Chapter 4
Alex

He fell into his bed, exhausted and unable to remember the last time he’d gone to bed well after nightfall. Alex didn’t want to think about how tough his morning run would be. However, stressing about workouts was still better than thinking about that girl for one more minute.

He’d been on edge the entire time they were together. The minutes with her had absolutely dragged. No matter what he had tried, none of his usual tricks worked. There was just something about her. Every part of her screamed sensuality, and it was a feeling he wasn’t comfortable with. As soon as they’d landed back at Greystone, he couldn’t wait to get away from her. It had been a nightmare to force himself not to burst into a full run back to the inn.

Alex had thought that once they reached the inn, it would be easy to avoid her. That hadn’t been the case. Caleb had pounced as soon as they’d stepped through the door.

“Y’all have a good time?” Caleb had asked. He stretched out the drawl like he always did around Yankees.

“Yes!” Faith had said with a smile. “It wasn’t what I expected. But it has a lot of potential.”

“You a real estate tycoon, ma’am?” Caleb had teased her.

When she giggled, that smile and those lips lit up the room. “That hadn’t been in the plan, but you never know.”

“How ʼbout I show you around the property?” Caleb asked.

“Sure. Just let me go put on some more sunblock.”

Caleb gave Alex a wink as she squeezed between them toward the staircase. They’d both watched, unabashedly, as she ascended. With every sway of her hips, Alex willed the shorts to ride up higher, even as he chastised himself internally for such a thought.

“Goddamn,” Caleb whispered to him. “You ever seen anything like that?”

“Not round here, maybe,” Alex said. “But that’s not sayin’ much.”

“Right,” Caleb said with a laugh. He elbowed him in the ribs. “If they were all made like that on the mainland, you never would have come back here. Sorry, man,” Caleb corrected himself.

Alex could see guilt for Rebecca all over his face. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he went into the family room with its picture windows overlooking the property. He heard Faith trot down the stairs, and Caleb let out an appreciative whistle. The door slammed behind them. Through the window, he watched Caleb offer an elbow while Faith laughed and swatted him away playfully.

With a growl, Alex stomped to the kitchen, where Gwen was prepping. “Hiya, baby,” she said. Gwen had been part of the home, largely the kitchen, ever since he could remember. “You hungry? Want me to make you something?”

“No. Thanks, though,” he said. “I’m just going to make a sandwich.”

Gwen wrinkled her nose. “With that expensive ‘bread’ you get shipped here?” she said. She shook her head. “You know, we have bread here.”

“This is low carb, high protein,” Alex said.

“Bread’s not s’posed to be low carb or high protein.”

Alex piled the sandwich high with the chicken cuts they sourced from the farm on the other side of the island. On a whim, he made a second sandwich and wrapped them both in tinfoil.

“You goin’ somewhere?” Gwen asked.

“Fishing.”

Alex packed up the gear, grabbed a hat, and headed for the pier. Fishing in the abandoned location was the one thing besides running that relaxed him. Without reception, without a watch, hours felt like minutes. By the time the sun started to set, he had no bites but was sure the tension Faith stirred up had to have subsided.

Damn, he thought as he made the short trek back to the inn. I didn’t think about Rebecca once.

But as soon as he walked in the door, Faith was the first thing he saw. She’d changed into a familiar-looking white sundress spotted with tiny rosebuds. He couldn’t put his finger on it, and then he realized it was one of Mama’s vintage dresses. Alex knew it from photographs. With that simple change, the last traces of proper corporate lawyer faded away.

Her eyes widened as Caleb crowed, “Look what the cat dragged in. Fishless to boot,” he added as he scanned for any catches.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Alex told him. He couldn’t remember the last time Caleb had gone fishing.

“You fish,” Faith said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Can’t call yourself a local unless you do, ma’am,” he answered as he moved past them to put the gear away. Lee jumped out of his path, as always, while Matt hovered in the corner and took in how the dress hugged every one of her curves. Not that he could blame him.

In the storage room, he heard murmuring and the clinking of iced tea in glasses while he hung up the gear. She’d seemed so surprised at his suggestion of a wildlife preserve. Isn’t that what Californians do? Sit around and talk about saving the environment? What does she think I am, some kind of yokel who doesn’t know there is a great big world out there?

When he reappeared in the great room, his mama was in the center, where she led the conversations as always. “Alex! So glad you could join us. You missed dinner,” she said pointedly. “I called.”

“I was at the pier,” he said.

She sniffed but didn’t say anything more about his absence. “Well, at least join us for some sweet tea. Sweeten it with some gin for you?” she asked as she moved toward the cocktail table. The pitcher of golden iced tea was slick with condensation, eager to be poured into one of the cut-crystal glasses she made sure Jessie always kept perfectly polished.

“With, please,” he said.

Alex watched Caleb fawn over Faith. He circled her like a shark and mercilessly sized her up. Either Faith didn’t notice or didn’t care. He was certain it was the latter. For all her sense of wonder and enchantment of the island, he knew you couldn’t make it as a corporate attorney in San Francisco without being tough. She probably uses that faux naivety to her advantage like they all do, he thought as a cold glass was pressed into his hand.

“I made it strong,” his mama whispered to him through gritted teeth. “Maybe it’ll help loosen you up.”

As much as he wanted to down the drink and get the hell out of there, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Faith. What is her game, anyway? Why leave what had to be a hellishly competitive environment to spend the summer hanging around an island and looking at a decrepit old house?

Faith leaned forward to set her glass down on a handmade carved-stone side table, giving him a view directly down the dress. He glimpsed her lacy white bra and deep cleavage and felt himself start to stiffen.

Fuck. Maybe I should text Erica soon and get this out of my system. Alex took a long swallow and finished the spiked sweet tea.

“Thirsty,” Caleb commented and gave him a knowing grin.

“More like tired,” he said. “Mama, you mind if I’m excused? I need to hit the hay, I’m beat.”

“Well, if that’s what you need,” she said carefully with an arched brow.

“Thanks. Night, y’all,” he called to the room in general. He was met with a sea of replies, though it was Faith’s that stuck in his head. That seductive, low growl she had.

Alex made his way upstairs and clicked the heavy wooden door shut. He flipped on the fan and pulled his shirt over his head. Like expected, as soon as he closed his eyes his mind’s eye was filled with that cleavage shot Faith had unknowingly given him.

He moaned, pulled one of the pillows over his face, and commanded Faith to leave his head.

Soon enough, she was gone—replaced by Rebecca in that tight black-velvet dress of hers that had always been his favorite.

She sat on the familiar tufted gray couch while tears of mascara ran down her face. “I can’t believe you did that! You went through my phone?” She blubbered. “That’s fucked up, Alex.”

“That’s fucked up? You think that’s the fucked up part of the situation?” he said. She looked tiny curled up on that couch with a nearly empty glass of wine in her hand. He was aware of how he must seem as he loomed over her. Dangerous, like a predator.

“Yes!” she said. “I trusted you—”

“No,” he said as he cut her off. “You don’t get to say that. I trusted you. And not that it matters, I didn’t ‘go through’ your phone. I was trying to use your phone, the one you were too stupid to even lock, to call your goddamned sister and wish her happy birthday because mine died! Jesus, Rebecca, you couldn’t even delete the texts? You really think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“I didn’t know you’d be going through my phone!” she yelled. A fresh torrent of tears threatened to fall.

“Fuck this. We’re not getting anywhere,” he said. “Just tell me who he is! And ‘Mary’? You saved his name as Mary? What kind of idiot do you think I am?”

Rebecca started to choke on her tears while Alex sat down in the matching chair and dropped his head into his hands. He was too angry to fight anymore.

He heard the jingle of keys, looked up, and saw Rebecca stomping barefoot to the door. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he yelled after her, but she slammed the door.

He only waited a minute before he jumped up to follow her. Surely she was going to his house—whoever it was she was fucking. You gotta find her, he told himself.

He didn’t have to go far. Her little Nissan was flipped at the end of the road, lights still on. Alex knew she was dead before he even got to her. His own headlights lit up her mangled arm, which stuck out from below the crumpled metal.

Alex bolted upright in bed, covered in sweat. Jesus. Even after all this time. Some nights he knew he was remembering, dreaming, but he still couldn’t stop it. If I’d just stopped her. If I’d followed her right away—

The clock told him it was three in the morning, but he didn’t care. He needed to run. Alex jumped out of bed, grabbed some socks out of the drawer, and bounded downstairs. No lights needed to be turned on; he knew every nook and cranny of the inn.

As soon as he started to round the house toward the trail out back, he heard a boat engine running. Fishing? At this time of night? Unfamiliar men’s voices erupted nearby in hushed tones. Alex slowed, pressed himself against the house, and peered around a corner. A trio of masked men approached the inn like they owned it. They didn’t even try to be careful.

What the hell? However, it didn’t seem to be the house they were after. They went directly to the cross Mama had erected in the front yard alongside the flagpole. One of the men tossed a bucketful of liquid onto the old hewn wood, while another lit and threw a lighter.

“Hey!” Alex called out instinctively. Any trace of fear was gone.

One of the men turned toward him and fired a pistol aimlessly.

“Fuck,” he cried as he jumped back behind the house and covered his head.

The shot rang in his ear, but he heard the thud of their feet as they departed. Caleb, Lee, and Matt’s voices burst through the front door. “What the fuck?” Caleb cried. Alex rounded the corner and saw their faces lit up by the flames.

“Alex!” Matt yelled.

“It’s okay, they’re gone,” Alex said.

“What the hell is this—”

“Look at this,” Lee said as Caleb ran for the house. He picked up a piece of plywood beside the fire. Written in crude Sharpie was, “Go Home Upity Bitch.”

“Nice spelling,” Matt commented. He stepped aside to let Caleb douse the flames.

Alex felt eyes on him. He looked up and saw his mama and Faith as they peered through the windows. Both appeared worried, with his mama’s hair wrapped in a silk scarf and Faith with her long hair in a loose braid that hung across her faded Pepperdine T-shirt.

Uppity bitch. Obviously the warning was for Faith, but why? She stared at the cross, confused and horrified.

What the hell is this all about?