Читать книгу Right Place, Wrong Time - Judith Arnold, Judith Arnold - Страница 7

“DO YOU HAVE any idea what you’re doing?” Kim’s father asked.

Good question, Ethan muttered. No, he didn’t have any idea what he was doing. But he was doing it anyway. When in doubt, he usually just plowed ahead and hoped for the best.

“You’re driving on the wrong side of the road,” Kim’s father pointed out.

Ethan glanced at the man who might someday be his father-in-law. Ross Hamilton sat rigidly in the front passenger seat of the rented Oldsmobile, his jowls just beginning to go soft, his silver hair thick and precisely styled, his skin preternaturally tan and his eyes framed with the sort of creases that implied he squinted a lot, presumably at people he didn’t approve of. Ethan suspected he fell into that category.

“People drive on the left side of the road in St. Thomas,” Ethan explained.

“St. Thomas is part of the United States,” Ross argued. “Why don’t they drive on the right?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is an American car. The steering wheel is on the left.”

“Yes.” Ethan was having a hard enough time getting used to left-sided driving. He didn’t need Ross undermining his concentration by badgering him with questions.

“Perhaps you should have arranged for someone to pick us up at the airport,” Ross chided.

“My friend Paul told me the cabs on the island are overpriced. By renting the car for the week, we’ll save a lot of money.” Surely his thrift would win him a few points in his potential father-in-law’s view.

“In the meantime, we might wind up in a head-on collision.”

“I’m on the right side of the road. The left side,” Ethan corrected himself. Even with cool air blasting from the vents, he felt dampness gathering at his nape. Ross exuded not a single drop of perspiration, despite wearing a linen blazer over his polo shirt. July in St. Thomas—it was hot on the other side of the windshield. Ross Hamilton didn’t sweat, though. He was obviously a chilly man.

Ethan wished Kim hadn’t insisted on including her parents in this outing. He’d gotten access to Paul’s time-share because, as Paul put it, no one in his right mind would want to go to St. Thomas in July. Paul’s regularly scheduled week at the resort on Smith Bay was in January, but last January he’d had the chance to go skiing in Aspen with friends, and he’d chosen that over the tropics. So he’d traded his week with a woman who owned a week in July in the same unit, and then offered the July week to Ethan if he wanted it.

Ethan had thought a week in St. Thomas, even in the middle of the summer, would offer Kim and him a fun getaway. Kim had been elated. “I hear jewelry is dirt cheap and duty-free down there,” she’d said. “Maybe we could do a little shopping.” Hint, hint.

Okay, she wanted an engagement ring. Ethan was willing to concede that the time for an engagement ring might be drawing near—and if that time arrived, why not buy one that was dirt cheap and duty-free? In March, when Paul had first offered him the week at the condo, this had all seemed like a good idea.

Then Kim had heard that the unit had two bedrooms, and she’d come up with the clever idea of bringing her parents along. “It will give them a chance to get to know you better,” she’d argued. “I want them to love you as much as I do. We could have great fun, Ethan.”

Kim had been naked when she’d mentioned this, sliding her hand in provocative ways over his chest while simultaneously stroking his shin with her toes. She and Ethan had been having great fun at that moment, and he hadn’t been thinking clearly. So he’d said, “Sure.”

The van behind him was tailgating so closely Ethan could practically see the pores on the driver’s nose in his rearview mirror. Steep hills rose to one side of the road and a turquoise sea spread along the other side. He was in alien territory, surrounded by palm trees and brilliant crimson flowers, squat stucco houses and sprawling, cliff-hugging mansions. Cars, jitneys and small buses kept coming at him on the narrow, winding road—and they were on his right. The entire experience was disorienting.

Adding to his tension was a goat ambling along the asphalt no more than a hundred feet ahead.

“Oh, my God!” Kim shrieked from the back, where she and her mother had spent the entire time since they’d buckled their seat belts thumbing through guidebooks and plotting shopping expeditions. “It’s a goat!”

Ethan tapped on the brakes to slow down and prayed that the driver behind him wouldn’t rear-end them. A fender bender would not be an auspicious way to start this vacation.

“I’ve got to have a picture of the goat,” Kim declared. “Can you pull over, Ethan?”

“No.”

“Where’s the camera? Do you have it in front? I don’t have it back here.”

“It’s in the trunk,” he told her, slowing even more as he drew within a few yards of the animal.

“My first St. Thomas goat, and I don’t have a camera,” Kim wailed.

My first St. Thomas headache, and I don’t have an aspirin, Ethan thought. During a brief lull in the opposite lane’s traffic, he swerved around the goat, which glanced up from its grazing. Thin and brown, its jaw pumping and its black eyes piercing, it gave Ethan a contemptuous look, as if to say, This is paradise, pal. Mellow out.

Ethan wished he could. If only Ross Hamilton weren’t occupying the seat next to him and Delia Hamilton weren’t occupying the seat directly behind him, her unnaturally blond hair as flawlessly arranged as her husband’s, her skin as free of perspiration and her face lacking incipient jowls because Santa Claus had left some plastic surgery under the tree for her last winter. If only Kim Hamilton, the woman Ethan was contemplating marrying, weren’t squawking about her camera in the trunk…. Ethan would love to mellow out, but at the moment, the thought of leaping out of the car, slamming the door on the entire Hamilton family and joining the goat in a nice little snack of roadside grass held an odd appeal.

He promised himself he would mellow out as soon as they arrived at Palm Point, the beachfront complex where Paul’s time-share was located. Until they reached their destination, he was going to have to fight his natural inclination to steer onto the other side of the road, and he was going to grit his teeth at being cooped up inside a fat American sedan with Kim’s parents.

Vacations were for relaxing. He’d damn well better get to relax—and if everyone would just shut up, he might survive the half hour it took to drive to the place where relaxation would be possible.

If only he hadn’t agreed to let Kim’s parents come…. He and she could have escaped here by themselves for a week of exclusive togetherness. A week alone with her, when neither of them was distracted by the demands of their hectic lives, their careers and other obligations, would have given them the chance to make sure a lifetime commitment was right for them. He supposed having the chance to sample the Hamiltons as future in-laws would help him make up his mind, too. But he wouldn’t be marrying Ross and Delia Hamilton. If he and Kim got married, he wouldn’t have to see her parents more often than a few times a year, since the Hamiltons lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a good three hundred miles from Arlington, Connecticut.

He glanced at the screen of his PDA, into which he’d entered directions to the condo. Paul had provided a route that would allow Ethan to avoid Charlotte Amalie. He’d neglected to mention that avoiding the bustling capital city of St. Thomas required them to drive straight up the side of a mountain. If Ethan had thought the road leading away from the airport had been narrow, he’d been mistaken. The road up the mountain, a barely paved trail of twists and switchbacks and thirty-degree inclines, lacking shoulders, lacking railings but not lacking the occasional goat, would have been alarming if Ethan had been behind the wheel of his beloved Volvo—and driving on the right. In this alien environment, with lush, unfamiliar foliage—palms and ferns, shrubs with vivid puffball-shaped pink flowers and erotically red blossoms scattered across their branches, viny ground cover and ghostly moss dripping from branches—he felt totally out of his depth.

Ross Hamilton sat rigidly next to him, his scowl eloquently communicating that he, too, believed Ethan was out of his depth.

“Paul said there’s a golf course just up the road from Palm Point,” Ethan said, hoping this news might improve Ross’s opinion of him.

“I didn’t bring my clubs.”

“I’m sure they rent clubs.”

“Kimberly tells me you don’t golf.”

“I’ve never tried it,” Ethan said, “but there’s always a first time.” In truth, he thought golf sounded excruciating. Hit a ball, walk a little bit, hit a ball, walk a little bit more.

“Perhaps we’ll golf a round together,” Ross suggested, a dry smile whispering across his lips. “I could teach you a few pointers. Although God only knows what kind of equipment this golf course will be renting.”

Delia piped up. “Ross, it’ll be too hot to golf. You’ll have a heatstroke.”

“I will not,” he retorted, as if he and he alone determined whether he’d be afflicted.

“Where is Charlotte Emily?” Delia asked, peering out the window as the car strained up another precipitous incline.

“Charlotte Amalie,” Ethan gently corrected her.

“I just love that they named their city after a woman. Or is it two women?” Her smile reached Ethan via the rearview mirror. “Did we pass the city?”

“We’re circumventing it,” Ethan told her.

Her smile morphed into a delicate pout. “Well, if you boys want to golf and get sunstroke, that’s your business. Kim and I will be strolling the streets of Charlotte Emily. The guidebooks list all these wonderful shops….”

Ross shared a knowing grin with Ethan, who forced himself to grin back. “Something tells me your friend’s generous donation of his time-share is going to wind up being the most expensive gift you’ve ever received. Angels tremble when those two are set loose in a shopping center.”

“It’s not just shopping,” Delia informed her husband. “It’s duty-free shopping. Bottles of Absolut at prices you wouldn’t believe.”

Ross Hamilton glanced over his shoulder. “Really?” he asked, eagerness underlining his tone. “Absolut?”

“Absolut, Stolichnaya, all the big names, darling. You can restock the bar while we’re down here.”

“I can restock the bar at home.”

“Not at these prices.”

Ross gave Ethan another conspiratorial grin. “Women,” he muttered. “They think we can save a lot of money by spending a fortune on airfare to fly to some island with duty-free shops. We could have bought vodka at the duty-free shop at the airport and skipped the trip.”

Too bad you didn’t come up with that idea sooner, Ethan thought. A weary dog, part Lab and part a dozen other breeds, slouched across the road. Either Kim didn’t think dogs were as photogenic as goats, or she was too busy planning shopping excursions with her mother to have noticed the poor mongrel. Its tongue lolled to one side and its eyes looked sad. If Ethan weren’t in an air-conditioned car, his tongue might be hanging out of his mouth, too.

Around another hairpin turn, and they started down a decline. “Oh, my God!” Mrs. Hamilton shrieked. “There’s no railing! Slow down, Ethan!”

“I’m doing ten miles per hour,” he assured her. Yes, the road was steep, and no, there wasn’t a railing, but he wasn’t going to steer them over the edge. He’d had his driver’s license for thirteen years and had never been in an accident. Of course, he’d never driven on the left side of the road, either.

They’d get to Palm Point soon. According to Paul’s directions, it was only a couple of miles down Smith Bay Road, a scenic route skirting mountains that dropped sharply to the most tranquil, turquoise water Ethan had ever seen. Let Ross and Delia visit the duty-free shops in Charlotte Amalie by themselves, he thought. Let them stock up on enough liquor to keep them swilling martinis until they left this world for the next. While they were oohing and ahhing over the discounts on Stolichnaya and Absolut, Ethan and Kim would be lying on one of the pale, inviting beaches that fringed the sea. They’d be racing on the sand, and plunging into the water, and then sprinting back up to the condo for a quickie before her parents returned from their tour of duty-free liquor stores.

He would turn this vacation into something good, he resolved. He would not let Kim’s parents rattle him. He would not knock himself out to win their favor. He would not play golf against his wishes. He worked damn hard in Connecticut, but he was out of town for a week, out of the office, out of touch, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

He cruised past the gated entry to a hotel, then another…and then he spotted the sign for Palm Point. He turned onto the drive, which was appropriately lined with towering royal palms, and maneuvered over the speed bumps. He passed a parking lot and a series of tennis courts surrounded by green chain-link fences, then followed the drive as it zigzagged down the hill toward the ocean. Beige stucco buildings dotted the road, their ocean-facing facades marked by vaguely Spanish-looking wrought-iron balconies. Ethan imagined sitting on a balcony with Kim, both of them flushed and sated after making love. They could be sipping drinks—beer for him, nothing with Absolut or Stolichnaya in it—and watching as the sun slid down toward that breathtakingly blue sea, and not sparing Kim’s parents a single thought. This was Ethan’s vacation. It was his fantasy.

“Here we go,” he announced, pulling into a parking lot beside a building identified by a small sign as number six. Paul’s unit was 614, on the second floor. Ethan’s mood brightened. He’d found the place without incident or accident. In ten minutes he’d be unpacked and in a swimsuit, ready to take a walk on the beach.

“It doesn’t look like much,” Mrs. Hamilton said with a sniff.

“Oh, Mom,” Kim scolded. “It looks lovely.”

It looked fine to Ethan. The stucco was freshly painted, the gardens surrounding the building well tended. When he opened the car door, the air that hit him was heavy with heat and thick with the scent of those red flowers.

“Hibiscus,” Kim answered his unasked question. She threw open her door, climbed out and circled the car to him. “I just love the smell of hibiscus. Isn’t this beautiful?” she gushed, as if to nullify her mother’s disparagement of the place.

“As soon as we unpack, let’s go to the beach,” said Ethan.

Kim gazed up at him, her hair golden and her eyes a blue paler than the sea but darker than the cloudless sky. She was beautiful. From the moment Ethan had seen her stepping out of the elevator into the lobby of the building where he’d worked, he’d been almost uncomfortably aware of her beauty. It was as overpowering as the fragrance of those red flowers.

“We’ll have to help Mom and Dad get settled in first,” she said.

“They’re adults. They can get settled in without our help.”

“I really appreciate your taking the convertible couch in the living room,” she added. “I know that wasn’t what you wanted.”

A ripple of resentment passed through him, impeding his evolution to mellowness. Sleeping on the living-room couch was definitely not what he wanted. Paul had told him one bedroom had a queen-size bed and the other had two twins. Ethan had thought he’d been demonstrating admirable selflessness by ceding the queen-size bed to Kim’s parents. He and Kim could snuggle together in one of the twins—and they could rumple the other bed’s blanket each morning so it would appear that they were sleeping separately.

But Kim had maintained that such an arrangement wouldn’t work. They couldn’t sleep in the same room, not with Mom and Dad right across the hall. If they were married—or even, perhaps, if they were just formally engaged—she might consider it. But without anything official declared between them, she just wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing a room with him when her parents were present.

Ethan had contemplated calling off the whole trip at that point. But that would have made him seem like a sex maniac. After all, he and Kim slept together often enough in Connecticut. It wasn’t as if he had to travel all the way to St. Thomas to get his rocks off. For Kim’s sake—for her parents’ sake—he could be a gentleman.

He didn’t have to like it, though.

Unlocking the trunk, he gazed at the array of luggage Kim and her parents had brought. A folding garment bag, a large pullman, a midsize pullman, a tennis tote containing racquets and fresh cans of balls, and two carry-ons—all in a matching tapestry pattern—belonged to Ross and Delia Hamilton. Given the option, Ross probably would have brought his golf clubs, too—and he probably kept them in a golf bag with the same quaint tapestry pattern. Kim had packed an enormous wheeled, leather-trimmed suitcase for herself, as well as an ergonomically designed shoulder tote she’d ordered from a catalog company specially for this trip.

Ethan had fit everything he needed into one modest duffel.

Nonetheless, he knew that as the young man of the party, he’d be the one hauling all the luggage inside.

He hoisted his duffel out of the trunk and slid the strap onto his shoulder. Then he pulled out Kim’s wheeled suitcase and the Hamiltons’ garment bag. “I’ll get the rest in the next round,” he promised the Hamiltons, who had finally emerged from the air-conditioned car into the broiling Caribbean afternoon.

“The condo is air-conditioned, isn’t it?” Delia Hamilton asked her daughter anxiously.

“Of course it is.” Kim grabbed her ergonomic shoulder bag, handed her mother one of the carry-ons and her father the other, then stepped aside so Ethan could close the trunk. Why she didn’t close it herself—she had two free hands, after all—he couldn’t guess, unless it was to prove to her parents that the man she intended to marry was properly chivalrous.

Feeling like a packhorse, he lugged the bags along the walk to the stairway and up to the second floor, the wheeled bag thumping as it hit each riser. Kim and her parents trailed him like baby ducklings following a mother duck. Sweat slicked his face and dampened his collar as he trudged along the open-air corridor to the door marked 614. He balanced the luggage on the concrete floor, then dug into the pockets of his khakis and pulled out the key Paul had given him. It slid easily into the lock. Smiling, he twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

He was greeted by a blast of cold air and an skull-splitting scream.

IN THE HOUR since they’d arrived at Carole’s unit at Palm Point, Alicia had changed into a swimsuit and run circles around Gina, investigating their vacation digs and announcing her discoveries: “They got a microwave, Aunt Gina! Can we make microwave popcorn?” and “This TV doesn’t get the Disney Channel!” and “There’s a balcony!”

That announcement had torn Gina from the dresser drawer into which she’d been dumping her underwear and sent her flying down the hallway, past the bathroom and through the living room to stop Alicia before she ventured onto the balcony. Alicia was seven, and in general she was smart enough not to fling herself over the balcony railing, but “in general” had nothing to do with this week. Alicia was wired. She’d just taken her very first airplane trip, and now she was in an ocean-view condo on a Caribbean island. Remembering to be careful on a balcony would not be high on Alicia’s to-do list.

But when Gina had joined Alicia on the terrace, gazing down the gentle slope toward the palm-studded beach and the vivid blue water beyond, she’d felt almost as wired as her niece. The air smelled tangy and sweet, so different from the usual sour scents of Manhattan in July that Gina could almost believe she was on a different planet, with its own separate atmosphere.

This was exactly what Alicia needed, she’d thought—a safe, happy planet for a week of carefree fun.

“Don’t lean over the railing,” Gina had warned, even though Alicia was too short to fall over accidentally.

Alicia had rolled her eyes and issued a long-suffering sigh. “I know. Look at the beach, Aunt Gina. Isn’t it great? I want to go down there.”

“You’ll have to wait until I finish unpacking.”

“You’re taking too long,” Gina had complained.

“I unpacked all your stuff first so you could put on a swimsuit. Now I’ve got to unpack my stuff. You’ll just have to be patient.”

“I hate being patient.” Alicia had folded her arms across her chest and pouted. Her skin was already golden from swimming at the day-camp pool. Her swimsuit was a garish orange, the color of those vests road construction crews wore to make themselves more visible to passing motorists. Ugly as it was, Gina appreciated the color. It would make Alicia easier to spot on the beach.

“I’ll go finish unpacking, and you will win the Most Patient Girl of the Year award, and then we’ll go to the beach. I promise.”

“Can I have a cookie while I’m being patient?” Alicia had asked.

Gina had asked the cabdriver to stop for ten minutes at a grocery store on the way from the airport to Palm Point so she could stock up on food. She would never complain about New York City cab fares again. Compared with the rates in St. Thomas, New York’s were a bargain. “One cookie,” she’d told Alicia. “If you eat too much, you won’t be able to go in the water.”

“I won’t eat too much,” Alicia had promised her before scampering through the sliding-glass doors and heading for the kitchen.

Gina had returned to the master bedroom, but had bypassed her open suitcase for the window, which offered the same view as the living room and terrace. God, what a beach. What an ocean. What heaven. She and Alicia were going to have the time of their lives—

And then she’d heard the scream.

“Alicia!” she roared, charging out of the bedroom, nailing her shin on the corner of the queen-size bed but not stopping to rub the bruise. “Ali! What?” She stumbled to a halt at the sight of four luggage-bearing strangers hovering in the condo’s open doorway. Actually, only three hovered—an older couple and a young blond woman. Their leader—a man who looked to be about thirty—was standing inside the room, his face glistening with sweat as he let assorted bags and suitcases drop to the carpeted floor at his feet.

Alicia darted from the kitchen to Gina’s side and pressed into her. Gina wrapped an arm protectively around her niece and gaped at the four invaders. They didn’t seem dangerous. Actually, they looked as if they could have stepped out of the pages of a Ralph Lauren fashion spread. The older couple had the refined appearance of people who belonged to elite clubs and indulged in his-and-hers facials. The man wore a blazer with a crest on the pocket and the woman had on the sort of pearl earrings favored by politicians’ wives. The younger woman was almost painfully beautiful. She could be a refugee from one of those teenage cheerleader movies.

If the man in the lead looked a little less polished and a little less sure of himself, it was only because he was sweating and because he’d been loaded down with all the heavy luggage. His reddish-brown hair was mussed, his brows skewed upward and his mouth twisted into a quizzical shape that was half a smile and half a frown. His face intrigued her, all sharp lines and planes, his eyes the color of jade.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“He said a bad word,” Alicia announced in a stage whisper.

“Hell isn’t always a bad word,” Gina assured her. Alicia didn’t have to know how often her aunt uttered words a lot worse than hell. “It’s just the name of a place.”

“A bad place.”

“We can turn that bad word right back on him, okay?” Gina stared boldly at the man and said, “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. Gina wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for the invasion or only for his language. “There’s obviously been a mistake.”

“Obviously.” If he could be diplomatic, so could she. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you’re in the wrong unit.”

“Six-fourteen,” he said, glancing behind him at the open door, on which that number appeared. He turned back to Gina and lifted his hand so she could see his key. “This is how we got in here.”

There’s obviously been a mistake, she thought, her brain scrambling to figure out just how serious a mistake it was and how she was going to get these strangers out of the unit. “Okay—this is a time-share. We’ve got a key. You’ve got a key. My guess is, someone’s here the wrong week.” You, she wanted to say. You’re here the wrong week.

“We’re here the week of July 19,” the man said calmly.

“Um, no.” Gina smiled. “That’s our week.”

“That’s our week,” the cheerleader said, stepping into the room. “Come in,” she ordered the older couple, “and shut the door. All the air-conditioning is escaping.” She sashayed past the man to confront Gina, who sensed not a hint of diplomacy in her attitude. “This is our week. We planned this trip back in March. This week belongs to Ethan’s friend Paul, and he gave it to us.”

Gina shook her head firmly and felt her smile petrifying into something stiff and lifeless. She didn’t like the cheerleader. The man had opted for courtesy after his initial outburst, but this woman—his wife?—sounded presumptuous and demanding. Gina imagined she was used to getting her way. “This week belongs to my friend Carole, and she’s letting us use it.” She gave Alicia’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“She’s crazy,” the wife declared, giving her husband an aggrieved frown. “Tell her she’s crazy.”

“She’s not crazy. There’s been a mix-up, that’s all.” He smiled apologetically. Gina decided to absolve him for having said “hell” in front of Alicia. “I’m sure we can work this out, Ms….?”

“Morante. Gina Morante.” Gina extended her hand.

The man shook it. His palm was dry. His face seemed to be drying off, too, as the air-conditioning did its work. “Ethan Parnell,” he introduced himself. “This is Kimberly Hamilton—” he gestured toward the blond woman, who pointedly did not extend her hand “—and her parents, Ross and Delia Hamilton,” he concluded, indicating the older twosome, who remained near the door, looking supremely annoyed.

“And this is my niece, Alicia Bari,” Gina said.

Alicia peered up at the younger pair. “I’m Ali the Alley Cat,” she said, then hid behind Gina and wrapped her arms around Gina’s hips.

“All right.” Ethan Parnell drew in a deep breath. “Obviously, there’s a problem here. We’ve just arrived from the airport and we’re planning to stay in this condo for a week. My friend Paul Collins made the arrangements. I don’t know who your friend is—”

“Carole Weinstock, and she told me this week was hers, and Alicia and I could stay here.”

“Ali,” Alicia murmured into the small of her back. “Ali the Alley Cat.”

Gina reached around to give Alicia another squeeze, then stretched her smile as wide as it would go under the circumstances—which wasn’t very wide. “As you say, there’s been a mix-up. I’ll phone Carole right now.”

“Good idea,” Ethan said with a nod. “Call your friend Carole.”

The cheerleader whispered something harsh to him, but he waved her silent. Gina marched into the kitchen, Alicia still holding her hips and trotting behind her in awkward little steps. Was the cheerleader Ethan’s wife? Gina wondered again. They had different last names, but that didn’t mean anything nowadays. He’d introduced the older couple as her parents, not his in-laws, but that didn’t mean anything, either.

Not that it mattered to Gina. She was going to talk to Carole, get this mess straightened out and send these strangers on their way. This was her week with Alicia, her week to get the kid away from her squabbling parents, who needed the time to decide whether to file for divorce or give their marriage another try—and it would remove Alicia from all the tension. She deserved it, and Aunt Gina lived to make sure her niece got what she deserved.

Alicia abandoned her for the bag of chocolate-chip cookies that lay open on the counter. Gina didn’t know if she’d already had a cookie, but right now she had more important concerns than Alicia’s consumption of junk food. Besides, they were on vacation. Vacations meant extra cookies.

She dialed Carole’s number back in New York and tried to ignore the faint long-distance hiss on the line. It occurred to her that Carole might not be home—but if she wasn’t, Gina would try her cell phone. Carole had to be reached. They had to get this situation resolved.

Fortunately, Carole answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Carole, it’s me, Gina.”

“Gina! Is everything all right? Where are you?”

“I’m in your condo in Palm Point. Everything’s fine—except there’s this family here who say they’ve got the place for this week. They have a key and everything.”

“Everyone who owns a share of the unit has a key,” Carole reminded her. “Who are they?”

“Friends of someone named Paul—” she thought for a minute, then remembered “—Collins.”

“Right, yeah. Paul Collins.”

“You know him?”

“Not personally,” Carole said. “But we traded weeks. Remember when I went down to St. Thomas in January? That was his week.”

“So…you traded him this week?” Gina felt her stomach tighten.

“Originally, yeah. But I was in touch with him after I got back from St. Thomas. I don’t know, mid-February, maybe? And he said he wouldn’t be using the condo in July. He was very definite about it, Gina. No way would he be using the condo.”

“Okay.” Gina’s stomach relaxed, but only a little. The definite Paul Collins had been true to his word; he was not using the condo in July. He’d apparently communicated something a little different to his preppy friends, however. “We’ll work this out,” she told Carole, wishing she felt as certain as she sounded.

“I mean it, Gina. That place is yours for the week. I offered it to you after I talked to Paul, remember? Because he was very clear that he wouldn’t be using the condo.”

“Right.”

“So don’t let those people give you any crap.”

Gina laughed, which helped her stomach to relax some more. “When do I ever let anyone give me any crap?”

“Right. Have a great week. And give Alicia an extra hug from me.”

“I will. Thanks, Carole.” Gina hung up the phone, squared her shoulders and returned to the living room alone. The Hamiltons had moved farther into the room, checking out the bland, functional furniture, the trite seascape paintings on the walls, the spectacular view from the balcony. Gina didn’t like the idea of them making themselves at home. “Carole says,” she announced, “that your friend Paul made it very clear to her—very clear—he wouldn’t be using this place this week.”

“He’s not using it,” Ethan retorted, his voice stern despite his polite veneer. “We are.”

“If he wanted you to use it, he should have told Carole he was using it. He misrepresented his plans to Carole, and I booked my airplane ticket accordingly.” And when the airline had alerted her to their “take-a-friend promotion,” which would enable her to bring someone with her for only fifty dollars more, she’d booked a second airplane ticket. “He misrepresented himself,” she repeated, savoring the word. “I’m afraid that means we’ll be staying here, and you’ll have to make other arrangements.”

A flutter of protest arose from the Hamiltons. Ethan’s jaw clenched, causing a muscle in his cheek to twitch. Great cheeks, Gina noticed—hollow but not sunken, drawing her attention back to his amazing green eyes.

He stepped toward her. She refused to back up—retreating to the kitchen struck her as tantamount to turning the condo over to him—but she had to admit that standing her ground against the tall, quiet man took a lot of guts. Fortunately, she had a lot of guts.

“Paul didn’t misrepresent himself,” Ethan said. “Your friend Carole misunderstood him.”

“It was up to him to make sure she understood him,” Gina argued, working hard to keep her voice as level as his.

“She already had her week here, in January. Did she think she was entitled to two weeks?”

“He said he wasn’t going to use the place this week.”

“He isn’t. We are. You and the little girl will have to find another place to stay.”

His gaze shifted, focusing on something behind Gina. She spun around and saw Alicia standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a half-eaten cookie in her hand and a smear of chocolate on her lower lip. Her eyes shimmered with moisture. “Do we have to leave?” she asked in a tremulous voice. A fat tear slid down her cheek. “I want to go to the beach, Aunt Gina. We don’t have to leave, do we?”

Gina wasn’t sure how to answer. Carole and some ass named Paul Collins had crossed wires, and it seemed to her that Ethan and the Hamiltons had as strong a case for staying as she and Alicia did. But Ethan Parnell’s case wasn’t stronger. She and Gina had as much a right to be here as they did.

And the scale tipped slightly in her favor, because she had something they didn’t have: Alicia. She had a niece for whom she would slay dragons, a niece who’d been through a hellacious few months as her parents’ marriage deteriorated, and now she was crying, and Gina had promised they would go to the beach.

She turned back to Ethan and said, “We’re not leaving.”