This was his first barrier, the dragon at the gate. “Hello, Lu.”
“Don’t you hello-Lu me, Sam Logan.” She sniffed, skimmed her gaze over him. Sniffed a second time.
“You buying that or do I call the sheriff and have you hauled in for shoplifting?”
He laid the stone back in the bowl. “How is Zack?”
“Ask him yourself, I don’t have time to waste on you.” Though he had her by a foot in height, she stepped forward, jabbed her finger at him, and made him feel twelve years old again. “What the hell do you want?”
“To see home. To see Mia.”
“Why don’t you do everybody a favor and go back to where you’ve been gallivanting these past years?New York City ,Paris , and oo-la-la. We’ve all done fine without you taking up space on the Sisters.”
“Apparently.” He gave the store another casual look. He wasn’t offended. A dragon, in his mind, was meant to be devoted to its princess. In his memory, Lulu had always been up to the job. “Nice place. I hear the café’s particularly good. And that Zack’s new wife runs it.”
“Your hearing’s just fine. So listen up. Go on and get.”
Not offended, no, but his eyes turned edgy, the green in them deepening. “I came to see Mia.”
“She’s busy. I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
“No, you won’t,” he said quietly. “But she’ll know in any case.”
Even as he spoke, he heard the sound of heels on wood. It could have been a dozen women, descending the curving steps in high heels. But he knew. As his heart stumbled in his chest, he stepped around the bookshelves and saw her just as she made the last turn.
And the look, that one look at her, sliced him into a thousand pieces. The princess, he thought, had become the queen.
She’d always been the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. The transition from girl to woman had only added polished layers to that beauty. Her hair was as he remembered it, a long tumble of flaming curls around a face of rose and cream. That skin, he remembered, was as soft as dew. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth wide and full. And he remembered, perfectly remembered, the texture and flavor. Her eyes were smoke-gray, almond-shaped, and watched him now with a studied coolness. She smiled, and that, too, was cool, as she walked toward him.
Her dress, a dull gold, clung to her curves, showed off long, long legs. The heels she wore were the same tone and made her look like something glowing with heat. But he felt no warmth from her as she arched a brow and looked at him in turn.
“Well, it’s Sam Logan, isn’t it? Welcome back.”
Her voice was deeper, just a few degrees deeper than it had been once upon a time. Sultrier, smokier, silkier. It seemed to wind its way into his belly even as he puzzled over her polite smile and detached welcome.
“Thanks.” Deliberately, he matched her tone. “It’s good to be back. You look amazing.”
“We do what we can.”
She tossed back her hair. There were citrine stones at her ears. The details of her, down to the rings on her fingers, the subtle scent that surrounded her, etched themselves into his mind. For an instant, he tried to read hers but found the language foreign and frustrating.
“I like your bookstore,” he said, careful to keep his voice casual. “Or what I’ve seen of it.”
“Well, we’ll have to give you the grand tour. Lulu, you have customers.”
“I know what I’ve got,” Lulu muttered. “It’s a workday, isn’t it? You don’t have time to go showing this one around the place.”
“Lulu.” Mia merely angled her head, a quiet warning. “I’ve always got a few minutes for an old friend. Come upstairs, Sam, see the café.” She started back up, her hand trailing along the rail. “You may have heard that a mutual friend of ours, Zack Todd, was married last winter. Nell’s not only a close friend of mine but she’s a spectacular cook as well.”
Sam paused at the top of the stairs. It annoyed him that he had to get his bearings, seek his balance. The scent of her was turning him inside out.
The second floor was just as welcoming as the first, with the added enticement of a bustling café on one end and all the wonderful aromas, of spices, coffee, rich chocolate, that wafted from it. The display glass sparkled in front of a dazzling selection of baked goods and salads. Fragrant smoke streamed from an enormous kettle where even now a pretty blonde ladled out soup for a waiting customer.
Windows on the far wall let in glimpses of the sea.
“It’s terrific.” That, at least, he could say without qualification. “Just terrific, Mia. You must be very proud of what you’ve done here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
There was a bite, a quick, nasty nip, in the tone that had him looking back at her. But she only smiled again, gestured with an elegant hand that sparkled with rings. “Hungry?”
“More than I’d counted on.”
A glimpse of that bite snapped, for an instant, in those smoke-gray depths before she turned and led the way to the counter. “Nell, I have a man with an appetite.”
“Then he’s come to the right place.” Nell grinned, her dimples fluttering, her blue eyes friendly when they met Sam’s. “Our soup of the day is chicken curry. Special salad is shrimp diablo, and the sandwich of
the day is grilled pork and tomato on olive loaf. Plus our regular fare,” she added, tapping the counter menu, “with our vegetarian offerings.”
Zack’s wife, Sam thought. It was one thing to realize that his oldest friend had taken the plunge and another to see the reason why. It gave him yet one more jolt.
“Quite a selection.”
“We like to think so.”
“You can’t make a bad choice when Nell’s prepared it,” Mia told him. “I’ll just leave you in her capable hands for the moment. I do have work. Oh, Nell, I should have introduced you. This is an old friend of Zack’s, Sam Logan. Enjoy your lunch,” she said, then walked away.
Sam watched surprise race over Nell’s pretty face, then every bit of warmth drain away. “What can I get you?”
“Just coffee for now. Black. How’s Zack?”
“He’s very well, thank you.”
Sam drummed his fingers on his thigh. Another guard at the gate, he thought, and no less formidable than the dragon, for all the soft looks. “And Ripley? I heard she got married just last month.”
“She’s very well and very happy.” Nell’s mouth formed a firm, unwelcoming line as she set his coffee in a to-go cup on the counter. “No charge. I’m sure Mia doesn’t want, or need, your money. They serve a very nice lunch at the Magick Inn, as I’m sure you know.”
“Yes, I know.” A pretty kitten, and very sharp claws, Sam mused. “Do you think Mia needs your protection, Mrs. Todd?”
“I think Mia can handle anything.” She smiled now, thin as a blade. “Absolutely anything.”
Sam picked up his coffee. “So do I,” he agreed, then wandered off in the direction Mia had gone. The bastard. Once she was behind the closed door of her office, Mia let out a splinter of the rage. Even that had books and knickknacks on her shelves rattling and jumping. That he would have the nerve, the insensitivity, the stupidity to waltz into her store.
To stand there and smile at her as if he expected her to shout for joy and jump into his arms. And to look baffled when she hadn’t.
Bastard.
She clenched her fists, and a thin crack snaked across the glass of her window. She’d known the moment he’d walked in. Just as she’d known the instant he’d come onto the island. It had washed over her, flooded into her, as she’d sat at her desk completing a stock order. Pain, shock, joy, fury, all so intense, all so immediate, she’d been dizzy from them. One stunning emotion slamming into another, leaving her weak and trembling.
And she’d known he was back.
Eleven years. He’d walked away from her, leaving her hurting and helpless and hopeless. It still shamed her to remember the quivering mass of confusion and grief she’d been for weeks after he’d gone. But she’d rebuilt her life on the ashes of the dreams that Sam had burned beneath her. She’d found her focus, and a kind of steady contentment.
Now he was back.
She could only thank the fates that her foreknowledge had given her time to compose herself. How humiliating it would have been if she’d seen him before she’d had a chance to prepare herself. And how satisfying it had been to see that flicker of surprise and puzzlement cross his face at her cool and casual greeting.
She was stronger now, she reminded herself. She was no longer the girl who had laid her heart, bleeding and broken, at his feet. And there were more—many more—important things in her life now than a man. Love, she thought, could be such a lie. She had no place, and no tolerance, for lies. She had her home, her business, her friends. She had her circle again, and that circle had a purpose. That was enough to sustain her.
At the knock on the door, she blocked her feelings, her thoughts again, then slid onto the chair behind her desk. “Yes, come in.”
She was scanning the data on her monitor when Sam stepped inside. She glanced over absently, with just a hint of a frown in her eyes. “Nothing on the menu to tempt you?”
“I settled for this.” He lifted the coffee, then pried off the top and set it on her desk. “Nell’s very loyal.”
“Loyalty’s a necessary quality in a friend, to my mind.”
He made some sound of agreement, then sipped the coffee. “She also makes superior coffee.”
“A necessary quality in a café chef.” She tapped her fingers on the desk in a gesture of restrained impatience. “Sam, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude. You’re more than welcome to enjoy the café, the store. But I have work.”
He studied her for one long moment, but that slightly annoyed expression on her face didn’t waver. “I won’t keep you, then. Why don’t you just give me the keys, and I’ll go off and settle in?”
Baffled, she shook her head. “Keys?”
“To the cottage. Your cottage.”
“My cottage? Why on earth would I give you the keys to the yellow cottage?”
“Because.” Delighted to have finally broken through that polite shield, he drew papers out of his pocket.
“We have a lease.” He set the papers on her desk, leaning back when she snatched them up to read.
“Celtic Circle’s one of my companies,” he explained as she scowled at the names. “And Henry Downing’s one of my attorneys. He leased the cottage for me.”
Her hand wanted to tremble. More, it wanted to strike. Deliberately, she laid it, palm down, on the desk. “Why?”
“I have attorneys do all manner of things for me,” Sam said with a shrug. “Added to that, I didn’t think you would rent it to me. But I did think—was sure—that once a business deal had been made, you’d keep your end.”
She drew in a long breath. “I meant, why do you need the cottage? You have an entire hotel at your disposal.”
“I don’t choose to live in a hotel, nor to live where I work. I want my privacy and my downtime. I won’t get either if I stay at the hotel. Would you have rented it to me, Mia, if I hadn’t gone through the lawyer?”
Her lips curved now, sharply. “Of course. But I’d have bumped up the monthly rent. Considerably.”
He laughed, and more on balance than he’d been since that first sight of her, drank more coffee. “A deal’s a deal, and maybe it was meant to be. Since my parents sold our house to Ripley’s new husband, I can’t set up housekeeping there. Things usually happen the way they’re supposed to happen.”
“Things happen,” was all she said. She opened a drawer, took out a set of keys. “It’s small, and it’s on the rustic side, but I’m sure you’ll make do with it while you’re on the island.”
She set the keys on the desk, on top of his copy of the lease.
“I’m sure I will. Why don’t you have dinner with me tonight? We can catch up.”
“No, thank you.”
He hadn’t meant to ask, not so soon. It irked him that the words had escaped. “Some other time, then.”
He rose, pocketed the keys, the lease. “It’s good to see you again, Mia.”
Before she could evade it, he laid his hand over hers on the desk. Something sparked, visibly. The air sizzled with it.
“Ah,” was all he said, and tightened his grip.
“Take your hand off me.” She kept her voice low, spoke slowly while looking directly into his eyes.
“You have no right to touch me.”
“It was never about rights with us, and all about need.”
Her hand wanted to tremble. Sheer will kept it steady. “There is no us now, and I no longer need you.”
It hurt. A bright, swift pain twisted in his heart. “But you do, and I need you. There’s more to be considered than old, bruised feelings.”
“ ‘Bruised feelings.’ ” She repeated the phrase as if it were a new language. “I see. Be that as it may, you will not touch me without my permission. You don’t have it.”
“We’re going to have to talk.”
“That implies we have something to say to each other.” She allowed some of the anger to surface and coated it with disdain. “Right at this moment, I don’t have anything to say to you. I want you to leave. You have the lease, you have the keys, you have the cottage. That was clever of you, Sam. You always were clever, even as a boy. But this is my office, my store.” My island, she nearly said, but bit it back in time. “And I don’t have time for you.”
When his grip loosened, she slid her hand free. The air cleared. “Let’s not spoil your visit with a scene. I hope you’ll like the cottage. If you have any problems with it, let me know.”
“I will. Enjoy it and let you know.” He turned to the door, opened it. “Oh, Mia, this isn’t a visit. I’m here to stay.”
He saw, with vicious pleasure, her cheeks go pale just before he shut the door. He cursed himself for that, and for bungling the first steps. His mood remained foul as he stalked downstairs and out of the store under Lulu’s steely stare.
He turned away from the docks where he’d parked, away from the cottage where he would live for a while, and headed toward the police station.
He could only hope that Zack Todd, now Sheriff Todd, would be in. By God, Sam thought, he’d like one person, one goddamn person, to welcome him home and mean it.
If he couldn’t count on Zack for that, he was in a very sorry state. He hunched his shoulders against the brisk spring breeze, no longer appreciating it.
She’d brushed him off like a fly. Like a gnat. Not with a slash of temper but with irritation. That snap of connection between them meant something. He had to believe that. But if anyone he knew could hold the line against fate, could press her will against it, it was Mia.