Freefall (15 page)

"I owe you one," Zach said as they drove back to Swannsea.

"Actually I think we're even. Thanks for standing up for my abilities to Harlan."

He shrugged. "It was the truth. If you decide to tackle Lucie's tasting tour and tea shop, I'm sure you'll make a go of it." He glanced over at her. "So, you haven't made a decision yet?"

"I still need to talk with Line. But I really want to make sure that we have someone for the job of coordinating the tours, because there's no way I'd take him away from the actual running of the farm."

"Makes sense to me. As for Harlan, I suspect he's accustomed to having his opinions always being taken as gospel."

"That's pretty much been the case, I suppose. When I was a little girl, I thought he must be what God sounded like."

"The doctor definitely has a presence, all right."

"Then there's also the fact that he's always hated change. Sometimes I suspect he was born in the wrong century, that he would've been happier living in antebellum times."

"No stretch at all to picture him being lord of the manor, sitting on the veranda, sippin' mint juleps, surveying his domain," Zach agreed.

"Which, as much as he hates it, probably gives him something in common with Brad," Sabrina said, remembering the gleam in the developer's eye as he'd looked over Swannsea's tea plants.

"Should be interesting, watching him take on Sumner's land grab. My money's on Harlan. That's a bitch about Miss Lillian being in that wheelchair."

"Isn't it sad? She first had polio as a child, but recovered, grew up and married Harlan while he was still in medical school, and except for the fact that she was never able to have children—though no one knew if that was some sort of aftereffect from the polio or merely a coincidence—she seems happy."

"That's too bad about the kids. But it looks as if they've had a good marriage."

"Doesn't it? And, of course, even with this new onset of Parkinson's, she's always kept busy with her various charities."

"I know." He glanced up as headlights flashed in his rearview mirror, Sabrina saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. "Tremayne Construction agreed to work on a house for the local Habitat for Humanity program that she heads up."

"That's nice." And something she could easily imagine his father doing.

John Tremayne was a nice man. Strong enough to be gentle. She remembered the butterscotch candy pieces he'd always carried in his shirt pocket. And how he always smelled of Old Spice, and the coffee he drank by the gallon, even in the sweltering heat of a Swann Island summer.

"Apparently Dad's been doing a Habitat house every year for the past decade," Zach said as he turned down the lane toward Swannsea. When the car behind them continued on, he visibly relaxed. "He says Lucie talked him into it."

"Like Harlan said, not many people could say no to my grandmother."

"Not Pop, that's for sure."

"They were close."

Sabrina remembered overhearing speculation when she was in her teens about exactly how close Lillian Swann might have been with the man who always seemed to be fixing something around Swannsea.

"Odd as it seems," he confirmed, "considering the differences in their social status, they were best friends."

"I suppose that makes sense, since they probably had more in common than people might have thought at first glance. After all, they both ended up alone about the same time."

It had been the summer she'd turned twelve. Sabrina remembered well because it had happened during a time when she and Titania had been practiced their kissing techniques. In Sabrina's imagination, the back of her hand had always been Zachariah Tremayne's mouth.

At the time she hadn't understood the scandal that had caused her grandfather to desert her grandmother. Coincidentally, that same week, Zach's mother had run off, leaving only a brief typewritten note behind.

She also remembered rumors about Robert Swann and Laura Tremayne having run off together. Rumors that were proven false after Zach's mother sent him a postcard from California, where apparently she'd gotten a job as a cocktail waitress in a bowling alley not far from Disneyland.

"Pop has never been one to share his feelings, but I think he misses Lucie." Zach pulled into the circular drive in front of the steps leading up to the pillared veranda and cut the engine. "A lot."

"He's not alone there."

Sabrina looked up at the house, which, tonight, because she'd forgotten to leave any lights on, looked lonely. As if mourning its mistress.

"Well, thank you." She reached for the passenger door handle. "Although I really could have driven myself, I enjoyed the evening."

Wasn't that a surprise?

"That makes two of us." He sounded every bit as surprised as she was. "But, in case you've forgotten how things work down here, New York, a Southern gentleman always walks a lady to the door."

"I seem to recall you saying something about not being a gentleman."

"Maybe it's situational."

The waxing moon, a little fuller tonight, cast a silvery glow over the landscape. A soft breeze wafted in from the sea, blending a tang of salt with the sweet fragrance of Confederate jasmine. There was an intimacy to the dark, and the night, and the company, that had her feeling freer to share her thoughts than she might have been in the bright light of day.

"I sort of know how it is," she murmured as they climbed the steps.

"How what is?"

They both knew what she was talking about.

"PTSD."

He didn't immediately respond. She hadn't really expected him to, but decided this was one of those in for a penny, in for a pound situations.

She sat down in the swing. "The flashbacks."

Again, nothing. But he did sit down beside her.

"I don't remember the actual bombing," she said. "Just what I was doing right before."

"Which was?" He put an arm around her shoulder and started the swing swaying a bit.

"I was drinking champagne, celebrating getting promoted to manager, which had been my goal since I'd graduated college, feeling a little guilty about not having gotten back to see Lucie before she died, and—"

She slammed her mouth shut.

Too late.

"And?" His fingers idly played with the ends of her hair.

Sabrina shrugged. "And thinking that perhaps I'd been concentrating on my work too much for too long, That perhaps my life could be fuller." No way was she going to admit she'd decided to take a lover.

"I suspect most everyone feels that way from time to time."

"I suppose so."

Which was partly what this little trip home was about. Although Lucie had ensured that Sabrina never would have to work again, no way could she imagine herself living a life without some purpose. After all, her grandmother had worked until the day she died.

In fact, according to Harlan, who'd called Sabrina with the news, she'd been found collapsed over her computer keyboard, working on a column about the Buccaneer Days ball.

But running a hotel took a great deal of patience, concentration, and the ability to take multitasking to a new and higher level. It also often required 24/7 attention.

And as much as Sabrina hated to admit it, even to herself—
especially
to herself—the bombing had left her feeling unnaturally fragile, and returning at less than full strength wouldn't be fair to Eve Bouvier, who had been so good to her, or to the guests at whatever hotel she would be transferred to.

"I guess, in your old job as a SEAL, if you didn't fully concentrate on your work, you could end up dead."

"Sometimes people ended up dead even if you
did
give it your all."

There was a new, sharp edge to his voice. She glanced up at him and watched as his eyes flashed, hot and dark. And, she thought with a slight involuntary shiver, deadly.

"Are you cold?" He stopped the swing's back-and-forth movement. "Do you want to go in?"

Those warrior eyes didn't miss a thing. "No."

She shook her head. Relaxed, knowing, that despite what Brad had said about Zach's temper, she wasn't in any danger from this man who was concerned about her comfort.

"I guess a ghost walked over my grave." She began swinging again. "I'd forgotten how quiet nights are here."

"Not exactly the big city," he agreed. "So what happened?"

"It's not that big a deal." She looked out over the marsh.

"Sabrina." He tipped a finger beneath her chin and turned her gaze back to his. "I'd say getting blown up is a very big deal. But if you don't want to talk about it—"

"It's okay."

She didn't really want to even think about it, but she was dying to ask him what, exactly, had brought him back to the island, and she figured that to do that she owed him quid pro quo.

"As I said, I don't recall the particulars before the bombing. I remember tossing and turning the night before, because my end-of-probation meeting was the next day. I spent more time than usual dressing for the meeting.

"I remember drinking countless cups of coffee. The staff wishing me good luck all day, my secretary's page that the review committee was ready for me. Oddly, I can't recall being told I'd gotten the job, but the champagne is clear in my mind.

"Everything between drinking it and when I woke up in the dark, buried beneath tons of stone, is lost. The doctor said I might get it back." She shrugged. "Or not."

"Christ."

His arm was still around her shoulder. He drew her closer and, heaven help her, it felt right. Not sexy, just right. Not exactly comforting right. Just, well,
right
. As if she belonged in his arms here on Swannsea's veranda. Almost if they belonged here together.

"There was a woman buried somewhere on the other side of the stones, She was panicky because she didn't know where her children were."

It had helped, somewhat, for a time, establishing a connection with another human being in the dark.

"Their names were Brandon and Jess. The daughter, Jess, was named after their father. He'd taken them out for gelato, to give his wife a bit of peace and quiet."

Even now Sabrina could hear the frantic wail of sirens, taste the smoke acrid with chemicals and melting plastic.

"As it turned out, her husband and children were fine. Or as fine as they could be, after losing their wife and mother."

When the woman had stopped sobbing a few minutes into their conversation, Sabrina had feared the worst. Which, she'd later learned, was the case.

"It's a miracle you weren't killed."

"Funny you should put it that way, since it turned out that the reason I didn't die was that this huge marble copy of the Pietà in the lobby landed in a way that protected me from falling rubble. A lot of people believed that being saved by a statue of the Virgin Mary holding her resurrected son was proof of a miracle."

"Which undoubtedly got you a lot of attention, especially in such a Catholic country. Attention you probably didn't need right then."

"Tell me about it."

She supposed she shouldn't be surprised that he so understood her situation—after all, she'd claimed to understand his. But Sabrina couldn't have foreseen that he immediately grasped what had become even more unsettling than the bombing itself.

"Eve Whitfield Bouvier—she's the owner of the Winfield Palace chain—and her husband came to Florence and stayed while we attended all the funerals."

Nick swore softly. "You didn't have to do that. After what you'd been through."

"That's the same thing Eve and Gabriel told me. But I was alive, while so many others weren't. And since I'd been promoted to manager of the hotel when that bomber struck, it was my responsibility."

"No one would have blamed you for not going to them all," he said between his teeth. "Christ, I can't imagine how tough that would've been on you."

"It wasn't easy."

Talk about your understatement.

She'd collected thirty-eight funeral cards.

The sound-alike eulogies, the melancholy hymns, the aromas of burning candle wax, frankincense, and incense had all blurred together, with their solemn borders, black tassels, and pictures of sad-eyed saints.

"After the first few days I went numb. Which left me feeling even guiltier."

Yet inside that cottonlike cocoon of numbness, her tangled nerves had felt tight and hot beneath her skin, ready to pop and fray. Sometimes, like that moment last night, when she'd thought she heard someone moving around in the attic, they still did.

"Survivor guilt's a bitch."

He said it in a way that had her suspecting he knew all about it firsthand, surprising her yet again at the once impossible idea of the two of them having much in common.

"So I was told by all the grief counselors who flew in from around the globe."

They'd assured her that her reaction to the bombing was perfectly normal. That it would take time, and therapy, but eventually she'd get back to normal.