in light of her failure. Lilah chewed the side of her cheek, her stomach gurgling in distress at the turmoil causing havoc in her intestines. She’d always had a persnickety tummy, as Grams used to call it, which had resulted in Lilah being the pickiest eater. Lilah knew she gave off the impression of being frail, so most people continued to baby her, except Lora.
And while Lilah sometimes chafed at the way people coddled her, Lora had made her realize that people babied her because she was incapable of handling a true crisis. Her failure at being able to navigate the obstacles facing Larimar and necessitating the SOS call to Lora only served to deepen her own disappointment in herself. And frankly, her oldest sister was the last person she wanted to see right now. She certainly didn’t need to hear Lora berate her for letting things get this bad.
So, she’d begged Heath—who had his own issues with Lora—to get her from the ferry. Yes, it’d been cowardly, but Lilah hadn’t cared.
She could only imagine the fireworks that’d accompanied that car ride.
But Lilah knew she could avoid Lora for only so long because the island was a mere nine miles wide and eventually, the odds were that they’d bump into each other.
And that moment had come, she realized as Lora descended from the private section of the resort to meet Lilah’s wary gaze. If it’d been Lindy, Lilah’s twin, there’d at least be hugs and exclamations of affection before the shouting. At twenty-eight, Lilah shouldn’t be afraid of her oldest sister, but her stomach was roiling even as she forced a smile.
Of course, Lora looked stunning as she always did, if it weren’t for the grim set of her jaw. Lora had changed from the plane into island clothes, though she didn’t look local. Too much time in the corporate world had sharpened Lora’s gaze as if she were constantly looking for the angle people were trying to use to their advantage. It saddened Lilah to see how much her sister had changed—and not for the better. In that moment, she deeply missed Lindy, but her twin was off in Hollywood, well on her way to becoming famous.
“How was your flight?” she asked, trying for some sort of civility before the fight began. Lora’s lips pressed together before she cocked her head to the side with an expression of exasperation. Lilah sighed. “So no small talk first? Okay. I missed you, too. We should probably go into Pops’s office to do this.”
Lora nodded and turned to pad barefoot into Pops’s tiki-themed office. Lilah had always loved Pops’s laid-back style to business, but now that she’d been thrust into the management department, she’d realized a more orthodox style would’ve been easier to step into. As Lora would discover, Pops had left a nightmare to untangle when it came to the books. But as they entered, they found Heath sitting in Pops’s chair. This wasn’t an uncommon sight for Lilah, but it certainly was an unwelcome shock to Lora, as evidenced by her hard stare.
“What are you doing?” she queried sharply to Heath, and Lilah sent him a silent apology for her sister’s rudeness. Lora looked to Lilah for an answer, crossing her arms and looking sorely vexed, as the islanders would say. “Last time I checked you were a handyman…now you’re sitting in my grandfather’s chair? I want an explanation and I want it now.”
“God, Lora, stop treating Heath like he’s a criminal or something,” Lilah muttered, knowing Lora wasn’t going to like the explanation. Heath had been stepping in for some time to help and Lilah had been terribly grateful. He’d always been like the older brother she never had and she cared deeply for him. The fact that Lora had treated him as if he were beneath her notice had pissed off Lilah. “He’s sitting at Pops’s desk because he’s been helping me keep Larimar afloat. You know I don’t have a head for business and Heath does.”
“Oh, really? Since when? I hardly consider doing odd jobs as having the business acumen necessary to run a high-end resort,” Lora answered back, focusing her laser stare on Heath who only stared back, the heat between the two enough to fry an egg. “You can bet that I’m going to have a chat with Pops about this but something tells me you probably convinced him—in his current confused state—to let you take over as you saw fit. Well, I can tell you right now, that ends now.”
“Lora!” Lilah exclaimed, horrified that her sister would imply such a thing. If she only knew… “You haven’t been here. You haven’t seen what Heath has done for Larimar. Maybe if you took a phone call every once in a while I wouldn’t have had to ask for Heath’s help. Unlike you, he found the time to take an interest in what’s been going on.” Tears stung Lilah’s eyes and she couldn’t hold them back. She’d never been good at yelling at someone, least of all one of her sisters, but she couldn’t sit there and allow Lora to believe the worst of Heath when he’d been nothing but kind to this family. Lora looked unmoved by the sudden show of tears, as if she’d expected some sort of reaction from Lilah, and the knowledge that her older sister knew her that well only served to pour salt in the wound. Seaming her mouth shut, Lilah spun on her heel, only too eager to get away from the ugliness in the room. If her sister wanted to be a coldhearted bitch, then she could deal with the fact that no one liked her or could stand her company for more than five minutes—including her sisters. “I’m sorry, Heath,” she muttered as she ran from the room. Whether she was apologizing for abandoning him in the moment or because Lora was such a she-beast, Lilah wasn’t sure. She just knew she was sorry.
* * *
HEATH©WATCHED LILAH©FLEE the room and he felt compelled to follow, if only to see if she was okay. Lilah was like his little sister and the fact that he felt more protective over her than her own flesh and blood only served to stoke the banked anger.
“You sure know how to alienate every single person you come into contact with. Tell me, is this how you conduct yourself in Chicago at your big fancy corporate job?” he asked with a calm he certainly didn’t feel. He wanted to put his hands around her slim neck and shake some sense into her, but he willed that white-hot anger into an icy calm, using a tactic he’d seen Lora use more than once.
At the mention of her career, he almost thought he saw a bit of an inward wince, but that was impossible. Lora Bell was a shark who ate guppies that had the misfortune of wandering into her pool. A show of vulnerability wasn’t in her nature. “Nice try at deflection. Now that the hysterics are over, can you tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“Simple. As I told you earlier, your grandfather started to lose time about a year ago and when that happened, he forgot to pay bills. Of course, no one knew this until the water and power was shut off one day. I discovered months’ worth of bills that had been stuffed into your Grams’s in-box, which at first I thought your Pops was simply using as an easy place to remember where to put the bills, but then I realized, he was following what he used to do when your Grams was alive.”
“She always paid the bills,” Lora finished in a murmur, her fingers massaging her temple. “So how many bills were behind?”
“Everything,” he answered, sugarcoating nothing. “And that prompted me to look a little more deeply into the finances and the taxes. He hasn’t paid in years. The government started sending letters six months ago. That’s when I started calling you. When we received this—” he picked up a letter from the desktop and tossed it to her “that’s when I sent the certified letter to get your damn attention.” He paused a minute to let her read the letter. “Because I’m not family and I don’t have power of attorney on the estate I couldn’t negotiate on Pops’s behalf. Unfortunately, we needed you for that.”
He knew the letter word for word. It said that if the back taxes weren’t paid in full by the end of the quarter, the government would seize the property for payment against the debt.
“Oh, God,” Lora breathed, true distress on her features. He wished he could feel some sort of satisfaction for her finally admitting that the situation was serious, but he was too worried to feel anything but anxiety. For him, there was more at stake than his loyalty to the Bells. Two years ago he and Jack had went into business together and Pops had invested a fair amount of capital—money that Pops didn’t have to give, which Heath didn’t discover until it was too late. Pops had taken money socked away for the