Tropical Kiss E-Book

Jan Coffey

• Herausgeber: Book Duo Creative
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

  A SUMMER IN ARUBA, ON THE BEACH, IN THE SUN–WHAT ELSE COULD A GIRL WANT? SUMMER ROMANCE, OF COURSE! Imagine spending your entire summer vacation on the beautiful island of Aruba. Who could ask for anything more? Well, for Morgan Callahan, spending her entire summer in Aruba with the father, she hardly knows, is barely anything to look forward to. In fact, she is dreading the next few months.   Nonetheless, she is in for the time of her life! From secret operatives to finding romance. Morgan is in for some international intrigue!   "This breezy romance captures the ups and downs of teenage emotions without burdening readers with heavy drama. The setting is beautifully but simply described, the plot moves swiftly, the romance is just this side of hot, and the danger is scary. Suggest this to teens looking for a fun beach read."   —School Library Journal

Leseprobe

TROPICAL KISS

JAN COFFEY

withMAY MCGOLDRICK

Book Duo Creative

CONTENTS

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Edition Note

Author’s Note

Preview of TESS AND THE HIGHLANDER

Also by May McGoldrick, Jan Coffey & Nik James

About the Author

In the event that you enjoy Tropical Kiss, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the authors. Thanks!

Tropical Kiss. Copyright © 2005 by Nikoo & James McGoldrick

First Published by Harper Collins Publishers 2005

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review or face-to-face educational use, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher: Book Duo Creative.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

To our Taft ’05 Daughters⁠—

Kendall Adams, Michelle Bennett,

Mía Borders, Laurae Caruth, Avery Clark, Sha-Kayla Crockett,

Phoebe Dembs, Tracy Dishongh, Madeleine Dubus, Kelly Franklin,

Amanda Frew, Ashley Gambone, Jess Giannetto, Alex Kelly, Arden Klemmer, Carolyn Luppens, Meaghan Martin, Elisabeth McMorris, Elspeth Michaels, Hana Nagao, Leah Nestico, Monica Raymunt, Sara Rubin, Jade Scott, Tamara Sinclair, Kate Terenzi, Lois Tien, and Mercer Wu

May the road rise to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Be sure to come “home” to visit!

CHAPTERONE

June, Aruba

Summer of 2004

He was late.

The heat was giving Morgan Callahan a headache. She looked at the long afternoon rays of Caribbean sun sliding toward her along the sidewalk. The bench she was sitting on occupied one of the few areas of shade remaining on the stretch of white concrete outside the airport terminal. Sun was poison on her freckled Boston Irish skin. She avoided it like the plague.

How much longer could he be? she thought, looking at her watch.

God, it was hot.

Morgan glanced over her shoulder at the sliding glass doors leading from the air-conditioned baggage claim area. When she’d stepped out of the plane an hour ago, it seemed like the entire population of Aruba was packed into that area. Now she knew why. The air was crisp. The white floors were shining. Even the green plants in the raised dividers looked happy and healthy. And cool.

But she hadn’t stayed inside. Hobbling on her crutches and pulling her bags behind her, she had come out ahead of most of the tourists.

She knew now she’d expected too much. Wished for the impossible. She’d thought Philip might just be there to pick her up. Waiting for her.

Fat chance.

Aruba’s airport was not exactly as busy as Boston’s Logan. The flight Morgan had come in on had been the only one arriving at that hour. There were no lines for immigration, no multiple conveyer belts running to process people’s luggage. Everything came through quickly and without a hitch, it seemed. In and out within fifteen minutes. She’d stood in line longer to get a Happy Meal. A stamp on the passport and everyone was off to hotels and timeshares and whatever.

Morgan looked past the empty taxi stand at the rental car buildings across the way. The sun was blinding on the whitewashed concrete buildings. The entire place seemed deserted.

She breathed in the smells of baked Caribbean cement and jet exhaust. Gross.

Beyond the entrance to the airport, everywhere she looked, the heat was giving the island that hazy, miragy look. She could see in the distance, rising sharply above the flat surrounding area, one high rounded hill with a little white building on top.

“Come on, Philip,” she muttered, tapping her good foot on the pavement.

The sweat was trickling down the inside of the cast on her leg, and the itching was about to drive her crazy. Thank God she’d at least been smart enough to wear a light sundress. She lifted the limp blanket of hair off her neck. It didn’t help. There was no breeze to cool her skin. She tied her hair back in a ponytail.

She thought of the magazine article she’d read on the plane from Boston. The trade winds keep the island cool with year-round breezes. Yeah, right.

Morgan leaned over and tried to get a finger down inside her cast. Why was it that the itch was always just a little further down than she could reach? She pulled off her sunglasses and used one of the handles. She still couldn’t get at it. The sun had finally reached her, and the rays were crawling up her legs. She gave up, gritted her teeth, and pulled her shades back on.

Behind her the sliding doors opened and she glanced around at them. A short, middle-aged guy came out. Straw Indiana Jones hat, khakis, a large untucked Hawaiian shirt. Morgan remembered seeing him on the plane. He’d been wearing his hat even then. Later on, as everyone was going up the ramp toward the Aruban customs area, he was walking a couple of steps ahead of her. He had a nose that looked like it had been chewed on by something and the tan, leathery skin of someone who worked in construction or who had spent lots of hours in the sun, anyway. He also didn’t look like he was too hot on shaving. His chin could have easily been mistaken for the butt of some aging porcupine.

Looking at him now, Morgan had no idea about his nationality. She knew he wasn’t American, though; she’d noticed that he had a different color passport when he was heading to customs ahead of her.

As the doors closed behind him, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. He was carrying only a briefcase. She glanced at her two suitcases, the backpack, and her purse. Mistake. She didn’t know what the heck she’d been thinking, packing so much stuff.

Like she was ever going to leave the house during the couple of months that she was stuck here in Aruba.

She got a whiff of his cigarette smoke and immediately became annoyed. The last thing she needed was to have her asthma flare up. There was no air here as it was. Wheezing wouldn’t be fun. He saw her looking at him. He smiled and started walking toward her.

Great, she thought. American girl abducted from deserted Aruba airport.

“Bon tardi,” he said.

“I don’t speak…uh, Dutch?” she guessed, not really knowing what language he’d just spoken.

“Papiamento,” he corrected. “The native tongue of Aruba.”

“You’re Aruban?”

“From the islands.”

That wasn’t much of an answer. There were lots of islands in the Caribbean.

He puffed on his cigarette and pushed back the rim of his hat.

“American?”

Wasn’t it tattooed on her forehead?

“Yeah,” she said, glad that she’d spread out her backpack and luggage on the bench. There was no room for him to sit down next to her.

“Your first time in Aruba?”

Morgan wished she could lie. The way he was looking at her was creeping her out. His eyes were kind of squinty, like he was sizing up some ripe cantaloupe.

“First time,” she said, looking off toward the road. Two cars turned in from the main highway, but neither came toward the terminal doors.

“Boyfriend picking you up?”

“Not a boyfriend.” She kicked herself after saying it. She didn’t have to explain.

“Traveling by yourself?”

“No,” she said right away. “Visiting family. Visiting my father. He lives on the island.”

“Works for the oil company?”

“No.”

He took another drag from the cigarette and blew the smoke in her direction. “Hotel business. Casino supervisor.”

“No.” She pulled the crutches closer to her. They were the only two people out there on the sidewalk. She looked over her shoulder at the sliding glass doors of the airport building. The sun’s reflection on them prevented her from seeing inside. She had no clue if anyone was even in there.

“Construction.”

“No,” she answered under her breath. He’d moved to where the bright yellow sun was behind him. She could no longer see his face because of the shadow. She decided to turn the tables on him. “Is someone picking you up?”

“How about if I give you a ride?”

“No. Thank you,” she said tersely, guessing that he wasn’t going to be much for answering questions. Still, she thought, a good defense was the best offense…or the other way around. Whatever. “Do you have a car?”

He held one hand out, palm up, like he was checking for rain. “What kind of man would I be if I had no car?”

“Then why don’t you go get in your car and get out of here.”

“You can come with me.”

“No,” she said louder and more pointedly. “My father is coming to get me.”

She could tell he was grinning at her. He dropped his cigarette on the clean sidewalk and crushed it out.

“No oil business, no hotels or casinos, no construction. I say you lie about your father. I think your boyfriend is standing you up. You come with me. I’ll show you real island life.”

For the first time, fear clutched at her gut. She was in a foreign country. The airport had turned into a ghost town. She had no cell phone. Great.

Not that there was anyone she could call here anyway, considering the fact that Philip had apparently forgotten she was coming to visit. Morgan looked over her shoulder at the doors again. The heck with her luggage. Maybe she could get inside. There had to be somebody.

“They locked the doors when I came out,” he said following the direction of her glance. “They want nobody going in that way.”

Porcupine Butt picked up her backpack and dropped it on the sidewalk, making room for himself.

He sat, she stood. It was like a seesaw. She grabbed her crutches and tucked them under her arms. She wasn’t familiar with the airport, didn’t know where the other entrances were, but there was no reason for him to sense her fear.

“Unda bo ta bai?”

“English, please.”

“Where are you going?” He patted the seat next to him. “Sit down. Visit with me.”

“I don’t think so.” She hobbled backward a step. “I like to be left alone. Please go.”

“Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be left alone.”

Morgan’s temper started to push past her fear.

“I don’t know what your problem is, but I told you I’m waiting for my father. He happens to be a high-ranking official for the United States government. He’s here in Aruba on assignment, and he has important friends in high places. Very high places.” Morgan wasn’t going to say it, but from what she could tell, Philip Callahan had spent his entire, boring, low-level, bureaucratic life behind a desk, pushing paper for those important people. “He should be here any minute. So unless you’re looking for trouble, you’d better just leave me alone and be on your way.”

The sound of a car speeding into the airport from the road jerked Morgan’s head around. Immediately, her stomach sank. A new black Jaguar with tinted windows was racing toward them. She backed another step away from the curb as the car came up and screeched to a stop. She could hear reggae blasting, even with the windows closed.

Somehow, Morgan doubted that Philip was in that car.

“You wait for your father. I wait for my nephew.” Old Porcupine Butt was smiling as he got to his feet.

The driver revved the engine of the Jag. Even this close, Morgan couldn’t see how many people were inside.

“Come with us?”

She shook her head and continued to back away. Her mind was racing. There could be two of them in the Jag, maybe three. They could force her into the car with them. She was liking this less and less. The music suddenly stopped.

As the car door started to open, she felt someone put a hand on her shoulder. Gasping, she whirled around and swung one of her crutches hard. The wood connected solidly with the knee of the man behind her. She heard him curse out loud and stagger backwards.

Right away, Morgan had a strong suspicion that she might have aimed wrong. The young man holding his knee was dressed in khakis, a white polo shirt, and loafers with no socks. All and all, he looked too preppy to be very threatening, in spite of the continuing stream of muttered curses. She saw him bend over and snatch his sunglasses from the sidewalk where they’d fallen. When he looked at her, there was murder in his eyes.

“What was that for?”

“You grabbed me. It was self-defense.”

“Self-defense?” he said, scowling. “I touched you on the shoulder. You weren’t watching where you were going. You were backing right into me.”

“You materialized out of thin air.”

“I came out the side,” he replied. “These doors were locked.”

He was tall and had a nice build. Actually, Morgan was pretty impressed with herself for being able to knock him back a step. His brown hair was longish and straight. Handsome, but definitely too serious. At least, right now he looked pretty serious.

Morgan figured his ego had taken a bigger hit than his knees. He was still flexing his leg, but other than that he didn’t seem to be in too much pain.

“It’s not nice to sneak up on people,” she said under her breath.

“I wasn’t sneaking up on you. You backed into me.” His green eyes disappeared behind the sunglasses. “You’re not even going to apologize?”

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “But it wasn’t like I hit you intentionally.”

Morgan jumped at the sound of the car door slamming. As she turned, the Jag took off in the direction of the main road. Thankfully, her annoying friend was nowhere to be seen. She’d had enough excitement. She’d just wait inside the terminal.

She hobbled back to the bench, grabbed her purse, picked up the backpack, and slung the two items onto her shoulder. The strap of the purse caught on one of the crutches. She tried to unhook it, but the backpack slipped off her shoulder, knocking over the two suitcases like a pair of dominoes. As she reached down to straighten them up, her sunglasses fell off the bridge of her nose. She tried to catch them, but the purse—still tangled up with the crutch—stopped her. Morgan pulled the purse off her arm and took a step back, glaring at the items in front of her.

“Behave,” she muttered at the tangled mess of items at her feet.

“You must be Morgan Callahan.”

CHAPTERTWO

Morgan stared at him. He was reaching around her for one of the suitcases, and obviously reading the name tag on it.

She grabbed the handle, and he didn’t try to wrestle her for it.

“Do you know I’ve been looking for you for almost an hour?” he said.

“Who are you?” Morgan let go of the suitcase and picked up her purse and backpack, hitching them higher on her shoulder.

“Cyrus Reed. You can call me Cy,” he replied, reaching for her two suitcases. He didn’t bother rolling them. Instead, in true macho fashion, he picked them up by the handles and started off down the sidewalk.

“Excuse me,” she called out.

“I’m parked in the side lot,” he said over his shoulder. “Stay here, I’ll bring the car around.”

“Hello!” she shouted louder. “Listen, you’re welcome to my lacy underwear. But is your name supposed to mean something to me?”

He stopped and slowly turned around. “Cy Reed? Philip Callahan’s assistant? Ring any bells?”

“No.”

“I’m your father’s assistant. A summer intern. I was told that you’d be waiting in the luggage area for me to pick you up.”

“I wasn’t told anything.” Morgan had to be careful. The week before leaving Boston, her computer had fried, and of course Philip’s preferred way of communicating happened to be e-mail. With all that Morgan’s mother, Jean, had on her plate, though, getting a new computer wasn’t a priority. “But if I was supposed to meet you, then where were you?”

“I was there in the luggage area,” he said shortly.

“I was there, too,” she replied, matching his tone. She picked up her sunglasses and pulled them on. “And so were a couple hundred other passengers. What happened to the good old days of holding up a sign?”

“Small airport. I didn’t think it would be too difficult finding you.”

“Really? Even though we’ve never met. And how would you know what I looked like?”

“There are a couple of pictures of you on your father’s desk.”

Morgan could only imagine the pictures Cy was talking about. Junior high school graduation, or maybe even earlier. It had been three full years since Philip had bothered to come for a visit. It had been about that long since Morgan had sent him any pictures, too, but she wasn’t about to wash her family’s dirty laundry in public. They talked—once a month on the phone for just about an entire minute. And, of course, he e-mailed her.

Morgan looked over the top of her sunglasses at him. “Do you have any kind of ID? Anything that tells me you’re who you say you are?”

He shot her an irritated look but put down her luggage and reached for the wallet in his back pocket. Morgan stared at the driver’s license he stuck under her nose. “You live in Connecticut?”

“I’m a college student in D.C.” He snapped the wallet closed and stuffed it back in his pocket. “I had to be somewhere else half an hour ago. If you can’t make it to the lot, I’ll bring the car around.”

“Grouch,” she said under her breath, watching him move down the sidewalk with her luggage.

It had been six weeks since her leg had gone into the cast, and Morgan was ready for the Special Olympics when it came to moving along on crutches. She wasn’t going to be left behind. She definitely wasn’t going to wait at some curb so that Mr. Personality could do her a favor.

The car was actually an open Jeep. Morgan reached it just as he was loading the second piece of luggage onto the back seat. He didn’t seem surprised when she got there. Or, if he was, he did a good job of hiding it.

Climbing on the front seat took a little bit of maneuvering. She had to find room for her crutches and then there was a step she had to climb. To Morgan’s surprise, Cy was right there, holding her elbow and helping her up.

It was easy to deal with rudeness. She was kind of flustered, though, by his help. And by the feel of his hand on her skin. And she also couldn’t help but notice—despite the heat—how good he smelled. Kind of like spice and leather.

“You didn’t tell your father about that.”

He was standing next to her open door, staring down at the knee-high cast. Or maybe he was checking out her legs, Morgan thought, realizing the hem of her dress had ridden up. She pulled the fabric down.

“I was planning to be out of it by the time I got down here. But my doctor didn’t agree.”

Actually, Morgan had been relieved. She wasn’t healed. She could tell that for herself.

“How much longer have you got?”

“Two weeks.”

She didn’t miss the face he made before going around and getting behind the wheel. It was like he was deciding if he could live with the two weeks or not.

No more confrontations, Morgan told herself. He was giving her a ride, and she wasn’t going to read anything into his looks or anything he said. As far as she knew, this was the very last time she’d see him while she was stuck in Aruba. It was only two months or so.

She lifted her face into the wind as soon as he started driving. The sun was sinking quickly toward the shimmering surface of the western sea. The balmy air circulating around her actually felt good.

She tried to pay attention to where they were going. She hoped that once her cast was off, Philip would allow her to use his car. They were traveling on route 1B. She was impressed with the great condition of the road and the colorful buildings on either side of it. So many of them looked obviously new.

The traffic slowed to a crawl as they reached the capital, Oranjestad. Oh-ryan-stahd. She had read in the airline magazine that it was pronounced like that.

As Morgan looked around her, she found the town downright charming. The yellow and pink and blue stucco buildings looked like a picture in a Caribbean travel brochure. The tree-lined streets were beautiful, and the town center was spotless. The sidewalks were filled with window shoppers of every size, age, and color. Restaurants were doing a brisk cocktail business at tables set outside under multi-colored umbrellas, and looking up, Morgan could see more tables along railings and tanned, smiling faces looking back at her.

She looked to her left, across the divider in the road, at the harbor. The surface of the water looked like shimmering gold in the light of the setting sun. The marina was packed with everything from pleasure boats to sailboats to fishing boats.

“This is where you come if you want to go shopping.”

Morgan found the comment a little annoying, and she frowned at him. He didn’t look at her, though, as the traffic crept forward a little. She had reason to be annoyed, she decided. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know what her interests were. He was stereotyping her. She was a girl, so of course, she could only be interested in shopping.

“Really?” she said wryly. “Do you do a lot of shopping?”

“Me? No, I’d rather have bamboo shoots stuck under my nails.” He paused and shot a look at her. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

She smiled sweetly at him and looked out at the brightly lit sign of a club they were passing. Mambo Jambo. That looked interesting.

“Is there anything else to do in Oranjestad?”

“There are a couple of museums.”

“How about night life?”

“We just passed the theater. They tell me it has all first-run movies.”

“What about the clubs?”

He sent her a sidelong glance as the traffic stopped again. “Aren’t you a little young for clubs?”

Morgan bit back her answer as the driver of a silver Mercedes coming in the opposite direction planted her hand on the horn and slowed down. The windows of the luxury car opened, and three blonde heads appeared.

“Cy!” The driver waved madly, her hand on the horn again.

“I love you, Cy,” one of them sang out from the backseat.

Traffic on that side stopped, and the passenger door of the Mercedes opened and yet another blonde in shorts and a bikini top jumped out and ran around the car. Morgan thought the blond was about to jump the divider, but Cy gunned the Jeep, driving around the right side of the car in front of them. Hanging on, Morgan almost screamed as he drove with two wheels on the sidewalk for some twenty yards before turning down a narrow street on their right and speeding away.

“Fan club?” she asked, forcing her fingers to release their grip on the seat.

He didn’t answer, and Morgan realized that he actually looked a little embarrassed.

“You don’t have to answer,” she said double-checking her seatbelt. “I would prefer to arrive in one piece, though. No more broken bones, please.”

With a glance in the rearview mirror, he slowed down. After making two or three more turns, they were back on route 1B and heading north out of Oranjestad.

Morgan adjusted her sunglasses and looked at him again. With the wind ruffling his hair, Cyrus Reed looked even more handsome than she’d originally thought. She figured those girls couldn’t have been much older than she was. And he was twenty. Her eagle eyes had picked that up when she’d looked at his driver’s license back at the airport. Never in her life, though, would she act like them. Not even with someone she knew, liked, and was going out with.

She looked vacantly out at the passing scenery, thinking about her ex-boyfriend. That had been Jack’s complaint before he’d broken up with her the day before the junior prom. She was too stuck up. Too cold. She wouldn’t show affection in public, and she wasn’t too good at it in private either, he told her. Well, that’s who she was. She definitely wasn’t much of an exhibitionist. She felt safer taking her time, getting to know the person. She knew from personal experience that a heart was as fragile as a leg. She already had a cast on one. She could do without a cast on the other.

“How far are we from Philip’s house?”

“Ten minutes, tops,” he said. “He lives in a section called Bakval. It’s a stone’s throw away from the high-rise area. That’s where the big hotels are. Nice beaches, too.”

She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her dress.

They were going around a rotary. To her left, she saw some construction going on in the distance. He pointed to one of larger buildings closer to the road. “That’s the new hospital.”

Morgan tucked that information away, since she knew she had to come back here in a couple of weeks to get her cast off. “How’s the taxi situation on the island?”

“Very decent. The rates are set by the Aruban government, so there’s no gouging.”

“Cool,” she murmured.

They were quickly approaching some tall buildings on their left. She figured they were getting close.

“So how long has it been since you saw your father?” he asked.

“Three years.”

The sun dropped below the surface of the sea, and Cy tore off his glasses. He put them in the space between them. She had to admit, grudgingly, that he had the longest set of eyelashes she’d ever seen. They perfectly set off his green eyes. His eyes looked like jade against his tanned skin.

Get a grip, Morgan, she told herself, unhappy about where her mind was going.

“He’s a very busy man, you know.”

Morgan looked out at the scenery on her side of the road. The landscape was wilder here. There were fewer buildings, but she could see things looked more populated up ahead.

She told herself she didn’t need to hear any excuses, especially from a stranger who didn’t know anything about who she was and how their family operated.

“I think he’s going to be a little surprised.”

She turned her attention back to him. “By what?”

“By you,” he said simply.

Her pulse beat double time for a few seconds. Morgan didn’t know if he was trying to be conversational or if he’d been sizing her up. Was he making a general comment or paying her a compliment? She decided not to ask. There was no point. They were going their different ways as soon as he dropped her off. There was probably a gaggle of blondes in his near future.

“This place where Philip lives…” Her voice trailed off.

“Bakval,” Cy repeated the name.

“What kind of a house is it?” she asked.

“It’s a house.”

Morgan gave him a narrow look. “What I’d like to know is whether it’s in a neighborhood or is it secluded?”

“It’s definitely in a neighborhood.”

She guessed that was a plus. They were driving by some highrise hotels to their left. She could see the names. Radisson. Hilton. Marriott. They had to be almost there. Morgan decided to ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue.

“Philip,” she started. “Does he…does he live alone?”

He shot her a curious look.

Morgan decided on honesty. “Look, I’m supposed to stay here for most of the summer. My mother remarried a week ago. She and her husband have extended their honeymoon to last the whole summer, and they’re spending it in some little, one-horse village in India.”

“So, you want to know if you’re going to be a fifth wheel in your father’s social life?”

“I won’t be a fifth, sixth, or twentieth wheel in his life.” Morgan was immediately sorry for blurting that out. She forced herself to speak more calmly. “What I wanted to know is whether there’s a live-in girlfriend. Is there anyone else that I should know about before we get there?”

“You didn’t ask him that before coming?”

“If you must know, communication is not high on the list of Callahan qualities.”

He nodded. “You don’t seem to have any problem getting your points across to me.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No live-in girlfriend,” he answered.

“No roommate?”

He shook his head. “Your father does let out a small guest house. It’s across an enclosed garden courtyard area.”

“That isn’t bad,” she admitted quietly.

“Something’s wrong with the electricity to the kitchen in the guest house, though. So for the past couple of weeks, they’ve had to share the kitchen in the main house.”

“That could be bad,” she reconsidered in a hushed tone.

“Nice guy renting it, though.”

“Do you know him?”

He nodded.

“Young? Old?’

“Young.”

“That could be good and bad,” Morgan decided.

“Do you always talk to yourself?”

“Do you ever watch the road?” she asked, seeing that he was staring at her.

He shook his head in disbelief, but she didn’t miss the smile pulling at his lips. This guy got more handsome all the time. Unfortunately. Never mind her pulse doing double time, now there was that weird fluttery action in the base of her stomach.

Cy turned right onto a tree lined road. Behind low walls, small houses lay nestled in shaded yards. From the occasional realty signs along the road, it looked to Morgan like a neighborhood made up of a mix of islanders and vacationers. Cy made another turn onto a similar road and a couple of hundred feet down pulled the Jeep off the pavement onto a dirt patch between the road and a stucco wall.

“Here we go.”

Morgan stayed in her seat for a minute, staring at the low, rambling villa. Beyond a wall topped with a fence, palm trees surrounding the house were visible. Lush flowering shrubs were mixed into the landscaping. A gate led into the courtyard, and Morgan could see the top of what she assumed was the guest house to the right. There were no other cars near the house.

She hadn’t expected Philip to be there, anyway. She looked back at what she could see of the main house. The shutters on the windows facing the road were closed. She glanced over at the guest house again and stepped out. The Jeep was higher than she remembered. Her left foot didn’t catch up with the right one fast enough, and Morgan ended up falling on all fours in the dirt. There was nothing like a graceful landing.

“Are you okay?” Cy asked, rushing around to her.

“Fine.” She scrambled to her feet, dusting off her hands on the dress. “I meant to do that.”

He stood an arm’s length away, not looking entirely convinced.

“Do you know the name of the person who’s staying there?” she asked, motioning toward the guest house.

“Yeah. As a matter of fact, I do.” Cy turned away and reached into the Jeep for her suitcases. “His name is Cyrus Reed.”

CHAPTERTHREE

Philip Callahan pulled up in front of the house at 10:15. He parked next to Cy’s Jeep and turned off the engine. The lights in the main section of the villa were off.

She must be already asleep, he thought. He frowned and shook his head.

He hadn’t wanted Morgan’s arrival to go this way. He’d learned about the meeting he had to attend with the Aruban Governor’s Office only yesterday. That was why he’d e-mailed Morgan that Cy would pick her up at the airport.

Still, Philip had hoped to get back to the house earlier than this. He’d planned to take her out for dinner. Maybe a little celebration after not seeing her for so long. Some kind of welcoming gesture. So much for that idea.

The problem was that his job ruled his life. It always had. It was the nature of the beast. His chosen profession dictated not only his daily schedule but where in the world he lived and for how long and when it was time to move again. Not too good for a steady family life. Definitely not too good for raising a daughter.

We make our choices in life, and then we live with them.

But that didn’t make it any easier.

Philip was still frowning as he grabbed his briefcase and climbed out of the car. When the meeting was still going at seven-thirty, he knew that there would be no celebrating tonight. He’d called Morgan to tell her. Four miles or four thousand miles, the distance didn’t matter. He heard the same old chill in her voice, the frosty disapproving tone that sounded so similar to that of his ex-wife. Morgan had flatly refused his suggestion to order take-out and have it delivered. Whatever Philip had in the fridge would be good enough, she’d told him coolly.

Unfortunately, he didn’t remember what, if anything, he had in there. He hardly ever had a meal at home. A housekeeper came through once a week. She was usually good at checking the shelves and stocking it once in a while. So maybe there was something Morgan could eat. He hoped.

He made his way around the car and was heading for the gate leading into the courtyard when he saw the flame of a citronella torch flickering beyond the bushes. As he opened the gate, a chair scraped on the brick and Philip saw the young man’s face appear over the fence separating the two sections of courtyard.

“Long meeting,” Cy remarked.

“How did it go this afternoon?”

“We missed each other in the luggage area, so she had to wait around a little bit. But I managed to find her.”

Morgan had said nothing about this to him when they’d talked on the phone. He looked at the main house and then back at Cy.

“You have a couple of minutes?” Philip asked.

“Sure.”

Philip cast another glance toward the darkened windows of the villa before opening the gate into the smaller courtyard. Cy was dressed in a pair of baggy cargo shorts and a t-shirt. There was a book face down on a metal table near his chair.

“There isn’t enough light out here to read.”

Cy shrugged. “The air conditioning gets to me after a while.”

He grabbed a cushion from the porch and put it on one of the metal chairs for Philip.

“So what’s up?” the younger man asked.

Philip put his briefcase down on the chair. It wasn’t easy to ask, and he had to search around for the right words. Finally, he gave up and just asked straight out. “What’s she like?”

Cy stared at him for a second. “She’s seventeen.”

“I know that.”

“She’s probably changed a lot since you saw her last.”

“I figured that, too.”

“She has a broken leg.”

Philip loosened his tie. “Really? She didn’t tell me that.”

“She said the cast should come off in a couple of weeks.”

Already a complication. His schedule over the next few weeks wasn’t exactly flexible. Damn it.