Chapter 1 She Was Here
SHE WAS HERE
Thirteen Years Later
“We hope you enjoy your stay at The Bond Retreat. Looks like you’re here for a while.”
Arik Crest took the keycard for his room and slipped it into his pocket. “I’m sure I will,” he said.
He was booked for the month in a suite. It was still the off-season, being mid-March. Fifty degrees and cloudy, but the ferry ride over from Boston hadn’t been nearly as horrible as he’d thought it’d be.
Could he have stayed in Boston rather than on Amore Island? Sure.
But he’d been to enough big cities and wanted to give small town living a shot.
Island living on top of it.
And she was here.
He wasn’t sure where, but on this island, that much he knew.
He grabbed his two bags by the handles, pulling them toward the elevator. Not a ton of stuff for a month, but it wasn’t as if he was going too many places.
He could buy what he needed.
He’d been doing that for years.
Once the elevator hit the third floor, he got off and walked to his room, flashed the card and opened the door.
The first thing he saw was a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
Gloomy, mysterious, almost rough in the distance as if all its secrets were hidden well.
He loved it!
Once he pulled his eyes from the view, he looked around at the small galley kitchen on one wall, a four-person table, then a couch and two chairs with a mounted TV. A desk on another wall.
The door to his right had him popping his head in to see his room with the king sized bed facing the same view as the living room, the bathroom right next door to it.
He wheeled his bags in and sat on the bed, then lay back and stretched his arms over his head. This would do. Damn comfy too.
Might as well unpack before he tackled dinner. It’d be an early one, but he’d been on the road bright and early driving from Baltimore where he’d been visiting his grandmother.
Between the drive and waiting for the ferry, then the ride over, his travel time had almost two more hours tacked onto it.
Well worth it. Or so he was telling himself.
When the last of his belongings was put away, his phone rang.
He looked around and saw it on the table where he’d tossed it, noticed it was his grandmother calling, and answered.
“Hi, Grandma.”
“Did you get there okay?”
“I just finished unpacking and then will figure out food.”
“You made good time.”
“Good enough. Not something I want to do often.”
He could have flown in and rented a car, but it seemed crazy for him to do that and leave his vehicle at his grandmother’s.
It wasn’t as if he had his own place.
Stupid for someone his age, but he’d been living his life on the road for the past three years. More or less.
If he spent more than several months anywhere, he’d rent a house.
Ever since he hit it big and had the freedom to do whatever he wanted, he’d been struggling to figure out what that actually was.
Guess he got it from his parents, only in a different form.
“One of these days you’ll find your place,” Sophie Crest said.
“That’s the hope. Might depend on when I decide what I want to do with my life when I grow up.”
His grandmother laughed. “You grew up a long time ago. You had a path and you achieved it. Many never get to lay claim to that.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I did. Thanks to you.”
“You did it on your own.”
But not without her help.
Money she’d set aside in an investment. He gambled it with no one’s knowledge.
It paid off.
He did it a second time.
He scored again.
Risking a third time would be reckless when he had more money than he’d need in a lifetime.
Now he needed to find a purpose.
And if he couldn’t, he’d move on and try something else.
He’d been doing it for years. It wasn’t not working for him.
But he wanted something to stick, something to anchor him. Something that would make him plant his feet and finally say, this is it.
“We can argue that all we want,” he said. “But for now, I’m going to say I’ll win because I’m too tired from traveling and you’ll feel sorry for me if I whine.”
“Or tell you to cut the crap,” his grandmother said. “Because you’re a lot younger than me and I can out-whine you on just about everything.”
“You never complain.”
“Only about my son.”
If it weren’t for his grandmother, he wasn’t sure he’d be as sane as he was. Many would say he wasn’t even that.
“He’s not going to change,” he said.
“Nor will your mother.”
He hadn’t talked to either of his parents in a few months. Nothing new there.
They each had their own lives and partners. Most likely different from who they were with the last time he talked to them.
“Nope. And talking about them will put me in a worse mood when I’m so happy to be here.”
“How did you find out about that place?”
He wasn’t going to confess that now. No one needed to know, least of all the woman who’d been trying to get him to plant his itchy feet for years.
“I find lots of places in my free time. But in this case, I was watching a rerun of a reality cooking show one night.”
“You’re not trying to be a chef now, are you?”
He laughed over the exasperation in her voice. “No.” He was done with the cooking phase. Nothing he wanted as a career, but he’d spent a lot of time trying things for fun. “It was about wedding retreats and I looked into the places and discovered this island.”
He wasn’t lying.
His grandmother didn’t need to know that he’d thought of Natalie Bond for years and when he’d heard the place of business the head chef was representing, it’d brought back flashes of the college girl he’d once had his eye on.
They used to talk. They were friends. She didn’t want much more.
He was a senior, her a junior. She focused on school, not boys. He knew because he’d asked around and been told repeatedly she kept to herself.
But he’d never been able to get her out of his mind. And now, with the freedom to chase any dream whenever the mood struck, he found his fingers flying over the keyboard and searching for the island he knew she’d grown up on.
She wasn’t on social media that he could find, but he saw her name listed as an employee here. A manager. Director of Customer Relations.
He didn’t think her family owned the place, but what did he know? She hadn’t come across as someone who came from wealth. At least not the type of person who boasted of it like others on campus.
He didn’t care about those things.
All he cared about was seeing her again.
“You’re coming back for the wedding, right?”
He sighed. As much as he wanted to get out of going, he knew he wouldn’t be able to.
“I’ll be there.”
“I’m not sure why you couldn’t have just stayed here another two weeks. Now you’ve got to drive back.”
“I’m flying,” he said. “No way I’m driving that far for the weekend.”
It was less than two hours by helicopter and he’d scheduled it with Bond Charter for Friday night and they’d pick him up on Sunday. His preference would have been to fly in Saturday, but he was lucky he could get it on Friday.
He didn’t care about the cost; it was still much faster to take off from here than go sit in an airport and dread the return home for his cousin’s wedding and seeing his father with whoever might be hanging on his arm.
“You always did things your way,” his grandmother said.
“That’s right. Get that from you too.”
His grandmother laughed on the other end. “I’ll let you get on with your night.”
“Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
He hung up, slipped his phone and keycard into his pocket, and headed out in search of food. There were a few restaurants on the grounds, might as well try one before hitting the store to stock the kitchen.
The minute he got off the elevator, he took two steps out to see which direction to go for the more casual place. A burger would hit the spot.
“Can I help you find something?”
The voice he remembered from over a decade ago washed over his back, his blood gushing through his veins at torrential downpour speed and a smile filled his face as he turned. “Natalie Bond.”
Holy crap, was it really true about this island and fate? It had to be for him to run into her this early.
Her eyes searched his face, her smile mirroring his. The light in her gaze told him everything, warm and unwavering, he needed to know. He’d made the right call coming here.
“Arik, not with an E, Crest. Holy cow, what brings you to Amore Island?”
He wanted to say, “You,” but even he knew that edged a little too close to creepy.