Chapter 6 #2
“Just doing my job. And it’s nice to meet you too.
This shop is amazing. You have beautiful taste,” she said, shifting her gaze to take in everything from wristlets and jewelry to shoes, dresses and bathing suits, all of which had pretty price tags she wouldn’t have blinked at in her old life.
But again, if staying in a beach hotel like this?
The price tags were nothing by comparison.
And, she noted, there were less expensive options offered as well.
Sloane liked that. Liked that Ana cared enough to offer something to every customer and not just a select few.
“Thanks. It’s a dream come true. So what are we celebrating?” Ana asked, staring up at Cole. “You were deliberately vague when you texted me.”
Cole pressed a kiss to the top of Ana’s head. “Sloane managed to do the impossible and get the computer back up. We won’t have to murder Gage after all.”
Sloane watched as Ana slid Cole a scolding glance, smiling all the while.
“I suppose that is cause for celebration,” Ana said with a grin. “I wasn’t looking forward to visiting you in prison. I called upstairs after you messaged me, and the dinner rush hasn’t quite hit yet, but we’d better get up there and claim a table.”
Ana left the boutique in the capable hands of her assistant, and the four of them headed toward the elevator, making small talk about the day. It wasn’t until they were inside the elevator that Sloane noticed the name of the hotel and felt the blood drain from her face.
How had she missed it on the drive up? Walking inside? Was she blind?
“Something wrong?” Gage asked, his gaze a little too inquisitive for her liking.
She shifted her attention away from the gold plaque above the numbered panel and pasted a smile on her face. “Not at all.”
So long as none of the Lachlans were around, that is. Surely none of them would actually be in town, right? At this particular hotel? Her luck couldn’t be that bad, could it?
The elevator doors opened, and as she’d suspected, Haven was as elegant and beautiful as the rest of the massive resort. And the view… The Atlantic sparkled in the evening light of the setting sun, the sky in the west a beautiful blaze of reds and oranges and pinks.
The hostess quickly led them to a table near the wall of glass, and despite the fact Sloane was in her work clothes and casual, she still fit in.
Sloane made a visual sweep of the room but didn’t see any familiar faces. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief. Her father and the Lachlans went way back as business associates and she’d spent more than a few charity dinners seated across from them, playing hostess after her mother’s death.
A waitress came to get their drink order, and Sloane felt Gage’s gaze on her as she fiddled with the napkin in her lap.
Despite only knowing him a matter of days, it was like he could read her, and she wasn’t sure she liked that feeling.
It put her off-balance and made her feel— Well, it made her feel a little too seen.
“So, Sloane, are you from North Carolina?” Ana asked. “Raised here? You don’t seem to have an accent, so I’m curious.”
Sloane shifted her attention to the other woman, her mind racing to come up with an acceptable response that wouldn’t urge her to ask more questions. “No. I’m a Midwest girl, but I’ve been a citizen of the road for a while. I consider myself to be from everywhere at this point.”
“I love to travel, but I haven’t done much of it,” Ana said. “I was a single mom for a long time and focused entirely on getting my business going. Where all have you been? Anywhere exciting?”
She realized in that moment that Cole hadn’t shared her entire situation with Ana, and while she appreciated that fact if for no other reason than she didn’t want to be known as the homeless woman, she also felt the pressure to respond. “Lots of places. Each town has its own vibe, you know?”
The waitress returned with their drink order, and Sloane practically melted in relief when the topic shifted to what they wanted to eat. She felt Gage’s steadfast gaze, and her pulse picked up speed even while she reminded herself questions were a normal part of table conversation with strangers.
People were curious as a whole. Just because she had a past she didn’t want to share didn’t mean Ana wouldn’t be interested in Cole’s new employee’s background.
Once the conversation turned to other topics, Sloane found herself compelled to answer Ana’s question. In a low voice, she said, “I lived in Maine for a bit and worked my way down the coast with a few zigs and zags this year until I wound up here. Nothing too exciting.”
“I think it sounds like quite an adventure,” Ana said, her gaze soft and sincere. “Good for you for being brave enough to travel alone. I’m not sure I would be.”
She’d never considered herself brave. Quite the opposite, in fact. Why else would she have spent the last several years on the run? Brave would have meant standing up to her father.
Yeah, she wasn’t brave. If anything, she was a coward because she couldn’t bring herself to take on her family. So she avoided them, and so far, it had worked.
As for traveling, she’d been a homebody before her mother died, but she’d had to conform and embrace the chaos of change. Being sent to a private school, coming home on weekends only. After losing her mother, she’d lost her home. Her family. The biggest betrayal of all, though?
Discovering her father and older siblings weren’t the men she’d believed them to be.
Topics around the table shifted often, and the Blackwell brothers then began discussing the potential hurricane.
Their food arrived, and Sloane dug into the best meal she’d eaten since leaving the comfort and security of her father’s affluent lifestyle and having a housekeeper and cook to handle such things.
Before long, she was stuffed full, her sweet tooth satiated, and attention once again shifted to her when their brother, the restaurant owner Elias, and his significant other, Quinley, joined them and another round of introductions were made.
“So where are you staying?” Quinley asked. “Somewhere on the island?”
Awkward silence descended over the table, and Quinley glanced at them, taking it in with a slight frown Ana matched.
“Yeah. I, um, I found a place on the island,” Sloane said, keeping it simple.
“The offseason is good for that. It’s so much easier to find something now than in the summer.”
“It’s temporary,” Sloane murmured. “I won’t be in town long. Just passing through.”
“Sloane got the computer program fixed today, though,” Cole said to the newcomers. “We’re celebrating.”
“They’ve had issues with it for weeks,” Ana stressed. “You really are a miracle worker, Sloane.”
The praise left Sloane smiling and feeling a flush rise into her cheeks. It felt good to succeed. To be useful and do her part. “It was a process, trust me. But fixed now.”
“Just in time for this hurricane,” Cole muttered.
“It’ll change course.” Quinley glanced up at Elias before sliding a look at Cole. “Positive thinking here, guys. We might get some wind and rain, but it’s going to miss us.”
“We still have to be prepared if it doesn’t.” Gage leaned back in his seat and placed his hand on Sloane’s chair.
He didn’t touch her, but she felt the warmth of his presence and fought off a shiver.
“We’ve got a lot of property to board up and transport to storage and that takes time. And a plan.”
“Especially when Hudson and Jameson will be training harder than ever with the fire department to prepare for the weather,” Cole said. “We’re down our usual manpower.”
“I’m happy to help,” Sloane said. “And I rescheduled a few of the nonemergency maintenance jobs today while I was on hold with the tech company. I’ll pitch in where I can. I mean, if there’s a hurricane coming, people aren’t going to be renting things out of the store, right?”
“You’d be surprised.” Gage released a tired sounding exhale. “The tourists tend to wait until the last second to evacuate so it doesn’t interfere with their vacation plans.”
“And then complain when they can’t get out of town because they’re fighting traffic from all the locals who had to stay and work and weren’t able to leave earlier,” Cole added.
“It’s always a mess,” Ana said with a grimace.
“So you don’t evacuate for hurricanes? Like, at all?” Sloane asked, glancing around the table in shock.
“Depends,” Elias said from where he stood to her left. “If you live on the coast long enough, you learn a few things. Like how a storm lands, whether it’s hitting along with certain tides, that sort of thing. It all factors into the severity.”
“Or you’re just crazy enough to ignore the warnings and stay anyway,” Quinley muttered, shooting her man a look.
“The category of the hurricane matters too.” Elias wrapped his arm around Quinley’s shoulders and tugged her close.
“And as one of the people required to work up until the last minute, I’d rather be hunkered down somewhere as safe as I can get here than caught out on a highway getting flooded when the system stalls and dumps its rain. ”
“We tried to evacuate in the last one, but I couldn’t find a hotel room or anywhere to stay within seven hours of here,” Ana said to Sloane. “My son and I thought about going to one of the shelters but figured we’d be more comfortable at home, so we just stayed there.”
The news left Sloane uneasy. She’d agreed to stay at Gage’s townhouse because it was better than sleeping in her car, but some small part of her still didn’t believe the hurricane would actually hit. Should she be evacuating instead? When would they know for sure where the storm would land?
“We’ll stay on top of the weather,” Elias said in a low voice as though reading Sloane’s thoughts. “Evac if we have to.”
We…
As someone who’d spent the last three years desperate to be as independent and far from her family as possible, she suddenly wished she wasn’t alone. Wished she had someone to lean on. To trust.
Because if Gage and the rest of them evacuated…where would that leave her?