The Return of Caine O'Halloran: Hard Choices

by JoAnn Ross

  “Like you gave it a chance? I heard you tell that old dude you didn’t even stay long enough to graduate.”

  She almost laughed. Logan was definitely not old. He was a mouthwateringly fit man in his prime. Which was not at all what she needed to be thinking about. Ever. But Logan had always had that effect on her. Even when he was scathingly telling her to grow up. “His name is Logan, he’s hardly old, and I did go to Bendlemaier for three years, whether I graduated from there or not. But this isn’t about me.”

  Riley shook her head, and walked over to the display nearest the door. She picked up a bottle. Studied the label. Put it back and picked up another. “How come you never got married, Auntie Annie?” She ran the phrase together like it was one long word—anteeanee.

  “Nobody ever asked me,” Annie answered, lost for something more appropriate. It was the last question she might have expected.

  “You think women have to wait to be asked? My mom asked Dad to marry her, you know.”

  Annie hadn’t known that. But it seemed like something Noelle would be capable of doing. She wasn’t a woman to wait around for someone else to speak when there was something in her sights. Annie could appreciate that trait now, though she hadn’t back then. Not when she’d believed that beautiful, accomplished Noelle Reed was marrying Will and thereby taking away the only semblance of family that Annie cared about. “No, I don’t think women have to wait to be asked,” she told Riley. “But as it happens, there’s nobody that I’ve ever wanted to ask anyway.” She’d have to allow herself into a relationship of some sort, first.

  “Do you have a boyfriend? A lover?”

  Good grief, the girl was persistent. “No. I don’t sleep with men I don’t love.” She didn’t sleep with anyone.

  “Why not?”

  “Logan was right. You’ve learned your questioning technique from Will. Do you have a boyfriend?” Maybe it was more than just the issue of Bendlemaier that had driven Riley to run away from home.

  “No.”

  Relief dribbled through her.

  “Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me date, anyway,” Riley added. “They’d just think I was out trying to have sex or something.”

  “Sex! You’ve barely turned fifteen.”

  “So? There’s a girl in my class at school—my real school, not that stupid Bendleboring—who is pregnant out to here.” Riley’s hands stuck straight out in front of her. “It’s disgusting. She’s stupid. I mean, hasn’t she ever heard of the pill? They sell condoms in machines in the bathrooms everywhere.” She dropped her hands and worked them into the pockets of her tight jeans, casting Annie a sidelong look. “Logan’d be your boyfriend if you wanted.”

  “Your conversation is making me dizzy,” Annie murmured. From condoms to Logan? “Logan is not here to stay, obviously, and he’s not interested in me.”

  “He stared at you all through lunch.”

  Only because he couldn’t figure out what had happened to the wild Annie he’d known. And she hadn’t felt inclined to tell him that she’d buried her alive in an inescapable crypt. “Riley—”

  “Was he your boyfriend before?”

  “No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “He was your dad’s friend, Riley.”

  Riley didn’t comment on that. Merely blew another enormous bubble that popped with a soft snap when she stuck it inside her mouth and bit down on it.

  Annie let out her breath, feeling as chewed-up as the deflated bubble. “What if I talk to your dad about you not going to Bendlemaier? Will you go home, then? Riley, it’s the middle of the school year. You’re missing classes.” And unlike Annie had been, her niece was a stellar student. Another reason why her appearance on Annie’s doorstep seemed so shocking.

  “So, I’ll go to school here.”

  God. “That’s not what I—”

  “That is a school we pass going into town from your house, isn’t it?”

  Riley knew good and well that it was. It wasn’t large, but the brick building was obviously a school. “Yes, but it’s for the kids who live here.”

  “You just want to get rid of me, too.”

  She exhaled, exasperated. “Riley, nobody wants to get rid of you. But your home is with your parents. Whatever problem there is can be worked out.”

  “Dad says you haven’t talked to Grandma and Grandpa Hess in more ’n ten years.”

  Your dad talks too much, Annie said silently. “Will and Noelle are nothing like George and Lucia.” Thank heavens.

  “Well, why can’t whatever problem you’ve got be worked out with them?”

  She had no parental instincts inside her. She didn’t know how to deal with a young girl who—from Noelle’s reports—had been captain of last year’s debate team at her school. “Riley—”

  “Never mind. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” She suited her words with deed and pushed out the door.

  Annie followed her out. Fat drops of rain had just begun to fall. The air was redolent with the scent of an impending rainstorm—wet, dusty, earthy. She hurried across the narrow sidewalk onto the bumpy road. “That’s not what I said!”

  Riley looked over her shoulder, continuing to walk away from Annie. “I just thought you’d care. But nobody cares. Not really.” She looked ahead, her boots picking up the pace.

  Annie’s heart tore. She could actually feel the pain of it ripping through her. How many times had she felt exactly the same way? Only their situations were decidedly different. Her parents hadn’t cared. Riley’s did.

  She swiped a raindrop from her cheek, darting after her niece, grabbing her by the shoulders. Forcing her to stop. “Everyone cares, Riley. Your parents were beside themselves with worry when I talked to them.”

  “Right. That’s why they’re pounding down the door of your beach house.” Riley’s eyes were stormier than the sky.

  And Annie knew, for once, that her instincts had been right on the mark. Riley had run away, but, despite her threats, she’d expected her parents to follow after her. A show of love. A grand gesture. Something to prove she mattered to them.

  Déjà vu, she thought wearily and prayed that this would be the only incident of it.

  “You scared them, Riley. They believed your threats.” She chose her words carefully. Not wanting to worsen the situation, which—when it came to family matters—was what Annie had generally done exceptionally well. “But make no mistake. They want you back home. Where you belong.”

  Riley just shook her head. Her blond hair was darkening from the rain, clinging wetly to her cheeks, making her look impossibly young. Vulnerable. “Why? They’re never around, anyway. Dad’s campaigning for work and Mom’s traveling for work.” Then she pulled out of Annie’s hold and kept walking.

  “Where are you going?” Panic raised Annie’s voice.

  Riley’s arms lifted then fell back to her sides. She never looked back.

  “She won’t go far. Diego’s not going anywhere with this weather churning up the way it is.”

  She jumped, startled at the deep voice. “Where’d you come from?”

  Logan smiled faintly and lifted his chin toward the building not ten feet away from where they stood in the middle of the road. “Stopped in at the sheriff’s office to say hello to Sam. Couldn’t help but notice you and Riley out here.” He opened up the black umbrella he held and lifted it over her head.

  Annie’s gaze followed Riley whose posture—even at the increasing distance—screamed dejection. “I need to go after her.”

  “Take the umbrella, and get inside soon. Sam said the weather service thinks there’s gonna be a bad blow. Storms usually miss Turnabout, but better to be safe.”

  She hesitated for only a moment. He was there to retrieve Riley, of that she had no doubt. So why was he allowing even a moment of time before doing so?


  “Go, Annie,” he said quietly. “I’ll lock up the shop for you.”

  She swallowed, turned and went.

  It was raining in earnest when Annie reached her house about twenty minutes later. As she let herself inside, her heart was in her throat, nearly choking her. Then she heard the shower running in the single bathroom.

  Uncaring of the rainwater dripping from her onto the ceramic-tile floor, she pressed her back against the wall in the hallway and listened to the blessed sound of the bathroom shower. She was shivering. Not just from the chill caused by the rain, but from the past that seemed to loom up in her face no matter how many times she tried to push it behind her.

  She slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor and pressed her wet head back against the wall. Through it she could hear the hiss of the shower even more clearly, as well as the diminishing drum of raindrops on the roof. They grew more sporadic as she listened. Maybe the storm would pass by Turnabout, after all.

  The thought was hopeful, but brief, being cut off by a long, crackling rumble of thunder.

  From inside the bathroom came the squeak of pipes, the cessation of water, the metallic jangle of shower-curtain rings. By the time the door creaked open several minutes later, Annie was in the kitchen, a clean bath towel slung around her neck, her wet jumper replaced by a sweatshirt and baggy jeans. Riley finally came into the room, her expression wary as Annie pushed a chunky white mug across the breakfast bar toward her.

  “What is it?” Riley’s voice was suspicious. “Not that weird tea you make out of weeds, I hope.”

  Annie had quickly found that chamomile tea was not a hit with Riley. “Hot chocolate.”

  “With marshmallows?”

  “Is there any other way to drink it?”

  Riley crossed to the bar and picked up the mug. She lifted it carefully. Annie thought she might be smelling it. She took a sip. Followed by a longer one.

  “It’s good.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “Mom’s hot chocolate is awful. No caffeine, no fat, no nothing.”

  Annie lifted her own mug, her smile growing. Noelle was beautiful and model-thin. There’d been a time or two on Annie’s rare visits to their home when she’d heard Will admit to sneaking out for a cholesterol-laden steak and loaded baked potato behind his wife’s diet-conscious back.

  Riley slipped onto one of the barstools and hunched over the breakfast bar, cradling the mug. “Mom says marshmallows are all sugar.”

  “When we were kids, your dad wouldn’t drink hot chocolate unless the cup was nearly overflowing with marshmallows.”

  “I’m a lot like him.” Riley made the announcement as if it were a sentence being pronounced. “Mom says that all the time. I’m just like him.” Her lips twisted as she peered into her mug.

  “He’s a good person,” Annie said quietly. “You could do worse than be like Will.” Far better that than to be like Annie.

  “How come you don’t have kids?”

  Annie lifted her hot chocolate again and managed to singe her tongue drinking too deeply. It was early afternoon, yet the kitchen was darkening. She flipped on the light. “Some people aren’t cut out to be parents,” she finally said. “Fortunately, Will and Noelle are.”

  Riley’s expression closed. She turned away from the counter, bare feet stomping across the tile. A moment later, Annie heard the slam of the bedroom door.

  She cursed herself for pushing too far. Sighing, she put her mug on the counter next to Riley’s. Neither one of them had finished.

  The sliding glass door that led out to the small deck drew her and she moved away from the counter. Outside, the ocean beyond the narrow strip of beach looked gray and forbidding. She opened the door anyway and went out onto the deck. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up. Heavy, dark clouds skidded overhead.

  The chaise that had seen Annie through more sleepless nights than she cared to count was wet. She pulled the towel from her neck to dry it off, then threw herself down on the seat. The wind tugged at her hair, flinging it around her shoulders. The temperature felt as if it had dropped twenty degrees since that morning. She wished she’d thought to put on socks.

  “I told you to get inside.”

  Her head jerked. Logan had appeared around the side of the small house. He stepped around the elevated frame of her ancient water cistern. When her heart drifted back down from her throat, she chanced speech. “Which explains why you’re sneaking around outside my house.” Once again, she found herself wishing that he’d do what he’d come to do and go. It would be painful—like the worst kind of bandage being ripped off her skin. But at least it would be quick.

  He came toward her, looking even taller from her half-prone position. The wind was doing a number on his hair, too. Blowing through the short, thick strands of dark brown to reveal a few strands of silver. He was as darkly tanned as she remembered. The contrast made his blue eyes seem even brighter. Logan—in the flesh—made her feel as edgy as he ever had.

  The sooner he left, the better.

  “Riley is inside. You should take her now. You wouldn’t want to get stuck on the island if the weather goes even more sour.”

  “In a hurry to see her go, Annie?” His expression was considering. “Having a teenager around cramping your style?”

  She swung her legs off the chaise and rose. “There’s no style to cramp. She doesn’t belong here with me. She belongs at home with Will and Noelle. Nothing’s going to be solved by her remaining here. Everybody, including you, knows that.”

  “Maybe she just needs a breather. Don’t you remember needing a breather when you were her age?”

  “When I was her age, I’d already been at Bendlemaier for months. And the last place I wanted to be was at home with George and Lucia.”

  His lips twisted. He gave her a sidelong look that tightened her stomach. “Liar.”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  He moved, catching her chin in his big palm, tilting it toward him. She went stock-still, her senses going way beyond alert at the close, windblown warmth of him.

  “You heard me,” he challenged softly. “When you were Riley’s age, you wanted nothing more than to live at home, to have normal parents who cared more about you than their careers, to go to the same public high school that Will had gone to.”

  “I never told you that,” she said stiffly.

  His thumb gently tapped her chin. “You didn’t have to tell me everything. It was obvious, Annie. And that night at the boathouse, you said—”

  “I said a lot of things.” She felt exposed with her face firmly tilted up to his gaze. “And I was drunk,” she finished flatly.

  “Nearly,” he allowed. “On champagne you had no business drinking.”

  “Well, you were the only one who noticed.”

  “That pissed you off, too, didn’t it?”

  She stepped back, deliberately lifting her chin away from his hold. “It was a long time ago and has nothing whatsoever to do with the reason you’re here.”

  “Are you so certain about that?”

  Her knees felt weak. She refused to sit, though she wanted to. Badly. “Yes, I’m certain.”

  The corner of his lips lifted in that saturnine expression of his that visited her too often in her sleep. Ridiculous, really. And maybe it was only because she simply didn’t get involved with men—hadn’t for more years than she could count on her fingers—that she was beset with memories of this one man in particular.

  She’d humiliated herself with him at Will’s wedding reception, after all. Her youthfully inflated ego had convinced her that he must surely have had the hots for her, mostly because she hadn’t been able to look at him without feeling as if her nerve endings were on fire.

  Well, he’d correcte
d her on that score.

  He could have taken advantage of an impetuous and spoiled teenager intent on playing with fire, but he hadn’t. So, regardless of the wicked cast of his lips, Annie knew that Logan, like Will, was a straight arrow. Despite his devil-dark looks, he’d probably never even crossed the street against the light.

  “Aren’t you curious, Annie?”

  She snatched at the towel when a gust of wind picked it up off the chaise. She twisted the terry cloth in her hands. “About what? Riley’s real reasons for running away from home? It’s hard to believe it would just be Bendlemaier. Noelle says that Riley has made a small career out of negotiating things she wants or doesn’t want in life.”

  “That’s all you’re curious about? Only Riley?” He stepped closer again.

  Beyond them, a colorful beach ball hurtled over the sand, followed by a scrap of paper that hung on the wind. For some reason, the sight of them made Annie even more aware of the solitude of her house. Her nearest neighbors were more than a mile away.

  She swallowed. “That’s all I can afford to be curious about.”

  “Sounds awfully cautious for the Annie I knew.”

  Her eyes burned. She blamed it on something in the blowing wind because she didn’t cry. Not anymore. “The Annie you knew no longer exists.” Her words were barely audible. “She learned her lessons the hard way.”

  “What lessons?” He jerked his head up before his lips finished forming the question.

  An awful buzzing whine had rent the air. Piercing. Loud. Annie nearly jumped out of her skin and covered her ears. “What is that?” She had to yell to be heard above the alarm, above the awful thunder that was suddenly crashing overhead, sounding as if mountains were collapsing.

  His hand was on her arm, pushing her through the glass door he slid open. “That’s the emergency siren. A hangover from the Second World War. Get Riley.”