Summer Vows

by Rochelle Alers

  She discovered a brilliant mystery writer when she picked up his unsolicited manuscript from a slush pile and the rest was history. Their relationship went from editor and writer to husband and wife. Unfortunately for Sam her husband took his overnight success a step further when he literally became a literary rock star. Paul was always surrounded by groupies and that escalated rumors of him cheating to a tabloid exposé with photos of him in a hotel room with a barely legal nubile television actress.

  Samantha had him served with divorce papers and, following a quiet divorce with a generous settlement, she returned to Florida and set up a freelance editorial service. Her reputation had preceded her, so she was never at a loss for clients wishing to break into publishing.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Where are you? I called your folks and your mom wouldn’t give me any information. I also called Jason at his office and he was just as mum. What’s up?”

  Ana and Jacob exchanged a long, penetrating stare. She placed her hand on the mouthpiece. “Can you please give me a few minutes of privacy?” she whispered.

  Jacob shook his head. “Nope. My house. My phone. My rules. I get to monitor all incoming and outgoing telephone calls.”

  She glared at him. “That is so rude.”

  “That is your opinion,” he countered.

  “Ana, are you still there?”

  She resisted the urge to suck her teeth—a habit her mother detested, and turned her back instead. “I’m still here. Look, Sam, I’m not going to be able to go down to Puerto Rico with you. And I was so looking forward to this trip.”

  There came a pregnant pause. “Is something going on that you can’t talk about?”

  Samantha was one of the most perceptive women Ana knew. There were times when she’d told the book editor that she could double as a psychic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same when it came to Samantha’s own future.

  “Yes.”

  There was another pause. “Is someone there listening in on what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “The fact that no one in your family is talking and you can’t tell me where you are reminds me of a mystery novel. I get it and respect that, but the only thing I want to know is if you’re safe.”

  “Affirmative again,” Ana answered, lowering her voice.

  “Well, that makes me feel better and hopefully I can get a full night’s sleep without waking up every few hours thinking about you. You know you’re my girl, Ana. I never would’ve made it through my divorce without your support.”

  “Yes, you would’ve, Sam.”

  Samantha’s husky laugh came through the earpiece. “I’m not going to debate that because I know I’ll lose. I love you to death, Ana, but if there is anything I can do just call.”

  “I love you, too, but right now I’m in a very good place emotionally. If anything changes, then you’ll be the first to know. Give my best to the rest of the gang and tell them I’ll be with them in spirit.”

  Samantha laughed again. “We’ll be certain to raise a couple of glasses of mojitos, piña coladas, cosmos and one or two extra-dirty martinis to toast your absence.”

  “And don’t forget Jack and Coke.”

  “Please don’t mention Jack and Coke. That’s what got me into trouble where I’d lost my mind and wound up married to that fool.”

  Ana smiled. “Then scratch the Jack and Coke.” She quickly sobered when she shifted and saw Jacob frowning at her. “Look, Sam, I have to go. I’ll call you in a couple of weeks.” She ended the call, replaced the receiver on the cradle and then turned to meet her protector’s angry scowl. “What’s the matter now?”

  The seconds ticked as they engaged in what could only be determined as a stare-down. Ana knew instinctually that Jacob hadn’t wanted her to make phone calls, but there was no way he could completely shut her off from the outside world.

  “I would prefer that you not make any calls, and if you do then limit them to a minute or less.”

  A smug smile touched her lips. So, she was right. He didn’t want her using the phone. “That call was necessary because I had to tell my friend that my vacation plans had changed.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Jacob continued to stare at her, brows drawing together as he continued to frown. “What you’re going to have to accept is that your entire life will change until the person or persons who want you eliminated is either caught or killed.”

  A shiver eddied up Ana’s spine at the same time she closed her eyes. Killed. The single word was uttered as softly as a pleasant greeting. But then she couldn’t afford to forget that the man with whom she would live with for who knew how long carried a firearm and had been trained to use it with deadly force when necessary. And she said a silent prayer that whoever was responsible for shooting Tyler would be apprehended alive. After all, dead people couldn’t talk.

  It hadn’t been a week since that fateful day when she stood in the restaurant parking lot with her cousin, but Ana wanted it over. Perhaps when she went to sleep and woke up she would realize it’d been a bad dream. That she’d read one of the mystery novels Samantha had edited and everything that’d happened was because of an overactive imagination.

  But she knew she couldn’t blink and will it away because of the incredibly virile man standing only feet away. Despite the turmoil going on in her life that had impacted her family she did not want to think about sharing a roof with a man as attractive as Jacob. Why, she mused, couldn’t he be short, fat, balding and smelling of liniment? But he wasn’t, and that made her uncomfortable. She also wondered how long it would take before she would go completely stir-crazy from the inactivity.

  Ana was used to getting up every morning and working out in her condominium’s health club before she prepared to go into her office. She and Jason alternated chairing bi-weekly staff meetings where they brought everyone employed by the recording company up on what was going on with their artists. And once she’d taken control as CEO she’d established an open-door policy. There hadn’t been a time when she did not entertain someone’s suggestion, whether she believed it would or wouldn’t benefit the company, whenever the executives held their brainstorming sessions.

  “I know you see me as an imposition—”

  “You’re not,” Jacob said, interrupting her. “If I thought of you as an imposition, then I never would’ve agreed to let you come and stay here.”

  “Why did you agree?”

  He smiled, the expression reminding Ana of a ray of sunshine warming her face and she wanted to tell him that it was something he should do more often.

  “Because there are very few things I wouldn’t do for Diego.”

  Her eyebrows lifted at this disclosure. “Did you and Diego go to college together?” She’d asked because her cousin had attended college in Miami.

  “No. Diego has three years on me.”

  Ana quickly did the math. Diego was going to celebrate his thirty-ninth birthday, so he had to be at least thirty-five or six.

  “I’ll be thirty-six September seventeenth,” Jacob confirmed.

  Her dimpled smile was infectious when he returned it with one of his own. “You read minds?” she asked.

  He lowered his arms. “No, but I’ve noticed that you bite down on your lip when you appear to be thinking about something.”

  Ana’s delicate jaw dropped. “I can’t believe I’m that transparent.”

  “You really aren’t. If you were, then I’d know what you’re thinking.”

  “You really don’t want to know what I’m thinking,” she retorted.

  There another lengthy pause as Jacob took several steps, stopping in front of her, while his gaze met and fused with hers. “I don’t care. Nothing you say, or if you decide to throw a hissy fit, will get me to change my mind.”

  “What if I decide to seduce you? Will that get you to change your mind?”

  She felt a rush of heat settle in her face as soon as the query rolled off her tongue, and Ana did
n’t want to believe where it had come from. She experienced a measure of redemption when he stared at her, apparently in shock.

  “If you’d hoped to shock me, then you just did. But, even if I did permit you to seduce me nothing would change, Princess.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Everything would change.” She had no intention of seducing him or any other man, but Ana was willing to bet her fortune that if they were to have an intimate relationship everything between them would change.

  Chuckling softly, he winked at her. “We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” His teasing mood changed like quicksilver. “And there will be no plans of seduction from either one of us. Diego asked me to protect, not take advantage of you.”

  “Do you always do what my cousin asks you to do?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “Within reason, yes. And the same goes for him.”

  “You’re that tight.” Ana’s question was a statement.

  “Very tight,” Jacob confirmed. “Now that we’ve settled the notion of you trying to get one over on me, I’m going outside. Either you can stay here or sit outside and relax.”

  Chapter 4

  Ana followed Jacob to the deck, her gaze scanning the spacious area. It was the perfect place to begin or end the day. Smiling, she inhaled a lungful of saltwater air. The views here were better than the ones from her condo. Lowering her body to the recliner, she turned on her belly, rested her head on folded arms and then closed her eyes.

  Even though she felt a modicum of peace for the first time in days, Ana didn’t want to accept that she was like someone who’d entered the Witness Protection Program. Cut off from her family, she couldn’t go wherever she wanted, and she couldn’t talk to whomever she wanted with Jacob listening in on the call. Prisoners were granted more rights than she was. At least they had privileges that included family visits and the right to confer with their attorneys.

  Thoughts of her temporary exile were supplanted with the heart-stopping images of Tyler lying motionless on the ground, bleeding from his chest wound. His wife had kept an around-the-clock bedside vigil. Dana had put on a brave face when she gave Tyler an update on the antics of their children. She told Tyler he had to get well and come home and rescue their pets. Their children had given their chocolate-brown miniature poodles Mohawk haircuts, then painted their toenails fluorescent pink and green.

  Ana wanted cry, scream or even throw something, but that would indicate weakness or lack of control, and for her that wasn’t a thought or an option. As the youngest of four she always had to fight to assert herself, especially in a family where boys were groomed from birth to go into the family business, while the girls were left to their own career choice. The tradition had begun with her uncle Martin who’d succeeded Samuel Cole, the founder of ColeDiz International, Ltd. as CEO. Her father, David, gave up a musical career to take over the reins for nine years before relinquishing the responsibility to his nephew. Timothy Cole-Thomas ran the company for thirty-five years before stepping down at sixty.

  Diego had broken with tradition when he’d asked her to come and work with him, but Ana loved the music industry and working with Jason. And for the first time she wondered, if she’d gone to work for ColeDiz would Tyler be in a hospital and would she be hiding out in the Keys until the person or persons responsible for the shooting were apprehended.

  Twenty minutes later the aroma of grilling food wafted to her nostrils. Ana turned over and sat up. Jacob had put on another cap, this one newer and bearing a Miami Heat logo. He stood at the gas grill, basting ears of corn. “Do you need help with anything?”

  Jacob’s head popped up. “I’m good here, but I’d appreciate it if you’d set the table.”

  She pushed off the recliner, giving him a warm, friendly smile for the first time. “No problem.”

  It took several trips, but Ana brought out dishes, silver and glassware. The task would’ve been easier or faster if she’d had a serving cart. For someone who lived alone a cart wasn’t a necessity, but necessary when entertaining. Her entertaining extended to having her mother and father over for dinner. She never assumed they were available because their social calendar was filled with an endless list of charitable fundraisers, political luncheons and dinner dances, and traveling abroad at least once a year. They’d talked about retirement for years, and when the opportunity presented itself they fully took advantage of every minute.

  “Do you have a tablecloth?” she asked Jacob. He looked at her as if she’d asked for radioactive material.

  “I hosed down the glass on the table so we don’t need a tablecloth.”

  Ana made a mental note that if she were to go shopping with him she would buy a tablecloth. She’d given Jacob her credit cards, but she still had some cash in her wallet. “What are we drinking?”

  “Mojitos.” He gave her a questioning look. “If you don’t drink, then I’ll make one without the rum.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I think I can handle the rum.”

  Half an hour later Ana sat across the table from Jacob enjoying the grilled, dry-rubbed red snapper stuffed with onion and peppers and topped with mango salsa. The spices lingered on her tongue until washed away with the expertly made mojito. A Greek salad and grilled corn with red chili butter rounded out what had become an incredible meal.

  She raised her glass in a salute. “Hail to the chef.”

  Jacob modestly inclined his head. “I try.”

  “You do more than try,” Ana countered. “Who taught you to cook?”

  “My dad. He didn’t know how to boil water before he married my mother. After a while he was a better cook than she was and she is definitely no slouch in the kitchen.”

  Propping her elbow on the table, Ana cradled her chin on the heel of her hand and closed her eyes. If the reason as to why she was hiding out in the Keys wasn’t so serious, she would’ve believed her teenage dream had become a reality. She’d run away, believing she could spend the rest of her life living in the Keys, and apparently she’d gotten her wish, albeit on a temporary basis. Instead of running away, she’d been spirited away on a private jet. And she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life here, only as long as it took to locate the person or persons who were attempting to eliminate her.

  When her father was the head of the company he hadn’t had to deal with some of the problems she’d faced. During his tenure the label’s artists had problems with drugs and indiscriminate sexual encounters, not the high-profile feuds between artists and competing labels. The musicians during her father’s era who’d died much too young either overdosed on drugs or committed suicide. Those in her generation usually met their end in a hail of bullets. Whatever happened to men settling their beef with fists instead of bullets?

  She opened her eyes, staring at the colorful orchids growing in wild abandon. Palm and mangrove trees, frangipani and a profusion of flowering bushes surrounding the house provided a modicum of privacy from the neighboring houses. Her gaze shifted to Jacob as he stared at her. A hint of a smile tilted the corners of her mouth.

  “It’s really nice here.” The temperature was at least ten degrees cooler than on the mainland.

  Jacob took a long swallow of his drink, staring at Ana over the rim of the glass. “I like it.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  He set down the glass. “I bought the house about eighteen months ago. It really wasn’t habitable, so I decided to gut it and start again.”

  A slight frown furrowed her smooth forehead. “Wouldn’t it have been easier and less expensive to buy a house in move-in condition?”

  “It’d been abandoned and was in foreclosure. I felt it was as good a time as any to take advantage of my GI bill. I made the bank what I felt was a reasonable offer and they accepted it.”

  “You were in the military?” Jacob nodded. “Army?” she asked, continuing her questioning. He gave her a look that raised the hair on the back of her neck. “Did I say something wrong?”


  “Wrong branch.”

  The seconds ticked as Ana mentally went through the different branches of the armed forces. “If it’s not the army, then it would have to be the marines.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “I should’ve known. Every marine I’ve met is beyond arrogant. The exception is my brother-in-law.”

  “Merrick Grayslake is corps to the marrow of his bones. The difference is he’s low-key about it.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You know Merrick?” Her sister Alexandra had married the ex-marine sniper who’d been recruited by the CIA as a field operative. He retired after a life-threatening injury; years later he reapplied, this time teaching courses in intelligence training.

  Jacob winked at her. “Why do you keep forgetting that I’m family?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m your cousin S.J.’s godfather. And that makes me family.” Diego and Vivienne had shorted Samuel Jacob’s name to S.J. to differentiate between him and Tyler’s son who was also named Samuel.

  “If you’re family, then why haven’t you come to West Palm between Christmas and New Year’s when everyone gets together?”

  “I’d just gotten a promotion and unfortunately I couldn’t get away. Diego and I always joke about living in the same state, yet we don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like.”

  Ana ran her forefinger around the rim of her glass. “I always try and make time for my friends. We try and get together every other month for a girls’ night out.”

  “Girls’ night out or girls gone wild?” he teased.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Very funny.”

  “I heard you mention Jack and Coke to your friend.”

  “What you shouldn’t do is listen in on my telephone conversation.”