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www.millsandboon.co.uk
To Jasen:
Our newest child, but also our oldest. We love you, son!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Coming Next Month
One
Starr Cimino vowed to invest in new pjs, even though her love life was currently on life support.
Facing her arch nemesis in a threadbare Beachcombers Restaurant T-shirt before she’d even had her morning coffee just sucked. So much for armor to gird her five-foot stature.
Her steely spine and some wit would have to suffice. She braced her back and stood down the strong and vital force filling the door of her seaside carriage house in Charleston, South Carolina.
She didn’t doubt her ability to deck anyone who threatened her. She’d learned young to take control of her life after all her crook parents had forced her to endure. But it just wasn’t cool to take out a seventy-eight-year-old lady in a housedress. The mother of the man to whom she’d given her heart and virginity.
At least she could reclaim her heart.
Swiping the sandy sleep from her eyes, Starr forced a smile taught to her by her foster mother, “Aunt” Libby. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Hamilton-Reis?”
Other than toss some blue food coloring into her fish pond so the old bat’s prize guppies would look more like a certain current cartoon fish. Okay, so Aunt Libby’s training hadn’t totally saturated Starr’s conscience as a teen.
Grudges. Man they hurt the soul and she really should get over it, but this lady had treated her worse than the scum on her fish pond for right around seventeen years.
And God forbid Starr should date the woman’s precious heir.
So Starr and David had met behind sand dunes and shimmied up the rose terrace to climb into his bedroom window during their teenage romance that had swelled and broken her heart in one tumultuous year.
“What do I want?” Alice Hamilton-Reis’s voice rose and fell along with the rush of the waves along the shore. “I want your relatives to move their RVs out of my neighbor’s view.”
Her family? Here?
Prickles spread over her as she looked around and found that, yes, there were three RVs parked right on the grass between the Hamilton-Reis’s historical plantation house and Starr’s carriage house. The same RVs she’d ridden in before luck and an efficient social worker had intervened.
Crap.
She shoved her hands through her snarled mess of hair, as if that might somehow restore order to her rapidly tangling world. No luck. In fact…the worst luck sauntered into view with broad shoulders and serious temptation.
David. Her attention skipped off those RVs pronto.
He took the lengthy porch steps of his family’s Southern antebellum mansion with the same confident strides he’d possessed even as a lanky teenager who’d sent her pulse skyrocketing. David made clothes look good, no question. He wore formal dark pants with loose hipped ease, a crisp white shirt contrasting against his jet-black hair and a tan that attested to time spent in the sun.
Her heart rate still doubled, but for another reason. Yes. Because of their history and how he’d so deeply bruised her tender feelings over ten years ago with his all-or-nothing ultimatums. He wanted her to give over her hard won control of her life, and heaven help her, he’d once truly tempted her. And when she’d seen him again a year ago, her willpower had been in the negative numbers. They’d landed in bed together in seconds flat. Then they’d found their clothes again, he’d stuck to his same, unflinching party line—pick up and follow him around the world, leave behind the only home she’d ever known. His way.
Not a chance.
She didn’t want to think overlong on the fact that she hadn’t been with anyone since then—thus her crummy lingerie and love life gasping for breath. She would hold strong this time, regardless of her body already tingling to life again.
Lord knew she had enough to think about dealing with her biological parents showing up—don’t look, don’t look, don’t look at those RVs yet—and David’s perfect-lineage mama staring her down.
David stopped on the bottom step and yet still he stood around the same height as the women on the porch, darn him. “Mother, you shouldn’t be outside in the morning damp air.” A hand towel draped around his neck attested his recent shave, yet he still looked totally calm and collected even though he’d obviously rushed out after his mother. “Your doctor said for you to keep your feet up until the new blood pressure medicine takes effect.”
Great. She had to be nice to the old bat or she ran the risk of David’s mother stroking out on the carriage house stairs.
Aunt Libby’s voice echoed through her head. Manners. Manners.
Jeez. She searched for something to say. Seagulls and cranes swooped for breakfast along the shore. Distant church bells from downtown Charleston chimed seven.
Starr tugged at the T-shirt and pretended she wore her favorite form-fitting jean dress and wedge heels with ties that wrapped around her ankles. She was good at the princess pretense. She’d perfected it as a gypsy child on the road. She refused to let herself be ashamed for things they had done—the things they’d insisted she do. She reminded herself she was a businesswoman now. She and her two foster sisters had turned Aunt Libby’s mansion into Beachcombers—an up-and-coming restaurant.
She sidestepped cranky Alice and faced her old lover who looked too darn good for this early in the morning, his dark hair glistening with water from a recent shower. Saints save her from her vivid imagination. “Hello, David, your mother and I were just discussing a better parking place for my, uh…” She couldn’t bring herself to use the word family.
They’d given up that right when they’d left her in the foster child system for years on end. Doing nothing to bring her home, yet doing nothing to cut her loose for adoption.
Mrs. Hamilton-Reis turned to cling to her son’s arm as if suddenly weak. “We need to get those recreational vehicles situated elsewhere. Surely it would be better for her business if they were over there on the beach rather than in plain view of her restaurant.”
Of course his mother always put a better spin on things when he was around…not that she could really think much about his dear old ma when he was moving closer by the second and saturating Starr’s senses.
Now that he was closer, she could see the monogram on the hand towel draped around his neck. The tangy scent of his aftershave wafted up the steps to tease her senses along with the salty scent of the ocean breeze. All of which stole her self-control much like waves stole sand from the shore.
And darn him, the way his eyes heated over her, it didn’t matter what she wore.
Starr turned to Mrs. Hamilton-Reis, a hefty reminder of why she needed to keep her distance from David. “I’ll talk to them about parking closer to the beach where the lawn’s already patchy.”
David’s mother surveyed the lawn. “That’ll be much better for business, my dear.” Alice patted her son’s arm. “Thank you for worrying about me. I’ll be having breakfast on the veranda with my feet up. It would be lovely if you could join me.”
He nodded. “I’ll be in shortly.”
The woman who’d once never passed up an opportunity to tell Starr she shouldn’t hold David back from pursuing his dreams pinched a smile as she started her pivot away. “I’m glad we could work this out, dear.”
Starr scrunched her eyes closed with a sigh. Still the tequila sunrise bled through her lids to sparkle through her brain. Or was that all the emotion bubbling through her?
David. Her parents. Alice Hamilton-Reis. All at once. Too much.
She’d forgotten how the woman would speak nicely to her whenever David was actually around. Not that she’d ever been outright mean to Starr, just coolly disapproving until icicles formed in the spiral curls of Starr’s hair.
She shook free the insecurities of her youth and opened her eyes. Yep, David was still here and dear old mom was gone. Time to deal. Fast. Before the RV crew woke up and she had her hands more than full of frustration…and pain, a little voice whispered.
No. She was an adult, a businesswoman who currently had a hunky, tempting piece of her past standing on her porch. “So, you’re back from…wherever it is you traveled this time.”
Even though his inheritance enabled him to sit back and never work if he chose, David still served as a civilian employee for the air force’s OSI—Office of Special Investigations. He traveled the globe, slipping in and out of countries often undetected, just as he’d always planned during their teenage years, dreaming on a beach blanket under the stars. Even back then he’d wanted her to come along when the mission permitted and even then her root-seeking heart had quaked.
Taking the rest of the steps to join her, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and hitched one shoulder against her porch post, close. So close. “I was in Greece working on a NATO counterterrorism task force.”
“Wow, you can actually share what you’re doing. That’s rare.” How many times had she wondered? Too many for her comfort level. “It sounds really awesome.”
He stayed modestly—or covertly—quiet. The distant sound of waves and the breakfast crowd heading into the restaurant next door faded away as she couldn’t help but focus on him.
Her babbling mouth ran away from her. “I imagine this is one of those missions you always talked about me coming along with you.”
David cocked a brow, his head tipping to the side even if he still stayed quiet. Embarrassment heated through her with a need to fill the silence. God, he could still undo her thoughts as easily as he’d once undone her bikini top.
“But we both know that’s old ground. Like I really could have picked up and gone to Greece now anyhow. I have a business to run, obligations to my business partners, my sisters. Still it sounds really exotic.”
Her foster sister Claire would have relished experiencing the exotic foods. They served mostly down-home Southern cuisine at Beachcombers, but Claire still enjoyed adding something a little different every now and again.
Once upon a dream, Starr had contemplated taking a trip or two to study the great artists of the world. Except, bottom line, she didn’t want to spend her entire life on the road. She’d done enough of that for the first ten years of her life with her gypsy family.
Now, she thrived on the security of waking up to the same gorgeous ocean sunrise every morning. Her little carriage house behind Beachcombers might not be much, but it was hers. A home.
“Exotic?” he quipped. “Time was you thought that sounded too far from home.”
Suddenly she couldn’t hold onto the fantasy any longer. No princess clothes or armor. Nothing but old pain and a worn out T-shirt. “Do we really want to walk down that road again today, David?”
He plucked at the shoulder of her shirt and pulled off a crumpled bit of a tissue-paper flower. Great. The fates must be plotting against her. Not only did she look like crap, but she also had arts-and-crafts bits and pieces stuck to her like a third grader.
David held up the silvery flower she’d been using to make personalized wrapping bags for wedding-shower party favor gifts for her restaurant. One corner of his mouth kicked into that confident smile that never failed to flip her stomach into somersaults to rival her circus gypsy cousins’ talents. David tucked the crackly bloom behind her ear.
His knuckles skimmed her cheek in a touch so soft but undoubtedly deliberate. She knew him. Knew his touch well from their high-school romance.
And yes, from their brief time together a year ago when she’d been unable to resist him. Heaven help her, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life jumping into bed—or against a wall—with David Reis every time he breezed through the United States.
Starr stepped back. “I’ll keep my eyes open for your mother. Leave your cell-phone number and I’ll call if I see her wearing herself out.”
“Thank you.”
She thought about asking for more details about his mother’s health, even sympathizing since it was his mother after all, but then realized that would keep him on her porch longer. And when they spent any lengthy amount of time together, they ended up arguing and he ended up kissing her silent. She mentally kicked herself and mumbled, “God, we’re both such idiots.”
He cocked an arrogant brow. “What was that?”
“We both need to get to work.” She backed up to grip her door. “I really need to get dressed, so…”
“Drag my sorry ass off your porch.”
A laugh bubbled before she could squelch it. She so enjoyed his dry sense of humor. She couldn’t resist it, either. “You said it, not me.”
Starr slid away and sagged against the door inside her carriage house filled to the brim with her arts-and-crafts supplies. Victorian eclectic. Hers.
She exhaled long and hard.
She’d held strong, gotten her way. She was alone in her little house. She’d kept her distance from David. And she’d managed to shoo him away before her folks made their morning showing.
Thank you, Aunt Libby, for putting in a good word with the Man upstairs on that one.
But she couldn’t count on Aunt Libby holding back the tide forever. With her luck, her family would set up Porta Pottis and charge folks for using them. Her ma and da never missed a chance to make a buck, and if they could land a dollar without working, all the better.
Ma and Da. Why she couldn’t distance herself enough to call them Gita and Frederick instead, she didn’t know. She wanted Aunt Libby, her foster mother, Mom.
All a moot point and waste of time to consider at the moment. Gather up those scattered thoughts before David had a chance to slip past her defenses.
But she couldn’t understand why the fates had been so vengeful as to send those campers full of ex-family, who’d rejected her, used her, stolen from her, at the very same moment that David had chosen to make one of his rare appearances in Charleston.
Two
“The way you wield that hot glue gun, it’s no wonder you sleep alone. Men must be hitting the floor in terror.”
Claire’s words rattled around in Starr’s head with a little too much accuracy. Nothing like a sister—even the foster sort—to put you in your place. Starr spread her gift bags, glitter and shells along the kitchen butcher block as she put together the tissue paper. At least the RV crew had decided to sleep in today and give her a couple extra hours to gather her thoughts after seeing David had rocked her balance.
She simply wanted a half hour of peace to pull herself together. Tough to find with such a perfect contrasting view of the three rickety RVs and David’s Lexus right there, reminding her of so many painful moments in her past.
But damn it, she would put a time stamp on that segment of her life because her days of romance with David had expired long ago.
She stared out the open window at the three parked vehicles. Her sister worked by her side decorating a cake, while two part-time help gals took care of the remaining breakfast crowd. The gentle ocean breeze ruffling the lace curtains may have cooled the steamy kitchen, but it did nothing to cool the steam curling inside her after a simple encounter with David.
She might well need more than a half hour.
Starr globbed another dollop of oozing glue on the magenta bag. “I imagine you’ve waited a whole year for that payback line just because I teased you about the way you whacked around a swizzle stick when you were mad at Vic.”
Her sister had fought hard against falling in love, even contemplating single motherhood, until finally the burly veterinarian had won her over.
Earth-mother-type Claire swooped her cake-frosting spatula through the air. “Aha! So you are mad at a man.”
Had she really just jumped into that net because she was busy thinking of her sister’s tangled love life from last year? “Don’t you have a baby to nurse?”
The multicolored sling around Claire’s neck held the infant snuggled securely to her chest. “Little Libby is snoozing away, happy and fully fed.”
No surprise Claire managed yet another addition to her life with ease. Her unflappable, organized sister always had. Even her silky blond hair cooperated to make a smooth look along with the clean lines of her conservative clothes. Claire would never put together mismatched designer-fashion finds Starr liked to scoop up at the Salvation Army. But then Starr couldn’t quite stifle the colors in her wardrobe any more than she could quiet her bright artwork.
Claire gently patted her baby girl’s bottom. Motherhood suited her well. She’d obviously taken on all the traits of their foster mother.
Aunt Libby had been an eccentric—amazing—woman. Having lost her fiancé in the Korean War, she’d never married, instead devoting her life to taking in foster daughters. Countless foster girls had channeled through her antebellum home, money in short supply, love in abundance. Most had either returned to their homes or found new adoptive parents. All but three had left—herself, Claire and Ashley, who’d just graduated from college with her accounting degree. Her graduation being the reason for their flurry of preparations today, to put together a surprise party.
Their shy younger sister would work herself into a tizz if she had time to think of an impending celebration, so they’d opted for low-key festivities as a surprise party. Ashley deserved to have her accomplishments lauded. A whiz kid, she’d been keeping the Beachcombers’ books since the doors had opened two years ago.
Starr brandished her hot glue gun, which of course made her think of all the times she’d seen David’s gun tucked in a shoulder harness. So often she thought of the glamour of his world travel, but the danger sent a sliver of…something, something she didn’t want to consider overlong because it traveled up her spine to sting her eyes. “Okay, so I’m armed and fearsome. Why does that have anything to do with a man?”
Claire brandished her own decorator gun, swirling Congratulations, Ashley across the cake festooned with pink roses. “It’s the way you’re wielding it, big hot globs that don’t allow for anything to slip away.”
So? “And that tells you what?”
“The same thing you’ve always wanted where David Reis is concerned.” Claire set her frosting aside and pinned her sister with her ever-wise older gaze. “You want to glue his wandering feet to the ground.”
“Or glue his arrogant mouth shut.” Now that called for a huge blob.
Claire tapped Starr’s toe with her flip-flop-shod foot. “But then he wouldn’t be as fun to kiss.”
Starr couldn’t help but shiver in agreement at that. “You’re a wicked woman.”
“I’ll plead the fifth.” She winked as she topped off another cabbage rose on the cake. “How long is he in town this time?”
“I didn’t ask.” But yeah, she wanted to know. Not wise.
“You’re kidding.”
“His mother was there at first, and then my, uh—” she swallowed hard “—relatives could have stepped out at any second.”
Claire’s hand fell on her shoulder. Her sister always did try to mother the world. “Speaking of which, why are they here?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Starr eased out from under the comforting hand that could too easily make her go all emotional when she needed to hold herself together more than ever. She had genetics working against her when it came to being overly dramatic. It was one of the things that used to drive David nuts. “I haven’t asked them yet, but I promise I’ll get to it right away. I won’t let them interfere with business.”
“I’m not concerned about that, honey, I’m worried about you.” She gripped Starr’s shoulders again and turned her back around. “I don’t want them to take advantage of you.”
God, the truth still hurt because undoubtedly they wouldn’t have shown up for any other reason. Bracing herself to hold on tight to her emotions, Starr wrapped her arms around her sister in an awkward hug, the snoozing baby between them.
Claire patted her back. “We’re a team, sister. Don’t ever forget it. You don’t have to take them on alone. Say the word and I’ll walk over with you.”
Sniffling in spite of her best intentions, Starr leaned back and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Thanks, but I’m a tough cookie in case you haven’t noticed. I have my killer glue gun, after all.” Bravado in place, she retrieved her gun and her resolve.
And darned if one of those RVs didn’t start moving with the first signs of life from inside, shock absorbers obviously having long ago given up the ghost.
Ghosts.
She could talk about bravery and guns and time stamps all she wanted, but it would take a lot of stamping to eradicate all the ghosts clamoring around in her head.
David slid his arms through his suit jacket on his way out the front door. He needed to report in and sign leave papers to take the time off to make sure all was well with his mother’s health.
And to figure out what the hell was going on with Starr’s family.
Speaking of Starr, the gorgeous spitfire came charging down the restaurant back steps now. He’d planned to have a “discussion” with her parents before she saw them, but apparently he hadn’t dressed fast enough. Now things would be more complicated. Par for the course around Starr since the first day he’d done a double take, realizing his impish neighbor had grown into a bombshell.
He should have had the conversation with her earlier, but the risk had seemed too high given they were both half-dressed. He’d been too aware of her in that whispery thin T-shirt while he’d stood there only halfway finished dressing himself. Too easily memories from a year ago slid through his mind, how she’d sat on the edge of the tub and watched him shave. Not long after, he’d lifted her onto the sink and plunged himself deep inside her, her body already damp and ready for him.
Hell.
Clothes didn’t seem to help much now since the wind played havoc with her gauzy sundress, plastering it to her body as she made her way across the lawn, sandals slapping her determination. He’d always enjoyed all that spunk and fire poured into the way they came together in bed.
They’d never had much luck resisting each other, another reason it was damn wise to meet out here on the lawn in open daylight rather than risk stepping into her carriage house. His leaving had hurt her last year. But she was the one who’d turned down his offer to try again. She could have come with him and he would have given her the world—shown her the world. Made love around the world.
But he had more pressing concerns than sex right now. Evicting Starr’s family topped his list. “Good morning, babe.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, her dress rustling around her legs, her mass of curls a swirl of motion, but then nothing about Starr ever stayed still. Well, except for the stubborn part of her that refused to leave this place.
Her toes curled in her shoes. Just that small motion stirred him because he knew. He affected her.
Then she turned, her eyes a sultry, dusky view that always sucker punched him. “Good morning to you, too. I see you’re ready for work now.”
Starr’s voice washed over him like a surprise wave from the shore. She’d always had that effect on him—the only woman who’d ever had the power to linger in his thoughts.