Somewhere With You (Windswept Bay Book 2) (3 page)

Shar watched the love in Cali’s eyes and in Grant’s for Cali. For a brief moment, she wished for that…but no, for her it would cost too much. But, as she headed back out to her car a few minutes later, she could not deny that she wanted to find out more about the sexy stranger.

His name, for starters.

Chapter Three

The following morning, after having helped save the sea turtle and meeting the woman he hadn’t been able to get off his mind, Gage was not enjoying the moment as he stood on the deck and listened to his assistant talking on the other end of the phone line.

He rubbed the tension between his eyebrows as she talked. He hadn’t slept well, and had given himself every argument he could find for why pursuing Shar was a bad idea. But he kept coming up short on how to stop himself from going after something…someone…he wanted.

And he wanted her—wanted to get to know her.

He was supposed to be reevaluating his life. He was taking account of his life, trying to figure out why, after losing his dad, he felt suddenly like a ship lost at sea. He was not here to get involved with a woman. But at the moment, that was exactly what he was planning to do.

At last, he broke in on Kym’s lengthy dialogue of all the things that were waiting on him to handle back in his and his father’s office. His office now. His alone.

“Kym,” he said. “I’m just taking some time off. If the new acquisition can’t wait a few weeks, then it’s their loss. I’m fine without it. Tell them that. Do not tell them where I am and we’ll go from there. And that goes for everything else. Keep the place running. I’m putting everything on autopilot and into your capable hands.”

“But they’re calling—”

Irritation coiled and snapped. “Tell them I just lost my father and they’re just going to have to wait. Can you do that?” He was instantly sorry, but Kym had been with him long enough that she sometimes pushed more than she should. She forgot that he was the one in charge and she was there to do what he wanted her to do.

There was a pause. “Yes, I can do that,” she said, all business now.

“Good. No one is to know where I am. And I don’t know how you found this place but I like it here.”

“I won’t tell anyone. You know you can trust me, Benjamin.” She used Gage’s first name, the name his father had insisted he use in the business world.

He sighed. “I know. I didn’t mean it that way. I’ll talk to you later,” he added and hit End. He refrained from tossing it out into the ocean; instead, he pocketed his phone and then walked around to his car. Moments later, he was driving down the winding road along the coast toward town. The top was down; the salt air whipped through his hair and helped relax him just a bit. That air smelled like freedom. And escape…and both were what he was looking for right now.

From an early age, he’d been taught by his father how to acquire businesses and industries that were in trouble. He’d been doing it most of his life. But, recently he’d lost his father and suddenly he was very aware of how short life could be. Milton Lancaster had been in the prime of his life at the age of fifty-nine when he’d died of a sudden and fatal heart attack. Gage had felt numb since it had happened.

But keeping to the pace his father had instilled in him, Gage had continued with business up until the funeral and then, immediately after he buried his dad, he left the funeral on his private jet for London and a contract negotiation waiting there for the company. It was just as Milton Lancaster would have wanted it…

But then, he’d not been able to go through with the meeting and had headed home. Something had come over him and he’d known he needed some time alone. So he’d made the call and had Kym find him a place to disappear for a few days. And now, here he was, staring at the outside of the Windswept Bay Sea Turtle Hospital and feeling fairly rebellious in his attitude. He’d do what he wanted and forget the rest, at least for a while.

Standing there, it happened, like it had yesterday morning while meeting Shar and helping rescue the sea turtle: his adrenaline kicked in. It felt good as it hummed through him. He grabbed the door handle and then strode inside, hoping he’d find Shar on the other side of the door.

The room he entered held several rows of chairs that were set up in front of a large-screen TV. Pictures of turtles hung on the wall, as well as a huge shell.

“Hey man, good to see you.” One of the guys from yesterday morning came into the room from the back.

Gage remembered his name was John and he held out his hand. “John, right? I thought I’d drop by and check on the patient. How’s he doing?”

John grinned. “Great, considering how sick he was. Come on back and see for yourself.”

Gage followed John through the door and into an open area with exam rooms on one side with glass windows much like those in an intensive care unit at the hospital. There was also one room that, guessing from the equipment in the room, was for surgery. He spotted the large turtle on a gurney in the room across from the operating room. IVs were hooked up to him and his flipper was wrapped in bandages.

“Ole Don Juan is making it but he’s one lucky turtle to have been found by Shar when he was. We had to amputate much of his flipper to save him from the infection spreading further. And he’s on massive amounts of antibiotics right now.”

“Will he be able to survive? And with just a partial flipper?”

“He will, but more than likely he’ll be a permanent resident here.” John checked the monitors and then turned back to Gage. “You did good. Shar said you saved the day by coming along, then going and getting a knife to help her. The woman thinks she’s Superwoman and if you hadn’t come along when you did, she might have chewed the line off the turtle.”

Gage chuckled at that. “Yeah, I got the impression that she’s really passionate about saving turtles.”

“Oh, that’s the understatement of the year. Yes, she is. But then, we all are. You want to see the place?”

“Sure. It looks like you have a real operation going on here.” Gage had never been in a place like this. Then again, he’d never really given sea turtles any thought at all other than that they were an interesting part of marine life.

John looked around. “We do. We rescue a lot of turtles up and down the coastline. Many of them have injuries and digestive issues that make them vulnerable to danger if put back into open water; therefore, they remain with us here. We have generous benefactors who help us keep our doors open. If not for them, we’d be in big trouble.”

He led the way out the door and down a handicap accessible ramp. There were several large containers that looked like permanent above-ground pools.

“These are where we keep the turtles depending on the varying stages of their injury or illness.”

“There are several different kinds, it looks like.” Gage counted five different types in the first pool.

“Yeah, there are seven species of sea turtles and we see six of those in these waters. Loggerheads, Hawksbill, Kemp’s Ridley, Green—you name them, there’s a great chance we’ve got them. Usually by the dozen. And six of the species are on the endangered species list.”

“That’s terrible.”

“No kidding. We save as many as we can.”

Gage looked around, taking in the facility and seeing the importance of it. “So where will Don Juan go after he’s able to be moved into the water?”

“Back here.” John led the way past several small buildings and into an area that had ten small cement above-ground holding tanks. Each one had a single turtle inside. Several were huge turtles and some were mid-sized.

Alex was there, studying one of the turtles. He said something to the young woman beside him and she left, giving Gage a smile as she passed him.

“So, you came to check us out.” Alex held a clipboard, looked back at it and made a note and then looked back at the turtle again. He made another notation on the clipboard and asked without looking up, “So what do you think?”

“This is a great operation.” Gage was really impressed with what they were doing. He saw several people working in different areas during his tour, looking as though they enjoyed the work.

“We’re always looking for volunteers,” John offered.

Alex moved to another turtle and started to examine it. “He’s right. Anytime you have some free time, we’ll put you to work.”

The idea appealed to Gage. “I might take you up on that when I can. Does Shar work here?”

“Volunteers,” John offered.

Alex focused on Gage, and he saw something flicker in Alex’s eyes. His words were measured when he spoke. “She’s a very important part of our program.”

John nodded agreement. “That’s the understatement of the year. That woman is passionate about saving as many sea turtles as she can. You saw her yesterday, making her morning jog along the coast. More than likely she was looking for new nests to mark. We try to protect the clutches.”

“Clutches?”

“That’s the egg group. We want the clutch of eggs to get to the hatching stage so there will be babies. Shar is obsessed with saving baby turtles too.”

Gage liked that.
When had he ever been obsessed with anything other than work? Something meaningful?
“She was really something,” he murmured, and then realized he’d spoken out loud.

“Yes, she is.” Alex asked, “I didn’t catch your name yesterday—what is it? Are you living here or passing through?”

Gage wondered what her relationship was with Alex. There had been no ring on her finger; he’d taken note of that almost from the first moment he saw her. “I’m Gage.” He caught himself before he said Benjamin Lancaster. “I’m Gage Lancaster. I’m staying on the island for a few days…maybe weeks. I’m finding it suddenly very…interesting,” he finished, feeling suddenly territorial. From the appraising look he was getting from Alex, Gage was pretty sure the man had his sights set on the beautiful Shar.
Smart man.
But if there was no ring, then that meant at the moment there was an open door. And Gage’s dad had taught him early on that an open door was made for walking through. In business, that meant if a company got sloppy and in over their head in debt, they left a door open and were ripe for a takeover. Not that in business he’d ever liked that part of Lancaster Industries, but it had been the part that got his dad out of bed, ready to go every morning. His dad had a killer instinct when it came to business. Gage hadn’t and he’d known that most disappointed Milton. That being said, Gage knew how to get what he wanted when he wanted it…and today he wanted the beautiful, passionate Shar.

“Does she work around here?”

John looked from Alex to Gage, clearly sensing the territorial issues that hung in the air between them like a storm cloud. “Um, well, her family is the Sinclairs. They own the Windswept Bay Resort, and she and two of her sisters are running it now.”

That was an interesting fact. Gage had passed the resort on his way to his rental the day he’d arrived. “Thanks. I’ll drop by there then. I enjoyed the tour. All of you are doing great work here.”

“Thanks. We have a great team.” Alex watched him.

John agreed. “Come back anytime.” He walked with Gage back the way they’d come. “We should have Don Juan in the water in a week or so. And there’s more of the place to see. We have a saltwater pool for them when they’re well.”

“I’ll be back.”

Instead of leaving through the building, he took the sidewalk around the building and to his car. His steps were quick and his thoughts focused. He hadn’t come to the island to hole up as he’d been doing the last few days. He’d come to escape for a while and to deal with the emotions of his dad’s death that lay waiting and confusing behind a thin black curtain in his heart. But today, his thoughts were on a woman. Shar Sinclair.
And what a woman she was.

He pressed the gas and pulled out onto the road in the direction of the resort.

The wind whipped through his hair and his shirt billowed open at the neck as the island air embraced him. And the vision of a girl inspired him.

Chapter Four

It was nearly three o’clock on Tuesday when Shar closed her computer and stood. “I’ve worked on getting that group from Georgia set up and as far as I can see, they are good to go on arrival. And I’ve got to say it’s a good thing, too, because I’m about at the end of my rope with Mrs. Albert Talbert the Third.” She held up her fingers one at a time, counting. “One, two, three! I’m about struck out. If that little Southern woman says, ‘bless your heart’ to me one more time, I might just have to tell her to stick— Hey, you two, stop laughing. This is not funny.” She glared at her sisters, who were not even trying to hide their laughter.

“Well, stop making all those mistakes,” Cali chided her from behind the protection of her desk.

Shar scowled. “I’m not the one making the mistakes. That woman has called every day since she booked this shindig here and gotten some detail wrong. But still,
I’m
the one ‘making’ the mistakes.” She put finger quotations around “making.”

“Bless your little ole heart,” Cali drawled, in a perfect imitation of Mrs. Talbert. “She blessed my heart a few times, too, when she first called about booking her gathering here. You’re doing a great job, Shar. You have been polite and patient. And for that I’m proud of you.”