Cantrel listened to his voice mail, but didn’t need to wait for the caller to identify herself to recognize Sandy Vale’s thick, Maine accent. It reminded him of lazy days at sea, erotic nights and stormy arguments. Odd, how they’d been so good in bed together, when the rest of the time all they’d done was fight. Travis hadn’t heard from her in years. In fact, ever since their breakup eight years ago, the few times he’d been back home, Sandy had conveniently disappeared. His sister, Ellie, and Sandy were business partners at the rundown marina they’d bought, but, although he and Sandy had had no contact in close to a decade, her tone of voice told him she was in a panic.
“Travis, Ellie’s in trouble. Get home. Now. And don’t bring in the authorities. Whatever you do, don’t do anything until we talk in person. Got to go.”
Travis didn’t wait to hear more. Although Sandy had called from a phone number he didn’t recognize, he called her cell, his stomach rising up to his throat. Sandy never panicked. Hell, she didn’t worry over the little stuff, or the big stuff. So if she was hysterical, Ellie must be… Had there been a car accident? Was Ellie sick? A million worries rushed through his head. Travis wasn’t just Ellie’s big brother. After their parents’ deaths in a boating accident—he’d been twenty-two, Ellie seventeen—he’d been responsible for her. Sure, she was all grown up now. But as he stuffed clothing and toiletries into a suitcase, his pulse sped like a skidding race car about to slam into a wall.
Why the hell wasn’t Sandy answering her phone? Why hadn’t she told him what was wrong in her message?
Travis kept calling during the taxi ride to the Newark airport, where he could hop a commercial flight to Maine. After finishing a job in Alabama, he’d flown into New York City for some R and R and to visit his friend, Ryker Stevens. So he was free to pick up and go. Not that his boss, Logan Kincaid, would mind. Family came first, and Ellie was Travis’s only family.
Travis called the Shey Group headquarters to let his boss know he was unavailable until further notice, and to ask for a trace on the phone Sandy had used. He found out the call had come from a pay phone in the back of a bar in the early hours of the morning. But why would she do that when she had a perfectly good cell phone?
Impatient for news, he called Sandy again just before his morning flight took off, and as soon as he landed at noon. He tried Ellie at home, at the marina and on her cell. No answer. Frantic, Travis rented a car and sped down the coast, cutting the two-hour drive to an hour and a half.
Normally he would have called the hospital, the police department, Ellie’s other friends. But Sandy’s warning made him wait. However, if Sandy and Ellie weren’t at the Bayside Marina when he arrived, he would ask Kincaid and the Shey Group for help.
Travis slid to a stop in the gravel parking lot of Bayside Marina. The newly painted sign, the trimmed landscaping and the new roof made the old place look more upscale. Ellie had told him about the retail store, but he hadn’t expected the parking lot to be so crowded. But it was Saturday afternoon, and tourists and locals alike would want to enjoy the summer sunshine.
Travis bypassed the impressive new store and headed for the marina’s office. Striding along the dock, he automatically took in the changes. Sandy and Ellie had added two new fuel pumps and several rows of slips. They’d purchased a new forklift, and one of the operators was in the process of moving a boat from dry storage to the water.
On a busy Saturday, Ellie was usually tuning up one of the boat engines. He and his sister shared an aptitude for all things mechanical, and he kept searching for her to pop up from an engine compartment, a smudge of grease on her cheek. But when he didn’t see Ellie anywhere, disappointment and worry slashed him. She wasn’t in the bait house, or directing traffic at the ramp, or at the tool shed.
Travis headed directly to the office. The old mahogany door sported new gold-leaf lettering that read Vale & Cantrel Enterprises, with operating hours posted right next to a plastic sign that said Closed. Travis knocked anyway. The girls often used the Closed sign instead of Do Not Disturb, which everyone ignored. Besides, he could see Sandy through the glass, her head bent as she perused assorted paperwork.
Sandy’s waist-length tresses were gone. Now, bright yellow sunglasses, worn above her forehead, held her shoulder-length blond locks out of her eyes, giving him a clear view of her face. Sandy wasn’t model pretty. Her mouth was a bit too full and her nose had a cute little bump where she’d broken it windsailing. Her flawless skin was sun-kissed and far too tan. Nevertheless, Sandy was the only woman he’d ever met who sizzled. She had this unexplainable electric energy to her that never failed to engage his senses—at full throttle. Long ago, the passion between them had been charged, but their arguments had been long, horrendous and ugly. Once, she’d been like a fancy-free flame that attracted him with her heat and brightness, but when he’d gotten too close, she hadn’t just scorched him, she’d burned him to the bone.
Nothing short of fear for Ellie could have brought him back. Bracing for bad news, stiffening his defenses against Sandy’s magnificent eyes—they changed color like the sea, from sparkling turquoise when she was happy, to kelp-green when her temper raged, he strode into the office.
A sixth sense must have told her he was at the door, because he’d no more than turned the knob before she’d shot out of her seat behind the desk and rushed to him, flung her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his mouth. A kiss that sent his senses spinning. A kiss that made the intervening years disappear with magic. A kiss that overloaded his pleasure centers and stole his breath.
Whoa. After eight years, this was not the reunion he’d imagined. No how. No way. Sandy might be one laid-back woman, but she could bear a grudge for a long time. After their last fight, he expected her to hold his words against him forever.
She tasted of salt and sea air and a citrus fragrance that reminded him of spiced lemons. And she fit against him just the way he remembered. Automatically, he raised his arms around her. Their tongues tangled, and in another moment she was going to find out that she still made all the blood in his brain flow south. But she pulled back, her eyes a tempestuous green, and placed a finger over his lips.
What the hell? She hadn’t spoken to him in years, then left a worrisome message on his voice mail, and now she didn’t want him to speak. Every brain cell cried out for him to ask about Ellie, but, as if reading his mind, Sandy shook her head.
“You still good with engines, Travis?”
Confused, his eyes narrowed. Sandy didn’t play games. She hadn’t placed a worried-crazy message on his voice mail without good reason. And from the tension in her shoulders to the tight grip of her hand on his arm, he knew something was wrong.
“You called me—”
“To fix a motor. Didn’t you say you needed a job?” Her eyes begged him to play along.
Job? They hadn’t even spoken. What the hell was going on here?
He shrugged to release the tension between his shoulder blades. “Yeah. I’m at loose ends right now. I could use some work, but I didn’t bring my tools.”
Relief warmed the chill from her eyes. She grabbed a sweater from a hook by the door. “Tools I can lend you. Can you start today?”
“Do I get time and a half?”
“That depends how good you are.”
“You know how good I am,” he bantered playfully, but if she didn’t explain soon, his teeth might crack from the way he was gnashing them. Accustomed to cloak-and-dagger stuff at work, Travis hadn’t expected
