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“I was in Olympia and happened to look him up. He told me Riley had run away.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Happened? Quite a coincidence. And how perfectly convenient that your consulting job allows you to head off to little-known islands whenever it suits you.”
“I’m between assignments right now.” It wasn’t often he found himself feeling defensive, and he’d be damned if he knew why he did now. His answer was true enough, though. Except he didn’t know how he could stomach another assignment after the last FUBAR. He’d told Cole that he’d needed a break, which was how Logan came to be helping out on what should have been a straightforward runaway case. Except that Will hadn’t been the one to ask him to help out. It had been Cole. Turns out his boss and Will had some dealings with each other. Dealings he hadn’t known about until now.
Despite that, however, Logan didn’t necessarily trust his boss to leave Logan to his task if his particular talents suddenly became necessary again. Cole’s priorities were simple. Hollins-Winword—and all that it stood for, all that it protected—came first.
Annie’s lips were pressed together. “Your job—whatever it is—doesn’t really matter, anyway. Will should have come after Riley himself.”
Logan didn’t necessarily disagree. Another argument he’d had with Cole and Will. “Your brother didn’t want Riley doing something even more drastic.”
“She threatened to run again if he came after her.”
“I heard.”
“But she needs to go home.”
The fine line of her jaw looked tight. In fact, everything about Annie looked tight. Uptight. It wasn’t a demeanor he’d have expected her to wear. “Is she causing you difficulties?”
“No. No, of course she isn’t.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t.
“Has she told you why she left home?”
“Riley doesn’t confide in me.”
He frowned. “Come on, Annie. Riley didn’t just run away and disappear. Fortunately. She came to you.”
Annie shook her head. She fiddled with her fork and spoon, neatly aligning them. “She’s just curious about her black-sheep aunt who is odd enough to live on a small island.”
Black sheep? She currently looked more like Bo-Peep to him. “Will and Noelle want to send Riley to Bendlemaier.”
“It’s a fine school.”
Logan watched her for a long moment. “You hated it there.”
“The academic program is—”
“You called it a prison.”
“—unparalleled. Riley is very—”
“You did everything you could to get out of there.”
“—bright. She’ll excel there.”
“Obviously you succeeded in getting out, since you’ve admitted you didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier.” He recognized her face. But the resemblance to the Annie of old was nil. “That’s probably what your parents said when they sent you there. That you’d excel.”
She stiffened. “You never did think much of me, Logan. But are you really comparing me to George and Lucia Hess?”
Impatience rolled through him. He leaned toward her across the small round table. “What the hell’s happened to you, Annie?”
“I grew up,” she said evenly. “What happened to you? You’re the one who pretty much disappeared after Will and Noelle’s wedding.”
If she knew, she’d keep him miles away from Riley. “This isn’t about me.”
“Nor is it about me. This is about Riley and the fact that you’re here to take her home because her father, my brother, couldn’t be bothered to come after her himself.”
“You know his reasons. He and Noelle are being cautious, given what Riley has threatened.”
“Do you really think that Riley doesn’t want her parents’ attention despite what she says to the contrary?” She sat back, seeming to realize that her voice had risen. “Okay, so fine. You’re doing your old friend a favor by retrieving his daughter. Actually, I’m surprised Will waited even a day to retrieve her, considering the unhealthy influence I’m bound to have on her.”
Her tone was even. Neither defensive nor sarcastic, but factual. She could have been reciting geographic statistics from an encyclopedia for all the emotion she showed.
It bugged the hell out of him.
Years ago, there had probably been a portrait of Annie in the dictionary beside the word precocious, but she hadn’t been a danger to anyone other than herself. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Will in person?” All Will had said during that very brief meeting they’d had—the only time they’d seen each other in more than fifteen years, in fact—was that Annie occasionally visited for Christmas, flying in and out just as quickly.
She lifted her shoulder. “Why does it matter?”
Because Logan already suspected that Will knew this Annie about as well as Logan did. Before he could get into that, however, he noticed someone entering the dining area.
He stiffened. Dammit.
“Maisy told me you were here,” Hugo Drake said, stopping beside their table. “I had to see it with my own eyes, though. I guess they must be building igloos in hell ’bout now since you were pretty clear that particular place had to freeze over before you’d ever step foot on the island again.”
He looked up at his father, a man he’d loathed for so many years he could barely remember feeling anything else for him. Hugo Drake was still a robust man, though the years had left their mark in the white hair, the fading eyes. But the old man still had an unlit cigar sticking out of the pocket on his shirt.
Annie had risen and was dropping bills on the table.
“Where are you going?” He ignored his father.
“Back to the shop.”
Her gaze darted between him and Hugo. He wondered what she was thinking. And he wondered why it mattered. He didn’t care who knew about his feelings where his father was concerned. The guy had made his mother’s life a misery. She’d downed a bottle of pills rather than stay married to him. Rather than hang around to finish raising her son and daughter.
Logan hadn’t hated living on Turnabout so much as he’d hated being Dr. Hugo Drake’s son.
He doubted all that many things had changed in the twenty years since he’d been to Turnabout, and he knew that particular thing had changed least of all.
He stood, picked up Annie’s money and handed it back to her. Right or wrong, he paid his own way in life. “I’ll see you later at the shop.”
Her lips parted softly. But he’d already put enough cash on the table to pay the check and was walking away.
He was on Turnabout for one specific reason. Because his boss had ordered it. And that reason didn’t include playing the prodigal son to the man he held responsible for his mother’s death.
Chapter Three
Logan wasn’t at the shop when Annie got there. Which surprised her and relieved her—and disappointed her—though she hardly wanted to dwell on that point. Given what little she knew about him now, and what she remembered of the man she’d once briefly known, she figured he wouldn’t stay away for long. He’d come to the island for a purpose. She couldn’t see him not fulfilling it.
Since they wanted the same thing—Riley to return home—she decided to blame any disappointment over his absence on that aspect.
Riley, though, was in the shop, sitting on top of the counter by the register, blowing pink bubbles in her chewing gum and watching her boots as she swung her feet in small circles.
“Has anyone come into the shop?” Annie put her wallet back in the cupboard.
“Nope.”
“Any phone calls?”
“Nope.”
“Any gorillas prancing down the street wearing pink tutus?”
Riley looked up, her latest bubble deflating around her small mouth. She plucked the sticky stuff from her lips and popped the wad of gum back in her mouth. “Yup.”
Annie smiled faintly. She tugged at her ear, rubbed her hands down her arms. “Riley—”
“Huh-uh.” Her niece hopped off the counter. “I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m not going back.”
“I wasn’t—okay, I was.” She studied the girl. “I haven’t pressed you about anything since you arrived, Riley.” She hadn’t known what to do. Had been nearly paralyzed from taking any actions—sensible or otherwise. But Logan’s arrival had spurred something. “Maybe if you’d just give Bendlemaier a chance, you’d—”
“Like you gave it a chance? I heard you tell that old dude you didn’t even stay long enough to graduate.”
She almost laughed. Logan was definitely not old. He was a mouthwateringly fit man in his prime. Which was not at all what she needed to be thinking about. Ever. But Logan had always had that effect on her. Even when he was scathingly telling her to grow up. “His name is Logan, he’s hardly old, and I did go to Bendlemaier for three years, whether I graduated from there or not. But this isn’t about me.”
Riley shook her head, and walked over to the display nearest the door. She picked up a bottle. Studied the label. Put it back and picked up another. “How come you never got married, Auntie Annie?” She ran the phrase together like it was one long word—anteeanee.
“Nobody ever asked me,” Annie answered, lost for something more appropriate. It was the last question she might have expected.
“You think women have to wait to be asked? My mom asked dad to marry her, you know.”
Annie hadn’t known that. But it seemed like something Noelle would be capable of doing. She wasn’t a woman to wait around for someone else to speak when there was something in her sights. Annie could appreciate that trait now, though she hadn’t back then. Not when she’d believed that beautiful, accomplished Noelle Reed was marrying Will and thereby taking away the only semblance of family that Annie cared about. “No, I don’t think women have to wait to be asked,” she told Riley. “But as it happens, there’s nobody that I’ve ever wanted to ask anyway.” She’d have to allow herself into a relationship of some sort, first.
“Do you have a boyfriend? A lover?”
Good grief, the girl was persistent. “No. I don’t sleep with men I don’t love.” She didn’t sleep with anyone.
“Why not?”
“Logan was right. You’ve learned your questioning technique from Will. Do you have a boyfriend?” Maybe it was more than just the issue of Bendlemaier that had driven Riley to run away from home.
“No.”
Relief dribbled through her.
“Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me date, anyway,” Riley added. “They’d just think I was out trying to have sex or something.”
“Sex! You’ve barely turned fifteen.”
“So? There’s a girl in my class at school—my real school, not that stupid Bendleboring—who is pregnant out to here.” Riley’s hands stuck straight out in front of her. “It’s disgusting. She’s stupid. I mean, hasn’t she ever heard of the pill? They sell condoms in machines in the bathrooms everywhere.” She dropped her hands and worked them into the pockets of her tight jeans, casting Annie a sidelong look. “Logan’d be your boyfriend if you wanted.”
“Your conversation is making me dizzy,” Annie murmured. From condoms to Logan? “Logan is not here to stay, obviously, and he’s not interested in me.”
“He stared at you all through lunch.”
Only because he couldn’t figure out what had happened to the wild Annie he’d known. And she hadn’t felt inclined to tell him that she’d buried her alive in an inescapable crypt. “Riley—”
“Was he your boyfriend before?”
“No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “He was your dad’s friend, Riley.”
Riley didn’t comment on that. Merely blew another enormous bubble that popped with a soft snap when she stuck it inside her mouth and bit down on it.
Annie let out her breath, feeling as chewed-up as the deflated bubble. “What if I talk to your dad about you not going to Bendlemaier? Will you go home, then? Riley, it’s the middle of the school year. You’re missing classes.” And unlike Annie had been, her niece was a stellar student. Another reason why her appearance on Annie’s doorstep seemed so shocking.
“So, I’ll go to school here.”
God. “That’s not what I—”
“That is a school we pass going into town from your house, isn’t it?”
Riley knew good and well that it was. It wasn’t large, but the brick building was obviously a school. “Yes, but it’s for the kids who live here.”
“You just want to get rid of me, too.”
She exhaled, exasperated. “Riley, nobody wants to get rid of you. But your home is with your parents. Whatever problem there is can be worked out.”
“Dad says you haven’t talked to Grandma and Grandpa Hess in more ’n ten years.”
Your dad talks too much, Annie said silently. “Will and Noelle are nothing like George and Lucia.” Thank heavens.
“Well, why can’t whatever problem you’ve got be worked out with them?”
She had no parental instincts inside her. She didn’t know how to deal with a young girl who—from Noelle’s reports—had been captain of last year’s debate team at her school. “Riley—”
“Never mind. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” She suited her words with deed and pushed out the door.
Annie followed her out. Fat drops of rain had just begun to fall. The air was redolent with the scent of an impending rainstorm—wet, dusty, earthy. She hurried across the narrow sidewalk onto the bumpy road. “That’s not what I said!”
Riley looked over her shoulder, continuing to walk away from Annie. “I just thought you’d care. But nobody cares. Not really.” She looked ahead, her boots picking up the pace.
Annie’s heart tore. She could actually feel the pain of it ripping through her. How many times had she felt exactly the same way? Only their situations were decidedly different. Her parents hadn’t cared. Riley’s did.
She swiped a raindrop from her cheek, darting after her niece, grabbing her by the shoulders. Forcing her to stop. “Everyone cares, Riley. Your parents were beside themselves with worry when I talked to them.”
“Right. That’s why they’re pounding down the door of your beach house.” Riley’s eyes were stormier than the sky.
And Annie knew, for once, that her instincts had been right on the mark. Riley had run away, but, despite her threats, she’d expected her parents to follow after her. A show of love. A grand gesture. Something to prove she mattered to them.
