The CEO's Accidental Bride

“Thank you, dear,” said Ginny as Kaitlin scrubbed the towel over her wet hair. “You’re a good girl. You should go ahead and sleep with Zachary.”

Kaitlin stopped drying and blinked at the old woman in shock.

“Those Harper men aren’t the marrying kind,” Ginny elaborated.

“Zach already married Kaitlin,” Lindsay offered. Then she froze halfway out of the pool. “I mean…”

“Are you pregnant?” asked Ginny, her gaze taking a critical look at Kaitlin’s flat stomach.

Kaitlin quickly shook her head. “I’m not pregnant.”

“I’m sorry,” Lindsay squeaked in horror.

“Well, I don’t know how you trapped him,” said Ginny matter-of-factly. “Sadie and I have despaired that he’d even give any woman a second glance.”

Kaitlin looked to Dylan for assistance. Did the situation require further explanation? Would Ginny forget the entire conversation by morning?

But he was too busy struggling to control his laughter to be of any help.

“We’re, uh, not sure it’s going to work out,” Kaitlin explained, feeling as though she needed to say something.

“Well, how long have you been married?” asked Ginny, slipping a thin wrap over her shoulders, obviously oblivious to the undercurrents rippling through the conversation.

Kaitlin hesitated. “Um, a few months.”

“Then you’ve already had sex,” Ginny cackled with salacious delight.

“Who’s had sex?” Zach’s voice startled Kaitlin as he appeared from between two of the pool cabanas and came to join the group. His curious gaze darted from one person to another.

“You and Kaitlin,” said Dylan.

“What?” He took in Kaitlin’s bathing suit–clad body, his intense gaze making goose bumps rise on her skin and heating her to the core.

“Ginny and I are going to the rose garden,” she announced, swiftly wrapping the big towel around her body. There was no reason she had to remain here. Dylan could bring Zach up to speed.

She and Ginny headed for the cabana that held her clothes.

Sadie’s rose garden had obviously been a spectacular showpiece in its day. Some sections of the formal gardens had been kept up over the years by the castle staff, but it was obviously too much work to keep it all from overgrowing.

As Kaitlin and Ginny had made their way through the connected stone patios, beside gazebos, along stone trails and past the family’s beautifully preserved chapel, Ginny shared stories of fabulous weekend-long garden parties, and of the dignitaries that had visited the island over the years.

Kaitlin got a picture of a carefree young Sadie growing into a serious, responsible young woman, with an abiding respect for the heritage of the family she’d married into. All signs pointed to Sadie and Milton being very much in love, despite the pregnancy and their hurried wedding.

Ginny clipped flowers as she talked, and Kaitlin ended up carrying a huge armful of the roses—yellow, white, red and pink. They were fragrant and gorgeous.

At the end of their walk, Ginny pleaded exhaustion and asked Kaitlin to take the roses up to the family cemetery and lay them on Sadie’s grave.

Kaitlin had easily agreed. She’d delivered Ginny to the Gilby house and into the care of the staff there. Then she’d followed Ginny’s directions and driven one of the golf carts up the hill to the family cemetery.

Visiting the graveyard was a surreal experience.

Isolated and windswept, it was perched on the highest point of the island, at the end of a rocky goat track that was almost more than the cart could navigate. She had stopped at the end of the trail to discover a small, rolling meadow dotted with Harper and Gilby headstones, and some that she guessed were for other island residents, maybe the ships’ crews or staff dating all the way back to the pirates Lyndall and Caldwell.

Wandering her way through the tall, blowing grass, reading the inscriptions on the headstones, she could almost hear the voices of the past generations.

Both of the pirates had married, and they’d had several children between them. Kaitlin tried to imagine what it must have been like for Emma Cinder to marry Lyndall Harper in the 1700s. Did her family know he was a pirate when they agreed to let her marry him? Had he kidnapped her, snatched her away from a loving family? Did she love him, and was she happy here in what must have been an unbelievably isolated outpost? The castle wouldn’t have existed, never mind the pool, the golf carts or the indoor plumbing.

While she read the dates on the old stones, Kaitlin couldn’t help but picture Zach in pirate regalia, sword in his hand, treasure chest at his feet. Had Lyndall been anything like him—stubborn, loyal, protective? Had Emma fallen in love with Lyndall and followed him here? Perhaps against her family’s wishes?

As she wandered from headstone to headstone, Kaitlin tried to piece together the family histories. Some of the lives were long, while some were tragically short. Clipped messages of love and loss were etched into each stone.

A mother and an infant had died on the same day in 1857. A tragic number of the children hadn’t even made it to ten years old. There were few names other than Harper and Gilby, leading Kaitlin to speculate the daughters had married and moved off the island.

Most of the young women who’d married the Harper and Gilby men had given them children, then died as grandmothers and were buried here. In one case, Claudia Harper married Jonathan Gilby. But they didn’t have any children. And that seemed as close as the families came to intermingling.

Then Kaitlin came to two new headstones—clean, polished, white marble set at the edge of the cemetery. They were Drake and Annabelle Harper. Both had died June 17, 1998. They could only be Zach’s parents.

Though the roses were for Sadie, Kaitlin placed a white rose on each of Zach’s parents’ graves. Then she lowered herself onto the rough grass, gazing across the tombstones to the faraway ocean, trying to imagine how it would feel to belong in a place like this.

She turned her memory to the single picture of her mother, and to the sad rooming house where Yvette had ended up. Kaitlin drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around them, telling herself it was all going to be okay. She would nail the perfect renovation for the Harper building. Then she’d find herself a permanent job. She’d stay in New York, and Lindsay would be there with her.

She’d finally build herself a home, and things would be better than ever. Starting right now. She might not have roots. But she had prospects. She had ideas. And she wasn’t afraid to work hard.

A raindrop splashed on her hand.

She blinked, raised her head and glanced over her shoulder to find that billowing, dark storm clouds had moved in behind her, changing the daylight to a kind of funny twilight.

She reluctantly came to her feet and dusted off the rear end of her shorts, smoothing her white blouse as droplets sprinkled on her hair and her clothes. With one last, longing look at the family cemetery, she made her way back to the electric golf cart at the head of the trail.

Her clothes damp now, she climbed onto the narrow, vinyl bench seat, pressed her foot down on the brake, turned the key to the on position and pushed on the gas pedal.

She pushed down harder, then harder still, but nothing happened. The cart didn’t move forward like it should have.

She rechecked the key, turned it to off then back to on again. Then she went through the entire procedure a second time. Still, nothing happened. She didn’t move.

Rain was coming down harder now, and the clouds had blocked the last vestige of the blue sky. The wind was picking up, whipping the fat raindrops sideways through the open cart.

Kaitlin whacked her palm against the steering wheel in frustration. The timing could not have been worse.

It might be a dead battery, or it might be a malfunction. Either way, she was well and truly stuck. She retrieved her cell phone, speed dialing Lindsay’s number.

The call went immediately to voice mail.

Kaitlin left a message, hoping Lindsay wasn’t holed up somewhere in Dylan’s arms.

Okay, so she really didn’t hope that. If Lindsay truly wanted to fulfill her pirate fantasy, then Kaitlin hoped that was exactly where she was. But she hoped it wasn’t a long fantasy. And she truly wished she’d jotted down Zach’s cell phone number when they’d joked about it this morning. She might not be lost in his castle, but she could certainly use his help.

She glanced around the wind-and rain-swept meadow, the tombstones jutting shadows in the gloom. She told herself there were still a couple of hours until dark, so there was plenty time for Lindsay to get her message. And how long could a person possibly frolic in bed with a pirate?

Okay. Bad question.

Thunder rumbled above Kaitlin, and a burst of wind gusted sideways, splattering the raindrops against her face.

Then again, maybe Ginny would wake up from her nap and tell them Kaitlin had gone to the cemetery. Assuming Ginny remembered that Kaitlin had gone to the cemetery. Would Ginny recall that?

Kaitlin peered once again at the tombstones on the horizon. She wasn’t wild about sitting here in a graveyard in the middle of a thunderstorm. Not that she was afraid of ghosts. And if any of Zach’s ancestors were ghosts, she had a feeling they’d be friendly. Still, there was a horror-movie aspect to the situation that made her jumpy.