First Time in Forever (7 page)

Lizzy’s eyes were huge. “Can we see them?”

“You can take a boat trip. Humans can’t get too close because otherwise they scare the puffins. Where is home to you?”

“New York.” It was Emily who spoke, and he noticed she glanced at Lizzy and gave a brief shake of her head. He wondered what the child would have said without that warning glance to silence her.

Without looking at him, Emily reached for a napkin and carefully wiped the milk from Lizzy’s mouth. It was a natural response, something he’d done himself when his sister was very young, but something about the way she did it made him think it was new to her.

“You said you met Brittany at college. What were you studying?”

“Applied math and economics. We had rooms next door to each other.”

“You, Brittany and—” he searched for the name “—Skylar.”

“You know Sky?”

“No. But I’ve heard Brittany talk about her.

“So did Brit fill her room with skulls and old coins she’d dug up from the ground?”

Her brief smile was cut off by the sudden burst of loud laughter from a group behind them. She turned her head quickly, and her gaze was caught by something. A glance became a stare, and whatever it was that had drawn her attention unsettled her because her face lost color. Her smile gone, she fumbled blindly for her bag and stood up. “We should go. Thank you for the drink.”

Ryan rose, too, and caught her arm. “Why the rush?” Standing this close, he caught the scent of her hair, saw the unusual blend of colors up close and acknowledged that his interest in her stemmed from something deeper than the desire to keep a promise made to a friend.

There was a cool breeze, but all he could feel was heat, and the strength of the attraction almost rocked him off his feet.

Her mouth was right there, and he knew if it hadn’t been for Lizzy he would have kissed her. Maybe she would have slapped his face, but he would have been willing to take that chance.

The few relationships he’d had since his return to the island had been brief. His choice. A marine biologist who had spent a summer working in the research lab at the north of the island, a nurse who came from the mainland to help out at the medical center occasionally. He didn’t know if they’d hoped for more because he hadn’t asked. He lived his life in the moment.

“We have things to do.” There was panic in her voice. “Thank you for the waffles and chocolate milk.” She kept her back to the group and kept the child in front of her, shielding her from a threat invisible to Ryan.

“Goodbye, Ryan.” Without waiting for a reply, she took Lizzy’s hand and hurried her out of the café, keeping her head down and not looking back.

“Good to meet you, too,” he murmured to himself, quashing the urge to stride after her and protect her from whatever perceived threat had sent her running from the table.

Sudden illness? She’d certainly been pale enough; but she’d been just fine moments earlier, so her health couldn’t be responsible for the sudden shift in her attitude.

Hunting for clues, he rewound events in his head and remembered that she’d looked over her shoulder.

A swift glance revealed nothing but a group of young people who were spending the summer at the marine center on the north side of the island. Linked to the university, the floating laboratory ensured a steady stream of customers for the Ocean Club. They were loud, enthusiastic, in love with life and harmless. And untidy. They’d strewn their belongings over the table and vacant chairs. Backpacks, water bottles, leaflets detailing boat trips, a scientific magazine and a newspaper. They were deeply involved in a discussion about ecosystem-based fisheries management. He knew that at least a couple of them had the right to use “Dr.” in front of their names. They were absorbed and argumentative and passionate. Not one of them had glanced over at their table.

There was no visible reason to justify Emily’s abrupt departure.

“So you scared her away.” Kirsti was back, clearing the plates. “You must be losing your touch. Still, at least you have a reason to chase after her.”

Ryan lifted an eyebrow. “I do?”

“Sure.” Kirsti put down the loaded tray and picked up the bear. “She’s not going to want to be without this. Unless she has a spare. When I’m a mom, I’m going to buy spares of everything.”

Ryan took the bear. “She’ll be back for it when she realizes she left it.”

“Or you could take it to her.” Kirsti added an empty glass to the tray. “You shouldn’t let The One get away. That bear is the equivalent of Cinderella’s slipper. Except that you know it fits.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I changed my mind. You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me. I make great coffee, and I never complain when we’re busy. And it’s my moral duty to make sure people don’t choose the wrong partners. Talking of which, those two at the table by the door are totally wrong for each other. I might have to interfere.” She strolled off carrying the tray, Cupid in disguise.

Still holding the bear, Ryan started to follow her but accidentally knocked the chair behind him.

A bag and the newspaper fell to the floor, and he stooped to retrieve both with a murmur of apology.

Without thinking, he scanned the headline, something about health care reforms.

Returning the newspaper to the chair, he was about to walk back to the bar when something else caught his eye.

Juliet, Juliet, wherefore art thou, Juliet?

It wasn’t the misquote of Shakespeare that caught his attention, it was the picture beneath it.

The media was still focused on the plane crash that had killed actress Lana Fox and her much older lover. There had been endless speculation about the whereabouts of her little girl.

Ryan grabbed the newspaper and took a closer look at the photograph, and in that single moment he had the answers he’d been looking for.

He no longer needed to speculate as to why Emily had run. He didn’t need to wonder why she’d almost closed the door in his face or even why someone who knew nothing about boats had come to Puffin Island.

He knew.

And he knew why the child looked familiar.

CHAPTER FOUR

“W
E
HAVE
TO
GO
BACK
.”
Lizzy refused to move from the front door. “I left Andrew.”

“It’s late, Lizzy. Almost time for bed. We can’t go back now. I’ll phone the Ocean Club and explain. They’ll keep Andrew safe.”

“Nooo. I can’t sleep without him. Someone might take him.”

Emily didn’t think a battered bear with one eye missing and a slit throat would fit most people’s idea of a dream toy, but she kept that thought to herself. She was too busy beating herself up for making such a basic mistake. How could she have left the bear? And why hadn’t she noticed sooner? It proved what she already knew—that she was the wrong person for this task. “Most people don’t take things that belong to other people.” Hoping her faith in human nature wasn’t misplaced, she fumbled for her phone. “I’m going to call and ask them to keep Andrew. We’ll pick him up tomorrow.” By then the newspaper would have been thrown away, hopefully by someone more interested in tidying it up than reading it.

If she was lucky, no one would make the connection, but the incident had shaken her.

All thoughts of leaving the island faded. She needed to hide away, and there was no better place for that than Castaway Cottage.

Lizzy’s face crumpled. “I want Andrew.”

Emily’s hands shook on the phone. “I’m going to make the call right now. Remember that nice girl, Kirsti? We’re going to ask her to take care of Andrew until tomorrow.”

Lizzy didn’t answer. Instead, she ran into the living room and flopped down on the sofa with her face turned away.

Emily couldn’t help thinking a tantrum would have been easier to handle, but she was learning that Lizzy’s way of handling stress was to lock herself away.

She was looking up the number for the Ocean Club when there was a knock at the door.

What now?

Had someone recognized them?

Was this the moment she’d been dreading?

Braced for defensive action, she opened the door. She’d call the police. She’d sneak away in the night. She’d—

Ryan stood there, the bear in his hands. “I thought you might be missing this. I would have brought it over sooner but we’ve been insanely busy.”

Emily sagged against the door frame. She’d never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. “You’re a lifesaver. She adores that bear.” She took it from him, wondering how to clone the battered bear. “I should have been more careful.” She felt like hugging him but decided hugging Ryan Cooper probably qualified as a dangerous sport.

“Don’t be hard on yourself. When my sister was Lizzy’s age she was always losing toys. And you left in a hurry.”

“We had things to do.” Relief was tempered by caution. “It was kind of you to drive over. I don’t know how to thank you. You’re obviously busy, so—”

“It calms down around this time. The lull before the storm. Can I come in?”

Only minutes earlier she’d been wishing she wasn’t on her own with this. Now she was wishing the bear’s rescuer had been anyone but him.

She wanted to close the door on all that raw masculinity, but he’d brought the bear and saved her life. She couldn’t be rude to him simply because he made her feel things she didn’t have time to feel right now.

Reluctantly, she opened the door wider. “I’ll give Lizzy the bear.”

She found the little girl exactly where she’d left her, lying listlessly on the sofa, staring at the wall.

“Ryan brought Andrew back.” Dropping to her knees in front of the sofa, Emily tucked the battered bear into Lizzy’s arms. “I promise we’ll never leave him again.”

Lizzy squeezed the bear so tightly Emily was afraid it might lose its head permanently.

Ryan watched from the doorway. “I love a happy ending.” He glanced around the living room. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here. You have no idea how many offers Kathleen had for this piece of land.”

“It doesn’t surprise me. But Brittany will never sell.” She stood up. “Can I fetch you a drink? We haven’t had time to stock up properly yet, but I have juice or soda. Or coffee?”

He followed her into the kitchen and scanned the bags on the table she hadn’t yet unpacked. “That’s not going to keep you going for long.”

“It will do for now.” Pulling milk out of the bag, she stowed it in the fridge. She had a carton of eggs in her hand when he spoke.

“Emily, I know.”

“Sorry?”

He glanced over his shoulder, checking Lizzy was still in the living room. “I know why you ran.”

She forced herself to keep breathing. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The world is speculating on the whereabouts of Juliet Fox, six-year-old daughter of troubled Hollywood actress Lana Fox who died a month ago in a plane crash along with the man everyone assumes was one of her lovers. Rumor has it the child is staying with a friend or relative in an unknown location.”

The carton of eggs slipped from her fingers and crashed onto the floor, spreading the contents in a sticky mess. “You saw the newspaper.”

“I was looking for a reason for your abrupt departure.”

Trying to think through the panic, she sank onto the nearest chair, ignoring the puddle of eggs congealing on the floor. “I came here because I thought we’d be safe.”

“Safe from what? I assume you’re her guardian.”

“Yes, although as you can see, I’m not the right person for the job.” She gripped her knees until her knuckles were white, and Ryan dropped to his haunches in front of her so they were eye level.

“Why aren’t you the right person?”

“Do you want a list? First, I lose the bear, then, I risk exposing her by taking her out in public. I shouldn’t have said yes to the drink.” There was another reason why she knew she wasn’t the right person, the most important reason of all, but that wasn’t something she intended to share.

“I was the one who invited you for a drink.”

“The responsibility was mine. You didn’t know.”

His eyes were dark velvet, his voice calm. “Are you seriously planning to hide away?”

“What choice do I have? I don’t want the press to know we’re here.” She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. “I talked to a bunch of people who have been with her since the accident. Lawyers, case workers, grief counselors.
My
head was spinning, so goodness knows what hers was doing. But the message I took from it all was that she needs to live as normal a life as possible. No media attention. No cameras. It freaks her out. There were great packs of them outside the house. One of them even got inside and cornered her, trying to get information about her mother. He’s the one that scared her the most. Can you believe someone would actually do that? She’s six years old. Six. I have to protect her from that.”

His expression unreadable, he rose to his feet. “They told you her life needs to be as normal as possible. Not going out isn’t normal. A child can’t live her life trapped in a house and neither can you.”

“I think she used to spend a lot of time in her old house, although of course, it was more of a palace than a house, and she had everything she needed within those walls and staff.”

“You think? So you don’t know her that well?”

“I don’t know her at all.” She reasoned that he already knew the part that could hurt them, so revealing detail wouldn’t make a difference.

“Whatever her old life was like, it’s gone. She needs to rebuild a life. And it needs to be a normal life. She doesn’t need staff, she needs security.”

“That’s why I’ve already decided that from now on I’m only leaving the cottage when we need food.”

“I don’t mean that sort of security. I mean the sort that comes from knowing there are people around you who care about you and have your back. You can’t keep her hidden in the cottage, Emily. Both of you will go crazy. She’s a kid. She needs to explore and play. She needs to meet other kids. And what about you? Are you going to spend the next twelve years shut away here with no adult company?”

“I’m planning the next twelve hours. I can’t think further ahead than that.” Twelve years? The thought made her want to hyperventilate. “I’m going to need to make trips into town. She’s too young to be left alone and I don’t have anyone here I can trust.”

“Hey, let’s take this a step at a time.” He sat down in the chair opposite her. “This is why Brittany said you were panicking.”

There was much more to her panic and feelings of inadequacy than her ability to keep Lizzy’s identity a secret. Eventually, she knew, media attention would move to other things, other lives, but she’d still be the child’s guardian, and she knew she wasn’t equipped for that monumental task. “When I told her what happened, she suggested I use the cottage. Kathleen left it to Brittany because she wanted her to have somewhere that was hers, somewhere she could go when life was tough. On our last day together at college Brittany gave us both a key.”

“You and Skylar?”

“Yes. She said Kathleen would have wanted it. We were moving to different sides of the country. In Brittany’s case, to a different continent half the time. It was somewhere we could come if we ever needed it.”

“And you needed it.”

“It seemed like a perfect place to hide while I worked out what to do.”

For Lizzy it was perfect. For her, it was a nightmare. The crash of the waves kept her awake, churning up memories like the ocean churned sand on the seabed.

“What’s your connection to Lana Fox?”

Emily was filled with a ridiculous desire to lean on all that hard strength, an impulse that made no sense because she’d been taking care of herself since she was younger than Lizzy.

“She was my sister.” She saw his expression shift from concern to surprise. “I hadn’t seen Lana since I left to go to college, and I met her child for the first time three days ago. We have no relationship. Lizzy has lost her mother and everything familiar and all she has is me.” Panic bubbled up inside her. “That isn’t good.”

“Yeah, that must feel like a hell of a responsibility to shoulder alone. Is someone contesting the guardianship? Another relative?”

“There are no other relatives.”

“Do you know the identity of the father?”

“Lana never told anyone. I’m all she has.” Saying it aloud made it seem all the more terrifying.

“I didn’t know Lana Fox had a sister.”

“Half sister. We had the same mother. Different fathers.” Nameless, faceless men whom her mother had taken home after one of her nights of endless drinking.

“I saw mention of her mother once. She was an alcoholic—” His voice tailed off as he saw her expression change. “I apologize. She was your mother, too.”

“I’m not afraid of facts, and the facts were that my mother used to sleep with men when she was drunk and then face the consequences sober. She died a couple of years ago. Her liver decided it had been to one party too many.”

“I don’t remember Lana Fox ever talking about her family in the press.”

“She reinvented herself. We didn’t exactly have a fairy-tale childhood.”

“Some fairy tales are pretty bad.” He stretched out his legs. “That woman in
Cinderella
was a real bitch.”

It lightened the atmosphere, and a laugh bubbled up from her throat. “Yes. And then there was the queen in
Snow White
. She was a classic case of narcissistic personality disorder.”

“Cruella de Vil was a serial killer.”

“—of Dalmatians.”

“True, but she demonstrated the same psychotic tendencies seen in other murderers. Lack of compassion and lack of remorse.”

“Maybe my childhood was closer to a fairy tale than I thought.”

“Too many elements missing. For a start, you didn’t find your prince.” He glanced at her left hand. “You’re single.”

“Whenever I saw him climbing up the tower to my bedroom I gave him a push.”

“Yeah? Just for my own interest and research, what was it that put you off?”

“He was creepy.”

“Right.” His smile faded. “So you and Lana weren’t close as children?”

“I was the ugly sister.”

“Given how manifestly wrong that description is, I assume it was hers.”

“It wasn’t wrong. She was very beautiful.” Emily thought about the reality of her childhood. “And, no, we weren’t close. We were just people living under the same roof for a little while. It was a shock when they called me to say she’d named me guardian, but then I thought about it and realized there wasn’t anyone else. It was a decision made out of necessity, not choice.”

“Did she leave you a letter?”

“Nothing.”

“So one minute you were living your life, a life in which you’d had no contact with your half sister since you were a teenager, and the next you were guardian to her child. That is a major life change. Were you working? What did you do with the math and economics you studied?”

“Up until last month I was a management consultant. I worked for Taylor Hammond in New York.”

He looked impressed. “That’s the big-time.”

“They had a reorganization and there was no job for me in the new structure. I was interviewing for new jobs when I found out about Lizzy.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “Skylar would make some observation about how that was an indication that this was meant to be. How one day I’ll look back and be pleased this happened.”

Ryan gave a low laugh. “Kirsti would probably say the same thing. She believes in fate. So, are you missing New York? You had a life there.”

Emily wondered if what she’d had could really be described as a life. “I had a job and a boyfriend.”

“So there
was
a prince. You pushed him down the tower with the others?”

“He jumped. He got a look at the princess, decided she didn’t look like a good deal and got the hell out.” It helped to make a joke of it. “He dumped me a month ago.”

“Not very princely behavior. And that was before Lizzy was on the scene. So it wasn’t because of the child?”

“No.” She stared at the mess on the floor. “Not because of that.”

“How long were you together?”

“Three years. Two of which we lived together.”

“Life really has dealt you a hand.” His gaze was steady. Sympathetic. “I just want you to know I’m here for rebound sex or revenge sex whenever you need it. Just say the word. Or just grab me and explain afterward, whatever works for you.”