Sanibel Virgin

by Talyn Scott

  PANTHER CROSSING

  Night deepened as storm clouds swallowed the stars. Wind gusted beneath the awning’s length, lifting and lowering the striped canvas as though it were a ragged sail in the storm’s pitiless rage. Or maybe it was a flag waving its final surrender, Leven wasn’t sure. But if it were the latter, she wanted to wave her final surrender right along with the awning, since exhaustion had crept up on her. Hours ago.

  A crack of thunder followed by another immediate bolt of lightning sent her a foot or so in the air. Her wayward arm almost knocked over a towering stack of dishes recently cleaned to a sparkling perfection.

  “We need those cannola yesterday!” Uncle Claudio shouted from behind swinging doors that never stopped moving. Much the way Uncle Claudio never stopped yelling.

  “I’m on the cannola!” Mara shouted back as she emerged between the doors, her face calm apart from a single line between her ebony eyebrows. “Don’t stroke over it, Papa!” She reached high for a white carton of pastry shells, her tone softening when she asked, “You okay, Leven?”

  “I’m good.” She searched the commercial refrigerator, before pulling out a container of what she knew was cannoli filling. After placing it on the steel countertop and popping the lid, Leven filled two pastry bags. “Catching up on my sleep is what I need.”

  “It sucks you had to work from the moment you arrived.” Mara shoulder bumped her. “On Sunday I promise to take you into Miami. Sand. Surf. Guys.” She cut open the carton, exposing ready made pastry shells. “There’s this little dive near South Beach with the best tamales you’ve ever tasted.”

  All Leven heard was Sunday. Considering it was Friday night, this news didn’t bode well for her growing exhaustion. “Meaning we have to work tomorrow, too.”

  “Weekends are the resort’s busiest time, though the awesome news for us is no kitchen duty.”

  Leven jumped when another flare of lightning cracked across the sky, the windows trembling the moment an immediate roll of thunder followed. “What area are we working tomorrow, then? Please, let it be anything but scrubbing toilets.”

  Mara glanced at the timeworn window overlooking the sink, a continuous sheet of water running down the paned glass as the torrential rain slanted sideways with another wind gust. “Laundry.”

  “Ah.” From a smoldering kitchen to a smoldering, dryer filled laundry room, where was the awesome news found in that? “Tell me how many cottages need linens washed.”

  “Sixteen cottages, six check-outs in the bed and breakfast, plus our apartment, not a full day’s job between the two of us.” Mara glanced up, meeting Leven’s glare, her dark eyes and ebony hair in stark contrast to Leven’s dirty-blonde hair and hazel-gold eyes. For first cousins, they looked nothing alike.

  She shifted her gaze to her pruned, dishpan hands that filled one pastry shell after the other. Years of her mother’s magnanimous Christmas Eve parties where Leven did nothing but this particular task for hours blurred through her mind.

  “What’s going on back there!” Uncle Claudio bellowed, his hand thumping the door, just as another burst of lightning flared across the sky.

  Leven dropped her pastry bag, the filling squirting out of the end. “Does he do this every night?”

  “Yes, and no,” Mara replied, wiping filling from the backsplash. “The storm has kept the diners in for desert. The longer they stay for coffee and desert, the less chances he has of filling the table again for another dining party.” She threw the bar towel into a nearby bucket. “Less money all the way around, and the potential of lost money leads Uncle Claudio to persistent crankiness.”

  As though his ears were burning, Uncle Claudio exploded through the swinging doors. “Enough of the chitchat, customers are raving hungry!”

  “Papa, the only one who is raving here is you.” After loading the dessert plates on a round tray, Mara dusted each with powdered sugar.

  Uncle Claudio palmed his forehead. “Your fresh mouth will give me another reason not to honor your traditional Sunday off!”

  Mara wiped her hands on her apron before lifting the tray over her shoulder. “You would never do that to Leven.” With a saucy wink, she split the doors with a swing of her hips and yelled, “Coming through! Hey!” A mini crash sounded. “Watch it!”

  Dropping his head a moment, Uncle Claudio inhaled until Leven thought the floor might rise to meet his nose. With a slow exhale, he looked up, smiling warmly, and cupped her shoulders. With big brown eyes gleaming, he raised his bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows and begged forgiveness by explaining, “We have more guests here than usual. An unexpected hunting party checked in this evening. So for the next two weeks we are quite booked.” He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I will never complain about earning extra money, but I am sorry this sudden rush of business happened during your arrival.” He sighed. “I looked forwarding to spending some time with you, particularly since it’s been three years since last we’ve visited.”

  Leven’s heart melted. Three years marked the death of his wife, Aunt Juliana. In truth, three years ago also marked the partial death of Leven’s mother, the loss of her twin plunging her deeper into her workhorse tendencies as the years passed. “No matter if we spend five minutes together or five hours, I’ll appreciate every second. I love you, Uncle Claudio.” She hugged him, smelling his familiar spicy aftershave. “I’ll work hard while I’m here, earning every dime you pay me.”

  When she pulled away, he lifted his hands, making a shooing gesture toward the side door opening to the alleyway. “Just head upstairs and get some rest.” Outside, wooden stairs led to the Mancini’s apartment nestled above their resort’s main restaurant. She wondered if her suitcases still remained right inside the front door, since Mara had yanked her to work the moment Leven had arrived.

  “I can stay until closing,” she argued, looking through the side door just as another shot of lighting illuminated the night. Its glow flickered over the far field, casting a line of palm trees in shadowed relief. Transfixed, she studied the light as it danced across smooth bark and whipping fronds. In the next second, she jumped again, though not due to the storm. For an electrifying moment, a rattling moment, Leven’s eyes landed on the shadow of a man who stood stock-still beneath the storm’s fury.

  “Monday night you can stay until closing, Leven, but not tonight.”

  Uncle Claudio opened and closed cabinets behind her, yet she stayed fixated. Thinking the man’s eyes appeared luminous, glowing an ethereal shade of white-gold.

  “Leven? Are you listening? What is it, the storm?” He laughed. “You know enough about Florida weather to realize this is rainy season.” When he moved behind her, he peered over her shoulder into the shadows. “It’s not so bad now, working northward I think. Until tomorrow when the rain starts again.”

  “Do you see anything? By the palms?”

  He squinted, and then patted the top of her head. “I see nothing but a tired girl getting the willies over a little rain shower.”

  Right as he answered those strange eyes reappeared briefly and then blended into the dark night, completely disappearing. “You’re right.” Lack of sleep and her wild imagination always went hand and hand, so why should this night be any different? “Bed sounds perfect.”

  He nodded his approval. “Nick should be home by now, so you won’t be alone.”

  Her shoulders tightened. “Is he?” Even in her tired stupor, how had she forgotten about Nicolas Game On Mancini? “That’s great.” Now, standing out in the storm’s midst with an obvious figment of her exhausted imagination sounded like a better choice.

  “I understand the two of you never got along much, but three years apart should have done something… positive.”

  Leven tugged her favorite threadbare hoodie from a wall peg, pulling it over her arms. “I’m not going to fight with him.”

  “He said the same thing about you.” Uncle Claudio gathered breadbaskets and red checked napkins. Before he parted the doors, he added, �
��Rest well, Leven.”

  Just as she stepped outside the wind picked up with new fury, whirling through the walkway as she ascended the wooden steps. Leven clamped the hoodie around her throat to keep out the rain. With her free hand, she gripped the railing but immediately released it when she heard the ping of hail. Looking over her shoulder, she watched it bounce across the pavement. The hail wasn’t huge, but still enough to do property damage if it didn’t die down soon enough.

  A little rain shower?

  Was Claudio nuts?

  She found the door unlocked and the apartment cast in darkness but for the surface light over the stove and a flickering fluorescent coming from the laundry room. After she took off her hoodie, she flipped on the light switch by the door. Noticing her suitcases gone, she kicked off her shoes and padded across the narrow great room to the laundry room’s door.

  “Nick?” Leven wanted nothing more than to take a shower and to not talk to him tonight or the next day… or the day after that.

  “In here.”

  As she stepped into the threshold, Leven caught her breath. No, Nicholas hadn’t changed much apart from growing taller by a few inches. And broader. He probably topped six four or maybe six five, but he wasn’t lanky, no stick and bones. He wore no shirt, his golden skin gleaming as though he’d come in straight from the rain. With a wrench in hand, he crouched over the dryer and worked through a repair of some sort, the line of muscles in his forearm pumping with his effort.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello, Lev.” Nicholas didn’t turn around, only reaching to the washer and exchanging the wrench for a screw and screwdriver. “You smell like pizza.”

  Her eyes traveled the length of her flour and grease covered shirt. Even though she’d worn an apron, she was still a mess. “Mara and I worked the pizza oven during lunch hour.”

  “Pretty late now.” With a low growl he yanked back on the screwdriver and Leven heard the screw hit the floor. Swearing under his breath as he reached for another screw, he then said, “Sounds like you put in a double shift.”

  “Yeah.” Leven shifted on her feet. “They were busy due to the weather.”

  “Start out as you mean to go on. Don’t let Papa keep you chained to the resort, Lev.” He stood and placed the tools in beat up tackle box.

  “I won’t.” She wondered why he cared whether she’d be stuck working or not when he all but hated her. “Mara is driving me into Miami Sunday.”

  Taking a quick glance over his shoulder, he stiffened before he turned and pushed the dryer against the wall. “Just the two of you?”

  Leven could sense tension suddenly rolling from him. She had no clue how she sensed it, but found it unsettling, so she took a few steps back. “Yeah, Mara says she goes into Miami all of the time.”

  “I guess I need to have a chat with my sister.”

  Nicholas took a deep breath, holding it for several seconds as his hands gripped the sides of the dryer, before exhaling and completely facing her. With streaky blonde hair hanging a little too long over his forehead, he stared under his brow - his head canting, his golden eyes wide and wild. But he’d always looked wild around the eyes. Since he was adopted at birth, Nicholas never resembled Uncle Claudio or Mara but he held the same proud stance, especially in his shoulders.

  A few seconds passed while he studied her. She bit her tongue to keep her eyes on him instead of running from his intense scrutiny.

  Leven shook her head. “In five minutes’ time I’m the inadvertent reason you’re going to start something with your sister.” She backed away then, turning to find a narrow hallway flanked by five doors. In one of them, she should find her luggage and an awaiting bed.

  “No,” he replied in a tone laced with steel. “You and Mara are too young to be going into Miami alone.”

  “I’m twenty.” She balked. “Besides, Uncle Claudio knows we’re going and he’s fine with it.”

  He lifted his chin and left the laundry room. “I guarantee Papa will think more clearly on the subject once he’s had a sound night’s sleep.”

  Lightning flashed through the blinds, flickering between the shutter blades. “No one will get a sound night’s sleep on a night like this.”

  She made her way to the hall, not asking where her luggage was. Fighting with him had never been productive, and she refused to ruin the rest of her night by indulging him, so he could say whatever he wanted. Leven knew she would enjoy Miami with Mara on Sunday, anyway. First door on the right obviously belonged to Uncle Claudio. Second one was the bathroom, so she veered left and landed in what was obviously Mara’s room - all pink and fluffy.

  “Next one on the left, right next to mine,” Nicholas directed.

  His voice surprisingly close to her ear, she felt his breath on her rain-dampened nape before her body gave an involuntary shudder. “Thanks.”

  “Cold?”

  No, but she hadn’t a clue what just happened inside her body. Earlier she’d imagined glowing eyes staring from the marsh and now this weirdness. “Well, I’m covered in rain,” she explained for his benefit, though her rising gooseflesh felt nothing like the chills.

  “Towels are in the linen closet, next to the bathroom we have to share.”

  Finding the linen closet, she pulled out a towel. “This place is bigger than it seems.”

  “Yeah, it is.” He was still right behind her, but he stayed back a few feet. “After Mama died, Papa built this apartment the length of the new restaurant.”

  Apparently, Uncle Claudio couldn’t live with the memories. “What was done with the old house?”

  “Papa renovated it.” He shifted behind her, but she waited a heartbeat before she faced him again. “Partially, that is. Papa rents the old house just the same as the smaller cottages.” When he shrugged she noticed a thick, singular scar down the side of his ribcage. “None of us go in there except for Mara.”

  Leven stood there rudely, unable to take her eyes from his scar. She wondered what had happened to him, a million questions dancing in her head.

  Nicholas gestured to the adjacent door. “I put your luggage inside there, Lev.” He spun on his heels and slipped inside the room straight across from hers. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” she murmured, walking through the doorway and taking in the bedroom while trying to erase him from her thoughts.

  Although the apartment was newly built, it kept a nostalgic feel, old and quaint, blending into the rest of the resort. This particular room was long and narrow, its sloping ceiling leading to one large picture window covered by old embroidered drapes. A four poster bed complete with a canopy centered the room, which Leven was certain once belonged in her Aunt and Uncle’s master suite. Probably her uncle could never discard it, yet he couldn’t sleep in it, either. The quilt that should have matched the canopy was missing. In its place were crisp hotel sheets, all white, and a folded cotton blanket at the foot of the bed.

  Spotting her luggage by a wooden chest, Leven closed the door behind her and shrugged off her wet clothes to her underwear. The storm was moving further away, the sounds going distant, and sleep sounded like a better move than a shower that could wait until the morning. She bent down for the suitcase carrying her nightclothes and placed it atop a corner desk with a matching ladder back chair. Sliding her fingers over the deep groove and surface scratches, she didn’t recognize the desk and wondered to whom it had belonged.

  She found a long, cotton shirt and pulled it over her head. The floorboard squeaked as she turned toward the bed. Then, a niggling feeling prickled the back of her neck and Leven started to perspire. She took a deep breath, then another, but the sensation refused to go away. A strange, metallic scrape drew her immediate attention to the window.

  “I am not afraid,” she whispered as she knelt on the cushioned window seat and gripped the little wooden stick with trembling fingers. With a slide of her wrist, she opened one side of the drapes.

  Eyes stared back at her.

  Those sa
me glowing eyes as before were closer now, leveled high in a Live Oak tree. Due to the shadows, Leven could make nothing else out. She pushed the hair from her eyes and snapped the drapes closed so quickly that she was certain they’d hit the floor. But they hung steadily.

  Mocking her.

  “Go to bed, Leven,” she coaxed herself. “You’re just tired, unbearably tired.”

  Her hand reached out, rebelling against what her brain was saying, and she opened the drapes a fraction.

  Just a peek…

  They were still there, looking at her.

  Glowing.

  A boom of thunder startled her. Leven bit back a scream and made a mad dash to the bed. “I did not see eyes,” she mumbled as she pulled the covers over her head. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m just tired.”

  But in the distant wind, Leven could have sworn she heard a jungle cat cry out in warning.

  Check out www.talynscott.com for updates on the new series Panther Crossing

  Please enjoy this sample of Sarasota Sin Series and look for updates on Club Saturday at www.talynscott.com

  Sarasota Sin Series

  Chapter 1

  Avery Easton walked through the tower that had once claimed so many lives he couldn’t imagine ghosts not lurking, if he believed in such nonsense. Because if he were to believe, then surely she was looking down on him from somewhere, shaking her head at what he was about to do. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out the singular key he hadn’t used for six years, and shoved it inside the offbeat keyhole positioned beside the elevator leading to the first levels of hell.

  When the doors opened, the smell of cigars, scotch, and sex swamped him. He hesitated, staring at his reflection from all four angles, his hazel eyes more gold in the artificial lighting, his black hair a dark shadow around his face. The mirrored elevator cleverly housed closed circuit cameras offering live feed for those partying below. So if he were in here, say, with a partner or two, he could get off on a bit of exhibitionism as he lowered himself into the bowels of hedonism.