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“And I see the way you look at him.”
“Maybe that’s why my breakup isn’t as painful as it should be,” she said. “I’m infatuated with someone else.”
“Infatuatedis an interesting word choice.”
“It happened so fast. What else could it be?”
“Maybe it’s chemistry,” he said. “Fate. Destiny. Kismet. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Whoa!” She put up a hand in the classic stop position. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“He’s single. You’re single.”
She raised her eyebrows. “He lives on the east coast. I live on the west coast.”
“Is that a deal killer?” he asked.
She didn’t get a chance to respond before her phone went off. She looked down at it. “Damn.”
“That’s Remy?” he guessed.
She nodded.
“Are you going to take his call?” When she’d told him about the duffel bag, she’d finally told him that she’d caught Remy with another woman. “After what he did, you don’t owe him anything.”
“He’ll be coming here soon. I won’t be able to avoid him indefinitely.”
“You can avoid him until then. Even after he arrives, it doesn’t have to be terrible. A lot of people come to the island. We’ll be fine here, minding our own business, until Honey gets back. Then, if there’s much summer left, we can see if there’s somewhere else to stay for a while or you could go back to California, and I could go back to Utah.”
“Sounds good. Regardless, I’m not going to let him ruin this day.” She silenced her phone before giving Jack a grateful smile. “When I invited you out here, I didn’t realize how important it would be to have you around.”
He smiled. “Somehow, we’ll both be okay—eventually,” he added with a laugh.
27
Bo woke to the sound of his phone going off. He’d had to schedule his flight to Louisiana, so he hadn’t been napping long. But once he closed his eyes, he’d dropped into a dreamless sleep and felt lethargic, almost drugged, as he was jolted into consciousness by the jingle of his phone. He assumed he’d overslept, that it was Ismay or Jack calling to ask where he was. But when he grabbed his phone off the nightstand, he saw that it was Annabelle Windsor.
No doubt Bastian had called his mother and said Bo had used his key to enter the cottage in the middle of the night with a baseball bat. Bo hadn’t actually planned on hitting anyone with that bat. He didn’t need a weapon to take care of Bastian if it had come to that.
But, of course, Annabelle wouldn’t know his intentions at that moment. Fortunately, she didn’t know his background, either, or she’d be even more upset.
Trying to rid his mind of the cobwebs so he could think straight, he got up as he hit the answer button. He didn’t want to sound as though he’d been sleeping. He put in plenty of hours—he didn’t owe the Windsors every second—but Annabelle was off-island and had no idea how hard he’d worked to fix all the storm damage.
“’Lo?”
“Bo?” she said, her voice full of alarm. “What’s going on? Bastian said you threatened him with a bat last night!”
Bo rolled his eyes. “I didn’t threaten him. There’s been a lot of drama since he arrived. It was to helpavoida fight, not cause one.”
“With Bastian?” she said, sounding properly horrified.
“I think he was on something last night. He was acting erratic, scaring Ismay. She texted me in the middle of the night, saying she didn’t feel safe, and I helped her get out of the situation.”
Silence.
“Mrs. Windsor? I knew you wouldn’t be happy about what happened, but if Bastian had hurt Ismay, whether he truly meant to or not... Well, I would’ve felt responsible if I could’ve done something and didn’t.”
“I see,” she said, suddenly much calmer. “Ismay is with you, then?”
