He closed the door, not even bothering to look inside and rushed back down the stairs. The lobby had filled up with people and he weaved in and out of the crowd until he got to the revolving door.
Outside, he found his limo sitting there. Tom must have seen him storming up to the car. His driver got out and hurried to the back door. “Sir? Everything all right? I didn’t get a text you needed a ride.”
“No problem. I didn’t have time.” He grabbed the door handle, not wanting to be pampered or babied at the moment. Not when he was a warrior about to get his woman, throw her on his shoulder and drag her back to New York, if he had to.
“Where do you want to go?” Tom asked, looking anxious.
“The Jersey Shore.” He did a double take when Tom’s lips flattened. “What?”
“The traffic to get down there is brutal now, sir. Can it wait a few hours?”
“No.” He took out his phone and squeezed Tom’s shoulder. “Never mind, stand down.”
Walking down Fifth Avenue, he called Carter Holden thanks to the number Victoria had sent him. Just in case.
“Luke?” Carter said his name with genuine surprise.
“Hey there, Carter. Listen, thank you for your plane a couple of weeks ago.” He started with that.
“No problem. How’s your mother?” he asked.
“Better, she’s home. Your mom?” He’d been so glad to hear Bailey Holden was in remission from her cancer. Again.
“Hanging in there. Are you calling to talk about our mothers?”
“No.” He liked a man who got to the point. “You don’t have a helicopter, too, by any chance?”
“Not yet.” Carter laughed. “But I have a pilot who can hook you up. Hang on.” His voice faded away for a few seconds. “Where are you going, out of curiosity?”
“The Jersey Shore.” He checked his watch.
“To get away for the weekend?”
“To get the woman I love.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lexi
“How bored are you?”
Lexi jumped, knocking a hot baking sheet of chocolate chip cookies against the top of the oven, sending a few tumbling to the bottom. “Mom! Don’t creep up on me like that.”
“Creep up? It’s my kitchen,” Sylvia sniped, glancing around. “I hope I can have it back to make dinner.”
Lexi reached in the oven to grab one of the fallen cookies and burned the top of her hand on the rack. “Son of a bitch.” She dumped the hot baking sheet on the stovetop and tossed the one rescued chocolate chip disaster back with its brothers. Stomping to the sink to run icy water on her hand, she said, “I’m not bored.”
Her classmates were in Central Park getting their law degrees that afternoon. After she OD’d on sugar, she planned to get spectacularly drunk to push away the pain of a dream that had breathed its last gulp of air.
“Ice is better for burns,” her mother said, scooping a few cubes from the freezer. “Why are you making cookies?”
“Hotels offer cookies for guests checking in.” She gritted her teeth when the dry ice stung the burn even worse.
“We have one room booked tonight. Are all these for one guest?” Her mom pointed to the burnt little discs.
“It’s good to get into the habit.” She was also craving them because her period should have arrived two days ago.
“Alexis, you’re scaring me now. First you come home weeks before I expected you to. And now, you’re talking crazy about not going back to school.” Her mom bent down to retrieve the other fallen cookies, sizzling with chocolate melting on the bottom of the hot stove.
“I’ll go back eventually. This is more urgent. I got us an in with Chevalier. And my tuition money is better spent here. It’s an investment for me. You can pay me back if it makes you feel better.” She bit her lip to distract from the burning pain.
“I don’t want to pay you back because I don’t want to take your money to begin with.” Her mother looked over the mess she made of the kitchen with an assessing glare of disapproval. “Chevalier will come around. If not, I’ll apply for a different partnership.”
“How many years are you going to let pass before you see your dream become a success?” she muttered, scraping the cookies off the sheet and onto a platter.
“I had a dream, missy. He was your father. And I lost him.” Her mother’s edgy voice cut through her.
She turned back, alarmed at the flush in her mom’s cheeks. “I know you miss Daddy. I do, too. He would have wanted you to succeed, especially since....”
“Since what?”
“Since this is all you have.”
“What’s all the yelling?” Her brother Theo strutted in.
Lexi spun around. “What are you doing here?”
He cocked a head toward his mother. “Really, you’re gonna make me the bad guy?”
Theo Markham, Jr. threw his duffel bag on the chair at the kitchen table. He removed his black leather jacket and Lexi’s eyes bulged seeing how the muscles in his arms had exploded. Holy crap. Her brother was now a hot fireman and he better have his head screwed on straight because women will be throwing themselves at him. “You brought Theo here to gang up on me?” she asked her mother.
“This was his first weekend off.” Her mother leered out the window, checking on the hotel sitting across the one-lane highway. Seeing no one had pulled into the parking lot, her mother smashed into Theo with a bear hug. “I wanted my baby home. Are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.” He swaggered toward Lexi next and kissed her cheek.
“Have a cookie,” she said, shoving one in his mouth.
“Ugh, who made these?” he said, trying not to chew.
“I did.”
“Was foot sweat part of the recipe?” He spit out soggy crumbles and dumped the rest in the garbage.
“What? They smelled so good.” She bit into one and couldn’t swallow it either. “What the hell?”
“You used salt instead of sugar,” her mother said, holding up the canister.
“That canister says sugar.”
“Sugar is bad for you,” her mother argued then reached in a lower cabinet for a yellowing plastic bag containing an ancient sack of sugar. “When you started staying in the city, I, uh, made some changes around here.”
“And all of this salt is good for you?” Lexi asked, frowning at the discolored bag.
“I don’t even remember filling this. Where did you get it?” her mother dumped the salt into the trash, too.
“Under the counter.”
“That should have been your first clue,” Theo said, sticking his face under the faucet.
“Hey, how did you get down here?” she asked her brother, shoving her burning hand under the water, too.
“Zip car.” He crossed his ankles and leaned against the counter, looking more manly than she’d been prepared for. Theo Markham had heartbreaker written all over him. Lexi wouldn’t be surprised if he found himself a ‘date’ for later that night. Thank goodness he usually stayed in one of the hotel’s guest rooms across the street.
Meanwhile, she had to sleep on a narrow double bed in this glorified she-shed with one flimsy wall separating her and her mom.
“Can you give me a ride into town?” Lexi asked, removing her mother’s old apron.
His head tipped back. “I just drove four hours to get here.”
“Who told you to drive in summer weekend shore traffic?” She scooted around looking for her bag and her mile-long to-do list.
“She did.” He pointed to her mother.
“Is he here for a particular purpose?” Lexi folded her arms. “What’s with you? You’ve been acting weird since I got here.”
“Nothing,” her mother snapped with her usual edgy tone. “And Theo, I’ll take room 8. You can have my bed, you’ll be more comfortable.” She held his chin, cooing at him.
“If you think your lumpy thirty-year-old mattress is more comfortable than one of the guest rooms, you j
ust lost any argument for me not to invest in this place.” Lexi spotted the Toyota Corolla her brother had parked out front. “Oh, and we’ll stop at the paint store. I want to look at swatches.”
“You owe me.” Theo shook his head at his mother.
“You’ll thank me when you take a nice hot bath in the clawfoot tub tonight.” Her mother shimmied into her room, humming.
Wonderful. She hoped Theo would think twice about bringing a girl back here and banging her in the next room.
Lexi didn’t think listening to a woman crying through the thin walls would be a turn on.
Luke
SETH PORTER, THE HELICOPTER pilot Carter Holden had recommended from back in his news directing days, flew Luke from a lower Manhattan heliport to Sandstone, New Jersey in twenty minutes. During the brief ride in the sky, he told Luke he was ex-military. The guy was a piece of work, but solid and sharp. Luke took his card and said to expect to hear from him again.
A limo Tom had arranged picked him up from the private airfield. They crawled along a one-lane road that had no business being called a ‘highway’ for another hour until they reached the saddest motel he’d ever seen in his life.
Clutching his black suit jacket, Luke walked into the Portside Inn. And Lexi thought his lobby looked sad.
Our lobby...
A woman with olive skin and bronze hair leaned an elbow on the counter, speaking on the phone.
He kept his head down and looked around, waiting for her to finish. She glanced up, acknowledging only that a body had entered the cramped lobby that smelled like his grandmother’s basement. He assumed the musty smell was from the resort being right on the water. One positive thing about the place. It had potential. It just needed a bulldozer and a whole new building, sheesh.
The woman glanced up again, taking a longer look and her mouth slacked open. “I’ll call you back, Ed,” she whispered in the phone and hung up.
He locked eyes on her as he approached the desk, worn and in need of a fresh coat of shellac. Before he said anything, the woman grinned. Stupidly.
Her smile was all Alexis.
“I think you’re in the wrong place.” Lexi’s mother narrowed her eyes at his custom-made suit. “I can give you the name of a fancy B&B.”
“No wonder your reservations are down with that attitude.” He rested his forearms on the counter, his dad’s cufflinks catching the light.
LH for Lawrence Hart. But they were his now.
The woman’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, good lord, are you...Luke?”
“Alexis described me that well?” he asked with a smirk.
“Looks alone would have given you away. Beautiful people like you don’t check in here.”
“That needs to change.” He glanced around and tried not to cringe. “Plus, you’re mistaken.”
“How so?”
“Alexis is here. She’s more beautiful than...” He choked on the rest.
The woman clasped her hands together and rushed out from behind the desk. At full speed she plowed into him with a bear hug.
With her head leaning against his chest, he said, “Uh. Hi?”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, gazing up at him briefly then hugged him again.
Okay, now this is weird. “And your name is?”
The woman stepped back and smoothed her hair. “I’m Sylvia. Lexi’s mother. You can call me Sylvie.”
Luke swallowed a breath of relief. “It’s nice to meet you, Sylvie.” He stepped back, thinking another squeeze was coming. “How do you know who I am?”
“When my daughter said she was working for the most handsome man in North America...” The rest of her words melted in the dismayed thinking, Really, just North America?
Still, so far this has all been a positive sign. “Did she say anything else about me?” He worried if Lexi and her mom were super-sharers.
Sylvie pressed her lips together. “Did she ever. But don’t worry. I’ll help you.”
“Help me?”
“You bet.” She grasped his wrist and pulled him into a dingy office behind the desk. “It’s just like in these.” Her hands skimmed the cracked spines of pastel colored books.
“What are these?”
“Romance novels.” She took one down and showed him a cover of a man with mile-long hair, a white flowing open shirt, and a redhead with even longer hair sitting at his feet. “The hero always comes for his woman.”
“I’m flattered you think of me as a hero.” He snuck a look around hoping Alexis would show up. Soon.
“What can I do to help?” She clasped her hands together again.
“Thank you, Sylvie. I just need to know where she is.” I’ve got to be a better alternative to this place.
“She’s in town getting paint swatches and buying sugar to make cookies.” She strained her neck to see out the window, appearing anxious. “How soon can you get her out of here?”
“Well...Wait. What?” He wasn’t sure he heard right. “You want Alexis to leave?”
Sylvie waved her hands. “I’ve run this place for years by myself. Sure, she came home every night. But her head was always in her school books. Now, with her not going back to NYU—”
“What do you mean she’s not going back to law school?” A shock of alarm rang through him.
“She wants me to use her tuition money to renovate. Said she made a contact at Chevalier who will give us another chance. I don’t need her money. I don’t need the partnership. I’m doing fine.”
Luke wasn’t sure which of those statements were less true, but the urgency in Sylvia’s voice raised some questions. “Is there a problem with Alexis?”
“No!” she said, but then turned away.
There was something wrong, but he wasn’t sure it was any of his business. At least he hoped it wasn’t. The sooner he got the hell out of there, the sooner he and his driver could find this paint store. “Okay then.”
“Seriously. You’re here to take her back with you, right?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly, Sylvia, I want Alexis and it doesn’t matter where. Manhattan. Here.”
“No! It can’t be here.”
“What’s going on?” Luke had enough experience with witnesses to realize there was something she wasn’t saying. “You don’t know me from a hole in the wall. And you just want Alexis to run off with me?”
Sylvia folded her arms. “Do you take drugs?”
“Of course not.” He pitched his head back. Do you?
“Do you drink excessively?”
Excessively was relative, but he realized this was an interrogation. “No.”
“Ever hit a woman?”
“Christ, no!” Luke shrieked.
“Murder anyone?”
He answered that one with an eye roll.
“Do you love my Lexi?” She asked that question with the most fervor of the bunch.
He swallowed, wondering who needed to know this first. Without thinking, he said on a choking exhale, “More than I can put into words.”
“Then you’re perfect.” She shrugged at him, and the movement was all Alexis, he had to step back and collect himself. If he didn’t see her soon, he’d explode.
“Glad we got that straightened out. But I’m not leaving until you tell me why you want her out of here. I can’t help you, if you keep that a secret.”
She attempted to leave the office, but he stopped her. “I don’t have to tell you anything, mister.”
“But you want me to take your daughter away and go live happy ever after like these ridiculous books.” He flicked the bookshelf.
“They’re not ridiculous!”
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t getting anywhere. The town couldn’t be that big. How many paint stores could there be? He’d find Alexis himself.
Leaving the office, he said, “Okay. It was nice meeting you.” I’ll see you at our wedding. Maybe.
“I have a boyfriend!” Sylvia’s voice stopped his
steps through the lobby.
He set his shoulders back and turned around. Now, all of this made sense.
“Okay. And does Alexis know?”
“No.” Sylvia put her head down. The picture was getting clearer. “She wouldn’t approve.”
“And do you need her approval?” Luke asked, feeling a touch more for the woman’s angst.
“I don’t want to upset her.”
“She’s a big girl. I think she’ll be fine with it.” At least he hoped. If she wasn’t, he’d help her get over it. Keep her distracted.
“Alexis loved her father. She would never accept another man in my life.”
“It’s been more than twenty years. And Alexis is an adult with a life of her own.” One he wanted to give her, right away. Like, now. Today. He had enough of this apart bullshit.
“Not if she stays here.”
Luke stepped back, finally seeing the point. With Alexis in Manhattan for a month, Sylvia probably loved the freedom it gave her. To be with a boyfriend she was hiding.
A loud crack of thunder made him jump. “Holy shit. I mean, excuse me. That was loud.”
“That’s the shore for you. We get wicked summer storms. Torrential rain. Flooding.” Sylvia went back behind her desk and checked an electrical panel. “Oh thank God,” she said, looking out the window. “Here’s Lexi. Now, you listen to me. Get her in that...is that a limo?”
“Yep,” he answered proudly even though it was a rental.
“Give her whatever she wants. Say whatever ever she needs to hear to get her in that stretchy thing and take her back to Manhattan. And get her to go back to school.”
Luke wanted all the same things, only he didn’t want to force Lexi. He stupidly flew out here without an actual plan. Just to say those three little words and let Lexi absorb it all. He had no answer to how they would make it work. Because it wasn’t up to him. He was static. He lived and worked in his hotel. And that’s where he was staying. He wasn’t going back to his law firm.
Lexi was the wild card. But he decided he wanted her no matter what. Having some of her was better than having none of her. He’d learn to share her with her school, her job, as long as she was in his bed every night. He wanted to be the place she sought comfort when the stress became too hard, and he wanted to be the counsel she sought when she became overwhelmed with a jerk client.
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