by Ruby Laska
She almost had it. In fact, she did have it—long enough to flip it up into the air, so that the sweet mass of delectable dessert slid out of its ramekin and spun in a lazy turn, all in slow motion. The ramekin flew toward the girl and smacked her right in the forehead, and before Larissa could react, the mass of crème splatted wetly against her chest and slid down into her cleavage, disappearing into the front of her dress. It was cold and clammy, and Larissa clutched at it and shrieked and her heel got caught on something and she felt herself falling backward, and in that split second she had a flash of total clarity and realized with horror that she hadn’t been fun and bright and scintillating at Amelia’s table, she’d been just plain drunk, and now she’d started a food fight with a group of strangers.
She gave up and let herself fall, hoping she’d hit her head on something that wouldn’t kill her but would put her into a coma that would blessedly make her forget the whole evening and keep her in the hospital until everyone else forgot too. She waited for the impact, the shock of pain and the sound of her skull cracking, but instead she felt herself caught in a pair of strong, muscular arms.
“Okay, darlin,’ that’s probably about enough for one night,” a familiar voice drawled. Tommy. Of course, it had to be Tommy who witnessed her terrible shame.
“Take me out of here,” she whispered. “Please. I never want to see those women again.”
“Well, that might be a little much to ask,” Tommy said. Then he picked her up as though she weighed nothing and started carrying her toward the exit. “Seeing as how they work for you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Someone was knocking on the window.
Larissa had been taking her time emerging from the mound of blankets and pillows under which she’d spent the night, on the theory that moving slowly would diminish the effects of her hangover. It had only taken her a split second to remember where she was when she woke up—breathing the scent of jasmine took care of that—but the rest of the details of the day before came back slowly, each new memory plunging her further into despair.
She’d had too much to drink and started a food fight with the women who she would be supervising. She’d been given this one last chance at a career, and she’d sunk it before it even set sail. Someone would have emailed Mr. Westermere by now—the eyes of every single person on the patio had been glued on her as Tommy practically carried her away—and the best that she could hope for was that he would fire her before the staff meeting rather than after, so that she could be spared the humiliation of facing them all again.
There was the knocking again. More of a whapping than a knocking, actually. Didn’t people use the front door around here? Or had Larissa somehow slept through it? A thought occurred to her—no one knew that she was staying in Tommy’s room; what if it was a woman looking for Tommy? A girlfriend? A hookup? She’d taken note, even through her haze, of all the pretty young women who’d greeted him last night, and she couldn’t blame them: even among the construction staff, many of whom sported hard bodies and tans, Tommy stood out. He had that silky long hair, for one thing, and those green eyes with their golden flecks. Those incredibly white teeth and—
“Go away,” she moaned, quietly enough that any nubile young women wouldn’t hear her. She crept out of bed and crawled on her hands and knees over to the window, where she could peep above the sill and, hopefully, find out who was out there without being seen.
Whap.
Larissa yelped as a dark form appeared in the window, then felt herself go weak with relief when she realized it was only Bluebell. Hearing her exclamation, the dog put its paws on the windowsill and barked joyously. Larissa tugged the window up and regarded the animal, who didn’t seem to hold a grudge about any of her behavior so far.
“Hush,” she said. “Pipe down.”
But that just made Bluebell more excited. She ran in a circle one way and then the other before coming back and scratching at the glass.
“Can’t you just go hang out with your master? Down in the honeymoon hut?”
A terrible thought occurred to her. What if, like Lassie, Bluebell had come for her because Tommy was hurt? What if the tides had come in, stranding Tommy on the roof of the cottage as angry waves crashed all around, waiting to drag him into the undertow and drown him? Or he might have fallen and hit his head on that Indiana limestone, and even now his lifeblood might be seeping into the white sands.
She pulled up the window all the way and Bluebell leapt over the sill and bounded into the room, nearly knocking her over before bolting through the house to the front door. The dog certainly seemed agitated. Was she trying to show Larissa the way?
“Okay, okay,” she muttered, slipping on the flat shoes she’d worn the day before and cursing herself for not packing a single pair of sensible sneakers. She was halfway to the door when she turned around and raced to the bathroom, grabbed her toothbrush and squeezed a dollop of toothpaste on it. “I’m sorry,” she called to Bluebell before plunging it between her teeth. “I can’t save him with morning breath!”
After a cursory scrub Larissa took a detour through the kitchen to grab a knife—in case the emergency was that Tommy was being held captive by a madman, or slowly squeezed to death by a giant squid—and burst out the front door with Bluebell on her heels. She ran down the path to the beach as fast as she could, scuffing her shoes on rocks and roots. Only when she reached the steep incline down the hill did she realize that the dog had taken off in a different direction.
Well, maybe now Bluebell was going to get the doctor. Or the fire captain. Larissa knew that both posts had already been staffed; maybe Tommy had taught his dog to summon fire and rescue. One of her clients had a Belgian Malinois that had worked as a search and rescue dog for the FBI before retirement; it was one of the only dogs Larissa cared for who actually obeyed her, though Camper did so with a pained air, as though it was beneath him to work with amateurs.
She scrambled down the hill, hoping Bluebell would hurry back with someone who knew CPR. Larissa had taken the certification course twice and failed both times. It was just so much to remember, and emergencies—even fake ones that happened to traffic school dummies—made her nervous.
“Tommy!” she called, rounding the door of the little shack. Then she remembered there might be an intruder with him. “I’m armed!” she yelled belatedly, lowering her voice into what she hoped was an intimidating, booming register.
She hesitated at the door of the hut and peeked around the corner, ready to retreat if the crafty intruder called her bluff.
Tommy was sitting up in his sleeping bag, rubbing his eyes.
“You’re armed?” he said sleepily. “With what, that fork you tried to stab Leticia with last night?”
Larissa’s heart pounded with adrenaline overdrive, making her feel a little nauseous…although that might have been the hangover. There was no emergency. Bluebell hadn’t been trying to save her master. As if to drive home the point that Larissa had failed, yet again, to handle the situation, the dog came trotting into the hut and plopped down on the sleeping bag next to Tommy, her big pink tongue hanging out. She batted her big, expressive brown eyes at Larissa and then yawned.
“I thought…” She ran a hand through her hair. While brushing her teeth she’d noticed that her mane had somehow grown overnight, the curls morphing into a hairdo suitable for an eighties rocker. Her eyes were ringed with smudged eyeliner to match—maybe, now that she’d failed her third career in a row, she could find work in a KISS tribute band. “I thought maybe you were hurt. Bluebell came to get me. She seemed…upset.”
Tommy opened his eyes wider. “You thought Bluebell came to get you so you could save me? From what—a seagull attack?”
Larissa felt her bottom lip tremble. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly,” she mumbled, turning to go.
“Hey.”
She paused in the doorway but didn’t turn around. Instead she looked out over the ocean where dawn was casting a silvery pink sh
een on the placid waters lapping at the beach. So much for a stormy tide claiming him. Too bad it hadn’t claimed her—maybe her life could have served as a warning to others, at least, and she could be remembered for something other than mugging an innocent woman for her dessert.
The old iron cot creaked. “Look,” Tommy said, his voice behind her ear, so close she could feel his breath on her neck. “You had a bad night. It happens. You didn’t have anything to eat, and you were worried about work, and…well, things got a little out of hand. But these are good people who work here. They’ll give you another chance. This will be forgotten in no time.”
She shook her head, hard. “You don’t understand. I just can’t seem to get along with people. Know what they used to call me at my first job? Ice Princess.”
“That’s…not very flattering,” Tommy conceded.
“And know what I was doing before I got this job?” She drew a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
“No, and it doesn’t matter. This is a…a special place. You’ll see. No one has met Rafe, but somehow he knows things about people. Important things, the things that matter. Everyone here is just basically good.”
Larissa laughed bitterly. “You make it sound like he’s some sort of magical guardian.”
“Well…” Tommy wound his fingers through her hair, pushing it carefully to the side, so that it tickled against her neck and shoulder. Then he brushed his lips against her bare nape. Larissa swallowed hard, knowing she should pull away, knowing that this was one more mistake in a long line of them.
But she was already finished here. Humiliated. Bridges burned. And his touch felt like the only good thing that had come her way in a very long time, at least since the small ray of hope she’d stupidly allowed herself to enjoy when she accepted this doomed job. Who knew when she’d have something to celebrate again?
“I don’t know if there’s magic on the island,” Tommy whispered, closing his arms around her, pressing his body against hers. “But I want to find out. Now. Here. With you.”
He turned her toward him, and she caught her breath. His jaw was faintly stubbled; it left tiny trails of sensation along her neck that had turned her blood to hot, rushing waves. She didn’t feel hungover any more. She didn’t feel anything but longing. Need. Urgency.
“I’m not a good person,” she whispered. But that wasn’t true, not really. Larissa tried hard. She always had. And somehow, right now, it seemed very important to tell the truth. “I’m not a good employee, anyway. I haven’t been successful at any job I’ve ever tried.”
“Then I won’t hire you for anything. And I promise not to apply to be a maid, so you won’t be able to ruin my career, either.”
“But…people don’t like me.”
“I like you,” he said, and kissed her. His lips were warm and his tongue barely brushed against hers. He wound his fingers more deeply into her hair, pulling her head back so he could kiss along the tender skin underneath her chin. She moaned deep in her throat and Bluebell answered with a questioning whine. “You taste like toothpaste,” he continued. “Glad to know that if you’d been too late to save me, at least mouth-to-mouth would have been pleasant.”
His hands found their way under the T-shirt she’d worn to bed. His rough skin, callused and scarred, worked magic along her nerve endings. She felt limp in his arms, like she might melt against him. With the last of her strength, she shoved him toward the cot, and he pulled her down into the warm sleeping bag with him, pushing the dog out of the way. Bluebell tumbled onto the stone floor with an indignant grunt, and then poked her snout against Larissa’s bare calf, as if hoping she’d be allowed to squeeze back in with the two of them.
“Dogs don’t like me,” Larissa sighed. And that would be a very big problem indeed, because she was pretty sure that Tommy and Bluebell weren’t the kind of team that would be easy to break up, but since she’d be drummed off the island and back into the unemployment line within hours, she might as well take advantage of the time that they had together.
“You two just don’t know each other yet,” Tommy said, sliding the soft T-shirt up her body. “Oh. Oh, sweet angel of mercy. I thought I got a good look at you yesterday but this…this…”
He bent to kiss his way down her neck, her collarbones, murmuring his appreciation as he went. Larissa sighed and ran her fingers through his beachcomber hair.
When Bluebell caught the scent of a seabird pecking for crumbs on the beach, she took off at a gallop, but by then, both of the humans in the little stone room were past noticing.
CHAPTER NINE
Tommy took a seat between Chloe and Charlie Allen, the maintenance foreman. “Great dinner last night, as always,” he said, toasting Chloe with the steaming cup of coffee to which he’d just helped himself.
“Glad you liked it,” Chloe said. “It’s just sandwiches tonight. I’ll have all hands on deck doing pies and stuffing today. We’ll need all the ovens for the turkeys and side dishes.”
Thanksgiving was tomorrow. Tommy had completely forgotten, given the events of the last twenty-four hours. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried so hard to talk Larissa into coming to the staff meeting. He still thought she might be able to talk her way into a second chance, especially if she explained to Rafe what had happened.
“In front of everyone?” she’d said, shocked.
“Yeah, it’s the only time any of us ever get to talk to him live. I mean, you could send an email…”
Larissa would never do that. She might be a failed MBA-turned-entrepreneur, but she wasn’t an ill-mannered one.
“I’ll make sure my letter of resignation is signed by Amelia before I leave,” she’d said. “I’ll find someone to row me back, and don’t worry, I won’t fall in this time.”
By then, the heat the two of them had generated—first in the little stone cot and then a second time in the shower in his bathroom—seemed to have drained from her. As he raced to shave and dress in time to check in on the crew’s progress before the staff meeting, she sat forlornly on the bed, wrapped in a towel, scheming her exit.
“At least don’t leave until I get back,” he’d pleaded with her before leaving.
She’d promised.
She seemed so sad. Tommy brought Bluebell with him, tying her up outside Palmetto Manor, where Chloe had set a big water bowl out for just that purpose, so that at least Larissa could pack and collect her thoughts without the dog distracting her.
The antiquated speakerphone system let out its customary chime, which sounded like a prison alarm going off. At least, it was what Tommy imagined a prison alarm would sound like, not having ever had the opportunity to find out. Several of the dozen people gathered around the antique walnut conference table exclaimed at the sound. Chloe jumped; she was probably under more pressure than any of them: since none of the staff on the island would be able to travel to see loved ones, she had to make sure the Thanksgiving feast would be one to remember.
“I thought you were going to fix that, Oliver,” someone called out.
Oliver Baker, tech guru extraordinaire—rumor was that Rafe had poached him from the Los Angeles library system, where he’d been the youngest head librarian ever—threw up his hands in defeat. “I’ve tried, people. I’ve taken all of your suggestions under advisement—even yours, Bill, though I’m not sure that the sound of a beer can being cracked is quite the effect Rafe would appreciate—but I can’t figure out how to modify this thing.”
Everyone stared at the large beige plastic speaker planted in the middle of the table as it crackled to life. The few techies in residence on the island had first assumed that Oliver was incompetent…until they each took a crack at figuring out the ancient wiring system in the manor. It was well known that, while the cell company swore the entire island should be in range of reception—and the cable company had sent its techs out repeatedly to figure out why wireless only worked inside the walls of Palmetto Manor—the simple fact was that no one really understood what was going
on the island. It was as though it was a sort of Bermuda Triangle of data transmission—which was exactly why Oliver had agreed to take the job. Not, as some initially groused, because he was paid a handsome salary to care for what was essentially only a single twelve thousand square foot structure—but because he was determined to crack the mystery of why the only data coming in and out was the data that supported Rafe’s plans for the island.
And the funny thing was, Rafe didn’t seem to object a bit. Every few days, his booming voice projected from the outdated speakerphone, and each time Oliver would announce plans to test or install some new aspect of the island’s infrastructure. And Rafe would wish him well. If there was a hint of mischief in his voice, perhaps it was only because he was pleased that his young guru was well occupied.
Tommy did wonder how things would play out when actual paying guests arrived—guests who expected their luxuriant lodgings to feature television and wireless connectivity. Guests who expected to make phone calls and check their emails and watch the news and check on their investments. Some, he expected, would be duly frustrated.
But maybe others would be pleased. Certainly, after the initial grousing, none of the staff missed the constant connectivity. Short-range walkie-talkies took care of the needs of the construction staff; bicycle messengers turned out to be surprisingly effective to fill the gaps.
“Good morning, colleagues,” Rafe said, his customary greeting. “Good morning,” the assembled voices chorused.
“I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our newest staff members. Amelia, Larissa, I trust you had a pleasant journey?”
Silence filled the room as everyone looked to Amelia—and then searched for Larissa.
Tommy felt his face redden, even though no one could know that he was the last person to see Larissa—literally—in the flesh.
“Good morning, sir,” Amelia’s cultured voice rang out. “Amelia here. Everything is quite satisfactory. I’m sure Larissa would agree, but she was unfortunately detained.”
