A Woman Worth Loving

“My pleasure.” He hesitated a moment. “Are you free for dinner?”

The invitation had her smiling. He didn’t look like the sort to read the tabloids, so she doubted he was up on her escapades or even her latest run-in with infamy. He apparently didn’t know who she was or her net worth. It might have been nice to spend an evening with someone who didn’t harbor any preconceived notions about her. Someone who wouldn’t expect her to act a certain way: Outrageous.

Still, she turned him down. “I don’t think so.”

She planned to steer clear of men for the foreseeable future. They’d brought her nothing but grief. Her first husband had broken her heart. The second one had broken her spirit. Her relationship with actor Trent Kane had been a disaster from its rocky start to its deadly car-crash finish. As for Henry, he’d seemed so safe, a calm harbor in which to ride out the self-made storms of her life. He’d been kind and considerate and yes, she could admit now, a father figure. Theirs hadn’t been a love match, but she had respected him, liked him. Even so, she hadn’t expected him to rewrite his will in her favor and to the exclusion of his son.

“You’re frowning. Does that mean you’re reconsidering?” Seth asked.

“No. I’m sorry.”

He dug a piece of paper out of the car’s console, glanced at it and, apparently satisfied that it wasn’t anything important, scribbled something on the back.

“Just in case it turns out that you are free.” He winked as he handed it to her.

His room number. Oh, he was a slick one, Audra thought, tucking the paper into the pocket of her jacket. And gorgeous. Tawny hair, eyes an intriguing combination of gray and blue, a straight nose that went along nicely with his strong jaw and wide mouth.

She guessed him to be just over six feet tall and not an inch of it appeared to be wasted. He wasn’t overly muscled, but gauging from the way his jeans fit snug across the thigh, she would bet he was plenty toned.

Seth Ridley was the complete opposite of the slick business types and designer-duds-wearing men she had dated in the past, and yet she couldn’t say she didn’t find him appealing. Again, something about him seemed familiar.

When he coughed, she realized that nearly a full minute must have ticked by as she had searched his face for that elusive puzzle piece.

“Sorry,” she murmured, embarrassed, and glanced away briefly before adding. “Well, goodbye.”

She opened the door and got out. Then she heard his door slam shut and realized he had fallen into step beside her. Of course. He’d told her he was staying at the resort.

She offered a polite smile, which he returned when he held open the door that led to the resort’s main lobby. Then she stopped, stared and let the memories come. They flooded over her, a warm river of hope.

The inside of Saybrook’s was just as she recalled it, until she took a closer look. Because of its gorgeous architecture, generous beveled-glass windows and the graceful brass and crystal chandeliers that hung from the sixteen-foot ceiling of the main lobby, it still oozed class and style. But it was showing its age. The deep green carpeting was worn thin in the high traffic areas. The massive mahogany reception desk had scuffs and scrapes near the floor from being bumped by luggage. The windows were smudged and almost filmy in the bright morning light.

“Quite a place,” Seth said. Wrapped in the past, she had nearly forgotten he still stood beside her.

“It used to be even better,” she replied, feeling somewhat disappointed. Corners were being cut, apparently starting with the cleaning staff. Audra intended to give the manager a piece of her mind. But then she caught sight of Ali and remembered the real reason she was here.

“Excuse me,” she said to Seth. Without waiting for a reply, she walked to where her sister stood near the old-fashioned elevator, talking to a bellhop.

Ali wore a crisp white blouse, buttoned primly at the collar and topped off with one of those silly little necktie things that apparently were intended to scream “professional woman.” A neat navy skirt fell to just below her knees, and on her feet were a pair of blunt-toed leather shoes that could only be described as sensible. They did absolutely nothing for her sister’s long, slender legs.

Clearly, in the decade since they’d last seen one another, her sister’s fashion sense had not improved. Nor had Ali changed her hairstyle, if that was what it could be called. She still insisted on tugging that gorgeous mahogany mane into a no-nonsense ponytail. Audra’s fingers itched to pull it free and then push her sister into the nearest stylist’s chair. A clip here, a clip there and Ali’s face would be framed most attractively.

The bellhop moved away and Ali turned slightly, then. Her posture became rigid when she spied Audra, who swallowed hard before forcing a bright smile onto her lips.

“Hello, Ali.”

She crossed the distance that separated them since she doubted Ali would. Audra didn’t intend to shout during the first face-to-face conversation she’d had with her sister in more than a decade.

Ali scowled at her. “Audra.”

“I’d hoped you would meet me at the ferry. Maybe you didn’t get my messages.”

“I got them.”

She absorbed the hit, nodded once in acceptance. “Oh. I see.”

“Look, I’m kind of busy right now—too busy for whatever little family reunion you have in mind,” Ali said stiffly.

Audra glanced at the name tag pinned to her sister’s shirt: Ali Conlan, Manager.

She thought of the dusty windows and battered reception desk. It seemed so out of character for her perfectionist sister to allow such transgressions when she had the power to do something about them. Audra couldn’t help but recall the many battles they had engaged in as kids over the state of their shared bedroom. Even the socks in Ali’s drawers had been folded, sorted by color and then lined up in neat little rows. The drawers in Audra’s bureau, by contrast, would barely close, and even then bits of their unfolded contents sprouted out like weeds.

“You’re the manager? In the Christmas card I got from Dane he said you had just made assistant.”

“I was promoted to manager after…last month,” she finished.

Perhaps that explained it, Audra thought. Her sister wouldn’t have had time to whip everyone and everything into shape in a mere thirty days. Then she reminded herself that the state of the resort was not the reason she’d come back. The woman before her was.

“When do you get off work? I…I’d really like to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing you have to say that I want to hear,” Ali replied firmly, crossing her arms in a pose that said no quarter would be given.

And still Audra persisted. “Please.”

She laid a hand on her sister’s crossed arms. It was promptly shrugged off. Anger flashed in Ali’s dark eyes, cutting to Audra’s soul, even more painful than her stepson’s strangling hold had been.

“You haven’t wanted to talk for ten years, Audra. You fell off the face of the earth after you took off with Luke.”

“I didn’t actually take off with Luke. We—”

“Spare me the details,” Ali interrupted.

“You knew where I was.”

“Oh, yes, how could I not. Even your private life was lived out in public. We read all about your weddings—after the fact.”

“I invited you to the first one,” Audra reminded her. Dane had come, as had her parents. But not Ali.

“I was busy.”

Audra hadn’t invited any of them to her subsequent weddings. At the time she’d told herself it was because the nuptials had been so hastily arranged that there simply wasn’t time. Now she realized it had more likely been because she’d known she was making a mistake and preferred not to have anyone from her family present as witnesses.

Well, that was all in the past.

“I’ve changed.”

“Developed a conscience after your recent near-death experience?”

Audra sucked in a breath. “So you heard.”