Troubled Waters

by Susan May Warren

  Ian pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office, a nondescript, one-story brick building with a jail in the back addition. Across the parking lot, the EMS department with their two fire trucks and an ambulance had their three doors up. Five firefighters in turnout pants lounged on the cement outside the building.

  “Volunteers fresh back from the fire in Glacier. They’ve been on for thirty-six hours straight,” Sam said. “Probably waiting for a ride to their motel.”

  Sam got out of the truck and disappeared inside the building.

  Ian stood on the sidewalk, looking at the firefighters exhausted from fighting a losing battle.

  A couple of deputies came out of the front doors. “You want all of these unloaded, Mr. Shaw?” one of them asked.

  Ian nodded to the deputy as he unhinged his tailgate.

  They each grabbed a stack of boxes and headed inside.

  “What is this, Christmas?”

  Ian looked over to see Sheriff Randy Blackburn holding open the door for the deputies.

  In his early forties, he’d been serving the community for nearly a decade. Pensive dark eyes, a full head of dark hair, driven, and with the confidence of his community behind him, Blackburn had helmed the search for Esme in the early days, before funding had made him step back. But he now gave Ian a tight smile. “We’ll put the files in the cold case area, that way if Ella comes up with anything, she can access them.” He shook Ian’s hand. “I hear you’re thinking of moving.”

  “News travels fast.”

  “Overheard it at the Summit this morning from Brian McCullough.”

  Ian’s Realtor. He hadn’t even officially listed the ranch yet, but maybe putting feelers out, letting the news simmer in the valley, wouldn’t be a terrible thing.

  “It’s time,” Ian said.

  Randy nodded, his mouth a grim line. “We’ll miss you around here.”

  Sam climbed back into the truck as the deputies carried the last of the boxes inside.

  Ian slid into the driver’s seat.

  “We still on to spar?” Sam said.

  Ian glanced in the rearview mirror, to the empty truck bed, feeling strangely raw. “I’d love to beat the stuffin’ out of you.” Ian put the truck in gear.

  His phone rang as he pulled out, and he glanced at the name, then answered it on his console. “Hayes, what’s going on?”

  “Your girl Sierra just called me and invited me, this weekend, to a soirée on your yacht. What’s up, dude? You finally taking the dinghy out?”

  Ian glanced at Sam. “No—I mean, yeah, I’m letting Sierra use it for her fund-raising junket. But I know you’re busy—probably have a game, right?”

  “Happens that this is a bye week. I have the entire weekend off, and then some. Did you not see last Sunday’s game? I have an upper ankle sprain.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Naw, it’s good timing. Could use a few days off.” His voice changed. “Just clearing the air here, but she said she doesn’t work for you anymore. That right?”

  Ian took a breath.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Sam said.

  Ian looked at him, and Sam shrugged.

  A pause then. “Okay, then. Nice. Sorry to miss you. I’ll keep an eye on her for you.”

  Ian’s jaw tightened. The thought of professional football player Hayes Buoye keeping an eye on Sierra . . . “Hayes, it’s a professional trip. Try and keep that in mind.”

  “Oh, I will. I promise. All professional. For charity and all.” He hung up.

  Sam looked at Ian and raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s fine. Sierra’s met him before. Hayes is a nice guy, I promise. He’s . . .”

  “This is Hayes Buoye, with the Texas Thunder? Plays D-end? Led the league in sacks last year?”

  Ian swallowed. Nodded.

  “Nice. I’m suddenly thinking of taking a trip south.”

  “Under all that football arrogance, Hayes is a gentleman. Really. I went to college with him, and—”

  The phone buzzed again, and this time Dex Crawford’s name popped up on the screen. Sheesh. “Dex, what’s up?”

  “I just got off the phone with Sierra. She invited me on a three-day tour in the Caribbean on the Montana Rose. Told me it was a fund-raising trip. Seriously—this is how you’re going to get me to buy the boat?”

  “It is a fund-raising trip.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Dex—we need funds for PEAK. She’s going to hit you up for a donation, and you’d better have your checkbook ready and include a few zeros behind your comma. And yeah, buy the boat while you’re at it.”

  “We’ll talk about it while we’re sipping Mai Tais.”

  “I’m not going.”

  Silence.

  “Seriously, Ian. Three days on the ocean. The weather is going to be beautiful this weekend. You’ll be fine.”

  And this was where he wanted to take Dex off speakerphone. He didn’t look at Sam.

  “I know. It’s just . . . I’m busy.”

  He winced, one eye closed.

  More silence then. “Okay, no problem. I guess it’ll just be me and Sierra, sailing the high seas. You did mention she doesn’t work for you anymore, right?”

  Sam looked over at him, his eyes wide.

  “No, but—”

  “Awesome. See you, dude.”

  Dex hung up.

  Sam just stared at him.

  Ian stopped at the light.

  “You’re going on this junket, Ian,” Sam said quietly.

  Ian sighed. “I’m going on this junket.”

  She just had to escape Ian Shaw before she started crying.

  Because it wasn’t a joke.

  Ian Shaw was really moving.

  Out of her life.

  Away.

  Gone.

  Sierra stared at the newspaper available for sale at the snack stand at the regional airport, her throat thickening.

  Seriously, the sale of his ranch made the front page? What, was it a slow news day?

  “Anything else, ma’am?” This from the clerk as she rounded up Sierra’s order of a breakfast sandwich, a banana, and coffee.

  Yeah. Someone could shake Sierra hard out of this suddenly real nightmare.

  She took in a breath and picked up the paper. “I’ll add this to my order.”

  No time like the present to wake up to the brutal reminder that Ian never said anything he didn’t mean. Or put action to.

  “I should just leave.”

  She blinked against a swift heat in her eyes, paid for the breakfast, and tucked the paper into her satchel.

  She didn’t really have to read the article to know what it would say. Something about billionaire Ian Shaw selling his palatial residence, maybe a history of how he’d moved here nearly seven years ago, how he’d made his wealth in oil technology, how he owned a number of global businesses. It might even mention the fire in eastern Montana this summer and how the government fined him into liquid bankruptcy.

  But for sure, the article would detail his missing niece, how Ian had started PEAK after she vanished in the park.

  And probably how, after four fruitless years of searching, he’d decided to move away, the grief too great for him.

  She picked up her phone and scrolled down her messages, just in case.

  Still nothing from Shae/Esme.

  Sierra sat in a chair at the gate and opened her bag. Inside, her breakfast sandwich sat in a soggy, microwaved wrapper. She dug it out, opened it.

  The smell made her wrap it back up, her stomach turning.

  She got up, dropped it in the garbage, and retrieved the banana.

  “Boarding Sky Priority.” The flight attendant at the gate desk set down the mic, and Sierra checked her ticket. Zone one.

  The last time she’d been on a plane, it was aboard Ian’s jet as they’d traveled back from New York City after his near-fatal allergic episode.

  When she’d confessed that she was in love with him.


  No, she’d confessed that at the hospital. On the plane, she’d confessed that Esme had told her that she planned on eloping with her boyfriend, Dante, and swore her to secrecy. A secret that she’d kept from Ian the entire time he’d searched for Esme.

  Whether he’d heard Sierra confess her love, it didn’t matter then.

  To be honest, she didn’t blame him for firing her. Or wanting her out of his life.

  “Are you Priority?” a man said behind her, and she shook her head.

  Nope, never priority.

  He moved past her.

  And sure, she and Ian had kissed—but that had been a sudden rush of emotion just as consuming as the first kiss, which had been fueled by the alcohol he’d consumed.

  Loving him was some kind of addiction she needed to escape.

  She dropped the newspaper into the garbage.

  The line ebbed, and the flight attendant called her zone.

  She would escape him, starting with this trip. Just because she happened to be on his yacht didn’t mean she had to think of him every minute.

  Long for him to be sitting on the deck with her, watching the sun sink into the ocean.

  Wish that she could turn back time, tell him the truth . . .

  Oh boy.

  She glanced at her phone as she handed her ticket to the flight attendant.

  She should call him, tell him about Esme, but it felt like an in-person conversation. Maybe the phone was easier. At least then she could hold it away from her ear. Fact was, she had actually driven to his house earlier this week to reveal Esme’s whereabouts, but no one answered the doorbell.

  He might be avoiding her—the fact that he hadn’t shown up once at PEAK surely suggested he’d planned on remaining scarce until she left town.

  Clearly her words—I don’t need you—had sunk in.

  Oh, but . . .

  She sighed as she shuffled onto the tiny plane and found her seat. She’d change planes in Salt Lake City and arrive in Houston sometime late this afternoon. From there, she planned on renting a car to Galveston.

  Sierra tucked her bag under the seat and stared out the window.

  The sun was just rising over the far eastern rim of mountains. The firefighters must have some of the fire contained because the sky appeared less ominous today, the smoke wispy and feeble.

  A middle-aged woman flopped down in the seat next to her, wearing an oversized University of Minnesota sweatshirt, leggings, and flip-flops. “Hey,” she said, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. “Too early for a flight.”

  Sierra nodded. She still couldn’t believe she’d planned an entire three-day, high-end excursion in a week’s time. Thankfully, Chet let her raid their tiny fund-raising nest egg, and Ian called the captain, authorizing her to use the crew. She’d emailed the menu to the chef, talked with the captain about the itinerary, and put together an activities list.

  Jet-skiing, snorkeling, dinner on the deck at sunset, plenty of time for her to tell Dex, Hayes, and Vanessa stories of PEAK’s exploits. She still couldn’t believe the three had agreed to join her on the junket—especially Vanessa, who sounded enthusiastic, even after Sierra stressed that Ian wasn’t attending. But Vanessa was a part of Ian’s college group, knew Dex and Hayes from their Stanford days.

  Maybe she wanted to catch up with her friends.

  Frankly, she didn’t even sound that surprised to receive Sierra’s call.

  The woman next to her was on the phone. “I just wanted to call to say good-bye again.” Her voice shook, and Sierra saw her run her fingers under her eye.

  The woman hung up. “Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s my mother. She’s all alone, and I hate leaving her, you know?”

  Yeah, she knew. Sierra thumbed her phone. Pulled up Ian’s contact almost on reflex.

  She’d loaded in a picture of him, from years back, before Esme moved in with him.

  Ian wore a black T-shirt, his biceps stretching out the sleeves, a chestnut two-day beard on his chin, and a crooked smile.

  “C’mon, Sierra. It’s Friday. Stay for a burger. I have this gorgeous view of the sunset. Don’t make me spend it alone.”

  It started with him standing in the kitchen, screwing off the top of a bottle of water. He’d been barefoot, she remembered that. He worked the ranch sometimes back then, but he’d changed and showered, smelled clean and wild and masculine.

  She’d worn a sundress she’d picked up at a thrift store, a jean jacket, and her hair tied back in a bandanna, and still felt underdressed because of the way he could make a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt look expensive and high class.

  The prince asking Cinderella to dine with him.

  She’d stammered out something incoherent about needing to get home, and he’d come up to her, hooked his hand around her satchel, and pulled it off her shoulder.

  “Watch the sunset with me. It was your idea, after all, to enjoy the view.”

  Oh, she was certainly enjoying the view.

  Somehow, she’d ended up on the deck, watching him grill burgers, pretty sure that she shouldn’t be mixing this kind of pleasure with work. And knowing that if she kept it up, she’d be in way over her head.

  She’d pulled out her phone to text Willow that she’d be late, and Ian came over. “Hey, let’s get a picture.”

  She frowned at him, but he motioned her over, took her phone from her grip, held it up.

  Then he’d put his arm around her and held up the phone to snap a selfie.

  And there she was, cradled against his body, his rugged, elegant smell rushing over her, the feel of his muscled arm against her back.

  Ho-boy.

  Ian sent the picture to himself and handed her the phone back. “Thanks for staying for dinner,” he said. “I hate eating alone.”

  Later, she’d cropped herself out of the pic, set it as his contact avatar.

  Better, their Friday night dinners became a tradition. Almost like a date.

  She pressed her fingers against the rim of her eyes. Blinked away the moisture.

  He deserved to know the truth about Esme. Right now.

  She pressed dial.

  “Ma’am, our doors are closed. Please put your phone away.”

  Sierra looked up to see the flight attendant standing in the aisle, her dark eyebrow raised.

  “Right. Sorry.” She shut the phone down.

  Okay, so she’d call when she landed in Salt Lake.

  And she would have, had the flight not been delayed by a storm, had she not been forced to sprint to her next gate. And had the storm not followed her to Houston. She picked up her car in the rain and got snarled in traffic running south on I-45 to Galveston. An hour trip had turned into three by the time she pulled up at Pier 23, the marina where Ian moored his yacht. Thankfully, it had stopped raining, something she hoped boded well for their trip.

  Darkness settled over the docked boats as she wheeled her suitcase down the wide dock, her phone flashlight winking off the numbers. It seemed everything from sailboats to waverunners to fishing boats moored here.

  Slip 45. Her suitcase clunked over the boards, and she slowed as she came to the end of the pier.

  Oh. My . . . What?

  Ian didn’t have a yacht. He had a yacht. The Montana Rose took up the entire end of the dock, tied at bow and stern. She gleamed under the tall dock lights. Four decks, with a communications tower and a lift off the back. The windows shone in the darkness, eyes peering out to sea, as if in anticipation.

  A gangplank balanced between yacht and dock, and she approached it.

  “Are you Sierra Rose?” A voice called out to her in the darkness, and she directed her light toward it.

  A man about her age lifted his hand to protect his eyes. He wore a pair of khaki shorts and a dark collared shirt, and grinned at her.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  He came across the gangplank, jumped down onto the dock. “Kelley Storm, bosun and purser for this trip. The captain asked me to meet you. You�
��re late. You okay?”

  “Traffic.”

  “Oh, it’s terrible coming down from Houston.”

  From her quick glance, he looked blond, tanned, and very capable of helping her aboard.

  He picked up her suitcase, offered his hand.

  Oh. Well. She took it and he led the way onto the yacht, set down her suitcase, and helped her onto the deck. “It might take you a day to get your sea legs, but we don’t shove off until tomorrow afternoon, so you should be used to it by then.”

  The boat listed gently in the waves, the briny smell of the sea stirred by the balmy wind. The stars arched overhead, flung over the dark expanse of the sea.

  The sea. She drew in a breath. She’d never seen the sea.

  “Of course, it’ll be a little rougher when we’re underway in the gulf—we’re in the channel right now. But Captain Gregory will brief you. Let’s get you settled in.”

  He held out his arm as if she needed steadying, but she shook her head.

  Kelley led the way through double glass doors to the salon. An enormous U-shaped sofa was tucked into a wide nook on one side of the room. A giant flat-screen TV hung on the opposite wall. The teakwood trim gleamed, the room smelled of polish and flowers, and a giant vase of lilies had been placed on an oval teak table set for eight.

  “We put you in the room adjoining the main deck stateroom. I know you asked for crew quarters, but we are full up, so the captain suggested the study. I hope it will do.” He angled her past the kitchen, down the hall, and opened the door to what looked like an office, sans desk, but with books lining the teak shelves. Ian’s study, most likely. A picture of the Glacier National Park mountains was affixed to the wall over what looked like a Murphy bed made up with fluffy white pillows and a comforter.

  She wouldn’t perish here. She’d stepped into a world of opulence and fairy tales.

  “The head is here,” Kelley said, opening the door to a tiny bathroom with a toilet, shower, and sink. “It’s rather small, but—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She’d forgotten, really, how wealthy Ian was, with him down home on the ranch. But the man had flown her to New York City for a day in his private jet.