Larissa Learns to Breathe (2 page)

She enunciated carefully as if speaking to a toddler—a toddler who has toppled the cookie jar and broken it into a thousand pieces. Tommy's smile faltered, and then morphed into a chagrined expression. “Uh…I don't think there's a dry cleaner on Cupid Island. Or on Key Grande either, now that I think about it.”

Larissa looked back over her shoulder at the crumbling parking lot, beyond which was a shuttered bait shop and a dusty road leading into town…the town of Key Grande, named for the body of land on which it sat, two thirds of the way to Key West. “Big Key,” if her Spanish served, which had seemed like a laughable misnomer until she spotted Cupid Island in the distance, which—though she knew it was three miles long and a mile wide—looked about the size of a floating kiddie pool.

Maybe there was still time to go back. The ferry back to Big Pine Key ran four times a day, and from there it was just a three hour bus ride on the Overseas Highway back to the Miami airport, where she could catch a flight back to New York. Except that her credit cards were maxed out, and…

“I know what you're thinking, sugar,” Amelia said quietly, suddenly sounding not nearly as irritated with her.

Larissa looked at the woman who until two weeks ago had been merely a friendly acquaintance, someone she saw when she went grocery shopping. Then came the mysterious letters slipped under their apartment doors, inviting them to leave New York and come work on Cupid Island. Now, for better or worse, she and Amelia were partners in this crazy adventure. She blinked away salt water and tears, hoping that it wasn't obvious that she was crying, and spoke briskly. “I'm thinking that this Raphael Westermere had better be planning to give me a clothing allowance.”

Amelia's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but she merely nodded.

“You might want to ask him for shoes, too,” Tommy said, holding up one taupe leather pump. “Since the other one fell in the water when you did your little swan dive.”

CHAPTER TWO

If this was Rafe's idea of overtime, then he was all in
, Tommy thought as he rowed toward the island. He paddled slowly, dipping the oar into the clear blue water on one side and then the other, the boat moving smoothly through the gentle swells. The rhythm of the oar made a nice counterpoint to his thoughts, which drifted around the fantastic looking woman in the see-through shirt who was sitting with her knees almost touching his. She had closed her eyes and turned her face toward the sun as though she'd just emerged from years in solitary confinement.

He didn't think he'd ever met a woman who appeared more in need of a vacation than Larissa Lawson. Which was kind of funny because, if her job was anything like his, she wasn't going to have a day off for a very long time. Cupid Island Resort was due to open in eight days, on December 4
^th
, in plenty of time for the Christmas holiday crowd, and there was still so much to do.

The island's transformation had begun only last summer, when Rafe—whose grandfather had built the grand manor and several dozen bungalows as a getaway for the rich and famous in the 1920s—decided to restore the long-abandoned island. Since then, Rafe had managed the project from his home in New York City, hiring staff sight unseen, and checking in via daily conference calls. When Tommy attended the staff meetings, his impression of the man was that he was intelligent and cultured, quirky but fair…though how much could you really tell from a disembodied voice emanating from a speaker in the center of a conference table?

Tommy wondered why Rafe had chosen Amelia and Larissa to be his general manager and director of housekeeping. From talking to the other staff, it seemed as though no one really knew why they'd been offered jobs. Some of them had been living in Key Grande or other nearby towns, but others were from far away—though none so far as New York City until now. Job offers were delivered on thick stationery, slid into letterboxes and under doors, and they always seemed to come at exactly the right time, when the recipients were out of work or down on their luck or desperately in need of change.

Already, it was hard to believe that only a few months ago, they'd all been strangers. But even as they worked side by side, getting to know each other at the end of long work days, the staff of Cupid Island agreed that there was still a lot of mystery surrounding their absent employer. Still, paychecks were delivered on time, the food was delicious and the accommodations were nothing short of splendid, and no one was complaining.

Neither woman spoke much on the fifteen minute trip. Amelia took a tiny tube of sunscreen from her purse, applied the lotion to her face and neck, and then pulled on cotton gloves and seemed to go into a trance behind her enormous dark sunglasses. Larissa's expression morphed between worry and despair—and, whenever Tommy caught her eye, what looked like deep irritation.

Well, it wasn't his fault that the
Daisy Jean
was in drydock with Zeke hard at work fixing her. The sleek Bayliner powerboat that was usually used to ferry staff back and forth had a run-in with a coral reef last week and was being repaired at a marina on Key Grande, so they were making do with the boats that had been moldering on the island for nearly a hundred years.

As the manor came into view, he watched the women's reactions. He wasn't disappointed. “It's gorgeous!” Larissa exclaimed, catching sight of the ornate towers above the palm trees.

Tommy didn't know much about architecture, though he'd been told that Palmetto Manor was one of the finest examples of the Flemish Renaissance Revival style still standing. He
did
know that it was impossible not to be impressed by the beautiful mansion with its red tile roof, its carved stone trim and arches and towers. The windows had been washed, the stone cleaned and tuckpointed, and a century's worth of maintenance had been done in the space of several months. The old furnishings had been removed, and architects and interior designers had flown in from New York and Europe to direct the renovations. Now the finishing touches were being performed on the interior and grounds, all to have it ready for the first guests.

Larissa turned back to him. “You say you're helping with construction?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Can you tell me what the condition of the guest bungalows is?”

“Sure…most of them are nearly completed. Painting's finished, new electric run. We've had a glitch or two with plumbing but nothing that should make us miss the deadline. Oliver—he's the tech guy—he's held us up a little because he's been trying to figure out why the only place anyone not local can get cell service is inside the manor, but Rafe finally decided to scrap that project so the electricians got back to work today.”

“They're still working on electric?” Larissa pursed her lips. “Well, it does seem a little premature to announce the grand opening. Any number of things could go wrong in the next week. It's a good thing my staff are on site, but I don't know how I'm supposed to get them trained if we can't get into the bungalows.”

Uh oh, Tommy thought. She definitely needed to relax, or she was going to have a heart attack before the first guest arrived. “I've met some of the maids,” he said. “Rowed ‘em over here myself. You've got good people working for you.”

“We'll want to see what systems are in place already,” Amelia murmured, barely moving a muscle. “I'll set up meetings with the chef, the concierges…”

“I know there's going to be a learning curve for me,” Larissa conceded. “I had just hoped things would be—oh no, what is
that
?” A large, dark brown mass came racing out of the palm grove near the dock, tearing straight toward them. “Are there wild boar on the island?”

Tommy chuckled. “Wild boar? That's a good one. No, that's just—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Bluebell hurtled down the dock and leapt, soaring through the air for one glorious airborne moment before creating a huge canine cannonball, the splash extending many yards in every direction. Then she surfaced, and all that was visible was her joyful, toothy grin and pink-tinged snout as she swam toward them.

“What
is
that creature?” Amelia demanded, finally roused from her trance. She gripped the sides of the boat, her elegant manicured fingers white with fear.

“That's Bluebell,” Tommy said with a note of pride as he watched her swim. With her powerful shoulders working and silky tail lashing the water, she was a far cry from the flea-bitten, worm-infested lump of bedraggled fur that Tommy had found shivering behind a convenience store on a road trip to Miami a couple of years ago. “She likes to greet the boats.”

“She's not going to—oh,
no
,” Larissa shrieked, scrambling away from the front of the boat. Too late, Tommy saw the fear in her eyes and remembered that the woman couldn't swim. And she had no way of knowing that he'd trained Bluebell to circle the boat once and then head back to shore, a trick meant to amuse any kids who visited the island, and—

What was the fool woman doing? She'd scrambled up onto her knees on the wooden bench. When the boat went over a swell, she grabbed his shoulder and he yelped in pain. She dug into his flesh with her lacquered nails for all she was worth.

“Stay!” she yelled. Bluebell paused, her ears perking up. For a moment, she paddled in place, ears cocked, before heading toward them again.

“Platz! PLATZ!” As Larissa's voice escalated in decibels, it also rose in pitch, becoming a high scream. Tommy didn't have the faintest idea what she was saying, but it was clear she was terrified of dogs. He was going to have to rethink the whole canine welcoming committee idea before opening day.

“Bluebell,” he called. “Cut it out, now.”

The trouble was that he didn't really have a command to tell her to head back. She'd never learned ‘stay.' ‘Budweiser' had struck him as funny when he'd made her a pallet in an old beer crate when she was a puppy; it was still her command to go to lie down. But she was in the water now, far from her bed.

At the sound of his voice, her joy only increased. As much as Bluebell loved new people, she loved Tommy most of all, with the passion that only an abandoned animal is capable of. She gave several powerful strokes and made it all the way to the boat, where she bumped her snout against the side and barked.

Larissa made a squeaking sound and threw herself at Tommy.

At least she hadn't tried to stand, or she'd have gone in again. For the second time that day Tommy chastised himself for forgetting to retrieve the life vests from the
Daisy Jean
; he wouldn't make that mistake again. Not only was it irresponsible and dangerous, but as his spine slammed against the hard wood bench with Larissa on top of him, he wished he'd had the benefit of the padding a vest would have lent him.

As he tried to right them both, Larissa only held on tighter, her arms circling his waist and her face pressed against his neck. Still damp and chilly from her dunking, her face was incredibly soft and smelled like seawater and perfume. Her frantic hands slipped under his shirt somehow, and the sensation of her slippery cold fingers against his back ignited urges that were really not very convenient, considering the situation.

“It's going to capsize us!” Larissa yelled.

“No, she's just—” Tommy's response was cut short as Larissa leaned out of the boat and tried to push Bluebell away, succeeding only in convincing the dog that she wanted to play.

“Larissa, it might be a good idea if you—”

But whatever Amelia was about to say was cut short by Larissa's scream as Bluebell, sensing an opportunity for tug-of-war, caught hold of the cuff of her shirt in her wet jaw. Tommy's heart sank. He was supposed to be training her not to pull, but the truth was that he still enjoyed the game he'd played with her as a puppy. Now that she weighed nearly eighty pounds it was more of a fair fight.

“Bluebell, no!” he yelled.

Larissa screamed. Amelia reached for the oar. And the air was filled with the sound of fabric ripping.

CHAPTER THREE

“Are you taking those from the restaurant stock?” Amelia demanded, as Tommy pulled three frosty brown bottles from the long refrigerator behind the bar and set them on the polished wood. “Is there an inventory system in place?”

“I doubt they've gotten that far,” Larissa said sarcastically, her teeth chattering.

She was draped in a cotton throw that Tommy had hunted down from somewhere in the manor after depositing the two women in the lounge. She was only now beginning to warm up, her toes inches away from the space heater Tommy had dragged over for her, since the radiant heating system had apparently not been turned on yet. All throughout the beautiful building, the sound of hammering and sawing and men's voices rang out. Raphael Westermere III clearly was sparing no expense to finish the renovations.

So far, they were impressive. The carved woodwork had been lovingly restored and gleamed under a new coat of varnish. The brass light fixtures had been polished to a shine, and richly patterned rugs covered the floors.

Tommy followed her gaze as she checked out the impressive selection of liquor. To her untrained eye, it all looked top shelf; there were no inexpensive brands in sight. The glasses were cut crystal; the pewter bowls filled with lemon and lime slices practically glowed.

“Rafe wanted the bar done first,” he explained. “He says that a crew putting in so much overtime ought to be able to kick back with a cold one at the end of a shift.”

Amelia gasped. “On the
job
? In the public areas of the resort?”

Larissa stifled a hysterical giggle. Of course, Tommy would have no way of knowing that Rafe had chosen Amelia for her micromanaging skills. At least, that was Larissa's best guess at why he had chosen Amelia, but since her job offer—as hers—had been delivered anonymously under the door to her apartment, she really had no idea. Subsequent communications from Raphael via email had contained no insight into their employer's personal life, nor did he explain why he had hired them.