Chapter 1
When Kane Hathaway had been cursed four years ago, he’d never expected the act to inflict upon him a day like this one—a tennis court inexplicably flooded, an elderly but elusive guest shuffling around the resort grounds wearing nothing but terry slippers embroidered with “The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach,” and a wonky reservation system that had a crazy hair up its automated ass. Suddenly, it kept attempting to book famous cartoon characters into the best bungalows on Christmas Day, 2046.
He suppressed the urge to snatch up the desktop nameplate listing him as “General Manager” and throw it out the window. God, it was tempting to throw in the towel altogether. Then move on to…what?
“Kane?” The note of concern in his sister’s voice made him shove a hand down his face to wipe away his frustrated expression.
“What do you need?” he asked her. Maybe it would be good to get out from behind his desk. He was the general manager, after all. His goddamn last name was on the place and surely that should inspire him to action. But the truth was, he hadn’t cared much about anything, including the family hospitality business, in a long while.
“I don’t actually need you to do anything,” Amber said. Dressed in the front office uniform of dark slacks and crisp white blouse, she looked calm and capable. Flipping the sleek tail of her dark gold hair behind her shoulder, she frowned at him. “Staff is on it, of course. I just thought I should report on the current crises of the day.”
“Right.” Kane glanced at the paper files open before him and the spreadsheet glowing on his computer screen and rubbed at a throb of pain between his eyebrows. Numbers, more numbers, and wandering naked guests. Nothing new.
“Are you okay? You don’t look so great,” Amber said.
“Just feeling my age,” he muttered.
She smiled, a little sister gleeful to poke at her big brother. “Oh yeah, the big thirty-one looms, doesn’t it?”
Along with his personal deadline. He’d given himself his thirtieth year to figure things out, to determine whether he should remain on the Hathaway corporate ladder. To make matters weightier, he’d been offered the position of Director of West Coast Operations—still based out of Santa Barbara but overseeing all the Hathaway properties from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to Vancouver, Washington.
You didn’t accept a job like that unless you were willing to make a real commitment.
As the issuer of curses had pointed out, hissing it like a snake, he sucked at commitment.
“Hello?” Amber said, tilting her head. “Kane? Are you still with me?”
He attempted shaking off his crap mood. His gaze shifted and then stuck on the day-by-day calendar to his right. A present from his other sister, Jessie, it offered up the kind of syrupy, “life-affirming” quotes that made him nuts—exactly why she’d gifted him with it, the brat. “Damn,” he said, for the first time noting the date, and tapped the tear-off sheet. “It’s Friday the thirteenth. That explains it.”
“Huh?”
“We better keep on our toes,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Who knows what else will go wrong today?”
Amber made a choked sound.
He looked up to find her green eyes sparkling with amusement.
“What?” he demanded. First the crack about his age and now this? There was only so much disrespect an older brother should have to bear. “What do you find so funny?”
“You.” She pointed to him with both index fingers, a laugh bubbling out. “Okay, everybody knows you have that weird superstitious streak, but how could I not realize you are also friggatriskaidekaphobic?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Did you make that word up?”
“It’s real,” she assured him, her lips curled in a definite smirk. “It means you’re afraid of—”
“I assure you I’m not scared of ‘frigging.’ As a matter of fact—”
“No!” She was laughing again. “Since a very young and impressionable age I’ve been well aware of your interest and aptitude in the ‘frigging’—” her fingers curled in air quotes “—department.”
He refused to let a burn of embarrassment crawl over his face. “You and Jessie shouldn’t have been hiding in the bushes behind the gazebo when I was dating Lindsay Muir in tenth grade.” They’d made their presences known in a flurry of giggles just as he’d rounded second base.
“It wasn’t only Lusty Lindsay. Jess and I have been inundated for years with stories of your exploits and with appeals to be the subjects thereof from our girlfriends and other female acquaintances. You have quite the rep, big brother.”
Okay, this was awkward. “Amber—”
“You might not stay, but the play is first rate, I’ve been told.”
“We’re getting far, far off topic,” he said, shifting in his seat, the conversation reminding him of another he’d recently had with his second cousin and good friend Alec Thatcher. Kane had made some impromptu quip about having a fear of being stuck with one woman for life. It had been said as a joke. But Alec had frowned at him, despite the light tone of their conversation. You know, he’d said. That makes you sound like an asshole.
Shoving the memory away, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Is there anything else?” he asked his sister. “That involves the hotel?” Clarification seemed necessary.
She was studying him with that smirk still fixed on her face. “A friggatriskaidekaphobic is someone who’s afraid of Friday the thirteenth. I didn’t know until now that day gives you the willies.”
It was a quirk he’d kept private, same as his thoughts about leaving the family business. “Everybody looks over their shoulder on Friday the thirteenth,” he said, dismissively. “Now, moving on…”
“All right, all right.” Apparently done with needling her big brother, Amber turned toward the door. “Moving on—” She halted, her hand going to the small device nestled in her right ear. “Uh-oh,” she said, swinging around.
Friday the thirteenth, Kane thought, resigned. “What now?”
“No big. Housekeeping’s reporting some leaking faucets in the bungalows on Hibiscus Hill. But we’re short maintenance staff today…either a wicked flu or Thursday night partying took half of them out.”
Kane was already standing. “I can handle it.”
“Well, sure, but—”
“What are there, six bungalows out that way?”
“Yes.”
Getting a little dirty might improve the day. He breezed past his little sister intending to hit the maintenance department for some tools.
“Watch out for black cats,” Amber called after him, saccharine-sweet.
Big brothers didn’t give their younger siblings the finger, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. She was laughing again as if she knew what was going through his mind. Both his sisters could be brats.
But his mood improved as he walked through the extensive grounds toward the troublesome faucets. The resort occupied twenty seaside acres that were landscaped into tranquil gardens, verdant jungles, and quiet lagoons surrounding standalone residential structures as well as buildings housing more traditional hotel rooms. He breathed in the fresh air laced with a hint of salt from the Pacific Ocean and his headache waned. Amber’s teasing warning—watch out for black cats—still grated in his ears, so he strode confidently between the veed rails of a tall ladder set up for some roof-work, refusing to surrender to his compulsion to walk around the thing.
As he took a shortcut through the deck surrounding the main pool, however, his gut took over when he bumped into an empty bistro table by the bar and knocked over a salt shaker. Without a thought, he tossed a pinch of the spilled white crystals over his left shoulder. It only made sense to distract the devil who was always standing behind you so he wouldn’t cause trouble. Old Val Soros, the family handyman, had told Kane that long ago, and he’d always listened to Val, who had paid him a hell of a lot more attention than Kane’s own parents. And the old man was a thousand times wiser than anything that could be learned from the “Advice for Achieving Your Best Life” calendar sitting on his desk.
He passed a housekeeper trundling a cart between buildings and smiled when she did a double-take. “Mr. Hathaway? Is that you?”
“Dolores.” He nodded at her. “Having a good day?”
She stared at his get-up. He’d found a pair of abandoned coveralls in the locker room at maintenance HQ and slipped the lightweight khaki cotton over his dress shirt and slacks. The Hathaway logo was stitched on the right side of the one-piece garment and a patch with the name “Jones” was sewn below it. Holding out his arms, he grinned at the older woman. “Will I do?”
She bobbed her head. “Of course, sir. Of course.” Her glance took in the metal box dangling from his fist. “You’re going to fix something?” she asked, doubtfully. “Can I call—”
“Dolores, I can handle it.” He wasn’t going to take offense, but it irked that she didn’t consider him capable of anything outside the office. Definitely time to get out from behind the desk. With his free hand, he ruffled his hair, mussing the usually crisp layers. “Better?”
“Certainly, sir,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t convinced.
With a smile, he let her go on her way, but decided that yeah, he’d been holed away in his office for too long. Getting out and getting his hands dirty would be good for him. Maybe different tasks and a different environment would provide clarity.
A sign to point him in the right direction.
First, though, he saw one pointing him toward his destination.
The bungalows on what they referred to as Hibiscus Hill were situated on a knoll far from the main buildings and each was tucked in a lush, jungle-like setting. Kane pulled his phone from the side pocket of the coveralls and paused to survey which dwellings he was scheduled to check. A leaky faucet didn’t spell disaster, but the number one Hathaway priority was the guests. Even a small annoyance shouldn’t impinge on the quality of a visitor’s stay.
Running his gaze down the list that Amber had texted him, he saw she’d included the name associated with each booking. One stood out immediately.
Audra Montgomery.
Mysterious Audra Montgomery, who had checked in almost two weeks before but who had not been seen on the grounds since. Fact was, hotel staff members were notorious gossips—among themselves anyway—and he’d heard she called room service for all her meals and hadn’t stepped out to take a single one of the many exercise classes or avail herself of any of the spa services offered by the resort.
Kane might have an inkling as to why. She’d arrived after being jilted just hours before her scheduled beach wedding and had come with the maid of honor for some R & R. The maid of honor had gone on to hook up with best man, also staying at the resort for his parents’ anniversary celebration. The best man was none other than Kane’s second cousin, Alec Thatcher.
Alec and his Lilly were now back in LA, presumably turtle dove-ing their way into a happy future. Before Alec had left, he’d mentioned the reclusive would-be bride might need an intervention.
All right, then. Kane strode briskly down the path to her door. He’d suss out the situation for himself, in his guise as resort maintenance man.
And maybe meeting a woman at her own life’s crossroads would shake something lose in his psyche, allowing it to finally aim him in the right direction just in time for his thirty-first birthday.
His knuckles rapped on the wooden door and he couldn’t squash a sudden surge of curiosity. One of the reception staff had mentioned she was extraordinarily beautiful. He might not be capable of a long-term commitment to a woman, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a connoisseur of the female form and face. Shoot him, he was a guy.
When the door swung open, he just stared.
Audra Montgomery—if this creature was indeed she—looked half-awake, or maybe half-dead. Gray sweats, size XL he guessed, hid most of her body, though the neck hole had stretched toward her shoulder to reveal a slice of a lacy undergarment, or…
Oh, hell. Was that her wedding dress under there?
Her pale hair straggled around her face, which was mostly camouflaged by those messy strands and a black satin sleep mask that she’d flipped down over her nose instead of up over her forehead. Her eyes were heavy and the bags beneath them were larger than the set of luggage brought by the couple who’d checked in for a month this morning. Her lips were chapped and when she licked them it didn’t help.
Good God. If this woman represented some kind of personal sign for Kane, he was heading toward shit.
Audra blinked, groggy from her mid-morning nap. A man stood on the other side of her door, but the bright sunshine hurt her eyes so she squinted against the pain, taking in just a sliver of him. “Yes?” She noted she sounded groggy too.
“Ma’am.” The man nodded. He carried a small toolbox and was dressed in manual worker’s wear. “I’m here to check on your faucets. Housekeeping has reported a problem.”
“Oh.” As she watched, he shifted nearer, his extra-wide shoulders blocking out some of that infernal bright light. “Um…”
“May I come in and check?”
“Um…” Her brain continued to operate at a sluggish gear, a state she’d been welcoming, because it put a fog between her and the reality of her messed-up life.
“Ma’am?” the man prompted. “May I come in?”
She could ask him to come back in a couple of hours. Once she went for a walk or out to lunch or…something. But she hadn’t left the bungalow since her arrival almost two weeks before and today didn’t seem the day that she felt inclined to change that. She took an assessment of herself. No, there was no will to put something on her feet besides the thick socks she was wearing. So, there was no way she’d be venturing beyond the threshold.
But because she’d been raised to gracefully cooperate and always fulfill expectations—and found she had an innate capacity for it—Audra pulled the door open to let the maintenance guy in. Aware he was at her heels, she drifted back to the living area, slipping off the sleep mask and dropping it on a nearby table. Drapes covered the windows so it was nearly dark, the only light coming from the British crime drama she’d been half-watching on the television before dozing off.
Zombie-style, she headed for her spot on the sofa and curled up there again, knees drawn up and hands beneath her cheek. From the TV, the chilling notes of a blood-curdling scream signified another hapless villager had been horribly murdered, their body to be found later in a hazardous bog or under the charming footbridge over a babbling brook. The pair of detectives, he of the rumpled suit and she of the bad perm, would stand over the body soon, looking perplexed. Tortured not only by the crimes that remained unsolved but also by their own complicated lives.
She snuggled deeper into the cushions and watched rain sluice over the killing site. Washing away evidence, of course.
An inarticulate sound, something masculine that either expressed amusement, disfavor, or some combination of the two, sounded from behind the couch. Hmm. Maintenance Man had yet to move into one of the bathrooms attached to the bungalow’s two spacious bedrooms. She ignored him, as she really didn’t feel like human contact. Her best friend, Lilly, had left the bungalow to go back home a few days ago and the solitude since had been just fine by Audra.
“Do you really like this kind of entertainment?” the man asked.
“Hmm,” she said, electing not to tell him the cheerless drama matched her mood. No reason this stranger needed to know she’d been rejected mere hours before becoming a wife, but she thought that happenstance would put anybody off their A game. Though it had been Lilly’s idea they check in at The Hathaway, Audra had been glad for a place to retreat and lick her wounds. Since her arrival, she’d vacillated between numbing her brain with violent entertainment programming and wracking her brain to figure out how her relationship had gone wrong.
Her ex-fiancé, Jacob, had never expressed a single misgiving during their engagement. She’d thought he’d been as committed to their shared future as she. Since he’d jilted her with that crappy text the morning of the wedding, she’d gone over and over the last year, even as she’d been shaken by her own deep, deep—and unspoken to anyone—undercurrent of relief.
When she at last heard Maintenance Man move off toward the extra bedroom where Lilly had slept, she snuggled even deeper and sighed. The sooner he got to work, the sooner she’d have her unsullied solitude again. Wallowing was a sin quite similar to sloth, she supposed, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Sometime into the next gruesome death, she heard the heavy footsteps of the stranger. She instinctively glanced over her shoulder—hey, just confirming the creepy headmaster who for sure must be the perp hadn’t somehow migrated from British television to Santa Barbara real life, just like anyone would do—and got an eyeful of the back view of Maintenance Man crossing into her bedroom.
He switched on the lights as he entered and something about his illuminated figure snagged her attention. She stared at those wide shoulders and the set of his head on them, his long legs and large hands, and felt a new alertness come over her.
Puzzled by her response, she directed her attention back to the screen, but it wouldn’t hold. The body count hadn’t increased before she found herself on her sock-shod feet and was making her way toward the sounds of Maintenance Man’s activity.
The bedroom was generously-sized and the drapes were closed here, too. By the light from one bedside lamp, she took a quick look around to ensure she hadn’t left anything personal and embarrassing about. But her luggage—packed for a Tahitian honeymoon—remained stowed in the closet. She’d made the bed herself after crawling from it to decamp to the living area sofa.
As for the bathroom, her toiletries remained tucked in her suitcases. She’d used the toothbrush, paste, and floss provided by the hotel and meticulously avoided her reflection in the mirror.
Approaching the lovely en suite with its rose-colored marble, huge walk-in shower, and separate soaker tub, Audra only had eyes for the stranger.
He knelt on the floor, his head poking into the vanity cabinet beneath the sink. The pose pulled the material of his jumpsuit-thing tight to his muscled butt and she felt another little jolt. Huh.
Probably sensing her presence, he backed up a bit and turned his head to look over his shoulder.
Huh.
The man was astonishingly handsome, now that she wasn’t blinded by the harsh light of day. Short dark hair, angled cheekbones and strong jaw, a mouth not too full or too thin, but just right. His thick eyelashes sat like a straight dark shelf over cat-green eyes.
A shiver of nerves tracked down her spine.
Good-looking men intimidated her, they always had. They struck her as another rule to follow, another expectation to live up to, and she’d avoided every Adonis that turned the eye of other girls. Her fiancé—ex-fiancé—had been lean and fit, though without the kind of heavy muscle that was hinted at beneath Maintenance Man’s clothing. Jacob’s hair had flopped over his forehead in a boyish way that she’d found…cute.
There was nothing boyish about the guy kneeling just a few feet away. Nothing as banal as cute.
As she watched, one of his dark eyebrows crooked up.
What? Oh. She’d approached him and he likely wondered why. She couldn’t exactly touch her chest and say “filings” then point to him and explain “magnet,” though she supposed it wouldn’t surprise him. A gorgeous man like this would have women following him all the time.
He’d have a reason to be arrogant.
Her stomach clenched as the words “gorgeous” and “arrogant” reminded her of something she’d said to Lilly last week. Something she’d said she wanted. She’d even considered writing it down on one of her “It’s Time to Do” lists.
But no, she could never get Maintenance Man to fall in love with her.
Even if breaking his heart might, as she’d posited to Lilly, get her mojo back.
His second eyebrow winged up and he shifted to face her completely. It was then she realized she’d been staring like a fruitcake.
Yeah, definitely this guy would never be attracted to her.
“I, um, was just, um…” She tried coming up with an excuse for why she’d followed him in here. “I wanted to know if you needed any help, Mr. Jones.”
“Jones?”
She nodded toward his wide chest. Wow. Very wide. Very hard, she guessed, as well. “Your name. It’s there on your jumpsuit.”
“Jumpsuit?” His expression turned perplexed—or perhaps insulted—and he glanced down. “Coveralls.”
Coveralls, jumpsuit. Potato, potahto. “Right.”
“You know something about plumbing?” he asked.
“Well, no.” Now she was beginning to feel more flustered, which was another reason why handsome men intimidated her. Or this one, at least. He exuded confidence. No doubt he felt as comfortable with a wrench as he would with a woman’s body.
Wait…where had that thought come from?
To distract herself from the hot tingles rushing over her skin, she continued on. “But I could look it up on YouTube. There’s DIY tutorials for anything. Last month I made tiered dessert platters by gluing together plates and upside-down glass candlesticks. A favor for a friend who was hosting her sister’s birthday party.”
At the mention of a birthday, Maintenance Man’s brows lowered and he turned back to his work. “Thanks anyway, but I’ve got this.”
Which left her with nothing to do but return to the living area unless she wanted to hang around and ogle his backside. As tempting as it was, Audra Montgomery didn’t gawk at strange men, no matter how tingly she felt.
How alert.
Alive.
Her blood was actually humming beneath the surface of her skin, she realized, as she settled back on the couch. Her palms confirmed that her face was hot and she had a hard time concentrating on her show’s body count when her pulse felt like tiny elves were pounding tiny mallets at her wrists and at her throat.
But she supposed a few more people died as Mr. Jones continued his work. How could these rustic hamlets maintain a feasible population, Audra wondered, when the citizens kept kicking the bucket via violent means?
She said as much to Maintenance Man as he returned to the living room, his attention once more captured by the TV’s screen and the depiction of the latest grisly murder.
He paused. “You know this isn’t a documentary, right?”
“But still, do they think viewers don’t notice?” She turned her head to look at him, allowing herself another chance to gaze on his firm jaw and long-fingered hands. “All these deaths over all these several crime dramas defy logic. The UK would be down to, say, a population of fourteen, maybe twelve. Not counting the Royal Family, of course.”
Okay, now she knew she was babbling, her brain-to-tongue connection as affected as the rest of her by his extremely handsome face and big, muscled body. Suddenly horribly self-conscious, she jumped up and busied herself at the flowers in a vase on the nearby desk. Three elaborate bouquets were delivered each day and she often occupied herself by changing their arrangement. It was a hobby of hers, and she found playing with flowers relaxing.
“You could use some company,” Mr. Jones pronounced, and she could tell he thought her a bubble off because of her last comment. “You’re here all alone?”
“My brother’s staying at the resort too,” she said. “But he disappears more often than not.”
“Right,” Maintenance Man muttered.
Audra bit her lip. The stranger likely was wondering who would sign the commitment papers when she started into another odd babble. Clearing her throat, she attempted to sound matter-of-fact instead of mad as a hatter. “You’re done then?”
Without answering, he strode toward the thick drapes. “Nobody does well in darkness like this.” He didn’t hesitate to fling back the heavy material.
Light flooded the room. Gasping, Audra’s hands went to her eyes. “Ow. Ow ow ow.” It took a moment for her to become acclimated enough to look at him again, her palms acting as a shade at her forehead. “What did you do that for?” she asked.
“You could use some company,” he said again.
Her stomach clenched again and more nerves skittered down her back. Was…was he hinting that he wanted to be that company? Could it possibly be so?
She dropped her hands to press them to the absorbent cotton of her thick sweatpants. His green gaze hadn’t left her face, but she could feel the skin of her body reacting as if he touched her elsewhere—long fingers toying with her nipples, those just-right lips at her belly, his hot breath between her legs.
Heat and wet trickled there.
Audra’s breath backed up in her lungs. What would she say if he asked to see her? Her mind could hardly wrap around the thought, but a feminine, primal part of her was ready to wrap her trembling legs around his waist, no matter how out-of-character or ill-advised. A man had never stirred such a visceral, physical reaction in her. More nerves quivered under her skin and she licked her lips. “I—”
“Any other problems with your accommodations?” he asked.
Confused by the sudden switch of topics, she shook her head. “No.”
“Shower’s working fine?”
“Yes.” She supposed.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then enjoy the rest of your stay,” Mr. Jones, the maintenance man said, and strode from the bungalow, shutting the door behind him.
Audra ran the perplexing exchange through her head as she stared at where the man had just been standing. Beating back disappointment that came with a healthy dose of relief—would she really have agreed to date a stranger, no matter how sexy?—she decided it had clearly been projection, that part where she’d thought he was working up to asking her out. But that thing about the shower…what the hey?
Then dread curdled the contents of her stomach. She glanced down at her stretched out sweat suit, put her hands to her tangled mess of hair. Then, on slow feet, Audra headed for her bathroom, and for the first time in several days took a good look at her reflection.
And swallowed a shriek.
Oh, God. Oh, no.
It was bad. Very bad.
All right. Okay. For sure, she’d never see Mr. Jones the maintenance man ever again.
If the fates were kind. If they were not, and Audra encountered that specimen of gorgeous masculinity once more, she’d find the nearest hole in the ground and promptly drop inside it.