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Before leaving Pelican’s Cove, Florida, Rafe had cleared his calendar for a week, even though he figured it would take only a couple of days to make things up to the kid and find out how much trouble he’d gotten himself in. Not to mention what it was going to take to get him out of it. Stu’s taste in women was notorious. From the time Rafe had taken over the care and feeding of a freckle-faced adolescent with too much money, too many hormones and too little common sense, Stu had been a target for every predatory female in range.
This one had waited until Rafe was headed out of the country on a little unofficial business for the government and then reeled in her catch. Stuart Montgomery Grainger III. Old family, new money. Gullible Grainger, green as his daddy’s billions. Rafe had dared hope that, with a college degree and a brand-new teaching job waiting for him, his half brother might have matured enough to be let off the leash. The lady had outsmarted him. She’d sprung her trap before any of the family had had a chance to check her out. Not that anyone besides Rafe would even bother, unless it was Stu’s father’s lawyers.
Ten years ago Rafe’s mother had dropped in out of the blue with a scared, resentful fifteen-year-old in tow and announced that as the two of them were half brothers, it was time they got to know one another. To say Rafe was appalled would be an understatement. The only thing that had kept him from flat-out refusing was the fact that the kid obviously felt the same way. Rafe could remember all too well how he’d felt at that age, being shunted between summer camp and boarding school so as not to cramp his mother’s lifestyle.
They’d spent the next five years getting to know each other, with Rafe trying his damnedest to instill a few survival instincts in a kid who hadn’t a clue.
Evidently he hadn’t succeeded. Those wedding pictures that had been waiting when he’d finally made it back to the States had pretty much told the story. Gorgeous bride wearing a knock-out gown, grinning groom wearing cake on his face. The kid still looked about fifteen. You had to wonder if the bride would have been so determined to tie the knot if his name had been Joe Jones instead of S. M. Grainger III of the shipping and banking Graingers.
About all Rafe could do at this point was damage control. Fly in unannounced, apologize for missing out on all the festivities and cook Stu his favorite holiday dinner, which happened to be the only family-style dinner Rafe knew how to prepare. It would serve as a birthday treat, a reminder to Stu that he had family standing squarely behind him, and a similar warning to the bride. It would also tell him a lot about this paragon the kid had married. If she could be bought off, he’d be better off without her.
Rafe wondered how much Stu had told her about his wildly dysfunctional family. There was the father who couldn’t be bothered to keep in touch. The mother who sent extravagant birthday gifts on the wrong date. Somewhere there were some half siblings who might or might not know him personally—not to mention a big brother who had invested a lot of years into keeping him on the right track.
At the moment Rafe was more concerned with the woman. On the way north he had settled on a test he used often in business: the element of surprise. Setting things up, then observing the way people reacted to the unexpected. Having a stranger drop in out of the blue with an armload of groceries to commandeer a woman’s kitchen might not be quite as effective a test as being stranded together in a leaky cabin cruiser, but it should do the trick. He could hardly come right out and ask the bride if she was more interested in the trust fund Stu stood to inherit at the age of thirty-one, or the shy, good-natured guy with a good mind, a heart of gold but damned few social skills.
While he secured the plane, taking extra precautions against the wind, Rafe ran through a few old chestnuts about brothers’ keepers and no man being an island in an effort to rationalize his guilty conscience for having dropped out of sight at a time when Stu had needed him. He didn’t do guilt well. When he’d found out the honeymooners would be spending a few months on one of the islands off the North Carolina coast, it had seemed like the perfect chance to mend a few fences and at the same time see how much trouble Stu was in with this bride of his and what it was going to take to sort things out. Happy marriages did not run in their family.
Unfortunately marriage did. Stella, the mother they shared, had been married four times to date. A six-foot-tall ex-Vegas showgirl, she was still a beautiful woman at age fifty-nine-and-holding.
Rafe’s father had been married three times to successively younger women, and was currently working out prenuptials with number four. Probably a high school cheerleader this time. Rafe didn’t know about Stu’s old man, but figured he was probably in the same league, marriagewise.
It was when Stella had been about to set out on honeymoon number three a few days before Thanksgiving that she’d turned up at the door of Rafe’s condo with the kid. Once he’d gotten over the shock of finding himself unexpectedly landed with the care and feeding of a half-grown boy, Rafe had scrambled like crazy not to blow it. He’d canceled a nine-day trip to Vancouver with Linda—or maybe it had been Liz. He had taken a crash course in basic cooking and started reading every book on adolescent psychology he could lay his hands on. Over the next few years they had weathered countless minor mishaps and a few major ones. He liked the kid.
Hell, he loved the kid.
He’d done a good job of raising him, too, if he did say so himself. Stu was no athlete—they’d both reluctantly faced that fact after half a dozen or so spectacular failures. He was a fine young man, smart as a whip when it came to books. Trouble was, he was dumb as a stump where women were concerned.
That was where Rafe had always come in. Sifting the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Unfortunately it had mostly been chaff up to now, but at least he’d managed to keep Stu out of major trouble until the call had come a couple of months ago. Rafe had been within hours of leaving the country on another unofficial fact-finding trip. As a small-time Gulf Coast resort developer with a modest charter boat fleet, he had the perfect excuse to explore the coastal regions of Central and South America. Having served a hitch in the Coast Guard before Stu had come to live with him, he was well aware of the fact that DEA was undermanned, underfunded and overwhelmed.
Which was how he’d happened to miss the wedding. Thanks to a small misunderstanding with a bunch of entrepreneurs in a little fishing village in Central America, he’d been out of circulation for the next several weeks, but at least he was going to make the kid’s twenty-fifth birthday.
What he hadn’t figured on was the size of Ocracoke Island in relation to the concentration of tourists. Wall-to-wall fishermen, according to the fellow who’d driven the rental out to the airport to meet him. He should have made advance reservations, in case the honeymoon cottage lacked a guest room.
The airport was little more than a paved landing strip with a phone booth and an open pavilion, all within a few hundred yards of the Atlantic. It was crowded and exposed, but adequate. He’d seen a lot worse. Knowing the weather was likely to deteriorate before the low moved offshore again, he took his time with the tie-downs and chocks. Hatteras Lows were notorious, even in Florida. Once he was satisfied, he slung his gear, which included several large grocery sacks, into the only available rental vehicle, an SUV with a gutted muffler and rusted-out floorboards.
He dropped the driver off at the rental place after learning the location of Yaupon Cottage and roughly how to find it, and toyed with the notion of checking into a hotel first. He decided against it. The turkey needed to go into an oven, or else they’d be lucky to dine before midnight. And while that didn’t bother him at all, Stu and whatsername might have other ideas.
Mission underplanned.
Traffic was bumper-to-bumper. Locating Yaupon Cottage wasn’t quite as easy as it had sounded. The village was laid out as if someone had tossed handsful of confetti into the air and then built something wherever a scrap of paper landed. With the low cloud cover, there was barely enough light left to see his way up and down the narrow, winding roads with vehicles parked haphazardly on both sides.
He managed to find the place, and then had to squeeze in between a picket fence and a tan sedan. By then the rain had started coming down in solid, wind-driven sheets. Hatless, coatless, he jogged up the path to the front door and knocked. And then he pounded again and waited. There was no light on inside. It might not be wise to walk in unannounced on a honeymoon couple, but dammit, his backside was getting wet. The grocery sacks were melting. So he pounded a few more times, then tried the doorknob. Finding the door unlocked, he opened it and called, “Hey, kids? Stu? Anybody home?”
Two
Dammit, they couldn’t be too far away, or else they’d have locked the place. Pushing the door open, Rafe shoved the groceries and his battered leather bag in out of the rain. He should have called first. He should have called before he’d ever left Florida.
Too late now. After a quick look around, he set to work on the surprise birthday dinner. He preferred to think of it as that rather than as a test for the bride, but he was beginning to have a funny feeling about this whole affair. If things didn’t work out, Stu was going to take it hard. From some unknown ancestor, the kid had inherited the genes for vulnerability and sensitivity. Thank God those had skipped Rafe. If there were two things he was not, it was vulnerable and sensitive.
The place was a dump. If there was a level surface anywhere, it wasn’t easily discernible. It was small to the point of claustrophobic, and the two refrigerator-size birdcages in the room across the hall didn’t help. Stu had mentioned that his bride had a couple of birds. Rafe had pictured budgies. Maybe canaries.
Through the open door, he eyed the two red-tailed gray parrots in the next room. Tilting their heads, they eyed him back. Feeling vaguely self-conscious, he turned his attention back to the turkey he’d bought in Tampa and allowed to thaw on the way north. He probably should’ve opted for something simpler, but the grand gesture had been part of the plan. Showing up with deli food and a bottle of wine wouldn’t do the trick. It had been his experience that wives didn’t care much for surprises, and a raw turkey definitely qualified as a surprise.
Rafe had had a wife of his own, briefly. He’d like to think Stu would have better luck, but he wouldn’t bet on it. Marital bliss was not a component of their gene pool, on either the maternal or the paternal side, he reminded himself as he rummaged underneath the counter for a roasting pan. If the kid found himself married to the wrong kind of woman, who better than Rafe to lead him out of the wilderness?
Judging strictly from the wedding pictures that had been waiting in his stack of mail when he’d gotten back from his extended stay in Central America, the lady was gorgeous and at least three inches taller than her bridegroom, who’d been grinning like Howdy Doody in every single picture. Knowing Stu, Rafe figured his half brother probably hadn’t bothered to draw up a prenuptial agreement.
Knowing women in general, the bride probably would have talked him out of it even if he had. His baby brother all but carried a sign that said Kick Me.
The range was an ancient model, the oven barely big enough to hold a roasting pan and the sweet potato casserole he’d planned. In the years after Stu had gone off to college, Rafe’s cooking had been limited to intimate dinners for two, usually followed by breakfast. Other than that, he ate out. Domestic, he was not. A woman he’d once known briefly had called it a defense mechanism. She’d been into pop psychology and thought she had his number.
Defense mechanism? No way. He simply liked his life just fine the way it was, and saw no reason to change it. And dammit, he was not lonely, no matter what anyone said! Anytime he wanted company, all he had to do was pick up the phone. Could a man have it any better than that? All the fun, none of the hassles?
There was a row of broken shells on the kitchen windowsill and he wondered if that was a clue to the kind of woman Stu had married. Was there some hidden psychological meaning here? What sort of person would bring home broken shells? Judging solely from the wedding photos, the bride could be a model or a starlet. She had the looks. According to Stu, she was supposed to be working on a degree in linguistics.
What the hell was linguistics, anyway?
A long-haired yellow cat with a wide head and ragged ears stalked into the kitchen and glared at him. Rafe glared back. “Don’t even think about it, friend,” he growled, plopping the turkey into the sink.
“Balderdash!” screamed one of the two African Grays from the living room.
“Yeah, right,” Rafe grumbled as he ran water through the cavity and wondered if he’d remembered to buy prepared stuffing. He was getting a low-pressure headache. Either that, or second thoughts were piling in faster than his brain could process them.
The second parrot tuned up with a creditable imitation of a squeaking door, followed by a realistic smoker’s hack. From there, things went rapidly downhill.
Rafe wanted to get dinner in the oven before he started checking around for a hotel room. At least since his first disastrous attempt to create a Thanksgiving feast for a desolate kid, he’d learned to remove the unmentionables inside the bird before cramming in the store-bought stuffing.
“Help! Lemme go! Bad-ass, bad-ass!”
“Shut up, you red-tailed devil, or you’re going into the oven with baldie here.”
If Stu’s lovely linguist bride was responsible for her birds’ vocabulary, she was a hell of a lot tougher than she looked. Remembering the pictures of the gorgeous vision in white clinging to a beaming Stu reminded Rafe of another reason why he was here instead of being back in Pelican’s Cove, Florida, inspecting his latest acquisition to get some idea of how much was salvageable.
Belle was getting married this weekend. Long-legged, sexy Belle, his mistress of the past eight months, who was every bit as good in bed as she was on the tennis courts. They’d met at a yacht christening and promptly entered into the relationship with both pairs of eyes wide open. Rafe had made a point of sharing his philosophy right up front. Except for the five years when Stu lived with him, his motto had always been easy come, easy go. Work hard, play hard, and avoid encumbrances. If he lost everything today, he’d start over tomorrow. Once he’d launched his kid brother and gotten his own life back on track, he had quickly reverted to his old lifestyle. Life was an adventure, he remembered telling Belle at some point. He made a point of not setting up any false expectations. While he was scrupulously faithful to one woman at a time, the last thing he wanted was an anchor holding him down. When the time came to move on, he simply moved on. When both sides clearly understood the ground rules, moving on was easy.
Both he and Belle were in their late thirties and unencumbered. Rafe had been wildly attracted to her body and Belle had been equally attracted to the lifestyle of a young, moderately wealthy bachelor. Rafe prided himself on being a generous lover, both physically and financially. And he had been, right up until Belle’s biological alarm clock had gone off. Six weeks after she had regretfully handed him his walking papers in exchange for a gold charm bracelet and a block of stock, she’d snagged herself an insurance salesman. The last time he’d heard from her they were shopping for a house near a good school.
Rafe wished her luck because he’d genuinely liked the woman. But he’d been feeling increasingly restless ever since he’d heard the news. He’d had his personal assistant pick out an expensive wedding gift, and then he’d rearranged his calendar and filed a flight plan to an off-the-beaten-track island on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
A mile away, Molly struggled to hide a yawn. They’d spent a few hours driving along the beach, and for a little while she’d felt like the heroine of one of those adventure movies, racing along the beach, splashing through the surf with the wind blowing in her face and an attractive man at her side.
Jeffy liked open windows. Said he could smell a school of fish a mile out at sea. Over the roar of the wind, he had told her about his father’s concrete block business and his own high school football career, and the trophy-size channel bass he’d taken a few years ago. He had perfect teeth, Molly noted absently during the monologue, and a really nice smile. Actually, he was good company if she overlooked a few minor detractions. His jokes were a little raw, but then, the new Molly wasn’t going to be as big a prude as the old Molly had been.
After driving from one end of the island to the other, Jeffy insisted on stopping off for a seafood dinner at Delroy’s Pub. By that time she was too hungry to resist. Which meant she was going to have to starve for days to make up for the fried scallops and French fries, even though she had left one of each on her plate.
And then someone fed the jukebox. As soon as the music started, two couples got up to dance. From a corner booth, Molly watched, tapping time on the tabletop.
“Hey, come on, what do you say we show ’em how it’s done?” Jeffy stood and held out his hand. There was a chorus of whistles and catcalls from the bar and he turned and bowed, grinning at his buddies.
“I don’t—” she started to say, but he cut her off.
“Sure you do, honey. Everybody does. Just do what comes naturally.”
What came naturally was to disappear. To hole up in her room with a book. But that was the old Molly, and she had sworn that once she left West Virginia she was going to reinvent herself.
The music was loud and fast. Even those who weren’t dancing were swaying and tapping their feet. It was a convivial group, just as Sally Ann had said. Ready for a good time. Beer was served by the pitcher and everything on the seafood platter was fried. And so far, Molly had enjoyed everything except the beer.
But dancing? “I’m not very good at this,” she protested breathlessly while Jeffy twisted and snapped his fingers. She wasn’t dressed for it, either. Some women weren’t built for snug jeans and T-shirts. She was getting there, but she still had a long way to go.
“Just shake it, honey. That’s all you have to do.”
She slid out of the booth and tried her best to “shake it” without actually shaking it. The music was mostly beat with no discernible melody, but the rhythm was contagious. She was actually beginning to enjoy herself when one of the men at the bar yelled, “Hey, Jeffy, what happened to that gold ring you usually wear?”
Without answering, Jeffy managed to twist around until he was between her and the men at the bar. “Ignore ’em. They’re drunk.”
They weren’t drunk, but neither were they sober. She asked breathlessly, “What ring is he talking about? Did you lose one at the beach?”
“I never wear a ring when I’m fishing.”
And then, just like that, it hit her. It was written all over those bedroom eyes of his. Guilt. She should have recognized it, having seen so much of it in the past. “What ring? Jeffy, are you married?”
“Aw, c’mon, honey, do I look married?”
“Not to me, you don’t,” she said, and he could take that any way he wanted to. She headed for the table, where she’d left her damp, sandy embroidered denim jacket and her shoulder bag. She would pay for her own darned supper. She was going to be paying for it in other ways, she might as well go all the way.
“Come on, Moll, be a sport.” She dug into her bag and came up with her wallet.
Jeffy shook his head. “No way—put your money back. When a gentleman invites a lady out to supper, she don’t have to pay her way.”
“Then thank you.”
“Aw, come on, sugar, be a sport.” He was whining. If there was one thing she hated in a man, it was whining.
“You could have told me.” She headed toward the door, with Jeffy right on her heels. People were staring, some of them grinning, a few calling out comments.
“You tell him, sugar!”
“Go get ’er, tiger!”
Feeling her face burning, Molly was glad for the dim lights.
“I was going to tell you, honest. See, me and Shirl, we been having a little trouble and I figured on getting to know you better and then maybe asking how you’d handle it if you was me. I mean, a woman like you, I could tell right off you were the understanding type.”
“No you couldn’t, because I’m not,” Molly said flatly. She had done all the understanding she intended to do, and it had gotten her nowhere. She might be a slow learner, but eventually the message got through.
It was dark. The rain was coming down in solid sheets, blowing across the highway. She hesitated, trying to get her bearings, and then Jeffy opened the door of his truck. “I’ll drive you home. I owe you that much.”
She was tempted to refuse, but even the old Molly had better sense. It was pitch dark and pouring rain. Given her track record she would probably walk right off the edge of the island and drown.
Jeffy drove her home. He was a sullen companion, but then, so was she. She didn’t know whom she was angrier with, Jeffy or herself. She should never have gotten into the truck in the first place. So she’d met him once before on the ferry—he was still a stranger. He’d seemed friendly and likable, but he was a man—a married man. She couldn’t afford another of those in her life. Her bank balance hadn’t recovered from the last one.
His fishing buddies had stood at the bar all evening, drinking beer, laughing, talking. It hadn’t struck her at the time, but not once had any of them come over to the table to be introduced. That had to mean something…didn’t it?
Feeling more miserable by the minute, Molly wondered if he had done the whole thing on a dare. Five bucks says you won’t pick up the fat girl. Ten says you won’t show up with her at Delroy’s. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been the butt of a joke.
She wasn’t all that fat, she thought defensively. She had measurements. She might use up a few more inches on the measuring tape than some other women but she had a shape.
Jeff double-parked outside the cottage, blocking the street. The yard light was on, and for the life of her, she couldn’t recall if it was automatic or not. There was a beach buggy wedged in next to her own ten-year-old sedan, the two vehicles squeezed between a picket fence and a massive live oak tree. Sally Ann had warned her that parking was a haphazard affair at best, and once the season got underway, it was next to impossible.
“Thank you for supper and bringing me home,” she muttered, all in one breath.
“Hey, Moll, I’m sorry. Really.”
“Why me?” There was obviously something about her that attracted lying, conniving losers.
“’Cause you’re nice? ’Cause you looked sort of lonesome on the ferry, and I just decided, what the hell? You know how it is.”
“No, not really.”
“Most women—you know, like they expect a man to blow his paycheck on ’em, and then they cut him dead if he wants a little fun.”
“And you wanted a little fun, right?” Sally Ann had warned her about that, too, but she hadn’t listened.
“If it had worked out that way.” He shrugged. “I wish now I’d told you about Shirl—my wife. Like I said, we’re having some problems. She wanted me to skip the tournament just so I could go to this reunion thing, and we sorta had us some words before I left. You’re a real good listener. You prob’ly could’ve given me some tips on how to handle situations like that.”
Oh, yes, she was a grand listener. She had listened to a description of every fish the man had caught in last year’s tournament, legal or otherwise, including the weight and length, and what type of tackle he had used. She had listened three times to the description of his game-winning touchdown against Marcus P. Struthers High in the regional play-offs.
Just as she had listened to another man explaining earnestly why he could never hold a job, or why he needed to dress for success, and what he was going to do for her once his ship came in.
Kenny’s ship had never left harbor. The last thing she needed was a man whose only ship was a smelly old ferryboat. And what’s more, she didn’t care if he never caught another fish in his entire life, she was tired of trying to solve problems for men who didn’t have the gumption to solve their own.
“Thanks again for supper.” She opened her door and dropped to the ground before he could come around and help her out, not that he made a move to get out of the vehicle. It was raining hard, after all. Head down, she jogged up the path to the cottage, stomped the sand from her feet on the front porch and opened the door.
The kitchen light was on. It had been midafternoon when she’d left, so she wouldn’t have turned on any light except for the one by the birdcages. Molly swallowed hard, clutching the plastic bag that held her apples and the broken shells she’d collected earlier. Could Stu and Anna have come home early? Could she have made a mistake and barged into the wrong house?
Hardly. Not with those familiar raucous cries coming from the living room. Not with that smelly long-haired cat wreathing her ankles. She’d gotten lost more than once before she’d found her way around the village, using the map on the tourist brochure, but not this time. This was definitely the right house.
Cautiously she moved inside and peered into the kitchen. The bag fell from her fingers. Apples rolled across the sloping floor. She stared openmouthed at the tall, tanned and sun-streaked guy with a dish towel tucked into his belt and a dead turkey cradled in his arms.
Rafe, on hearing a car door slam outside, had peered out the window to see a woman jump down from a dark green pickup truck and hurry up the path to the front porch. He waited for Stu to join her, but the truck drove off.
But then, Stu didn’t drive a truck. He drove an expensive toy his father had given him for his twenty-first birthday to make up for a lifetime of neglect.
It also occurred to Rafe that unless the wedding photographer had used a trick lens, this was definitely not the bride.
Rafe was still standing there with the bird all ready for the oven when the woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. Neither of them spoke for a moment. “Surprise, congratulations and happy birthday, kid,” didn’t seem appropriate.
No way was this Stu’s bride. Somebody had a lot of explaining to do. Even wearing wet denim instead of white satin, there was no resemblance. Stu’s bride was a tall, slender beauty. This woman was none of the above.
