Chapter 2
The next day, Kane’s two sisters, Amber and Jessie, strolled into his office on their long legs, bearing three cups of coffee. “You’re a welcome sight,” he said, smiling at them and reaching for the mug Jessie extended, then read aloud the words printed on its side. “‘The future is always beginning right now.’”
He slanted a glance at his youngest sister. “Trite, but true.”
Jessie grinned at him. “I bought it for a buck at a yard sale this morning. I knew you’d appreciate it.”
Though it was Saturday, all three of them were scheduled to work. The hospitality business ramped up on the weekends, so top management took their days off during the week. He sipped at the coffee as the young women dropped gracefully into his visitors’ chairs. Both very pretty, with friendly, open faces, they were often mistaken as twins. But Amber, with her dark gold hair was older by a year-and-a-half. Jessie’s hair was lighter, a sandy shade, and they both had the physiques of beach volleyball players, a game they’d all pursued growing up and continued to enjoy.
When they didn’t state the purpose of their visit right away, he looked at them warily. “Is there something I should know?” He’d been glad of their distraction upon arrival, he had what he considered a Friday the thirteenth-hangover, and thought the pair would dispatch the unease he couldn’t seem to shake. But now they seemed a little…anxious.
Which made him the same.
“Are we still getting reservation requests from Daffy Duck?” he asked.
Amber shook her head. “Gary in IT had that issue solved by noon yesterday.”
The reservation system and their other technology needs were housed and maintained in a separate location north of downtown Santa Barbara, closer to the university. The facility served all of the Hathaway properties worldwide and while Kane had been concerned by the seeming breach, it was no surprise their team had managed to eliminate the problem swiftly.
“I knew we could count on Gary and his group.”
“It didn’t hurt that I put a little bug in the ear of Nolan Black Senior about Nolan Black Junior’s vacation hijinks when they checked out this morning.”
“Isn’t that the kid who was trying to hack into the system to bypass the parental controls on the TV in his room?”
“Yep. His parents didn’t want him playing video games—apparently he was supposed to be taking a break. When Gary caught on to that piece of mischief, Junior decided to amuse himself in other ways.”
“How old is he?”
“Twelve. If we had pay-per-view porn available on our entertainment system it could have been worse.”
“Tell Gary to keep tabs on the kid. Maybe we want to hire him in a few years.” Kane paused, looking from one sister’s face to the other. “That’s it? There’s no snakes in the swimming pool or twenty-four-hour poker games going on in one of the suites?”
Both incidents had occurred in the last month.
“Nope,” Amber said. “We’re here on personal business.”
Jessie nodded, then cleared her throat. “It’s time to plan your birthday celebration.”
Swallowing his groan, he took a deliberate glance at his watch. “I don’t know if I have time…” What he should have known was that this was coming. It probably had been lingering in the back of his mind, the source of that pervading sense of disquiet he couldn’t seem to shake.
“You have nothing pressing to do right now,” Amber said firmly.
Time to try another tack. Would honesty work? “Maybe we should go low-key this year, really low-key, as in skipping the celebration altogether.”
Jessie’s expression fell, looking as if he’d broken her favorite toy and stolen the last of her Halloween candy. “But we never skip,” she said. “We always do something special together for each of our birthdays.”
How could he tell her he wasn’t in the mood for it this time, when he’d never been in the mood for it? Their parents hadn’t made any kind of fuss over him from the beginning, nor for his little sisters either. Jim and Leigh Hathaway were too selfish to make anyone else’s day a focus of their lives, not even once a year.
It wasn’t until Aunt Madeline, their mother’s aunt, had visited their house on Portola Road that the little girls first received the kind of loving care they deserved. A confirmed spinster, she’d witnessed the benign neglect that was the hallmark of the Hathaways’ parenting style and moved herself into the big estate, declaring she was some kind of governess-cum-nanny for the children. Jim and Leigh had accepted her presence with the same unconcern that they showed toward their offspring.
After all, it only made it easier for them to stay out until all hours and take those long, childless vacations they so enjoyed.
By the time Aunt Madeline arrived, Kane had become quite self-sufficient, finding any guidance he needed from the live-in handyman. But the girls had taken to their great-aunt and she, who didn’t know quite what to make of a boy-child anyway, had mostly left him alone. He was grateful for that and for the hand she’d had in raising Amber and Jessie.
From her, they’d known what it was to be loved and learned to make friends and make connections with other people. Unlike Kane, who was maybe more like Jim and Leigh than he liked to think about.
“You’re not getting out of it,” Amber said now, her gaze steely.
His groan made its way from his throat this time, because he was toast when one sister gave him the puppy-dog eyes and the other tried for her stern headmistress impression. “Come on, girls—” Now both threw daggers at him. “Ladies, I mean, could we please not do this now?”
“Okay,” Jessie said promptly, then cast her sister a glance. “If you promise to let us handle all of it ourselves. Every detail.”
Amber took up the torch. “Yeah, it will be a complete surprise to you.”
“Uh…”
“Please?” Amber clasped her hands. “You’ve been such a dull boy. It’s time you shake things up.”
Oh, God. Last year he’d had to talk them off the ledge. For his thirtieth, they’d wanted to rent this company that arrived at your venue in their psychedelic school bus, then busted out a DJ and a special, double-decker plastic-sheeted dance space—so that party-goers could be sporadically blasted from a firehose dispensing rainbow-colored soap foam.
Kane liked to be clean as much as the next guy, but really, he hadn’t seen the appeal. After several conversations he’d convinced his sisters that he much preferred a private whale-watching cruise with a handful of close friends.
They’d rolled their eyes but had finally given in.
Did he dare give them carte blanche this year?
But next year, he might not be near his sisters when his birthday rolled around. There’d been that overture from the chain of adventure resorts in Central America…
“Please?” Jessie echoed. “For your only little sisters in the whole wide world?”
Kane hung his head. He was toast twice when the little sister card was played. “All right, all right,” he agreed with a modicum of grace. “If you’ll go now and leave me in peace.” The quiet might include that edginess he hadn’t been able to dismiss since the day before, but more birthday talk would do him in.
He had to make a decision by then and he still didn’t know what it would be.
The young women had risen to their feet and were moving toward the door. Then Jessie paused, and lifted a tell-tale hand to her ear.
A notification coming through her earbud.
“Problem?” he asked, when her arm dropped.
“Not really.” She made a little face. “I put it out that if there’s any special requests from Hibiscus Bungalow 4 I should be informed.”
“Hibiscus Bungalow 4—”
“The jilted bride,” Jessie said. “She’s that friend of Alec’s Lilly.”
Kane nodded. “Audra Montgomery.”
His youngest sister shrugged. “I heard her story and just…worry about her.”
“Me, too,” Amber admitted.
See? Aunt Madeline had done good. The little girls had grown into empathetic young women who easily cared about others. Unlike Kane.
“Did you meet her yesterday?” Amber asked. “When you went out to fix the faucets? Her name was on the list I sent you.”
“Yeah, I did.” And with that disclosure, the discomfort he’d partially held at bay landed heavily on his shoulders. There was something about the woman that unsettled him. It wasn’t just her sad story—it was the dark rooms, the lost expression on her pale face, the creepy TV show she was watching.
And even with all that, she’d managed to amuse him with her talk of DIY tutorials and the dwindling population of England.
It had bothered the hell out of him to leave her there, alone once again, but it wasn’t as if he was the kind of company she needed. Men as a general species must be on her shit list at the moment—her best friend Lilly had her defenses built high and thick after the jilting and Alec had worked hard to overcome her distrust.
And Kane, as a specific man, wouldn’t be the right guy to prove to Audra that every dude wasn’t some careless, thoughtless dickhead, only concerned with himself and his own interests.
Because, as Alec had kind of pointed out recently, as the woman who’d actually cursed him might as well have said—Kane was a careless, thoughtless dickhead only concerned with himself and his own interests.
Not that he’d ever jilted someone at the virtual altar. The female who’d hexed him had been pissed at his completely upfront stand on long-term commitment. He’d expressed right away it wasn’t an aim of his and she’d been angry upon realizing that he wasn’t bullshitting and that none of her pouts, wails, or whines could budge him.
Come to think of it, maybe he should be ticked at her for not taking him at his word.
“So?” Amber prompted now, bringing him back to the present. “What did you think?”
“I…” He thought he should send one of his sisters to Audra, on a mission to befriend the woman or at the very least coax her out of those lonely rooms. He fully expected she’d redrawn the drapes and was sitting in the mostly dark, scaring herself silly with fictional murders happening an ocean away. He glanced at Jessie. “You said she had a special request?”
His sister shrugged again. “Not special, not really. She asked for lightbulbs.”
Lightbulbs? “I’ll deliver them,” he heard himself say, his gaze going to the coveralls that he’d hooked onto the coatrack in one corner of the office. His lips twitched. Jumpsuit, she’d called it, like something Elvis or Elton John wore at a Vegas show. “Did she say how many she needed?”
Kane glanced at his sisters, noting the puzzled expressions on their faces. “I know how to take care of our guests,” he said, frowning at them.
Jessie cleared her throat. “Housekeeping will—”
“I said I’ll do it.” If someone was going to bring illumination to Audra Montgomery’s darkness, well, he wanted it to be him.
Just because.
Not long later he arrived at her doorstep, arms filled with cardboard boxes encasing every size and wattage of lightbulb she might require. Before he could get his coveralled elbow raised to tap on her door, another staff member pulled up in a golf cart, the cargo area filled with the flower arrangements that were delivered on a daily basis. Young Julio, skinny as a rail, looked at him with wide eyes. “Sir?”
“I’m just helping out,” he explained, as the kid bustled up carrying a shallow cardboard box holding three floral displays. “Do you have a free hand to knock on the door?”
Julio stepped forward to rap with his knuckles and as he stepped back, flower petals brushed Kane’s arm. It was why their delicate perfume rose into the air as the door swung open.
It was why he’d always recall this moment when breathing the cool scent of fresh-cut flowers.
His first glimpse of Audra Montgomery not as a sad, lonely almost-bride, but Audra Montgomery as a beautiful woman, hair hanging down in a shining cascade of platinum, face flushing a tender pink as her crystalline-blue eyes met his. She licked moist lips and he couldn’t help but notice the plump temptation of them.
“Oh, hi,” she said, her gaze unmoving.
Oh, hell. Already his cock was registering its keen interest and Kane’s gut was telling him that compared to the trouble he now sensed ahead, Friday the thirteenth was nothing.
Audra watched the maintenance man move about the bungalow, his presence bringing with it a masculine energy that blew across her skin like a hot breath. She rubbed at the goose bumps on her upper arms, then crossed to the new roses-and-greens arrangement that had just been delivered. Automatically, her hands began to re-adjust the blooms, the task soothing as always.
The young person had brought the floral pieces inside, then left her alone with Mr. Jones, after casting a single, puzzled glance over his narrow shoulder. Maybe because she still looked like something the cat had left out in the rain?
She glanced up at the mirror on the wall. Yesterday’s chilling assessment of her reflection had worked like a brisk slap. Right then and there, she’d stripped out of her sweats, then paused only a brief second before tearing the remaining lace of her bridal gown off her body. She’d been attacking it in pieces since the day the wedding hadn’t happened. By the time she went after it the day before, only the bodice remained, the ragged end barely reaching her belly button.
Once it was off, she’d dug into her suitcases, tossing the bikinis and negligees aside, to unearth her toiletries. In a hot shower, she’d used her own shampoo and conditioner, and then plied a razor to all the necessary places. A soothing facial was next, and following that she’d slathered on body lotion and lip balm.
The clothes she’d been wearing went into the trash and she’d pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Today, it was the jeans again, but this time paired with a sheer boho-styled blouse with delicate embroidery down the sleeves. Her feet were bare, because, though-dressed, she didn’t plan on going anywhere.
Mr. Jones strode out of the second bedroom and into the living area where she stood. She immediately dropped her gaze from the mirror, not wanting to be caught staring at herself.
Since no hole in the ground had appeared upon the man’s arrival, she’d decided to defy general wisdom and take a second chance to make a good first impression. Maybe another woman could ignore his presence and not worry what he thought of her, but not Audra. The polite, pleaser gene inside of her could not be repressed.
And surely, for just the few minutes he’d be near, she could exude a composed dignity that might hopefully displace the memory of her looking like a ravaged lunatic.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him switch on and off the lamp on the narrow table by the front door. “Really,” she said. “It’s just the two bedside lamps in my room.”
“No harm in checking all of them now that I’m here,” he said.
“Right.” She cleared her throat and forced her gaze away from his capable hands, the back of them dusted with dark hair. He had a heavy beard too, and she thought he probably had to shave twice a day. Once in morning, then again at night if he was going out. His evening whiskers would surely mark a date with even the briefest of kisses good night without that courtesy first.
But a man like Mr. Jones wouldn’t kiss briefly. Oh, Audra was sure of that. He’d be all-in with the kissing, leaning his weight into a woman, pressing her against a wall so that she was between a hard spot and his delicious heat. She’d cup her hand over the back of his head, sifting her fingers into his dark hair, then clutching the strands to keep his mouth on hers. He’d—
The man’s gaze shifted to Audra now, catching her staring at him, mid-daydream.
Gah. If he knew what she was mooning about, he’d know she was still that certifiable lunatic from yesterday. Abruptly, she stepped away from the flowers and moved with fake intent toward her bedroom, needing a respite from his probing green eyes.
To her dismay, he followed her there, stepping to the nearest bedside table to check the lamp. As he switched it on and off, she focused on the flower arrangement on the desk. Yeah, she would have liked to run from the room instead, but that would look not the least bit composed and dignified.
“You like to play with flowers,” he said.
She kept her focus on the stems and petals. “Yes, it’s a hobby. And I’ve taken a few classes.”
“It’s not what you do?”
“For a living?” Glancing over her shoulder at him, she shook her head. It had been a thought once, but no. “I’m lucky enough to have a position in PR in my family’s company.”
“Your family’s company?”
“Sustainable energy. We own and operate wind farms throughout the world, though mostly concentrated in the west.”
“You don’t sound all that enthusiastic.”
Hadn’t she? “Oh, no. I’ve got a great family. A great job. Maybe I’m feeling a little guilty for taking an extended vacation from it.” She stopped herself, wanting to groan aloud for even revealing that much. No way did she want to explain to this big, sexy guy she was “vacationing” because she was a jilted loser. Much, much too humiliating.
He moved around her bed and she heard the click of the other lamp’s on-off switch. “Audra?”
It was the first time he’d said her name. The low timbre of his voice seemed to hum in her very bones. She swallowed, trying to appear casual as she turned to face him, though just that single word made her heart pound. “Yes?”
His wrist turned as he tightened the bulb, then he directed his gaze to her. “Have you been sleeping with the lights on?”
Biting her lip, she glanced at the window, sunshine streaming through the glass. “You’ll notice that I pulled back the drapes this morning.”
“Audra.” The maintenance man’s voice gentled. “Have you been sleeping with the lights on?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I can’t sleep at night. So I watch TV and then I get a little spooked—that headmaster at the private school in the village is seriously creepy—and then…”
“The lights come on.”
“Will I be charged extra for my overuse of bulbs and electricity?”
His lips twitched. “I’m sure the resort can absorb the cost.” Then he came toward her, getting near enough that his green eyes were mesmerizing. Her breath caught in her lungs and she held still under his intense regard. “But I don’t like the idea of you missing out on a good night’s rest.”
Warmth flooded her chest at the words. She swallowed around her tight throat. “Maybe I should find another kind of television drama to watch.” Her voice came out as a half-whisper.
“Maybe so.” He seemed to study her face and she suppressed the urge to squirm, worried he might see too much—all the way to the woman who’d been betrayed by a silly, hopeful heart.
Now she felt broken inside, the angled pieces of her future dreams in a scattered jumble. She didn’t know how to re-order them and if she managed that, what glue she might find to keep them together. To avoid his eyes, she turned back around to fuss with the flowers again.
“What…what do you do for insomnia?” she asked.
In the silence that welled, a wave of heat washed up her neck to her face. Of course she knew what he did when he had a case of insomnia. He’d turn to his current bed partner and wear them both out with a bout of sizzling, intimate, toe-curling lovemaking. Audra could imagine it, the rough scrape of those capable hands on more delicate female flesh, the satisfied male grunt as his woman’s mouth opened for the aggressive thrust of his tongue. The breathless anticipation of a—
“I get some fresh air during the day,” he said now.
Surprised, she whirled around to catch the hint of an amused smile curling his lips. Had he guessed where her mind had wandered?
“What?” she asked, her voice faint.
“I get outside, go for a walk, do something active in the sunshine if I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”
“Oh.”
His mouth hitched higher. “Exactly what we’re going to do this afternoon. Five o’clock. Be ready.”
She blinked. “Huh?”
“I’ll be at your door.” There was a smile in his eyes too. “Then, who knows? Maybe I’ll tell you that other thing I do to beat insomnia.”
Surely he couldn’t be serious, Audra thought as she watched him gather up the unused lightbulbs and leave the bungalow.
Surely not, she told herself again and again as the day wore on. Her gaze kept straying to the clock and her stomach tightened into a tangled knot, her whole being unsure what she feared most. That he’d do as promised or that he’d stand her up.
Making her feel stupid and unwanted like Jacob.
Could it be true, though, that Maintenance Man Jones was intending to return to her bungalow for a social reason?
And was she intending to be ready for that, even though she didn’t even know his first name?
Surely he couldn’t be serious, she told herself again at four o’clock, at four thirty, and then once more at five, when a preemptory knock sounded on the door.
“It’s a housekeeper,” she whispered aloud. Or someone with the message that he wasn’t coming to haul her into the sunshine that had been both taunting and tantalizing her ever since he’d mentioned it.
Her bare feet dragged on the sleek hardwood as she approached the entry.
She peeked around the door as she opened it.
Mr. Jones stood on the other side, dressed in a pair of worn jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt with the cuffs pushed up to the elbows, and running shoes. Her gaze stuttered on his powerful forearms before lifting to his face. She’d been right. By five in the afternoon his stubble was in scratchy evidence, making him looking even manlier than before.
And making it clear he was not intending on doing any kissing—at least she assumed he’d be considerate in that way. Though not that she’d been thinking he intended doing that with her. No, not at all.
One of his brows rose over those preternaturally green eyes. “Are you going to let me in or are you going to come on out?”
“I don’t know your name,” she said, procrastinating. “Your first name.”
He hesitated, then pushed past her to gain entrance into the bungalow. “It’s Kane,” he told her, then glanced down at her bare toes. “You need something on your feet.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.” She made a gesture toward the windows. “Going out.”
Ignoring her, he glanced around and seemed to spot the pair of cheap flip flops that Lilly had left behind. He grabbed them up and returned to squat at Audra’s feet. “Lift,” he said, patting her ankle.
What could she do but shove her sole along the rubber? If she wanted to appear as a normal human person, not a basket case that preferred huddling in the dark, she couldn’t object to being shod, could she? Or taking a stroll on a warm afternoon?
“You’re bossy,” she complained, looking down at the top of his head as she raised her other foot to slide it into the second sandal. She wobbled and his hands instantly steadied her, one on her right thigh, the other on her left hip.
Her imbalance vanished as her muscles froze, paralyzed by the heat and sureness of his touch. His head slowly came up, his gaze meeting hers. Could he sense the tension in her body? Could he detect the slow, burning wave of awareness that was overwhelming her?
Already a heaviness was centered at her womb and wetness rushed between her thighs.
In a place just inches from his face.
He shot to his feet just as she jolted back.
“I’m not the man for you,” he muttered, sort of inexplicably, she thought. And then, to make it murkier, he grabbed her hand and towed her toward that sunshine he’d promised.