Butterfly Cove

Girl’s gone bad…for the town’s new golden boy

Maybe opposites don’t always attract. If they did, architect Olivia Sullivan would have run away with bad boy Rafe Russo when they were teenagers. Instead, Olivia has spent ten years dreaming up designs for a life that hasn’t gone the way she planned. Still reeling from her career’s implosion and her father’s death, Olivia thanks her lucky stars for the support of her three lifelong friends. But this good girl is through sitting on the sidelines. When Rafe returns to the beautiful Oregon coast where they grew up, her former flame ignites a new desire. Now Olivia must take a walk on the wild side to show the new deputy that in matters of love…being bad can feel very good.

Freshly back from Afghanistan, rugged ex-Marine and new deputy Rafe is done breaking laws and hearts. He’s always regretted leaving Olivia behind, but now she’s after adventure and he’d better proceed with caution. Because wanting her again might be easy, but fighting for a future together will be his biggest risk yet.

Praise for Christina Skye’s

Summer Island series

“Skye perfectly captures the feel and appeal of small-town life...[a] sweetly satisfying romance.”

—Booklist on The Accidental Bride (starred review)

“The Accidental Bride has something for every reader—warmth, humor...and chocolate. I love this book.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber on The Accidental Bride

“Skye manages to keep her complicated plots clicking along like busy knitting needles.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Home by the Sea

“A delightful love story with just enough intrigue and complexity to make it exciting and different.”

—New York Journal of Books on A Home by the Sea

Butterfly Cove

Christina Skye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

THE DAY HAD started well enough, with a large iced cinnamon dolce latte with cinnamon sprinkles and a raspberry-walnut scone on the side.

Olivia Sullivan had zipped through morning traffic and was at her drafting desk an hour early. As she finished her scone, she savored the peace and quiet around her. She liked starting her day early. Most of all she liked the quiet time before the hive started to buzz and race with frantic activity.

Twelve minutes after Olivia had finished her newest project, an upscale shopping area and condominium project in a busy Seattle suburb, a man she didn’t recognize walked up to her desk and put a small envelope down in front of her. “Olivia Sullivan?”

“That’s right.”

“This is for you.” The man turned around and walked away before she could ask who he was or why he had left an envelope on her desk.

Olivia looked down and rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache begin. But those were nothing new. For months she had been working ten-hour days and she still had no idea whether she’d be kept on after her one-year assessment was done.

She picked up the envelope and turned it over. She saw a woman across the hall glance across at her uncertainly and then look away.

Olivia suddenly knew what was waiting inside that envelope. She frowned and tore open the cheap paper. She saw a check inside, her salary for the last pay period. The amount was prorated to end exactly at noon that day. Beneath the pay stub with her total accrued hours, Olivia saw a letter typed on company letterhead.

Dear Olivia Sullivan,

Notice of termination is hereby given. Enclosed check will serve as final wages due.

Thank you for your services.

Olivia stared at the impersonal, stamped signature of the company’s president. Thank you for your services?

After eight months of drudgery, this was all she got? Thank you for your services and a pay stub?

She folded and unfolded the sheet, feeling the blood drain from her face. Couldn’t someone have had the decency to sign her letter himself? Was an actual signature too much to ask? Or even a phone call from someone in Personnel?

With shaking fingers she gathered her reference books and papers and drafting pens. Quickly she slid her framed picture of Summer Island into the knitting bag she kept hidden in the bottom drawer. Professional women did not knit in public, at least not while at the office. Knitting needles made people uncomfortable, an employment officer had told her quietly. It had to do with the sharp points and the quick movements.

Olivia grabbed the bag and swung it over her shoulder like a flag of angry protest. Maybe some people ought to be made uncomfortable.

A security guard showed up two minutes later. When you gave someone the boot, the security guard was there to collect their keys and badges and escort them out of the building. Olivia knew the drill.

She had just never expected to be on the receiving end.

Silently she gathered her other belongings and marched outside with her head held high. She met no one’s eyes. She didn’t speak on the way down in the elevator or on her angry walk to her car, where she dumped her box and knitting and then sank into the driver’s seat.

The guard left. But Olivia sat white-faced and shaking, trying to figure out how her life could possibly get any worse, and what she was going to do to dig herself out of the looming disaster that her father had left behind after his death.

And now she had lost her job. Something burned at her eyelids. She gripped the steering wheel hard and told herself to stay strong.

But it wasn’t working. She didn’t feel strong. A wave of panic struck and Olivia closed her eyes, knowing what would come next when her anxiety grew into a sickening wave.

She had to get home.

She had to find the only place where she had ever felt safe and the friends who had been her anchor through uncertainty and pain. Her hands tightened. Summer Island was waiting for her in the mist, golden in the morning sun.

Olivia had driven the road south many times before, but this was different. This time she was going home.

For good.

Oregon Coast

Late afternoon

THIRTY MILES SOUTH of the Oregon border, the fog appeared. Olivia opened her window and drank in the smells of salt and sea, feeling the wind comb through her hair. The sun was gone and shadows touched the coast. Waves boiled up over black rocks where seals and otters fished in clusters.

A small sign pointed out the turn to the coast road. Her heart kicked up as she saw the misty outline of hills and trees ahead.

Summer Island’s only bridge was half-veiled in fog when she turned south and rounded the curve at the top of the island. Olivia looked up, entranced by the big house that glowed in the twilight. Stained glass panels lit the front of the tall Victorian building above the harbor. Freshly painted, the long pier shepherded fishing boats that Olivia knew from childhood.

Princess of Storms.

Sea King.

Bella Luna.

The boats rocked at anchor, secure in the harbor. Warmth touched Olivia at the familiar sight. Summer Island never seemed to change, and she liked that sense of certainty. Slowly she drove along the cobbled streets and turned at the magnificent old building that she and her friends had renovated with loving care.

Imposing in a new coat of paint, the Harbor House gleamed in the twilight, its new windows blazing above the freshly restored porch. Strains of Chopin drifted from the open French doors above the side lawn filled with late-summer roses.

Home.

This beautiful old house with all its vibrant colors and inspiring energy.

Not the big modern house where Olivia had grown up, struggling to make her way through childhood, always too tall and too shy for her critical father. She had never been smart enough to suit her father. He had always expected more and more from her and never showed much real pleasure in any of her accomplishments. He seemed happiest when he was alone, working in his office, a phone in one hand and a keyboard in the other, barking out negotiations for a real estate deal. When he wasn’t working, he liked to give big, elegant parties in the house on the cliffs, gathering smart, sophisticated guests who left Olivia feeling awkward and tongue-tied.

No, her safety lay here in the Harbor House. She had always dreamed about restoring the old rooms with her three oldest friends.

And they had done it. A new wrought-iron sign swung in the wind, a cat holding a ball of yarn. Olivia smiled and grabbed her big knitting bag and suitcase, following the steep steps up to the front porch. At the top she was greeted by shelf after shelf of bright yarns, glowing through the front windows.

Island Yarns.

Her title. Her concept. Her joy. With her job gone, she could finally focus on the new shop. But how long would her money last? And then what would she do, with the employment market for architects so depressed?

The big blue door swung open and her friend Jilly O’Hara looked out. Jilly’s big white dog barked in the doorway as she peered over the porch. “Livie? Is that you?”

Olivia walked up through the twilight past bobbing roses and fragrant lavender and boxes of glowing geraniums. “It’s me. Everything looks wonderful, Jilly. I love that new sign for the yarn shop.”

“Caro and I found it in yesterday’s mail. We’d ordered it weeks ago. Walker helped us hang it. We put out another shipment of yarn today, too.” Jilly frowned at her friend. “I didn’t expect you here until next week. Is everything okay?”

“Just perfect.” Olivia forced a smile to hide her worry.

As always, she smiled brightly and stayed calm; the habit was too old to change now. She kept her smile solidly in place as she swung her bag over one shoulder and turned to study the roses above the pier and the restless sea. “I love this place. It always makes me feel so alive, as if everything is possible.”

Jilly stood beside her, watching a hummingbird shoot over the roses. “Same for me. Even when the house was a wreck and the garden thick with weeds, this view could sweep me away.”

The two women stood for long minutes in the twilight while the sea wind danced through their hair and they savored old memories. Then the hummingbird zipped away and Jilly swung around, frowning at Olivia’s big suitcase. “Why so much stuff for a short visit? Did you finally get a vacation from that slave driver you work for in Seattle?”

“In a manner of speaking. We can talk about all that later. Right now I want to see the new English cashmere. And did that angora-silk blend in the muted colors ever arrive?”

“All present and accounted for. Come and see. I’ll give you the grand tour.” Jilly shot Olivia another thoughtful glance. “After that you can tell me more about this unannounced vacation you’ve gotten.”

“Hmm.” Olivia barely heard her friend. The yarn was calling to her, warm in the glow of the antique chandelier she had restored. The whole shop was bathed in golden light when she walked inside.

Her worries seemed to fall away like racing mist. With a sigh she sank into a pink chintz chair near the small counter. Her hands itched for needles and smooth loops sliding into neat rows. But first there was the new yarn to consider.

Olivia glanced from shelf to shelf. “It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s welcoming, just the way we wanted. So people will come. And they’ll buy, won’t they, Jilly?” Olivia tried to quell the small voices of doubt—the doubt that woke her up at night trembling and gasping for breath. She wouldn’t let it ruin her first view of the finished shop filled with beautiful yarn.

Filled with her dreams.

“Of course they’ll come, idiot. We’ll have to beat them off with big sticks. They’ll be throwing money at us, begging for our yarn.” Jilly pulled Olivia to a corner near the window. “Now explain to me again about this cashmere. If I have to sell it, I need to be convincing, and each of these things costs almost fifty dollars! What kind of person spends fifty dollars for one ball of yarn?”

“I would. So would Caro. You will, too, once you try some.”

“Gateway yarn?” Jilly nodded. “That makes sense. So I let them fondle the cashmere for a while. Then I close in for the final sale. Sure—I can do that.”

Olivia smiled. She could always count on her friend to be practical and grounded. And that was exactly what she needed right now.

CHAPTER ONE

Summer Island

One week later

OLIVIA SULLIVAN HAD no job, not even the remote prospect of a job, but she was holding her worries at bay by staying busy.

In the mornings she helped her friends finish floors, clean walls and sew curtains for the Harbor House. Windows gleamed. Potted flowers beckoned from the new porch and Jilly’s new café was in final testing mode.

After almost two years of renovation work, their grand opening was set in three weeks.

So far Jilly had served up mouthwatering double-chocolate brownies, pistachio-raspberry scones and both regular and vegetarian BLTs with her signature chipotle mayonnaise. Once word got out, the café would be thronged with locals, Olivia knew. And in the spring the tourists would be close behind.

But the café had already become a money drain. As a busy, award-winning chef, Jilly needed a high-tech kitchen, but the equipment upgrades had pushed the Harbor House’s old pipes to the very limit. Jilly’s husband, Walker, had done what he could to improve the plumbing, but a complete overhaul was the only answer.

And a complete overhaul would cost a fortune.

The yarn shop would take time and care to make a profit, too. Olivia planned to work there herself as often as possible, but she wouldn’t take a salary until they were on better financial ground. So she needed a real job. And real jobs in architecture weren’t falling off trees.

She shoved away the old sense of panic and focused on her current errand instead. She was on her second trip to the hardware store that day. The kitchen drains had backed up again.

Out to sea, gray clouds piled up over gunmetal water. Olivia had heard that a storm was headed inland early the next day, and she wanted all her errands done well before the bad weather hit. As a coastal native, Olivia knew that island storms could never be taken lightly. She had vivid childhood memories of blocked roads, mudslides and flooding along the coast.

As she parked at the main square across from the police station, Olivia waved to Tom Wilkinson, the county sheriff.

He crossed to her car, then leaned down with a tired smile. “Glad to see you back, Olivia. How are things up in Seattle?”

“Fine, Tom. Just fine. I’m glad to see you keeping everyone in line here on the island.”

“I try. But these are changing times.” He looked away and rubbed his neck as if it hurt. “So you won’t be here long? Going back to Seattle next week?”

“Not right away. We’ve got loads of work yet to finish at the Harbor House. Our grand opening is right around the corner. I hope you’ll be there.”

“Couldn’t keep me away. Especially if Jilly has BLTs and caramel latte macchiatos on the menu.”

“You can count on it. She’s been making up new recipes all week. You’re going to like what she does with chocolate.” Olivia found it easy to chat with this man who had been part of the town for three decades. With strangers she became awkward, searching for conversation, ultraselfconscious, but not with Tom. He never seemed to judge her or criticize the way her father’s friends did.

“Has the mayor been by to see you yet?”

“No, but I haven’t been home very much. Too busy at the Harbor House.”

“He said he was looking for you. Wanted you to come over for dinner and drinks, I think.”

Olivia was glad she had missed him. She had never felt comfortable with her father’s old friend. The current mayor and his wife seemed fixated on the newest model of Italian sports car or the most fashionable jewelry designers in Seattle. Neither was Olivia’s style. “I guess I should go.” She held up a long handwritten list. “Walker Hale is counting on me to track down snakes and flappers.”

“More kitchen leaks? It’s a good thing that you have Walker to help out with the plumbing. Otherwise that old house could get very pricey.” The sheriff looked back at the police station. “So you’ll be around? Over at the Harbor House mostly?”

“If you want me, that’s where you’ll find me.”

Olivia had a feeling that Tom was going to say something else, but he just nodded. “Better get your errands done soon. That storm looks like it may reach land earlier than predicted. My right knee is aching, so this could be a bad one.” He straightened slowly. “I’ll tell the mayor where you’ll be.”

Olivia hesitated and then shook her head. “Tom, would you mind not doing that? I... Well, I’m going to be busy all week. I really shouldn’t take time off to socialize.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “No time for drinks and chitchat about the mayor’s newest sports car?” He laughed dryly. “No problem. Your secret is safe with me. Now get going. The mayor’s due across the street for a meeting with the town council any minute.”

It was a small act of defiance, but Olivia was glad she had avoided an excruciating night of empty gossip and pointed personal questions. She didn’t want to be rude to her father’s friends, but she had nothing in common with them.

Frankly, none of her father’s friends understood why she was so interested in saving the Harbor House. Several had told her that manual labor was unbecoming to someone in her social set.

Olivia wondered what social set that was. The jobless and nearly broke one?

* * *

THE WIND BEGAN to hiss as Olivia crossed the square beneath leaden skies streaked with angry black.

She had already been to the local hardware store half a dozen times in the past week. Right now she suspected the old Harbor House was their best customer, between paint and yard tools and plumbing supplies. The owner looked up and waved as she loaded her cart with washers and flappers and something called a plumbing snake. While she checked out, Olivia kept looking to the west, where the sky was ominously gray. The first drops of rain hit before she reached her car.

Hail followed, hammering her windshield as Olivia turned onto the coast road. It was times like this that she wished the town council had voted to broaden the road, but there had never been enough money—and too many people wanted Summer Island left unchanged.

More hail struck the glass, and Olivia hunched forward, squinting to see the road. A driver in a small truck pulled closer, blared his horn and zoomed around her into the oncoming lane. She gripped the wheel tightly and let him pass. Even if he was a fool, she wouldn’t be. A sharp turn lay just ahead.

That caution saved her life.

The driver in the truck hit his accelerator, trying to pass an oncoming SUV, but he was too late. Olivia heard the awful whine of brakes as he skidded hard and struck the SUV. Both vehicles spun toward the ocean.

Rocks tumbled as the SUV skidded into the mud. Directly in front of her, Olivia saw a minivan with a school logo half buried in another mudslide. Two adults were at the doors, calming the frightened children.

But the stalled school minivan blocked the road.

There was no room in her lane. Olivia had to make a decision, and she had less than a second to do it. Otherwise she would hit the van.

Lights flickered in the oncoming lane. Olivia prayed she would make the right choice.

She hit her brights twice and turned left. Rain hammered down, and more mud washed off the inland hill. She saw the worried face of the school-bus driver as she passed. Olivia hoped they had called for help, but she didn’t dare dig in her bag for her cell phone. She needed all her attention to keep from skidding.

Headlights loomed out of the sheeting rain. She heard the shrill cry of a siren as she yanked the wheel right, back into her lane. The siren grew louder.

A car shot out of the fog in front of her. With a sickening crunch, metal hit metal. Olivia felt her tires spin wildly and go into a skid.

She was going to die right here. Right in the middle of the coast highway. It just wasn’t fair, because she hadn’t even begun to live. She had responsibilities, friends that would miss her. And somewhere, there might be a man she could love....

Olivia wanted to love someone. She wanted to feel strong arms around her at night and wake up to a warm body wrapped around hers.

Light exploded behind her eyes as something struck her hard from behind. The force of impact spun her car back into oncoming traffic.

Her head snapped forward and her shoulder slammed against the wheel. Through a haze of pain, she saw a police car cut across in front of her. Had she run into it?

The doors swung open and a man climbed out.

The siren seemed to come from everywhere, shrill and high. Lights flashed in front of Olivia’s eyes, leaving her nauseous. Her shoulder was on fire and she couldn’t seem to breathe.

Then she fell into a well of endless pain.

* * *

OLIVIA OPENED HER eyes to searing torment at her neck and shoulder.

Someone was pounding on her car door, trying to get in.

She lifted her hand and even that tiny movement was excruciating. A blurry figure was pointing downward and jamming something into the window.

Olivia gritted her teeth, inched forward and gasped in pain as she managed to unlock the car door. When it opened, she almost plunged to the ground.

Strong arms caught her.

“Are you okay? That was a bad impact.”

The words sounded blurry. They were swallowed up by the banging behind her eyes and the slam of her pulse.

“Need to get you out of this car.”

Strong hands released her seat belt. With an odd sense of detachment, she felt the officer touch her neck, then pull back her hair. Searching for signs of trauma, Olivia guessed. If she remembered that, she hadn’t lost all her faculties.

“Where does it hurt?”

“My neck. I hit my head.” She shivered as rain struck her face. Then Olivia gave a broken laugh. “Everywhere hurts.”

“Let’s get you somewhere safe. I put up some flares to hold traffic. An ambulance should be here shortly.” There was something comforting about his low, husky monotone. It made her feel he wasn’t scared. As if he did this all the time, pulling people out of wrecked cars during a major coastal storm.

“Ready to go?”

Olivia half nodded. She tried to see his face, but it was raining too hard.