Something to Believe In (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

L
ORA
CAUGHT
A
GLIMPSE
of Lilah leaving in the Jeep with someone
she didn’t recognize and she immediately went to find answers. She withheld an
audible sigh when she saw the only person who might have those answers was
Celly.

“Where is Lilah going?” Lora asked, getting straight to the
point.

Celly shrugged. “I’m not her keeper. She no baby.”

“I know that but why are you working her shift? Is she coming
back in a few minutes or something?”

Celly sighed and cast Lora a short look. “Yah treat her like a
chile when she a woman grown. Mind yah business, leave her be.”

Lora held her temper in check by the thinnest of margins. Why
did this woman insist on pushing her buttons? Didn’t she realize that Lora was
her boss? “One, she’s my sister, and two, she’s supposed to be working, and
three, she’s been through a rough ordeal. I don’t think she needs to invite
complications by starting a relationship.”

“Who say she startin’ anything?” Celly waved Lora’s concerns
away with an irritated flick of her wrist. “I say I will take her shift. She’s
young. She doesn’t need to be cooped up like a bird in a cage. She needs to
stretch her wings if she going to fly.”

Lora narrowed her gaze at Celly. “Need I remind you that Lilah
nearly drowned a few months ago? We all thought it best to give her some space
but look how that turned out.” Celly looked away, finished with the conversation
but Lora wasn’t. The steam building under her collar was beginning to redden her
ears. “Celly, I know you feel a certain amount of protection because my
grandfather has a soft spot for you but you are not irreplaceable. You need to
show me a bit more respect.”

“And why is dat? Yah threaten to fire me the minute yah walk on
de sand and yah expect me to grovel at yah feet wit gratitude? Yah crazy, girl.
Yah
earn
respect not demand it.”

Lora felt distinctly chastised, which only served to anger her
more. She sputtered, all manner of hotheaded, ill-conceived words threatening to
fall from her mouth, but Pops wandered in and Lora was forced to stuff them down
with a dark glower promising a return to the topic later. “Pops, what’s wrong?”
she asked, when his typical easygoing smile was replaced with a confused
frown.

“I can’t find your Grams... She’s not anywhere. I—I don’t
remember when I saw her last. Do you?” He turned frightened, somewhat glazed
eyes to Lora and she smothered a flutter of panic. She wasn’t very good at
pretending, even for Pops. It wasn’t natural for her to lie, even if the lie was
for the greater good. She glanced around, looking anxiously for Heath. He was so
much better at this than her. But Heath was nowhere to be seen. Pops’s lip
quivered and he scratched at his head, his voice wobbling with uncertainty. “I
got bad things in my head, sugar bird. Was she sick? No, that can’t be right. Is
she at the doctor, maybe?”

Celly moved in, smooth as whipped cream, and gently led Pops
out of the foyer, saying, “Mr. Jack, she went to town on an errand, said she’d
be back latah. But she told me to make some fresh banana bread for yah and I
think it’s just about ready to eat. Let’s go take a look.”

Pops relaxed and wiped a dot of sweat from his brow. “That
Lana...always shopping. She’s going to bleed me dry one of these days but she
knows my weaknesses, that’s for sure. Banana bread, you say?”

“Fresh from de oven,” Celly said with a proud nod. “With just a
touch of coconut to make it island bread.”

Lora watched as Celly expertly maneuvered Pops out of the foyer
and into the private residence of the resort. The tightness in her chest
loosened but it was replaced with a different sort of frustration. As much as
she and Celly seemed to butt heads at every turn, the Crucian woman was adept at
handling Pops. Of course, now there was no one to man the front desk. Sighing,
she slipped behind the counter and resigned herself to a little reception work
but was soon distracted by the total chaos on the desk. There were paper clips
mixed with loose staples and sticky notes all over the place with various
reminders and important dates, which she noted with irritation, should’ve been
transferred to the calendar so everyone could, at a glance, know what was needed
or happening.
Damn it, people.
They needed to adhere
to some kind of organizational structure if they were going to save Larimar.
Everyone running around doing their own thing with their own little quirks and
touches was part of the problem.

She was knee-deep in organizing the chaos when Heath entered
the lobby. Even as irritated as she was, the sight of Heath momentarily took her
breath away. He was the most handsome man she’d ever known. And she wasn’t just
saying that because she slept next to him every night. He still walked with a
mild limp from his fall off the roof but she hardly noticed anything but his
dazzling smile because when he looked at her, the world disappeared.

Briefly.

“Celly is going to kill you for messing with her system,” Heath
joked, reminding Lora of the ugly business earlier.

She stiffened and returned to her task. “Well, Celly needs a
new system. One that isn’t grounded in chaos theory. This is a mess.”

“Well, I’m just saying, she has a system and it seems to work
fairly well and since she works the front desk the majority of the time, I’d
leave her to it. I know I’d have a fit if someone came into my shop and started
rearranging my tools.”

Lora paused, struck by the uncomfortable reasoning. Heath was
right. But Lora struggled with admitting that simple fact, not because of Heath
but because of Celly. She glowered at Heath for making his point. “I didn’t mean
to start changing everything... It’s just that she had staples mingling with
paper clips,” she said as if her reasoning ought to be self-explanatory.

“A crime, I’m sure,” Heath said, smiling and not the least bit
offended by her scowl. “Now stop rearranging someone else’s workstation before
they cut you off from the boiled bananas.”

Celly made boiled bananas better than The Wild Donkey, which
was saying something considering the ramshackle eatery had been serving the
local fare since the 1930s.

And it just happened to be Lora’s favorite.

She groaned. “Why does she hate me?” she asked, trying to
return the desk to the way it was but in the end she gave up and resigned
herself to another tongue-lashing, or worse, sullen silence.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Heath assured Lora. “But you do have a
way of talking down to her that probably doesn’t help your case.”

“I do not,” Lora retorted indignantly. “I state my mind and I
don’t mince words, that’s all. I’d think she’d respect that seeing as she’s the
same damn way.”

Heath’s look said he didn’t buy it. “Lora, you got off on the
wrong foot is all but that can be fixed. She’s a great woman if you give
yourself a chance to know her. Grams would’ve loved her. In a way—”

“Don’t say it,” Lora warned with a growl. There is no way that
hard-bitten woman with the bad attitude was anything like her Grams. Not in a
million years. Not even if Grams had been a long-haul trucker who chewed cigars
and spit chewing tobacco. She shuddered at the thought. “Grams was sweet and
loving and just a bit quirky—”
and she loved me
“—whereas Celly—”

“Celly what?” The strident query followed as Celly returned to
the front desk. Lora didn’t have the chance to answer for Celly’s gaze lit on
the desk and her frown darkened to a deep, angry scowl. “What is
this?
My desk has been ruined.” Her accusatory gaze
swung to Lora with knowing ire. “Yah did this?”

Lora lifted her chin. “I did.”

Heath sensed the tension ballooning in the air and tried to
intervene with his signature good humor but Celly silenced him with a wave as
she addressed Lora. “Yah made dis mess...yah clean it. Yah seem to know what’s
best for everybody even if yah don’t know what’s best for yahself,” she said
darkly. “Until yah keep your nose out of what’s working...I’m going home.”

“What?” Lora said, dumbfounded. “What do you mean you’re going
home? Who will man the front desk?”

Celly grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “That’s
yah problem. Not mine.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Lora protested, following Celly and
imploring with Heath to help her. “You can’t just leave in the middle of the day
like that. You told Lilah you would cover her shift...”

Celly stopped and skewed her gaze at Lora. “I did. But yah out
of control. Learn some manners and I return.”

Manners? Lora stared after the woman as she walked out the
door. “What just happened?” she asked Heath. “Did she just quit?” Then hearing
the plaintive tone in her voice, she straightened and said, “Well, then fine.
She can be replaced. This is good, actually. I’ll just go through the
applications and find someone more suitable for our needs.”

Heath frowned, unhappy with her solution. “That’s not going to
work. Celly is like family. Just go apologize for messing up her desk and she’ll
come back. Her feathers are just ruffled.”

“Apologize?” Lora repeated, her ire returning. “Why should I
apologize to a staff member for trying to keep a workstation tidy? That doesn’t
even make sense.”

“She’s more than an employee, Lora. That’s your problem right
there. She’s family to everyone here, except you. You need to make this right or
there’s going to be hell to pay. Lilah is very close to Celly and so is Pops.
She does a lot to keep Larimar running smoothly.”

“I’m not going to apologize,” Lora said stiffly. She didn’t
care how much Celly coddled Pops. Seemed ever since Lora moved back to St. John
everyone and their uncle had been telling her to apologize for one thing or
another. Well, she was finished apologizing.

Heath saw the set of her jaw and shook his head in
disappointment. “You’re making a huge mistake.”

“Says you.” She sent a hard stare at Heath, irritated and hurt
that he wasn’t immediately on her side. Wasn’t that part of the deal when you
loved someone? They had to be on your side. She was pretty sure that was an
unwritten rule. “Well, I have phone calls to make so that puts you on reception
duty. Perhaps you could persuade Celly to come back. In the meantime, I’m going
to go through applications.”

* * *

“S
O
WHERE
ARE
WE
GOING
?” Justin asked with a smugly
triumphant smile that should’ve been a put-off but admittedly he wore it well
enough for her to forgive him.

“Well, I thought we’d take a drive to Coral Bay. It’s a scenic
drive and there’s some cool history along the way.”

“A history lesson? Is it boring?”

“Would you like to walk?” she asked sweetly.

He chuckled. “I’m all ears as long as there isn’t a test
later,” he said on a yawn. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“Something wrong with the room?” Lilah asked, concerned.

“No, the room is perfect. My mind wouldn’t let go of a certain
someone...”

She blushed but kept her eyes on the road as she said airily,
“I slept like a baby. More relaxed than I’ve been in a long time.” She cast him
a mildly coy look as she added, “Thank you for that.”

“That’s me,” Justin said. “Helping women find a good night’s
rest since 2001.”

Lilah laughed and smiled into the sun streaming into the Jeep,
loving the warm kiss on her cheeks. She caught Justin staring and she became
self-conscious. “Something wrong?”

“Nope,” he answered. “Just wondering how I got so lucky.”

“You mean you were wondering if you were going to get lucky
again,” Lilah teased.

A grin broke out on his lips. “Well, there is that.”

“You’re impossible.” Laughter bubbled up inside her. It felt
uncommonly good to joke and smile and tease with someone who knew nothing about
her past. The freedom was intoxicating. “Okay, first part of the history lesson
starts now. You see that broken masonry that’s crumbling to dust.” She pointed
off road. “That’s what’s left of a sugar plantation. Back in the 1700s St. John
was known for its sugar production. Slaves were taken to St. Thomas where
plantation owners would purchase them for their plantation workforce.”

“So I take it that when slavery was abolished it really took a
bite out of the local economy,” Justin remarked wryly to which she nodded. “It’s
hard to say that sucks because slavery is wrong but I imagine a lot of people
lost their livelihoods when they couldn’t farm the sugarcane any longer.”

“Yeah, actually St. John has quite a bloody history. At one
time the slaves outnumbered the freemen and a brutal revolt ‘turned the waters
red’ as the old-timers say.”

“Every place inhabited by humans has its dirty secrets,” he
said with a grim smile. “Even places as beautiful as St. John I suppose.”

She nodded in agreement. “With such a brutal past, it’s easy to
see why the Caribbean people are so superstitious. The island is overrun with
stories of vengeful or sad
jumbie
floating
around.”

“Tell me a
jumbie
story,” he
prompted with a big grin. “I love spooky stories.”

She laughed. “I don’t have any good ones. Heath said he saw the
ghost of Maunie Dalmida on the Reef Bay Trail but I’ve never actually seen any
ghosts.”

“And who is Maunie Dalmida?”

“A young boy who was killed in a sugar mill accident. The
stories are that Maunie roams the trail.”

“Creepy.”

“Yeah, but like I said, I’ve been all over this island and
never seen anything like that. I wish I had. I used to hope that something
otherworldly would happen to me but it never did.” Well, except dying, she
thought but kept that little tidbit to herself. “Anyway, anything like that
happen to you in New York?”