Larissa Learns to Breathe

by Ruby Laska

  She smiled placidly at the speakerphone, not meeting any of the curious gazes. Tommy had to admire her chutzpah—and her loyalty. His estimation of the woman rose a few notches.

  Rafe began his usual status inquiries, not pressing Amelia for further details. So that was a bullet dodged, in more ways than one. Had no one emailed Rafe to let him know about last night’s fiasco? He wondered if he’d underestimated his colleagues; had discretion won out over the urge to gossip?

  In Tommy’s experience, that was rarely the way things played out. The people he’d worked with—even at the world-renowned research facility—couldn’t resist the temptation of gossip and conjecture. The newest employees usually had to endure some minor hazing, even if it was as innocent as getting stuck with the worst shifts or the smallest cubicle. But as the various department heads checked in to let Rafe know about their progress toward opening day, he noted that not one of them had anything unkind to say. There were no subtle jabs or snubs. Everyone seemed to be truly pulling together toward the common goal of getting Cupid Island open for business.

  “Tommy Reid,” Rafe’s voice carried through the room. “How are we doing with the beach outpost?”

  Tommy snapped out of his reverie and updated Rafe on what he’d already shared with Bill: the kinks in the water supply to the beach shack had been worked out; the industrial coolers were on pallets, waiting to be installed; and the matching fabric for the chaises had been located and the outdoor cushions were being fabricated in Miami on a rush order.

  “How’s that lab of yours, Tommy?” Rafe asked, and Tommy found himself reporting that Bluebell was fine, and the conversation had moved on to other things before he even realized that he didn’t remember ever telling Rafe what breed she was.

  But he had more pressing things to focus on. Larissa still wasn’t here, and the meeting had been underway for nearly thirty-five minutes. What’s more, he hadn’t heard Bluebell’s telltale woof in quite a while, even though the windows were open and one of the gardeners had promised to keep an eye on her.

  Something was wrong. He caught Amelia’s eye, and noted that she too looked worried. And maybe a little bit disappointed.

  Was it possible that even Amelia was wondering whether Larissa had simply given up and gone home? Without apologizing, without trying to explain?

  That couldn’t be right. Granted, Tommy had known Larissa only for a short time, but in that time he’d seen her laugh and cry, hold everything in and bare her heart, fear the worst and be brave in the face of fear. Larissa might like to believe she was the soul of discretion, but she was also an open book…at least to him.

  Tommy was extremely good with data, but he liked to believe he was pretty good with people, too. It was one of his better qualities that he saw the best in people, but he was realistic. There were plenty of people in the world who were short on courage, but Larissa—despite what she might think—was not one of them. It took a lot of guts to reinvent herself a second time only months after launching a new career. And a woman who was capable of that was certainly capable of facing up to her mistakes.

  When Larissa had told him that she’d be at the meeting, she hadn’t been lying.

  Tommy looked out at the ocean, at the brilliant November sun slicing through the last of the morning mists, shining down on the white beach and the neat rows of cabanas that would be his responsibility in six days when they were filled with guests. He always felt a sense of pride that the view from the conference room was of his corner of the island, and while he might be biased, he thought it was the finest view around.

  Except today, the sky was not the unbroken blue it had been all week. Near the western end, so that he had to crane his neck to see, the sky went from blue to an angry purple. The ocean was churning, waves crashing against the beach. The palms bent down, blown by a wind that hadn’t been there when he walked over. As he watched, one of the changing tents with their gaily striped awnings shivered violently and then pulled free of its stakes and went tumbling toward the water like a plastic bag caught in a draft.

  His timing perfect, Rafe’s voice asked, “How are preparations for the storm?”

  What storm? His colleagues looked at each other in confusion. There had been no warning in the forecast.

  But November was storm season. In all the years Tommy had spent on Key Grande, they’d gotten a few big ones every fall. But there hadn’t been any warning signs early this morning. And after that…well, after that there might as well have been a plague of locusts, for all he’d been paying attention.

  Voices erupted in confusion. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t expect a storm.

  Rafe chuckled. “I’d better let you go then. Let’s hope it blows over quickly, and you all get the Thanksgiving you deserve.”

  There were murmurs of agreement, and the meeting began to break up.

  A storm lashing the cliffs along the narrow western end of the island.

  The cliffs along the shortcut—the route he’d sent a woman who couldn’t swim.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Larissa had ordered Bluebell to stay put. “Budweiser,” she’d said, blushing, after checking around her to make sure no one could hear. And it worked, the fourth or fifth time she said it, when she’d finally injected some steel into her voice. Bluebell had licked her hand sadly before slinking over to her bed and flopping down.

  But Larissa couldn’t have been more than five hundred yards down the path along cliffs rising above the ocean when she heard a joyful yelp: Bluebell had released herself from self-imposed jail and was bounding along behind her. Larissa sighed and crouched down, petting the dog’s silky ears and shaking her paw, which was offered with great sincerity.

  Why did the dog like her, anyway? Where was her sense of loyalty to her owner, her intuitive urge to protect him from danger?

  Because surely Larissa represented a danger to Tommy. She was nothing but trouble. An entrepreneur with no head for business; a would-be people person with no skill at making people like her. If she stuck around his place much longer, her bad luck would probably start to invade the charming cottage and the life he’d carved out for himself.

  “Dogs don’t like me,” she tried explaining, enunciating carefully. But Bluebell only cocked her head and raised one eyebrow, as though being presented with a problem that made no sense. She lifted her paw again, for the eighth or ninth time, never getting tired of the game, and Larissa had no choice but to shake it.

  “Men don’t generally like me much either,” she admitted. “I mean, not that I’m feeling sorry for myself. I just…thought you should know.”

  Bluebell gently nudged Larissa’s knee with her pink snout. Yes. Time was of the essence. She’d taken a little more time than she should have getting ready for the meeting—if she was going to apologize, she might as well look her best, even if her short-lived employer couldn’t see her. She’d pulled her hair back in a conservative twist, and applied neutral makeup, forgoing her contacts for tortoise-shell glasses. She’d put on a narrow gray skirt and a navy blue blouse and, for luck, her mother’s pearls. In a nod to the island’s terrain, she put her high heels into a canvas bag she found in the kitchen and wore her flats.

  “Well…I guess you can come if you want, as long as you understand I’m going to tell Tommy that I told you to stay behind,” she said, straightening. Bluebell didn’t seem to have any problem with that, and trotted along beside her, glancing up occasionally in companionable silence.

  The footpath wound along the edge of the island, the cliffs gradually rising up over the ocean. After walking for five minutes, Larissa seemed to have reached the highest point of the bluff, and she carefully picked her way along a little path to a rock outcropping over the sapphire ocean. Larissa glanced back at the beach, a patch of sparkling white far behind her. And there! The little stone cottage where she and Tommy…she blushed fiercely at the memory.

  Where he had first suggested she sleep, she amended quickly. There would be time, late
r, to go over the other memories, the hours this morning when she’d allowed herself to forget, just for a little while, who she was and what she’d done, all the mistakes and missteps and misjudgments that had led her here, into the arms of a man who would never have given her a second look back in the real world. When she’d let go of her second guesses and judgments and contingency plans and just let herself feel…

  It had been out of character indeed, but maybe it was just the salt air and the sound of the waves and the…ha. Larissa shook her head impatiently. She knew damn well what it had been: magic. And now, staring down at the little cottage, she wished that she had stayed there last night. When in her life would she have such an opportunity again? Oh, she’d get another job, she’d reinvent herself again, she’d work hard, and in time there would be another beach vacation. Maybe even another boyfriend.

  But there would never be another stone stargazing hut. And there would never be another Tommy.

  She looked longingly at the path leading down from the cliff to the narrow strip of sand along the edge. It was wide enough to walk barefoot along it. The sand would be cold, but Larissa longed to dip her toes into the water one more time before she boarded the ferry for Key Grande, and began her journey back to New York City, to the life she thought she’d left behind.

  She glanced at her watch. She still had ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. And these things were always late to begin, weren’t they? Besides, it would be best to be the last to arrive; she hoped to keep the awkward small talk to a minimum. With any luck at all she could go first, make her apologies and duck out before they got into the rest of the agenda. Maybe Tommy would offer to walk her out; maybe she could give him one of her business cards and—but no, better to end things cleanly. Beach bum sun gods didn’t end up in The Big Apple too often, she’d wager. And it would be a long time before she showed her face this far south again.

  Barefoot in the sand it would be.

  Bluebell barked as she began to descend the steep rock face, picking her way back and forth along the switchbacks and holding on to vines and cracks in the rock for support. “Don’t worry, Bluebell,” she called. “I’ll be out of your fur in no time.”

  But the dog raced back and forth, barking, more and more urgently. It finally occurred to Larissa why, about half way down, when her foot slipped and she nearly tumbled over the edge. “You’re worried about me?”

  And for good reason, too, Larissa had to admit. The final stretch of the path was no more than a ledge, and now that she was standing on it, she had her doubts about whether it had been used as a path at all. The handholds were few and far between, and almost no vegetation grew this far down. If she tried to make it the rest of the way, she would be taking her safety in her own hands. And if she fell from here, she could easily injure herself…if she broke a limb, and couldn’t make it back before the tide turned, she could end up—

  Larissa shuddered. She might be having a bad day, but she certainly didn’t have a death wish. “Okay,” she called. “You were right. I was wrong. This was a dumb idea.”

  A burst of cold wind made her look up to the east, where a mass of dark clouds hovered along the coast. Where had that come from? The weather had been perfect, not a single cloud in the sky. She carefully reversed herself, and began climbing back the way she’d come down, vowing that she would reward the dog for keeping her secret. This had to be a greenhorn mistake, and she didn’t need the staff of Cupid Island thinking she was dumb on top of rude.

  At least it was easier going up than down. Bluebell barked encouragement, no longer pacing, clearly overjoyed that she had come to her senses and was on her way up. She stepped carefully, placing her hands into the hollows of the rock face, grabbing only the thickest vines, and—

  She had a handful of vegetation and was close enough to the top to see the whiskers on Bluebell’s snout, peering over the edge, her paws scrabbling in anticipation, when there was a great ripping sound and the plant tore free of the wall. She must have loosened its roots on the way down, weakening their hold on the fissure in stone, and now she was holding only the last few stems, wobbling as she desperately tried to regain her balance. Then the plant broke free, flying from her hand and spiraling down into the water below. Larissa screamed, Bluebell howled, and then she was airborne.

  It didn’t take long to fall, but in the split second before the water rushed up to meet her, Larissa had time to discover that she was quite full of regrets. Regret that she hadn’t tried harder to get to know people instead of outperforming them, that she hadn’t learned her way around Manhattan rather than taking the same subway back and forth to her office for six years. Regret that she hadn’t tried harder to make the dog business work, that she hadn’t taken the Latin dance class she’d seen advertised down the street, or bought that fuchsia teapot she’d admired in a shop a few steps away from the Chelsea Market.

  But one thing she knew in the millisecond before she hit the cold water: she didn’t regret Tommy. Everything she’d done with him, she’d do again in a heartbeat.

  Larissa fell in with a splash and the water closed over her head for the second time in two days. Just in case, she kicked down as far as she could, but today her luck didn’t hold, and her feet didn’t touch bottom. She bobbed up to the surface and her face broke the water and she gasped for breath, feeling the sun on her face before the water closed over her again. Her muscles were like lead and she had no idea how to stay afloat, and the more she thrashed the more she seemed to sink. Panic made her thrash harder as she struggled to get to the path along the cliff, but the undulating waves seemed to be carrying her farther away. She managed to get her face above the surface a second time and sucked in as much air as she could.

  There was a splash next to her as something hit the water, and a great snuffling sound, waves churning and water droplets arcing against her face. Bluebell! The dog was swimming toward her, snout skimming the surface, eyes bright with determination. She gave a single bark, seemingly intent on preserving her energy, and Larissa reached for her collar, terrified she would drag the dog under with her. But immediately Bluebell reversed course and started towing her toward shore. Larissa resisted the urge to wrap her arms around the dog’s neck. Instead she held her breath and let her body float along the surface, praying that she wasn’t dooming both of them to drowning.

  Her breath was almost gone when Bluebell barked again, much less energetically. Larissa’s foot bumped against something hard and she let go of Bluebell’s collar and scrambled with her hands, touching the barnacle-covered side of the cliff. She cut her hands on the sharp edges of the shells as she struggled to find a handhold and to pull herself along until she reached the sandy strip. Bluebell was already there, shaking the water from her sodden coat and whining.

  Larissa crawled onto the sand and collapsed, taking deep breaths and spitting out salt water. Bluebell licked her face and nudged her gently until she sat up.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “You saved me.”

  Then she wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck and held on for dear life.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tommy pushed his chair back from the conference table and raced for the door, dodging his friends and coworkers, who seemed to have been overcome by the holiday spirit and were talking and laughing and in no hurry to get back to work. All but Chloe, who’d gathered her staff and was hustling them back to the kitchen.

  “Hey, you okay, buddy?” Gordon asked as Tommy elbowed his way past.

  “Yeah, just—got an urgent situation,” he muttered. He clattered down the stairs in his work boots, for once not bothering to pause to appreciate the vintage crystal light fixtures, the walnut paneling that had been polished to a sheen, the way the sunlight illuminated the landing.

  Maybe she’d decided to catch a ride with the supply boats. Generally they didn’t take passengers back, but Tommy was pretty sure that a woman who looked like Larissa wouldn’t have any trouble finding someon
e willing to bend the rules. And there’d been at least half a dozen shipments expected today, as they scrambled to put the finishing touches on the buildings and stock the kitchen and bar and recreation facilities.

  Tommy hesitated in the circular drive, trying to decide whether to try the dock or head straight to the cliff walk. The dark clouds had blown around the end of the island—maybe the storm would wait until it was out in the middle of the ocean to empty its winds and rains. But even now, rain could be lashing the bluff, making the path slippery, obscuring the way…one false step and Larissa could fall into the sea. Tommy had started running toward the cliffs when a familiar bark echoed from around the corner, and Bluebell raced into view.

  Her ears flew behind her head and her tail whipped fiercely side to side. She skidded to a halt, turned in a circle, and barked again, and then took off in the direction she’d come from, disappearing around the manor.

  Tommy followed her. Around the corner, across the broad green lawn, jumping over the bocce court and flagstone paths. There, coming up the beach path, was a vision in…

  See-through silk. No, surely not. She was carrying her shoes, and her hair had escaped its elastic and was already starting to coil itself into unruly curls, and were those…dear God, Tommy swallowed hard. Librarian glasses. Those almost did more to stir him up than the wet, clinging blouse.

  He reached her in seconds. “Tommy!” she exclaimed, and threw her arms around him, pressing herself tightly against his chest. He didn’t even mind the shock of contact with her chilled skin, because within seconds they were both heating up rapidly.

  “What happened?” he asked just as she blurted out, “Bluebell saved me!”

  Eager to join the conversation, Bluebell jumped up and put her paws on Tommy’s jeans. Tommy leaned down to scratch his dog behind her damp ears, without letting go of Larissa. “Saved you how?”