Sweetest Mistake (Nolan Brothers #2) (2 page)

The playfulness vanished from his face like mist burning off with the morning sun. All the softness disappeared, replaced by a hard glare. “I didn’t know you enjoyed our little oasis so much. Not many people find island life to their tastes.”

She’d only visited Thief Island twice before deciding to make the permanent move. Sweeping views of sand and sea, rolling hills, and a quaint downtown were all she recalled.

It was vastly different from the desert of Tucson. Nearly the exact opposite, in fact, which was fine by her. Preferred even. Maybe the foreign environment would distract her from the painful memories she’d hoped to leave behind in the desert.

She lifted her shoulders. “What’s not to like?”

His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Have you spent any time here in winter?”

“I have.” It’d been unseasonably warm when she’d visited last December, but she didn’t share that tidbit with him.

“When the lake ices over, the ferry can’t run. No one can come to or leave the island for days, even weeks, at a time.”

“It’s too late to talk me out of it.” She yanked open the car door. “I bought Mina’s house.”

His expression turned incredulous. “Why did you do that?”

Her scowl deepened, and not only because she didn’t have a ready answer.

She had a lot of almost answers, though none she wished to voice for Luke Nolan’s examination. Answers such as because her cousin, Mina, one of the few family members Emily had left in the world, had lived in that house and lived on the island still. Or because last year, the most excruciatingly difficult year of Emily’s life, she’d buried her mom on that island.

No, she didn’t wish to share those answers with him, especially considering her most compelling answer amounted to “why not?” She didn’t have anywhere else to go.

She settled on the facts instead. “I’m opening a bed-and-breakfast.”

He studied her for one heartbeat, two. “We don’t get a lot of tourists.”

Her throat constricted around a rush of unspoken words. She focused on her breathing. “I’m h-hoping to ch-change that.”

His inscrutable expression suffered a crack and she glimpsed some fleeting emotion. Though gone too quickly for her to identify, it appeared suspiciously like panic.

Just then, a sleek black Chrysler rolled to a stop behind Emily’s sedan.

The woman at the steering wheel had honey-blonde hair and oversized sunglasses. She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers at Luke, jostling the gold bangles stacked on her wrist, before she stepped from the luxury car with the ease of a long-legged gazelle. Her red dress barely gained mid-thigh, and its stretchy fabric clung to her shapely figure in all the places men seemed to find most interesting.

Luke bent to retrieve his backpack and slung the bag over his shoulder as she bounded onto the curb. His hand slipped to her waist when she kissed his cheek with her red-painted lips.

They were perfection made manifest.

Emily shoved her hands into the pocket of her drab gray sweatshirt while Luke guided the woman to the passenger side and pulled open the car door. The woman slid into the vehicle and he closed the door behind her before rounding the car.

His hand on the driver-side door handle, he lifted his head. “You okay? Do you want to follow us?”

Emily shook her head. “I’m okay.” She pointed at the sedan’s interior. “GPS.”

With a fluid motion, he slid behind the wheel of the gorgeous woman’s car.

Emily ducked into the shelter of the rental car and hauled the door shut. She slunk down in her seat. Not until the Chrysler eased past her side window and disappeared among the congested traffic did she release the breath she’d been holding.

For the first time since she decided to move across the country, unease prickled. She’d made the move, in part, because she envisioned living out her life in relative peace and quiet in the isolated small town. Now she wondered if that’d be possible with Luke Nolan prowling the streets.

A thought struck. Dread swept through her and she bounded from the vehicle, leaving the car door wide open in her haste.

In the trunk, she plunged through the mound of her clothing and toiletries. Frantic, her horror rose to the back of her throat as a whine of dismay.

BOB was missing.

Waves crashed over his head. He thrashed and kicked his legs, but the torrent pulled him under. Water burned through his nose and lungs. His body grew weak and the dread of what was to come filled him.

Luke jolted awake.

Disoriented in the darkness, he reached out for… something, but there was nothing to grab on to and he collapsed. He sucked in large gulps of air. Fresh air. He turned his head.

Through the patio door, stars dotted the blackened sky and the rhythmic churn of Lake Michigan endured. He’d left open the slider door to allow the warm summer air inside his loft apartment. The sheets, drenched in sweat, tangled around his legs. He kicked free of them and stumbled from the bed.

He trudged to the kitchen on legs made weak from a grueling workout earlier in the day. The clock on the stove screamed the hour in neon-green digits as he retrieved a tumbler from the cupboard.

It was 3:13 a.m. He’d slept almost an hour that time. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d slept longer than a couple hours, and he no longer felt the exhaustion that plagued him.

As he snatched up the bottle of whiskey on the counter, his hand brushed against something unexpected.

In the dim room, he could make out the unmistakable shape of the shocking pink vibrator lying on the counter where he’d tossed it. He hadn’t meant to steal it from the woman at the airport, but with the crowd rushing in to swarm them and her eyes filling with panic, he’d shoved the phallic object into his hip pocket so he could scoop up her far-flung belongings and haul them away to safety. He hadn’t recalled the vibrator until he’d climbed behind the wheel of Kate’s car and the fleshy device had poked him in the thigh.

Filling the glass past halfway, Luke drank the contents in a long, deep swallow. The liquid burned a path down his throat to his gut. He refilled and drank until he gasped for breath. Then he gripped the bottle by the neck and crossed the darkened room to the patio doors.

With his elbow, he slid the screen open and stepped out onto the balcony. It’d be some time before he settled down enough for sleep, and he wouldn’t be able to do it at all without the whiskey.

The apartment complex, an old factory converted into studio lofts, sat overlooking the harbor on the island’s sunrise coast. Sparse, tiny lights winked at him from the mainland across the lake. He dropped into the wrecked recliner, its leather cracked and duct taped in several places.

He sat in the dark, taking nips of whiskey, the way one might chat with an old friend. When the first fingers of dawn peeked over the horizon, he stared into the light, daring the sun finally show itself. His eyes burned but he didn’t look away. The pain felt good. It was all he had to remind himself he still lived.

He threw back the Jack in his tumbler and poured the last remaining trickle of liquid from the bottle, both frightened and relieved to see the bottle run dry.

Only then would he sleep.

T
he sun threw light across the room and Emily rolled to her side to escape its harsh glare. It was well past noon, and the nagging voice inside her head badgered.

Get up.

I don’t want to.

You have to.

Why?

You haven’t bathed in two days.

So?

Get up.

No. Go away.

What would your mom think if she could see you like this?

Emily got up.

The hardwood floors were cool beneath her feet as she trudged across the bedroom. In the bathroom, she turned on the shower and brushed her teeth while steam filled the room.

In the week since she’d arrived at her new home, she’d fallen into one of her now-familiar funks. They’d happened every so often since her mom died. Periods of gloom that often lasted several days, or sometimes, weeks. Unable to muster the will to eat or get out of bed, she’d sleep more hours than she’d spend awake, yet exhaustion never left her body.

After her shower, she rummaged through her suitcase for a clean pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. She tugged a comb through the long mass of her tangled hair, but the humidity coaxed waves into her normally straight, fine locks and she soon gave up the fight and ventured out of her suite of private rooms.

Located off the home’s gourmet kitchen at the back of the house, the cozy suite boasted a living area, a bedroom with an en suite bath, and a wall of French doors through which she enjoyed the same expansive views of Lake Michigan as the rest of the house.

Not that the seven-bedroom, seven-thousand-square-foot Winslow mansion wasn’t cozy. It was lovely. Lovely and massive. Cavernous, really. Which only exacerbated Emily’s utter distaste for living alone.

Nothing a houseguest or two couldn’t help fix.

She started a pot of coffee brewing and distracted herself from her melancholy with thoughts about the inn.

Despite Luke Nolan’s lack of enthusiasm, the hour-long drive from the airport had given her some reason for optimism about her business venture, spurred by sweeping views of the lake, charming coastal communities, and an abundance of road signs directing traffic to nearby wineries and antique shops.

No doubt, the tourists weren’t far away. All she had to do was lure them onto the island. Located a short ferry ride from the mainland between Traverse City and Ludington, two of Michigan’s most popular tourist destinations, how hard could it be?

When the coffee’s aroma filled the spacious kitchen, she filled a to-go mug and scooped her purse and keys off the kitchen counter on her way out the back door. She shoved a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes to shield against the intense sunlight. In the rented sedan, she traveled south along the island’s western coastline.

The lake appeared a brilliant blue-green color she couldn’t ever before recall seeing. At the southern point, she rounded the bend and soon turned up the drive to the old stone church. She parked atop the gentle hill overlooking the graveyard and snagged the watering can off the backseat.

Since she’d buried her mom here a year ago, the church sign had changed from St. Patrick’s Catholic Church to Little Stone Church, a name that perfectly described the building.

Her mom’s tombstone rested at the edge of an ancient oak tree’s shadow. As she filled the watering can at the spigot, a bird chirped in the tree overhead and a warm, freshwater-scented breeze gusted off the lake to kiss her skin and lift her hair off her shoulders.

At Audrey’s resting place, Emily tipped the can and water trickled over the pink geraniums. When she’d first learned of her mom’s wish to be buried in Michigan, she’d been shocked. Audrey had brought Emily to visit Thief Island a few times when Emily was young, but never thereafter and Emily had assumed her mother felt no love lost for the town where she grew up.

Just one more thing she wished she’d thought to ask Audrey before her death. Who was her first love? Was her heart ever broken? What subject did she enjoy most in school? What was Audrey’s favorite thing about the island? The breathtaking views? The smell?

In the end, they’d run out of time.

As Emily descended the hillside, a seagull screeched above her head.

So very many questions, and she’d never know the answers to any of them.