Summer on Lovers' Island (Jewell Cove 3)

“Well, right back at you.”

* * *

Dave was waiting for them, standing on the front step when Charlie arrived. Lizzie watched as Charlie got out of the car, an awkward motion due to her advanced pregnancy, with a bright smile for her husband. Dave was so big that when he hugged her she all but disappeared in his arms, and Lizzie felt that stupid pang again in her chest.

She was jealous. Not that she begrudged her best friend one iota of happiness. But no one had ever looked at Lizzie like that.

Except once. At the top of the island, there’d been a moment when Josh had gazed into her eyes and it had been like lightning. Boom! Crash! In that brief moment, no one else in the world existed.

And she’d thrown it away.

CHAPTER 18

After looking for the treasure on Aquteg Island for the whole of his life, it seemed, now Josh didn’t want anything to do with it.

He sat at his kitchen table and stared at the leather bag. When he looked at the pouch all he could see was Lizzie’s face as she picked up the blanket to fold it, her hair blowing in the wind and a stubborn expression on her face. And he second-guessed himself constantly. He’d said he wasn’t “built that way,” but the truth was he missed her. Seeing her every day at work was nothing short of torture. His brain was thinking just fine, but his body hadn’t gotten the message, because every time they passed in the narrow corridor all he wanted to do was press her against the wall and kiss her senseless.

But he didn’t. He watched her go by with her tidy hair and starchy white coat and told himself it was for the best.

Ian Martin, one of the town’s lawyers, had looked into the matter and it turned out that the coins, which were genuine, belonged to Josh. He didn’t care about their worth, but he knew someone who did. Or rather something. The Jewell Cove Historical Society. They’d been trying to set up a permanent home for years and had lobbied hard for Foster House when Abby had inherited it. Right now they made their home in a smaller house on Schooner Street, just one block off Main. It was a hundred and fifty years old and always needed renovating and restoration. Josh figured that he’d give them half the coins for their collection and the other half he’d let an agent auction for him and he’d give them the money to make some changes to the house. It only made sense. He certainly didn’t need the money.

The locket, on the other hand, was a different matter. After he went through the faded photos from the Arseneaults and at Foster House, not to mention the few the historical society had, it had been easy to identify the man in the photo as Charles Arseneault. They also appeared to confirm that the woman in the opposite photo was his wife, Constance Arnold.

Josh felt Tom was more entitled to the locket than he was, so he gave his cousin a call and they made plans to meet at Josh’s on Friday night, as long as the weather held out. The forecast model showed a tropical storm forming in the Atlantic, and if the path was right Friday night and Saturday could get messy.

Which made him think of Lizzie at the cottage all alone. If the storm strengthened to a hurricane, she’d need to do some prep.

And then he reminded himself that she was a grown-up, competent woman. And that Tom was the landlord of the cottage and he’d see to any preparations that needed doing.

Lizzie had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t need Josh … at all.

* * *

Lizzie hopped in her car and put the bag containing her supper on the passenger seat. The spicy scent of Pasta Pomodoro filled the air, and she’d splurged on a salad and order of tiramisu. It had been a hell of a day. First of all, seeing Josh for eight solid hours was enough to try any woman’s willpower. Then she’d had the world’s grumpiest senior citizen in with a case of gout, a chain-smoker with emphysema wondering why he was having more trouble breathing, a fifty-something woman on the wrong side of menopause, and, to end the day, a four-and-a-half-year-old little girl who was deathly afraid of needles needing her immunizations before she started school.

Every day had its difficult patients, but today it seemed like they all ended up in Lizzie’s exam room at once. To top it off, there was no need to worry about the broken condom. She’d gotten her period, and she was grouchy and crampy and ready for the day to be over.

She was really, really looking forward to some of Gino’s spicy sauce, pasta, and a big glass of a Montepulciano she was fond of.

When she finally turned into the drive of the cottage, her appetite suddenly took a nosedive. There was no mistaking the Mercedes in the driveway. It was Ian Fortnam’s. What in the world was he doing here?

She pulled in beside his car and turned off the ignition. Nerves twisted around in her stomach. Sure, she’d been thinking more and more about Springfield lately and her job there, but she was utterly unprepared to find Ian at her home.

Correction: at the cottage. It wasn’t her home. She bit down on her lip. Even if it felt very much as if it were.

She got out of the car, noticed his was empty. But when she shut her car door, he appeared around the corner of her deck. “Lizzie!” he called, smiling and waving.

“Ian. What a surprise.” Wasn’t it, just. She pasted on a smile and reconciled herself to the fact that dinner would have to wait. She had to find out what he wanted first. He looked exactly the same as she remembered. Khaki pants, perfectly pressed; button-down shirt, expensive; reddish-brown hair, precisely cu

t and with a hint of product to keep it in place.

“This place is great. So rustic and … isolated.”

She frowned. It was, but did he have to make it sound so unappealing? “It’s very peaceful,” she replied. “Especially in the mornings, when I run on the beach.”

She went to the front door. “Hang on a minute. I’ll let you in through the patio doors.”

She dumped her bags on the counter and went straight to the doors, flipping the latch and sliding them open. “Come on in. I didn’t know you were coming or I wouldn’t have stopped on the way home from the clinic.”