon tickets?”
“See if they’re refundable or transferable.”
Logan stripped off his jacket as Caroline called the travel agency. Then he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Tori wasn’t the only one who felt confined in formal wear.
Hell, he could wear a hundred pounds of cam-patterned kit and carry a machine gun and feel more comfortable than he did in a tux.
On the phone, Caroline was getting more and more agitated. “But there has to be some exception for being left at the altar.”
The bedroom door opened just in time for Tori to hear the last few words, and Logan wanted to howl at the casual slight. As inappropriate as it would be, he wanted to whip open the main door to the suite, escort her sisters out, and then lock the door behind them.
“It’s fine,” Tori said, her voice pinched and controlled. She glanced around the room, managing not to make eye contact with any of them. In his t-shirt and knee-length yoga pants, she looked tiny and fragile. “Caro, tell them I’ll go.”
Caroline covered the telephone mouthpiece with her hand. “The trip can’t be canceled, but the names on the tickets can be changed.”
“Are you volunteering to go?” Logan growled.
Three female heads swiveled his way. Caroline blanched, and he felt like a shit, but the thought of someone just assuming what Tori wanted galled him.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“No, I meant…maybe another couple would want to go. You could…sell it. Because it’s for two people. But that’s another option—” She looked at her sister. “Someone could go with you.”
“Who has a week off?” Tori snorted. “No, it’ll be good to and lie in the sun by myself. Figure out where exactly I went wrong with my grand life plan. The only person who could put up with my whining for an entire week would be Logan, anyway.”
He stood a little straighter. He did have a week off. In order to take leave to come to her wedding, he’d had to take an entire week because of the travel across the country.
Technically, he’d have to get permission from his OC to go out of country. “Where is the resort again?”
Tori rolled her neck, and he wanted to cross the room to rub her shoulders. “Miralinda. Nothing but rainforest hikes and white sand beaches. Is it wrong that I still want to go? It was the only part of the wedding that was one-hundred percent my decision.”
“Not wrong at all,” he said gently. “And if you did want company for your misery, I would go with you.”
Three sets of female eyes blinked at him in surprise.
“You would?” Tori straightened up. “You can?”
“Sure. Of course. I have a week of leave. Might as well use it to help you drown your sorrows.”
Caroline jerked her attention back to the phone in her hand. “Okay, the ticket for Stephen McKenzie needs to be transferred to a Logan Dwyer. American.” She looked back at him. “You have a current passport?”
He tried to keep a straight face as he nodded. He’d been in five different countries in the last three months. Of course, he’d only used his passport to enter three of them, but yeah, he had the proper documentation.
Chapter Three
Tori shoved her carry-on bag under the seat in front of her—again. Then she cursed under her breath.
“Hey, it’s fine.” Logan took her hand and squeezed.
She winced as she looked at him, folded nearly in half in the charter airplane seat next to her. “Sorry about the economy tickets.”
He just shrugged. “We’ll be there soon enough. It’s a short flight.”
She glanced past him out the window. Bright sun glinted off the airplane’s wing, and below that, the Atlantic Ocean stretched endlessly. It only took two hours to fly from Atlanta to Miralinda, but it felt like an eternity. She couldn’t wait to land and be safely away from anyone who knew yesterday was supposed to be her wedding day.
Anyone except Logan, of course. He’d been such a rockstar over the last twenty-four hours. She gripped his hand a little more tightly as she tried to remember what he’d kept saying to her. “This isn’t about you. Nobody thinks this is a reflection on you. Stephen’s clearly going through something messed up in his head.”
When Logan had finally whisked her out of the hotel suite and into his waiting rental car, she’d checked her phone. There had been three voice mail messages from Stephen. Variations on a theme. He was sorry. It wasn’t her. There wasn’t anyone else. He just couldn’t do it.
She didn’t understand, but now as her carry-on bag tumbled onto her toes, again, she felt something inside her snap. Because it didn’t make any sense that it wasn’t her. Of course it was her. She hadn’t been enough for him. He couldn’t see himself with her forever.
Hot, frustrated tears scalded the inside of her eyelids as she squeezed them shut.
“Breathe, Tori,” Logan said, his voice low and right beside her. Steady. Non-judging. “In and out. Long, slow breaths.”
“I can’t.” The two words caught on each other, turning into a single, hitching word. I-uh-can’t.
“You can.” He inhaled in her ear, then exhaled. “Just like that. With me. In thirty minutes, we’re going to land in paradise. And I’m going to do everything in my power to distract you from whatever feelings have you crying again. That’s right. Breathe in. And out. Good girl.”
As he stroked his hand up and down her forearm, she felt herself relax again. “What a shitty vacation for you,” she finally murmured.
“Hardly. You said there are rainforest hikes, right?”
She groaned. She had said that. “Mm-hmm.”
“There is nothing I like better than a good waterfall, Tor. Don’t you think for a second this week isn’t going to be awesome for me.”
She nodded. Maybe.
“Hey, look at that…islands.”
She cracked her eyelids open and peered out his window. It was too soon to be Miralinda, but the first glimpse of the Caribbean islands made her smile, if still a bit weakly. “Yay.”
“That’s better.” He leaned back against his seat, his gaze glued to her face, his gray eyes steady and calm. “We’re going to make the best of this. Promise.”
As rocky as she felt inside, she believed him.
The pilot came on the intercom and announced they were beginning their descent. Seatbacks up, trays folded away.
Time for a week of escape.
As her ears popped, Logan gently squeezed her hand. He didn’t let go until they’d touched down and taxied to a stop.
Out the window, it looked impossibly sunny and green.
And soon they’d be heading off into the jungle, just the two of them. The original plan had been to take a taxi to their resort because Stephen hadn’t been interested in exploring the rest of the island. As soon as Logan heard that, he’d gotten on the phone and organized a rental car.
The Miralinda International Airport was so small that once they cleared customs at the small hut on the edge of the tarmac, Logan could go one way to the rental car desk and Tori could go the other to the luggage pickup, and they didn’t lose sight of each other.
The downside of arriving at a sleepy little island airport was that nothing went quickly. Their suitcases came off the airplane, but then
sat on a cart for a while. Tori pulled out her sunglasses and slipped them on to protect her eyes from the bright sun.
A brightly painted sign nearby caught her attention. Bière. Oh, yes, a beer sounded divine in this heat. Of course, they still had a drive to the resort, where they could get all the beer they wanted, and probably in any and all languages. French. Spanish. English. Jilted-bride-ese.
That would be a hiccuping sniffle if the last twenty-four hours would be any indication.
She wandered over to the sign—and the two men standing behind it, next to an ice-filled cooler. “Two…deux bière, s'il vous plaît.”
They laughed, and one dug into the cooler while the other gave her a lazy wink. “You are American, yes?”
“Yes.” She blushed. “I’m sorry, my French is non-existent.”
“That’s okay. Our English is…very existent.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you.” She handed over her carefully counted out money. “Keep the change.”
He flashed her another bright white smile and handed her two bottles of lemonade as well. “For the car ride.”
“The car—?” Her question was cut off as Logan’s arm slid around her shoulders.
With his free hand, he was flipping the rental car keys flipping around his index finger.
She grinned. “Right. Hey, you. I got us some drinks.”
Logan kissed her gently on the temple. “Perfect.”
An unexpected warmth flooded through her. Yes, it was. Not at all what she expected to be doing today, but piling in a car with Logan, heading off on an adventure? She couldn’t think of a better silver lining to the storm of being left at the altar.
As they drove away from the airport, Logan felt Tori turn into a completely different woman beside him. The high-stress, high-maintenance bride fell away, piece by piece, and when they pulled up at the resort a half-hour later, it was his best friend who bounded out of the car and greeted the valet and the doorman with a cheerful smile.
He passed off the keys, then carried their suitcases through the lobby to the check-in desk.
“Welcome to Le Soleil de Miralinda, how may I help you?” the clerk asked in a light French accent.
“I’m Victoria Fletcher and this is Logan Dwyer. We have a reservation. I called about it yesterday.”
Logan had called, too. Privately. He’d given them his credit card number and asked them to give her whatever accommodations they could to make the change in plans more comfortable. The manager he’d spoken to had promised Ms. Fletcher would get a complimentary upgrade, and nobody would mention the H-word, she promised.
Now, the clerk nodded in acknowledgment to Tori’s introduction, and just as promised, didn’t say anything about the sudden change in the guest names or accommodations. “Yes, we have a two-bedroom suite ready for you, Ms. Fletcher.” He handed over a map and pointed out their rooms, which were actually in a standalone villa on the edge of the ocean.
Sweet upgrade.
“The restaurants are here, and here, and the bar is in this main building, just around the corner. It’s open until midnight each night, sometimes later, depending on how many guests are still awake. Breakfast is served to your rooms and included in your rate. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you wish. Our chefs are excellent, of course, but we can also recommend a number of smaller cafes in town if you’d prefer something more casual.”
Tori glanced at Logan, and he nodded. “Casual sounds good for tonight, anyway.”
The clerk gave them two recommendations, then handed over their room keys and they headed through the main building and stepped out into a luxuriously landscaped courtyard. In one direction a few larger buildings stood, and in the other, a series of villas. That’s where their rooms were. On the way, they passed a couple swimming pools. The party one with a swim-up bar, an infinity pool that overlooked the ocean and spilled down to another pool on a lower level. And just steps from their villa door, a sunken, secluded hot tub that made Logan think of late night drinks and lopsided smiles. Moonlight and damp strands of hair clinging to rosy cheeks.
“This place is fantastic,” Tori said, breaking into his suddenly inappropriate thoughts.
“Yeah,” he said, giving his head a shake. “Amazing.”
“We’ll have to try out that hot tub later,” she said as she slid her key into the lock.
Logan choked on a cough. “Mmm.”
“Not your thing?” She pushed the door open and gasped, saving him from answering the question. “Oh. My…Wow.”
Wow was right. The villa was small, but the view was out of this world. Full-length windows—no, full-length slider doors, he realized as they moved closer—led out to a verandah that overlooked a private-ish beach and the clearest turquoise water he’d ever laid eyes on.
And given how many private beaches he’d done an amphibious assault on, that was saying something. Although not being shot at definitely improved the view.
He set the suitcases in front of the two side-by-side bedroom doors and joined her in front of the wall of glass. “What do you want to do first? Swimming? Veg on the verandah and read for a bit? Explore?”
She twirled around. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth and her eyes were bright. She shrugged. “I don’t know. Yes. All of that.”
But Logan knew better than to expect this happy high to last very long. It wouldn’t take long for her sadness to cycle back. This entire week had to be about maintaining a steady, level support for Tori. Whatever she needed, he’d be there for her.
“How about we settle into our rooms, then go for a walk down the beach? And then come back here to regroup before we go find some dinner. Maybe take a nap.”
She squared her shoulders and frowned gently. “You want to take a nap?”
“Uh… Sure.”
“Or are you treating me with kid gloves?”
He laughed. “Well, yeah. That, too.” He paused. “That entirely. No, I don’t need a nap. But at some point, you’re going to crash, and that’s okay.”
“At some point, I’m also going to want to go dancing and get drunk. You’re not going to stop me, are you?”
“Hell, no.” Maybe stand in front of her so no drunken tourists could get too close… “I’m not going to stop you from doing anything you want to do. But I am going to encourage you gently to take a knee from time to time.”
“Is that football? You know I don’t do football references.”
“One of the many things I love about you—zero competition for what we watch on Sundays.” He winked at her. “Yes, it’s a football reference. I’ve never used that on you before? I use it on my troops all the time. It means—”
“Take a break. I get it.” She crossed her arms, clearly offended—albeit not very seriously—by the suggestion that she wasn’t capable of rolling with the punches.
No, he wouldn’t have used it on her before. She was always a force of nature, her energy levels rivaling his even after a hundred-hour work week. But this was an exceptional circumstance.
He held up his hand and wiggled his pinky finger at her. “I promise you, no excessive coddling. Let’s unpack, then hit the beach.”
She held her hand up, her fingers sliding against his before her baby finger twisted around his pinky and they shook on it. He ignored the electric spark he always felt when she touched him. He’d given up the right to indulge in that sensation when he joined the Navy and moved across the country.
“You swear?” she asked softly, her eyes extra-big and extra-blue.
In that moment, he’d have promised her absolutely anything she wanted. So that made it just like every other moment together. He nodded. “I swear.”
Chapter Four
Tori was killing him and she didn’t even know it. She’d come out of her room wearing what looked like a long sleeveless tank top that covered her from collarbone down to her knees, but when they hit the beach, she pulled it off and revealed an electric blue bikini.
It was actu
ally on the conservative side, with a high waist, but there were cutouts along the sides and the top did up with a complicated network of knots in the back that made his fingers itch.
Hottest spandex ever, and mostly because she wore it like it was a dive suit. Totally utilitarian. And she was oblivious to the effect it had on him as she ran into the ocean ahead of him—and then he had to charge past her, because of the effect it had. Hard-ons were best hidden under the surf.
Stifling his desire wasn’t new, so he ran through drill orders in his head as he swam away from shore, hard and fast. Tori kept up nicely, and when he dove underwater and spun around to find her, she wasn’t far behind him.
He resurfaced in her path and she splashed him.
“Another twenty yards and I’d have caught you,” she teased.
“You always were good at the long distances.” He nodded toward the resort. “Race you back to shore?”
Instead of answering, she tucked her head and rolled into the water, planting her feet against his chest and pushing off into a flip turn. He rocked back, then dove underwater to gain the lost ground.
She was good, but he was better. By the time they reached shallow water again, he was beside her. He could pull past, but he didn’t want to. Landing in the surf at the same time, laughing hysterically, was infinitely superior to winning.
“How long has it been since we did that?” she asked, gasping for air as she rolled onto her back, her elbows planted in the wet sand.
He assumed the same position beside her and crossed his legs, watching the turquoise water turn into white surf around their bodies. Her legs, curvy and distractingly smooth next to his. That electric blue suit right next to his hip. He blinked and refocused his attention on the conversation. “Ten years?”
“At least. Maybe at the lake my first summer of college?”
They’d been on a competitive swim team all the way through high school. Then Logan joined the Navy, all with an eye to eventually joining the SEAL teams, and Tori had gone to university. “Did I come home that first summer? I don’t think so. I was on basic training and then I had leave, but you were at your grandparents’ cottage. I think it was the summer after that. You’d just decided to major in math, remember? And I’d given you such a hard time about that.”
