Rebel knew the feeling.
Finally, Rem eased up and waited for Rebel’s cue instead of pulling ahead of her.
“Good boy.”
But then he pulled free and took off at a dead run, disappearing around the rear of the bus.
“Re—” She stopped herself. “Buddy!”
She turned to go after him just as her suitcase sprang free and the driver tumbled out onto the curb along with it.
“Are you okay?” She bent to help him up.
The receding sound of Rem’s barking told Rebel he was putting distance between them.
“Yes, ma’am.” The kid turned bright red. “Sorry. I’m new at this job.”
She never would’ve guessed.
The bus blocked her view of Rem, but his frenzied barks told her he was on the lawn that led to the resort’s game room. A place she’d spent a lot of time. With Elliott. Working, playing, falling in love.
In the distance, Rem squeaked and barked violently, like he’d treed a terrorist.
She stuffed a nice tip into the driver’s shirt pocket. “I need to go after my dog.”
She left her suitcase on the curb and hurried around the bus.
Rebel’s breath seized.
Across the lawn, a man dove for a flailing duck. The duck squawked and escaped as the man fell to the ground, empty-handed.
Rem pounced on the duck, pinning it with his front paws.
Oh. No. No, no, no.
The duck pecked Rem’s nose, which sent him reeling backward with a whine and more barking. Having escaped, the duck went airborne for several feet, then lost altitude, and Rem pounced again.
She took off running. “Buddy, stop!”
Rem ignored her. The three-ring-circus act among the man, the duck, and the dog started all over again. The man dove, the duck escaped, Rem pounced, the duck pecked.
“Buddy!” She kept running.
Good Lord. She hoped no one was recording this, because #EpicFail wouldn’t be the best advertising if the video showed up on Instagram.
She increased her speed. Only to stop cold when the man started to pull himself to his feet. Didn’t matter that his back was to her or that he wasn’t a teen anymore. No, this guy was all man now, and she’d know him anywhere. Inch by alpha-testosterone-inch, he rose until his T-shaped frame reached more than six feet tall. A gray thermal shirt molded across broad shoulders and a muscled back, tapering down to a slender waist. Nicely broken-in Levi’s cupped a firm ass and molded to long, powerful legs. Wavy light-brown hair brushed the nape of his neck, just long enough to give him a bad-boy look.
He stopped, his body rippling with tension, and angled his head to one side. Not fully looking over his shoulder but listening, processing. Like he sensed an unwelcome presence.
He started to turn, the world around her slowing.
Rebel took a step back.
Her heart thumped and bumped against her rib cage, and she fought the urge to turn and leave. Retreating—running away, to be perfectly honest—wasn’t an option this time. She wasn’t a desperate eighteen-year-old girl anymore, and it was time to stand her ground. Face him head-on, even if he didn’t need to know the truth behind her sudden departure.
They’d been kids ten years ago. Now they were adults with jobs to do. The past didn’t matter.
Except that it so obviously still did if the shift in his sea-green eyes was any indication. They locked onto her, clouding over like one of the storms so common in the Pacific Northwest.
She forgot to breathe.
Time stopped as recognition registered in his gaze and a rainbow of emotions morphed from one to the other, finally settling on the most disturbing.
Cold indifference.
What bothered her the most was that she deserved it.
“Elliott,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” His tone flatlined.
Rem’s agitated bark provided a welcome interruption. He was still chasing the poor duck.
Luckily, the duck held his own with effective one-two pecks from his lethal beak. So Rem had resorted to barks and lunges without actually touching the bird, which had mastered Self-Defense 101.
“Heel, Buddy.”
Rem whined but stilled.
“Sit.” She walked to the dog with a steady gait so she wouldn’t spook him.
He sat, keeping a bead on the duck.
She picked up his leash. “Settle.”
The dog visibly relaxed and finally refocused on her instead of the bird.
“Good boy.” She patted his head and forced herself to look at Elliott.
Like he wasn’t going to budge until she answered his question, he crossed his arms. Nice strong arms, with muscles that rippled and rolled under his thermal.
Ladyland purred.
She forced her attention back to his dark stare and scrunched her brows. He’d asked what she was doing there.
Wait. Oh . . .
Elliott didn’t know she’d been hired as the new dog trainer.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Right. This wasn’t going to be awkward. Not in the least. “I’m here for the boot camp.” Rebel chose her words carefully, the heat of his stare licking over her like fire.
Rem pulled on the leash, and she released enough slack for him to sit flush against Elliott, who immediately stepped away. Rem followed. Instead of taking another step back, Elliott focused on the dog, like he was really seeing the service vest for the first time.
His eyes widened.
“You’re staying here? To train your dog?” His head snapped up, his voice a mixture of shock and disbelief.
“No,” Rebel responded. “Well, yes. I’m the new tr—”
A horn beeped and a white Jeep appeared, coming from the lane she knew led to the residential cottages where members of the family lived. The Jeep pulled around the drive and parked.
A young boy jumped out of the passenger seat and lumbered toward the duck. “Waddles!”
It didn’t seem to startle the duck at all. In fact, the duck waddled in the boy’s direction as fast and furious as his legs would carry him. The boy scooped him up into a hug, and the duck settled against the kid’s chest like they were long-lost pals.
Rebel had never seen anything like it, except with therapy dogs. But a therapy duck?
It was incredible. And totally awesome.
“Hi, Uncle Elliott,” the boy half yelled. Then he skipped all the way into the game room.
So one of the Remington brothers had a kid.
A pretty woman with light-brown hair, about Rebel’s age, climbed out of the driver’s seat and hurried over with an iPad in her hand. When she got close enough, Rebel recognized her from their video calls. “Rebel Tate?” Lily offered a friendly wave as she approached.
“Yes.” Rebel glanced at Elliott.
His hard body grew even more stiff, tension rolling off him. Rem whined and pressed into Elliott, who seemed to grow confused at the dog’s attention.
Rebel tightened her grip on the leash to prevent a replay of the dog-and-hottie show she’d just witnessed.
“Ms. McGill just called me from the ferry terminal and said you were on your way.” Lily stopped within arm’s reach and held out her hand.
Rebel shook it. “I hope it’s okay that I came early. I’m excited about the camp and wanted extra time to prepare.” They didn’t need to know the extra prep time was for her to get her bearings before the inevitable confrontation.
She glanced at Elliott’s scowling face. Definitely an epic fail.
“It’s perfectly fine. I see you two have met.” Lily shifted her friendly expression to Elliott. “Rebel is the expert dog whisperer we’ve hired for the boot camp.”
Elliott’s scowl deepened like he was in physical pain.
Rebel stared down at a blade of grass like it was the most fascinating shade of green she’d ever seen. Besides Elliott’s ridiculously beautiful eyes, of course.
Rem whined.
Stepped toward Rebel, then back to Elliott like he couldn’t decide who was the most stressed.
Lily’s expression blanked, and she gave them both a confused look. “What’s going on?”
When Elliott didn’t offer a response, Rebel spoke up. “Elliott and I already know each other. I grew up on the island.”
“Oh. Well, welcome back, then.” Lily gave both of them an uncertain smile. “Small world, isn’t it?”
Elliott shrugged. “Not really all that small. It’s big enough for a person to run away and hide. For years.”
That one stung.
“Look, I—” Didn’t want to let you go. Didn’t want to drag you down. She definitely didn’t want to bring up their history right then and there. She lifted her chin. “I’m here to work, and I guarantee I’ll do a great job with the camp.”
“Great!” Lily obviously thought that settled it. “The sponsor put together profiles for each veteran.” She tapped on the screen of her iPad. “I’m forwarding those to you as we speak. Why don’t I show you to your room, then you can spend the rest of the day getting reacquainted with the Remington, since you weren’t scheduled to start until tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” Rebel said.
At the same time Elliott said, “Not happening.”
That awkward pause was back, and Rebel cleared her throat. “I agreed to work with you, Lily. Whatever you want is fine with me.”
“Actually.” The nearly undetectable hesitation in Lily’s voice made the hair on Rebel’s arms prickle. “You’ll be working with Elliott while you’re here. He’ll be in charge of the boot camp.”
And the situation just skyrocketed from awkward to downright nightmarish.
Sibling rivalry was one thing, but Elliott didn’t usually get seriously pissed at his brothers. Until today.
He stalked back to the game room to give Big Brother a chance to explain why he’d forgotten to mention who the new trainer for the dog camp would be. Before Elliott castrated him.
What were the odds?
As a college kid home from his first semester, there were limits to how far he could reach, how long he could search. Because hell yes, he’d looked for Rebel even though her note had clearly said not to.
The Rebel he’d known and been so close to wouldn’t have walked away without telling him face-to-face. Or at least over the phone, since he’d been at school on the opposite coast. She would’ve broken up with him in person and given him a reason. Even if that reason was nothing more than “I don’t love you anymore” or “We’ve grown apart” or “I’ve found someone else.” It wasn’t so much what her piss-off note had said. It was more what it hadn’t said.
So he’d defied her wishes and looked for her anyway. To see if she was okay. To see if he could help.
To see if she still loved him.
He’d found nothing. Returned to school hoping she’d contact him eventually.
She never had.
Her showing up here, now, where they’d spent years planning their future, was . . . a shock. The old wound he thought had healed long ago started to throb with a soul-deep ache.
Especially since she still had a body that could stop traffic.
His strides lengthened.
When Elliott stepped onto the path that led to the game room, a small space between the slats of the shades snapped shut.
He threw open the door.
Cockroaches probably scurried less than Trace and Spence, who hurried away from the window and resumed their game of pool like nothing was wrong.
Elliott glanced at his nephew, Ben—who was playing a video game at one of the game stations, his pet duck sitting in the chair on the far side of him—and bit back a string of colorful language.
The duck cackled at Elliott like it had out on the lawn, right before it had tried to peck him to death. He glared at the bird. He could swear the damn duck glared back.
“Uncle Elliott!” Ben’s volume was always dialed up ten notches above normal because of his Asperger’s. “I’m joining the Frontier Scouts! When I earn my first badge, they’ll have a pinning ceremony. Want to come?”
“Of course, little man.” If he didn’t go down for twenty-five to life for making Ben an orphan. “I never made it to Lily’s office to get Waddles a bowl of water. Want to go take care of that?”
“Yep!” Ben scooped up the duck and thundered through the door.
Elliott moved to the side to let him through, then folded both arms over his chest, glaring at his older brother. “Care to explain why you tricked me into an event working with the one person on earth you knew I never wanted to see again?”
Trace straightened. “If the redhead outside is who I think she is, I didn’t know.” His sympathetic look said he was telling the truth. “I’ve never mentioned your history with Rebel to Lily, so this is purely a coincidence. A really bad one, but a coincidence nonetheless.”
Elliott pinched the corners of his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. With a shove, he shut the door and slumped into the chair at the game station Ben had just left. “No way in hell is this happening.” Just in case his brothers didn’t get the message, he communicated the same thing in code by running the tip of his thumb all the way across his forehead.
“I’d trade places with you if I could, but you can’t fly my planes.” Trace tossed his pool stick onto the table and braced both palms against it.
“Same here,” said Spence. “But you’re not exactly a master when it comes to wielding a hammer.”
True. Unless Elliott used it to bludgeon his oldest and most annoying brother for getting him into this mess. Then he’d rock at wielding a hammer.
“No one else in the family is available,” said Trace.
“Bullshit.” Elliott’s heart pounded against his crossed arms. “Spence, your renovations can wait.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got to pour the foundation for the new veranda and finish enlarging the parking lot before winter sets in.” He hitched his chin up at Trace. “Asshat here has me renovating and expanding the boathouse into a warehouse for his cargo loads. It has to be you.”
“No.” Elliott’s tone couldn’t have gotten any flatter if a steamroller had hit him. His brothers needed to start learning to handle things without him because he wouldn’t be around forever.
Tiny beads of sweat formed around his neck, and he pulled at the neckline of his shirt.
He hadn’t meant to mislead his family about his plan to eventually go back to San Francisco. When he hadn’t left the island right after the holidays, his dad had assumed he was staying. Dad had been so excited that, one by one, all his kids had come home. His dad had immediately handed off the resort’s finances to Elliott, consulted with him on how to return the resort to its prime, and included him in the management decisions until Dad finally phased himself out completely.
After that, Elliott couldn’t bring himself to let his dad down. Not again. Not since Elliott was responsible for making his dad a widower.
“You and Rebel were . . . uh, close once.” Trace’s tone wasn’t even close to confident. “Maybe you’ll get along fine.”
“Hell no,” Elliott fired back.
“We’re talking about five short weeks. You’ve got a week before the campers start arriving and then a month for the vets to train with their new service dogs,” Trace said.
“Those vets survived war,” Spence said. “You can survive an old girlfriend for five weeks.”
“That’s low, even for you two idiots,” Elliott huffed.
“It’s your call.” Trace slid a butt cheek onto the side of the pool table. “I’ll cancel right now if that’s what you want.”
Elliott didn’t know which would be worse—the loss of revenue, the loss of PR and press coverage the camp would bring in for the resort, or proceeding with the event with a dog trainer who couldn’t control her own dog. Never mind that the trainer had made what had to be the quickest exit from his life in relationship history.
His background with said dog trainer and the fact that he knew as much about dogs as he did brain surgery made it an even bigger clusterfuck.
He wished like hell the Remington didn’t need this event so much, but it did. Canceling because of an old flame would be a wuss move. Especially since they were grown adults now.
He could handle it for a little while. Didn’t matter that she was still as gorgeous as he’d remembered. Didn’t matter that he might need dentures by the time it was over because of the way he was grinding his teeth into dust.
“This is how it’s gonna go down.” He gave his brothers a pointed stare. “I’ll take the lead for now, but I’m going to have Lily start looking for someone to take my place. She’ll have to make the sponsor understand that putting a family member in charge of this event isn’t an option right now.”
It was the best he could do under the circumstances. If it didn’t work out, he’d figure out another way to stabilize the resort’s future and tell his family that he was leaving the island for the career he’d put on hold. For the partnership he’d earned. For the long work hours he’d used to keep his mind off the past.
His firm in San Francisco had been patient and understanding. Not common for a group of finance experts who thrived on risk and were constantly forging ahead to reach the next business goal. But they weren’t going to wait for him forever, no matter how good he was at his job, how many lucrative clients he’d reeled in, or how much money he’d made them.
He might owe his family and the resort, but every man had his breaking point. Losing all the years of hard work he’d invested in that firm was his. So was working with the only girl who’d managed to rip his heart out of his chest while it was still beating.
Chapter Three
#$H!TGETSREAL
The next day, Rebel silently chanted the words payday, payday, payday over and over in her head as she started to set up for the boot camp. Elliott climbed into the last of the Remington’s fleet of Jeeps and backed it out of the motor-pool garage, which was the designated space for the veterans and the service dogs.
Dare Me Again Page 3