Hideaway Cove (A Windfall Island Novel) (15 page)

Yes
, she thought immediately—although a part of her, the weak part, said
No
. It would be so much wiser to say good-bye to him now than to risk falling in love with him. She was already halfway there—

His arms came around her, and she just went into them, let herself be held.

“Remember, you asked for it,” she said, taking him by the hand and pulling him out to the living room with her. “Hold and I want to talk to you about something, Benj,” she said to her son.

Benji sat up, gathering the puppy into his lap. With one hand scratching the pup’s head, Benji looked from her to Hold and back again. “He’s your boyfriend, right? Auntie Maggie told me Hold wanted to be your boyfriend.”

Jessi realized her mouth was hanging open, and closed it. She looked over at Hold. He just shrugged.

“Um…Is that okay with you?” she said to Benji.

“Sure.” He sounded like it was no big deal, but he kept his gaze on the puppy, which gave a huge yawn, then tugged half-heartedly at Benji’s pant leg.

Laughing, he carefully shooed the dog away, and for the second time in her life Jessi had a reason to be grateful to Lance. Whatever his ulterior motives in bringing the dog, it was just the right thing for Benji.

“Is there anything you want to ask us?”

This time he did look up, and Jessi could see that he wasn’t as certain as he’d pretended to be. “Are you going to kiss and stuff?”

Hold settled on the floor next to Benji. He picked up the pup and settled it in the crook of his arm, where it promptly fell asleep. “We’re going to be spending time together, Ben,” Hold said, “And when I say we, I mean all three of us.”

“So, you’re like dating us both?”

“In a way. Your mom is a package deal, kiddo, and I’ll be kissing her from time to time, if that’s okay with you. And there’ll be times when it’s just going to be the two of us.

“You and me?” Hold continued. “I’d like us to be friends, and that means sometimes it’ll just be you and me, ’cause us men, we have to stick together.”

Benji’s little frown faded into a smile. He took the pup back, cradling it in his lap. “Want to help me name him?” he said to Hold.

“What about me?” Jessi said, although she had to swallow first to get the words past the lump in her throat.
How did Hold always know the right thing to say? And what had she done to deserve such a sweet kid?
“Don’t I get to help?”

Benji shook his head solemnly. “He’s a man, too.”

“Great, already outnumbered.” Jessi braced her hands on her hips, put on her best stern Mom face. “Don’t get any ideas about pulling out the video games. It’s lunchtime. Then there are chores to be done.” And Lance to deal with in a couple of hours.

“Don’t we get a vote?” Benji asked, his conniving little brain already calculating the balance of power with two men in the house.

Hold boosted Benji to his feet, then climbed upright himself. “C’mon, son,” he said, “I’ll explain a few things to you. First, you need to keep an eye on that puppy, because as soon as he wakes up, he’ll want to piddle. Sure, laugh now,” Hold added as Benji did just that, “but you won’t be too happy cleaning up after him. Especially if he pees on one of your mother’s rugs, and for some reason they always hit the rugs.

“Second,” Hold continued, “I think it’s time you learned about women. Now, when your mother said she was outnumbered, that doesn’t mean this is a democracy.”

“What’s a democracy?”

Jessi went into the kitchen to put together some lunch, the lump that had been in her throat moving down to ache in her chest. She couldn’t make out the words coming from her living room, but as she listened to the voices, one deep and filled with warmth and humor, the other young and filled with ease and trust, a little more of her heart fell at Hold Abbot’s feet.

She served them canned soup and ham sandwiches, and kept her eye on the sunflower-shaped clock Benji had given her for Mother’s Day.

“You didn’t eat a thing,” Hold said to her once Benji had finished and raced off to take the puppy out. “And the only time you spoke was to tell Ben not to feed the dog at the table.”

Jessi tried a smile, and knew she’d failed when Hold didn’t smile back.

“You worried about Benji?”

“No.” Jessi stood, but before she could gather the remains of their lunch, Hold took her by the hand and tugged until she came close enough for him to wrap his arms around her waist and rest his head just under her chin.

When he did something like this, she thought, something so warm and loving, he made it nearly impossible for her to keep things in perspective.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said. His breath feathered across her skin, and for a moment all the stress and worry faded away.

“I wish we could stay like this…” she almost added
forever
, before she caught herself.

“But?”

“But Lance is going to be here in a little while.”

“And you’d rather I not be here?” Hold squeezed her slightly, then got to his feet.

She felt instantly tense and completely alone. And absolutely justified. “It’s so hard for Benji. For me, too, but before…Benji wasn’t sure which way to turn.”

“Yeah,” Hold sighed. “I saw it, too. I don’t want him in the middle either, Jessica.”

She didn’t have words for what swelled in her heart, that he could be so empathetic and so generous. That he thought of her son first. So she kissed him on the forehead, then stepped back before the temptation to lower her mouth to his became too much to resist.

“Jessica,” he began as he got to his feet. But instead of finishing his thought, he dropped a kiss on her mouth, a kiss that lingered even if it didn’t deepen. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’m already looking forward to it.”

“I’ll just tell Ben good-bye before I go.”

Afraid she’d change her mind and keep Hold there if she saw him again, Jessi finished straightening up from lunch, staying in the kitchen to start dinner.

When Lance showed up twenty minutes later, the difference between the two men was so marked Jessi nearly thanked him for deserting her eight years before.

He strode in, chest puffed out as he made a big deal over the puppy
he’d
brought. Then, as if the earlier contention had never happened, he sniffed the air, complimented her cooking, and waited expectantly. And once he realized a dinner invitation wasn’t coming his way, he wrangled an invitation to Benji’s room instead.

With a sigh, she turned off the stove and followed them up the stairs.

“Seriously, Jess? You’re going to look over my shoulder the whole time I’m here?”

Yes
. But with Benji watching so closely, she didn’t say it. Showing distrust of Lance would only make it harder for Benji to be comfortable with his father.

“Leave the door open,” she said, “and keep an eye on that puppy.”

Once they were in Benji’s room, she headed up to the attic. If she left the door open, she could hear Lance and Benji, and she only needed a couple of minutes.

She had to see the blanket again.

She went straight to the old sea chest, flipped the lid open, and pulled out the bag filled with clothes. With Hold in the house, she hadn’t been able to get a thorough look at the blanket. Now she took it out of the paper and held it up to the light.

Anyone could have seen it was hand-knit, the work done by an extremely gifted hand. There was no label, and even though the stitches on the silk edging were tiny, they weren’t perfect enough to have been done on a machine. Except for the embroidered initials, there was nothing to indicate it had belonged to Eugenia Stanhope. Except for the sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Jessi.”

Her heart shot into her throat; her hands shook and fumbled. The crinkle of the paper as she jerked it back around the blanket sounded like thunder. She shot a glance at the door, even as she tossed the blanket back into the chest and shoved the plastic garbage bag back on top of it. She was just shutting the chest’s lid when Lance appeared in the open attic doorway.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Cleaning.”

His gaze dropped to the chest, lifted to her face again.

“I’ve been sorting through some of these old trunks and chests to make room for my mother’s things.”

“I’m sorry, Jess. I should have told you before. Your mom was an amazing woman.”

“Yes, she was.” And Lance had been the only person Doris Randal had ever spoken a bad word about. “I figured maybe Benji would want to move up here when he’s a teenager. His room is so small, and he’ll want privacy.”

“Or you will.”

Jessi rubbed at her temples, which did little to soothe the headache brewing there. “Not now, Lance,” she murmured.

He stiffened, but she heard no anger in his voice as he looked around at the space, crammed with furniture and boxes. “It’ll take years to clean this place out,” he said. “I’d be happy to help, Jess. I mean it.”

And she could see it on his face; she just wished she didn’t wonder what his real motivation was. “You need to understand, Lance, we’re never going to be what we were to each other as teenagers. We share a son, and that’s all.”

Something passed over his face, something hard that she might not have glimpsed if she hadn’t been watching him so closely. It disappeared so swiftly, though, that she was left questioning her own eyes.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with what seemed to be real regret. “I hope we can be friends.”

“That’s up to you, Lance. Treat Benji well, and I don’t see why you and I can’t get along.”

“Benji and I are going to be close,” he said. “I guarantee it.”

“Good,” she said, and although she searched his face, she saw nothing but determination.

I
don’t see how we can fit that charter in.” Jessi stood in front of the big wall calendar that served as Solomon Charters’ flight schedule, arms crossed, at a loss as to why Maggie couldn’t see her point when it was right there staring both of them in the face.

“We have to,” Maggie said, maddeningly unshakable. “I already took the job.”

“You’re never answering the phones again.”

“You really think we’re going to talk about my schedule when I haven’t heard how it went with Hold?” Maggie, her butt parked on the edge of Jessi’s desk, completely ignored the fact that she’d agreed to a charter she had no way of doing without a clone and a second plane. “It must have gone pretty well, seeing as you probably wore him out so much he couldn’t put in an appearance this morning.”

Jessi continued to study the map, because it kept her back to Maggie. “Hold had some errands he needed to do in the village—dry cleaning, that sort of thing. And it went pretty much like you’d expect,” she added casually.

“Then why are you so tense?”

Because of a tiny pink blanket with Eugenia Stanhope’s initials embroidered on it. She should have told Maggie. She’d been arguing with herself all morning, had started and stopped a dozen times before she accepted that she just wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

She might be a Stanhope, and through her, Benji. At the moment, that truth rested with her, and while she trusted Maggie implicitly, telling her meant telling Dex. And Hold.

The minute they learned about the blanket, everything would change. She and Benji would be in danger, and Benji mattered more than anything else in her life.

“Jessi?”

She took a couple of deep breaths, forced herself to relax before she turned around. “It was amazing, Mags. Worth the wait.”

“After an eight-year dry spell, I’m surprised you didn’t scream the house down around your ears.”

“It’s a very sturdy house.”

Maggie cracked a smile, the first one Jessi had seen from her in days. “I’d ask for details, but I’m a lady.”

Jessi snorted. “Since when?”

“Okay, then give me details.”

“Sure.” She slapped the back of her hand on the map. “Just as soon as we get your schedule nailed down.”

“I’d think you’d had enough nailing.”

Jessi rolled her eyes, but she laughed, too. How could she not laugh when it was the highest Maggie’s spirits had been in days?

“At least tell me what that jerk was doing at your house two hours early.”

Jessi made a sound that conveyed all her frustration and irritation without using any actual cuss words. “He brought Benji a puppy,” she began, and proceeded to give Maggie the rundown of her interchange with Lance, how she’d wound up keeping the puppy, and Benji’s absolute diligence in taking care of it. “He named it Chewie. He and Hold named it Chewie,” she amended. “Chewbacca, like in
Star Wars
. Don’t ask me why when there’s no resemblance. Except it’s a puppy and he chews. A lot,” she finished, thinking of the newly mangled corner of her favorite area rug, the table legs she’d had to pad and wind with tape just in case he got a taste for oak, and one of her favorite black pumps, which Chewie had somehow liberated from her bedroom closet and demolished into tiny leather scraps.

“Of course Lance didn’t come through on his ‘I-bought-everything-you-need’ promise, so after he left Benji and I went to the market and got the basics, including something for Chewie to chew.” Which had set off her temper, even if Benji had gotten a kick out of agonizing over just the right leash and chew toys.

“Ass,” was Maggie’s succinct comment. “Sucking-up ass.”

“I don’t think Benji got that. I mean, he’s grateful to Lance for bringing Chewie, but…”

“In the end it was your decision. So you’re really the one who gave him a puppy.”

“Is it wrong of me to get just a little satisfaction out of that?”

“If it was me, I’d be in Lance’s face, going na-na-na-na-na.”

“Childish,” Jessi decided, “but give me a minute to at least imagine it.” And smile over it. “Especially since he raked me over the coals about Hold.”

“He wouldn’t be an ass if he didn’t. And you can expect him to be an even bigger ass now, since you’ve made it clear you’re not interested in him that way. And by the way, you’re my hero.”

“I’m kind of proud of myself,” Jessi said. Setting Lance straight on that score had been all too easy. Between Lance and Hold, there really was only one choice. “Let’s not dwell on Lance’s assitude,” she decided.

“If we move the mail run here, I can take the charter,” Maggie said, only too happy to change the subject—as long as she got to choose the subject.

“You have a run down to D.C. that day,” Jessi reminded her, although they could both clearly see it marked on the calendar. “By the time you pick up the mail, the post office here will be closed. The mail will be a day late.”

“And?”

“People will complain.”

“Then
people
can find a way to get over to the mainland and pick it up themselves.”

Jessi sighed, mostly because she envied Maggie that confidence. Maggie picked up the mail as a courtesy, sure, but everyone had come to expect it of her. And Windfallers weren’t exactly shrinking violets when it came to voicing opinions. They weren’t idiots, either. They had ample proof that anything they said to Maggie would only roll off her back. And they knew who really made Maggie’s schedule.

“Moving the mail also means I don’t have to move back the marketing run, which,” Maggie added pointedly, “I’m getting paid for.”

“You won’t have time to breathe over the next few days.”

Maggie gave her one-shoulder shrug. “Suits me fine.”

Jessi’s heart went out to her. She’d always been a loner, always content with her life as long as she could fly. Now, well, any fool with two eyes could see Maggie was pining. And even if Jessi was the only person in the world who could have said that to her face, she wouldn’t. “When’s Dex coming back?”

Maggie took to her feet, pacing the office. A sure sign she was unhappy. “I don’t know. He’s not having much luck getting in to see the Stanhopes.”

“Even with Alec helping?” Jessi asked, referring to Dex’s long-time friend, Alec Barclay, who’d sent him to Windfall Island in the first place. Alec served as attorney—or at least one of them—to the Stanhope family.

“Alec has to be careful. He represents the family’s business concerns, so it’s a conflict of interest for him to assist Dex.”

“I thought the Stanhope family sent Dex.”

“They did, to investigate Windfall Island. It appears they aren’t very happy to have his attention turned in their direction. Alec has a professional relationship with all of them, so he’s keeping out of this right now.”

“Keeping out of what?”

Jessi’s gaze swung to the door, then met Maggie’s when she found Paige Walker standing there, dressed to kill, from the top of her perfectly arranged blond hair to the tips of her toes, shod in something that was no doubt designer-made, probably by hand and exclusively for her. Still, her looks had helped get her on the Hollywood A-list, not to mention her talent. She employed both, pasting a bright, cheerfully snarky smile on her beautiful face, a smile that masked the hurt in her eyes when Maggie crossed her arms, took her time looking Paige over.

“I heard the outer door open, but I thought it was someone I’d actually want to see,” Maggie said. She wore no smile but her tone had a bite to it that went a level beyond snark.

“You do like to sneak up on people,” Jessi added.

“I’ve met Hold,” Paige said with a casual wave of her hand. “Who’s Alec?”

“Why? Haven’t bagged your quota of men today?”

“Well,” Paige said, her eyes narrowing over the smile she was fighting to keep in place. “Hold is off-limits.”

Maggie crossed her arms. “And Dex is off island.”

If Paige had been around any time in the last decade, she could have seen that Maggie was having fun. Instead, she squared her shoulders and put a haughty note in her voice. “Then I guess I’ll have to wait to add him to my
quota
, at least until he returns and has time to dump you.”

Grinning, Maggie started toward Paige. Jessi stepped between them. “Stop it,” she said, not caring that it came out in the don’t-mess-with-Mom voice she used with Benji when he got to be stubborn and contentious. They were acting like children; they deserved to be treated like children. “Stop baiting Paige, Maggie. And you,” she turned to Paige, “get a clue.”

“I’ll stop if she stops,” Paige said, not quite ready to give up her snit, or admit she’d let Maggie suck her in. “What about it, Maggie? Ready to kiss and make up?”

“Not until I get some antibiotics,” Maggie said as she walked away. But she stopped at the door, shot Jessi a warning look over her shoulder.

“I saw that,” Paige said with her back still turned to Maggie.

Maggie shot up a middle finger.

“I saw that, too.”

“Then I hope you can read my mind,” Maggie said.

“Not through that red haze of anger and bitterness. But I know what you think of me.”

“Then my work here is done.”

Paige did turn around then. “Do you have so many friends you can afford to throw one away?”

Maggie studied Paige for a beat, then said simply, “Friends, true friends, aren’t something you tote up on a scoreboard, Paige. They’re people you can count on no matter what.”

Paige smiled wistfully. “I’m finding that out.”

Maggie didn’t smile, but her expression softened. “Then maybe there’s hope for you.” And away she went, without a backward glance.

“Same old Maggie,” Paige said.

“No, she’s not,” Jessi said. “As a matter of fact, she was never the Maggie you believed she was. If you’d spent one minute thinking about someone besides yourself ten years ago, you’d know that.”

“Harsh.”

“The truth often is.”

“So what’s Maggie’s truth?”

“That’s for her to say, Paige.” Jessi turned her back, set to making the changes on the flight schedule.

Paige didn’t take the hint. “So I’ll talk to Maggie,” she said.

Jessi huffed out a laugh. “The trick will be getting her to talk to you.”

“Yes, well, who’s Alec, and what is he keeping out of?”

“Alec is a friend of Dex’s, and he’s keeping out of other people’s business. You should try it.”

“What fun would that be?”

“None, but sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong is a great way to have it put out of joint. I’d think you would’ve learned that lesson.”

Paige exhaled with a dainty whoosh, seeming to deflate as she did. “So you believe the gossip, too.”

“It’s not the sex tape; it’s the release of it. The Paige Walker I used to know might make that tape, but she’d never make it public. Or maybe I should say her reputation was too precious to her.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway.”

“Which means,” Jessi continued, “either you pissed someone off and they released a tape you were stupid enough to make, or they manufactured one to make you look bad.”

“Door Number Two.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it doesn’t change anything.”

“Oh?”

Jessi parked herself back behind her desk. “I have a lot of work to do.”

“You also have something you want to say to me.”

“No, I…” Jessi braced her hands on her desk, waged a brief war with herself, and when she lost it, pushed to her feet. “Stop baiting Maggie.”

“I will, just as soon as she stops baiting me.”

Jessi strode around the desk, fired up now. “
You
initiate every conversation with her, Paige. You get right in her face, maybe not physically, but your tone and your attitude are certainly confrontational.”

Paige opened her mouth, shut it. “Well, damn it, Jessi, you’re right. And now you’re mad at me, too.”

“No. Well, yes, at the moment.”

“Then I owe you an apology.”

“Just do me a favor and stop picking fights with Maggie.”

Paige sighed. “I suppose I’m hoping at some point she’ll forgive me. The two of you were—are—my only friends, Jessi. The friends I made after I left here…”

“None of them stood by you,” Jessi finished.

“Like you said, I pissed someone off. Someone powerful.”

“I’m sorry,” Jessi said, and meant it.

“Sorry enough to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nope.” Jessi went back behind her desk. “Stay out of it. For your own good.”

Paige smiled. “I don’t think so.”

“Paige—”

“I’m bored,” she said with the slightest note of apology in her voice. “And I never could resist a mystery.”

“No, what you are is at loose ends,” Jessi said, going for firm but sympathetic. “You ran away from a problem. You should be looking for a way to fix it and get back to your life instead of meddling in ours.”

It stuck with her, the advice she’d given Paige. It stuck with her, Jessi realized, because it applied to her. She’d found that damn blanket and it had paralyzed her. She hadn’t been able to tell Maggie about it. She hadn’t even been able to think about telling Hold.

Worse, she’d done an out-of-sight, out-of-mind. She’d run away from her problem, just like Paige. It wasn’t the way she lived her life, ignoring what needed to be done. Because, she knew, the things you ignored had a way of sneaking up and biting you on the ass. So she’d face it.

First, though, she had to face Hold.

He’d come in an hour or so before and gone straight back to the little office. Before she could talk herself out of it, she got to her feet and went to his doorway. Hold was contemplating a section of the chart, half turned away from her. She stood there for a moment, just watching him.

He turned to face her, so tall and beautiful, with his dark blond hair just a little tousled, his handsome face lit with excitement.

“I received an e-mail this morning,” he said, still clutching it in his hand. He turned back to the chart, excited, distracted. “It’s the last off-island family I was tracking. They’re all ruled out now. You know what this means?” He turned to face her again. “Jessica?”