Jack (The Family Simon 2)

“Whatever. The campaign isn’t going to fall apart because you’re not here. Even Derek thinks it’s the perfect time for you to recharge your batteries and,” she grinned slowly. “Consider it a gift from me to you.”

She kissed Coco, who, traitor dog that he was, licked her back as if she was his long lost friend.

“Besides, I need some time alone, and your beach house is perfect.”

“Really,” he said dryly.

“Really,” she repeated.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, his mood still off and a frown on his face. He was restless, irritable, and a whole lot of other stuff he didn’t want to think about. Christ, he didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. He only knew that ever since he’d run into Donovan, he felt as if his skin was pulled too tight, like butter spread thin over toast. It was unsettling, and he didn’t like it.

Jack Simon was used to being in control, and right now he felt as he was drifting…as if he was waiting for something to happen, and he didn’t like the feeling.

At all.

For a few moments, he said nothing because he was waiting for something to happen and maybe that something was as simple as getting away and forgetting about everything for a little while.

He glanced at his sister. Suddenly Belize sounded just about right.

Chapter Four

* * *

Four days in and Donovan had to ask herself why she’d never visited this part of the world before. She’d been pretty much everywhere else, every continent and major city you would want to visit, but Belize, or rather this tiny island just off the coast, was a paradise she’d not expected.

She had no cell phone. No iPod or iPad for that matter and no computer either. Heck, there wasn’t even a television inside the house. All she had was a suitcase full of clothes, a copy of Aldus Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (she’d been trying to read it for two years, but whatever) a notebook and pencil, and the first guitar she’d ever bought, a beat up Epiphone with a hole in the pick guard.

She could walk the entire island in about an hour and had done so each morning. The beach was amazing, the weather idyllic and she’d just

finished snorkeling for the first time. Roger, the elderly gentleman who lived with his wife, Mary in a bungalow on the other side of the island, had set her up with some gear before he’d taken the boat and gone to the neighboring island of Ambergris Caye for supplies.

The couple were caretakers for the owner of the private island (who exactly that was Donovan had never learned), and it had been Roger who’d met her at the airport on the mainland.

All in all, the place was to die for, and as Donovan braided her long hair, eyes moving across the beach, she couldn’t help but feel as if she’d found a little piece of heaven.

Didn’t matter that she was alone. It didn’t even matter that the ache she’d learned to live with would always be there. After hours of travel and the first few days of feeling sorry for herself, she’d had a moment…an epiphany so to speak.

Donovan knew that she would never be happy, at least not in the true sense. All of the things she wanted, a husband and lately a child, well, they’d passed her by when the Jack Simon fright train had derailed. And sure, fantasies about a life with Jack had carried her for the last few months, ever since Miami, but after Cooper’s ultimatum, she knew it would never happen.

That love story was dead.

If only she could find that sweet spot. That balance between want and need. She had to get to that place where she was one hundred percent okay with not being one hundred percent happy.

People did that right? Not everyone lived a happily ever after.

Not even the girl who America thought had it all.

She’d brought a bag down to the beach, filled with a soda, water and some snacks (her trainer would have a heart attack if he could see the chocolate bars and chips but hey, she was on vacation). She had the Huxley book she was determined to read, but it was several feet away underneath a palm tree.

The snorkeling, the sand and the sun made her lazy, and she dropped to her beach towel instead of retrieving her bag. Rolling over onto her stomach Donovan made a pillow with the end of her towel, closed her eyes and relaxed.

The gentle waves lapping onto shore coupled with the heat from the sun calmed her spirit, and eventually she drifted off.

Donovan wasn’t sure how long she slept but when she woke up, billowing gray clouds blocked out the blue sky and sun, and the wind had picked up. Stiff, she pushed up onto her knees and glanced around, yawning as she stretched.

Looked like a storm was brewing.

She scooped up her towel and was heading to where she’d left her bag when she heard voices on the wind. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were definitely male voices. Curiosity piqued, she folded her towel and turned toward the dock located several hundred yards down the beach.