“That’s not the reason.” His eyes were no longer on her hair. She followed his gaze to the towel, although securely knotted on her shoulder, it was open along one side giving him a view of the side of her breast, stomach, hip, and thigh.
Is it terrible that I want him to reach out and open my towel? Yes. Stop thinking it, Joan! He’s here to buy you off. Remember?
The heat of his eyes warmed her skin.
“That is the best towel dress I’ve ever seen.”
Joan tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t hold it in. She took hold of the towel pinching it closed. “Liam.” She was still laughing. “What was so important?” She stopped laughing. “Is Cole okay?”
Liam smiled, his dark blue eyes softening. “He’s doing great. Aside from being lovesick, he’s fine.”
“Okay well, I can’t help with that. It was a bit stalkerish of you to come to my hotel to check on me but thank you anyway.” She started closing the door and he started talking. The door clicked shut and the astounding sound he made on the other side of the door had her smiling a little.
Yeah, take that. Good for me.
Retrieving her damp clothes, she took them to the upstairs bathroom and put a blow dryer to them. Once they were mostly dry, she dressed and then attempted to braid the lion’s mane her hair had become.
“I look like Pippy Long Stocking.” She observed the two thick braids. Exhaling, she admitted to herself she wasn’t going to get a better outcome from her hair in this humidity.
Taking her purse, she trotted down the stairs, pulled on her boots and opened the door. The sky was overcast, but the white sand on the beach was nearly blinding.
“You look like a vampire coming out into the sun for the first time,” Liam said from his spot on the porch swing.
What is he still doing here?
She looked him over trying to find something to say about his appearance. He was wearing black jeans with a gray hoodie, the open zipper showing off his lean, muscular chest.
You look delicious.
“Something you needed? You know, besides a swift kick in the ass?”
“I spoke with Tatum.”
“Are you here to apologize again? Seriously?”
He stood up. “I’m not sure what Tatum said to you. He said he didn’t remember every word. None of it was meant for you, it was meant for this girl that Cole is hung up on.”
“Hm.” Joan narrowed her eyes at him, more to narrow her vision and avoid the view of his sexy body. “I can see how a girl Cole’s age could warrant being spoken to like drug dealing hooker. All is forgiven.”
“This girl is extorting money from us. So Tatum is understandably upset.”
Joan raised her eyebrows at him.
“I don’t expect you to understand. You couldn’t begin to understand what it’s like being a Wainwright. We’re targeted by lots of people. Cole is still young and easily trusting. It’s for his protection we’re paying.”
“Not my business. I probably wouldn’t understand. I mean I’m still trying to wrap my head around why you missed putting a shirt on this morning or did you think this was a good look?”
Liam smiled. “You were looking.”
“There you go flattering yourself again.”
“After Tatum told me about being rude to you on the phone, he told me about the hurricane. Your hotel is too close to the water. I was worried about you. You weren’t answering your phone. I threw this on and left without putting on a shirt.”
Why is he being nice to me? He smells so good I think it’s making me ovulate.
“Why don’t you allow me to pay for your accommodations at the Triple T? It really is the least I can do.”
And he ruined it.
“This is still you trying to pay me off? Will you get out of here? I told you I don’t want your show of appreciation. Thank you but no thank you.” He was going to argue again she could see and kept talking. “I need to go get a cellphone. My family has to be worried about me.”
He pulled his cellphone from his pocket. “Call them.”
***
Joan licked her plump, pink lips.
“I need my own phone. I don’t like to depend on other people.”
Liam smiled and dropped his phone back into his pocket. She was being unreasonable to get to him, and it was working.
“Well, see ya.” She started off the porch running away from him again.
Stubborn, unreasonable, hot-tempered, know it all woman.
Catching up to Joan, he smiled at her when she looked up at him with wide stormy blue eyes. “You’re not invited.”
“Lucky coincidence, Joan. I’m in need of a cellphone too. I broke Coles.”
“Oh really? Step on it with your muddy wet shoe, did you?”
Liam exhaled, determined to keep control of his temper. “I offered to replace your phone.”
“Is that what you did?” She raised her brows at him and laughed. “Speaking of Cole, where is he?”
They followed the covered walkway in the direction of the hotel. Liam exhaled thinking of his younger brother. Cole hadn’t slept much. He’d been up mooning over that stupid girl. This morning though, the fatigue caught up with him. “I left him with our man, Hansen.”
“Hansen? The guy who calls you master? How did he get here?”
Liam cleared his throat and tried to keep the annoyance at his father from his face. “My parents are concerned about Cole. They sent Hansen by helicopter. With the airports closed, he was still able to land at the Triple T helipad.”
“So you could helicopter out of here, couldn’t you?” She looked at him hopefully.
“No. The winds are too strong. Hansen barely got here. It’s too great a risk.”
She nodded with a shrug. “I suppose I’ll let you tag along to buy a phone. If,” she said, her mischievous smile curving slightly, the dimples in her cheeks deepening.
“If what?”
Finally, I’ll pay this woman back and be done with her.
“If you promise to give me a ride in your helicopter if you leave before the airport opens.”
Liam opened the door to the hotel for her. “You know, you have an I.O.U. You could use that unless you’re saving it for something special.”
“I am actually.” Joan gave him a nod of thanks for the door and walked into the lobby. “My friends are not going to believe the craziness of my life the last twenty-four hours without proof.”
“That’s what you’re doing with an I.O.U. from a Wainwright? Really? You do understand that I’m going to honor that I.O.U. right?”
Joan stopped walking. “Look, I get it. People want from you, you’re used to it. I’m not the kind of person that takes advantage of someone, rich or not. You almost lost your brother. You’re grateful beyond reason. I won’t prey on that.”
Liam waited for the but or maybe she’d take a U-turn on her statement with an if only when she finally got around to asking for what she wanted.
“I need to make sure they’ll let me stay another night since the airport is closed until tomorrow.” She went over to the desk surprising him as he realized she really meant what she’d said.
“You don’t have school loans or medical bills you want me to take care of?” he asked just as she reached the desk.
Joan rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He doesn’t know what the phrase ‘no thank you’ means,” Joan told the desk clerk.
“If you want to pay my bills I’ll let you,” the pretty brunette said from behind the counter. She smiled brightly at him when he looked at her.
Liam pointed toward the clerk. “See?”
“Can I reserve my room for a second night please,” Joan asked the clerk.
“Of course.”
“Great. I’m in the Sunset Villa.”
“Yes, Ms. Taylor. I’ll take care of that for you.”
Joan nodded saying, “Great,” in an absent manner. “Do you know where I can get a cellphone locally?”
“The
re’s a Radio Shack on Overseas Highway.”
“Overseas Highway? Are you telling me that I can drive back to the mainland?”
Liam shook his head at the clerk. It would be better if he gave her a ride in the helicopter so that he could at least say he helped her.
“I can see you in the mirror, Liam.” Joan turned her head to look at him. “What the hell?”
“I assume the highway is closed,” he said simply.
Joan narrowed her eyes further. “Yeah, sure.”
“Excuse me,” the clerk said.
Joan looked at her. “What?”
“The highway is closed due to the weather. You can ask around if you don’t believe me.”
Joan looked at him. “Great.”
Liam laughed. “What? I didn’t close the highway.” He followed her when she left the lobby. “What is so important that you need to get back to anyway?”
“Why? Are planning on throwing money at my problems?”
“Bet it would work,” he said.
Joan sighed. “My director has me up for review. It’s looking like she is going to transfer me to another hospital. I don’t expect you to understand this but I need to get back.”
“Okay. I promise that as soon as it’s safe to fly you have a ride out of here. I have a car we’ll take to get the phones.”
Joan lowered the hand she’d raised to hail a taxi. With a shrug, she agreed.
“Yes? From Joan Taylor? Shit! I think I just won the lottery.” Liam raised two fingers in the air at the curb and the black Lincoln Town Car Hansen arranged, pulled up.
“Don’t let it go to your head.” She smiled flashing a sexy dimpled smile.
He opened the back door for her. Circling around to the other side he got in and asked the driver, “Do you know where Radio Shack is?”
“Yes, sir.” Turning the wheel, the driver pulled away from the hotel.
Joan had her fingers folded together in her lap around her purse. She was looking out of the windows as though it was a completely different view from inside a rented Lincoln Town Car. Maybe it was. He couldn’t deny he was intrigued by Joan.
“So, you’re a damn good nurse. What made you want to be a nurse?”
Joan peeled her eyes away from the window and looked at him. She considered his question. He could see her weighing in her mind whether or not to tell him the truth. “My sister became sick. Very sick. We almost lost her and well, you know what that feels like.”
Liam nodded his throat constricting at the memory of those terrifying moments. He never wanted to feel that helpless again.
“There was this nurse. Nurse Brewer. She was there with us in the moments that counted to save my sister Kenna. Nurse Brewer made the entire ordeal easier, and I feel like she saved all of us. I was ten years old. I wanted to be the kind of nurse she was. There were lots of nurses but they didn’t care, not like Nurse Brewer. It made all the difference.”
“Kenna is alright now?”
Joan nodded her eyes appearing suspiciously moist. “She beat the odds and she just got married to a great guy.”
“I believe it. If she’s half as stubborn as you are then I can believe she’ll beat anything.”
Her dimpled smile returned. “Yeah, she’s stubborn all right. In fact, I think she’s even more stubborn than I am.” She leaned back in the seat. “When did you decide to be a billionaire?”
“Believe it or not, I am self-made.”
“What? The Wainwrights have always been wealthy.”
Liam nodded. “Yeah. My father gave me a hundred thousand when I turned eighteen. He said it was all I’d get until after I married.”
“A hundred thousand is a lot of money.”
Liam started laughing but caught himself. “As it turns out it was just enough.”
“For what?”
“My inventions. I developed a machine that monitors natural occurring substances used for building bombs. Between our government and others, my company has sold more than a billion dollars worth of bomb locating and alerting Wainwright anti-terrorism machines.”
Joan’s blue eyes widened as he told her about his invention. “I read about that. I thought that was your father’s invention or that his company produced it. It was yours? At eighteen?”
“No,” he laughed, “it was at twenty. It took a couple of years to perfect it. I did use my father’s factories to manufacture them so in the process, I almost doubled his fortune and made my own.”
“So, you are your own billionaire. That’s damn impressive, Mr. Wainwright,” she said with a sincere smile. “Tatum, did he go through the same thing with your dad, the hundred thousand deal?”
“Yes. Only it was at the same time as I did. He said the paths we were on were destructive, and we had this one chance to make something of ourselves.”
“Well, I’ve read about Tatum’s company. He made his own fortune too. Looks like your dad’s experiment panned out well. Will Cole get the same deal when he turns eighteen?”
Liam shrugged. “I hope not. He’s much more sheltered than Tatum and I was. Tatum is my stepbrother and Cole is my half-brother. Tatum and I both had to learn some hard lessons about life early. I lost my mom. His father took off. That kind of thing.”
As the words left his mouth he realized he’d just shared more about himself with her than he had with anyone in a long time.
Joan was listening, looking at him with sympathy he wasn’t used to. “You don’t have any brothers?” he asked ready to leave his own past behind.
“Nope. Just my big sister, Kenna, and my parents. The divorce rate is high in families with children requiring ongoing, high-cost treatments. They stuck together and they were always good to Kenna and me.”
His phone started ringing in his pocket. It was Hansen’s ring, an urgent high-pitched ringing because Hansen never called with trivial conversation.
“I’m sorry I have to get this. I left Hansen with Cole. I need to make sure he’s okay.”
“Sure.” Joan nodded.
Liam took the call. “Hello?”
“Master Wainwright, I apologize but Master Cole is gone. He climbed out the skylight in the dining room.”
“Are you sure he’s gone? He might be on a payphone—”
Hansen cut in. “The valet saw him catching a cab. He isn’t here.”
“We have to find him.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Where would he go?” Joan asked. “Why were the two of you fighting at the airport?”
Liam shook his head. “I think he’d want to get to a phone. He’s crazy about this girl that isn’t suited for him and he won’t listen to me. She’s bad for him. Very bad.”
“He’s sixteen, right? Are you’re sure he’d stop at just getting to a phone? He might try to go to her wouldn’t he?”
“He’d have to catch a flight. The airport is closed.”
Joan nodded. “Does he know the airport is closed?”
Liam leaned forward and told the driver to head toward the airport. Wind kicked up rocking the car a bit with strong gusts. Liam wasn’t talking. She could see his mind working back to the incident on the plane. He was scared.
“This girl who’s no good for him, can we call her? Maybe he’s spoken to her, and she can tell us where he is or what he’s doing.”
“I’m not calling her. She’s not going to help us. She’d only try to get more money out of us. I’m sure by now she’s signed the no contact contract my lawyers drew up. She isn’t talking to him if she wants money and believe me, she does.”
Joan nodded looking out her window for any sign of Cole. “How long has he been head over heels for this girl?”
“From what I can tell, he’s only known her a few months and that was all online. He met her in person just yesterday for the first time.”
The road to the airport was blocked with closed airport signs flashing orange lights.
“We could cover more ground if we split up,” Joan said. “Drop me off a
t that Radio Shack so I can get a phone. I’ll catch a cab, and I’ll call you with my number.”
Liam exhaled a grateful sound. “Hansen is looking too.”
“We’ll find him.” Joan attempted to assure him. With the storm kicking up, she was worried too.
“Hansen is running his credit card records. We should get a lead there. He can’t walk five feet without using one of his credit cards.”
Joan forced a smile, hoping he was right. “That’s good.” Cole was breathing fine the last she’d seen him, but if he ran into another trigger, it could kick up his asthma again. The wind, notorious for carrying microscopic triggers, was blowing strong. She scanned the faces of the people hammering boards over their windows.
The driver headed west along the main street. Joan spotted a mall and from the marked attention Liam gave the indoor complex, she knew that he did too.
“How far is Radio Shack from here?” she asked the driver.
“Just up the road.”
Before she could offer to walk, Liam said to the driver, “Pull over. Drop me off here and take Joan to get her cellphone. Then come back for me.” The driver pulled over to the side of the road. Liam turned toward Joan. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me look for Cole. I’m sorry to keep imposing on you.”
“Don’t be sorry and don’t worry. We’ll find him.”
Liam opened the door and the wind grabbed it with a force that shook the car. “Be careful, Joan,” he said before she could tell him the same thing. He shoved the door shut and ran across the parking lot of the mall.
The rain was so thick it enveloped him in a mist of blue. Water on the street made the car slip a little before it gripped the road.
“Don’t be long. We need to get to higher ground,” the driver warned.
“Okay, I’ll hurry.” Joan got out into the downpour. Water up to her ankle in the parking lot would have soaked her feet if she wasn’t in boots. In a mad dash, she grabbed the handle to the door at the same moment she spotted Cole ducking into the travel agency next door.
Cole, your brother is going to strangle you.
She dashed across the sidewalk that was more like a small stream. Pulling the door open she stepped inside.
An I.O.U. from a Billionaire Page 5