Fallling for the Prodigal Son (25 page)

Where was she? She'd gone under again.

Panic was starting to fill his throat when he swam into something. He grabbed for it and caught the girl's arm. He pulled her weight onto him. Every muscle in her body was coiled tight as a wire.

"Relax," he told her. "Take a deep breath." Her eyelids fluttered and her terrified eyes locked onto his. "You're going to be fine now." 

She opened her mouth and took a raspy, frightened breath. Her lips were blue.

"We're going to swim back to shore now, okay?"

The girl nodded. Sterling tightened his grip on her and kicked his legs to move. It was slow going and every muscle in his body screamed with exhaustion, but he got the girl safely to shore. By then, a paramedic team had arrived and an EMT waded into the water to help Sterling lift her up onto land.

Back on land himself, Sterling tried to wring the water out of his dress shirt, then gave up. He looked down at his drenched khakis, his ruined leather shoes. He began walking toward Douglas, his shoes making a squishing noise with every step. The campers nervously stood around in tight circles. Some were crying. He'd never see
n a quieter group of teenagers.

"I think she's going to be okay," he assured them.

A shaken Douglas watched him warily as he approached. Sterling wasn't going to read him the riot act right now, not in front of the kids. But there was a discussion to be had later about safety.

Douglas stuck out his hand. "Thank you" was all he said.

"Don't mention it."

Sterling pulled off his soaked shoes and dumped them into a trash can. Then he headed back up the walking path toward the Inn, barefoot. He'd grab his keys and wallet, then go home to change. He was going to have to call the girl's parents or guardians or whomever was legally responsible for her. He would call the hospital in a bit to see how she was doing. He made a mental note to check on the Inn's employee requirements for first aid training. His list of things to do today was growing longer by the minute.

At least his headache was gone now.

Ugh, he thought as he walked. Was there any part of his skin that his clothing wasn't plastered to right now? He tried to pull his wet shirt away from his body but his body seemed to suck the fabric right back. He entered the Inn through the kitchen, ignoring the curious stares directed his way. He couldn't see guests looking like a wet rat.

When he got to his office, he was surprised to see the door partly ajar and voices coming from inside. Had the bankers come back? They were supposed to leave town yesterday. He pushed open the door and stepped in, for a moment forgetting that he was soaked to the skin and shoeless.

Two heads swiveled to look at him. One belonged to an elderly gentleman in dress slacks and an open-collared shirt. The other, particularly lovely, head belonged to Lucy. Her eyes widened at the sight of him.

"What happened to you?"

He looked down at his wet clothes. "I rescued a drowning person. At the camp."

"A camper was drowning?" Lucy said, a stricken look on her face.

Sterling nodded. "She's fine now. They've taken her to the hospital, to check her out."

The elderly gentleman turned to Lucy. "This isn't a good time. I should come back."

"Come back for what?" Sterling asked.

"Mr. Adams here ...," Lucy began.

Mr. Adams. The boathouse.
A charged look passed between Sterling and Lucy. A pink flush was working its way up Lucy's sternum and neck. Sterling lifted one eyebrow as he watched the blush pass over Lucy's lips and color her cheeks. He knew exactly what she was thinking.

Mr. Adams stood up and came around the office chair he'd been sitting in. He extended a hand to Sterling. "George Adams." Sterling shook his hand. "I'm a neighbor, and a friend of your father. I have a proposition for you but it's something we can discuss later. Nothing urgent." He nodded at Sterling's clothes and the small puddle of water collecting at his feet.

Sterling glanced over at Lucy, wondering why she was here with George Adams. What would she have to do with any proposition? There was a guardedness in her eyes, as if she were getting ready to flinch at any moment.

"Can you give me the thirty second version of your proposition?" Sterling said to George Adams.

"I can, indeed. It's pretty simple. I would like to give my property to the Inn, on one condition. That it be used for the kids camp."

Lucy flinched.
             
My god,
Sterling thought.
Is she afraid of me? Have I been that harsh about the camp?
Well, maybe he had been.

"Well, Mr. Adams, that would certainly be generous of you. But where would you live then?"

"I'm buying a place near Ocean City. The grandkids don't appreciate the subtler charms of a place like St. Caroline."

Sterling couldn't hold back a rich, deep laugh. "I didn't either when I was a kid. It takes awhile for the town to grow on some of us."

Ah, was that a smile from the peanut gallery? He looked at Lucy out of the corner of his eye.

"I would need to see the property first, of course," Sterling said. He was already familiar with the Adams property, the grounds anyway, but George Adams had just presented an unexpected opportunity for Sterling.  

"You're welcome to tour it anytime."

Sterling picked at his wet shirt. "Obviously, I need to get out of these wet clothes. How about in an hour or so? Is that convenient for you?"

"I've some errands to run," said George Adams. "But feel free to look around as much as you like. Here's a key."

Lucy stood to leave with George Adams. Sterling caught her bare arm and held her back until Mr. Adams was gone. Her skin was soft and warm beneath his touch. Her lips were open slightly, in surprise. He wanted to kiss her, but he could see the wariness, the confusion, on her face. And, as usual, he couldn't for the life of him
fathom what she was thinking.

"Meet me there. One hour," he said.

Chapter 26

Lucy rang the doorbell of the Adams house and waited. No one came to the door. Clearly, Mr. Adams was still running his errands. She walked back down the porch steps and around the house to the lawn. The sun was still high in the sky. Lucy lifted her hair off her neck, wishing she had a ponytail holder.

After she left Sterling's office, Lucy had broken into a run down the path to the water. The mood at camp was somber. The kids and counselors quietly ate their lunches. The life, the energy, seemed to have gone out of the camp. Douglas sat at the end of a picnic table, staring out at the water.

"Hey," she said, taking a seat next to him. "I heard what happened." She placed an arm around Douglas' shoulders and was surprised to feel his muscles shaking under her touch. Douglas was normally pretty hard to rattle; every year, there were always a few kids who tried to test him. No one ever succeeded.

"The camp is really done for now," he said, finally. The despair in his voice made Lucy's heart skip.

She massaged his shoulders, in an attempt to get him to relax. "Maybe not. I just came from Sterling's office. I was with Mr. Adams when he made his offer to Sterling."

"And?"

"Well, he didn't dismiss it out of hand. He's willing to go look at the property. There might be some hope, yet."

But now it was an hour later and Lucy's hope was beginning to falter. She strolled down to the shoreline. Still no sign of Sterling. Maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe he'd just been humoring an old man. Maybe he was just toying with Lucy. The idea felt like a knife in her heart. She was foolish to love Sterling Matthew, she knew that. She was probably just one in a long string of women who had been just as foolish.

She stood at the top of the path leading to the boathouse. In the five years she'd lived in St. Caroline, she'd never gone back there. It was on private property, for starters, and Lucy was as law-abiding as they come. But it was also part of her past. She wasn't that girl anymore, a scared teenager pretending to be tough and knowing, grasping for something she knew she wouldn't be able to hold on to.

But she needed to be tough today. She thought of Douglas sitting on that picnic table, shoulders slumped. She couldn't bear the thought of going back to him and telling him that she had failed here. She could not let Sterling Matthew turn down this house and land that would be so perfect for the camp. She could not let her emotions get in the way of that.
             

She started down the path. She had left that tough girl right here all those years ago, shed her like an old useless skin. Today, she needed to find her again.

The boathouse stood on a short dock. When she had come here with Sterling before, she'd had an impression that the building was large. It had been dark and everything in St. Caroline had seemed larger than life to her back then. Now she saw that the boathouse was, in fact, rather small. Nothing fancy. It bore more resemblance to Lucy's cottage than to some of the other boathouses in St. Caroline, which were as large as her mother's home in Lost Cave.

When she stepped inside, plunging from the bright midday sun to the dim, unlit interior of the boathouse, she couldn't see a thing. She stood still for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Water lapped rhythmically just in front of her. The smell of old wood surrounded her. Gradually, she began to make out the walls of the boathouse, the narrow strip of unfinished wood flooring running along each side, the empty bay in the center. There had been a boat in here before, she remembered.  

A figure stepped out of a shadowed corner at the far end of the boathouse. Sterling. He had changed into khaki shorts and a linen button-down shirt. He'd left the last few buttons undone, as though he'd been in too much of a rush to bother with those. His shirttail swayed in the breeze wafting through the building.

Lucy's legs felt shaky all of a sudden. She placed a hand on one of the wooden pilings to steady herself. Had this man ever spent a single minute in his life not looking effortlessly, heart-stoppingly sexy? Lucy's inner tough girl was already looking for a dark
corner of her own to cower in.

"You're pretty impressive." Sterling's voice came from the other end of the boathouse. He remained where he was.  "How did you pull this off? Getting George Adams to donate his property to the camp? This property is worth millions. That takes some serious chutzpah."

Was he angry? Lucy couldn't tell from his steady, controlled voice.

"I had nothing to do with it," Lucy said, willing her voice to be steady. "He approached Douglas and they came to me. People are afraid to come to you directly."

"But you're not afraid, are you? Lucy Lou."

Lucy held his gaze, but said nothing.

"So why are you running away? Putting your house up for rent?"

Sterling began walking toward her. Lucy involuntarily took a step back. Sterling stopped, mid-stride, a stricken look flashing across his features.

"I'm not leaving for good. You're not chasing me out of St. Caroline. I'm not letting you do that."

"I wasn't aware that I was trying to do that."

"You fired me. Around here, losing a job often means moving away. Or living in abject poverty. Take your pick."

Sterling ran a hand through his thick hair and started to turn toward the back of the boathouse and the open water. Then he stopped himself and turned back to face Lucy.

"Haven't I apologized for that already? I've already been reamed out over that by my mother and the bankers. Apparently, firing one's marketing director doesn't instill a sense of confidence in the money guys."

A laugh escaped from Lucy's lips, as she pictured Sterling being dressed down by a team of men in suits.

"I'm not sure about your sense of humor there," Sterling said. "I did offer you the job back. The offer still stands. Though, in the future, you might have to run any impending press coverage by me first."

Lucy shook her head. "I don't want the job back."

"So what are you going to do? You're leaving. Where are you going?"