“Thank you. The room is beautiful.”
The older lady nodded and closed the door behind her. Lorelei wandered around the huge room, touching the petals of a vase full of flowers to make sure they were real. A paperback book lay on the bedside table. Was it the book Liam had been reading when he was last here?
Enough. She was going to enjoy her holiday, in spite of, or to spite, him. With her resolve repeating in her brain, she searched for her suitcase. The driver had said he would bring them in after he dropped them at the front door. Unable to find it in the bedroom, she headed toward the walk-in closet. Her clothes were already hung up and put away in a set of drawers. She donned her new swimsuit, the one she hadn’t bought with Liam in mind, and trotted back down the stairs to meet her friend.
Mandy was already lying on a floating lounger in the pool, another pink drink in the cupholder. “I’ve decided it’s impossible to be stressed here. I mean, look at the view, it’s gorgeous. And there are enough things in the house to keep me busy for a week. Jason said there’s a cinema, library, and games room downstairs.”
“Glad you’re enjoying it. Just remember this is a onetime, two-week-only escape from normality. Don’t get too used to it,” Lorelei said.
Mandy sighed. “I already have. Everything is going to be a letdown after this. Acapulco has nothing on this place.”
Lorelei slipped into the pool. The water was the perfect temperature, cool enough to be refreshing, but not so cold you needed to get out quickly to warm up. She swam a few laps, hoping the exercise would release some of the pent-up frustration in her body. Unable to help herself, she imagined she was visiting with Liam. Would they be upstairs now, checking out the comfort of the bed? Or taking a romantic stroll on the beach? She gritted her teeth and swam ten more laps. This was such a bad idea. There was no way she could get over Liam here, when everything reminded her of him.
…
Lorelei woke with a hangover…again…as she had every day for the past week. Jason was an incredible bartender and had kept her plied with wonderful cocktails each night until she finally stumbled to bed, taking only the time to remove her dress, before crashing onto the super-king-size mattress.
This morning the sun was full in the sky by the time she descended the stairs to the main floor, and she was thankful she had an excuse to wear her sunglasses in the house to hide her red-rimmed eyes. So the redness had more to do with the tears she’d shed as she woke up alone than to the overindulgence in alcohol the night before. She was the only one who knew that.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Mandy said.
Her cheery friend was wearing a skimpy sundress and sat before a huge plate of eggs, bacon, and sausage. The smell alone had Lorelei wanting to run for the bathroom. She mumbled something in reply and sat at the far end of the table. Wordlessly, Jason put a tall glass with a thin red straw in front of her.
Not wanting to appear ungracious, she took a sip, then another. Whatever it was, it quelled her rolling stomach and quieted the jackhammering in her head.
“What do you want to do today?” she asked after Mandy pushed away her empty plate.
“Jason has offered to take me to the market where he gets local produce. You look like you could use a day to unwind. Why don’t you stay here and relax? Horace says he set up a hammock down by the beach.”
Lorelei pulled her glasses down her nose so she could scrutinize her friend. Was Mandy trying to wrangle some alone time with Jason? It would be nice if two people could find some happiness out of this holiday.
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you later then?”
Without waiting for Mandy to respond, Lorelei picked up her hat from the table and wandered out onto the terrace. On each of the tables next to the loungers sat a paperback book, the same as on the bedside table upstairs. Several times over the past week her hand had hovered over one of the books; she was curious as to her host’s literary tastes. He’d said the books at Russian River had been his brother’s. Perhaps these were as well and had nothing to do with Liam.
But as she’d finished the novel she’d brought with her, it couldn’t hurt to see why the book was so great there were multiple copies throughout the house. She couldn’t keep drowning her sorrow with nightly cocktails. Maybe what she needed was to get lost in a literary world where someone else experienced all the heartache.
With a shrug she picked up one of the novels and headed toward the beach. The hammock was in the ideal position for a day’s relaxation. Strung between two palm trees, it was shaded enough so she didn’t burn in the sun, but at just the right angle to enjoy the view. Next to the hammock was a flagpole with a little note on the bottom, instructing the user to raise the flag for refreshments. No doubt about it, this was paradise.
After settling into the comfortable, swinging chair, she examined the book. It was called Marooned and there was no acknowledgment of author or publisher. She flipped to the back, but there wasn’t a blurb. Odd, must be some kind of self-published story.
Opening to the first page, she read the dedication:
To Lorelei, my love
I don’t expect you to forgive me
I would like you to understand
What the? She shut the book and threw it across the sand. Of all the low-down, dirty tricks. Sure, Liam may not have come personally, but he’d written a book for her. If he thought she was going to waste her holiday, her time, trying to get over him by reading some fictional account of his actions then he had a lot to learn about women—a lot to learn about her. Not that she was going to give him the chance.
She swayed in the hammock, watching the dance of the palm fronds above her head. Closing her eyes, she tried to sleep. All she saw was Liam’s face when she’d told him he was like his father. She’d seen that same expression once before, on her cousin’s son, when he’d been told his dog had been hit and killed. A look that said he would never love again.
Damn the man. All right, I’ll read your book, but I don’t have to believe it and I won’t forgive.
Hopefully she’d learn enough about him to turn her off. Then she could stop longing for him. Getting out of the hammock, she retrieved the book and dusted off the sand. She sat back down and, with a shaking hand, opened the novel.
The story was told as a tribute to Marcus, as though Liam were only a secondary character in his own life. He chronicled Marcus’s refusing to go to Disneyland with his father, because Liam couldn’t come along. Of Marcus running from his school to Liam’s, to walk home with him, to prevent school bullies from beating up the scrawny younger brother. And Marcus using his birthday money to buy old computers, so Liam could create a network.