must have been waiting just inside the door for the perfect moment to make her appearance. She had changed. Between seventeen and twenty-seven Danielle Hammond had grown into a copper-haired beauty with her mother’s willowy build and a tan befitting her Port Douglas, Queensland home.
Golden eyes welling with tears, she hurried over to embrace Kimberley with the same warmth as her mother and her own special brand of exuberance.
“You brought her,” Danielle said fiercely over Kim’s shoulder. “I will never doubt your genius again.”
“I’m only the chauffeur,” Perrini drawled, downplaying his role in the prodigal’s homecoming, “and the sometime porter. Where do you want me to take these?”
Kimberley saw that he toted her matched set of luggage, but before she could answer, Sonya stepped into her customary role as hostess. “Take them up to Kim’s room, please, Ric. You know where it is.”
How? Kimberley wondered, frowning. Afraid of awkward encounters with her father or her brother, she had never brought him home when they’d been lovers. They’d met at his house and they’d kept their relationship quiet at work for as long as they could. Yet out of all the bedrooms and suites spread through the mansion’s upper wings, he knew where to find hers?
He disappeared into the house with Sonya, and Danielle’s voice cut through her distraction. “How are you coping, Kim … or is that a stupid question?”
“I’m fine.”
Danielle’s eyes narrowed in a way that demanded the truth, and Kimberley decided that her cousin hadn’t changed so much after all. Up close she noticed that beneath the big smile and light sprinkling of freckles, Danielle’s complexion was blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed from crying. She had grown up in this house, too, with Howard a larger-than-life presence in her upbringing. She was more a Blackstone than a Hammond, although she’d struck out and started her own jewellery design business as Dani Hammond since moving to the tropical north of Australia.
“I can see that the Port lifestyle agrees with you, but how are you doing beneath the smile and suntan? Is everything working out for you?”
“Don’t change the subject,” her cousin fired back. “You’re the one under inquisition right now.”
“I told you, I’m fine,” Kimberley assured her, but tears were brewing in her eyes as she reached out to hug Danielle again. A couple of seconds was all she needed to restore her composure and in that time she realised that she’d spoken no less than the truth. Being here, with the people she’d grown up with—the people she loved—she was fine. “Has there been any more news?” she asked, straightening and wiping moisture from her eyes. Again.
“No … at least none that your brother is passing on.”
Kimberley stilled. “Do you think Ryan heard something he isn’t sharing?”
“I had that feeling but when I asked he just about bit my head off. I don’t know what’s going on with him, Kim. Oh, I know he’s shattered about his father, and this waiting around for news is so not his style. Mum told me he’s been trying to line up extra search aircraft and vessels, despite all that AusSAR is doing. That was after he went down to water police headquarters to demand full disclosure. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to get a spot on one of the search vessels, as well.”
Kimberley well knew of her brother’s tenacity. “That would have been interesting.”
“No kidding.”
“Do you think they told him anything new?”
Danielle released her breath on a heavy sigh that blew an errant curl from her face. “Honestly, I don’t know. He is just so antsy, I can’t help thinking there is more.”
“More than his father being missing and him stuck here unable to charge to the rescue?”
“I guess you’re right,” Danielle mused aloud, although she didn’t sound convinced. She tucked her arm through Kim’s and tugged her toward the front door. “Let’s go in. Knowing Mum, she will be putting together a late lunch for you and Ric as we speak. I bet you haven’t had anything to eat all day.”
“True, but food is the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Do try and have something if only to please Mum. Fussing over us all day is the only thing that’s keeping her together. Let her do the same for you.”
“I will, but there’s something I need to do first.”
“Ryan?” her cousin guessed astutely.
Kimberley nodded. Yes—Ryan.
Returning from his porter’s errand to the second floor, Ric was halfway down the ornate marble staircase that rose from the grand foyer when Danielle and Kimberley came through the front door arm-in-arm. But he only saw one woman.
Dark hair slicked back in an efficient ponytail. Green eyes so recently awash with tears now clear and sparking with renewed resolve.
She’d rebounded from the tearstorm. Good. Bringing her home had not only been necessary but also essential, for her, for Sonya, for all the family. And now that she was here, she was staying. Whatever it took.
“There you are.” Danielle released her hold on her cousin’s arm as Ric descended the last of the stairs. “I was just taking Kim out to the terrace to find Ryan.”
He knew this would be the difficult part of this reunion, hence the warrior-woman look on her face. “I’ll take her,” he said, smoothly stepping in to claim her hand. “Could you let Sonya know to bring our coffee out there?”
Danielle left them alone, but only after a raised-eyebrow look that took in his proprietary clasp on Kim’s hand and a murmured comment he lip-read as “Nice work.”
By the darkness that suddenly appeared in Kim’s eyes and the jerk of her hand against his, he gathered she didn’t miss that knowing look, either. “There’s no need to take me anywhere,” she said frostily. “I know my way to the terrace.”
“I didn’t imagine you wouldn’t.”
“Then let go of my hand. You’ve already given Danielle the wrong impression.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That being …?”
“Don’t pretend to be dense, Perrini. It’s not becoming.”
“Are you still hung up on what your brother thinks about us together?”
“Since we’re not together anymore, no.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And wasn’t it you who said this wasn’t about us?”
“Throwing my words back at me? That’s not like you, Kim.”
Her emerald eyes shot fire at him and she tugged harder at her hand. Ric didn’t let go. Instead he used the leverage to pull her closer, close enough that the flared skirt of her dress brushed his thighs and her eyes widened with apprehension. In the cool quiet of the atriumlike foyer he imagined he could hear the wild race of her heartbeat … or perhaps it was his own.
He
