Chapter 9

A tap on the bungalow’s door the next morning made Lilly jump. She’d been expecting Alec to make contact since deserting him at the pool the night before, but she hadn’t heard a peep. Could he be here now? But another discreet tap persuaded her no.

Alec would hit knuckles to wood with a preemptory knock, as brash as the question he’d voiced, the one that continued to worry her. What’s it going to take for you to fall in love?

Shoving that from her mind, and convinced it was maid service or some other member of the resort staff come to call, she sped to the entrance. Audra had retreated to her bedroom again, and Lilly was helpless in the face of her friend’s continued misery. The only thing that seemed to elevate her mood was her occasional mutterings about that anonymous man whose heart she intended to wrench in two. Since she continued to live in the ugly sweats, Lilly banked her fears on that score for now.

On the other side of the threshold stood a slender brunette around Lilly’s age, in slim-cut, linen ankle-length pants and a boat-neck T-shirt that looked like something a Venetian gondolier might wear. Her sleek dark hair was bobbed at her chin and she wore a friendly expression that included a bright-eyed curiosity.

“Lilly?” she asked, her gaze surveying her from top to toe.

“Yes…”

“I’m Jojo—Joanna—Alec’s sister.”

“Oh. Um…”

“I brought someone to see you,” she said, with a hint of smile, then drew Buster the puppy over the threshold. He rushed forward to pounce on Lilly’s athletic shoes, his leash trailing behind.

Chancing an attack from sharp little teeth, she bent down to save her laces and lifted the little guy into her arms. He snuggled under her chin, his fur soft and sweet smelling. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked the dog, a traitorous warmth stealing into her chest. Maybe all her out-of-character responses and reactions lately could be traced to this one thing—a baby animal with the power to weaken the most formidable defenses. He’d surely wormed his way under hers.

She lifted him higher so their noses were nearly touching. “You are so cute,” she told him. “You are so cute that if you were a dinosaur you would be a cute-osaurus rex.”

Oh, God, she thought, hearing the silly comment and the sweet-talking tone to her voice. She darted an embarrassed glance at the clearly amused Jojo. “You didn’t hear that,” Lilly said. Then, addressing the puppy again, she lowered her voice and strove for a businesslike tone. “You, Buster, are a clear and present danger.”

He licked her face in answer, wiggling with delight.

“Not a shred of remorse in him,” she told Jojo.

“Not even when he nearly piddled on the carpet,” the woman said with a laugh. “I’ve been tasked with taking him for a walk and I was hoping you could be persuaded to join me.”

At Lilly’s hesitation, Jojo smiled. “Pretty please? I just checked into the resort an hour ago and I could use a guide.”

With no willpower, apparently, when it came to the dog, Lilly agreed. She didn’t even bother trotting out her lousy sense of direction as an excuse. But it didn’t fail her this time, and soon they had found the path that ran parallel to the beach.

Lilly sucked the cool, salty air into her lungs and she allowed herself to enjoy the warm sun overhead and the breeze tugging at her hair. It put her so at ease, she couldn’t stop from voicing the question hovering at the back of her mind.

“Where’s Alec?” she said, hoping like hell it didn’t sound plaintive. It just surprised her that he’d let her get away with running out on him—though she was grateful for it. “Not that it’s my business, but last night—”

“Gah!” Jojo slapped her palm to her forehead. “I forgot the message I was supposed to deliver.”

“Oh?” Lilly said casually. “From…Alec?”

“Yes.” Buster paused to inspect a flowering ice plant. They watched him nose a blossom and then jump when a bee buzzed up from bright petals. “This morning he’s been commandeered for a round of golf with some of the group. He wanted me to tell you he’s sorry. Last night he got waylaid when more of our relatives showed up.”

Including the one who had triggered Lilly’s discomfort. “New arrivals.”

Jojo made a face. “Aunt Ruby and Uncle Ernie. We console ourselves that they aren’t very close relatives, being they’re our mom’s third cousin and his wife or something like that. They’re famous for arriving early and overstaying their welcome, so we’re just glad they can only join us for a few days.”

“Ah.”

“If you happen to meet them, please don’t judge us by their behavior. Uncle Ernie is sure to pinch your ass and we regularly check Aunt Ruby’s purse for random ‘borrowed’ items that have a habit of going home with her.”

Her own aunt and uncle were known for much worse. “Don’t worry.”

Jojo sighed. “I don’t know why Mom invited them, but this is her big party and nobody wanted to censor her guest list.”

“Thirty-five years is quite something to celebrate.”

“Yes.” The cement pathway ended, dropping them into the soft sand of the wide Dragonfly Beach. With silent consensus, they continued on, Buster gamely leading the way, delighted in only the way of dogs about any adventure.

Jojo sent Lilly a sidelong glance. “You know about Simon.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Jojo halted and turned her face to the horizon. When the wind blew back her hair, Lilly could see the resemblance to her brother. “Mom struggled more than any of us, but she seems to be vastly improved. The new puppy proves it.”

“Oh?”

“Simon had a dog—”

“Not in the car?” Lilly clutched her throat.

“No, no. But he came to live with my parents after the…crash.” Jojo dashed a finger under one eye, as if she felt a tear. “He lived a long life and went to the great Dog Park in the Sky a couple of years ago. That seemed to set Mom back again…she retreated from everything and everyone.”

“Oh, wow,” Lilly murmured, unsure what to say.

“But she started to rouse from her funk last year. And when they brought Buster home…well, it was proof Mom was ready to take a chance and love again.”

“I’m so glad.” Lilly thought the dog even more adorable now. “I really like your mother.”

The other woman nodded. “I was worried my recent divorce might hinder the progress she’s made, but she’s doing okay.”

Lilly nodded. “I’m sorry to hear about the end of your marriage, too.”

Jojo shrugged a shoulder as if trying to dislodge an uncomfortable weight. “It was my own fault. Completely spontaneous decision on my part to marry the guy. He was upfront about being after a green card.”

“Oh.”

“I know. The stupidity leaves one speechless, yes?”

“When did you marry?”

“Four-and-a-half years ago.”

The timing wasn’t lost on Lilly. Six months after losing her brother, Jojo Thatcher had made an impulsive move.

“He’s French. A chef, actually,” Jojo added. “Does that make it any better?”

“I don’t know,” Lilly said. “Do you like escargot?”

Jojo released a bark of laughter. “Actually, no. But the omelets, the beef bourguignon, and this amazing leek soup he could whip up on an instant was to die for.”

On a nostalgic sigh, she continued on. “Maybe if he’d been better in bed I would have made a more determined go of it.”

“Oh,” Lilly said.

“Yeah.” Jojo shook her head. “Not only selfish, but he made love like he was starring in a porn movie. Always insisting on his good side…which was on his back so I did all the work.”

Lilly snickered, then quickly smothered the sound. “Sorry.”

“If you can’t laugh…” Jojo said with a small smile.

“I admire you,” Lilly said then, smiling at the other woman. Like all the Thatchers, she had a personal charm that was hard to resist. “Your attitude’s great.”

“God, no. Ever since I signed the papers, I wish I could stop listening to my conscience and take up smoking. My attitude goes with a pack-a-day habit.”

“Cynical?” Lilly said. “World-weary?”

“Exactly.” Then she took a long, assessing look at Lilly. “But let’s talk about you.”

“I don’t smoke. I never had a husband. I’ve been witness to a bad marriage and I never once found anything funny in it.” She paused. “Though maybe I should.”

“What’s going on between you and my brother?”

If she didn’t have to look at the other woman, she could get through this one without giving a thing away, she told herself. One foot in front of the other, she restarted their walk up the beach, her focus on the sand dunes in the distance. “We met because he was the best man and I was the maid of honor at a wedding. The wedding didn’t happen.”

“I heard about that.”

“My friend Audra, the bride, and I are staying at the resort to give her a chance to recover.”

“Oh, boy,” Jojo said. “Did she fall for that Heartbreak Hotel myth or something?”

Without admitting to anything—especially not that it had been her idea—Lilly just shrugged. “I don’t think she’s found any miracle cure yet.”

“Certainly not,” Jojo scoffed, then grimaced, sending Lilly a guilty look. “Please don’t let my dark outlook influence you. And I should say for the record, my brother is a really great guy.”

Uncomfortable, Lilly waved a hand, trying to communicate the recommendation was wholly unnecessary. “I—”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“No.” She thought of Frank, a petty bully at his best. “I was raised with a cousin, but…no.”

“Alec attended every one of Barbie’s funerals I ever organized, after Simon declared them lost causes post-surgery.”

It made Lilly smile again.

“Well, except for that time Simon pronounced Ken hadn’t survived an appendectomy. Alec said he refused to even pretend-mourn for a guy who came into the world without a dick.”

Lilly started to laugh.

“Simon said that’s why he hadn’t attempted any heroic measures to save the doll. Dick-less, he informed us, meant an automatic do not resuscitate.”

It took long moments for Lilly’s laughter to die back. “He sounds wonderful,” she finally managed to say. “They both do—Alec is. I like him.”

“That didn’t hurt so bad, did it?” Jojo said mildly. “I got the impression that Alec likes you too. Very much.”

“Oh, probably not that,” Lilly protested. They’d reached the dunes and when Buster attacked the nearest one, they trudged up in the wake of his leaps and bounds. “We’re just, um, acquaintances. Not even friends really.”

How many times had she trotted that out?

“After we leave the resort,” she continued, resolute to keep to her story. “We’ll never even see…” They’d reached the top of the dune and Lilly’s voiced trailed off as they came to a halt, both of them staring at the tableau below.

“It’s a bridal shoot,” Jojo said, explaining the obvious.

A couple of photographers were set up on the sand, with assistants ready with light reflectors and something else that was more like an umbrella. At the heart of their attention was a bride and groom. He wore a dark suit, tie gone, white shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His feet were bare and his pants were rolled to mid-calf.

She had on dreamy layers of gauzy white that caught the ocean breeze which also kicked up the gown’s hem to reveal anklets of freshwater pearls and tiny starfish. Matching circlets were on her wrists and another had been weaved into her sun-kissed hair that rippled past her shoulders.

“Maybe it’s for a fashion spread,” Lilly said, a lump gathering in her throat.

“No.” Jojo braced herself on the mound of fine grains, her feet wide apart as she continued to gaze down on the couple. “They look so young,” she said, a winsome note in her voice that Lilly suspected the other woman would hate if she detected it. “I was never that young.”

Maybe so, Lilly thought, at least not after her big brother died.

“What makes you think this isn’t for advertising?” she asked.

“That,” Jojo said, pointing as the groom swept up the bride in an artless embrace and held her overhead, her hands on his shoulders. She laughed, the happy sound carrying on the breeze, and as the man slid her down his body there was a sensual romanticism in their molded bodies that made Lilly’s throat close up completely and an ache of yearning fill her chest, in all the space not occupied by her barbed heart.

“Some people get that,” she heard herself say. Audra. She fiercely believed that there were people deserving of that kind of happiness and her best friend was one of them.

“Intellectually, I agree,” Jojo said. “Though it won’t be me.”

Or me, Lilly agreed.

Then she heard the echo of Alec’s voice, something he’d said the night before. That’s just plain sad.

It was her own inner voice that continued the conversation. I’m beginning to think it’s just plain sad for me, too.

 

In the lobby of the small movie theater at the resort, Alec loitered by the entrance, glancing at his watch and then sliding his phone from his pocket to check for messages. Nothing.

The smell of popcorn and the gurgle of a soda machine didn’t distract him, nor did the extended family members who drifted through the doors and into the theater itself. That took a sharp elbow. Frowning, he glanced over to see his second cousin, Kane Hathaway, watching him, an amused expression on his face.

“You look like an expectant father,” he said. “All you need is some pacing and a pocketful of cigars.”

“Mom and Dad’s movie is scheduled to start in less than half an hour.”

“Yeah, I heard. Rumor is, they got some Hollywood guy to produce it.”

Alec snorted. “Kind of. An intern at one of the studios runs a side business of converting old photographs and video to digital. They had him compile thirty-five years of old and more recent memories into an hour, adding a soundtrack too. We’ll be cursing Mom for having to watch it every holiday for the next thirty-five years.”

Kane grinned. “We’ve got a champagne bar set up inside the theater itself. Maybe a little bubbly will cause it to go down easier.”

“I hope I don’t need it. She promised there’s no nudity.”

“Of you guys when you were babies?” Kane said, still smiling.

He sent his cousin a look. “Of her and Dad on their Kauai camping honeymoon.”

“Oh.” Kane sobered, then brightened again. “But she did promise.”

“She also promised that she’d never read Jojo’s diary. Until she was outed when my sister’s bad ninth-grade poetry convinced Mom her darling fourteen-year-old daughter had lost her virginity.”

Kane chuckled. “I vaguely remember hearing about that. Jojo ran away from your house to stay at ours with Jessie for a few days she was so mad.”

“I’ve never found out what Mom had to do to get back into Jojo’s good graces.”

“Speaking of Jojo, is she here?” Kane asked, glancing around. “I know she checked in this morning but I haven’t had a chance to say hello yet.”

Reflexively, Alec glanced at his watch, checked his phone. “She took Buster for a walk this morning, brought him back, and no one’s seen or heard from her since.”

Kane grimaced. “Are you worried? I know it’s only been a few months since the divorce. Should she be alone?”

“She’s with Lilly. At least that’s what Dad thinks. They were together when they brought the puppy back.”

“Lilly. I saw you in the pool with her last night. What’s going on between you two? It looked…like you were getting to know each other really well.”

Alec shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. “I don’t have a fuck’s idea what I’m doing with her,” he admitted. “Maybe I’m just trying to work her out of my system.”

His second cousin nodded, as if considering the wisdom of that. “Could happen,” he mused.

“Not if I don’t know where the hell she is,” Alec said, temper spiking. He yanked out his phone and checked the screen again.

“You tried to call—”

“Both her and Jojo. No response. Not to texts, either.”

“I’m sure they’ll show up,” Kane said. “I can alert the front desk to let us know if they come through the lobby.”

“No. Jojo would hate that. And they will turn up. Lilly won’t leave her friend Audra for too long.”

“The bride-that-wasn’t.”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t seen her around the grounds.”

This time it was Alec who grimaced. “I don’t think she’s left their bungalow once since arriving.”

“So much for our newfound reputation. We can only hope she’s not tarnishing the hotel’s glowing image as healer of broken hearts via her social media accounts.”

“Is that a real concern?”

“Hell, no, at least not to me. I’ve never liked that schmaltzy PR angle, even though we didn’t start it. Great-Great-Grandfather Hathaway wouldn’t approve either. Did you know he was married five times?”

“Sounds to me like he had more faith in romance than most men. You, for certain.”

Kane frowned. “I don’t think—”

Peals of laughter interrupted the rest of his sentence.

“The prodigal daughters have returned,” he said, turning toward two women traipsing into the lobby, arms entwined and looking as thick as thieves.

“Returned drunk,” Alec said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving the pair a critical eye.

“We are not drunk,” Jojo claimed as she approached, shaking a naughty finger at him. “We are giddy with…with new friendship.”

“How many toasts did the new friends make?”

They glanced at each other, shrugged. Lilly’s inky-blue gaze came back to his, her face betraying a becoming, though guilty, flush. “Um, we didn’t count.”

“And we didn’t drive either,” Jojo crowed. “We hired our own driver for the afternoon. Redondo.”

“Reynaldo,” Lilly corrected.

Wide-eyed, Jojo stared at her new buddy. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m good with names.”

Jojo’s mouth stretched into a goofy smile. “You are such a Becky,” she said, then directed her attention to Alec. “The girl’s a Becky! You should jump on it! Beckys are special!”

He winced at the volume of her voice. “Do I want to know what she’s talking about?” he said to Kane under his breath.

“I think I can translate,” the other man offered. “She fills up our text string with her collection of odd slang. A ‘Becky’ is the best kind of girlfriend a man could imagine. We’re all supposed to be on the lookout for a Becky.”

“Alec doesn’t want a girlfriend,” Lilly said to his sister. “Remember?”

“Oh, yeah. But men say shit like that all the time. My ex said he didn’t want a girlfriend because he already had a wife, but he had one on the side anyway.” She started laughing. “I called her Side Dish.”

“How original.” Alec grabbed his sister by the arm and pulled her closer. “Do I need to administer a field sobriety test before you go into the theater for Mom and Dad’s little lovefest on film?”

Jojo stilled. “Oh. Yeah.” She drew up her hand and breathed against her palm, then blinked, likely due to the heavy alcohol fumes bouncing back at her. “Uh-oh.”

Lilly sidled close to Alec and spoke just for his ears. “I think she’s a little on edge to be around so much happy family on the heels of her divorce.”

He grimaced. “I don’t think I can give her a pass on skipping it. Mom and Dad want us both to be there. Kane too.”

“I’ll get coffees from the cart in the lobby and bring them back.” Lilly’s “giddiness” seemed to be quickly evaporating. “Jojo will be sobering up in no time.”

“Would you do that?” Glancing at his wrist, his watch told him they should be hustling into the theater.

“Of course.”

“We’ll be up front. I’ll save you the seat next to mine.”

“Oh. It’s family time. A family thing. I don’t belong—”

“You belong next to me,” Alec said firmly, ignoring Kane’s speculative glance and Lilly’s wary gaze. “Tonight, you belong next to me.”

“Great way to work her out of your system,” his second cousin said, with a hearty slap on Alec’s back as they made their way to the front of the theater. “Get her right there close and personal.”

“Fuck you,” Alec muttered, then busied himself pouring his sister into one of the plush chairs just as the lights in the room dimmed.

Lilly arrived as the opening credits rolled. He drew her down beside him as the song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” swelled from the speakers and passed off one of the coffees she carried to Jojo. Then the audience burst into mingled laughter, hoots, and applause, as a much younger Miranda and Vic appeared center screen. During college, Alec guessed, with his dad needing a haircut and his mom wearing an embroidered shirt that looked like something suited for a character in Heidi, one of the books he’d been forced to read as a kid.

The image dissolved into a bit of old video, slightly grainy, but recognizable as his mom and dad during their wedding rehearsal. He looked completely pleased with himself. She, carrying a “bouquet” of what had to be a mish-mash of ribbons from gift boxes, ran down the aisle and into her gonna-be groom’s arms.

Another round of applause from the attendees in the theater.

The film chronicled Vic and Miranda’s early lives—from driving up in a ratty truck to their first apartment, to random shots from a variety of get-togethers they’d hosted pre-kids. His parents had always loved to entertain. Photos of poker parties, Halloween parties, and one strange event where his dad was wearing a huge sombrero appeared on the screen.

“Cinco de Mayo, 1984,” someone in the audience yelled. “We made margaritas with that really cheap tequila.”

A collective groan sounded from the older generation in the room. “Sexto de Mayo, 1984,” a man two rows back commented. “Worst hangover I ever had.”

Grinning, Alec glanced over at Lilly. She was smiling too, and when she looked his way, he didn’t think twice about taking her hand.

It felt good, her small fingers in his, and even better when the Thatcher kids began appearing in the movie of his parents’ marriage.

On his other side, Jojo sucked in a quick breath at the first appearance of baby Simon. But God, then they were all laughing because their brother had the most uncooperative hair on any infant of all time. It stood straight up at the crown, and the filmmaker had chosen to display the many times and many ways in which his parents attempted to tame it for the camera.

“Mom,” Jojo remonstrated with a giggle in her voice. “Are you actually licking it there?”

Miranda groused that she should have pre-screened the film, but then more Thatcher siblings marched onto the screen. First Alec, then Jojo. They were all there, growing older, opening gifts, on family ski vacations, in Hawaii, that time their mother attempted to exhibit her famous swan dive and made a spectacular belly flop instead.

Alec’s eye kept being drawn to his big brother. He hadn’t seen him in five years, he realized. Not once had he been tempted to look at old photographs or videos. And it wasn’t because Simon was an active presence in his memory.

Alec had been actively working to avoid his memories of his brother altogether.

I think we all retreated to our preferred refuges and now it’s time to step out of them.

Settling back in his seat, he absorbed each image, remembering his brother’s infectious grins, his athletic grace, the big-brother glee on his face when he threw both his siblings in the pool and then followed after them. Damn it, Alec thought, rage slicing through him like the blade of a knife. Simon shouldn’t be dead. Simon shouldn’t be fucking dead.

“Are you all right?” Lilly whispered, her hand tightening on his.

He glanced her way, light from the movie playing over her face and clearly showing her concerned expression.

Then a shout redirected his focus to the screen and it was Simon again, staring into the camera that last Christmas, just months before the fatal car crash. Simon looking as healthy and alive as he’d ever been.

Ready for Alec to remember him in just that way.

Gone, but not out of reach. Never out of reach, if Alec stopped filling his life with so much work and lists and numbers that they became a block that didn’t let his brother in.

His anger receded, the pain inside him morphing into something both bitter and sweet. Simon would always be available as a memory to smile about, an older-sibling voice in his head, right where Alec needed him, right there whenever he needed him.

Alec shouldn’t have shut Simon out for so long.

A small hand squeezed his once again. “Alec?”

“I’m okay, sugar.” Maybe on the way to being more okay than I’ve been in a long, long time.

The last minutes of the digital film returned the focus solely to Miranda and Vic. There they were on the top of the Eiffel Tower, riding tandem on a scooter in Italy, atop the deck of their recently completed house on the beach at sunset. As the song “Say You Won’t Let Go” played, they toasted each other with glasses of wine, turned to smile at the camera, then turned back to face the horizon as the orange orb in the distance slipped into the sea.

The crowd went wild.

Over their appreciative applause and calls of congratulations, he heard Lilly’s voice. “Bad things shouldn’t happen to those people.”

He gave her a sharp look. There were tears in her eyes. “Sugar?”

“Don’t mind me,” she said, then jumping from her seat, hurried up the aisle toward the exit.

Alec couldn’t follow immediately. As the lights came up in the theater, relatives and friends surrounded the Thatcher family to praise and congratulate. But he extracted himself as quickly as possible and went off in search of her.

Luck was on his side, because he found Lilly on one of the twisted paths leading back to the main part of the resort. She stood alone, her arms wrapped around her waist.

The self-comforting pose made him hurry toward her, tenderness and concern sluicing through his veins

Coming up behind her, he kept his voice low. “Lost?” he asked, trying not to startle her.

She whirled.

Oh, hell. Tears were streaming down her face. “Sweet girl,” he said, reaching for her even as she stepped back. “Let’s go to my room. We’ll order some…tea or something and you can tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, swiping at her cheeks. “And you should be with your parents right now. That was a beautiful movie.”

“Yeah.” He cupped her face, drying the leftover dampness with his thumbs. “But I don’t need to be with them.”

“You don’t need to be with me either. You probably shouldn’t be.”

“What?”

“Your brother. I…it had to be hard to see him on the screen. He seemed so…vibrant.”

“Yeah.” Alec’s hands tightened on her, then he forced himself to relax. “But it’s okay.”

“Are you okay? Because I got to thinking.”

He frowned. “Thinking what?”

“You said you hadn’t been with a woman in two years.”

“Yes…”

“And…maybe it’s because he can’t be with anybody.”

Shocked, Alec stared down at her.

“And then I came along. Before me you’ve been…you’ve been maybe honoring his memory or something like that.”

Something seriously fucked-up like that. Jesus. Jesus. He’d never taken the time to examine what had been behind his unwillingness to take someone to his bed during the last couple of years.

“That fucker,” Alec said now, half in admiration, half in frustration and he didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or bend the nearest lamp post in half with his bare hands. “That fuckity fucking fucker. He’d just love this, wouldn’t he?”

Lilly blinked up at him. “W-what?”

He grabbed her by the wrist and began towing her along the path.

“Who are you talking about?” she asked, scurrying to keep up with him.

“Simon’s got to be guffawing his ass off in the afterlife,” Alec said grimly. “But that’s gonna stop. It’s gonna stop right now.”

“What’s going to stop?”

“The fact that he’s been cockblocking his little brother from beyond the grave.”