2. Owen
OWEN
Owen stared at the wooden table, his mind scrambling to catch up with the sheer speed of the last forty minutes. Seeing Gill step through the beach house door had hit him like a physical blow, scattering his thoughts into a chaotic haze.
His gaze flickered to her, tracing the quiet, familiar slope of her shoulders. She sat next to Baxter, her posture tense, leaning subtly into the developer’s space as if seeking a shield. Owen's jaw tightened. How on earth was she here? What was she doing with a slick operator like Baxter Johnson?
Just under an hour ago, he had been walking down the sunny sidewalk with Isabel, his fingers laced with hers, his thoughts light.
Then the world had tilted. He remembered the sudden freeze when they spotted the figures in the alleyway, the frantic look on Maggie's face as she scrambled backward, and Michael charging across the street to cut off Debbi Wineberg and Baxter.
The moment Debbi’s eyes had locked onto his, Owen had felt a wave of cold disgust wash over him.
She had pitched her voice low, using his first name like an intimate caress, trying to tether him to her in front of everyone.
He had grabbed Isabel's hand and hauled her away, ready to pack his bags and leave Sweet Blossom Bay behind if it meant keeping Debbi out of his life. He wanted no part of her venom.
But Michael had caught up to them, redirecting them straight to the beach house. Then Anna had walked in with her solemn warning, followed immediately by Gill.
Owen looked at Gill again. For ten years, he had carried the heavy, quiet grief of their ruined Charleston dig.
He had loved her. He had watched his academic reputation burn to protect her from Debbi's vindictive plagiarism charges, and he had spent a decade believing a piece of his heart remained buried in those South Carolina ruins.
He knew she would always hold a permanent place in his memory.
But as he sat there, feeling the solid, real warmth of Isabel’s hand gripping his beneath the table, Owen realized something profound. The old, agonizing ache he had carried for Gill was gone. The lingering pain had dissolved, leaving behind only a quiet, respectful nostalgia.
It was Isabel's presence beside him that stabilized his nerves now. Her fierce loyalty, her sharp mind, and the simple touch of her fingers were what made his pulse race with genuine hope.
Still, a knot of discomfort remained in his throat as he watched Gill and Baxter.
Even knowing Baxter was acting as Darius’s deep-cover spy, Owen found the developer's protective stance over Gill incredibly difficult to stomach.
There was far more to Baxter than he had initially assumed, but seeing him play the protector to the woman Owen had once loved felt entirely wrong.
"Getting back on topic," Baxter said, clearing his throat to pull the room's drifting attention back to the center of the table. "I, playing the part I had to play, invited Thompson out for dinner, letting him know I was partial to hearing what he had to say."
"And Thompson didn't show up alone," Darius chimed in, leaning his arms on the table.
"No, he didn't," Baxter agreed, his expression turning grim.
"At that dinner, I was introduced to Debbi Wineberg.
It became immediately clear within the first ten minutes of our conversation that Debbi was hunting for a solid corporate alliance with a member of the Wayne family, and I quickly became her main focus.
She spent the entire evening trying to gauge our development pipeline. "
Darius picked up the thread of the story, his fingers tapping a slow rhythm against his coffee mug.
"When the commercial site we'd purchased in Charleston finally broke ground, we were barely a month into the initial grading when the excavation crews hit a massive underground brick drainage system from an undocumented eighteenth-century colonial pottery works.
The state immediately stepped in and froze our structural permits. "
"That was my cue," Baxter said. "Knowing Debbi would try to use her local historical board connections to squeeze us, I bypassed the standard municipal channels and made direct contact with Dr. Anna Caldwell."
"Dr. Wineberg tried to interfere, of course," Darius told them, a sudden, sharp grin spreading across his face.
Owen heard Isabel sigh softly beside him before she asked, "What is that grin about? What did you do?"
"You know me so well, Issy," Darius said, his grin widening.
"The exact time Baxter moved to Charleston was when I was negotiating to buy this beach house.
I already knew there was a high probability of finding major Calusa artifacts around this part of the bay.
" He glanced across the table at Anna, who offered a soft, quiet smile.
"Before Baxter ever set foot in South Carolina, Darius had already contacted me," Anna told the group, her voice low and steady. "He had heard through academic circles that I was the archaeologist who made the initial claim about the Calusa settlement on Sanibel decades ago."
"I helped Anna set up a bogus land survey," Darius told them proudly.
A collective gasp went around the table. Owen felt Isabel's hand tighten in his, her fingers turning cold. While most of the family had known about the survey, none of them had known this specific, calculated piece of the puzzle.
"She confirmed exactly what I suspected," Darius added.
"So..." Penny’s eyes narrowed as she processed the timeline, her gaze flicking between the two men. "You were already actively thinking of backing out of the Hearts Hotel acquisition project before we even finalized the initial corporate bids?"
"Yes," Darius and Baxter said in unison.
"I was already trying to figure out how I could help boost the tourist trade here without letting the corporate board bulldoze the island's history," Darius confessed, his expression turning unusually serious.
"I wanted to see Sweet Blossom Bay as alive and preserved as it was when Isabel and I would come here with our parents as children. "
Isabel turned a searching look toward her brother. "So you really didn't know about our parents' secret trust set aside for the bay?"
"No," Darius answered honestly, shaking his head. "It was a pleasant surprise."
"It certainly didn't look like you were pleased when the legal paperwork surfaced in the lobby," Isabel pointed out, her tone dry.
"I had to stick to the plan, Issy," Darius told her.
"Which was..." Isabel prompted, giving him a sharp, sideways glance.
"We're getting there," Darius said with a mischievous wink.
Owen watched the exchange, a small, quiet sense of relief settling behind his ribs. Isabel absolutely despised unnecessary suspense, and Darius was clearly taking full advantage of the moment to tease his younger sister.
"When Anna's initial survey data came back, confirming a high density of pre-Columbian deposits," Darius said, leaning forward to look at Isabel and Owen, "I knew the traditional development model was dead in the water.
I had to look for alternative plans for Sweet Blossom Bay, but I was at a loss.
The board was pushing hard for a luxury, high-density resort footprint, and I didn't have the leverage to block them yet. "
Darius took a slow breath, his voice softening slightly as he looked at his sister.
"I took Anna out to dinner at a quiet spot on the mainland to thank her for her professional consultation.
That was the night I found myself telling her about our parents—about how the four of us used to spend our summers down here.
I told her how much the local character of the bay meant to us. "
"And I told Darius that I already knew that," Anna said, her gaze steady as she looked across the table.
"I knew your parents, Isabel. We had crossed paths down here decades ago when George and I were first building our lives on the key.
Darius and I sat chatting for hours that evening.
He told me, right then and there, that he was going to figure out a way to save Sweet Blossom Bay and the hotel from being bulldozed by corporate interests. "
Anna's expression turned grave. "But I had to warn him. I told him he had to be extremely cautious because there was another aggressive entity silently moving on the project."
"That's when Anna told me about Hyrum Wineberg," Darius said, his jaw setting into a hard, rigid line.
"And how he had set his sights on the key.
We traced a web of offshore shell corporations targeting the hotel's outstanding debt, and several of them led directly back to South Coast Hotels, a firm Hyrum heavily controls. "
"They were targeting the key for revenge," Baxter added, his voice low and serious. "The conflict isn't just commercial; it's deeply personal. Anna was supposed to marry Hyrum decades ago, but she refused to accept the arranged marriage their families tried to force on her."
"When I married George instead," Anna said solemnly, "Hyrum was absolutely furious. He made it his life's mission to use his family's vast legal and financial resources to crush us, to ruin George's business, and to bury my academic research. He has carried that bitter grudge for forty years."
"But it's not just about an ancient family vendetta anymore," Darius told them, his analytical eyes scanning the room.
"The Winebergs want Sweet Blossom Bay because of its highly strategic, isolated position along the channel. It’s the perfect logistical hub for their less-than-legitimate commercial shipping and import businesses—enterprises they currently can't easily run on the mainland due to the heavy presence of established shipping syndicates that strictly control those regional corridors. "