“Okay,” Chloe said, her heart sinking. She didn’t have extra money to pay for major repairs, and anyway, she wasn’t sure whose responsibility they would be, hers or Gwynne’s.
“I figured I’d better report it.”
“Thanks. I think. Hey, you’ll be needing a hot shower, won’t you?”
“That would be nice, but I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“The bathrooms up here are all supplied by the water heater under the attic stairs,” she said, inclining her head in that direction. “It’s working fine. I have personal knowledge of this.”
“If you wouldn’t mind—” Ben began, but she shushed him by holding up a hand.
“Use the bathroom off the master suite to my right. You won’t be in my way.”
“Cool,” Ben said, and for a moment she could have sworn that he was ogling her bare legs below her short terry-cloth robe.
“No, hot,” she said, referring to the water, but as he raised his eyebrows, she realized that he thought she was making a flirtatious comment about him.
“Good night,” she mumbled in embarrassment, turning on her heel and fleeing to her own room, knowing that she hadn’t mistaken the humorous glint in his eyes.
“Good night, Chloe,” he replied, a hint of laughter in his voice.
Her room was filled with the sound of the rain on the roof and Ben taking his shower on the other side of the wall, which divided her room from the master bath. She couldn’t stop visualizing Ben standing under the shower spray, soaping himself all over. The more she tried to banish him from her mind, the more vividly her imagination embellished his image.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered as she fluffed her pillow for the fourth time. “I’m not here to get involved with a guy.”
Except that it was a strange thing about not wanting to meet men. Sometimes all you had to do was decide that you didn’t want any part of them, and suddenly, they were everywhere. Popping up in your headlights. Crawling out of the woodwork like palmetto bugs. Showering in the room next door. Reminding you of when you were sixteen years old and eager to find out what love was all about.
Too bad that you couldn’t just squirt men with something in a spray can and make them go away. Although even if that were possible, she wouldn’t get rid of Ben Derrick.
Not that anyone could ever recapture the thrill of a first crush. No, better that Ben never realize that she’d cared for him. Better to hunker down at the Frangipani Inn, get to work and forget all about that special summer.
Chapter Two
Chloe’s goal in taking up residence at the inn was twofold. The solitude would allow her to get her fledgling jewelry business off the ground, and she could stop solving other people’s problems. It was difficult, after years of accepting the roles that other people expected her to play in their lives, to disengage. Grandma Nell had understood.
“You can’t create space for new experiences and new people in your life if you’re giving all your energy to people who drag you down,” her grandmother had said. “It’s time for you to leave behind unproductive and outmoded situations, Chloe. Go to Sanluca. Stay awhile.”
The resounding message was that she needed to concentrate on herself for a change. After several rescue operations involving unsuitable men, Chloe couldn’t have agreed more.
Of course, there would always be room in her life for Butch, who woke her the morning after she arrived by jumping on her feet and nibbling at her toes. Hoping to get back to sleep, she yanked one foot away, then the other. This only caused the cat to settle on her chest, purring loudly as he kneaded sharp claws in and out of her shoulder.
“All right, I’m awake,” she told him grudgingly, treating him to a vigorous rub behind the ears before sliding out of bed and padding into the bathroom.
“How did you get in, anyway?” she asked, knowing that Ben must have opened the door for the cat. A glance at her watch told her that it was almost nine o’clock, late by her standards. Usually, when she was here, she was awake at dawn, since the rising sun’s rays easily penetrated the thin curtains of her room.
Butch meowed and pawed at her leg. “Okay, okay,” she said, lifting the toilet lid. Butch was toilet trained because she’d been relentless in her expectations. She took a dim view of scooping cat litter, and so did her grandmother, who had been skeptical about adopting a pet in the first place. Chloe had insisted that they keep Butch after he’d ventured out of the woods behind their house, skinny and scared. Now he weighed in at a hefty twenty pounds and was afraid of nothing.
Since Butch preferred privacy when he performed, Chloe wandered into the bedroom. She opened the windows to let in the breeze, marveling at the sight of the waves lapping on the shore. Though born and bred in the heart of Texas, she’d always felt a kinship with the sea.
Ben was sitting at the edge of the ocean, staring toward the horizon. She almost called to him, but something about the set of his shoulders gave her pause. She read discouragement in the way they slumped, and something else. Sadness? Sorrow? She wasn’t sure, but she sensed that he was weighed down by some indefinable burden. He seemed different from when she’d first met him. In those days, he’d been full of personality, convivial and gregarious. People had been naturally drawn to him, and he’d basked in his own popularity. The change in him tugged at her heart even as she cautioned herself that whatever Ben’s problems were, she wanted no part of them.
She returned to the bathroom, where Butch was now waiting at the edge of the sink for his morning drink of water. After turning on the tap for him, she flushed the toilet, a skill that the cat had unfortunately not mastered. After one lick at the dripping faucet, Butch gave a disdainful little brrrup!—his equivalent of “yuck”—and jumped down.
Chloe started a shopping list. Bottled water, she wrote at the top as her cell phone rang. The caller ID revealed that it was Naomi, who, until she’d married her husband, Ray, the summer of high-school graduation, had accompanied her to Sanluca during their childhood summer vacations.
Naomi wasted no time getting to the point. “Chloe, guess what Tara’s done now.”
“I couldn’t say right off,” Chloe said cautiously as possibilities sequenced through her mind. Her teenage niece had recently decided that she didn’t want to go back to high school in the fall. “Taken up skydiving? Joined a convent?” Chloe figured the only way to calm Naomi down was to make light of the situation.
“She’s run away from home, that’s what! Ray and I are frantic with worry. Tara finished her final exams and split. No one has a clue where she is.”
“Did she leave a note?”
“She propped a sweet little card on her pillow, telling us not to worry.”
“As if you wouldn’t.”
“As if,” Naomi agreed with a sigh.
“At least Tara took her exams,” Chloe pointed out.
“Why do you find this funny?” Naomi asked with remarkable forbearance. “We’re beside ourselves with worry.”
“Tara confided before I left Farish that she’d reformed. My guess is that she’s hiding at a friend’s house and they’re pigging out on hot-fudge sundaes. You used to do that when finals were over, remember?”
“We’re checking with all her friends, and in the old bunkhouses on some of their parents’ ranches, and every other possible place. The police don’t consider her disappearance a criminal matter because Tara left a note, went of her own accord and kids run away all the time. They believe she’ll be back. I’m not so sure, Chloe. Tara and I had a big argument a couple of days ago.”
Chloe’s