Hard Choices

“I had a job that took me elsewhere.” It was true enough, though hardly the entire truth. He had the sense that Riley had only posed the question to keep him from asking more questions of his own to her aunt. It struck him as oddly protective.

“What kinda job?”

“Riley, it’s none of our business.”

He shook his head at Annie’s protest. “I became a spy.”

“Yeah, right.” Riley rolled her eyes and scooped up her dripping French fry, licking her fingers afterward.

“Okay, I’m a consultant,” he said dryly. The lie had always been more palatable for people than the truth—even if he’d dared to share the truth with anybody who mattered. Even his associates had a hard time stomaching it. There were a lot of agents who worked for Coleman Black, the head of Hollins-Winword, in many capacities. But there was need for only one clean-up man.

“Consultant for what? Who?”

“Did you pick up that questioning technique from your dad? I always figured if he hadn’t wanted to be a lawyer, he’d have made a good cop.”

The teen wasn’t fooled. “That’s not an answer.”

“What happened with your law degree?” Annie finally spoke.

“I stuck it in a closet where it’s gathered a lot of dust.” He smiled grimly. He did practice law. Just in a manner most people didn’t want to be aware of. He’d felt that way himself many times. Until recently, though, he’d always been able to shake it, and get on with the job at hand.

A young woman with a white towel wrapped around her hips stopped by their table. “Anything else I can bring you?”

Logan shook his head. Riley sat back, her arms crossed. She’d eaten her ketchup-drenched fries and half her hamburger. Annie—who hadn’t eaten even half of the salad, smiled up at the waitress. “I think we’re fine, Janie. Thanks.”

The waitress moved away. She hadn’t been the one to serve them their meal.

“Who’s the girl?” he asked, watching after her. “She looks familiar.”

Annie followed his gaze toward the departing waitress. “Janie Vega. She helps Maisy out when things are busy. She’s actually a stained-glass artist, though. Has her own studio on the island.”

“Vega?”

Annie nodded. “I suppose you knew Sam Vega? She’s his younger sister.”

“I went to school with Sam.” Janie had been a baby back then.

“He’s sheriff now.”

Logan shook his head, truly surprised at that. “When we were young, Sam wanted off the island worse than I did.”

Annie toyed with her water glass. “When Sara said she hardly ever heard from you she wasn’t joking. Otherwise you’d have known he was the sheriff.”

Riley huffed again. “This is too old for words. I’m outta here.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go back to your house or something.”

Logan watched Annie’s face. A dozen expressions seemed to cross it. Everything from alarm to reluctance to resignation. She passed her keys to her niece. “You can watch the shop until I get there.”

Riley slowly took the keys. “You trust me?”

“You’re not planning to go anywhere else, are you?”

Anywhere else like running away again, Logan interpreted.

“No.” She turned on her heel and strode out of the dining area. Logan watched her go, calculating how likely it would be for her to get off the island if she’d been set on doing so. He’d already talked to Diego Montoya who—as he’d suspected—still ran the only ferry on the island, only to learn the old man was already on the watch for Riley Hess. If the girl were to try to leave, she wouldn’t be able to do so on Diego’s boat. And fortunately for Logan’s current purposes, the other residents of the island seemed to have held to the strange tradition of not owning any kind of water-craft more sophisticated than a dinghy. Only a fool would attempt the crossing in that small a craft.

When Riley was gone, Logan looked back to find Annie watching him. She set down her fork and pushed aside the salad with an air of finality. Her expression was unreadable. “Riley was right. Will did send you. I wasn’t aware that you two were even in touch anymore.”

“I was in Olympia and happened to look him up. He told me Riley had run away.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Happened? Quite a coincidence. And how perfectly convenient that your consulting job allows you to head off to little-known islands whenever it suits you.”

“I’m between assignments right now.” It wasn’t often he found himself feeling defensive, and he’d be damned if he knew why he did now. His answer was true enough, though. Except he didn’t know how he could stomach another assignment after the last FUBAR. He’d told Cole that he’d needed a break, which was how Logan came to be helping out on what should have been a straightforward runaway case. Except that Will hadn’t been the one to ask him to help out. It had been Cole. Turns out his boss and Will had some dealings with each other. Dealings he hadn’t known about until now.

Despite that, however, Logan didn’t necessarily trust his boss to leave Logan to his task if his particular talents suddenly became necessary again. Cole’s priorities were simple. Hollins-Winword—and all that it stood for, all that it protected—came first.

Annie’s lips were pressed together. “Your job—whatever it is—doesn’t really matter, anyway. Will should have come after Riley himself.”

Logan didn’t necessarily disagree. Another argument he’d had with Cole and Will. “Your brother didn’t want Riley doing something even more drastic.”

“She threatened to run again if he came after her.”

“I heard.”

“But she needs to go home.”

The fine line of her jaw looked tight. In fact, everything about Annie looked tight. Uptight. It wasn’t a demeanor he’d have expected her to wear. “Is she causing you difficulties?”

“No. No, of course she isn’t.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t.

“Has she told you why she left home?”

“Riley doesn’t confide in me.”

He frowned. “Come on, Annie. Riley didn’t just run away and disappear. Fortunately. She came to you.”

Annie shook her head. She fiddled with her fork and spoon, neatly aligning them. “She’s just curious about her black-sheep aunt who is odd enough to live on a small island.”

Black sheep? She currently looked more like Bo-Peep to him. “Will and Noelle want to send Riley to Bendlemaier.”

“It’s a fine school.”

Logan watched her for a long moment. “You hated it there.”

“The academic program is—”

“You called it a prison.”

“—unparalleled. Riley is very—”

“You did everything you could to get out of there.”

“—bright. She’ll excel there.”

“Obviously you succeeded in getting out, since you’ve admitted you didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier.” He recognized her face. But the resemblance to the Annie of old was nil. “That’s probably what your parents said when they sent you there. That you’d excel.”

She stiffened. “You never did think much of me, Logan. But are you really comparing me to George and Lucia Hess?”

Impatience rolled through him. He leaned toward her across the small round table. “What the hell’s happened to you, Annie?”

“I grew up,” she said evenly. “What happened to you? You’re the one who pretty much disappeared after Will and Noelle’s wedding.”

If she knew, she’d keep him miles away from Riley. “This isn’t about me.”

“Nor is it about me. This is about Riley and the fact that you’re here to take her home because her father, my brother, couldn’t be bothered to come after her himself.”

“You know his reasons. He and Noelle are being cautious, given what Riley has threatened.”

“Do you really think that Riley doesn’t want her parents’ attention despite what she says to the contrary?” She sat back, seeming to realize that her voice had risen. “Okay, so fine. You’re doing your old friend a favor by retrieving his daughter. Actually, I’m surprised Will waited even a day to retrieve her, considering the unhealthy influence I’m bound to have on her.”

Her tone was even. Neither defensive nor sarcastic, but factual. She could have been reciting geographic statistics from an encyclopedia for all the emotion she showed.

It bugged the hell out of him.

Years ago, there had probably been a portrait of Annie in the dictionary beside the word precocious, but she hadn’t been a danger to anyone other than herself. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Will in person?” All Will had said during that very brief meeting they’d had—the only time they’d seen each other in more than fifteen years, in fact—was that Annie occasionally visited for Christmas, flying in and out just as quickly.

She lifted her shoulder. “Why does it matter?”

Because Logan already suspected that Will knew this Annie about as well as Logan did. Before he could get into that, however, he noticed someone entering the dining area.

He stiffened. Dammit.

“Maisy told me you were here,” Hugo Drake said, stopping beside their table. “I had to see it with my own eyes, though. I guess they must be building igloos in hell ’bout now since you were pretty clear that particular place had to freeze over before you’d ever step foot on the island again.”

He looked up at his father, a man he’d loathed for so many years he could barely remember feeling anything else for him. Hugo Drake was still a robust man, though the years had left their mark in the white hair, the fading eyes. But the old man still had an unlit cigar sticking out of the pocket on his shirt.

Annie had risen and was dropping bills on the table.

“Where are you going?” He ignored his father.

“Back to the shop.”

Her gaze darted between him and Hugo. He wondered what she was thinking. And he wondered why it mattered. He didn’t care who knew about his feelings where his father was concerned. The guy had made his mother’s life a misery. She’d downed a bottle of pills rather than stay married to him. Rather than hang around to finish raising her son and daughter.

Logan hadn’t hated living on Turnabout so much as he’d hated being Dr. Hugo Drake’s son.

He doubted all that many things had changed in the twenty years since he’d been to Turnabout, and he knew that particular thing had changed least of all.

He stood, picked up Annie’s money and handed it back to her. Right or wrong, he paid his own way in life. “I’ll see you later at the shop.”

Her lips parted softly. But he’d already put enough cash on the table to pay the check and was walking away.

He was on Turnabout for one specific reason. Because his boss had ordered it. And that reason didn’t include playing the prodigal son to the man he held responsible for his mother’s death.

Chapter Three

Logan wasn’t at the shop when Annie got there. Which surprised her and relieved her—and disappointed her—though she hardly wanted to dwell on that point. Given what little she knew about him now, and what she remembered of the man she’d once briefly known, she figured he wouldn’t stay away for long. He’d come to the island for a purpose. She couldn’t see him not fulfilling it.

Since they wanted the same thing—Riley to return home—she decided to blame any disappointment over his absence on that aspect.

Riley, though, was in the shop, sitting on top of the counter by the register, blowing pink bubbles in her chewing gum and watching her boots as she swung her feet in small circles.

“Has anyone come into the shop?” Annie put her wallet back in the cupboard.

“Nope.”

“Any phone calls?”

“Nope.”

“Any gorillas prancing down the street wearing pink tutus?”

Riley looked up, her latest bubble deflating around her small mouth. She plucked the sticky stuff from her lips and popped the wad of gum back in her mouth. “Yup.”

Annie smiled faintly. She tugged at her ear, rubbed her hands down her arms. “Riley—”

“Huh-uh.” Her niece hopped off the counter. “I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m not going back.”

“I wasn’t—okay, I was.” She studied the girl. “I haven’t pressed you about anything since you arrived, Riley.” She hadn’t known what to do. Had been nearly paralyzed from taking any actions—sensible or otherwise. But Logan’s arrival had spurred something. “Maybe if you’d just give Bendlemaier a chance, you’d—”

“Like you gave it a chance? I heard you tell that old dude you didn’t even stay long enough to graduate.”

She almost laughed. Logan was definitely not old. He was a mouthwateringly fit man in his prime. Which was not at all what she needed to be thinking about. Ever. But Logan had always had that effect on her. Even when he was scathingly telling her to grow up. “His name is Logan, he’s hardly old, and I did go to Bendlemaier for three years, whether I graduated from there or not. But this isn’t about me.”

Riley shook her head, and walked over to the display nearest the door. She picked up a bottle. Studied the label. Put it back and picked up another. “How come you never got married, Auntie Annie?” She ran the phrase together like it was one long word—anteeanee.

“Nobody ever asked me,” Annie answered, lost for something more appropriate. It was the last question she might have expected.

“You think women have to wait to be asked? My mom asked dad to marry her, you know.”

Annie hadn’t known that. But it seemed like something Noelle would be capable of doing. She wasn’t a woman to wait around for someone else to speak when there was something in her sights. Annie could appreciate that trait now, though she hadn’t back then. Not when she’d believed that beautiful, accomplished Noelle Reed was marrying Will and thereby taking away the only semblance of family that Annie cared about. “No, I don’t think women have to wait to be asked,” she told Riley. “But as it happens, there’s nobody that I’ve ever wanted to ask anyway.” She’d have to allow herself into a relationship of some sort, first.

“Do you have a boyfriend? A lover?”

Good grief, the girl was persistent. “No. I don’t sleep with men I don’t love.” She didn’t sleep with anyone.

“Why not?”

“Logan was right. You’ve learned your questioning technique from Will. Do you have a boyfriend?” Maybe it was more than just the issue of Bendlemaier that had driven Riley to run away from home.

“No.”

Relief dribbled through her.

“Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me date, anyway,” Riley added. “They’d just think I was out trying to have sex or something.”

“Sex! You’ve barely turned fifteen.”

“So? There’s a girl in my class at school—my real school, not that stupid Bendleboring—who is pregnant out to here.” Riley’s hands stuck straight out in front of her. “It’s disgusting. She’s stupid. I mean, hasn’t she ever heard of the pill? They sell condoms in machines in the bathrooms everywhere.” She dropped her hands and worked them into the pockets of her tight jeans, casting Annie a sidelong look. “Logan’d be your boyfriend if you wanted.”

“Your conversation is making me dizzy,” Annie murmured. From condoms to Logan? “Logan is not here to stay, obviously, and he’s not interested in me.”

“He stared at you all through lunch.”

Only because he couldn’t figure out what had happened to the wild Annie he’d known. And she hadn’t felt inclined to tell him that she’d buried her alive in an inescapable crypt. “Riley—”

“Was he your boyfriend before?”

“No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “He was your dad’s friend, Riley.”

Riley didn’t comment on that. Merely blew another enormous bubble that popped with a soft snap when she stuck it inside her mouth and bit down on it.

Annie let out her breath, feeling as chewed-up as the deflated bubble. “What if I talk to your dad about you not going to Bendlemaier? Will you go home, then? Riley, it’s the middle of the school year. You’re missing classes.” And unlike Annie had been, her niece was a stellar student. Another reason why her appearance on Annie’s doorstep seemed so shocking.

“So, I’ll go to school here.”

God. “That’s not what I—”

“That is a school we pass going into town from your house, isn’t it?”

Riley knew good and well that it was. It wasn’t large, but the brick building was obviously a school. “Yes, but it’s for the kids who live here.”

“You just want to get rid of me, too.”

She exhaled, exasperated. “Riley, nobody wants to get rid of you. But your home is with your parents. Whatever problem there is can be worked out.”

“Dad says you haven’t talked to Grandma and Grandpa Hess in more ’n ten years.”

Your dad talks too much, Annie said silently. “Will and Noelle are nothing like George and Lucia.” Thank heavens.

“Well, why can’t whatever problem you’ve got be worked out with them?”

She had no parental instincts inside her. She didn’t know how to deal with a young girl who—from Noelle’s reports—had been captain of last year’s debate team at her school. “Riley—”

“Never mind. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” She suited her words with deed and pushed out the door.

Annie followed her out. Fat drops of rain had just begun to fall. The air was redolent with the scent of an impending rainstorm—wet, dusty, earthy. She hurried across the narrow sidewalk onto the bumpy road. “That’s not what I said!”

Riley looked over her shoulder, continuing to walk away from Annie. “I just thought you’d care. But nobody cares. Not really.” She looked ahead, her boots picking up the pace.

Annie’s heart tore. She could actually feel the pain of it ripping through her. How many times had she felt exactly the same way? Only their situations were decidedly different. Her parents hadn’t cared. Riley’s did.

She swiped a raindrop from her cheek, darting after her niece, grabbing her by the shoulders. Forcing her to stop. “Everyone cares, Riley. Your parents were beside themselves with worry when I talked to them.”

“Right. That’s why they’re pounding down the door of your beach house.” Riley’s eyes were stormier than the sky.

And Annie knew, for once, that her instincts had been right on the mark. Riley had run away, but, despite her threats, she’d expected her parents to follow after her. A show of love. A grand gesture. Something to prove she mattered to them.

Déjà vu, she thought wearily and prayed that this would be the only incident of it.

“You scared them, Riley. They believed your threats.” She chose her words carefully. Not wanting to worsen the situation, which—when it came to family matters—was what Annie had generally done exceptionally well. “But make no mistake. They want you back home. Where you belong.”

Riley just shook her head. Her blond hair was darkening from the rain, clinging wetly to her cheeks, making her look impossibly young. Vulnerable. “Why? They’re never around, anyway. Dad’s campaigning for work and Mom’s traveling for work.” Then she pulled out of Annie’s hold and kept walking.

“Where are you going?” Panic raised Annie’s voice.

Riley’s arms lifted then fell back to her sides. She never looked back.

“She won’t go far. Diego’s not going anywhere with this weather churning up the way it is.”

She jumped, startled at the deep voice. “Where’d you come from?”

Logan smiled faintly and lifted his chin toward the building not ten feet away from where they stood in the middle of the road. “Stopped in at the sheriff’s office to say hello to Sam. Couldn’t help but notice you and Riley out here.” He opened up the black umbrella he held and lifted it over her head.

Annie’s gaze followed Riley whose posture—even at the increasing distance—screamed dejection. “I need to go after her.”

“Take the umbrella, and get inside soon. Sam said the weather service thinks there’s gonna be a bad blow. Storms usually miss Turnabout, but better to be safe.”

She hesitated for only a moment. He was there to retrieve Riley, of that she had no doubt. So why was he allowing even a moment of time before doing so?

“Go, Annie,” he said quietly. “I’ll lock up the shop for you.”

She swallowed, turned and went.

It was raining in earnest when Annie reached her house about twenty minutes later. As she let herself inside, her heart was in her throat, nearly choking her. Then she heard the shower running in the single bathroom.

Uncaring of the rainwater dripping from her onto the ceramic-tile floor, she pressed her back against the wall in the hallway and listened to the blessed sound of the bathroom shower. She was shivering. Not just from the chill caused by the rain, but from the past that seemed to loom up in her face no matter how many times she tried to push it behind her.

She slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor and pressed her wet head back against the wall. Through it she could hear the hiss of the shower even more clearly, as well as the diminishing drum of raindrops on the roof. They grew more sporadic as she listened. Maybe the storm would pass by Turnabout, after all.

The thought was hopeful, but brief, being cut off by a long, crackling rumble of thunder.

From inside the bathroom came the squeak of pipes, the cessation of water, the metallic jangle of shower-curtain rings. By the time the door creaked open several minutes later, Annie was in the kitchen, a clean bath towel slung around her neck, her wet jumper replaced by a sweatshirt and baggy jeans. Riley finally came into the room, her expression wary as Annie pushed a chunky white mug across the breakfast bar toward her.

“What is it?” Riley’s voice was suspicious. “Not that weird tea you make out of weeds, I hope.”

Annie had quickly found that chamomile tea was not a hit with Riley. “Hot chocolate.”

“With marshmallows?”

“Is there any other way to drink it?”

Riley crossed to the bar and picked up the mug. She lifted it carefully. Annie thought she might be smelling it. She took a sip. Followed by a longer one.

“It’s good.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Mom’s hot chocolate is awful. No caffeine, no fat, no nothing.”

Annie lifted her own mug, her smile growing. Noelle was beautiful and model-thin. There’d been a time or two on Annie’s rare visits to their home when she’d heard Will admit to sneaking out for a cholesterol-laden steak and loaded baked potato behind his wife’s diet-conscious back.

Riley slipped onto one of the barstools and hunched over the breakfast bar, cradling the mug. “Mom says marshmallows are all sugar.”

“When we were kids, your dad wouldn’t drink hot chocolate unless the cup was nearly overflowing with marshmallows.”

“I’m a lot like him.” Riley made the announcement as if it were a sentence being pronounced. “Mom says that all the time. I’m just like him.” Her lips twisted as she peered into her mug.

“He’s a good person,” Annie said quietly. “You could do worse than be like Will.” Far better that than to be like Annie.

“How come you don’t have kids?”

Annie lifted her hot chocolate again and managed to singe her tongue drinking too deeply. It was early afternoon, yet the kitchen was darkening. She flipped on the light. “Some people aren’t cut out to be parents,” she finally said. “Fortunately, Will and Noelle are.”

Riley’s expression closed. She turned away from the counter, bare feet stomping across the tile. A moment later, Annie heard the slam of the bedroom door.

She cursed herself for pushing too far. Sighing, she put her mug on the counter next to Riley’s. Neither one of them had finished.

The sliding glass door that led out to the small deck drew her and she moved away from the counter. Outside, the ocean beyond the narrow strip of beach looked gray and forbidding. She opened the door anyway and went out onto the deck. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up. Heavy, dark clouds skidded overhead.

The chaise that had seen Annie through more sleepless nights than she cared to count was wet. She pulled the towel from her neck to dry it off, then threw herself down on the seat. The wind tugged at her hair, flinging it around her shoulders. The temperature felt as if it had dropped twenty degrees since that morning. She wished she’d thought to put on socks.