Hard Choices. Allison Leigh

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      Sitting atop the clear glass shelves were their trademark green glass bottles, jars and matching tubes. A person could get almost everything from tonics to perfume at Island Botanica, and all of it was made right there on Turnabout Island. She turned a bottle so the silver print on the narrow ivory label could be seen more clearly and dashed her rag over a fingerprint smudging the shelf.

      She glanced through the windows lining the front of the shop, glad to see the sidewalk was still dry, then looked up at the dark clouds in the sky. If it hadn’t been the middle of the week, she suspected that the threatening weather would have chased off any prospective customers, anyway. There was a storm moving in, no doubt about it.

      Turnabout Island often had drizzly days, and the climate was ideal for the fertile fields that supplied the shop. But it wasn’t all that often they had such threatening clouds hovering overhead as they’d had for the past several days.

      The clouds had rolled in the same day Riley had arrived. Annie had been a mess of nerves, dread and euphoria ever since. Her niece had run away from home, but instead of disappearing completely, she’d come to Annie.

      Annie still didn’t really know why.

      She twisted the cloth in her hands, turning toward the door as she heard the soft, tinkling bell that signaled someone entering. Her gaze had barely caught a glimpse of height and gleaming brown hair when Riley came in from the back.

      “Auntie Annie, I’m finished with the—” Riley’s voice stopped cold.

      Annie glanced at her. “Great, Riley. Thanks. Just sit tight for a minute while I take care of—” Her own voice broke off at the sight of their visitor. Her foot fell back a step and she bumped into one of the display cases after all. Bottles jangled ominously but she was so rooted in shock she didn’t even reach back to steady them. “Logan?”

      “I warned them,” her niece said, lips tight. “I warned them not to come after me. So he sent you instead. I’m not stupid, you know. I recognize you from Mom and Dad’s wedding pictures.”

      The man drew his eyebrows together as he continued watching Riley. “Excuse me?”

      Riley didn’t lose her mutinous expression.

      Annie felt as though her jaw must be near the floor as she gaped at the incomer. “Logan,” she said again. “Logan Drake?” It had been years since she’d seen him in the flesh. Years. She’d believed that he’d lost touch with Will shortly after Will and Noelle got married. And even though Sara had spoken of him from time to time, the sight of him was still like a flashback to another life. Another time.

      Another Annie.

      Finally, the man looked from Riley to her. “Hey, Annie.” The corner of his lips tilted and a fine spray of lines crinkled out from the corners of his unforgettably blue, thickly-lashed eyes. “It’s been a long time.”

      Annie’s stomach dipped and swayed. She wasn’t sure who unnerved her more. Riley or Logan, who clearly wasn’t surprised to see her. “A long time,” she agreed faintly.

      “You’re a friend of my dad’s,” Riley accused.

      “Who’s your dad?”

      Riley crossed her arms and stuck out her chin.

      Annie started to push back her hair, realized she was still holding the dust cloth, and dropped it on the counter next to the cash register. “Logan—” even saying his name aloud felt odd “—this is m-my niece, Riley.”

      “Will’s daughter?” Logan looked at the teen again. Assessing. “No kidding. Is he on the island, too?”

      Riley rolled her eyes.

      “No.” Annie quickly stepped closer to her niece. She didn’t entirely trust that Riley wouldn’t bolt. And though Annie knew the girl couldn’t get to the mainland from the island as easily as a person could hop a bus out of an ordinary town, she didn’t want to take any chances. She wanted Riley to go home, not run away again somewhere she couldn’t be found at all. “He and Noelle still live in Washington state,” she told him.

      Then she looked at Riley, speaking quickly before whatever was forming on her niece’s lips could emerge. “This is Logan Drake. He might be an old friend of your dad’s, but he’s also Sara’s brother. I…I’m sure he’s here to see her and Dr. Hugo. He’s from Turnabout. Isn’t that right, Logan?”

      His half smile didn’t waver. “I grew up here,” he confirmed.

      “Bet you couldn’t wait to leave it. There’s hardly anything to do here, you know, even if it is part of California. There’s, like, only five cars on the entire island. It’s boring as hell.”

      “Riley!” She sent Logan an awkward smile. It was true that Turnabout was not a large island. Situated well off the coast of California, it was barely eleven miles long and less than half that wide, with a single road almost exactly bisecting the island down the length. Annie didn’t own a car. Most people on the island didn’t and instead walked, rode bicycles, or occasionally zipped around in golf carts.

      “Sara’s in San Diego for the week, I’m afraid,” Annie finally said. “She, uh, she didn’t say she was expecting you home.” Truth be told, Sara rarely talked about Logan anymore, and when she did it was to speculate over the source of the money he seemed to have—evidenced by the generous checks he’d occasionally send Sara’s way—or, more commonly, to bemoan his long absence.

      That half smile of his, little more than a quirk at the corner of his lips really, hadn’t moved. For some reason, it made her uncommonly nervous.

      “She didn’t know I was coming to visit,” he said.

      She understood his clarification. He wasn’t home. He had no intention of staying. Though why he felt the need to clarify himself escaped her. It wasn’t as if he was there to see her. She knew good and well what his opinion had been of her. There were some things that were not in her memory banks from sixteen years ago, but his opinion of her wasn’t one of them.

      Before she could stop the nervous gesture, she’d run her fingers through her hair. “Well, like I said, Sara is away. Riley and I were just heading over to Maisy’s Place for lunch. You’re welcome to join us.”

      He looked at her thoughtfully and she swallowed. What was she doing? She didn’t ask men out to lunch, or to anything else, for that matter. Not anymore. Not even one on whom she’d once had an unrequited crush the size of the Cascade Mountains. Not even one who was the brother of her best friend.

      “Oh.” Her brain belatedly kicked into gear with an explanation for that look of his. “Of course you’ll be wanting to see your dad, probably. I saw Dr. Hugo this morning when we came in to the shop. His office—well, of course you’d know where his office is.” She was babbling and felt like an idiot.

      “Actually, lunch sounds good.”

      For a moment, her heart seemed to stop beating. It had always been like that when Logan was around. Even back when she was only seventeen years old to his twenty-three. “Okay,” she said faintly.

      Riley huffed, a sound halfway between a snort and a groan. СКАЧАТЬ