Chapter 4

It was the stupidest move he’d ever made, Alec decided. He should never have kissed Lilly Durand yesterday, he told himself, kicking the damp sand with his bare foot. Overnight, fog had moved in, blanketing the long Dragonfly Beach and the ocean beside it with one soft color. Later in the day the sun would burn it off, but now it wrapped him and everything else thoroughly. Damply.

He reached out a hand and it nearly was lost in the thick mist, reminding him of the recurring dream he’d had the night before. In it, he’d been driving without headlights, the darkness around him absolute. Out of nowhere a pair of high beams appeared, aiming straight for him. A jolt of terror had sliced through him, jagged and deep.

The stunning pain had woken him, like it always did.

He fucking hated that dream.

Running a hand through his hair, Alec supposed recalling the damn thing meant he’d gotten at least some shut-eye the night before, though it seemed like he’d stared at the ceiling of his room for hours. As soon as thin light leaked around the edges of his window curtains, he’d opted for a walk to clear his head.

Yet after fifteen minutes on this deserted beach, Lilly Durand—kissing Lilly Durand—remained front and center in his brain.

He wished he could blame it on her, but it had all been his idea. Not that she’d pushed him off—and the way she’d molded herself to his body had only boosted his arousal—but then he’d gone on to propose a plan of sorts.

For them to get to know each other better.

With her taste on his tongue and the heat of her small, sexy body imprinted onto his, it wasn’t his big head that had been doing the talking then. His dick had thought getting some more time with Lilly was a grand idea.

The brain on the top of his neck now recognized that as a grand mistake instead.

Furthering their acquaintance felt like a promise he couldn’t deliver on, and Alec considered himself an honorable guy. He immersed himself in work, spending long days at his desk. His phone pinged to remind him to get to the gym several times a week and he set his alarm early every other day for a morning run, but then it was dull boy-Alec and he liked it that way.

His mother would likely claim “refuge” with a knowing glint in her eye, but he didn’t work to retreat from anything, he told himself. He worked because he liked having a sense of purpose, his mind filled with long lists of tasks and line items, the ends of which were never to be reached.

That left him with no time or inclination to make someone’s acquaintance.

There was no leisure built into his life for getting to know someone like Lilly Durand who was the opposite of simple with her midnight eyes and her prickly, contrary ways. She didn’t want him, but she responded like she did.

She doesn’t want to want you, different things, a voice inside him said.

“Well, I don’t want to want her, either,” he replied aloud, the syllables swallowed up by the surrounding fog. “Haven’t I made it clear I have no time?”

Except that you have the next few days, that voice responded.

He shook his head, trudging onward. Not gonna happen. Fate—if you wanted to call it that instead of coincidence—had played its tricks on them, so that they were staying at the same resort and that she’d happened to save Buster. But there was no rule that he’d have to follow through on what he’d said the night before, with her so sweetly in his arms.

We’re going to spend time together like reasonable, grown-up adults.

Frowning, Alec stared down at his feet as he shuffled through the sand. No, he was going to act like a jackass instead and avoid her for the rest of the week.

“Oof!” Colliding with something that materialized out of the mist, he staggered back. For a second he thought he’d encountered a ghost until the figure whirled around.

He blinked the dampness from his eyes and felt his stomach grind, like he’d downed too many cups of coffee without eating. “Good morning, Lilly,” he said, resigned.

She stepped closer, looking waif-like in pale gray yoga pants cropped at the calf and a sweatshirt of the same color that hung to her knees with sleeves that nearly brushed the tips of her small fingers. The mist had caught in her hair, tiny crystals that dotted her dark, wavy locks. The swirling gray surrounding them made her mouth look pinker than ever before, her tip-tilted eyes and their plush lashes more exotic.

“Are you following me?” she demanded.

He sighed. “I was out for a stroll just like you.”

“Bad penny,” she muttered.

Clearly her night hadn’t been any more restful than his, though her bad temper somehow made him want to laugh. She looked like a cranky fairy who’d been prodded from her bed beneath a toadstool before she was quite ready to wake.

“I’ll walk on ahead of you,” he said. “In a few moments you’ll lose me in the fog.” Taking a step around her, he made to do just that.

Her hand shot out to clutch his sleeve. “Um…”

Alec looked down, into her small face. Christ, that sweet mouth inspired dirty thoughts. “What is it?”

“Did you talk to your mom? Tell her she…misconstrued things between you and me?”

When his parents had come upon them the night before, Lilly had broke free from him, stammered out her goodbyes, and fled.

“I told her not to jump to any conclusions.”

“Well, good.” Her hand dropped from his sleeve. “Though she does worry you work too hard.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that.”

“What is it you do exactly?”

“I work in venture capitalism—my dad started the firm. Matching businesses with money in order to grow or matching ideas with money in order that they can become businesses.” He cocked his head. “But you know what that is, right? You work in financial management.”

She nodded. “For the Montgomerys. I majored in accounting and I also have a master’s.”

“You’re a number-cruncher.”

“It’s why I always have mental balance sheets running.” She paused. “One for everything…including personal relationships.”

“Not too subtle, sugar.” He had to grin.

“What?”

“I get what you’re saying—or not saying. You mean you’ve run the calculations and that the liabilities outweigh the potential offered by our possible involvement.”

She made a face. “Well—”

“And I happen to agree with you.” He saw her eyes widen. “I was going to let sleeping dogs lie—and aren’t we full of metaphors this morning—and not mention it, but hell, I’ll admit I made a mistake yesterday. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Oh.” She shoved her hands in her front kangaroo pocket. “So we get to just forget it ever happened?”

“Right,” he said, sounding brisk and completely convinced that there’d be no more sleepless nights thinking of the maid of honor. “I’ll be on my way now.”

“Okay.”

“Have a nice single life.” Determined to get on with his own, he attempted to move forward again.

Again, she caught the edge of his sleeve. “Uh…you’re going back to the resort?”

“In a while.”

She bit her bottom lip and glanced around. “Doesn’t this strike you as what purgatory would be like?”

Shifting his gaze, he could see what she meant. In the minutes they’d been talking, the fog had thickened until he couldn’t make out any features of the landscape. Even the ocean was obscured and the only way he knew its direction was from the muted sound of the surf. “This is the kind of weather that shipwrecks sailors,” he said. “It’s why foghorns and lighthouses were invented, so that their vessels wouldn’t crash on rocky shores.”

Lilly shivered. “What if you were in open ocean?”

“These days they have GPS and all kinds of instrumentation. But before that, they were at the mercy of the weather.”

“I don’t like to be at the mercy of anything,” Lilly said. “Or anyone.”

He suspected she’d revealed more than she knew. “Chalk off playing old-time pirate from your bucket list then,” he said lightly.

“Yeah.” She dug a bare toe in the sand. Her nails were polished in a bright, sparkly pink. Just like a fairy would wear, he thought, surprised by the whimsy she inspired in him. He was mostly a numbers guy too, after all.

“Here’s the thing,” Lilly suddenly said, looking away. “I have a terrible sense of direction.”

She confessed it quickly, then glanced up to see his reaction. Clearly she hated revealing her vulnerabilities.

“Lilly,” he said, taking in the mist enshrouding them, then shifting his focus back to her. “Are you lost?”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, chin jutting up. “I’m just a bit, a tiny bit, unsure how to get back.”

“Head south,” he said.

She looked at him like he’d suggested she strip off her clothes and make a bonfire out of them. Hmm…tempting…

Shaking the thought from his head, he cleared his throat. “Keep the ocean on your right.”

“How do I find the ocean in this soup?”

Her aggrieved tone had him grinning again. “Okay, okay, sugar. I’ll walk you home like the good Boy Scout my mama always wanted me to be.”

Her relief was evident in her lack of protest. Taking her by the shoulder, he turned her around and nudged her forward. “This way.”

She was quiet for a few minutes as they ambled back, shoulder-to-shoulder. “I really appreciate the escort, Alec. You’re not so bad you know.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Maybe it seems as if I’m holding you responsible for Jacob’s defection, and I’m not, truly, but…”

But she needed something to use as a wedge between them. “I get it.”

She cleared her throat. “If we happened to run into each other over the next few days, that probably wouldn’t be so terrible. We can be friendly, right?”

Hmm. There was a note in her voice he just couldn’t place. It took him a minute to identify it as loneliness, with a little melancholy thrown in. “No luck in cheering up Audra?” he guessed.

Lilly shook her head, her wavy hair bouncing. The fog seemed to make the stuff curlier. “She keeps telling me to go off and have fun. Knowing she’s hurting, how can I do that?”

A struggle went on inside himself. Should he? Shouldn’t he? “With an invitation you can’t refuse,” he heard himself say.

She glanced up, clearly puzzled. “What kind of invitation?”

He stared down into her upturned face, so damn pretty. But it was those glimpses of her vulnerability that got to him as much as her potent physical appeal. Face it, he was a sucker for Lilly Durand, the whole package—her curling hair, her steadfast nature, her sexy little sparkly painted toes.

His hand caught hers, because it was impossible not to want to touch her. They’d reached the resort, and he tugged her toward the path leading from the beach to the lobby. “It’s not old-time pirate fun, but you could join my family on the whale watching boat tour we have planned for later today.”

The hand he held stayed trustingly in his, a coup. She looked over her shoulder at the soupy weather. “In this stuff?”

“It’s forecasted to clear off. And think about this—when you get back to shore, you’ll have something to talk to Audra about besides the perfidy of men.”

Her brows shot high. Then after a second, she grinned. “We’re actually striving for that.”

He felt his own smile break over his face. “Then it’s a date.”

It wasn’t until they strode off in separate directions that his words finally sank in. A date. An opportunity to get to know Lilly better.

Hell. Exactly what he’d told himself he was going to avoid.

 

The fog had indeed lifted by twelve, and later that afternoon Lilly found herself boarding the whale watching vessel along with the Thatcher party, which consisted of relatives ranging from age eight to above sixty. She’d spent the hours after the morning beach walk second-guessing her agreement to join them, but it came down to bowing to her curiosity.

Not about what it would be like to spend more time with Alec—she’d devised a strategy to avoid him by keeping to herself, or if that didn’t work, keeping herself close to other members of the group. But who could resist a cruise that promised a glimpse of intriguing sea creatures?

The boat, they were told upon arrival, was a high-speed catamaran with a wave-piercing hull. That didn’t mean anything to Lilly, a nautical novice, but she appreciated the spaciousness of it. It could accommodate close to seventy people and had an upper sun-deck and a raised forward bow area, both great locations for in-the-elements viewing. There was also a teak-paneled cabin with tables and seating that included a buffet set-up and a full bar.

As the vessel pulled out of its slip in the harbor, Lilly lingered in that area where some younger kids from another group were coloring with crayons, managing even with their arms awkwardly held away from their bodies by the life vests they were required to wear. When one little girl, about five, dropped her pink crayon, Lilly retrieved it.

The kid responded with a sunny smile and invited her to share the page, indicating the sea urchin outlined there. Since they were still chugging slowly toward the sea, Lilly slipped into the seat opposite and went to work, idly listening to the children’s chatter. Had she ever been this young and carefree? She remembered coloring in what she considered her “room,” which was a tiny space behind the living room couch on which she slept. When not in use, she hid her box of crayons so that her older cousin, Frank, wouldn’t steal them or break them.

Never had she felt relaxed or safe, she thought now.

A sudden need to sweep those old memories away sent her out of the cabin and onto the boat’s walk-around decks. The vessel’s speed had increased and they were heading west, toward islands that poked up from the water. She sucked in the bracing air and blew it out again, expelling as forcefully the painful recollections of her childhood.

She knew those years were why she was Audra’s opposite, pessimistic where her friend was usually sunny-natured; guarded where the other woman was open and trusting. Lilly’s consolation was that the tough exterior she’d built meant she’d never again be susceptible to hurt or disappointment or downright fear. Until she’d earned her college scholarship, every night she’d gone to bed wondering what she’d do if her mother came back. Or what she’d do if her mother never did, and her aunt and uncle kicked her out.

She’d had enough emotional insecurity for a lifetime.

“Enjoying the view?” a familiar voice said from behind her.

Her stomach swooped and she reluctantly turned, only to realize it wasn’t Alec, whom she wanted to elude, but his father, Vic Thatcher.

She couldn’t help but smile at him. His tall build was similar to his son’s and their features were very much the same. The older man had an inner stillness about him, though, that calmed her nerves—quite unlike her reaction to Alec.

“It’s incredible,” Lilly said. “Thank you so much for including me.”

“Miranda and I are glad you came along. It’s good for everyone to have the chance to enjoy all this natural beauty.”

“It’s wonderful.” She indicated the craggy and wild-looking bodies of land rising from the water up ahead. “Those are the Channel Islands, right?”

“Some of them. We can’t see them all from here, but the ones you’re looking at make up the Channel Islands National Park and the waters surrounding them are a marine sanctuary.”

“So the whales passing through are protected?”

“In more ways than one,” Vic said. “The whales migrate to their birthing grounds in the waters off Baja, California, in the winter and then head back up to the Gulf of Alaska for the summer. It’s thought that the channel’s shallow waters and beach surf create enough background noise that it covers the sound of communication between whale mothers and calves, keeping them safer from predators.”

“You must have been a professor in another life,” she said, recalling Alec saying he’d started the venture capital company.

Vic laughed. “Certainly not what I was in the earlier part of this one. I didn’t concern myself with anything but making money until five years ago, when…well, when I retired and started thinking of other things.” His smile dimmed a moment, but then brightened again. “Now I take time to smell the roses and enjoy family, friends, and my wife.”

“I don’t think I’ve congratulated you on thirty-five years of marriage.”

“Thank you. It seems like just yesterday I met Miranda. She sat next to me in the dining commons at college one day and I was so struck by her beauty that I actually dropped the French fry I was holding. It landed in her lap.”

“I don’t believe it for a minute,” Lilly said, grinning. “I can’t see you ever being clumsy.”

“Believe it. But I don’t regret my awkwardness because Miranda didn’t bat an eye. She just picked up the fry, bit into it, and asked me if I wanted to go to a party with her that night.”

Lilly laughed. She could imagine the older woman turning the moment into an opportunity with a handsome guy. As Vic continued regaling her with stories of their budding courtship, she knew exactly from whom his son had learned his charm.

How easy life made it for some people, she mused. No wonder Alec walked around with such confidence and self-possession. Nothing ugly, no true hurt touched the Thatcher family.

“Here you are,” another masculine voice said from behind her. This time it was Alec, bearing a glass of wine in each hand. “Dad, Mom’s looking for you,” he added, passing off one of the beverages to Lilly.

With a jaunty salute to her, the older man hurried off.

She smiled as she watched him go. “I need to be honest,” she told Alec, “and tell you I may have a bit of a thing for your father.”

His eyebrows rose. “Uh-oh. Is that a sign of daddy issues? You’ll have to tell me—”

A shout interrupted the rest of his thought and then everyone was rushing to the other side of the boat. Nature’s show, apparently, was on.

An hour-and-a-half later, Lilly sighed as the vessel returned to the harbor. “I can’t believe we saw all of that.” A pod of dolphins had showed up to escort them on their outward-bound trip, wowing the spectators with their leaps and dives. Then they’d spied the distinctive plume from a whale’s blowhole, followed by a display of tail-slapping so loud—even from a distance—that she’d gripped the ship’s railing, her heart pounding.

For the finale, they’d witnessed a humpback whale breaching.

“I still don’t have my breath completely back,” Lilly said to Alec, who’d remained by her side. “Those creatures are so big.”

“And we didn’t see any blue whales today, though we might have. They’re the largest animal ever known to have lived.” His shoulder brushed against hers.

“Really?” She glanced over, cursing herself for how aware she was of him. The entire time they’d stood together, her skin had prickled like an incipient sunburn and she’d caught herself taking swift peeks at him, trying to memorize every expression on his face.

“When they’re born they’re as big as full-grown hippos. The heart of an adult weighs 400 pounds.”

“Okay, really big.”

His gaze slid to her, a sly light in them. “They also have the largest penis of any living organism. Eight-to-ten feet long.”

Hearing him say “penis” made her blush, that’s how silly she was. “Oh, how, um, interesting.” Lilly fought any even sillier shiver.

“Hey, you’re cold,” Alec said. Sidestepping, he drew up behind her and put his arms around her body, bringing her back against his heat.

This time she reacted with a full-body tremble. “I must have gotten chilled,” she said, breaking free of him. “I think I’ll go to the cabin until we dock.”

Naturally, he came with her.

But it was safer there, where almost all of the other sightseers now congregated, taking up hot or cold drinks and partaking of a buffet of appetizers and desserts. Alec snagged them both another glass of wine and then they found a small space to stand.

Still too close, Lilly thought, grimacing. But she couldn’t really make a big fuss about it when it was she who had claimed there was no reason they couldn’t be friendly.

Directing her attention away from him, she saw the same kids from earlier sitting at a nearby table, now drawing what she supposed might be dolphins and whales on blank sheets of paper. Her little friend glanced up and gave her a wave.

Smiling, Lilly waved back, and the kid held up her artistic creation for her appraisal. Blue squiggles and a couple of enthusiastic but sloppy green circles. She put two thumbs up, now grinning.

“Cute,” Alec said.

She glanced at him, noting he was looking at her instead of the child. Flushing again, she stared into her glass of wine as if she found it fascinating.

“I can see you as a mom. You’d be great.”

Aghast, her chin shot up, her head swiveled, and she gawked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. I have absolutely no maternal skills.”

“You don’t need skills. I bet you can get skills from YouTube videos or a What to Expect book. You need instincts, Lilly. And you’ve got those in spades.”

“Huh?” The notion that she’d be any good at all with small persons continued to flummox her.

“You’re loyal. Sympathetic. And I bet you’re great with details.”

“That’s motherly?” she questioned. “It sounds more like a dog who can also fill out tax forms.”

“It’s a damn good start on motherly. Throw in an adorable infant with your sweet face and hopefully the daddy’s less thorny personality and you’ll be in family heaven.”

She wanted to retort that most people didn’t find her particularly thorny, but that was a lie, and then she thought of the phrase “family heaven” and got sidetracked. Family had never meant heaven to her, but she could see why Alec would use that phrase, coming from Thatcher perfection.

“It’s you who should have kids,” she replied. “Be a dad like the one you have, smart and also wise in the ways of living.” Raise two point five secure, sheltered-from-hard-knocks kids who would strut through life without chips on their shoulders or barbed wire around their hearts or danger in their DNA. This is how Durands love.

Alec looked away this time. “My dad used to spend a lot of time at the office. He wasn’t always as…present as he is now. I don’t know that I’d do any better.”

Suddenly Lilly hated the turn of this conversation. How had it come to this? Imagining Alec procreating with some woman to produce a nursery full of little Thatchers put her in a sour mood.

“You know, Audra and Jacob were talking about having children right away,” she said, her bad temper evident in her voice. “He agreed with her they should start trying during the honeymoon. But that didn’t turn out to be, did it?”

It felt good, in a weird way, to poke at the wound of the wedding-that-wasn’t. To remind them both they were here together in this moment because a romance had gone awry.

Alec made a noise suspiciously like a snort. “And her walls rise up again,” he murmured.

If her throat hadn’t tightened right then to the size of a straw, she might have ground out some home truths to explain her bone-deep instinct for self-preservation. My mother abandoned me to people who never loved me. A man has never taken my side in anything. Every day I look in the mirror and I look at my best friend and I see object lessons in all the reasons not to get into a relationship and surely not to dream of a husband or something as impossible for Lilly Durand as family heaven.