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“Well, what do you think of paradise so far?” Selena asked. “Aren’t you glad you came?” Her cousin’s blue eyes, so similar in hue and shape to Tess’s own, were bright as she sat down in the chair the waiter pulled out for her.
“You were right, Selena, everything here is sheer heaven.” Tess leaned back in her chair and inhaled the pure ocean air and scanned the magnificent view from their balcony table. “Everything is exactly as you said it would be.”
Selena beamed. “Rum punch for both of us. West Palm has the best rum punch on the island,” she informed Tess when their waiter had left.
Tess rolled her eyes and smiled. “Well, if it packs the same wallop as the two I had on the plane, I think we’d better order dinner soon.”
“Oh, come on, chicken,” Selena teased. “It’s only a little past three. Besides, when you’re on vacation it’s always cocktail hour!” Her smile was mischievous. “Let yourself go, Tess. Or, as they say on the island, don’t worry, be happy!”
Tess laughed and took another deep breath of the naturally perfumed air as she wondered how anyone could help but relax when immersed in such an idyllic environment. The scene beyond the balcony was a living postcard of sugar white sands and sparkling, sapphire water. Overhead was an endless expanse of cloudless blue. In the distance, small fishing boats drifted and bobbed aimlessly on the shimmering sea.
A dozen tourists basked in the afternoon sun on folding chairs and bright beach towels at the water’s edge. Laughter from a group of bikini-clad teenagers playing volleyball mingled with the rhythmic beat of Caribbean music drifting from the bar at the opposite end of the dining room.
“Ah, here we are,” Selena exclaimed, and Tess turned to see their waiter returning with two huge glasses frosted and filled to the rim with the same sparkling, red concoction that the Cayman Airlines flight attendants had served nonstop during the hour-and-a-half flight from Miami.
The waiter offered menus, but Selena waved them away. “We’ll order later. Right now, we’re celebrating.”
Tess felt like giggling; Selena’s expansive mood was contagious. “Selena, I never knew you to be...well, so much fun. If this is a preview of things to come, this trip will be one I won’t soon forget.”
Selena arched one thin, dark brown brow and leaned across the table, fixing her gaze on her younger cousin. “Okay, so maybe the next time I ask you to join me on vacation, you won’t be so hard to convince?”
“I was a bit difficult, wasn’t I?” Tess admitted sheepishly. To say that she’d been stunned when Selena had first mentioned their joint excursion to Grand Cayman, would have been an understatement. Flabbergasted was a more apt description of how she’d reacted when Selena had called a month ago with the idea of a holiday for the two of them.
Initially, Tess had refused her cousin’s offer outright. The small bookstore she owned and managed in Evergreen, Colorado was in its infancy; every penny that came in was still being turned back into the business it had taken Tess two years to launch.
But when Selena had explained that she’d won the trip as a reward from her company and that the prize entitled her to bring a guest, Tess had reconsidered.
“It’s a pathetic state of affairs for a red-blooded woman of thirty-two, but I have to admit it—I have no significant other,” Selena had quipped. “Seriously, I think this trip would do us both good. Mom and Dad would have been so pleased to see us off together on a romp.” At the mention of her recently deceased aunt and uncle, Tess had begun to cave in.
When Selena tapped her hand, Tess started. “Earth to Tess, come in, cousin,” she teased. “All right. Now that I have your attention, I want to propose a toast. To family.”
Tess raised her glass to Selena’s. “To Phil and Marjorie.”
Selena nodded, her bright expression dimming. “Yes, to my parents. They always wanted us to be friends, especially Mom. Remember?”
Tess did remember, and not without a twinge of regret. “I guess we let them down, didn’t we?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Selena admitted. “I was the brat who couldn’t share. Never could.”
“Selena, don’t—”
“No, no, I admit it.” Her gaze fell away from Tess’s and focused on the glass she held with both hands. “I can still remember the night my parents called me at school to tell me what had happened to your mom and dad and Meredith.... Mom could hardly talk she was so devastated. She and her sister had been best friends. And I was devastated, as well. But mainly because I knew it meant you’d be coming to live with us.” Selena’s expression was distant for a moment. “Frankly, I hated you then,” she admitted and lifted her glass to drink deeply.
Selena’s frank admission caused Tess to wince, but more painful by far was the memory of the accident that had claimed her family.
“Selena, please...let’s don’t go on with this.”
“You were so pretty, so sweet and so, oh, I don’t know—so everything I wasn’t. Good grades, a natural athlete, popular. I was the struggling business major with the student loan. You were the bright-eyed freshman, the one with the full scholarship. At the time, C.U. didn’t seem big enough for the two of us.”
Tess reached across the table and covered Selena’s hand with her own. “Please stop, Selena. What’s past is past.” A past too painful to look back at, Tess finished to herself.
“You know, except for funerals, we’ve hardly seen each other in the last six years. And now, here I go spoiling our vacation by behaving as though we’re attending another one.”
Tess’s mouth went dry and she reached for her drink, thinking that the festive mood that had bubbled between them just a few minutes ago had fallen as flat as the rum punch.
“You know, I never realized just how much my family meant to me until I lost my own parents,” Selena admitted.
Tess nodded, remembering how valiantly Aunt Marjorie had battled the unrelenting illness that had finally claimed her life four years ago. Then a year later Uncle Phil had been snatched from them by an unexpected and fatal heart attack.
“I know how you’re feeling,” Tess said sympathetically. “Even after all this time, I still miss my parents and my sister.”
“Sometimes it’s just so difficult.” Selena gazed past Tess wistfully.
During the silence that stretched between them, Tess thought about her parents and Meredith and the terrible call that had come in the middle of the night. She’d been nineteen, a year out of high school, ready for college after taking a year out to work at a bookstore. She’d been poised to embark on a life that had seemed nearly perfect—too perfect, she reminded herself. Then suddenly the people she’d loved most in the world were gone. Mom. Dad. Meredith. And even Reed.
Reed McKenna, her first real love, her first lover. He’d walked out on her mere days before she’d lost her family in the accident. Then she’d lost him all over again when she stumbled over her sister’s diary. Eight long years, and the loss and betrayal still hurt.
“Oh, come on,” Selena prodded, dragging Tess from the depths of her dark memories. “Enough of this gloom and doom. We’re supposed to be on vacation, remember? Two young women, footloose and fancy-free for two whole weeks on an island paradise.”
Tess summoned her best face. “That’s us.” She lifted her glass again. “To Selena and Tess, look out Grand Cayman!” And to forgiving and forgetting, she added to herself. If it was time for a new beginning with her only living relative, surely it was time to let go of the painful past.
“To family.” Selena’s smile seemed as forced as Tess’s.
They touched glasses, but before they could drink, Tess noticed their waiter approaching again. “Perhaps we should look at the menu now,” she suggested.
“Excuse me,” the waiter said. “But there is a phone call in the lobby for Miss Elliot.”
“For me?” the cousins asked simultaneously, and then looked at each other and laughed.
“I doubt it could be for me,” Tess said. “My manager has strict instructions that unless the store burns down with the insurance policy inside, I’m not to be disturbed.”
Selena groaned and pushed back her chair.
“Wait a minute, I bet it’s the rental-car company,” Tess suggested, recalling the mix-up at the airport that had caused an hour’s delay getting a car. “I can go talk to them if you’d like.” But when she started to get up, Selena stopped her.
“No, you stay put,” she insisted. “It’s probably my office. They don’t know the meaning of the word vacation. Order an appetizer, some shrimp or something. I won’t be a minute.” Before Tess could say more, Selena was hurrying away from the table.
As she watched her cousin leave, she noticed a man at the bar across the room watching her, as well. Tess couldn’t blame him. Selena was an attractive woman.
Like Tess, Selena was tall—almost five nine—and trim. It occurred to Tess as she watched her cousin disappear into the lobby that she’d never seen Selena looking more fit. She’d lost at least ten pounds, Tess figured, remembering how grief could take a toll.
Today, dressed in a bright pink sundress and jaunty straw hat, Selena looked pretty as a picture. She’d turned heads from the moment they’d stepped off the plane in Georgetown. Like Tess, Selena wore her hair past her shoulders. But while Tess’s was straight and blunt cut, Selena wore springy curls and she’d lightened the dark brown that they’d both inherited from their mothers’ side of the family to an attractive, sun-kissed, ash blond.
Selena was not only attractive, but an independent and successful businesswoman. Tess wasn’t exactly sure just what kind of business Selena was engaged in, but whatever it was, her cousin had to be doing well, as evidenced by this trip.
Beautiful, successful, confident—all those adjectives could rightly be used to describe her only cousin, Tess told herself. Surely the old jealousy that had kept Selena from allowing a relationship to bloom between them could at last be put to rest.
“Well, here’s to you, Selena,” Tess murmured as she brought her glass to her lips again and took another sip. “To the future.”
* * *
THE PERSISTENCE of the breakers pounding the rocks below the balcony restaurant had nothing on the unrelenting memories pummeling Reed McKenna as he sat transfixed, watching Tess Elliot where she sat at her table across the room.
She was even more beautiful than the indelible image he carried in his memory. If she had changed at all, it was only for the better. She was still startlingly attractive. Her smile was still a cover girl’s. Her hair still long, thick and glossy brown. Even from this distance, he could tell that her olive skin still glowed with good health, as though she’d just stepped off one of her beloved Colorado mountain trails.
When she’d walked in, wearing the gauzy yellow sundress, he couldn’t help noticing that her long legs were still slim and well toned, and that she still moved like a thoroughbred.
When she’d laughed, the sound had floated to him on a breeze and sparked what few memories hadn’t already been stirred to life by the sudden sight of her. Tess, his mind whispered, what kind of fool would ever let you go?
“Can I get you another beer, sir?” the bartender asked, interrupting Reed’s musings.
He nodded, resisting the temptation to ask the bartender to bring him a pack of Camels.
Out of the corner of his eye, Reed saw the waiter deliver a message to Selena Elliot. When she stood up and walked out of the dining room, Reed hoped that Tess wouldn’t follow.
Selena left the dining room alone, and Reed decided with grim satisfaction that perhaps this wasn’t going to be as difficult as he’d first thought. Maybe he wouldn’t have to inflict himself on Tess after all.
That was the way he wanted it, wasn’t it? Of course, he reminded himself. The memories he’d harbored, the fantasies he’d spun about his young love, were just that: fantasies and nothing more.
But despite that blunt realization, before he left the bar, he couldn’t resist a last look over his shoulder at the woman who’d once held his young heart, before it had turned cold. And captured his imagination, before it had become so jaded.
Her eyes met his for barely a second and he foolishly held his breath, wondering if she recognized him. When it appeared she hadn’t, a strange mix of disappointment and relief settled heavily in his chest.
* * *
WHEN THE SHIMMERING crystal bowl of chilled shrimp arrived, Tess began to wonder what was keeping Selena. After five minutes more, she beckoned their waiter. “Excuse me, but could you direct me to the phone where my cousin took her phone call?”
“Of course,” the young man agreed. “Right this way.”
The bar was beginning to fill and the waiter and Tess had to weave their way past a group gathered around a table where a lively game of dominoes was in progress.
Once in the lobby, the young man pointed to a bank of courtesy phones on the wall. From where she stood, Tess could already see that Selena was not in the lobby.
“Perhaps she had the call transferred to our room,” Tess suggested. “I think I’ll go check. If she comes back before I do, will you tell her where I’ve gone?”
The waiter smiled and nodded.
Crossing the lobby quickly, Tess emerged onto the sidewalk outside the main building that led to the individual guest rooms. A profusion of tropical plants, bay vines and spider lilies, lined the meandering walk that led to three separate buildings. The music and laughter coming from the beach faded as she made her way up the open stairway to the fourth floor of the first building.
At their room, Tess unlocked the door and stepped inside. The large, airy room was empty and Tess saw no obvious sign to suggest that Selena had returned since the two of them had gone down to the dining room for dinner.
With a nagging and growing sense of anxiety, Tess walked back to the lobby, crossed the dining room and sat down at their table alone. She beckoned to the first waiter that passed, but when the young man turned around, she realized he wasn’t the same waiter who’d helped them earlier. “Excuse me, but did the other lady who was sitting here return while I was gone?”
The young man’s expression was blank. “I haven’t seen anyone, ma’am, not since I came on duty a few minutes ago. Can I bring you something to drink, or a menu?”
Tess shook her head. “No thanks,” she muttered distractedly, looking past him, searching the room for Selena. After picking unenthusiastically at the shrimp and sipping the lukewarm punch for ten long minutes, Tess decided to check the lobby again.
Still, there was no sign of Selena. The ladies’ room was Tess’s next stop, but her cousin was not to be found there, either.
Wandering back into the lobby, Tess began to feel stronger stirrings of concern. A noisy group of tourists jostled off a tour bus, into the lobby and crowded around the front desk. Tess tried in vain to pick out her cousin’s face among the group.
A tall, sandy-haired man in a brightly printed floral shirt and baggy white shorts caught Tess’s eye when she realized he was staring at her. But when she made eye contact, he looked away. An uneasy feeling lifted the hair at the nape of her neck, but she dismissed the strange reaction and searched the lobby again for Selena.
Where could she have gone? Tess wondered, walking back to the entrance to the dining room to stand helplessly staring across the room at their empty balcony table as gnawing apprehension bloomed into genuine concern.
“May I help you, miss?” A cocktail waitress in a short, floral wrap skirt and yellow halter top greeted Tess when she stepped into the crowded bar.
“I’m looking for someone....” Tess murmured distractedly, her eyes scanning the crowd. “A woman, about my height, in a pink sundress and a big hat. Have you seen her?”
The young woman attendant’s eyes followed Tess’s around the room. “No, I don’t remember seeing anyone like that. But then, the place has been filling up fast since the last group of dive boats came in,” she explained in perfect, West Indies English. “If I see her, I will be sure to tell her that you’re looking for her.”
Tess thanked the young woman and moved back into the lobby, completely at a loss as to what to do next, or how to explain her cousin’s strange disappearance. As she wandered toward the main door and the circle drive in front of the hotel, a limousine slid to a stop outside and reminded her of the problem with the rental car.
Heartened to have a course of action, Tess walked briskly to the nearest courtesy phone and dialed the number for the rental-car company.
After a short and disjointed explanation to the clerk on the other end of the line, Tess gave up, thanked the woman for her help—which had, in fact, been no help at all—and hung up, feeling even more exasperated. If the call that had pulled Selena away from their table had come from the rental-car company, the person to whom Tess had spoken knew nothing about the matter.
When Tess glanced at the large clock on the wall behind the registration desk, she saw that it was nearly four-thirty. Selena had left their table almost forty-five minutes ago. Where was she?
Feeling someone’s eyes on her, Tess spun around, hoping to see Selena, only to find the man in the gaudy shirt staring at her again. She glared at the tourist and the man actually smiled, causing Tess to feel even more peevish as she pushed her way to the front desk.
After leaving a message for Selena, Tess left the lobby quickly with the eerie feeling that gaudy-shirt-man’s eyes were still on her back.
Once inside their room again, Tess set her mind to the task of unpacking and tried to tell herself that any moment Selena would come bursting through the door, smiling and apologetic with a breathless explanation for her strange disappearance. But soon another fifteen minutes had ticked by, and Selena hadn’t returned.
After her things were put away, Tess paced out onto the balcony and scanned the beach and squinted to see as far as she could in each direction.
Tess figured Selena’s bright pink dress and big floppy hat would have been easy to spot if she had been among the people wandering along the beach. But there was no pink dress. No floppy hat. No Selena. Something was dreadfully wrong, she was nearly certain.
When the phone finally rang, it startled her. Her heart pounded and she banged her knee on the nightstand hurrying back inside. The receiver was halfway to her ear when someone knocked on the door. “Just a minute,” she called out.
“Hello,” she answered hopefully into the receiver. “Hold on!” she shouted to the persistent knocker on the other side of the door. “Hello!” she said again into the phone.
“Miss Elliot, this is Guy from Premium Car Rental. I understand you’re having a problem with your car?”
“No, no, there’s nothing wrong with the car!” Tess felt her heart sink. “Yes, I did call earlier, but—” The knocking grew louder.
“Hang on a minute,” she told the car-rental clerk, dropping the phone on the bed and hurrying across the room to open the door.
Reaching for the door, Tess just knew it would be Selena’s pretty face she’d see on the other side.
She jerked the door open and every teasing word she’d prepared to fling at her cousin for losing her keys or forgetting the time or whatever froze on Tess’s lips as she stood staring and speechless at Reed McKenna, as tall, dark and startlingly handsome as ever, standing in her doorway.
With just one look, Tess knew her life was about to change forever.
Chapter Three
There were no words to express her shock; only his name emerged. “Reed?” It came out a whisper.
