She couldn’t listen to any more of this, and she headed for the door. Before she reached it, he spoke again. “I got the bike from a guy in Austin. It was good cover. I rode into Wynette a few days before you arrived so I could hang out in the local bars without anybody getting suspicious. It gave me a chance to see if I overheard anything that made me uneasy.”
“And did you?”
“Mainly I heard a lot of people saying that no woman was good enough for Ted. He’s some kind of local god.”
She frowned. “I knew they didn’t like me.”
“I don’t think it was personal. At least I didn’t think so at the time. I might have changed my mind about that.”
She’d heard enough, but as she headed for the back door, Mr. Talky was right behind her. “When your great escape started,” he said, “I figured it’d only last a couple of hours. How was I supposed to know you were having some kind of existential breakdown?”
His use of the word unnerved her. She wanted burps, not verbal erudition. “It wasn’t a breakdown.” She stalked across the kitchen floor and out onto the porch. But now that she didn’t want to talk, he stayed with her, and he wouldn’t shut up.
“I could have traded in the bike for an SUV the next day, but I’d have blown my cover, and you’d have tried to pull another disappearing act. Frankly, I didn’t want to work that hard. And don’t try to pretend you didn’t love being on that bike.”
She had loved it, but she wasn’t admitting anything. She pushed open the screen door and stepped into the yard. “Unfortunately, the ferry doesn’t leave for a few hours, so I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone. I’m sure you have things to do.”
He moved in front of her, blocking her way. “Lucy, that night…”
She stared at his collarbone. He jammed his hands in his pockets, studied her nose ring. “I’ve never let anything like that happen with a client.”
She didn’t want to hear about his remorse, and she shot around him.
“You have a right to be pissed,” he said from behind her. “I screwed up.”
She spun back. “You didn’t screw up. You screwed
“Loud and clear.”
“Great. Now leave me alone.”
“Fine.”
But he stayed where he was. She couldn’t bear hearing more apologies, and she thrust her finger in the general direction of the sunroom. “Try taking care of your house for a change instead of bothering me.”
“You want me to wash windows?”
She hadn’t meant that at all. She didn’t care about the windows. “I suppose you could shoot them out,” she sneered, “but that seems a little excessive. Still, it’s your house. Whatever works for you.” With that, she reached the staircase. But with every step she took, her resentment burrowed in deeper. She didn’t want to leave this house. She wanted to stay, to eat breakfast on the screen porch, and take the kayak out, and hide from the world. He didn’t deserve this house. If it were hers, she’d give it the love it deserved. But it wasn’t hers.
She stomped back to the top of the stairs. “You don’t deserve this house!”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t. I-” It came to her in a flash. An impossible idea… She closed her mouth. Opened it. “When are you leaving?”
He regarded her suspiciously. “Tomorrow morning.”
“And… Are you coming back soon?”
“Not sure. I’m starting a new job. Maybe September. What difference does it make to you?”
Her mind raced. She loved this house… this island… She swallowed. “If… you’re not going to be using the house for a while…” She did her best to keep her voice even, not let him see how important this had become to her. “I might want to rent it. I have some things to do, and this is as good a spot as any.”
“What kind of things?”
She wasn’t telling him about the panic she experienced whenever she thought of going back to Washington. Instead, she shrugged. “Take a real vacation. Cook. I have some writing to do for my father. You can apply my cleaning fees to the first month’s rent.”
He regarded her stonily. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
She wasn’t giving up so easily. “So all that talk about how you screwed up was just talk, right? You don’t have to back it up? Make some kind of atonement?”
“Atonement? That’s what this would be?”
He stared at her for a long time, and she stared right back. “All right,” he finally said. “You can have the place for a month. Rent free. And my sins are all forgiven.”
A rabbit darted across the yard. She escaped to the dock, where she pulled off her boots and dangled her feet toward the water. The only deep emotion lurking behind that airport kiss had been guilt. Still, with the prospect of being able to spend more time on the island, she wasn’t going to regret the impulse that had brought her to this place where she was free from everyone’s expectations. She could be herself, even if she was no longer certain exactly who that person was.
With the sun beating down on the dock and her tutu skirt itching like crazy, she got too hot and climbed back up to the house. Panda was fixing the backdoor windowpane she’d broken. She decided to skirt the house and go in the front so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but on the way, she glimpsed a bright red T-shirt moving through the woods. Her nerves were already stretched too tight from the day’s tension, she was sick of being spied on, and something inside her snapped. “Toby!” She ran into the trees. “Toby! You come back here!” He kept running, and she barely avoided a tangle of wild blueberries as she charged after him.
He knew the terrain better than she did, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t letting him get away. Just as she jumped over a thick patch of bracken, she heard something coming toward her from behind. Panda barreled past her. Moments later, he held the terrified twelve-year-old by the back of his T-shirt. “Who do we have here?” he said.
She’d forgotten about Panda and his bodyguard instincts.
Toby was too terrified to struggle. Panda’s grip on the red T-shirt made it bunch under the boy’s armpits, revealing his bony rib cage and a sizable gap at the waistband of his oversize camouflage shorts. They hung to his knees, his skinny legs jutting out beneath. As annoyed as she was about being spied on, she couldn’t stand the fear in his eyes, and she touched Panda’s arm. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” he drawled. “The kid looks dangerous.”
Toby’s literal mind didn’t recognize sarcasm. “I-I-I’m not dangerous.”
“This is Toby,” she said. “His grandmother is your housekeeper.”
“Is that so?”
“Lemme go!” Toby cried. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not true,” she said as Panda relaxed his hold on the T-shirt. “You’ve been spying on me for days, and I want it to stop.”
Free of Panda’s grip, Toby got his swagger back along with his belligerence. “I never spied on nobody. My grandma sent me over to make sure you didn’t trash the place.”
“I’m being policed by a ten-year-old?”
“Twelve!”
As she very well knew, but Viper wasn’t as sentimental about kids as Lucy. “You need to find something better to do with your time,” she said.
The boy jutted his jaw and stared her square in the eye. “I haven’t been spying. You’re lying.”
Viper looked up at Panda. “Go ahead. Take him out.”
