Like One of the Family

He remembered laughter between two kids, running along the surf, and eating fresh coconut when they were hungry. He also remembered the way she’d looked at him, as if he were the funniest, brightest, most awesome boy alive. He remembered a basket of food when he’d been most certainly about to starve.

That’s how he remembered Lora Bell. And damn it, that might’ve been the moment he lost a tiny piece of his heart to her, too.

Sometimes he wondered if he’d imagined all of it.

The woman she’d become wasn’t even a shadow of the girl she’d been.

Everything changed when he’d returned to the island after a year of being gone.

Suddenly, he’d become just the boy who did odd jobs for Pops, the unwelcome presence at the dinner table on some nights, or the lanky teen who’d burned with humiliation as Lora dismissed him as any kind of romantic possibility.

He was ashamed to admit there was some small part of him that hoped he’d see a remnant of the girl she’d been so long ago even though it’d been years since she’d put in an appearance. He was an idiot for hoping—he knew—but buried deep, that hope still flickered, even if it was a very dim ember.

“You know if you weren’t so damn difficult all the time, people might have an easier time liking you,” he bit out in spite of himself.

“You suffer under the mistaken assumption the opinions of others matter to me,” she replied simply. “I couldn’t care less what other people think of me. You’ve known me long enough, surely you remember that about me.”

He gritted his teeth. “I also remember you being a bit nicer at one time.”

She seemed momentarily shaken by his admission, as if they’d both quietly agreed to never talk about the times before he left for St. Thomas for a year, and within a heartbeat she’d stuffed away any hint of discomfort or raw feeling.

“Your memory is flawed.”

“Maybe,” he acknowledged with a shrug. “But doubtful. However, why you would take pride in being so difficult, I don’t understand. You know, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar and spreading a little goodwill might be helpful considering you haven’t been on the island for some time. You never know where you might need help.”

She leveled a short look his way. “Thanks for the advice I didn’t ask for. I take pride in being efficient. If you consider that being difficult, then so be it. As far as needing goodwill…I don’t see how that applies. I’m here to solve a problem, not run for mayor.”

Ah, hell. Why did he even try? She was a lost cause. “Fine. Whatever. Just trying to help.”

“Your help would’ve been useful before I was required to hop a plane and put my life on hold,” she said evenly, staring straight ahead, though her grip tightened ever so slightly on the roof handle, betraying something. Heath couldn’t be sure if his comment had struck a nerve or she just really had to pee and she wished he would drive faster.

“Yeah, well, I guess if you were more efficient about getting your messages, we might not be in this mess now.”

He expected a cutting retort but she remained silent. Whether she secretly agreed with him or she simply had run out of steam to argue, he didn’t know.

One thing was for sure, he was pretty certain whatever had been lodged in his heart for all those years was dead and gone. Now he was just here for Pops. He loved the old man and would do whatever was necessary to help him—including putting up with Lora.

Lilah had tried to mop up the mess but she’d been out of her element and completely clueless as to how to keep a resort running while her beloved Pops held imaginary conversations with her long-dead Grams. Actually, he felt kinda bad for the kid. Lora had put her in a bad spot and now was ready to crucify Lilah for failing.

Time for damage control. If there was a way he could reel back the words he’d carelessly uttered, he’d do it. Barring that, he needed to focus attention on what mattered.

“Listen, here’s the deal. Pops loses time. One minute he’s totally fine and acting like the Pops I’ve known since I was a kid but then he slips and he’s not in the here and now.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means sometimes he thinks Grams is still alive,” he answered grimly.

Lora exhaled softly, shocked by his admission. He knew how close Lora and Grams had been. Losing her had been nearly as tough as when she’d lost her mother. When she spoke again, her voice was strong, betraying nothing of whatever she was feeling inside, leaving him to wonder if she had a shred of humanity left in her. “Well, we’ll just have to remind him of reality. Grams died ten years ago. We can’t let him marinate in fantasy. That can’t be healthy.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s better than watching him lose her over and over again. When you tell him that Grams is gone, it’s as if she’s just died.”

“Oh,” she breathed, and this time her voice softened and real distress was etched on her face. He found that a good sign. Maybe there was hope for her yet. “What can we do for him? Is there medication he can take? What does the doctor say?”

“Well, if you’d come when I first started calling…you’d know.”

She pressed a delicate finger to her temple and waved him off. “Yes, yes, I’m the big bad bitch and my sisters are irresponsible twits. We’ve already sufficiently covered that topic. Time to move on before my head explodes. Something in the air is making my sinuses riot. Do you have any allergy medication at the resort?”

He was tempted to say no, but he wasn’t that big of a jerk. “Yeah,” he said.

“Oh, good,” she said, relieved, closing her eyes. “I propose we postpone this episode of the I Hate Lora Bell Show until I’ve had a chance to stop this pounding in my head. I have enough to deal with as it is, I don’t need sparring with you added to the list just yet. I’ll keep quiet, if you will. Deal?”

“Fine by me,” he muttered, pissed that she was ending what he hadn’t planned on starting in the first place. “Welcome home.”

Good as her word, she buttoned her lip, content to finish the drive in silence, although his mind stubbornly continued to hit him with what was to come.

No doubt she thought she’d make whatever fixes she figured were necessary and then jump on the next ferry out of here. She was going to discover, quite quickly, it wouldn’t be that simple.

If only she’d shown up sooner…maybe things might’ve been put right more easily.

Now? It’d be a miracle if Larimar wasn’t sold out from underneath their feet.

And if that happened? It would surely send Pops toppling over the ledge of sanity and into the land of no return.

He hoped Lora couldn’t live with that on her conscience.

But risking a glance at the woman seeming to drowse in the island heat, he couldn’t help but fear that a conscience was the first thing Lora had sacrificed for that high-powered career of hers, and if that was the case…likely Larimar was screwed.

And by proxy…so was he.

CHAPTER TWO

HEATH©PARKED©IN©THE©SMALL spot designated for the resort vehicle, and Lora sprang from her seat, eager to get away from Heath and his condemning scowl.

She went to grab her bag but Heath was already jerking it free from the Jeep, being none too gentle with the expensive luggage. Lora reached for the handle, exasperated. “A little care, please? This probably cost more than what you make in a month.” He shot her a quelling look and she immediately felt bad for the comment, but her temper was in full control of her mouth, and frustration had dissolved whatever portion of empathy and common courtesy she’d possessed before she’d even landed at Charlotte Amalie Airport in St. Thomas.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered, in an attempt to soften the insult but Heath had already turned his back on her. She could almost see the disgust he felt for her emanating from him in waves with each step that carried him farther away. Fine, be that way, she wanted to shout even knowing she’d been the one to snap first. What was it about Heath Cannon that made her act like a ten-year-old? She’d fired people for less.

All right, so let’s get this over with. Maybe with any luck she’d have this crisis figured out before the week was out and she could hop another plane back to Chicago before her hair permanently frizzed into an iguana’s nest of knots. As far as Pops went, she couldn’t believe that his mind was deteriorating. He was the smartest man she knew. Likely, his memory gaps were simply a product of the natural aging process. For crying out loud, if she didn’t have her BlackBerry to keep her on track she’d forget plenty of important things, but that didn’t mean she had dementia. Everyone seemed to be pulling a Chicken Little. Chances were that the sky was not actually falling.

Larimar—named after the agate stone found only in the Caribbean that locals claimed had magical qualities—came into view with its swaying tropical foliage flanking the entrance with bay rum and giant kapok trees creating a green canopy of various shades. Bright wild flowers dotted the underbrush and lizards of all kinds darted away from the approach of human feet.

She’d thought her pique would insulate her from nostalgia but the minute she crossed the threshold into the airy lobby of Larimar, her high heels clicking sharply on the travertine tile floor, memories drifted from hidden corners like the smell of coconut suntan lotion on the ocean breeze. Lora halted, her eyes closing for just a moment as her Grams floated into her mind’s eye and her beloved voice echoed in Lora’s mind.

“Little Miss Bell, have you had at least one hour of fun at the beach today?” Grams had asked one day when she found Lora studying instead of doing what every other kid was doing during summer vacation. Grams had gently closed the book, her eyes smiling but faintly serious as she instructed Lora to go act like a teenager for once. “Go get into some trouble, but not too much trouble, mind you. Just enough to make interesting memories to giggle over when you’re an adult. And for land’s sake, get your nose out of those books.”

Lora had been focused on her grades, not goofing off or finding boyfriends like most of her friends, or twin sisters for that matter. Lindy was a shameless flirt who basked in the adoration of every pair of male eyes that crossed at the sight of her bouncing around in her tiny bikini; Lilah, the younger twin by one minute, had also enjoyed her share of boys clustered around her, though she’d been more carefree about her love life, choosing to float through relationships until the wind took her elsewhere.

Oh, Grams… Lora took a quiet moment to collect herself, shaking off the memory of her beloved grandmother with effort. Of all things, she missed Grams the most.

Grams had been the calm in the storm that had become Lora’s life when they were forced to move to Larimar after her father abandoned them. Lora’s mother had been so heartbroken, so lost after her husband split. And then, shortly after they’d arrived in St. John, the cancer diagnosis had followed. It had seemed a colossally bad cosmic joke but it’d been no joke. Her mother had died with little fight. In fact, it had seemed to Lora that her mother had simply given up. For that, Lora found memories of her mother difficult. More so than memories of Grams. At least with Grams, Lora had plenty of great memories to temper the sad ones. Intellectually, Lora knew it wasn’t fair to judge her mother based on the memories of a ten-year-old girl, but she did anyway. Just one more reason Lora was known as the Bitch, she supposed.

But Grams was gone—the problems facing Larimar were in the here and now and that’s why she’d come.

Her lids flipped open and she purposefully walked toward the front counter where a dark-skinned woman she didn’t recognize sat in reception.

“Welcome to—”

“Not necessary.” She cut the woman’s spiel in half with a wave of her hand, ignoring the startled look at her abruptness. Glancing around, she looked for someone she knew. “My name is Lora Bell. Can you tell me where my grandfather or my sister Lilah is? I need to see them at once.”

“I know who you are,” the woman said, her voice thick with the local Crucian accent common to the island. Her stare narrowed and the judgment in her expression caused Lora to pause. “You finally come to help Mistah Bell? ’Bout time.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Mistah Bell needed ya and ya too busy to make time for him.”

She was being schooled by the receptionist? What next? Lora made a mental note to start looking for a replacement right away. “You seem to know a lot about me, but I know very little about you,” Lora said coolly. “What is your name?”

“Celly,” the woman answered, her chin rising. Her dark brown stare neither flinched or shifted away, and Lora knew this woman felt fairly confident in her position and wouldn’t scare easily. Fabulous. With the luck Lora was having, her grandfather had probably written this Celly into the will. Good gravy. She felt a cloud at her back and her pessimistic attitude certainly wasn’t helping.

She forced a brief smile. “Can you tell me where to find my grandfather?”

“Mistah Bell in de back,” the woman answered with a small sniff. “You know your way?”

Lora ground her teeth, irritated. “Of course. I did grow up here, you know,” she muttered, gripping her luggage handle, then said over her shoulder, “We’ll be talking again soon, I’m sure.”

“I look forward to it, missy,” Celly called back.

Oh, I bet you will, she thought blackly. She had a feeling if she didn’t put finding a new receptionist on top of her list, Celly was going to give her an earful that Lora definitely wasn’t in the mood to hear.

The back terrace was attached to the part of the resort that was reserved for the Bells and afforded a breathtaking view of the ocean. Larimar was a spacious four-plex with access to a secluded private beach via a short walk but the Bells’ section of the resort opened to beachfront property right off the terrace. It’d been Grams’s and Pops’s favorite part about Larimar; they’d often eaten their breakfast of papaya and coconut right there, followed by a quick dip in the water. Grams had been a water dog. Pops had often joked that he’d married a mermaid without her tail.

There, sitting at his wicker breakfast table, sat Pops, the empty chair opposite him pricking unexpected tears from Lora’s eyes as the loss of Grams hit her hard all over again. Maybe it was because her life was a mess and Grams had always known how to settle her “Little Miss Type A” as she’d lovingly called Lora, or maybe it was because her cycle was near and she was prone to bursts of emotion at the oddest moments, but sadness swamped Lora before she could guard against it. Thankfully, Pops was oblivious and simply grinned his jack-o’-lantern smile and exclaimed with pure pleasure at the sight of her, “There she is! Come here, my sugar bird.” He rose and gathered her into his embrace as if she were still a child and not a grown woman of thirty-two. But God bless him, her grandfather was her lifeline to sanity and she clung to him as if she was afraid to let go. He drew away, his blue eyes brimming with pride and not the least bit unclear—maybe they were all wrong about Pops and his supposed dementia—and she felt a bit of the tension ebb from her shoulders. “So good to see you, Lorie,” he said, his use of her nickname causing her to smile. No one but Pops was allowed to call her Lorie. She purposefully eschewed nicknames in her business life for fear that it might weaken the lines she drew to keep business and personal separate. Not that she had much of a personal life to keep separate but it was a good policy. Of course, all that went out the window the minute she saw Pops. He could call her whatever he liked.

“You look the same, Pops,” she said, somewhat relieved. When Heath had told her Pops was beginning to suffer mentally, she’d imagined a diminished shell of the robust man she’d known her entire life. But the man standing before her looked the same as he always did, like someone who still rose with the sun and worked as hard as he played. Lora smiled, straightening her tight skirt before taking a seat opposite her Pops. “You don’t age. Must be the clean island air. Or the rum,” she teased.

Pops winked and whispered conspiratorially, “Well, I have a secret but don’t tell your Grams…” Lora’s breath caught painfully in her chest and her smile froze but Pops didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward, saying, “I slather on a bit of that pricey lotion your Grams buys from her catalogs. That stuff really works. Keeps my skin looking smooth as a baby’s behind. And smells good, too. But let’s keep that between me and you. If your Grams found out she’d never let me live it down.”

Tears filled her eyes before she could stop them. She swallowed and forced a smile, gentling her voice as she said, “Pops, remember…Grams died ten years ago.” Lora placed a hand on his, squeezing in a show of support, hoping he’d snap into reality with the reminder.

But Pops didn’t snap or bounce or any such thing. He broke.

His expression faltered, confused, and Lora tried to mend things with more logic. “Pops, she’s in a happy place now. And she wouldn’t want us to waste tears when she’s no longer in pain and—”

“I just saw her this morning,” Pops said, his voice shaking, his eyes darting as if trying to find the truth in the memory. Turning accusatory, he looked disappointed in Lora and that nearly crushed her. “Lorie, why would you say that? Your Grams is fine. She’s doing just fine. Clean bill of health.”

“No, Pops,” Lora said, her own voice clogging with tears. “She died of breast cancer ten years ago. She found a lump and it had already moved to her lymph nodes. Grams died—”

“Stop saying that!” he demanded, his voice roughening as he rose from his chair to get away from her. Lora’s heart hammered hard in her chest and she didn’t know what to do. Her Pops had never been short with her in her entire life. She didn’t recognize this man and it broke her heart. “Lana,” he called out, going in search of Lora’s grandmother and leaving Lora to stare in horror and dissolve into tears.

And that’s how Heath found her.

* * *

THE©WORDS©DANCED©ON©HIS tongue, I told you so, but he wasn’t that big of an ass. He ought to walk away and leave Lora to soak in her own misery. Although his brain told him to go, he couldn’t quite get his feet to obey. He sighed, knowing he was about to try and console a wolverine of a woman and was likely to get his hand bit off, but he couldn’t just walk away when she was clearly heartbroken.

“As long as we play along that Lana is still alive…he’s the same old Jack. It’s when reality is forced on him that he balks and freaks out. Lilah makes sure to keep Grams’s things clean, even going so far as to put a load of folded laundry on the bed for Pops to put away like she used to. Lilah also started replacing some of the lotions and stuff that Grams used so that Pops wouldn’t get thrown off.”

Lora wiped at her face. “You’re continuing an elaborate farce? Doesn’t that seem the slightest bit inappropriate?”

He flung his arm in the direction Pops had gone, growing angry all over. Damn the woman. Didn’t she see that Pops needed that illusion? “It’s a small price to pay for his happiness. The man means everything to me. I’m willing to play along for his sake.”

“This is awful,” she said, shaking her head in horror. “You can’t keep pretending Grams is going to walk through the front door because she’s not going to! She’s gone. He needs to come to grips with that.”

“He doesn’t have the mental agility to do that any longer. The harder we push, the worse his dementia becomes. Lilah and I agreed, it was best to let him have his fantasy. Besides, who’s it really hurting?”

She stared. “Who’s it hurting?” she repeated incredulously, but even as she said the words, she stalled, and he knew the truth of it. It hurt her to pretend Grams was alive. Lora had never truly dealt with the pain of losing Grams. She just stuffed it down in that locked box where she put everything that was painful in her life and then never opened it again. “It’s not right,” she finished lamely.

He softened in the face of her subtle vulnerability. He knew that Grams had always been Lora’s safe haven, her voice of reason. Losing her had been a blow to her emotional foundation. “The good news is, it doesn’t last long,” he said, trying to reassure her. “By dinner, he’ll go back to thinking Lana is here and she’s just out shopping or taking care of Larimar business.”

Lora’s head shot up and her look of open distress at being caught in such a vulnerable position robbed her of words for a moment. But that moment didn’t last long. Soon enough her mouth tightened as her stare narrowed. “That’s the good news?” she said, grinding any residual moisture from her eyes and smoothing the tiny skirt as if the motion alone could release the wrinkles that a long plane ride and the humidity had created. “This is a nightmare. There is nothing good about it. How long has he been like this?”

He shrugged. “A year, give or take a few months.”

“A year?” She stared. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

“We did. Remember?”

Her blank stare may have fooled someone else but he knew right at this moment she was searching her memory, looking for some way to refute his blunt statement. Heath knew as much as she did that she was wrong. She’d flat out ignored every bit of correspondence that’d come her way when it’d come from her sisters or himself. He knew it—and better yet—so did she. Still, he was curious how she planned to wiggle her way out of that knowledge.

He waited, one brow lifting in question and she had the grace to flush. Unable to hold his stare, she looked away. “Fine,” she conceded grudgingly, eager to move on. “What’s being done about it? This pretense isn’t a long-term solution.” She pressed her fingers to her temple, and he remembered her mentioning a headache earlier. For a second, she seemed to waver on her feet and Heath started forward but she shooed him away with a murmur of annoyance at her own reaction. “Damn humidity is getting to me. I need to change and get something to drink before I can think straight.”

“Your room is in the same place,” Heath said, his mouth firming. Still the same hard-nosed woman she ever was. He held back the irritation that swelled when he remembered how he’d once thought the sun rose and set in her eyes. What a fool he was then. Things had certainly changed. “I assume you remember how to find it?”

She shot him a look that said his sarcasm wasn’t appreciated, then gripped her luggage handle and trudged past him, her back ramrod straight.

He didn’t know why Lora had been the one that’d always caught his eye. Even though her sisters were pretty in their own way, there’d been no one prettier than Lora in his opinion. When he thought of all the ways he’d tried to catch her attention, to get her to see him as more than the poor island boy who did odd jobs for her Pops…ugh, it twisted his gut in disgust.

The first thing he remembered about Lora Bell was that impossibly dark hair streaming down her back like a waterfall at midnight. Lora, her sisters and their mother had arrived by ferry to St. John wearing sadness as plainly as their summer tanks. Except Lora—no, in her little face, he saw a cold knot of anger that twisted beneath the layer of grief. Whereas her younger sisters were wide-eyed with apprehension at their new surroundings, Lora had taken it in with the air of a soldier grimly going to battle. Looking back, he suspected Lora had been a different child before her father skipped out on them and her mother had died of cancer a year later. As they’d grown closer during those first few months, he’d known a different side of her, a softer side, so he’d been doubly shocked and brokenhearted when she’d given him the cold shoulder on his return. It hadn’t been his choice to leave the island; his parents had abandoned him and he’d gone looking for them. It wasn’t exactly a typical situation but Lora knew none of that. He’d never told her and she’d never been interested enough to ask.