Winter Blockbuster 2012 (39 page)

Along the table Lily stopped talking to Brooke and turned her head. Laurel quickly flashed her sister a reassuring smile. After a moment Lily smiled back, and when Brooke spoke to her she turned away resume their conversation.

Laurel exhaled in relief. That had been a close call. The last thing she wanted was her sister’s concern.

Shifting uncomfortably, Eli murmured, “Rakin had a problem. I told him you might be the solution.”

“Just like that?” How typical. How very male. “And he agreed?”

Eli gave an awkward chuckle. “What man wouldn’t? I told him you were beautiful and smart and he couldn’t go wrong.”

Like a horse trader showing off her good points. Laurel spoke softly through gritted teeth. “Thanks, Eli!”

He looked as guilty as sin at the unfamiliar edge to her voice. “You’re furious—in all the years I’ve known you I’ve never seen you furious, do you know that?”

What on earth was she supposed to say to that? Laurel didn’t even try answering.

As the seconds stretched into an uncomfortable silence, Eli said hesitantly, “I could try to fix it.”

“How?” she demanded.

“If I called him—”

“No!” She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I don’t want you trying to help.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve hurt you. I never thought…” Eli shook his head and let his voice trail away.

Laurel gave a most unladylike growl of frustration.

“That’s the problem. Men just don’t think about the problems they cause!”

Lily had turned her head again. A frown creased her forehead. Clearly she’d sensed dischord. To allay her sister’s suspicions, Laurel gave her sister the sweetest smile she could summon, and Lily’s frown cleared.

“I can’t be pregnant.”

It was Monday morning, and the day was already to starting to deteriorate.

The doctor glanced up from the results in front of her. “You have not engaged in any sexual activity?” Concern glinted behind her spectacles.

“I got married—and yes, we did make love.” Despite Laurel’s embarrassment, the doctor looked relieved. “But I never meant to get pregnant—we took precautions. Except once,” Laurel added, remembering the night in the pool.

“They are not always failsafe.”

The urge to laugh hysterically rose. “I know that. Mother had that talk with me when I was fifteen and went on my first date with my best friend at the time’s brother. What I meant is this cannot be happening to me. I’m a grown-up. I’m sensible.” Even Rakin’s grandmother had thought so. “I’m certainly not the kind of woman who gets pregnant by accident.”

The doctor grimaced. “Accidental pregnancies happen—even to sensible, grown-up businesswomen. Treat it as a blessing. Because I have even more sensible grown-up patients who would love to become pregnant by accident.”

Those words struck home.

A lump formed in Laurel’s throat.

She was not going to cry. Absolutely not. Instead, she said, “I always planned to have a family. One day. Of course, I planned to have a father for my children too—a traditional family.”

The doctor looked confused. “I thought you said you got married.”

Laurel shifted in her seat in front of the desk. “Yes, in Vegas. But it’s already over. I served my husband with separation papers this morning.” Ignoring the other woman’s startled expression, Laurel thought about her mother betrayed and left loveless. About her father murdered in the prime of his life. “But we don’t always get quite what we thought we wanted in life, do we?”

At least her father had left her the beach house. She still had that. Suddenly Laurel had an overwhelming need to be surrounded by the solace of the huge house.

As always, Captain’s Watch, the great old house on the beach, stood unchanged.

Built in the late eighteen hundreds when the great families of the area had discovered the beach, it had stood for more than a century watching the ebb and flow of the tides.

Opening the heavy weathered wooden shutters to let in the May sun, Laurel felt a surge of renewed pleasure as she looked out onto the strip of beach where she had spent so many hours first as a child, and later as a teen with her dates and friends. Her hand rested on her stomach.

“You’ll have that too, my sweetie, I promise.”

The great house and the acreage around it were hers. Her father had known how much she loved it here. Leaving the window, she made for the large hand-hewn timber table where the family had eaten countless meals and played board
games on rainy days. In the center of the bleached wood lay the List—and the letter from her father.

Laurel knew she no longer needed the Get a Life list. She had a life. A life with a job, a family, and soon a baby, too. But she couldn’t bring herself to throw the List away. Laurel poured the last bit of sparkling mineral water into her glass, and took a sip. The List had changed her life—or rather, it had caused her to re-evaluate what she wanted from life. She had grown, undertaken
experiences
—the word
adventures
reminded her too painfully of Rakin—and found a deeper understanding of who she was. She would never regret that.

Her gaze fell onto the empty water bottle.

Then she picked up the List. She read through it one last time. Only item No. 10,
Find My father’s murderer
, remained incomplete.

And No. 4. But the idea of eating ice cream in bed seemed suddenly childish.

For now.

Maybe Nikki Thomas would have better luck than she in getting leads that would result in Jack Sinclair’s arrest. She folded the card on which she’d scrawled the List in half, then in half again. Her left hand reached for the water bottle and closed around the smooth, cool glass. Laurel pressed the folded card into the narrow mouth of the bottle. It dropped into the belly with a plop. She let out a sigh.

The List had done its job.

Drawing out the letter that had been opened, read and refolded so many times that it had the soft texture of crumpled tissue paper, she unfolded it and took in the words that her father had written.

My dearest Laurel,

If you are reading this, I am no longer with you.

But Captain’s Watch is forever yours. For days your excitement
before we arrived each summer at Captain’s Watch would vibrate around the family, infecting everyone. You once told your mother that was because, even though the beach house never changed, no day was ever the same, that time spent at Captain’s Watch was a summer-long adventure.

In the beach house there is a photo of you celebrating one such adventure. You are kneeling beside a sandcastle decorated with shells. I remember you persevering all day long after the other children had given up and moved on to other games. You stayed out there until, as the day was drawing to a close, I came to find you.

The sandcastle was finished and you were gazing at it with a look of such contentment on your face that I knew the time had been well spent. The following morning, you rushed out as soon as you awoke only to find that the tide had washed it away. You never cried. Instead you started building again, but this time you moved above the tide line.

I leave you Captain’s Watch in the hope that it will bring you many more adventures through the course of your life. I know that your kind heart will open the doors to all the family who may want to join you at the beach each summer.

Happy family vacations always.

With my love,

Dad

Through the blur of tears, Laurel traced the flourish of her father’s signature across the page with her fingertip.

The discovery that he had another family, other children, had been devastating to all of them—particularly to her mother.

But Rakin wasn’t like her father in that way. He didn’t already have another woman… or another child. To the contrary he’d told her he’d never wanted any children—or a wife.

Nothing changed the fact that he didn’t love her.

But he needed to know that they’d created a child together. For the first time Laurel felt an inkling of empathy with Angela Sinclair. Angela had done the right thing. Laurel knew Jack’s mother had tried to contact Reginald once, many years ago, to tell him she was pregnant—and failed in her quest.

The tears that had blurred Laurel’s vision spilled over and tickled her cheeks as they trailed down. Holding the letter in her hand, she cupped her still-flat belly. Unlike Reginald, Rakin would have every chance to be part of her baby’s early life.

Laurel could not even begin to think of how painful it must’ve been for her father to discover a decade later that Angela had borne him a son. A son who had grown into a bitter, brooding man, hating their father enough to one day kill him.

If only Jack could’ve known that his father had loved him enough to leave him forty-five percent in The Kincaid Group, Reginald’s life work.

Perhaps if Jack had known that, it might have been enough to turn his hatred to hope.

But they would never know….

With gentle fingers Laurel folded the letter from her father and then placed it back into her purse. When she was finished, she reached for her cell phone.

After marshaling her thoughts, preparing what she was going to say to Rakin when he answered, she was almost disappointed when it diverted to his voice mail message. After a moment’s hesitation, she killed the line.

She couldn’t leave a message. This was something she needed to tell him herself.

In an hour she would call again—and if she couldn’t reach him, then she’d just have to book a flight and go back to Diyafa.

Rakin needed to know they were going to have a baby.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE
sea sucked at her toes.

Laurel watched as the swirl of water disappeared when the tide sucked out again. The bottle with the Get a Life List bobbed on the surface about twenty yards out.

She knew she was procrastinating. Ever since putting the phone down earlier, butterflies had fluttered in her stomach. She’d been finding excuses not to call Rakin again.
Coward!

This time she would leave a message for him to call her back. And if he didn’t call back, she wouldn’t leave it there, she would call again.

And again.

Until he knew.

Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t see the next wavelet until it washed over her feet. She yelped. The high tide was about to turn—and she didn’t want to get the jeans she wore wet. Another wave came rushing in.

She backed up in a hurry—right into a hard body.

An apology ready on her lips, Laurel spun around.

Then froze when she saw who stood there.

Rakin.

“I called you just over an hour ago,” she said, disbelief filling her. Had she conjured him up like a genie?

“I saw I’d missed a call from you—it must’ve come through not long after I landed. But I figured I’d show up instead of calling back.”

“What are you doing here?”

His face darkened. “You can ask me that? After you arranged a legal separation?”

He must have flown from Diyafa the instant the papers were served. Her heart soared—that could only be good. Then crashed. Rakin didn’t love her. There was nothing to hope for. He probably wanted to sign the paperwork off as quickly as possible. “There doesn’t seem to be any point—”

“How can you renege on our marriage?”

The set of his face was frighteningly remote. A chill swept her. He looked more distant than he’d ever been. What would it take to reach him? Certainly not the news of her pregnancy.

“Rakin—”

“Nothing has changed. You knew the ground rules.”

“It was temporary… that has not changed.” But hope flared within her.

A dark eyebrow shot up. “Did I ever agree to end our marriage? Did you bother to ask before you took off while I was sleeping?”

Rakin was annoyed because she hadn’t asked? The flicker of hope went out.

She loved him, and she couldn’t carry on pretending that this was nothing more than a convenient arrangement.

She wanted more.

Much more.

“You don’t need me anymore,” she said. “You’ve gotten what you married me for—your inheritance. You even got it early.”

Rakin gazed down into the pale face of the woman before him.

A shaft of afternoon sun fell across her skin, suffusing the fine creamy texture with a golden glow. Yet her eyes were dark and wary. A gust of breeze from the sea fingered strands of her dark red hair, spreading them across her cheek. Rakin reached forward to stroke the recalcitrant strands off her face, but she ducked away from his touch.

He dropped his hand to his side.

“You ran away.” He had not expected the numbing emptiness that followed Laurel’s departure. Suddenly the threats of disenfranchisement that his grandfather had been holding over his head for years hadn’t seemed so important.

“I didn’t run. I walked. One step at a time.”

“You told my grandmother that you had a family emergency.”

“A lie—I didn’t want to tell her the truth: that I could no longer stay. Nor did I want to cost you your future by telling her the truth.”

A cold fist gripped his heart. He wasn’t reaching her. He was going to lose her.?…

Where was his warm, loving, sexy wife? Terror filled him. Was this how his mother had felt about his father? Was it this fear of life without him that had driven her to stay with a spouse who didn’t love her?

Unrequited love was Rakin’s idea of hell. He’d sworn never to repeat his mother’s mistakes.

But living without Laurel would be infinitely worse.?…

He tried a business bribe. “You’re going to have to come back to Diyafa. Ben Al-Sahr has a brother with another proposition for you.”

Laurel shook her head. “No, I’m not. Matt can handle it. I’m going to stay here.”

The terror doubled. She’d never refused an opportunity
to benefit The Kincaid Group. She wasn’t coming back to Diyafa. Ever.

The hollowness of the future faced him.

Unbidden, the legend of the laurel came back to him. Daphne had fled from Apollo, and when the sun god had caught up with her, embraced her, she’d turned into an inanimate laurel tree rather than stay with him.