Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore

by Janice Kay Johnson

  A chill went through Zack. An ex-husband could make things personal. Very personal. It was bad enough to have someone angry about a fruit stand, but this must be a private vendetta. And, once again, Jamie hadn’t called and told him a thing that was happening.

  “Do you know if he’s presently in the area?” Zack asked.

  “There’s no way of knowing for certain. Your clerk checked and he wasn’t currently registered, but he could be staying elsewhere.” The deputy drained his cup of coffee. “I should be going. I’m making the rounds of hotels on the west edge of Warrington and should get to the next one.”

  “Yes, of course, Officer,” Zack said. “Thank you for explaining the situation. We’ll inform you immediately if Mr. Gardiner shows up at Mar Vista.”

  “Thank you.”

  Zack tried to appear casual as he returned to the desk and told Michael that if Timothy Gardiner checked in, he should complete the registration without making the guest suspicious, then discreetly call Sheriff Saldano.

  “He’s not likely to be dangerous to anyone at the resort,” Zack told him. “But we wouldn’t want to take a risk in any case. I know I can rely on you and the rest of the staff to handle it appropriately.”

  The clerk flashed a pleased smile. “Yes, sir.”

  Zack took the back route to the employee parking area where the SUV was parked. He was heading to Jamie’s house to spend the night, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  * * *

  KIM FUSSED AT her hair in the mirror. She couldn’t get it right. It took only a few minutes to dress professionally, but she didn’t want to look like a lawyer tonight. Finally, she did a French braid and secured it with combs. The clothing seemed right—a simple blue dress with a full, graceful skirt. Nothing too fancy. The restaurant they were going to was nice, but not as high-end as the Sunfish Grotto. That suited her fine. As pleasant as it was to go someplace extravagant, everyone at Mar Vista knew who they were and it would be nice to be an anonymous couple.

  She gathered her handbag in time for Brad’s knock. He wore a good pair of slacks and a corduroy sports jacket. On some guys, the military haircut might appear odd, but on Brad it was just right. He seemed to approve of her appearance, as well.

  “Ready?” he asked, his voice a trace husky, and Kim felt the balance of her world shift. Was it her imagination, or was that serious heat in his eyes?

  “Sure. I’m not a woman who keeps a man hanging around.”

  “You’d be worth waiting for.”

  Pleasure flashed through Kim’s veins. “Thank you.”

  She took a silk shawl-type sweater from the wardrobe and handed it to him. He held it for her and she slipped her arms into the sleeve portion and wrapped the rest around herself. Brad’s eyes darkened as he gazed at her.

  “You’re always so elegant,” he said. “That was one of the first things I noticed about you.”

  “What was the second?” she asked.

  “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t...or won’t?”

  “You were my brother’s girlfriend. Sometimes there are things you can’t afford to notice, except on an intellectual basis.”

  “And what did you notice on that basis?”

  “That you had a sense of humor.”

  “Liar.”

  He laughed and offered her his arm.

  * * *

  JAMIE SAT CURLED in the large armchair near the fireplace, working on ideas for a new bracelet. There would be no brilliant sunset that night, just a gray evening, slowly turning into darkness. Ordinarily she enjoyed the fog; tonight it seemed oppressive. But inside, the fire crackled, pushing back the gloom, and a steaming cup of tea sat next to her, along with a bowl of popcorn. Marlin lay behind her neck, stretched along the top of the chair, his purr rumbling. Every once in a while, he roused to lick her ear and she reached up to scratch his neck.

  The doorbell rang and she sighed. Tempting as it was not to answer, it could be Curt with an update. She went to the door and peeked through the security window. Zack...oops. She’d forgotten all about their arrangement to eat at the Clam Shell.

  Jamie opened the door. “Zack, I’m so sorry. I forgot all about dinner. If you still want to do it and you don’t mind waiting, I could get dressed and—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the police suspect your ex-husband hired that creep to trash the fruit stand?”

  “Oh.” She blinked. “Good heavens, Zack, it only came up this afternoon. Curt asked if I had any ideas and it suddenly occurred to me that Tim might be responsible.”

  “Didn’t you think I’d like to know?”

  “I would have mentioned it the next time I saw you.”

  He ran fingers through his hair in frustration. “Okay, okay. Look, you can’t stay here alone.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Your ex-husband may have paid a man to vandalize your business. This is very personal, and very dangerous. You’re either coming to the resort with me or I’m staying here. Don’t bother arguing.”

  Resigned, Jamie waved him inside. “Didn’t you bring dinner?” she asked with a feigned expression of shock. “You invited me, as I recall.”

  He gave her a grim look that wasn’t the least bit amused. “I was in too much of a damned hurry to get over here before it got dark.”

  “Your sense of humor has certainly suffered,” she muttered. “Go sit by the fire and have popcorn for an appetizer. I’ll scrounge something in the kitchen.”

  She hadn’t planned to fix a meal, but there was vegetable soup in the refrigerator and she could make sandwiches. It wouldn’t measure up to Gordon Chen’s cooking, but that was Zack’s fault for showing up in the first place.

  “Ready,” she called after setting the kitchen table. “Let’s eat in here.”

  They ate in silence, then he helped load the dishwasher. “I didn’t expect such an up-to-date kitchen,” he said finally.

  “Granddad had it remodeled several times. He said he would have kept it updated for Leah if she were alive, and tried to choose things she would have liked. The last time it was redone was a couple of years before he died. I—I think he wanted it to be new when he left it to me.”

  Emotion caught at Jamie’s throat as she explained. Though she’d been temporarily absent from Granddad’s life, she knew he’d thought of her often. The kitchen was a reminder. He’d done it in the colors she favored, using natural stone and glass in the backsplash and putting in hardwood floors. When she’d first moved in, she found a card in the bowl of a fancy new stand mixer. She knew the message he’d written by heart.

  Jamie,

  You’ll never know how much your visits each August meant to me. In a way it was as if my dearest Leah had returned, in your laugh, your insatiable love for the ocean and the understanding you had, even as a child, for the beauty of this place.

  I wasn’t a good father to your mother—however much I loved her, she needed more than a sorrowful recluse as her only parent. But I pray that I was a good grandfather to you and David. Perhaps Leah can tell me when we meet in heaven. I know it will be soon. These days I hear her singing to me more clearly than ever before.

  Don’t grieve, darling child. I will be with Leah, and we will both look in on you now and then.

  Jamie’s eyes burned as she remembered the loving words, and she ducked her head so Zack wouldn’t see.

  “Let’s go in and sit by the fire,” she said.

  Mist shrouded the house in a bank of fog so deep that the evening light was barely visible, though the sun wouldn’t be down for a while yet. Zack threw another log on the fire while Jamie settled into her chair and picked up her sketch pad again. Marlin stared balefully at Zack on the couch before resettling on the space behind Jamie’s head.

  After an hour,
she went in to make a pot of hot chocolate and brought Zack a mug along with her own. “You probably don’t serve anything so homey over at Mar Vista,” she said when he thanked her.

  “Sure we do, several kinds, including a comfort-food version like this. You can have room service deliver a pot, then sit and drink it in front of your own personal fireplace—gas, though, instead of logs.”

  “Sounds like a nice thing to be able to do on vacation, especially when it gets cold and damp the way it is tonight.”

  Zack leaned his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. “That’s what I thought.” He was silent a few minutes before rousing again. “I wish they still had the old fog horns here. There’s something about the sound that I love.”

  Jamie’s hand jerked with surprise and she erased the mark she’d accidentally made with her pencil. She wouldn’t have expected Zack to appreciate fog horns; they were too old-fashioned. Yet some of her dearest childhood memories were of lying snug in her bed and listening to the muffled, mournful call of a fog horn. That sound had meant that she was really home...because Granddad’s house had felt like home more than anyplace else.

  “You could put one in,” she suggested.

  “I’ve considered it. Unfortunately, it would be more for me than anyone else.”

  “I promise to enjoy it, too.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll see if my bank loan will extend that far.”

  She glanced at him. “I accused you of being a wealthy jerk, but maybe you aren’t. Not yet, anyway. Not until your loans are paid and Mar Vista’s income belongs solely to you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You never accused me of being a wealthy jerk.”

  “I’m sure I did.”

  “Maybe you just thought it.”

  “Possibly.” Stretching, she went to make another batch of popcorn. The evening was as different as it could be from the previous night at the Sunfish Grotto. It was full of cozy warmth, and if she didn’t look at Zack too often, she could ignore the other kind of warmth, the kind that was settling deep in her belly.

  * * *

  ZACK ATE THE last bit of popcorn from the bowl on the side table and gazed around the room. A few weeks before, the outside of Jamie’s house had surprised him with its classic architecture. The inside was inviting, a real home.

  “Is all the furniture and decor yours?” he asked as Jamie came back. “Or did it belong to your grandfather?”

  “Most of it was his,” she said. “I got rid of a few pieces of furniture and bought a couple that suited my style better. Leah did a number of the paintings and there are others that belonged to my great-grandparents. I arranged things a little differently than Granddad, but he changed it every year or so anyhow.”

  It sounded as if Jamie had left her marriage with few belongings, though she might have just wanted a clean break.

  “Then George didn’t make a shrine of the house, keeping it the way Leah had left it?”

  A smile played on Jamie’s lips. “No. It was the beachside land he wanted to preserve, the ocean always changing and always staying the same. Anyway, apparently Leah rearranged on a regular basis. He told me he found her shoving the bed across the room when she was eight months pregnant. It was the third time that year she’d rearranged the furniture.”

  “He must have had heart failure.”

  “Close to it.” Jamie got up to pull a book from the built-in shelves and sat down again, flipping to a page in the middle. She seemed to be making a comparison to something in her sketchbook, her forehead creased in concentration.

  “What are you drawing?” Zack asked when she put the book aside. It appeared to be a book on Russian art.

  “Just some ideas.”

  He got up and glanced at the page. “What’s that?”

  “A bracelet. I had an idea about a Russian theme, but I don’t know if I can make it work for silver casting.”

  “It looks nice. I didn’t realize you did that kind of jewelry. Maybe I should look at your stuff and see if it’s right for one of our shops.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t.” She flipped to a blank page. “You also choose the stock for your stores? Is there anything you don’t control over there?” she asked.

  “Control? You’ve got to be kidding.” He sank onto the couch again and rolled his eyes. “Lately I’ve been much less attentive than usual. And it’s odd, because things are going really well the last week or so. I don’t know what made the difference.”

  Jamie started laughing. “Of course it’s getting better. You haven’t been micromanaging everything to death.”

  The comment shocked Zack and he sat for a moment in stunned silence. That was exactly what he’d been doing and it was utterly contrary to his normal management style.

  “Damn, Jamie, how did you figure that out? You’ve only been to Mar Vista twice.”

  She put the sketch pad aside and focused on him. “It was obvious from stuff you let drop. And I also overhear employees talking while they’re shopping at the stand. But don’t expect me to be your personal spy. I won’t tell who said what.”

  Zack held up his hands in mock surrender. “I don’t want you to. If I’d had a better working relationship with them from the beginning, they might have told me on their own.”

  She cocked her head in curiosity. “Is it really that different being an owner? According to Brad, you were great at management.”

  He grimaced. “I have more on the line as an owner, and I’ve been determined to make it work, partly because of my...investors.”

  “I didn’t know you had investors.”

  “Just two.”

  “Your parents, right?”

  He should have known she’d guess. “It’s really important to them to show their support for anything Brad and I do. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “It’s none of my business, and no one else’s, either.”

  Zack sighed. He felt like an idiot, not realizing he was the source of the problems at Mar Vista. Trudy had implied the way he was looking over shoulders had been causing stress, but he hadn’t listened.

  “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. I’ve got good people in management,” he said. “I’ve known these men and women for years and I can trust their work.”

  “That’s great for them, but what about the locals?” Jamie persisted. “Couldn’t you provide opportunities for advancement? They think you’re only willing to hire them for cleaning toilets and pulling weeds.”

  Zack nodded thoughtfully. In the beginning, it made sense to bring in management personnel that he’d worked with previously. They were experienced with how a resort functioned and could train the rest of the staff. But it was discouraging for employees if they never saw a chance to move upward. Hell, if he hadn’t had those opportunities, he’d still be a bellboy.

  All at once he winced, remembering the management positions that had opened since he had opened the resort. He’d continued to hire people he knew from outside the area without considering whether anyone local was qualified.

  “Wow,” Jamie said. “Aren’t you ticked off that I said all that?”

  “No, I welcome valuable ideas.” Maybe he would have gotten furious before he’d gotten to know Jamie, but she had good insight into people, something he’d been struggling with lately.

  Jamie checked the clock over the mantel and stretched. He gulped as the fabric of her T-shirt pulled tight against her breasts.

  “How about a movie?” she asked. “I may not have cable television, but there’s a selection of DVDs.”

  What Zack wanted was to pull Jamie onto the couch and explore her curves in the firelight. A movie was safest, but he wouldn’t have any excuse to look at her.

  “Do you have another Scrabble game here, or is the only one back at the trailer?” he aske
d, deciding he’d enjoy teasing Jamie with a little sexy wordplay. “I’d like a rematch.”

  * * *

  BRAD WAS FAR more comfortable at Martine’s Italian Restaurant than the Sunfish Grotto. It was nice, but not over-the-top elegant. Besides, Kim added all the elegance that was needed. God, she was beautiful. It made a man feel ten feet tall to escort such a woman.

  “I’m glad you suggested coming here,” Kim told him as they ate their salads. “This place has the kind of character they write about in travel magazines. Look at that stained-glass window. It’s got to be an antique.”

  “Along with half the stuff in here,” Brad agreed. “I heard it’s been around since the original owner came back from World War II, in love with the pizza he’d discovered in Italy.”

  “We’re so used to pizza that we forget it’s relatively new to the United States. I think I read somewhere that the use of oregano jumped phenomenally after the war.”

  “Never underestimate a soldier’s capacity for enjoying food.”

  The waiter took their salad plates and delivered the eggplant Parmesan they’d both ordered.

  “We get our food more quickly here than at the Grotto,” Kim said. “Though I really enjoyed dancing with you last night.”

  “It was great,” Brad answered, not sure of the appropriate response. Had Kim’s manner always been this warm and intimate? Obviously she and his brother didn’t have a future together, or want one, so the whole thing had been in his imagination.

  Their conversation wandered through food and music, movies and books, never touching on anything personal. Once he might have been glad—now he wasn’t so certain.

  “I can’t get used to reading a book on an electronic screen,” she complained at one point. “I prefer turning pages and feeling the paper beneath my fingers.”

  Brad shrugged. “So do I, but it’s easier to pack a gadget loaded with a ton of books into a duffel bag.”

  Her eyes widened. “True. I hadn’t thought of that. Are you, uh... How do you keep it charged?”

  “I don’t always. It depends on where I’m stationed.” He suspected that Kim had almost asked about his future plans regarding duffel bags and active service, but had shied away from the subject at the last moment.