The Return of Caine O'Halloran: Hard Choices

by JoAnn Ross

  Sam shrugged and looked at Logan, his expression not at all convinced. “We’ll see. For now, let’s just get it out of the road.” He caught Riley’s arm and helped her climb over the trunk, then handed her the shovel she’d been carrying.

  Annie followed but stopped short, wincing. “Hold on, Riley, I’m—ouch!—caught.” She twisted, reaching behind her.

  Logan stepped through the branches toward her. “Stop moving.” He worked his way around behind her. “Your sweater is hung up on a branch.” He reached for the broken branch that snagged her, and felt a fine shiver dance down her spine as he worked the sweater free. “Did it scratch you?”

  “No.” She looked up at him, then away. “Yes. But it’s okay.” Her soft lips pressed together.

  Heat blasted through him.

  If she moved an inch, she’d be pressed up against him. He wedged his arm between Annie and the branches, giving them both more breathing room. The last thing he needed was to send her back into a panic, and finding out he was hard just from looking at her face would probably do just that. “Be careful.”

  Her gaze skidded over his face, lingering on his mouth. “I will. Um...thanks.”

  “Talk to Hugo.”

  “What? It’s just a scratch, Logan. I hardly need a doctor’s opinion. I have my own remedies, anyway. Aloe vera is very—”

  “About Caroline Castillo.”

  “Oh.” She blinked. “Right. Your dad would have known her, of course. He hasn’t said anything special to Sara, though.”

  She shifted and despite multiple layers of knit, he felt the soft push of her breasts against his side. “I’m not surprised. Sara doesn’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  He tapped the inscription on the trunk once. “Caroline Castillo left Turnabout when her affair with my father came to light. Wouldn’t surprise me if Hugo kept track of her.” It’s what his mother had always believed. Her suspicions had dogged her into misery for most of Logan’s childhood. Every time Hugo had left the island, she’d ranted that he’d gone to see his lover. As far as Logan knew, Hugo had never denied it.

  Her eyes were soft, her expression shocked. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s old news.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge that your parents aren’t perfect. But Logan, that was a long time ago. If that’s what’s causing the distance between the two of you, then—”

  “Hey.” Riley waved the shovel handle through the branches and they rustled, leaves cascading everywhere. “You better not be looking for any sunsets in there.”

  Amusement tugged at him. The girl really was protective of her aunt. He wondered if either one of them noticed it.

  Annie’s cheeks had flushed. “Thanks for the, uh, the rescue. Yet another one. And for helping save the tree trunk. You’re a good guy, Logan Drake.”

  His amusement died.

  Logan could detest his father for his mother’s unhappiness all he wanted. But Hugo had still done some decent things. He’d been the only doctor the island possessed.

  The truth of it was that Hugo was closer to being a “good guy” than Logan was.

  “No,” he said so softly she’d never hear as she worked her way from the clinging branches. “I’m not.”

  Chapter 9

  Logan sat in the sheriff’s office. Even after darkness fell, he didn’t light the utilitarian lantern sitting on Sam’s desk as he thumbed the mike to the emergency radio that Sam had managed to procure. “Any more letters?”

  For a moment, his only answer was static. Then Will’s voice came on again. “Not for a week now. I can send a charter out for you and Riley.”

  Logan stared at the microphone. There was no reason for Will not to do exactly that. But there was an itch at the base of his spine that told him to wait. Wait.

  How many times had he sat in some filth-encrusted location, his finger hovering on a trigger, his eye on a scope, as that same itch told him to wait. Wait.

  When he’d been in Will’s office that day, the other man had shown him a file of letters containing oblique threats to the effect that if he didn’t back out of the special election for attorney general, he’d regret it. The letters hadn’t been directly threatening, but they’d been worrying enough that Will hadn’t been as anxious as he might otherwise have been to get Riley back under his roof.

  Will hadn’t liked the idea of his daughter seeking out Annie, but until he had a finger on the source of the threatening letters, he’d also figured she was just as safe away from Olympia.

  Logan’s thoughts raced, ranging from the meeting he’d had with Will and Cole when he’d been asked to come after Riley, to keep watch over her, to bring her home when they all deemed it safe, to Annie.

  He thumbed the mike. “Wait.”

  Static met him again.

  Though it had been sixteen years since they’d been in the same place at the same time, Logan knew Will was worried about Riley. The man was in an untenable situation.

  Wanting his daughter back.

  Wanting her safe, even more.

  His old friend was undoubtedly going to be the next attorney general for Washington state. He could have depended on any number of more traditional means for retrieving his daughter since he, himself, was embroiled in the middle of a special election. But he hadn’t. And Logan still had trouble adjusting his cynicism enough to believe that Will’s decision hadn’t been affected—at least in part—by the adverse effect on the polls if it came to public awareness that his only daughter had run away from home.

  So Will had prevailed upon his connection with Coleman Black, who in turn, had put Logan on the task. The only one of the three men who hadn’t seemed surprised by the pairing had been Cole. Which probably meant his boss had an ulterior motive in bringing two guys who’d lost touch over the years back in contact.

  He finally received a static-laden answer. “Check in tomorrow.”

  Logan let go of the mike and sat back in Sam’s desk chair, scrubbing his hands down his face.

  He knew his reasons for putting Will off were more selfish than not, despite that faint itch of his. But he wasn’t ready to haul Riley back home, not without somebody figuring out what the hell had motivated her to run away in the first place. And he wasn’t ready to leave Annie just yet, either. Not until...until what?

  He shoved back the chair.

  Cole would have a laugh if he saw Logan now. His cold-blooded cleanup man, troubled by people from a past that he’d long ago cut from his life.

  Eventually, Logan left Sam’s office and went to the community center where nearly the entire town was gathered, pooling food for dinner and anxiously awaiting a progress report on utilities and supplies. And again, he went through the ritual of responding to the “nice to see you back” comments that followed his progress before he spotted Annie sitting at a long table.

  She was turned away from him, talking to someone at the next table. He watched her profile for a long moment. And when her glance turned his way and her eyes widened a little and the corners of her soft lips lifted in a faint smile, his heart stopped.

  Hell.

  He shook it off and walked over to her. “I got a message to Will that everyone here is okay.” He set his bowl of chili on the long narrow table and sat down beside her. “Where’s Riley?”

  Her faint smile died. “I suppose Will said to get her home. Pronto.”

  “Nobody on the isle is going anywhere for the time being.”

  She chewed the corner of her lip for a moment, then seemed to accept his words. “She’s at Maisy’s again. She’s pretty fascinated with April, apparently. And she, um, she’s already eaten, so I didn’t see the harm in it.”

  He’d only wondered where the girl was, not why Annie felt justified in letting the kid do what she
wanted.

  Hell, they were stuck on an island.

  He began eating.

  “Hi, Logan. Annie.”

  At the too-cheerful greeting, he sighed and looked up as Darla Towers slid into the empty seat across from them.

  “This is such a nightmare, isn’t it?” Darla crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. “I’m going to die if I can’t get a bottle of your lavender cream, Annie.” Her words were for Annie but the woman’s dark eyes were on him.

  “We have plenty of cream at the shop, Darla. I’ll get some to you.”

  “Thanks. Now if I could just find someone to help me put it on my back.” She giggled.

  “Try Leo,” he suggested blandly.

  Darla’s lips tightened and she stood from the chair so quickly it nearly tipped over before she walked away.

  “You could have been nicer, you know,” Annie said a moment later.

  Logan shrugged. He wasn’t interested in Darla Towers. He wasn’t interested in any woman on the island, save one. There had been plenty of women in his life, but not a one who’d kept him awake at night. Not like the memory of Annie Hess. He continued eating, perfectly aware that Annie was doing more toying with her spoon than using it to eat the soup that filled her bowl.

  The community center was noisy with chatter. Several people stopped by to ask Annie about her shop, or to offer assistance with the fields if she needed it. The only person who hadn’t stopped by was Hugo. He was there, all right, over in the corner of the community center with his medical bag and a table of first-aid supplies. Judging by the look of it, he’d been wrapping, swabbing and icing since long before Logan arrived for dinner.

  And, as well as being aware of Annie’s lack of appetite, he caught the surreptitious looks she cast his way, then Hugo’s.

  “Appearances are deceiving.”

  “What?”

  He jerked his chin in the direction of his father. “You’re sitting here wondering whether what I told you is true or not, because he looks like the saint of Turnabout over there.”

  “No,” she said quietly, “I’m sitting here thinking how sad it is that there’s such distance between the two of you.”

  He was amused, despite himself. “How long has it been since you talked with George and Lucia?”

  Her head tilted, acknowledging the irony. “The situations aren’t really the same, though. I know what you said about...about Dr. Hugo, but as I’ve said, it was a long time ago. Caroline Castillo left the island decades ago. You said yourself that you were a baby.”

  “Yet the ripples of that Castillo rock falling into the Drake pond continued for a long time,” he said evenly. “Eat your soup.”

  She looked down at the spoon she was swirling in her bowl, as if surprised that it was still there. Then he felt the whisper of her gaze lingering on him.

  He finally pushed away his bowl of chili and looked right at her. “What?”

  She frowned a little. “What have you been doing all these years, Logan?”

  “I told you. Consulting.”

  “For whom?”

  “You wouldn’t have heard of them.”

  “Try me.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, giving her words an entirely different meaning than she’d intended.

  The pupils of her eyes suddenly dilated, and she moistened her lips, looking away. “Is it in law? This consulting you do?” Her voice sounded a little strangled.

  “More or less.”

  She folded her hands together. “Are you trying to make me more curious about you, Logan? Or is this just all part of that hardness that you hide underneath a veil of civility?”

  Their gazes tangled, breaking only when the chatter around them suddenly ceased. Annie looked away from him, her cheeks flushed.

  It was Sam, now standing on a small riser, who had garnered everyone’s attention.

  Logan listened with half an ear as the sheriff read off a brief series of announcements that met with an equal number of groans from the residents. Most of his attention, however, was on Annie’s assessment of him.

  Coming from anyone else, it would have rolled off his back. From her, though, it didn’t.

  He heard Annie sigh when Sam was finished speaking. “I don’t know how to live without electricity,” she murmured.

  The ironies continued. “Fortunately,” he said, “I do.”

  * * *

  Annie’s curiosity where Logan was concerned was still unquenched when she tracked down her niece after dinner and steered her back to the beach house.

  Logan hadn’t accompanied them. She’d told herself she was glad. Once home, she lit several candles and started boiling water on the camp stove. If it took her all night, she was going to boil enough water to provide Riley and herself with decent baths.

  She learned a few hours later, however, that the fuel for the stove only went so far. Riley got her bath.

  Annie did not.

  Which meant that she had yet to fully wash away the grime from their efforts earlier that day on the Castillo property. With Riley’s help, she’d removed two flats of the small plants that had been beaten down by the rain so badly they’d barely clung to the soil. The flats now sat on the floor next to Annie’s couch.

  When the sun came up in the morning, she’d move them next to the glass door, to catch the light. Right now, they were warmer away from the window.

  Riley shuffled into the room, her hair hidden beneath a towel. “The candle in the bathroom’s going out. It’s burned down to nothing.”

  “Logan said he’d get more candles when he gets the batteries for your Walkman.” He’d disappeared after the community potluck dinner, saying only that he’d bring some supplies back to her house later.

  She wondered if that meant he intended to sleep here again.

  She wondered what she’d tell him if he did.

  “If there are any batteries and stuff left.” Riley’s glum voice interrupted Annie’s unnerving thoughts. “Everything’s getting used up so fast.”

  “Well, I can’t help with batteries. But I’m not worried about candles. We’ll pull them from the stock at the shop if necessary.” She studied Riley for a moment. “Guess you didn’t count on having to play frontier woman when you came here.”

  Riley snorted. “Just ’cause I wish we had the electricity back doesn’t mean I want to go home.” She crouched down next to the plants, pushing up the sleeves of the sweatshirt Annie had given her to wear; the supply of clothes she’d carried with her in her backpack had been meager.

  Since Annie wore her clothing too large in the first place, her niece was practically swimming in the garment. Without her customary globs of eyeliner and mascara and in the too-large sweatshirt, Riley looked just as young as she really was.

  Which was way too young to have made her way, alone, from Washington state to Turnabout. It was a miracle that she’d managed it without encountering any trouble.

  Annie swallowed down the panic over those awful what-ifs. “The Coast Guard will be coming by in the next day or two, Riley. The sheriff thinks he can arrange it for you and Logan to go with them to the mainland.” She moistened her lips. She hadn’t told Logan about her conversation with Sam, but he’d surely agree. “I think you should go.”

  “Fine. I’ll go to the mainland.”

  She pressed her hand against her midriff, willing away a surge of dizziness before it occurred to her—just as rapidly—that Riley’s answer had come entirely too easily. She narrowed her eyes, studying her niece’s stiff shoulders. “To the mainland—but not home.”

  Riley didn’t reply.

  Annie shoved her hair more securely into the clip at the back of her head. She sat down beside her niece, casting about for something helpful to say, some magic words to make every
thing right. “You know, Riley, there’s nothing you...can’t tell your parents...that you can’t tell me.” Maybe if she’d had someone in her life who’d seemed interested in listening to her, things for Annie might have turned out differently.

  Riley shot to her feet. “I’m going to bed.”

  Annie sighed. “Good night.”

  But the girl had already left the room. A moment later, she heard the bedroom door close.

  Feeling older than she ought to, Annie slowly stood. She went into the kitchen. Checked the phone even though she knew it was futile.

  Nothing but silence filled her house.

  Annie wasn’t one to constantly need the noise of a television or a radio around her. But still, the utter silence was unnerving, possibly because there was nothing to blot out the voices in her head.

  She finally grabbed one of the pots she’d used to boil water for Riley’s bath and stuck it under the tap, filling it again. She grabbed a towel and washcloth and a bottle of Island Botanica shampoo, and let herself out the rear door.

  Ahh, yes. The sound of the ocean, quiet though it was, filled the air. For a long moment she stood there on her deck and absorbed the peaceful sound, before carrying everything down to the fire pit. She made another trip back to the house, sorting through the wood pile for the driest pieces, which she also carried back to the pit. It took a few attempts, but she finally managed to get a flame going, and once the fire caught and burned brightly, she set the pot of water on the blackened grill that was suspended over one edge.

  She left the water to heat, and traipsed back up to the house. She filled the empty water jug, grabbed another towel and her robe, stuck some toiletries in the robe’s pocket, then stopped by Riley’s bedroom door. She knocked softly and when there was no answer, her heart jerked in her chest. Riley had been exhausted, she assured herself. She wouldn’t have sneaked out again.

  Still, Annie opened the door and peeked inside. Her niece was sprawled on the bed, face turned away from the door.

  Annie pressed her forehead against the door for a long moment, waiting for her heart to climb down from her throat. Then she started to close the door once more, but stopped. She set the water jug on the floor and went inside the room to carefully draw the quilt over Riley.