by Bella Andre
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, Trent was sitting in a conference room at the resort, meeting with his family. His father never sat at the head of the table, and today was no different. Griffin and Abby sat side by side, holding hands, and his parents’ ever-present love and their respect for each other made Trent long for Reese even more.
“We should be able to finish the little we have left to get Shelley’s café ready to open over the next two weeks, then bring in a painting crew to finish up, which shouldn’t take more than a couple days at most,” Quinn said. “The opening is in less than three weeks, and assuming everyone’s work is on schedule, we should make it with a day or two to spare.”
“I’m almost done with the shelves. One more night is all I need,” Trent said.
“Derek and I will finish the attic work this week, too.” Ethan was Trent’s youngest brother, and with his dark hair tousled from his early-morning fishing trip, he looked a hell of a lot more carefree than the rest of them.
“Shelley and I have curtains we want to put up,” Sierra said, “but of course that will wait until after the painters come in.”
“And since I’m having lunch with Darla this week,” their mother added, “I’ll have her put Shelley’s grand opening on Chandler’s calendar.” Darla Collins was their grandfather’s personal secretary, and she and Abby had been friends for a long time.
“You think Chandler will come to Shelley’s grand opening?” Derek asked. “Isn’t that a little bit beneath him? Making time for a celebration?”
All of them had a complicated relationship with their grandfather. Mostly because he was a prickly, stern man who rarely smiled and always seemed to be trying to control everyone and everything.
“Derek,” Abby said, “I know Chandler isn’t the easiest man in the world to get along with, but he is your grandfather, so please show a little respect. He cares about this island, and I’m sure he’ll want to celebrate with Quinn and Shelley.”
“Cares about the island?” Derek didn’t look the least bit chastened by their mother’s uncharacteristic lecture. “He was going to sell the resort and didn’t care that the new owners would fire the local staff, who rely on the income to survive. The locals are the island, Mom.”
As Griffin spoke, Trent found himself comparing his warm and loving father to his cold and distant grandfather. Even after all these years, he had a hard time putting Chandler and Griffin together as father and son. Griffin was just as shrewd a businessman as Chandler, but he treated every person he met as if they were as important as the next, no matter what their social status.
Griffin was the type of man Trent had always striven to be, but the truth was that he’d acted more like Chandler during the decade he’d lived in New York. He’d been aggressive and competitive, and the cost had been the highest he’d ever pay—losing the love of his life. Only he’d been too consumed with succeeding to see it. He hadn’t even seen their separation coming. And then, over the next ten years, instead of spending time relaxing with his family over the holidays, he’d come home for a mere two or three days, then rushed back to work.
How had he gotten so far away from the man his father had raised him to be?
“Before we all head out,” Quinn said as he set a folder on the table, “we still need to discuss the community-outreach program.”
Trent gazed out the window behind Quinn, where sunlight glistened off the inky water and a sailboat made its way across the bay. In his mind he saw himself and Reese sharing a boat ride all those years ago. Back when she looked at him like he was the only man on earth she could ever love. His heart ached with the memory. Was Reese looking out at the same view and painting it? And was she thinking of him the way he was thinking of her?
He’d never believed in love at first sight—not until he’d seen her painting at the top of the dune during his morning run ten years ago.
He’d run up the dune steps faster than he ever had before, hoping that she wasn’t going to pack up her things and leave before he reached her. When he’d finally made it to the top, she’d looked like an angel dropped from a cloud just for him. And when she’d turned to look at him, her eyes had gone wide and her paintbrush had dropped to the sand.
He’d closed the distance between them, introduced himself, quickly learning that she was not only smart and funny, but also a passionate and talented painter. When he’d picked her up for their first date that night, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. They’d made love right there in the foyer of her apartment. It had been breathless. Reckless. Sexy as hell.
And perfect. It had been perfect.
Had he known he was going to be her first lover, he would have taken his time and made sure everything was romantic for her. Hell, he hadn’t planned to make love to her that first night, on their first date. But they’d never been able to keep their hands off each other—not for a minute, much less enough time for him to plan something like that. Two nights later they’d sailed out to the middle of the bay, anchored the boat, dove in, and made love in the water. He could still hear Reese’s sweet giggles as he’d kicked his powerful legs to try to keep them afloat while their bodies moved together with youthful exuberance.
“Honey.” His mother touched his arm. “What do you think about Quinn’s question?”
Trent looked around the conference table at his family and realized that they were all waiting for his response. “Sorry. I’m a little distracted today.” Trent forced himself to focus on the discussion again. “What were you wanting to know?”
“Quinn was saying that Reese is going to be painting the mural,” Sierra told him as Quinn slid the folder with the information about the community-outreach program toward Trent. “She is such an amazing painter that we know she’ll create something beautiful to represent our close-knit community and the magical feel of the island. We want to know if you’ll manage the project.”
Trent opened the folder and his heart flipped in his chest as he scanned the project details.
Rockwell Resort Community-Outreach Project
Title: Island Mural
Location: South wall of the resort
Artist: Reese Nicholson
Trent set the folder down. Even when Reese was nowhere near him, she was everywhere.
“Yes, I’d be happy”—thrilled—“to manage the project.”
Sierra and Abby exchanged smiles, while Quinn laughed. The knowing look in his brother’s eyes told Trent that he’d been hoping for this decision. He obviously wanted Trent to be just as happily in love as he was.
“Are you sure about this?” Derek clearly felt compelled to point out that, “You two have history, and after the way she hightailed it out of the Hideaway last night, things didn’t look so amicable.”
“I’m sure.” Trent left no room for negotiation. Not when it came to Reese. Not when this might be his chance to finally get her to stick around at least long enough for him to apologize to her for everything he’d blown in their relationship. There was no way he was going to give up a chance to be with Reese.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea, honey,” his mother said, patting him on the shoulder. “Who better to work closely with Reese than you?”
My thoughts exactly.
Chapter Eight
REESE’S GALLERY WAS decorated in a bright and airy theme, with white walls and pale yellow trim, accented with shades of green. Throughout the interior she had painted dandelions in various stages of growth. Parachutes of fluff floated up the walls, while newly sprouted green buds anchored the lower trim and dandelions in full bloom peeked out from corners and from behind paintings. Now she measured and planned from her perch at the top of a stepladder, preparing to hang a painting between a dandelion in full bloom and dandelion fluff.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be able to avoid him forever,” Jocelyn said as she handed Reese a hammer.
Reese took the hammer and leaned one hand against the wall for balance as
she thought about Trent—and how avoiding him was the last thing she wanted to do. Her mind traveled back to the summer they’d met. They’d walked down this very street hand in hand, talking about the future they’d been sure they’d have. One day your name will be in all the galleries in New York, and we’ll think back on how fun the journey was. We’ll laugh at how hard you thought it was when we were going through it. I’ve got faith in you, Reese. Your talent is bigger than the island.
She smiled to herself, remembering how important Trent had made her feel. How his faith in her artistic abilities had surpassed any praise she’d ever received. He’d been so sure of everything back then. And it had been that faith that she’d carried back to the island with her when she’d left New York, that faith that had given her the confidence to open her own gallery.
“I’m not sure I actually do want to avoid him,” she said as she sat down on the top of the ladder with the hammer in her lap and rested her chin on her palm. “Which might be an even bigger problem than both of us living on the island again.” She and Jocelyn had been discussing Trent on and off all morning, and while she’d thought that she’d have her feelings figured out by now, she wasn’t even close.
“Are we taking a break?” Jocelyn asked.
“We’re taking a…moment.”
“To do?”
Reese peered down at her friend. Jocelyn wore a long cotton skirt and a pale green tank top with a cute pair of sandals. Her hair was secured at the nape of her neck with a wide clip.
“To admire your sexy librarian look,” she teased.
“That was exactly the look I was going for,” Jocelyn said with a grin. “Now, back to Trent and all that not-avoiding you’re thinking about doing.”
Reese picked up the hammer again. “Hold the ladder. I need to get this painting hung so that the whole day doesn’t end up being a write-off.” She appreciated that her friend simply gripped the sides of the ladder and waited for her to collect her thoughts. Thoughts that were zinging back and forth in her head like a ball in a pinball machine. “I thought I was over him,” she said as she began hammering the nail into the wall. “But every time I’m near him, I get all mushy inside, and all those feelings I thought I had dealt with come rushing back.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing?”
Reese clutched at the wall, nearly tumbling off the ladder at the sound of Trent’s deep voice asking her if getting mushy over him ten years after their divorce was a bad thing. The next thing she knew, he was standing behind her and settling his big hands on the sides of her thighs—simultaneously stabilizing her and sending her even more off-balance.
“Careful,” he said in a soothing and far-too-sexy tone that made Reese’s stomach flutter as she tried not to focus on the heat of his hands. Or the strength of them.
Or, most of all, just how good she knew they would feel moving over every inch of her, head to toe, while she begged him for more, more, more!
She turned to glare at Jocelyn, knowing her best friend would clearly understand her message—Why didn’t you warn me he was walking into the gallery?
From behind Trent, Jocelyn mouthed, Sorry. I didn’t see him!
“What are you doing here, Trent?” Reese didn’t mean to snap, but she was really embarrassed that he’d heard her talking about him in such intimate detail. It didn’t help that he was standing way too close as he helped her down the ladder, looking way too hot and smelling way too delicious.
This was not good. Not good at all.
Or maybe the problem was that he was too good.
Oh God.
“I wanted to come by to give you the good news in person,” he said with an easy smile. “The two of us are going to be working together on the community-outreach project.”
“The mural?” Reese smoothed her jeans to give her hands something to do besides reaching out to touch him. “What do you mean we’ll be working together?”
“I’m managing the project.” His piercing blue eyes never wavered from hers. “I came over to set up a meeting so we can talk about the details.”
How the heck had he been the person at the resort chosen to work with her on this? How was she going to work with him when she couldn’t even talk to him? Didn’t anyone realize they were divorced? And that divorced couples shouldn’t spend a bunch of time together...especially when they had a knack for wanting to rip off each other’s clothes?
“Are you free tonight?”
His easy smile hadn’t changed, but the air between them sizzled. Even though he wasn’t asking her on a date, that was exactly what this felt like to her crazy, lust-befuddled brain.
“Tonight?” She tried to think up an excuse to buy a little more time to prepare herself. But when she opened her mouth, all that came out was, “Sure.”
His smile broadened. “Great. How does six o’clock in the resort conference room on the second floor sound?”
The resort conference room? Okay, maybe all this heat is just in my head. “That sounds fine.”
He glanced at his watch, then said casually, “I’m meeting my mother and Sierra for lunch. I’d better run.”
“You’re taking lunch off?” She was a little embarrassed that surprise rang loudly in her voice, but the Trent she’d left in New York wouldn’t have taken off time in the middle of the afternoon to have lunch with anyone but an important client. In fact, she could count on one finger the number of times they’d had lunch together on a weekday.
“Things have changed, Reese.” His smile was gone now, and he was looking at her with an intensity that seared through her.
“Have they?” She hadn’t meant to ask the question but, again, the words were out before she could stop them. Before he could answer, however, and make the quicksand between them any deeper, she said, “Please tell them I said hello.”
“I will. And I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas for the mural tonight.”
With that, he headed out the door while Reese stood there with her hand covering her heart.
“See?” she said to Jocelyn. “Every time he talks to me, or touches me, I’m nineteen all over again. This is so freaking ridiculous.”
“Honestly, you were a bit of a bumbling mess. Adorable, but bumbling.”
“Thanks, Joce. You could have at least lied to me.” Reese put her face in her hands and mumbled, “What am I going to do?”
“Him,” Jocelyn said.
When Reese lifted her head from her hands, she tried to look shocked at the suggestion that she hop back into bed with her ex. But it wasn’t easy to pretend she hadn’t been wanting just that from the moment she’d tumbled into Trent’s arms outside Shelley’s café. Even if she knew opening that door with Trent was dangerous. They were too drawn to each other. It was too easy to get lost in him, and if he put his hands on her? She’d be a goner for sure.
Still, she made herself say, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’ve known you my whole life,” Jocelyn said. “And what I just witnessed has only happened once before—the last time you fell head over heels for Trent Rockwell.”
The last time? “What am I going to do?” Reese felt more twisted up and confused than she ever had before. “A week ago I was ready to leave the past behind and finally move on.”
“Or maybe you had your life on hold because you were still in love with Trent.”
“This can’t be good. Even if he is taking off to have lunch with his mother and sister today, I’m sure he still works too much and puts work ahead of everything else in his life.”
“Although you did have all those awesome marathon sex sessions,” Jocelyn pointed out with a laugh.
“Stop.” Reese laughed, too, but her body shivered in the most delicious way with the memory of Trent’s big hands on her. And his mouth. Oh God, his mouth. “It’s been ten years. Ten years without anything even remotely flirty. We never even had any real closure after our divorce, and now this? This sudden—insatiable—desire to connect with him on
every level again.”
“I swear I’m not taking his side,” her friend said, “but I can’t help wondering if maybe, just maybe, that isn’t such a bad thing. Because when the two of you are in a room together...” Jocelyn fanned herself. “I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve never seen chemistry like what you two have. Both then and now. What if he has changed his life for the better?”
Reese shook her head, trying to separate her emotions from her desires and think clearly, but they were all muddled together. Then again, when it came to Trent, they always were. There was no sex without emotion. There was no sex without love. From the very start, the physical and emotional had been tangled together so completely they’d blended into one.
“Okay,” she finally admitted. “He’s having lunch with his mother and sister, and he walked here when he could have made a phone call instead, and that’s all different from the way he was in New York. Still, that doesn’t mean the man who worked ninety hours a week is gone.”
Reese looked around the gallery, remembering how much work it had taken to drag herself back into life after their divorce, much less get up the gumption, and the desire, to open her gallery and actually fulfill her dreams. But she’d done it, and if she jumped right back into Trent’s arms, she was risking everything she’d worked so hard to achieve. Her brain turned to mush around him, even after all this time. It was a little unsettling—and equally as exciting—to feel the effect they still had on each other. But this time she knew she needed to slow down and think things through. She needed to make herself, and building up the trust between them, as a priority over her raging hormones and secret daydreams about having Trent’s love again.
Drawing upon the strength she’d honed all those years ago, she silently renewed the commitment to herself and the life she’d built. They’d take it slowly, like the older, wiser adults they were.