by L. B. Dunbar
Table of Contents
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Inspiration
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Thank You
Connect with L.B. Dunbar
More by L.B. Dunbar
About the Author
Return to the Island
Copyright © 2017 Laura Dunbar
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
Cover Design: Shannon Passmore/Shanoff Formats
Cover Image: Stocksy
Edits: Kiezha Smith Ferrell/Librum Artis Editorial Services
Table of Contents
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Inspiration
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Thank You
Connect with L.B. Dunbar
More by L.B. Dunbar
About the Author
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
The Sensations Collection
Sound Advice
Taste Test
Fragrance Free
Touch Screen
Sight Words
The Legendary Rock Star Series
The Legend of Arturo King
The Story of Lansing Lotte
The Quest of Perkins Vale
The Truth of Tristan Lyons
Paradise Stories
Paradise Tempted: The Beginning
Paradise Fought: Abel
Paradise Found: Cain
Stand Alones
The Sex Education of M.E.
The History in Us
The Island Duet
Redemption Island
Return to the Island
Modern Descendants – writing as elda lore
Hades
Solis
Heph
Inspiration
“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . .”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince,
1
Twenty-two months later
Tack
“I think we found her.”
The words gave me false hope. I’d heard them before. Branson Marx was the best private investigator in the business, and yet, he’d failed once before.
“Are you certain this time?” I gruffly asked.
“Tack,” he warned, looking up at me over his studious glasses. His light-colored hair stood on end, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. Bright eyes narrowed on mine. “I gave you my word.”
I shook my head, staring out the second story window. Branson’s office looked like the stereotypical made-for-movies P.I. office—a mess. It was a wonder he could find anything in his office, let alone a human being outside of it. The human being in this instance was a beautiful creature who had disappeared from my life nearly two years ago. Her violet eyes danced in my head. Her breathless gasps as I entered her for the first time haunted my ears. The way she moved under my body appeared in my dreams nightly. There were moments I thought I felt her and then she was gone.
“I know. It’s just…sometimes…” Sometimes I still thought she was a product of my desperately lonely and guilty mind. A figment of my imagination. Colton Edwin told me as much.
You want to believe she was real, and so she was. But only to you.
He didn’t understand. Juliet Montmore had been very real to me. That one night when I decided initiation into a sex club was more important than the emotions of a woman. I’d sunk to the lowest depths I could go because I thought she wanted it that way. The way Rick had told me the women in his club wanted it. The way Rick said she wanted it. The way I thought I wanted it to be, until I saw her.
Frightened, closed off, used. My stomach rolled with the memory.
I went to the island to be redeemed for what I’d done. Little did I know how that redemption would play out. She would be my forgiveness and then she became my reason for breathing.
Colton had it wrong, because I experienced Juliet Montmore more than once, and I learned who she was. Is, I corrected. She hadn’t died. She disappeared. She still exists; just out there in the world, but unfortunately, not in mine.
Branson knew all this. My history with the island and with her—the good, the bad, and everything in between—had to be explained in order for him to understand. I had to find her. There weren’t many people I trusted but I trusted him. No one else had believed me. Garvey Edwin, my restoration coach, thought I had some sort of vision quest. As the restorative justice process was based in the Native American culture, he thought I saw her as a way to seek healing. Colton, his son, stepped closer to the truth, knowing I wanted to believe in her reality, but his own experience taught him she wasn’t real. She was a figment of my mind, conjured to find forgiveness within myself. Colton’s girl was gone forever; mine was not. My girl still walks this earth, not my imagination.
“I get it. She’s important to you,” Branson said, interrupting my thoughts. “I understand.” He did understand. He’d witnessed many times when good people made bad decisions. It had happened to him.
“Look, I just can’t handle false hope. It’s been almost two years.” I sighed. It had been 21 months and 17 days. When you spent a portion of your life counting them, you began to realize how valuable those days could be. I thought we had more time. In fact, the banishment was scheduled for a full year. We’d only made it 69 days. Ironic number. It was one of the things I hadn’t done yet with her. One of the multitude of ways I planned to experience he
r. Once we found her.
“Looks like a Juliet Monte published a dissertation titled My Time on the Island. She got a doctorate degree in West Virginia.”
“Shit,” I said, shifting to lean forward in my chair opposite Branson’s desk. We’d looked everywhere up and down the Atlantic coastline, but I told him to concentrate on Baltimore. That’s where I met her, if you could call our first encounter a meeting. The Front Door had been the place of that fateful night. I had no other information beyond that she had spent some years in a trailer park in Alabama. I was confident she hadn’t returned.
“Looks like the dissertation came from Weston, a small university up in the mountains.” I recalled her saying she attended a university near Baltimore, but Juliet Montmore had not returned there after her time on the island.
“What’s the dissertation about?”
“The subtitle says ‘a dissertation in self-reflection through visualization and solitary confinement—a restoration of the criminal.’” Branson grimaced. “Sounds intense.”
“Why do you think it’s her? It sounds like she changed her name.”
“Most people change their name so they can’t be found. Hiding from family. Hiding from the past.” He paused and removed his glasses. His large arms crossed on his desk. “I’m not saying she was doing that from you.”
“But she might have,” I added, swiping my hand through my hair. Fuck. “What about the rest?”
“I think a dissertation on solitary confinement on an island visualizing someone might be our best clue that it’s her.” He smirked, and if I didn’t like Branson as a person, I’d want to punch the smug look off his hard face.
“So take me to her,” I said, shifting to the edge of my seat.
“It doesn’t quite work that way. Let me dig a little deeper to be certain. I just wanted to let you know I had the best lead I’ve had in months.”
Branson felt guilty about the last lead. A girl who fit Juliet’s description had been spotted near The Front Door, that fateful club, eight months ago. When I heard she may have been there, perhaps had even gone back inside, I’d bought the bar for an exorbitant price and burned it to the ground. I didn’t want her anywhere near The Front Door. Curious mouse or not, she didn’t need that club. I’d worried over time that she needed money. She didn’t have many things, but that club was no longer an answer for her. I was.
The result of that investigation lost the trail of the girl.
But not this time. This time I had a feeling Branson was onto something. My heart leapt in my chest in a way it hadn’t in a long time. She might have been avoiding me, but I was determined to find her. A lion on the hunt, persistently pursuing an ever-evading mouse, I would catch my prey.
Gotcha, Mouse.
2
Tack
I didn’t typically care for charity galas. I’d been to dozens in the last two years and anxiously anticipated my own charity affair in a few weeks. But this night, I had to make good on Abby’s request to attend with her. She’d been good enough to be the jewel on my arm in the past.
“The Red Dress Affair is important to women’s health, Tack.” Abby Goodwin’s mother died of a heart attack, her heart disease undetected because she was too young. The loss came when Abby was at a vulnerable age and needed a mother. Since then, her father had tried to get her two more. Neither woman made the cut for Maxwell Goodwin.
“I know, Abby,” I said, patting her hand. She sat next to me in the limo, her blonde hair curled in some elaborate confection, her red dress tight and too sparkly. Her body was too angular for me. Her posture too rigid. We weren’t affectionate with one another, although she played a role for me. She kept the paparazzi at bay about my lacking love life. Unfortunately, Abby was beginning to use the advantage to aide hers. I had this strange, foreboding feeling, like maybe tonight was a mistake, but I had promised her, and I tried to keep my promises.
I’ll find you. The biggest promise given to me and it had been broken. Juliet Montmore disappeared from my life. She’d never come to find me, but I vowed I would not lose her. I was still waiting for her. I’d confirm she was safe, secure, and satisfied—with me. There would be no substitution. She belonged with me.
As we entered the main ballroom, filled with women in red and men in tuxedos, there appeared to be one woman who missed the memo. She was a vision in silver. With masks in place for this masquerade affair, there was no way to identify who she was, but something about the way she walked seemed familiar. Her silver dress was cut straight across her full breasts with a hint of skin atop a subtle ruffle. Thick beading filled the bodice, while the rest of the material flowed to her feet. The dress looked familiar, too, but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t bother with society or who wore what, but I couldn’t deny my eyes were drawn to her.
Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and dinner passed in a blink. Bourbon helped the time pass. When the dancing began, I noticed the woman in silver with a man in a navy blue tux. He’d missed the memo as well—black tie.
“Who is that?” I mocked, staring over my glass before taking another hardy gulp of my bourbon neat.
“That’s Miller James,” Abby muttered. “I think he crashed the party with his friend. His mother’s one of the co-hostesses. He’s a bit of a rebel.” He wasn’t much taller than the woman in his arms. His hair was perfectly coiffed. They laughed in unison. Her head tipped back with that laughter, and the curve of her neck caught my attention. Her hair was swept up in a purposely messy twist, allowing her neck to be exposed.
“Rebel? How?” I asked, setting my drink on the table. Branson Marx had joined our party at my generous donation. He’d asked a friend, as well, and they were engaged in their own inspection of the woman in silver.
“He isn’t conforming to what daddy wanted him to be.” Abby wiggled her brow.
“A man of worldly business?” I questioned with a laugh, knowing that’s what my father wanted of me. I’d veered in a different direction, but felt confident my business was helping the world.
“A man who’s straight,” Abby said flatly. I glanced up again at the two dancing and noticed the subtle hints. He could be. I wasn’t a man to recognize another who played for the other team. It made no difference to me as long as he accepted I only batted in one direction. Maybe he played for both. His arm was wrapped around his date in a possessive way, and she playfully pressed her hands to his chest.
The music was a sultry mix of alternative and acoustics. It wasn’t your typical ballroom dancing song, and it had the guests hesitant to participate. The raspy female sound filled the air, and several couples exited the dance floor. The woman in silver remained, as did her non-conforming, navy-clad date.
The smoky sound was one I hadn’t heard in two years or more, and something about the way the woman stepped back from her man and swung her arms looked familiar. Her feet did this little stomping movement, and her hips swayed in a choppy way. The beat continued in a steady, almost tribal rhythm, and her hips increased in tempo.
“Excuse me,” I said, rising slowly from my seat, pulled to this woman as if by an invisible string. There was something unsettling about her movements, and I stepped onto the dance floor without a thought. I tapped her date, who took the hint and stepped off. I should have considered him a putz for leaving his girl with a total stranger, but something in my expression must have told him I’d break him if he didn’t move.
Her back was to me. Her body rippling as her arms rose above her head and my hand reached for her hip. I stepped up to her and her head swung to look at me over her shoulder. A short gasp escaped her lips and she spun to search for her date.
“Just one dance,” I said, and her head swung up to face me. The mask blocked most of her face, and she quickly averted her eyes before I could even glimpse their color. I began to move her, my hand on her hip as a guide, and we fell into a rhythm I recalled from long ago. Her arms rose in the air once again and my palms skimmed up her sides, etching out her curves. My ski
n tingled in recognition of something not felt in years. She slipped a hand between us, and I tugged her to me. Then I spun her away from me and curled her back. The dance was too easy, her fit against me too right. We moved as one before I gripped the material of her skirt and tugged it upward. My hand slipped under her thigh, hitching it against mine and dipping her back. I couldn’t risk kissing her, but my nose skimmed her neck. She smelled tropical.
My eyes whipped to hers as I stood her upright, but as if she knew the next move, she stepped out and I spun her away from me again. She curled back and collided with my chest. Enveloped within my arms, her back to my front, we moved as one once more. My nose rubbed along her shoulder to her neck and inhaled again.
“Do I know you?” I whispered, teasing her to tell me, wanting her to be my Juliet. The music stopped, but we were still moving, slowly winding down the song in our head. She gasped, and I noticed the guests all had their eyes on us, including Abby, Branson and his date, Maria.
My dancing partner tugged forward, and I released her. She scrambled to the edge of the dance floor and the curve of her backside brought back another memory.
“Mouse,” I whispered, and she stopped. My shoulders shot upward, and I stepped forward just as she stepped off the parquet flooring. She picked up speed as she dodged among the tables to the exit.
“Tack?” Abby’s hand caught my forearm, and I stopped. Glancing down at my arm cost me. I looked up to find I’d lost the girl.
“That was her,” I barked at Branson as if he should know. “What does she own? She has to be someone if she were a member of this party.”
Branson smirked as if he knew a secret.
“She owns a not-for-profit group.”
“Buy it,” I demanded. My heart raced in my chest. The need to possess anything that was hers suddenly consumed me.
“I don’t think non-profits work like that,” Branson replied, taking a sip of his beer.
“Then donate to her. However much it takes.”