Finding Home

Buckling down, Stacey narrowed her eyes and forced herself not to think about anything except the novel she had before her.

Ian Bryanne looked exactly the way he sounded over the telephone.

Tall, thin, faded blond hair worn just a tad longer than the norm in deference to his chief employer. The former citizen of Great Britain was all angles and sharp points in a subdued gray Armani suit. The only splash of color came from his red tie. And from his electric-blue eyes.

The commercial flight she’d taken from California only took her as far as Honolulu. Ian had chartered a small local plane to bring her the rest of the way to Titus’s island. The trip had roughly been a hundred miles. Roughly because the weather had turned inclement just before she’d boarded the small aircraft. Her stomach was in complete upheaval by the time they landed.

She hadn’t been this nauseated since she’d been pregnant with Julie. Disembarking on very shaky legs, Stacey was convinced she would have been subjected to less turbulence had she made the short trip riding inside of a blender.

It felt like a full-fledged tropical storm by the time they touched down in the field where Titus kept his private Learjet. The moment she stepped out of the plane, Ian introduced himself, leaning forward to give her the benefit of the shelter afforded by the huge black umbrella he had brought with him.

Gusts of wind had the rain falling almost sideways, sailing beneath the umbrella and soaking her, but she appreciated the gesture. Together they walked side by side, careful not to slip on the metal steps of the ramp that had been pushed up against the plane.

“Welcome to the Island,” Ian told her crisply, raising his voice above the wind.

Attention focused on getting down to ground level, Stacey only smiled and nodded in response.

The Island. Her uncle hadn’t liked naming things. When he had purchased the fifteen-mile-wide island, rather than fixing some vain moniker to the tract of land, he referred to it by its description.

“Keep things as simple as you can,” he had told her more than once.

He had the same attitude when it came to everything. The stray canine he’d taken in some five years ago answered to Dog. She had no doubt that if Uncle Titus’d had a son or a daughter, he would have named them Boy and Girl. Unless there were more, and then he would have affixed numbers to them. Boy 1, Boy 2 and so on.