Carolina Isle Read online

  “How was it?” Sara asked as soon as they were inside the pretty room.

  Ariel collapsed onto the sofa at the foot of the bed, while Sara scurried around and got all the things she knew R.J. would want—which was pretty much everything he’d brought with him except for his clothes.

  “He sleeps naked,” Ariel said.

  “Did I forget to tell you that?”

  “Yes, you did. You forgot to tell me a lot of things, like that his computer gets a funny screen on it and he expected me to fix it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Turned it off, then back on. What I know about computers you could put on the head of a pin. Does he walk around naked in front of you?”

  Sara was putting R.J.’s recharged camera batteries in his case. “Why are you so interested in his naked body?”

  “I’m not. It’s just that …”

  Sara looked out the window and saw David and R.J. standing close together. Too close. Rather like dogs circling each other. “We have to get out there,” she said. “Here, take this.” She thrust a briefcase and camera bag onto Ariel’s lap.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that R.J. won’t like David.”

  “Why not?” There was disbelief in Ariel’s voice. “David is so boring that everyone likes him.”

  “Boring?” Sara said, looking at Ariel sharply. A man with the ambition to be president is boring? Not quite. “R.J. had to work his way up from the bottom and David’s had everything handed to him. David is the kind of man R.J. despises.”

  “Does that mean that if R.J. knew who I was he’d despise me too?”

  “You’re too pretty for R.J. to dislike,” Sara said.

  “Today you’re the pretty one. I need about three more hours of sleep and a hairdresser. You, on the other hand, look great. You have on Prada and I’m in … what is this?” Ariel asked.

  “Liz Claiborne, I think, but I don’t memorize the labels in my clothes. Whatever it is, it looks great on you. Really. And the shorter hair suits you. Come on, he’ll be blowing the horn in another minute.”

  “Not really?” Ariel said, and her voice sounded a bit breathless. “He’s really an exciting man, isn’t he?”

  “You’re going to find out how exciting he is if you don’t get out there immediately.”

  “What will he do?” Ariel asked.

  “Not whatever it is that you seem to think he’ll do,” Sara said as she piled Ariel’s arms full and pushed her out the door. They’d be back by night fall and, if she was lucky, Sara would have a few days alone with David. She smiled at him from behind Ariel and thought about being in the backseat with him on the three-hour drive to King’s Isle.

  But R.J. thwarted her. “You’ll have to sit in front with me since you’re to be my navigator, my co-captain,” he said. Since this made sense, there was nothing Sara could think of to protest, so she took the seat next to him, while David and Ariel got into the back. They headed east toward North Carolina’s notoriously dangerous coast. Hurricanes, shipwrecks, and a long history of pirates overhung the many islands dotting the coast. Some islands were large and well inhabited, and some were just spots of land sticking up in the way of the ships trying to get to the mainland.

  “Think we’ll see Blackbeard’s ghost?” R.J. asked Sara as soon as they were underway.

  Since she was pretending to be someone else, she couldn’t give him her usual monosyllabic replies, but she wanted to. She didn’t like the way he was flirting with the woman he thought she was. “Is it Blackbeard’s ghost or his treasure you want to see?” she asked.

  “Maybe the ghost would lead me to the treasure.”

  “I would think that you had enough treasure, Mr. Brompton.”

  “Everyone wants more, Miss Weatherly. It’s called ambition and it’s highly prized in this glorious country of ours.”

  “It’s also called greed,” she said, but she made herself smile as she said it.

  Sara pulled the sun visor down and saw in the little makeup mirror that David and Ariel were head-to-head in the backseat, whispering. I wonder what they’re plotting? Sara thought, then put the visor back up.

  “Come on, Miss Weatherly—and, by the way, I told you to call me R.J.—hasn’t there been something in your life that you wanted so much that you were willing to work hard to get it?”

  “It’s good to try to better yourself,” she said as primly as she could manage. “But when you get to the point where you have too much and still want more, it’s time to stop.”

  “I guess you mean me,” he said, smiling. “But, Miss Weatherly, it’s not as though you work for me and have to keep your mouth shut. Tell me what you think. Surely Sara has told you some things about me.”

  “I don’t reveal confidences,” Sara said as she glanced over her shoulder. What were they talking about?

  “So tell me everything about Arundel,” R.J. said. “I’m thinking about buying a vacation house there.”

  “Do you want to know about the people or the land values?”

  He laughed. “You know, even if I didn’t know you were Sara’s cousin, I’d know it. You two sound and act very much alike.”

  “I couldn’t possibly do all that Sara does,” she shot back. “Sara is a saint.”

  “I quite agree,” he said quietly, looking in the mirror at the two in the backseat. “On the other hand, she’s a terrible secretary. Just the other day, she nearly spilled a pot of hot coffee on me.”

  Sara had to turn her head away so he wouldn’t see the anger in her face. After everything she did for him, all he could remember was that she’d almost spilled some coffee! Right now she wished she could erase the “almost.”

  “Tell me about the people of Arundel,” he said. “Tell me about your life there.”

  Sara put some of her acting training into use and calmed herself. She made herself into Ariel and began talking about all that she’d memorized. She told him about her mother, and her childhood with her homeschooling. She told him about the old families in Arundel, and how they still named their children after the founding fathers. Sara did her best to sound lighthearted, as though she hadn’t a care in the world—the way she’d seen Ariel’s life until she met that virago who was her mother.

  Sara had memorized the way to get to King’s Isle, so she gave him directions at every junction.

  “What made you choose King’s Isle?” she asked.

  “Ever hear of a man named Charley Dunkirk?”

  “Sara and I have been corresponding for years, so I know a bit more about you and your business than you’d think.”

  “I can’t imagine that Sara ever wrote you a word about me. Most of the time she acts like she hates me. The stories I could tell you! Oh, well, where was I?”

  Sara narrowed her eyes at him. “Mr. Dunkirk,” she said stiffly.

  “Oh, yeah. My best friend. Charley has a wife he pretends is a pest to him, but he’s mad about her. Former beauty queen.” He glanced at Sara. “She grew up in Arundel.”

  Sara said nothing. What could she say? Ask where the woman lived in town? If Ariel heard the address she’d know if the woman lived above or below the cotton mill.

  “Anyway, Charley came to me and said that his wife, Katlyn, wanted him to buy an island off the coast of Arundel and he wanted me to take a look at it.”

  “Why you?”

  “I have no idea. Charley didn’t know either. At first he thought Kat and I had something going on, but—”

  “You wouldn’t do that to your best friend, would you?”

  “Not unless she—” R.J. was grinning, but at one look at Sara’s face, he stopped smiling. “Of course I wouldn’t. Code of honor, that sort of thing. Anyway, Charley told me that Kat wanted him to buy an island and open a resort on it. A rich resort. He said …”

  R.J. sat up a bit straighter and deepened his voice. When he spoke, he sounded very much like Mr. Dunkirk, but Sara as Ariel wasn’t supposed to know that,