the inside as well. Still, he smiled to imagine how Kelly, his seven-year-old daughter, would love to play here, in this strangely magical place, spinning the dreams and fantasies that came so easily to children.
Shay stormed out of Marvin’s office muttering, barely noticing Ivy, who sat at her computer terminal in the center of the reception room. “Bees…a half ton of sugar…that could kill me.…”
“Todd sold the house!” Ivy blurted as Shay fumbled for the knob on her office door.
She stopped cold, the storyboards for the outrageous commercials under one arm, and stared at Ivy, at once alarmed and hopeful. “Which house?” she asked in a voice just above a whisper.
Ivy’s aquamarine eyes were shining and her elegant cheekbones were tinted pink. “Yours—I mean, your mother’s. Oh, Shay, isn’t it wonderful? You’ll be able to clear up all those bills and Todd will make the biggest commission ever!”
Shay forgot her intention to lock herself up in her office and wallow in remorse for the rest of the afternoon. She set the storyboards aside and groped with a tremulous hand for a chair to draw up to Ivy’s desk. Of course she had been anxious to see that wonderful, magnificent burden of a house sold, but the reality filled her with a curious sense of sadness and loss. “Who bought it? Who could have come up with that kind of money?” she asked, speaking more to the cosmos than to Ivy.
Her friend sat up very straight in her chair and beamed proudly. “My brother, Mitch.”
Shay had a headache. She pulled in a steadying breath and tried to remember all that Ivy had told her, over the years, about her brother. He and Ivy did not share the same mother; in fact, Mitch and his stepmother avoided each other as much as possible. Shay had had the impression that Mitch Prescott was very successful, in some nebulous and unconventional way, and she remembered that he had once been married and had a child, a little girl if she remembered correctly. Probably because of the rift between himself and Ivy’s mother, he had rarely been to Skyler Beach.
Ivy looked as though she would burst. “I knew Mitch would want that house, if I could just get him to look at it,” she confided happily. But then she peered at Shay, her eyes wide and a bit worried. “Shay, are you all right? You look awful!”
Shay stood up and moved like a sleepwalker toward the privacy of her office.
“Shay?” Ivy called after her. “I thought you’d be pleased. I thought—”
Shay turned in the doorway, clutching the storyboards to her pale blue blouse. She smiled shakily and ran the fingers of her left hand through her hair, hoping the lie didn’t show in her eyes.
“I am happy,” she said. And then she went into the office, closed the door and hurled the storyboards across the room.
“Dinner?”
Ivy was clearly going to stand fast. “Don’t you dare say no, Shay Kendall. You wanted to be free of that house and Todd sold it for you and the least you can do is let us treat you to dinner to celebrate.”
Shay gathered up the last of the invoices she had been checking and put them into the basket on her desk. It had been a difficult day, what with the planning of the commercials and that salesman making his speech on the front lot. Of course, it was a blessing that the house had been sold and she was relieved to be free of the financial burden it had represented, but parting with the place was something of an emotional shock all the same. She would have preferred to spend the evening at home, lounging about with a good book and maybe feeling a little sorry for herself. “Your brother will be there, I suppose.”
“Of course,” Ivy replied with a shrug. “After all, he’s the buyer.”
Shay felt a nip of envy. What would it be like to be able to buy a house like that? For a very long time, she had nursed a secret dream of starting her own catering business and being such a smashing success that she could afford to keep the place for herself and Hank. “I have to stop by Seaview to see Rosamond on my way home,” she said, hoping to avoid having dinner out. “And then, of course, there’s Hank.…”
“Shay.”
She sighed and pushed back her desk chair to stand up. “All right, all right. I’ll spend a few minutes at Seaview and get a sitter for the evening.”
Ivy’s lovely face was alight again. “Great!” she chimed, turning to leave Shay’s office.
“Wait,” Shay said firmly, stopping her friend in the doorway.
Ivy looked back over one shoulder, her pretty hair following the turn of her head in a rhythmic flow of fine gold. “What?”
“Don’t get any ideas about fixing me up with your brother, Ivy, because I’m not interested. Is that clear?”
Ivy rolled her eyes. “Oh, for pity’s sake!” she cried dramatically.
“I mean it, Ivy.”
“Meet us at the Wharf at eight,” Ivy said, and then she waltzed out, closing Shay’s door behind her.
Shay locked her desk, picked up her purse and cast one last disdainful look at the storyboards propped along the back of her bookshelf before leaving. She tried to be happy about the assignment and the money it would bring in, tried to be glad that the elegant house high above the beach was no longer her responsibility, tried to look forward to a marvelous dinner at Skyler Beach’s finest restaurant. But, as she drove toward Seaview Convalescent Home, it was all Shay could do to keep from pulling over to the side of road, dropping her forehead to the steering wheel and crying.
Chapter Two
Shay Kendall looked nothing like her illustrious mother, Mitch thought as he watched her enter the restaurant. No, she was far more beautiful: tall with lush brown hair that fell past her shoulders in gentle tumbles of curl, and her eyes were a blend of green and brown, flecked with gold.
She wore a simple white cotton sundress and high-heeled sandals and when Ivy introduced her and she extended her hand to Mitch, something in her touch crackled up his arm and elbowed his heart. It was a sudden, painful jolt, a Sunday punch, and Mitch was off balance. To cover this, he made a subtle production of drawing back her chair and took his time rounding the table to sit down across from her.
Ivy and Todd, having greeted Shay, were now standing in front of the lobster tank, which ran the length of one wall, eagerly choosing their dinner. Their easy laughter drifted over the muted chatter of the other guests to the table beside the window.
Shay was looking out through the glass; beyond it, spatters of fading daylight danced on an ocean tinted with the pinks and golds and deep lavenders of sunset. Her eyes followed the gulls as they swooped and dived over the water, giving their raucous cries, and a slight smile curved her lips. An overwhelming feeling of tenderness filled Mitch as he watched her.
He had to say something, start a conversation. He sliced one irate glance in Ivy’s direction, feeling deserted, and then plunged in with, “Ivy tells me that the house I bought belonged to your mother.”
The moderation with which Mitch spoke surprised him, considering that he could see the merest hint of rosy nipples through the whispery fabric of Shay’s dress. He took a steadying gulp of the white wine Todd had ordered earlier.
The
