Читать книгу Hard Choices - Allison Leigh - Страница 11

“As I live and breathe. Is that my very own nephew, Logan Drake?” Maisy Fielding, all five-feet-nothing of her, stood in the middle of the entry to Maisy’s Place, her hands on her hips.

Despite himself, Logan felt amusement tug at his lips. Maisy Fielding was an aunt of sorts—her deceased husband having been his mom’s cousin—and she looked the same as she had the last time he’d seen her. The same corkscrew red curls, the same migraine-inspiring colorful clothes, the same hefty attitude screaming from the pores of her diminutive person. “That’s what my driver’s license says.”

She laughed heartily, then tugged his shoulders until he had to bend over her. She wrapped her skinny arms around him for a surprisingly strong hug. “Still have a smart mouth, I see,” she said, patting his back. “Running away from Turnabout didn’t change that a lick.” She let go of him, and peered up into his face, her expression shrewd.

He wondered what she saw. Whatever it was, she waved her arm toward one side after a moment, encompassing the lush landscaping that surrounded the main inn. “Surprised you haven’t managed to lose your license somewhere along the way. It took nearly ten years for the trees over at the corner to recover after you plowed that darned fool car of yours into them.”

Behind him, Logan heard Riley stifle a snort. Of laughter or disgust, he couldn’t tell. “Didn’t expect the brakes to go out, Maisy,” he said easily. “I managed not to take out the side of the inn at least.”

She laughed again, a sure sign that time could heal some wounds. Twenty-three years ago when he’d been a brand-new sixteen-year-old behind the wheel of a rattletrap car his father had forbidden him to buy, Maisy had been plenty mad about him mowing down her trees. She’d meted out her punishment over an entire summer of drudgery. He’d done everything from scraping paint off her kitchen cabinets to babysitting her precocious daughter. Back then, he’d preferred dealing with the paint to dealing with Tessa. She’d been a pain in the ass.

And he still felt badly that he hadn’t been around years later when she’d died. He’d only learned the news from Sara when one of her scarce letters had caught up to him.

“Well, if you’re here for lunch, come on in,” Maisy said, her eyes taking in Annie and Riley as well. If she saw anything unusual in Logan accompanying them, she kept it to herself, and Logan was glad. Maisy wasn’t known for keeping her mouth shut when she figured something was her business. “Grapevine must have a branch missing that I didn’t hear about you before seeing you.” She turned toward the building. “Hugo didn’t mention a word that you were coming.”

Logan held open the door for the females, ignoring Maisy’s reference to his father. “Business must be good. I remember you used to offer only breakfast.”

“More tourists coming to Turnabout. They needed to eat somewhere.” She walked straight through to an open-air dining area where at least two dozen other people were already seated at the round tables dotting the saltillo-tiled floor. “Sit anywhere you like. If it starts to rain, I’ll find you a spot inside. Somewhere.” She patted Logan’s arm and scurried back inside.

“Have a preference?” He looked at Riley, who ignored him, and Annie, who shook her head slightly. He headed to the table farthest from the other patrons. Seeing Maisy was one thing, but he had no particular desire to run into anyone else he might know. He was only there to clear his conscience, not renew old acquaintances.

He held out Annie’s seat, then habit had him sitting with his back to what passed for a wall in the dining area—a redwood trellis congested with climbing bougainvillea. A teenaged waitress he didn’t recognize brought them glasses of water with lemon slices in them and they ordered after she’d recited the day’s menu.

When she was gone, silence settled, broken only by the murmur of voices from the other diners. Logan looked around. The middle-aged couple with sun-burned faces and crispy-new vacation clothes at the table nearest them were having a softly hissed argument. To their right was a smaller table, occupied by a lone young woman. She was reading a paperback book, occasionally looking up and studying the other diners as she toyed with her soup bowl. It was obvious to Logan that she was more interested in the people around her than the contents of her bowl. Beyond her was a young couple. Honeymooners, if he was any judge. They couldn’t keep their hands apart long enough to eat their sandwiches, and beneath the iron and glass table, the woman was running her toes up and down the man’s ankle. Logan half expected to see her slide over into her partner’s lap.

He looked back at Annie. She was sitting quietly, her expression closed. Riley was studying her fingernails—painted such an ungodly black that it looked as if her hands had been caught beneath a ton of bricks.

The school picture that Will had shown him the day before had indicated how much she took after him, but in person the resemblance seemed less marked. Her expression tightened when she noticed him looking at her and she shifted in her chair, crossing her arms.

Classic defensiveness.

“I guess I don’t need to ask if you and Sara kept in touch after you two graduated from Bendlemaier.” Logan turned his attention back to Annie. He was perfectly aware of Riley’s increased defensiveness when he mentioned the school. Another thing that Will had clued him into.

He and Noelle wanted to send their daughter to the exclusive boarding school. But it was apparent that Riley liked the idea even less than Annie once had.

Annie’s smile looked forced. “I, um, I didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier. But we kept in touch when she went off to college. We’d talked often enough about wanting our own shop, and when the opportunity arose, we went for it.”

For some reason, Logan had assumed Annie had been in college with Sara. Showed how much he knew about his sister. He wondered if Sara had changed as much as Annie. Even though it hadn’t been in his plans—which were to do what needed doing and get out of there as quickly as possible—he had more than a fleeting desire to see his kid sister.

He’d talked to her a few times in the past ten years on the phone, but he hadn’t seen her in person in longer than that. He still remembered her expression the last time they’d seen each other. Confused. Hurt. It had felt like his skin was being peeled away to know he’d never come back to Turnabout to be any sort of brother that mattered. Instead, he called when the need to do so grew too great and sent her money to salve his conscience. After enough years, he could almost convince himself his system worked.

But he wasn’t there to deal with his family issues. So he studied Annie for a moment. He’d fully expected to see her, since Will had told him that his daughter was staying with her, but he hadn’t expected any of the feelings that had hit him when he did. “Your hair used to be longer, didn’t it?” He knew good and well how long it had been. Thick and shining, its wild white-blond curls had reached down to the small of her back. All those years ago, she’d used that mane like a weapon against any male in her vicinity.

“Yes.” She poked her fork into her water glass, spearing the lemon, which she squeezed back into the water. Her cheeks looked vaguely red. “You look pretty much the same to me.” She glanced at Riley, making him wonder what she was thinking. “A little older, but aren’t we all?”

“All this reminiscing makes me want to gag.”

“Then face the other way before you do, Riley, so you don’t ruin our lunches,” Logan suggested mildly.

She glared at him. It made him want to smile. She was very much like her aunt had once been. Full of attitude. The style of clothing had changed some in the past decade and a half, but she wore hers just as tightly and flauntingly as Annie had ever done.

He watched Annie’s down-turned head for a moment. There was nothing flaunting about Annie’s appearance, now. She had on a sleeveless khaki jumper that nearly reached her ankles over a short-sleeved white T-shirt. The dress was shapeless and the neckline of the shirt didn’t even reveal the base of her slender throat.

She wore a plain watch with a thin black band on her left wrist and no other visible jewelry. Gone were the jangling metal bracelets, the chains around her neck, the multiple sets of dangling earrings. Her brown lashes looked soft and naked and if she wore a hint of makeup, she’d done it too subtly for him to tell. When she’d been seventeen she’d seemed to pile on the stuff with a trowel.

“Geez. Take a picture, why don’t you?” Riley rolled her eyes and shook her head at him, her disgust obvious.

Annie looked up, her gaze flicking from her niece to Logan’s face. Then her cheeks flushed again. She moistened her lips and seemed about to say something, but the waitress returned, arms laden with their orders, leaving Logan to wonder what had caused that flush—if it had to do with the past.

She’d never seemed the blushing type before.

The last time he’d seen her had been at her parent’s palatial Seattle home, where he, along with the rest of the wedding party, had spent the night following Will’s wedding. He’d been pretty damned angry with her.

But even angrier with himself. Her youth could explain her actions. He’d had no such excuse.

“Pass the ketchup, please.”

He handed Riley the bottle, vaguely surprised by her politeness. But then again, attitude or not, she was Will and Noelle’s daughter. He watched her dump it over her French fries. “Like to have one French fry with your ketchup?”

She made a face then nodded. He took the bottle when she was finished, doing the same thing with his own plate. “Me, too.”

It earned him a studiously bored look.

Annie had ordered a salad. She stabbed her fork into it, moving lettuce and chunky vegetables from side to side, but not seeming to eat any of it.

“So, what did happen when you left Bendlemaier?”

She didn’t look up from her salad. “Not a lot.”

“How come you don’t still live on Turnabout, if you came from here?” Riley dredged a fry back and forth through her pool of ketchup.

“I had a job that took me elsewhere.” It was true enough, though hardly the entire truth. He had the sense that Riley had only posed the question to keep him from asking more questions of his own to her aunt. It struck him as oddly protective.

“What kinda job?”

“Riley, it’s none of our business.”

He shook his head at Annie’s protest. “I became a spy.”

“Yeah, right.” Riley rolled her eyes and scooped up her dripping French fry, licking her fingers afterward.

“Okay, I’m a consultant,” he said dryly. The lie had always been more palatable for people than the truth—even if he’d dared to share the truth with anybody who mattered. Even his associates had a hard time stomaching it. There were a lot of agents who worked for Coleman Black, the head of Hollins-Winword, in many capacities. But there was need for only one clean-up man.

“Consultant for what? Who?”

“Did you pick up that questioning technique from your dad? I always figured if he hadn’t wanted to be a lawyer, he’d have made a good cop.”

The teen wasn’t fooled. “That’s not an answer.”

“What happened with your law degree?” Annie finally spoke.

“I stuck it in a closet where it’s gathered a lot of dust.” He smiled grimly. He did practice law. Just in a manner most people didn’t want to be aware of. He’d felt that way himself many times. Until recently, though, he’d always been able to shake it, and get on with the job at hand.

A young woman with a white towel wrapped around her hips stopped by their table. “Anything else I can bring you?”

Logan shook his head. Riley sat back, her arms crossed. She’d eaten her ketchup-drenched fries and half her hamburger. Annie—who hadn’t eaten even half of the salad, smiled up at the waitress. “I think we’re fine, Janie. Thanks.”

The waitress moved away. She hadn’t been the one to serve them their meal.

“Who’s the girl?” he asked, watching after her. “She looks familiar.”

Annie followed his gaze toward the departing waitress. “Janie Vega. She helps Maisy out when things are busy. She’s actually a stained-glass artist, though. Has her own studio on the island.”

“Vega?”

Annie nodded. “I suppose you knew Sam Vega? She’s his younger sister.”

“I went to school with Sam.” Janie had been a baby back then.

“He’s sheriff now.”

Logan shook his head, truly surprised at that. “When we were young, Sam wanted off the island worse than I did.”

Annie toyed with her water glass. “When Sara said she hardly ever heard from you she wasn’t joking. Otherwise you’d have known he was the sheriff.”

Riley huffed again. “This is too old for words. I’m outta here.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go back to your house or something.”

Logan watched Annie’s face. A dozen expressions seemed to cross it. Everything from alarm to reluctance to resignation. She passed her keys to her niece. “You can watch the shop until I get there.”

Riley slowly took the keys. “You trust me?”

“You’re not planning to go anywhere else, are you?”

Anywhere else like running away again, Logan interpreted.

“No.” She turned on her heel and strode out of the dining area. Logan watched her go, calculating how likely it would be for her to get off the island if she’d been set on doing so. He’d already talked to Diego Montoya who—as he’d suspected—still ran the only ferry on the island, only to learn the old man was already on the watch for Riley Hess. If the girl were to try to leave, she wouldn’t be able to do so on Diego’s boat. And fortunately for Logan’s current purposes, the other residents of the island seemed to have held to the strange tradition of not owning any kind of water-craft more sophisticated than a dinghy. Only a fool would attempt the crossing in that small a craft.

When Riley was gone, Logan looked back to find Annie watching him. She set down her fork and pushed aside the salad with an air of finality. Her expression was unreadable. “Riley was right. Will did send you. I wasn’t aware that you two were even in touch anymore.”

“I was in Olympia and happened to look him up. He told me Riley had run away.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Happened? Quite a coincidence. And how perfectly convenient that your consulting job allows you to head off to little-known islands whenever it suits you.”

“I’m between assignments right now.” It wasn’t often he found himself feeling defensive, and he’d be damned if he knew why he did now. His answer was true enough, though. Except he didn’t know how he could stomach another assignment after the last FUBAR. He’d told Cole that he’d needed a break, which was how Logan came to be helping out on what should have been a straightforward runaway case. Except that Will hadn’t been the one to ask him to help out. It had been Cole. Turns out his boss and Will had some dealings with each other. Dealings he hadn’t known about until now.

Despite that, however, Logan didn’t necessarily trust his boss to leave Logan to his task if his particular talents suddenly became necessary again. Cole’s priorities were simple. Hollins-Winword—and all that it stood for, all that it protected—came first.

Annie’s lips were pressed together. “Your job—whatever it is—doesn’t really matter, anyway. Will should have come after Riley himself.”

Logan didn’t necessarily disagree. Another argument he’d had with Cole and Will. “Your brother didn’t want Riley doing something even more drastic.”

“She threatened to run again if he came after her.”

“I heard.”

“But she needs to go home.”

The fine line of her jaw looked tight. In fact, everything about Annie looked tight. Uptight. It wasn’t a demeanor he’d have expected her to wear. “Is she causing you difficulties?”

“No. No, of course she isn’t.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t.

“Has she told you why she left home?”

“Riley doesn’t confide in me.”

He frowned. “Come on, Annie. Riley didn’t just run away and disappear. Fortunately. She came to you.”

Annie shook her head. She fiddled with her fork and spoon, neatly aligning them. “She’s just curious about her black-sheep aunt who is odd enough to live on a small island.”

Black sheep? She currently looked more like Bo-Peep to him. “Will and Noelle want to send Riley to Bendlemaier.”

“It’s a fine school.”

Logan watched her for a long moment. “You hated it there.”

“The academic program is—”

“You called it a prison.”

“—unparalleled. Riley is very—”

“You did everything you could to get out of there.”

“—bright. She’ll excel there.”

“Obviously you succeeded in getting out, since you’ve admitted you didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier.” He recognized her face. But the resemblance to the Annie of old was nil. “That’s probably what your parents said when they sent you there. That you’d excel.”

She stiffened. “You never did think much of me, Logan. But are you really comparing me to George and Lucia Hess?”

Impatience rolled through him. He leaned toward her across the small round table. “What the hell’s happened to you, Annie?”

“I grew up,” she said evenly. “What happened to you? You’re the one who pretty much disappeared after Will and Noelle’s wedding.”

If she knew, she’d keep him miles away from Riley. “This isn’t about me.”

“Nor is it about me. This is about Riley and the fact that you’re here to take her home because her father, my brother, couldn’t be bothered to come after her himself.”

“You know his reasons. He and Noelle are being cautious, given what Riley has threatened.”

“Do you really think that Riley doesn’t want her parents’ attention despite what she says to the contrary?” She sat back, seeming to realize that her voice had risen. “Okay, so fine. You’re doing your old friend a favor by retrieving his daughter. Actually, I’m surprised Will waited even a day to retrieve her, considering the unhealthy influence I’m bound to have on her.”

Her tone was even. Neither defensive nor sarcastic, but factual. She could have been reciting geographic statistics from an encyclopedia for all the emotion she showed.

It bugged the hell out of him.

Years ago, there had probably been a portrait of Annie in the dictionary beside the word precocious, but she hadn’t been a danger to anyone other than herself. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Will in person?” All Will had said during that very brief meeting they’d had—the only time they’d seen each other in more than fifteen years, in fact—was that Annie occasionally visited for Christmas, flying in and out just as quickly.

She lifted her shoulder. “Why does it matter?”

Because Logan already suspected that Will knew this Annie about as well as Logan did. Before he could get into that, however, he noticed someone entering the dining area.

He stiffened. Dammit.

“Maisy told me you were here,” Hugo Drake said, stopping beside their table. “I had to see it with my own eyes, though. I guess they must be building igloos in hell ’bout now since you were pretty clear that particular place had to freeze over before you’d ever step foot on the island again.”

He looked up at his father, a man he’d loathed for so many years he could barely remember feeling anything else for him. Hugo Drake was still a robust man, though the years had left their mark in the white hair, the fading eyes. But the old man still had an unlit cigar sticking out of the pocket on his shirt.

Annie had risen and was dropping bills on the table.

“Where are you going?” He ignored his father.

“Back to the shop.”

Her gaze darted between him and Hugo. He wondered what she was thinking. And he wondered why it mattered. He didn’t care who knew about his feelings where his father was concerned. The guy had made his mother’s life a misery. She’d downed a bottle of pills rather than stay married to him. Rather than hang around to finish raising her son and daughter.

Logan hadn’t hated living on Turnabout so much as he’d hated being Dr. Hugo Drake’s son.

He doubted all that many things had changed in the twenty years since he’d been to Turnabout, and he knew that particular thing had changed least of all.

He stood, picked up Annie’s money and handed it back to her. Right or wrong, he paid his own way in life. “I’ll see you later at the shop.”

Her lips parted softly. But he’d already put enough cash on the table to pay the check and was walking away.

He was on Turnabout for one specific reason. Because his boss had ordered it. And that reason didn’t include playing the prodigal son to the man he held responsible for his mother’s death.