to talk about Luke. I don’t like him very much at the moment.”
“I have no idea why. He’s grown into quite the dish. And he seems perfectly nice.” There was that word again. It had sounded quite wonderful before, all poignant and time-gone-by lovely. This time it fell kind of flat. But that was just semantics. She’d find another word.
In the meanwhile Claude shot her a look that said she’d quite like to lock the man up and throw away the key, but not before she’d lathered him in pollen and set a pack of bees on him. She might look like rainbows and sunshine, but there were clever, cunning, dark places inside Claude. Places she tapped into if those she loved were under threat. While Avery had shut her touchy tendencies away in a box with a big fat lock, oh, about ten years ago, in fact.
“Well, then,” said Avery, finding her smile, “how do you feel about my getting to know him a little better while I’m here?”
“Jonah? Perfect! He used to be such a cool guy, so chilled. But he’s been so damn broody nowadays. Laughs at my jokes only three times out of ten. Go shake him up, for all our sakes.”
“Actually...” Avery said, then cleared her throat. “I meant Luke.”
Claude’s eyes snapped wide, then settled back to near normal. “Hargreaves?”
“Yes, Hargreaves.”
Claude thought about this a moment. A few moments. Long enough Avery began to wonder if Claude’s irritation with the man was the flipside of something quite the other. In which case she’d back-pedal like crazy!
Claude put her mind to rest when she said, “You do realise he has a stick up his backside? Like, permanently?”
“So says you.” Avery laughed. “I thought he seemed perfectly—”
“Nice? Okay, then. You have my blessing. Shake that tree if it floats your boat. Just don’t get hurt. By the stick. Up his—”
“Yes, thank you. I get it.”
“In fact have at them both if you so desire. Neither Jonah Broody North or Luke Bloody Hargreaves are my type, that’s for sure.”
Avery swallowed down the tangled flash of heat at thought of one and focused on the soothing warmth that settled in her belly at thought of the other. “So what is your type these days, Miss Claudia?”
Claude’s hand came to rest on her chest as she stared at the ceiling. “A man who in thirty years still looks at me the way my dad looks at my mum. Who looks at me one day and says, ‘You’ve worked hard enough, hon, let’s go buy a campervan and travel the country.’ Who looks at me like I’m his moon and stars. Hokey, right?”
Avery stared up at the ceiling too, noticing a watermark, dismissing it. “So hokey. And while you’re at it, could you find me one of those too, please?”
“We here at the Tropicana Nights always aim to please. Now,” Claude said, pulling herself to sitting and reaching for the phone, “time to tell me why you are really here. Because I know you too well to know an impromptu month off had nothing to do with it.”
Then she held up a finger as someone answered on the other end. And while Claudia ordered dinner, a massage, and a jug of something called a Flaming Flamingo, Avery wondered quite where to start.
Claude knew the background.
That after the divorce Avery rarely saw her dad. Mostly at monthly lunches she organised. And thank goodness they honestly both loved baseball, or those meetings would be quiet affairs. Go Yanks!
As for dear old Mom, she’d turned on Avery’s father with such constant and unceasing venom when he’d left it had been made pretty clear to Avery that once on her mother’s bad side there was no coming back.
In order to retain any semblance of the family she had left, what could Avery do but become the perfect Park Avenue daughter?
Until the moment her mother had announced her grand plans for her Divorced a Decade party. And Avery—being such a great party planner—of course was to be in charge of the entire thing! After a decade of smiling and achieving and navigating the balance between her less-than-accommodating parents, Miss Park Avenue Perfect had finally snapped.
“You snapped?” Claude asked as Avery hit that point of the story, her voice a reverent hush. “What did Caroline say when you told her no?”
Okay, so this was where it kind of got messy. Where Avery’s memory of the event was skewed. By how hard she’d worked to retain a relationship with her distant dad. And how readily her mother had expected she’d be delighted to help out.
“I didn’t exactly say...that. Not in so many words.”
“Avery,” Claude growled.
Avery scrunched her eyes shut tight and admitted, “I told her I couldn’t help her because I was taking a sabbatical.”
“A sabbatical. And she believed you?”
“When she saw the mock-up I quickly slapped together of my flight details she did. Then I just had to go ahead and call you and actually book the flights. And let all my clients know I was on extended leave from work and couldn’t take any new jobs. And close up my apartment and turn off my electric and water and have my mail diverted for a couple months. And voilà!”
“Voilà!” Claude repeated. “Good God, hon! One of these days you’re going to have to learn to say the word no!”
Avery pish-poshed, even though she and Claude had had the same argument a dozen times over the years.
“Starting now,” said Claude. “Repeat after me—No.”
“No,” Avery shot back.
“Good girl. Now practise. Ten times in the morning. Ten times before bed.”
Avery nodded, promised and wondered why she hadn’t brought up the fact that she hadn’t had a problem saying “no” to Jonah North. And that saying “no” to him had felt good. Really good. So she had the ability. Buried somewhere deep down inside perhaps, but the instinct was there when she really meant it.
But Claude was right. She should have told her mother “no.” Well, considering there were more venomous snakes in the world’s top ten here than any other place on earth, if she was ever going to toughen up, this was the place.
* * *
The Charter North Reef Cruiser was on its way to Green Island. In the engine room everything looked shipshape, so Jonah headed up the companionway to the top deck.
The crew ought to have been used to him turning up on a skip unannounced; he did it all the time. There was no point having a fleet of boats with his name on them if they weren’t up to his standards. Besides, his father had been a boatman before him and he knew an extra pair of hands was always welcome.
But the moment he entered the air-conditioned salon, the staff scattered. He caught the eye of one—a new girl, by the starched collar of her Charter North polo shirt, who wasn’t as quick off the mark as the others. With a belated squeak she leapt into action, polishing the silver handrails with the edge of her sand-coloured shorts. Odd. But industrious.
So he walked the aisles. The passenger list was pretty much as per usual—marine biologists researching the reef, Green Island staffers, a group of girls who looked as if they’d closed one of the resort bars the night before, a toddler with a brown paper bag under his chin.
His gaze caught on a crew of skinny brown boys, skateboards tucked on their laps, eyes looking out of the window as if urging the island nearer. Part of the Dreadlock Army who lived in these parts, kids who survived on sea water and fresh air. A lifetime ago he’d been one of them.
Fast forward and this day he’d been awake since five. Gone for a five-kilometre run. Driven the half-hour to Charter North HQ in Port Douglas. Checked emails, read the new safety procedures manual he’d paid a small fortune to