smiled. “Can we forget about it and go on?”
“Forget that I took advantage of you?”
“You didn’t, but I’ll allow you that if you accept I was the initiator and a willing participant.”
He closed his eyes, as if her words had caused him pain. After a moment he opened them again. “I suppose it’s going to be impossible to do what we have to do here if we can’t get past it.”
“It will be for me,” she admitted.
“So we both made mistakes, now we go on?”
“Right.”
He turned to look back out over the calm, warm sea. She heard him take a couple of deep breaths.
“All right. We start over,” he said finally.
“Hello, Noah Rider. I’m Paige Cooper,” she answered.
He turned back to her then. An odd expression was on his face, and an odder half smile curved his mouth. That mouth she’d spent five years trying to forget.
“Hello, Paige Cooper,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
Rider walked down the long hallway to the administrative offices of the hotel. He’d kept Barry waiting longer than he’d wanted to, but he’d had to finish with Paige.
Finish with Paige.
That was something he’d been hoping for for five years now. To conclude what had felt like unfinished business. Or at the least, unatoned-for business. So why didn’t he feel relieved, now that the air had been cleared, apologies—however unexpected hers had been—made, and an agreement reached that they would forget and move on?
Forget. Right. Not likely. He had thought it would be over now. That after he’d apologized to her, she would have forgiven him, and they could have gone on, comfortable in the knowledge that they would rarely, if ever, see each other again once he left here. It should have been easy.
But it wasn’t. Not a damned thing had changed. Except now she was right here, within reach.
So now what? He was supposed to just smile and walk around cheerfully as if it had never happened? Pretend he’d never met her before this day, that she hadn’t been a warm, taunting image in the back of his mind since even before the night he’d made himself walk away from her?
His cell phone rang again.
“Rider.”
“Sir?” The voice was tentative. “This is Miranda Mayfield, in tech services? I know it’s after hours, but you did say to let you know when the test data on the standby generators was finished.”
“Relax, Miranda. There’s no such thing as after hours for me while I’m here. Drop it off in my temporary office, will you? Then go home.”
“Thanks, Mr. Rider.”
He slipped the phone back in his pocket just as he reached Barry Rutherford’s office. The door was open, and the man was still at his desk. Out of courtesy Rider tapped on the doorjamb rather than just striding in. He might out-rank the man in the general scheme of things, but Redstone Bay was Rutherford’s bailiwick, and would be long after Rider was gone.
“So what’s that bad news?”
“I just hung up with Bohio’s family,” Barry said. “What I’d feared is true. He’s not coming back.”
“Because?”
“Sadly, that emergency he left for was the death of his brother.”
Rider frowned. “Did you tell him we’d hold the job for him, as long as he needed?”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t able to speak to him directly. He’s no longer there.”
Rider studied the older man’s face for a moment. “Do I need to sit down for this?”
“As you wish. It’s not pretty, but not unusual of late. Bohio’s brother was in the army. He was killed in a skirmish with the rebel forces on Arethusa. Bohio has decided he must help the army hunt down those responsible.”
Rider’s mouth twisted. In all his travels he’d more than once been close to a restless part of the world. He hadn’t liked it then and he didn’t now. He dealt with it when he had to, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
“And he’s already gone?” he asked.
Barry nodded.
So, no chance to try to talk him out of it. Not that he could have, but it would have been nice to try. But he could understand—intellectually, anyway, because he’d never had to face such a decision himself—that Bohio had felt he had to do this.
“See if the family needs anything,” he told Barry.
“I will. As for his job, we’ll need somebody fairly soon to replace him.”
Rider gave the man a wry smile. “You’re a master of understatement, Barry. I’m sure Redstone has someone they could send out temporarily. But first, are there any possibilities already here?”
Barry frowned. “You mean, someone who could take over? No one with his training and credentials.”
“What about any bright lights? Somebody who’s shown some knowledge or initiative?”
Barry thought for a moment. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again.
“What?” Rider asked.
The man shook his head. “No, he’s too young.”
“Who?”
“Elan Kiskeya. A local. He’s been helping Bohio, so he knows the systems, and he’s got a knack for mechanical things, but…”
“Does he have the drive?”
“He’s always asking for more to do, but he’s only twenty-four.”
“I was twenty-six when Josh Redstone gave me a shot at your position on the San Juan Islands project,” Rider said. “I’d never done anything that big before. I worked harder than I ever had in my life, to prove I could do it.”
It had also been nerve-racking as hell, San Juan being Redstone’s first resort venture. But now it was a cornerstone of the resort end of the business, and Rider knew it was why he was where he was today.
“He would have to learn a great deal very quickly,” Barry warned.
“Is there a good staff in place? I haven’t gotten to that part of the report yet.”
Barry nodded. “Very good. Bohio picked good people. Including Kiskeya. Do you wish to talk to him?”
“Let’s bring him in tomorrow so we can discuss it. But it’s going to affect you the most, since you may have to help him along, so the final decision is yours. If you don’t think he can cut it, we’ll send for help.”
Barry looked a bit relieved. “All right.”
Rider smiled. “Steamrollering people from the top isn’t the Redstone style.”
The man chuckled. “Did I look that worried?”
“Just a little.”
“I’ll have Kiskeya come in first thing in the morning, if that works for you?”
“Sooner the better. He’s going to need all the time he can get. And let’s hope we don’t lose anybody else.”
On his way back to the small suite set aside for visiting Redstone personnel, Rider’s thoughts played back those moments in the dining room meeting when he’d seen Paige, doubted his own eyes, then seen her name undeniably written before him. But it still hadn’t quite sunk in until he’d caught up with her outside. But there, with her hair a fiery beacon in the setting tropical sun, he was