Chapter 11

After Lilly left his room that morning, Alec had stifled his first impulse to follow her. With her emotions running high and his mind struggling to catch up with all that was streaming through hers, he’d decided to slow down. Think things through. Not go off half-cocked.

Which didn’t explain why he’d hunted up his sister that afternoon, the most impetuous of the Thatcher clan.

This thought he expressed to her now, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, a scowl on his face. He could feel it.

She laughed at him, her eyes bright, her face glowing with good health.

“Don’t you have a hangover?” he asked, remembering her drunken state the night before.

“Timothée taught me how to avoid those,” she said. “The only valuable thing I got out of four-plus years of marriage.”

“What’s your secret?” he asked, curious.

“I charge for that,” she said. “Advice about your romantic life I’ll dish out for free.”

He’d mentioned Lilly’s name when Jojo had met him at her hotel room door. Now they’d settled on the attached balcony overlooking the lush green of the grounds. He leaned against the sturdy metal while Jojo lounged in a comfortable chaise, her legs stretched in front of her, ankles crossed.

Folding her hands one over the other, she rested them in her lap, her face lifted to his. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Alec opened his mouth, closed it. Where the hell should he begin? “I only said I wanted to see her again, once we get back to LA.”

“And?”

“She took off. It’s as if I demanded she give up a kidney.” It was nothing like that. And he’d implied a hell of a lot more than wanting to just “see” her again.

I think you should let me be something to you. I want you to be something to me.

“She brought up love,” he said, sounding both insulted and belligerent at the same time. “I didn’t say anything about love.”

But he’d danced around it, in his own mind, anyway.

“And…and even if that were a possibility,” he continued, “why the hell would that make her run? Am I such a shitty catch?”

Jojo shook her head. “Not so bad, though you’d be a better one if you weren’t acting all sullen little boy who lost the string to his bright new balloon.”

“Oh, come on—” But Alec’s automatically defensive protest subsided as he accepted the truth of that. Despite being fully aware that Lilly objected to relationships and anything beyond this short interlude in Santa Barbara, he’d thrown out his, I think you should let me be something to you. I want you to be something to me—and expected her to fall right in with his amended plan.

“We can keep it simple, stupid, and bring up the obvious,” Jojo continued. “Maybe you, Alec Thomas Thatcher, as unbelievably hot and eminently eligible as most women no doubt find you to be, do not actually do it for Lilly.”

He stared at his sister.

“Float her boat,” she added helpfully. “Flutter her gills, make her octopus arms dance.”

“You are seriously freaking me the fuck out.”

“I’m finding the ocean inspiring today,” she said with a guileless grin.

“Not about your ridiculous analogies. But because you think I wouldn’t know when a woman is genuinely into me. Into us.” Despite whatever words she said.

“There was that little inappropriate crush you had on the piano teacher,” Jojo said in a sing-song voice, her gaze sliding skyward.

“I was eight years old!”

“She did enjoy that Valentine’s card you made her that vowed endless love, spelled l-o-v-v-e.”

“Damn it, family lore needs an edit function, like Wikipedia. Nobody should remember that.”

“Forgetting is not an option,” Jojo said, serious now. “It’s what we have left, it’s what’s holding us back, it’s what’s keeping us together.”

He thought of his brother, he thought of last night’s movie, he thought of the last five years. “I hate it when you’re smart.”

“I’ll go back to being a smart-ass then.”

“No, Jojo. I need your thoughts, I do.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lilly had a rough childhood. I don’t want to tell things that are not mine to share, but it’s left her…cautious. No, beyond cautious, it’s made her certain she can’t have a man, children, a family life like…”

“Like we had. A marriage like Mom and Dad. I could tell from talking to her she admires it.”

“That marriage wasn’t perfect. Isn’t perfect.”

“No, but from the beginning they shared the same vision. That’s the foundation.”

He read between the lines. “You and Timothée?”

“Timothée was a rock-hard realist and I was wandering around in the clouds. We didn’t share the same plane of existence, let alone a vision.”

“I’m sorry, Jo.” Timothée had rubbed Alec wrong from the start and he should have been more mindful of his sister and the choices she was making. “I should have talked to you and—”

“We were all reeling, Alec,” she said. “Everybody coped in their own way.” A beat of silence passed. “Now…what are you going to do about Lilly?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “I’m sure given time I can convince her to see me in LA, just getting together once a week or so to start. But at the moment she’s in full retreat, and I need a chance to change that momentum.”

His head dropped back and he closed his eyes. “But fuck, I don’t think she’ll even talk to me now.”

Drawing in a breath, he straightened up and looked over at his sister. “Maybe I should leave it alone. Leave her alone. For God’s sake, when I checked into the resort I was no more interested in coupling up than she was.”

“Okay.”

“I could go back home and go back to the very comfortable status quo.”

“Okay. But do you really want that?”

He hesitated.

Jojo skewered him with a narrow-eyed look. “Do you really want that because you have a true aversion to marriage and would be content that your future connections to others would solely exist of your online fantasy football leagues and those people you come across during your early morning runs at the zoo whom you know merely by sight but never by name?”

He grimaced. “What do you think I really want, Dr. Freud?”

She ignored the poke. “After Simon died, I was desperate to feel something,” Jojo said. “While it seems to me that you’ve spent the last five years not wanting to feel anything.”

Alec let that sink in and the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t deny it. “Something’s changed, though.”

“Lilly’s the change,” Jojo said, jumping to her feet. “A change you want to explore, at the very least. So let’s not waste time. Let’s track her down and get you a chance to employ the full powers of your manly persuasion.”

“She’s going to resist.”

“Leave that to me.” Jojo whirled to step through the sliding glass doors. “I’ll suggest some sort of innocuous group activity—”

“Wait.” Alec caught her arm. “Is it wrong to be scheming about my woman with my sister?”

“No, because I have a much more conniving personality than you. But if you object, there’s always Mom—”

He groaned. “Let’s go to Lilly’s bungalow.”

On the way there, Alec tried to tamp down his growing tension. At his side, Jojo strode with confidence, arms swinging. She loved a project, and it was great to see her pull out of the divorce doldrums with fixing his dilemma as her goal, but he was unaccustomed to giving up control to anyone.

“Jo,” he said, as they neared the door. “We need to approach this cautiously.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, with a flick of her hand. “I’ve got it. You just follow my lead.”

She knocked on the wooden surface with authority. Alec slid his hands in his pockets, wiping his face free of expression. It wasn’t as if the next few moments were going to decide his future or anything.

And they weren’t, he told himself, listening for footsteps. Exploring. Jojo had been right about that. He wanted to merely explore the possibilities with Lilly.

More at ease at that thought, he watched the door swing open.

Audra. Her cool blonde beauty looked as if it had been etched like lines onto glass—something easily shattered.

Now understanding Lilly’s concern and sending out a vicious curse in Jacob’s direction, Alec stepped forward. “Hey. How are you?”

She gave him a game smile and let him kiss her cheek. Then her gaze turned to his sister. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Audra—”

“Jojo.” She reached out to shake hands. “Alec’s sister. We thought we’d stop by for a quick visit.”

Good manners ensured them an invitation, he guessed, admiring his sister’s quick-thinking.

“How nice,” Audra said, as polite as predicted. “I ordered a carafe of fresh coffee just ten minutes ago. Would you like some?”

Throwing him a brief, triumphant look, Jojo scurried over the threshold, chattering brightly about nothing as she followed the other woman into the living space. Alec trailed behind them, noting the bedroom doors on either side were closed. His gaze focused on one—he could swear Lilly’s perfume drifted from that direction.

He had to see her, he thought suddenly, the need elemental, as imperative as his next breath. She was his.

If he called out, would she emerge, or would she stubbornly stay locked away from him? Frustrated by the thought, he remained rooted to the floor, muscles locked as he tried becoming accustomed to this new, searing possessiveness.

Damn it, they belonged together!

But a mere few feet might as well be an ocean if she refused to acknowledge that simple truth. Frustration filling his chest, he stared at the barrier between them as if his Superman glare might burn it away.

Better, wouldn’t one good boot bring the whole fucking door down?

“Alec!”

His sister’s voice yanked him from the Neanderthal era and back to the present. Glancing over, he could see her giving him big eyes in which he read as a clear warning. Be cool, bro. Be cool.

He forced himself to relax. “Yeah?” he said, hoping he sounded normal.

Jojo pointed to the nearby flat screen, the picture paused mid-action, with what looked like an arm holding a lethal cudgel about to strike. “Audra likes the same kind of TV series as me. British mysteries in which vicious domestic murders are solved by police officers in rumpled clothes who have their own tortured personal lives.”

“Uh…” Alec glanced at the screen again, then back at the women. “Okay.”

Smiling, Jojo leaned toward Audra, her manner conspiratorial. “He’s got that bitches-be-crazy look on his face.”

Alec frowned. “I’ve never—”

“But what does he know? Maybe it’s part of the Heartbreak Hotel recipe for happiness,” his sister went on. “Bleak TV leading to—”

“Heartbreak Hotel?” Audra asked, her expression bewildered.

“You didn’t know?” Jojo helped herself to a seat on the nearby sofa. “The resort doesn’t publically acknowledge it in their own marketing materials, but it’s known as the place to go to get over romance gone wrong. Maybe it’s the ocean, the meditation classes—”

Audra blinked. “I haven’t left our rooms.”

Jojo threw up her hands. “Well, there you go. Perhaps you have to get out to get the cure. And speaking of getting out…”

His sister was a pro, Alec decided. She could talk her way into anything. Audra was struggling to keep up with the fast chatter and even faster changes of topic and even if she’d been ordered by Lilly to keep Alec at bay, lively and garrulous Jojo would make her forget any such directive.

“Getting out…” Audra repeated.

“Yes.” Jojo beamed. “We were hoping we could persuade Lilly to join us today to—”

“Lilly?”

Shit, something in Audra’s expression made Alec go on alert. “Yes,” he said, not able to help himself. “Lilly—”

“The two of us had so much fun together yesterday,” Jojo said, stepping over him with another warning in her eyes. “I thought she might like to…uh, go on a pub crawl with some of us tonight.”

Audra’s brows drew together. “Oh, I’m sorry, but Lilly can’t—”

A preemptory knock on the door had them all turning in that direction. Audra crossed the floor then turned the knob to reveal a tall man, tight-end sized, whose shoulders nearly filled the space. Fog must have been settling in, because wisps of it curled around him. Alec thought he looked vaguely familiar.

“Con!” Audra called out, moving in to hug the man. “I didn’t expect you until tonight.”

That’s who it was, Alec thought. Con Montgomery, Audra’s brother. They’d met briefly at the rehearsal dinner. Now the other man stepped into the bungalow and dropped a leather duffel to the floor. As his gaze swept the area, his brows rose at the sight of Alec, then it settled on Jojo.

His sister appeared stunned, staring too, then her eyes dropped to her lap. Her shoulders hunched as if she was hoping to hide.

Concerned, Alec started for his sister, but he was interrupted by Audra who introduced her brother to him again. The two men shook hands. Connor shot a second glance at Jojo, who seemed to have wandered to some inner distant land, and when Audra made that introduction as well, Jojo barely acknowledged it with distracted murmur.

Con Montgomery didn’t seem affected by the near-slight, but he didn’t approach Jojo either, standing very still on his side of the room.

Alec didn’t have time to figure out the electric undercurrents, not when Lilly remained out of sight and out of reach. From the ensuing small talk between the newcomer and Audra, he figured the other man had come to stay for the weekend. Good. Lilly could use the help uplifting her best friend. But why wasn’t she emerging from her room to greet the man?

Looking toward Jojo, he tried urging her to retrieve the conversational ball. She’d been talking about a pub crawl, hadn’t she? When she remained lost in her own head, Alec cleared his throat.

Only Audra looked his way.

To hell with it. “I’m here for Lilly,” he said. “I want—”

“That’s right.” Audra nodded. “A pub crawl tonight. But I’m afraid Lilly won’t be able to join you.”

Damn. Audra had indeed been ordered to play defense. “Look—”

“She’s going back to LA,” the blonde said, and there might be sympathy in her expression. “This afternoon.”

 

Lilly sat in a chair on the other side of the car reservations desk in the resort lobby, her jean-clad right knee jumping. Placing her palm there, she forced it to still and glanced toward the portico, willing her rental to appear.

Her packed bags sat beside her, ready to be stowed, but a thick afternoon fog was moving in fast. The drive back to LA would be both treacherous and torturous if she was forced to maneuver through thick pea soup.

May Gray, they called it. More like May Gravy.

SoCal spring was ever changeable, she thought. Just yesterday at this time, she and Jojo were skipping in the sunshine, flitting from boutiques to bars.

At the thought of Jojo Thatcher, guilt gave her a hefty pinch. She hadn’t said goodbye to the other woman.

Or to Miranda and Vic Thatcher, who had been so kind and inclusive.

Then there was Alec. No way had she wanted to see him again, though. She’d said her piece, explained the world according to Lilly Durand, and he’d let her go.

It was a relief. Now she could drive home, hit an ATM, then head over to her aunt and uncle’s apartment. She hadn’t called back to make any promises to Frank, but she was convinced this was the best strategy.

Give them the money they wanted, get them off her back.

A little voice nagged that until she said no there’d be ever more demands, and she occupied herself by arguing with it. A single woman had only so much energy with which to tackle life. If she took the easiest path—the one of least resistance—when it came to this hindrance, she wasn’t going to beat herself up about it.

That she occasionally took to punching her pillows…

“Lilly.”

For a moment she ascribed it to her continuing inner conversation. But when her name was said again, she glanced around.

Alec. Her heart climbed into her throat and she felt her cheeks go hot. He looked relaxed in a pair of jeans and long-sleeved white T-shirt, advertising a surf competition. His handsomeness appeared more austere than usual, his jaw smoothly shaved and his cheekbones casting shadows. His dark eyes watched her, alert and hyperaware, as if he was attempting to count her pulse beats.

It was his sister Jojo, however, who had said her name.

“Lilly, what are you doing?” the other woman asked now.

“I was going to text,” she said, focusing on Jojo’s face, trying to calm herself despite Alec’s serious regard. “When I got back to LA.”

“You’re leaving? But we have the big party tomorrow night,” Jojo protested. “You have the smokin’ dress.”

It sat in its garment bag, draped over one of her suitcases. She gestured to it. “I’ll find occasion to wear it some other time.” Lie. “I have to get home tonight, though. They’re bringing a car around for me any minute.”

Jojo shot a quick glance at her brother, then bit her lip. “I…um…” Another look at Alec, then she turned her gaze on Lilly. “The puppy’s missing.”

He turned to his sister, his brows drawing together. “Jo—”

“Buster?” Lilly asked, alarmed. She shot to her feet, her hand going to her chest. “What happened?”

Jojo flung out an arm. “We don’t really know,” she said, talking fast. “He was there, and then he wasn’t.”

“The staff has experience with situations like this,” Lilly said, searching for the nearest employee. “Earlier this week it was a boa constrictor.” At Jojo’s startled expression, she added, “Stuffed.”

“Well. I’m going to get them on the job right away,” Jojo said. “But you…”

“Jojo,” Alec growled.

“Me, what?” Lilly asked, thinking of the adorable dog, so trusting and warm. Proof that Miranda Thatcher’s grief had abated and she had taken a chance on love again. “What can I do? Just ask.”

“No, Jo,” Alec said, his gaze on his sister.

“She wants to help,” Jojo protested.

“I want to help,” Lilly echoed, appealing to the man. Then she turned back to his sister. “Where have you searched?”

“We could use somebody checking out the beach,” Jojo said without a blink.

Lilly felt a clutch at her chest. “Would he have gotten that far?” Could a puppy that age swim?

“Don’t know.” Jojo shrugged. “But if you and Alec could head there…”

“Of course,” Lilly said, and shoved her suitcases closer to the rental desk. Then she turned and began fast-walking from the lobby.

Alec grabbed her elbow and steered her in a different direction. “Sugar, the ocean’s this way,” he said.

As they passed through the pool area, Lilly grabbed one of the double-wide, luxurious beach towels stacked on a cart. “If he’s wet,” she said, her voice tight with growing anxiety. “We’ll get him nice and dry.”

Without a word, Alec took the terrycloth from her and tucked it beneath his arm. Lilly hurried her pace, tripping on an unseen bump in the winding path.

With a smothered curse, Alec caught her hand, steadied her. “Stay close,” he said, keeping hold of her fingers.

She understood why. Fog had settled over the resort, sifting through the feathery fronds of the palms trees and leaving dew behind on every surface. As she hurried, a wet philodendron leaf slapped her calf and sprinkled droplets onto her shoe.

The resort’s rock-studded asphalt path led them to the beach, but she only knew they’d reached it because of the change of surface beneath her soles, the mist was that thick. Alec paused and she looked left, right, and then in front of her, trying to discern anything in the blanket of gray.

“How will we find him?” she asked Alec, the moisture-laden air smothering her voice’s volume down to a hush. “Buster!” she yelled, without waiting for an answer. “Buster!”

The man at her side muttered another curse, then squeezed her hand. “Go back, Lilly. Follow the path to the resort. I’ll…finish up here.”

“No.” She thought of the adorable baby canine, possibly wandering around lost in the sand. Or maybe he would react to fear like she had as a child, and find some place to go to ground. Slipping free of Alec’s grasp, she ran a few steps forward and turned in a circle, trying to figure out where to start.

“Buster!” She began jogging while calling out the pup’s name, distress stealing her breath. “Buster!”

She thought she heard Alec shouting for her, but there was a buzzing whine in her head. The lack of any sort of landmark—her hand nearly disappeared when she stretched her arm to its full length—befuddled her senses, but she pressed on, ignoring everything but the absolute need to find the dog.

No creature should feel abandoned. No creature should be so alone.

Miranda Thatcher couldn’t lose the chance she’d taken on love again.

Warm tears slipped down Lilly’s cold face and she dashed at the useless things. “Buster! Buster!”

The fog muffled the roar of the surf too, but she tried to pay attention to it, remembering Alec telling her to keep the ocean on her right…or was it her left? The soft sand gave way to the flatter, harder stuff, but that made it easier to run and she increased her speed, the wet surface sucking at her shoes.

In the near distance, she made out something dark, the size of a sleeping puppy. She sprinted for it, only to discover a moldering hunk of kelp. Disappointed, she refocused her gaze, and saw another possibility. This dark thing was moving, and she leaped in its direction, only to realize too late that she’d jumped into the low spread of the surf, and it was only more seaweed, moving with the tide.

Up to her ankles in ocean, she began wading out again. But in doing so, she executed the cardinal sin of any beach-going Californian, she turned her back on the Pacific. Out of nowhere, a wave caught her from behind. Lilly stumbled, tried righting herself, but then fell into the water on her hands and knees. The following wave rushed in before she could stand, and she was slapped in the face by a stinging dollop of seawater.

Sputtering, she managed to get to her feet, but then Alec was there, and he was lifting her, carrying her back to drier land. “Enough,” he said roughly. “Enough.”

He wrapped her in the towel he carried, even as she struggled to get free of it. “I’m all right.” Urgency clawed at her. One small creature must be saved. “We have to find the dog, understand? We have to find the dog.”

Alec held her more tightly in his arms. “Buster’s fine, Lilly. He was never missing.”

Her spine shot straight and she stared up at him. “What?”

“Jojo made up that story. She made up the story to delay your departure.”

Inside their terry cocoon, her arms flailed. “What?” she screeched, hitting out at Alec, though she had little leverage to do any harm. She’d been genuinely worried about the dog. Terrified, actually. “I thought Buster was in danger.”

“I know. And I let you think so.”

Fighting to get free, she continued striking Alec’s chest from beneath the towel. He took it, standing still against her ineffectual assault, his own arms still stubbornly encircling her. Eventually she ran out of energy and rested her forehead on his shoulder, breathing hard, her outrage draining away.

“Buster’s actually okay?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “You’re sure?”

“As sure as I am that Jojo and I are seriously screwed up,” he said, then inhaled a long breath. “I don’t know how I’m going to make this up to you, sugar.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to make this up to me either,” she said, indignant now. “And so you know, you are seriously screwed up.”

“Yeah.”

“Your mom’s going to kill you,” she said, glaring up at him. “I can’t wait to tell her.”

For a minute she thought he wasn’t breathing. “That would be okay with me,” he finally said in a mild voice.

“But I guess I can’t, because my rental is waiting. I’m going home tonight. Now.”

He stiffened. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Alec…”

“You’re starting to shiver,” he said, gathering her closer as if he could transfer his body heat to her. It was working, she could feel warmth where they were pressed against each other, breasts to chest, hips to hips. “I should take you back,” he murmured.

But he didn’t move, instead continuing to hold her, his hands stroking over her in slow caresses. Lilly ordered herself to do something besides stand like a doll in his embrace, but now that the panic was over, she found herself enervated. And the petting…that was hard to put a stop to, not when it made her feel cherished. Treasured.

It was all wrong, all of it, but right now she could only absorb every sensation.

“Don’t be mad at Jojo,” he eventually said against her ear, his hot breath causing a shiver to roll down her neck.

“Why did she make up such a thing?”

“Because of me. She wanted to give me a chance to persuade you—”

“No,” Lilly said, forcing herself to sound firm. “I explained.”

“And I heard you. So I’m only asking for a baby step. Just stay at the resort until after the party tomorrow night,” he said.

The party for which she’d bought the smokin’ dress. How she’d wanted Alec to see her in it, when she’d stood in front of the mirror at the boutique and pretended that she might have a different kind of life.

He kissed the top of her head. “That’s all. Stay for the party. I’m not asking for anything more.”

Of course, he didn’t say he wouldn’t ask for anything more later. That later he wouldn’t press her for all the things she was unable of giving or knew nothing about how to give.

As if sensing her hesitation, he cradled her face in his hands and drew it back so he could stare into her eyes. “Just this single baby step.”

For now. That hovered in the air, but she didn’t think she had the willpower to refuse him, not when he was looking at her with such tenderness.

When she sighed in defeat, he smiled. It wasn’t triumphant, but warm. And maybe a tinge relieved. The last of her resistance melted into a puddle at their feet. “Single step,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “And just think, sugar, this way you get to tattle on me to my mom.”

She gave him a stern face. “It’s not tattling, young man, if it’s a true transgression.”