Annie's heart stopped beating for a second. “What kind of letter, Elmo?”
“You know the kind where the words are cut out of newspapers? It said, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID AND I'M GOING TO PROVE IT! I went by your house to see if you got one, and sure enough you did. I called Jane, and she got one, too. It isn't over, Annie.”
“All the letters in the world aren't going to change things, Elmo. Save yours and mine. Don't go to the police, though. Let's see what develops. How are the coffee bags coming along?”
“Shiny apple green bags with a daisy applique on the front and back. Very stylish-looking. I got the rough draft of it today, but the colors aren't true. Jane's well but worried now. I told her to stop, that I would do the worrying for all of us. I called Tom, and he's doing really well. He's walking almost a mile a day. He's definitely on the mend. Dogs are fine. Harry had the splats. That's under control. Rosie wants macaroni and cheese all the time. I tried giving her some of that Kraft stuff, but she walked away from it. Forget the dog food. They'll starve before they eat that stuff. Can't say that I blame them. It looks like rabbit poop to me.”
“I love you, Elmo.”
“Did you see that guy yet?” Elmo asked slyly.
“No, not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“What are you waiting for, Annie?”
“I don't know, Elmo. Maybe I'm scared he won't . . . be interested in me anymore. I was pretty nasty to him the last time I saw him. This isn't what you think it is. I have reservations about him. It's like he's this fancy-wrapped present in glossy paper with a shimmering gold bow. I don't know what's inside that box. My gut is telling me to go slow, to tread lightly, and to carry a big stick.”
“I guess it all makes sense in an Annie Clark kind of way. I can't believe I'm hearing this from you. Did you hear about that. new invention that's out now?”
Elmo loved gadgets. “No. What is it this time?”
“It's called the telephone,” the pharmacist cackled gleefully. “You pick it up, you dial a number, and you get to hear a voice.”
“Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.”
“You aren't getting any younger, you know. Annie, I'm worried about that Newman fellow.”
She was worried, too, but she wasn't going to admit it. “He's just spinning his wheels. Make yourself some breakfast and forget about it. I'm going to go to bed now and dream about covering my naked body with plumeria petals. Talk to you in a day or so, Elmo.”
But the moment she hung up the phone, she started to shake and couldn't stop.
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At six o'clock the following morning, Annie took the elevator to the garage level and drove her car out to the road. She'd asked for directions to Parker Grayson's house and the best way to get to the waterfalls the night before. She looked down now at the squiggly red lines on the map. A piece of cake.
The sun was high in the sky when Annie parked her car, kicked off her sandals, and made her way to the path that led to the falls. She was wearing the island dress Mattie had made her so long ago. She was going to sit in the carved-out rock and do nothing but stare at the shimmering falls. When she had her fill of the beauty and a few rainbows under her belt, maybe, just maybe, she'd make her way to Parker's house and knock on his front door. Maybemaybemaybe.
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Parker Grayson stormed out of the Aston Wailea. Once again he'd missed Annie Clark, and it was only 6:45
A.M.
“I just goddamn well give up. I'm going fishing. I'm going to get an egg sandwich and some bait and fish all day,” he muttered as he floored the gas pedal.
An hour later, the smelly bait in the back of his jeep was making him gag. The prospect of sitting in the hot sun fishing no longer held any appeal for him. Maybe he'd go to the rock behind the falls and sit. It was as good an idea as any that he'd had of late.
He parked the jeep in the quarry stone parking lot, entered the house, changed his clothes, slung a towel over his shoulders, and headed for the falls on foot.
The sun was high now. He'd never seen a rainbow
behind
the falls before. He wondered if it was an omen of some kind. He splashed his way over to the side and ran between the walls of dripping water. He stared at her, his gaze unbelieving, his heart thundering in his chest.
“What took you so long?” Annie drawled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Parker was too stunned to do more than stare at the woman clad in a rainbow-colored dress. His hands started to shake, the towel dropping to the ground. It was soaked in minutes. He needed to say something meaningful, something brilliant. “Sometimes I'm a little slow.” He winced at his sparkling repartee.
“Sit down,” Annie said, patting the stone seat next to her. “How have you been, Parker?”
“Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I wanted to call you a hundred times, maybe two hundred times. I'm sorry I didn't.” He was getting more sparkling by the minute. At least he wasn't grunting.
“I was wrong to say the things I said. Your life was none of my business. I'm sorry for that. The truth is, I'm embarrassed,” Annie said.
“No, you were right. Old traditions die hard. I thought I was doing what my parents wanted me to do. I tried to make it right. It took me a little while. I wanted to call you and tell you how it all went, but you were so vehement that day. I guess I thought you'd say something like, you know, too much, too little, too late. Kiki says it's never too late if you mean what you say. Thanks to you, I have a family again. You could have called me to tell me how you were or just to talk business, Annie. I spent hours, days, weeks, and months waiting for the phone to ring.”
“I wanted to call you. I picked up the phone a hundred times, maybe two hundred.” Annie smiled. “I guess I didn't want to hear you tell me to mind my own business.”
“We lost a lot of years, Anna Daisy Clark.”
“I know that, Parker Grayson.”
“I thought there was a rainbow behind the waterfalls when I first got here. I've done everything in the world to find you with the exception of calling out the National Guard. Today I finally gave up and came here to lick my wounds.”
Her hand was suddenly in his. It felt cool and soft. He inched closer. “I fell in love with you that day, Annie.”
“I fell in love with you, too, Parker.”
At least I think I did
.
“Does that mean we are
in
love, Annie?”
“I can only speak for myself. I am.”
Liar, liar, liar
.
“Me too. What should we do about it?”
“You think about it, Parker, while I go for a swim.”
Parker watched as the rainbow-colored island dress slithered to the ground. A second later, two pieces of lace sailed backward, and then she was gone, through the falls and down into the sparkling blue pool.
“My mother didn't raise any fools,” Parker muttered as his bathing trunks fell on top of the rainbow dress. He executed a perfect dive, slicing through the water and then rising to the top like a phoenix, his body glistening with diamondlike droplets of water.
“Great dive! I just jumped,” Annie said, treading water.
“As children we spent most of our days diving from the rock. You should see my sister Teke dive. She's good enough to be an Olympic champion. I was the worst compared to them.”
“A pity she never got the chance to do that,” Annie said.
“You're driving home a point, eh? You're right, though. Teke's son is following in her footsteps. He's a great surfer, too. He's one of the top three to surf the Banzai Pipeline. He wants to be a dentist.”
Annie laughed, then did a perfect jackknife, diving down into the crystal waters and coming up behind him. She reached for his head and pushed him under. They frolicked then like children until they were both exhausted.
“I think it's time to get out. Even my toenails are puckered,” Annie said. She had a bad moment when she realized she was stark naked. Being naked in the water was different from being naked and climbing up on a ledge with your butt in the air. “You go first,” she said magnanimously.
Parker laughed. “I'm a gentleman, first, last, and always. After you.”
Annie grimaced. “Then turn around!”
“Not in this lifetime. After you,” Parker said, waving his arm gallantly.
“I need a boost.”
Parker cupped his hands for Annie to step into. She did and then gave one kick that sent him flying backward into the pool. She scrambled upward, and by the time Parker made his way to the stone chair, she was dressed in the rainbow island dress. “Nice buns,” she giggled. “Turn around!”
“Cold water does . . . It isn't always . . . just you never mind, Annie Clark,” Parker said hoarsely.
“What should we do now? Shouldn't we be having adrenaline rushes and fast-beating hearts?.” Annie continued to giggle.
His bathing trunks secure, Parker reached for her hand and yanked her off the stone chair.
“Wherever are you taking me, Parker Grayson?” Annie asked coyly as she was dragged alongside Parker, her feet barely touching the ground.
“To my lair, that's where.”
On the last bounce before they arrived at the house, Annie managed, breathlessly, to ask, “Are you going to ravage and plunder me?”
“Yeah, twelve years' worth.”
The kitchen screen door banged shut, and she was suddenly being kissed like she'd never been kissed in her life. “When your teeth start to rattle, let me know,” Parker said as he came up for air.
“They're rattling.”
Annie felt herself being slung over Parker's shoulder for a bouncing ride down the long hallway to his bedroom, where he dumped her unceremoniously on his bed. “Get ready,” he said, dropping his bathing trunks.
“What . . . what happened to foreplay?” Annie squawked.
“That was foreplay back at the falls. This is
it!
”
“Well, I like . . .”
“God, you talk more than my sisters do. What do you like?”
She told him. “Of course if you can't . . .”
“I guarantee that I can.”
“Or my money back?” Annie said breathlessly.
“My guarantees are foolproof.”
“Prove it!”
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A long time later, Parker managed to croak, “Do you want your money back?”
“God, no. Tell me something. Can you do
that
again?”
Parker laughed. “Maybe in about three days. How about you?”
“At least three days.”
“At least we're on the same wavelength. I thought this day would never come.”
“I thought the same thing, Parker.”
“I want to marry you,” Parker said.
Annie leaned up on one elbow. She was tempted to say, but we hardly know each other. Instead she said, “I accept.”
Fool, fool, fool,
her mind shrieked.
“You do! When?”
“Whenever you want. I've had twelve years to think about this. I can be ready in six months.”
Annie Clark, you are out of your ever-loving mind. You don't love this man. Why are you doing this? Just so you can belong to someone. Uh-huh, all the wrong reasons.
“Six months is perfect. I have a harvest to get ready. Shall we have the wedding here in the islands?”
“I'd like that very much.”
“That means winter of next year, right?”
“Right. That kind of makes it eight months, though,” Annie said. “I have new stores to open, and I need to prepare for the selling end of the coffee: How does February of next year sound?”
“It sounds like a very long time. I can wait. Now, what about that six-month contract. I can't live with that, Annie.”
“I can come back and forth and you can come to Charleston or we can meet halfway. We won't be apart much. I think I can handle it. Can you? What do you mean, you can't live with it. It is what it is. I'm not changing my mind, Parker.”
“You have to change your mind. If we're getting married, we have to make decisions together. If you can handle the separation, then I can handle it. Will it be possible for us to live here on the island, Annie? I have to be honest with you. I don't think I could survive anywhere else. Those years away at school proved that to me. I'm an island boy through and through. If you want to live on the mainland, I'm willing to give it a try.”
Annie felt like she'd been hit in the gut. Deal with it now or later? Later would work. She needed to think. “I would love to live here part of the year. I'm not giving up my business, Parker. Or my dogs. The contract stands, too.”
“I would never ask you to do that. You aren't going to be working seven days a week, are you? I love dogs. But we have to change the contract.”
“No, the contract stays. Maybe two or three days a week. I have very capable people working for me. Tom can handle it just the way Kiki handles the coffee business. This is the best of all worlds if you meet me halfway. My business is mine, Parker, and yours is yours.”
“Maybe we could coax Mattie out of retirement, and, along with my sisters, they can teach you about the islands. If you want to learn, that is. No, no, Annie, it doesn't work that way. We have to
merge
. ”
“I want to learn everything there is where you're concerned. I want to know the man I'm marrying inside and outside. Up one side and down the other. But there won't be a merger.”
“There has to be a merger. Our attorneys can work it out. I guess that means no secrets if you want to know everything about me. That's okay, I don't have any secrets. As they say, my life is an open book. Much the way yours is. You don't harbor any deep, dark secrets do you, Annie?”
Annie felt her heart skip a beat. “Me!” She needed to back up here and straighten out the merger business right now.
“I have a few pet peeves or hates, whichever you prefer. One, I can't stand a liar. Two, I hate broccoli. Three, I don't like short hair on a woman. Will you let yours grow?”
Annie felt like her blood was freezing in her veins. “No. I like short hair. No merger and no extended contract. Why are you being so persistent about this? You're making me very uncomfortable, Parker.”
“Then I guess I'm going to learn to love short hair. You won't ever serve me broccoli, will you?” he said lightly. “I'm being persistent,” he said teasingly, “because I want us tied together. A union is a union. What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine. Fifty-fifty.”
She had to get out of there right now. Leave it alone and work it out later. Leave, you foolish girl. “I'll think about it.”
“Promise you'll never lie to me?”
Annie squirmed in the big bed. Her heart pounded in her chest. “I promise,” she said weakly.
“What about your pet peeves and hates?”
Annie shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“None?”
“I'm willing to accept you just the way you are,” she croaked. “Why can't you accept me the way I am? Why do we have to make promises? Why is that unity thing so important to you?”
“It's a quirk of mine. Do you have a problem with it?”
“People make promises in good faith and sometimes things go awry and a promise gets broken. One or the other party then gets upset. Tom and I used to do that, and invariably there were hard feelings. I'm one of those people who remembers things like that. So, to answer your question, yes, I have trouble with promises. I'm also having a great deal of trouble with your merger plans. I almost think you asked me to marry you for my business.”
“Okay, I just canceled them out,” Parker said airily.
“That's good, Parker,” Annie said, feigning sleep.
He's
lying
.
Annie lay quietly, her mind racing as she listened to Parker's steady, even breathing. What would he do if he ever found out she was a criminal? He'd dump her so fast her head would spin. Maybe this was all a big mistake. Maybe she needed to leave and forget about this man once and for all. If things were heating up back on the mainland, she needed to be able to cope with it. God in heaven; what if Parker was visiting and the insurance investigator showed up at her door? How would she ever explain that away?
Maybe I'm just not meant to be happy. Maybe this is my punishment for taking that money in the first place. If I'm stupid enough to
agree
to his little merger,
and I
get caught, that leaves him in control. Maybe he knows.
Annie looked around the room she would share with the man next to her if she did go through with the marriage. She thought she could be happy here in this land filled with sunshine and beautiful flowersâon a part-time basis. Could she love this man next to her into eternity? Even though her biological clock was ticking, she could still bear children. A son for Parker to carry on the Grayson family name and a daughter for both of them to love and cherish. A family. Her family. But it didn't feel right. Something was wrong. She just didn't know what it was.