Hard Choices

Her niece looked down at the mess around her heavy leather boots. “That’s the third bottle I’ve broken.” Riley’s voice sounded thick, as if she were near tears.

There were no signs of blood and Annie’s heart began to settle again. She shrugged and plucked the broom from the hook on the wall and began sweeping up the shards. “It happens,” she said calmly. “Particularly with a concrete floor.” She realized her hands were trembling and tightened them around the broom handle. “Sara and I have joked about having the floor in here padded with foam because we’ve broken so many things.” She smiled a little. “Too impractical. At least concrete’s easy to sweep.”

The dozen bracelets around Riley’s slender wrist jangled as she tucked her waving blond hair behind her ears. She stepped out of the way as Annie swept. “Dad’ll pay for whatever I damage.”

Annie’s heart clutched a little at that. Since she’d unexpectedly shown up on Annie’s doorstep two days ago, Riley had not voluntarily mentioned either one of her parents. Annie had been the one to insist on calling Will and Noelle to let them know their daughter was safe.

As safe as she could be given that she was in Annie’s company.

She stopped sweeping for a moment. Started to reach out and touch Riley’s arm, but stopped.

Instead, she bent over the dustpan and swept the broken glass into it. Riley hadn’t been thrilled when Annie had insisted on calling her parents, but she hadn’t bolted, at least. “Don’t be silly. Nobody has to pay for anything.”

“Except you and Sara, cause now you can’t sell that.” The girl jerked her chin at the rain of glass that tumbled from the dustpan when Annie tipped it over the large garbage can. “Dad said you guys are barely keeping your heads above water.”

“Well, a broken bottle or two isn’t going to ruin us,” she said dryly. “It’s all right, Riley. Truly.” She began sweeping over the floor once more for good measure. “Why don’t you finish unpacking that crate of bottles and then we’ll break for lunch.”

Riley’s blue gaze flicked above Annie’s head and she knew the girl was looking at the plain round clock on the wall. “A little early for lunch, isn’t it?”

Annie shook the dustpan over the garbage can again before putting it and the broom back. “One of the perks of being an owner. Lunch whenever we want. I’ll take you over to Maisy’s Place. The cook there does a great lunch, and maybe we can still sit outside if the rain holds off.” She managed a smile, feeling lighter at the prospect. Trying to keep Riley occupied in the shop all morning had been harder than she’d expected. But the shop needed tending, even on a stormy day, and she hadn’t wanted to leave Riley alone. “Let me know when you’re finished with that crate.”

Threat of tears apparently gone, Riley nodded and reached again into the packing material that surrounded each bottle in the wooden crate. After a moment, Annie made herself go back out to the front of the shop. Riley didn’t need her looking over her shoulder.

It was quiet that morning, much as she’d expect it to be in the middle of the week. Turnabout’s small tourist trade picked up around the weekends, and the herbal shop, Island Botanica, Annie owned with her friend Sara Drake, picked up business then as a result.

Thank goodness for their mail-order trade, she thought faintly. If not for that exceptionally successful portion of their business, Will’s opinion would have been borne out, and there would probably be no shop at all. Which was an unbearable thought.

She picked up a dusting cloth and moved across the light pine floor to the display cases at the window. The shop was small but still had an airy, simple and clean feel to it that Annie loved as much now as she had when she and Sara had opened it five years earlier.

Sitting atop the clear glass shelves were their trademark green glass bottles, jars and matching tubes. A person could get almost everything from tonics to perfume at Island Botanica, and all of it was made right there on Turnabout Island. She turned a bottle so the silver print on the narrow ivory label could be seen more clearly and dashed her rag over a fingerprint smudging the shelf.

She glanced through the windows lining the front of the shop, glad to see the sidewalk was still dry, then looked up at the dark clouds in the sky. If it hadn’t been the middle of the week, she suspected that the threatening weather would have chased off any prospective customers, anyway. There was a storm moving in, no doubt about it.

Turnabout Island often had drizzly days, and the climate was ideal for the fertile fields that supplied the shop. But it wasn’t all that often they had such threatening clouds hovering overhead as they’d had for the past several days.

The clouds had rolled in the same day Riley had arrived. Annie had been a mess of nerves, dread and euphoria ever since. Her niece had run away from home, but instead of disappearing completely, she’d come to Annie.

Annie still didn’t really know why.

She twisted the cloth in her hands, turning toward the door as she heard the soft, tinkling bell that signaled someone entering. Her gaze had barely caught a glimpse of height and gleaming brown hair when Riley came in from the back.

“Auntie Annie, I’m finished with the—” Riley’s voice stopped cold.

Annie glanced at her. “Great, Riley. Thanks. Just sit tight for a minute while I take care of—” Her own voice broke off at the sight of their visitor. Her foot fell back a step and she bumped into one of the display cases after all. Bottles jangled ominously but she was so rooted in shock she didn’t even reach back to steady them. “Logan?”

“I warned them,” her niece said, lips tight. “I warned them not to come after me. So he sent you instead. I’m not stupid, you know. I recognize you from Mom and Dad’s wedding pictures.”

The man drew his eyebrows together as he continued watching Riley. “Excuse me?”

Riley didn’t lose her mutinous expression.

Annie felt as though her jaw must be near the floor as she gaped at the incomer. “Logan,” she said again. “Logan Drake?” It had been years since she’d seen him in the flesh. Years. She’d believed that he’d lost touch with Will shortly after Will and Noelle got married. And even though Sara had spoken of him from time to time, the sight of him was still like a flashback to another life. Another time.

Another Annie.

Finally, the man looked from Riley to her. “Hey, Annie.” The corner of his lips tilted and a fine spray of lines crinkled out from the corners of his unforgettably blue, thickly-lashed eyes. “It’s been a long time.”

Annie’s stomach dipped and swayed. She wasn’t sure who unnerved her more. Riley or Logan, who clearly wasn’t surprised to see her. “A long time,” she agreed faintly.

“You’re a friend of my dad’s,” Riley accused.

“Who’s your dad?”

Riley crossed her arms and stuck out her chin.

Annie started to push back her hair, realized she was still holding the dust cloth, and dropped it on the counter next to the cash register. “Logan—” even saying his name aloud felt odd “—this is m-my niece, Riley.”

“Will’s daughter?” Logan looked at the teen again. Assessing. “No kidding. Is he on the island, too?”

Riley rolled her eyes.

“No.” Annie quickly stepped closer to her niece. She didn’t entirely trust that Riley wouldn’t bolt. And though Annie knew the girl couldn’t get to the mainland from the island as easily as a person could hop a bus out of an ordinary town, she didn’t want to take any chances. She wanted Riley to go home, not run away again somewhere she couldn’t be found at all. “He and Noelle still live in Washington state,” she told him.

Then she looked at Riley, speaking quickly before whatever was forming on her niece’s lips could emerge. “This is Logan Drake. He might be an old friend of your dad’s, but he’s also Sara’s brother. I…I’m sure he’s here to see her and Dr. Hugo. He’s from Turnabout. Isn’t that right, Logan?”

His half smile didn’t waver. “I grew up here,” he confirmed.

“Bet you couldn’t wait to leave it. There’s hardly anything to do here, you know, even if it is part of California. There’s, like, only five cars on the entire island. It’s boring as hell.”

“Riley!” She sent Logan an awkward smile. It was true that Turnabout was not a large island. Situated well off the coast of California, it was barely eleven miles long and less than half that wide, with a single road almost exactly bisecting the island down the length. Annie didn’t own a car. Most people on the island didn’t and instead walked, rode bicycles, or occasionally zipped around in golf carts.

“Sara’s in San Diego for the week, I’m afraid,” Annie finally said. “She, uh, she didn’t say she was expecting you home.” Truth be told, Sara rarely talked about Logan anymore, and when she did it was to speculate over the source of the money he seemed to have—evidenced by the generous checks he’d occasionally send Sara’s way—or, more commonly, to bemoan his long absence.

That half smile of his, little more than a quirk at the corner of his lips really, hadn’t moved. For some reason, it made her uncommonly nervous.

“She didn’t know I was coming to visit,” he said.

She understood his clarification. He wasn’t home. He had no intention of staying. Though why he felt the need to clarify himself escaped her. It wasn’t as if he was there to see her. She knew good and well what his opinion had been of her. There were some things that were not in her memory banks from sixteen years ago, but his opinion of her wasn’t one of them.

Before she could stop the nervous gesture, she’d run her fingers through her hair. “Well, like I said, Sara is away. Riley and I were just heading over to Maisy’s Place for lunch. You’re welcome to join us.”

He looked at her thoughtfully and she swallowed. What was she doing? She didn’t ask men out to lunch, or to anything else, for that matter. Not anymore. Not even one on whom she’d once had an unrequited crush the size of the Cascade Mountains. Not even one who was the brother of her best friend.

“Oh.” Her brain belatedly kicked into gear with an explanation for that look of his. “Of course you’ll be wanting to see your dad, probably. I saw Dr. Hugo this morning when we came in to the shop. His office—well, of course you’d know where his office is.” She was babbling and felt like an idiot.

“Actually, lunch sounds good.”

For a moment, her heart seemed to stop beating. It had always been like that when Logan was around. Even back when she was only seventeen years old to his twenty-three. “Okay,” she said faintly.

Riley huffed, a sound halfway between a snort and a groan. Annie ignored it. She was only Riley’s aunt; pretending that she had a right to correct the girl’s atrocious manners was—

She broke off the thought, recognizing the words that had been silently streaking through her mind. Words that Lucia had used, too often, to describe Annie’s behavior, Annie’s attitude, Annie’s habits.

Nothing Riley did was atrocious, she reminded herself. The girl was a teenager, troubled enough to seek out an aunt she barely knew. The only thing Annie could do for her was to convince her voluntarily to go back home to her parents. As quickly as possible. Considering Riley’s statement just now that the island was boring, perhaps she should focus on that angle with the girl—

She realized both Riley and Logan were staring at her. Obviously waiting. Probably wondering what was wrong with her. She smiled weakly. “Right. Lunch.” She hurried into the back to get her wallet and grabbed the shop door keys as she came back out.

Logan and Riley were watching each other. It was a toss-up who looked more wary of the other. And now, because of her big mouth, they’d get to sit at a lunch table together. Joy, oh joy. She reached for the door only to find Logan’s hand beating her to it. She jumped a little and felt her face flush at the nervous reaction.

Riley glared at her.

Logan looked satanically amused.

She hurriedly locked the door and set off across the bumpy road. What she wouldn’t give for some of the mindless bravado she’d once had. She would have had a response for Riley’s smart-aleck attitude, and she’d have looked Logan right back in those ungodly blue eyes of his without having some desire to collapse in a puddle.

She sneaked a look over her shoulder at him.

He looked right at her. Her heart squeezed and she hurriedly looked forward again. Who was she kidding? Even at seventeen, particularly at seventeen, she’d been a puddle where he was concerned.

Riley was already nearly Annie’s own height. She easily caught up with her. “I don’t care whose brother he is,” she whispered, not altogether quietly. “I’ll bet you a million bucks that my dad sent him to drag me home.” A low roll of thunder underscored her words.

Annie looked up at the sky, half expecting lightning to strike right down from the roiling black clouds to the earth at her feet. Such an event would have been about as ordinary as having Riley and then Logan show up on Turnabout. She was acutely aware of the occasional scrape of his boot on the road as he walked right behind them.

She shivered. “You don’t have a million dollars.”

Riley made that impatient sound again.

“Well, maybe he is here because of your dad,” she acknowledged softly. Coincidences did happen in life, but for him to show up now? It was stretching it.

“I won’t go,” Riley said flatly.

Yes, you will, Annie answered silently. Thunder rolled again. The air seemed far too still and full of energy, lying in wait for some perfect moment to flash.

“Storm coming,” Logan said behind them.

Annie quickened her step, heading down the road to Maisy Fielding’s inn. As far as she was concerned, the storm had already arrived.

Chapter Two

“As I live and breathe. Is that my very own nephew, Logan Drake?” Maisy Fielding, all five-feet-nothing of her, stood in the middle of the entry to Maisy’s Place, her hands on her hips.

Despite himself, Logan felt amusement tug at his lips. Maisy Fielding was an aunt of sorts—her deceased husband having been his mom’s cousin—and she looked the same as she had the last time he’d seen her. The same corkscrew red curls, the same migraine-inspiring colorful clothes, the same hefty attitude screaming from the pores of her diminutive person. “That’s what my driver’s license says.”

She laughed heartily, then tugged his shoulders until he had to bend over her. She wrapped her skinny arms around him for a surprisingly strong hug. “Still have a smart mouth, I see,” she said, patting his back. “Running away from Turnabout didn’t change that a lick.” She let go of him, and peered up into his face, her expression shrewd.

He wondered what she saw. Whatever it was, she waved her arm toward one side after a moment, encompassing the lush landscaping that surrounded the main inn. “Surprised you haven’t managed to lose your license somewhere along the way. It took nearly ten years for the trees over at the corner to recover after you plowed that darned fool car of yours into them.”

Behind him, Logan heard Riley stifle a snort. Of laughter or disgust, he couldn’t tell. “Didn’t expect the brakes to go out, Maisy,” he said easily. “I managed not to take out the side of the inn at least.”

She laughed again, a sure sign that time could heal some wounds. Twenty-three years ago when he’d been a brand-new sixteen-year-old behind the wheel of a rattletrap car his father had forbidden him to buy, Maisy had been plenty mad about him mowing down her trees. She’d meted out her punishment over an entire summer of drudgery. He’d done everything from scraping paint off her kitchen cabinets to babysitting her precocious daughter. Back then, he’d preferred dealing with the paint to dealing with Tessa. She’d been a pain in the ass.

And he still felt badly that he hadn’t been around years later when she’d died. He’d only learned the news from Sara when one of her scarce letters had caught up to him.

“Well, if you’re here for lunch, come on in,” Maisy said, her eyes taking in Annie and Riley as well. If she saw anything unusual in Logan accompanying them, she kept it to herself, and Logan was glad. Maisy wasn’t known for keeping her mouth shut when she figured something was her business. “Grapevine must have a branch missing that I didn’t hear about you before seeing you.” She turned toward the building. “Hugo didn’t mention a word that you were coming.”

Logan held open the door for the females, ignoring Maisy’s reference to his father. “Business must be good. I remember you used to offer only breakfast.”

“More tourists coming to Turnabout. They needed to eat somewhere.” She walked straight through to an open-air dining area where at least two dozen other people were already seated at the round tables dotting the saltillo-tiled floor. “Sit anywhere you like. If it starts to rain, I’ll find you a spot inside. Somewhere.” She patted Logan’s arm and scurried back inside.

“Have a preference?” He looked at Riley, who ignored him, and Annie, who shook her head slightly. He headed to the table farthest from the other patrons. Seeing Maisy was one thing, but he had no particular desire to run into anyone else he might know. He was only there to clear his conscience, not renew old acquaintances.

He held out Annie’s seat, then habit had him sitting with his back to what passed for a wall in the dining area—a redwood trellis congested with climbing bougainvillea. A teenaged waitress he didn’t recognize brought them glasses of water with lemon slices in them and they ordered after she’d recited the day’s menu.

When she was gone, silence settled, broken only by the murmur of voices from the other diners. Logan looked around. The middle-aged couple with sun-burned faces and crispy-new vacation clothes at the table nearest them were having a softly hissed argument. To their right was a smaller table, occupied by a lone young woman. She was reading a paperback book, occasionally looking up and studying the other diners as she toyed with her soup bowl. It was obvious to Logan that she was more interested in the people around her than the contents of her bowl. Beyond her was a young couple. Honeymooners, if he was any judge. They couldn’t keep their hands apart long enough to eat their sandwiches, and beneath the iron and glass table, the woman was running her toes up and down the man’s ankle. Logan half expected to see her slide over into her partner’s lap.

He looked back at Annie. She was sitting quietly, her expression closed. Riley was studying her fingernails—painted such an ungodly black that it looked as if her hands had been caught beneath a ton of bricks.

The school picture that Will had shown him the day before had indicated how much she took after him, but in person the resemblance seemed less marked. Her expression tightened when she noticed him looking at her and she shifted in her chair, crossing her arms.

Classic defensiveness.

“I guess I don’t need to ask if you and Sara kept in touch after you two graduated from Bendlemaier.” Logan turned his attention back to Annie. He was perfectly aware of Riley’s increased defensiveness when he mentioned the school. Another thing that Will had clued him into.

He and Noelle wanted to send their daughter to the exclusive boarding school. But it was apparent that Riley liked the idea even less than Annie once had.

Annie’s smile looked forced. “I, um, I didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier. But we kept in touch when she went off to college. We’d talked often enough about wanting our own shop, and when the opportunity arose, we went for it.”

For some reason, Logan had assumed Annie had been in college with Sara. Showed how much he knew about his sister. He wondered if Sara had changed as much as Annie. Even though it hadn’t been in his plans—which were to do what needed doing and get out of there as quickly as possible—he had more than a fleeting desire to see his kid sister.

He’d talked to her a few times in the past ten years on the phone, but he hadn’t seen her in person in longer than that. He still remembered her expression the last time they’d seen each other. Confused. Hurt. It had felt like his skin was being peeled away to know he’d never come back to Turnabout to be any sort of brother that mattered. Instead, he called when the need to do so grew too great and sent her money to salve his conscience. After enough years, he could almost convince himself his system worked.

But he wasn’t there to deal with his family issues. So he studied Annie for a moment. He’d fully expected to see her, since Will had told him that his daughter was staying with her, but he hadn’t expected any of the feelings that had hit him when he did. “Your hair used to be longer, didn’t it?” He knew good and well how long it had been. Thick and shining, its wild white-blond curls had reached down to the small of her back. All those years ago, she’d used that mane like a weapon against any male in her vicinity.

“Yes.” She poked her fork into her water glass, spearing the lemon, which she squeezed back into the water. Her cheeks looked vaguely red. “You look pretty much the same to me.” She glanced at Riley, making him wonder what she was thinking. “A little older, but aren’t we all?”

“All this reminiscing makes me want to gag.”

“Then face the other way before you do, Riley, so you don’t ruin our lunches,” Logan suggested mildly.

She glared at him. It made him want to smile. She was very much like her aunt had once been. Full of attitude. The style of clothing had changed some in the past decade and a half, but she wore hers just as tightly and flauntingly as Annie had ever done.

He watched Annie’s down-turned head for a moment. There was nothing flaunting about Annie’s appearance, now. She had on a sleeveless khaki jumper that nearly reached her ankles over a short-sleeved white T-shirt. The dress was shapeless and the neckline of the shirt didn’t even reveal the base of her slender throat.

She wore a plain watch with a thin black band on her left wrist and no other visible jewelry. Gone were the jangling metal bracelets, the chains around her neck, the multiple sets of dangling earrings. Her brown lashes looked soft and naked and if she wore a hint of makeup, she’d done it too subtly for him to tell. When she’d been seventeen she’d seemed to pile on the stuff with a trowel.

“Geez. Take a picture, why don’t you?” Riley rolled her eyes and shook her head at him, her disgust obvious.

Annie looked up, her gaze flicking from her niece to Logan’s face. Then her cheeks flushed again. She moistened her lips and seemed about to say something, but the waitress returned, arms laden with their orders, leaving Logan to wonder what had caused that flush—if it had to do with the past.

She’d never seemed the blushing type before.

The last time he’d seen her had been at her parent’s palatial Seattle home, where he, along with the rest of the wedding party, had spent the night following Will’s wedding. He’d been pretty damned angry with her.

But even angrier with himself. Her youth could explain her actions. He’d had no such excuse.

“Pass the ketchup, please.”

He handed Riley the bottle, vaguely surprised by her politeness. But then again, attitude or not, she was Will and Noelle’s daughter. He watched her dump it over her French fries. “Like to have one French fry with your ketchup?”

She made a face then nodded. He took the bottle when she was finished, doing the same thing with his own plate. “Me, too.”

It earned him a studiously bored look.

Annie had ordered a salad. She stabbed her fork into it, moving lettuce and chunky vegetables from side to side, but not seeming to eat any of it.

“So, what did happen when you left Bendlemaier?”

She didn’t look up from her salad. “Not a lot.”

“How come you don’t still live on Turnabout, if you came from here?” Riley dredged a fry back and forth through her pool of ketchup.