Island Heat. Sarah Mayberry

      Sarah Mayberry

      ISLAND HEAT

      A huge thanks to my amazing partner, Chris, for his

       patience and sense of humor during the writing of this book. We’ll never move houses mid-manuscript again, I promise! Thanks also to the amazing Ms W for putting me in the writer’s seat on this one, and to Harlequin for inviting me to play with a bunch of talented, amazing ladies.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      TORY FOURNIER UNZIPPED her suitcase and flipped it open. Inside nestled a host of flimsy dresses, swimsuits, flip-flops and sun hats. She frowned at the bright colors and lightweight cottons. Why had she gone crazy and bought hot-pink and aqua? She only ever wore black, beige or white. Suddenly everything in her case looked garish and cheap and even vaguely slutty.

      Great.

      Pushing a hand through her straight blond hair, Tory started to unpack. She didn’t really hate her new tropical wardrobe. Deep inside she knew that. But she was feeling frustrated and oddly depressed. As she hung her sundresses in the closet in the stateroom she’d been assigned, she forced herself to remember that she was on a luxurious cruise ship, about to sail into the Caribbean for ten sun-filled days. There were about a million worse places to be, and not many better.

      Back in New York, for example, it was snowing. People were wearing gloves, scarves and hats and tucking their faces into their turned-up collars as they trudged to work. They could see their breath in the air, for Pete’s sake.

      And she was about to explore sunny, exotic St. Bart’s and Grenada and the Bahamas. What was wrong with her?

      She didn’t have to go far to unearth the source of her downer: her father. At twenty-nine, she should have been used to his unenthusiastic reactions to her good news. It was his way, that was all. He rarely lavished praise on anything or anyone, and his only daughter was no exception. All her life he’d greeted her successes with a nod of acknowledgment and little more. When she’d been accepted into the prestigious Cuisine Institute of America to do her chef’s training, she’d expected champagne corks and back pats from him. She’d been following in his footsteps, after all. But he’d simply reviewed her course selection and told her to avoid working under Monsieur St Pierre. When she’d scored a publishing contract for her collection of Caribbean-inspired recipes, he’d just looked confused and asked why she was dabbling when she should be pursuing her first Michelin star ranking in a prestige restaurant.

      And when she’d told him her publicist had organized for her to come on board Alexandra’s Dream as a guest lecturer to work in conjunction with a local celebrity chef for a special Caribbean-cuisine-themed cruise, he’d shaken his head in disbelief.

      “What about this Caribbean-themed restaurant you want to start up?” he’d asked. “That’s just going to go on hold, is it? You know I’m not sold on the idea anyway, but you need to show some commitment, Victoria.”

      He’d slipped into his chef-de-cuisine tone, the one he used to employ when he was castigating a lowly member of his kitchen staff. Perhaps because he was retired now, he used it on her more and more often these days.

      “It’s ten days, Andre,” she’d said. She’d gotten into the habit of calling her father by his name over the long summers she’d helped out in his former restaurant, the critically acclaimed Le Plat. “My real-estate agent is finalizing a list of properties for me, my backers are in place. This isn’t going to interfere with my plans.”

      Her father had just thrown his hands in the air in perfect imitation of her Gallic grandfather.

      “No one will ever take you seriously if you flit about like this,” he’d said.

      Just remembering the conversation made Tory mad all over again. She wasn’t flitting. She had a well-thought-out business plan to have her own restaurant fitted out and up and running within the next three months. She’d scouted sites, finalized a menu. She’d even tapped some past colleagues on the shoulder to warn them she would be head-hunting them soon. Ten days in the Caribbean was not going to derail any of that.

      She knew that part of her father’s attitude could be laid at the door of his retirement. He hated being a man of leisure. Practically his entire adult life had been spent in the stress and drama of a commercial kitchen; playing a round of golf in the morning and flicking through industry magazines for the afternoon just did not do it for him. But apart from being patient, there was precious little Tory could do about that. He’d chosen to hang up his apron—going out on a high, he’d called it—so he was going to have to come to terms with this new stage in his life. Unfortunately, it had been two years now and he was still showing no signs of accepting that his career was over.

      Of course, she could have told her father her other reasons for wanting to go to the Caribbean, but he wouldn’t have understood those, either, just as he didn’t understand her passion for island food.

      Her fingers brushed against something cool and metallic in her suitcase as she reached in for another stack of clothes, and she pulled a small photo frame from where she’d stowed it safely between two tank tops. Her brother Michael’s bright blue eyes smiled out at her, his handsome face tanned and his curly blond hair bleached white from long days in the sun. He looked so happy, so open. The old emptiness echoed inside her as she looked into his beloved face. It had been eight years, but she still missed him every day. Perhaps it was because they had been twins. Perhaps it was because they’d been best friends as well as brother and sister. Or maybe everyone felt the same aching sense of loss when a brother or sister died, as though nothing was ever going to be the same again.

      Cleaning the smudged glass on the hem of her T-shirt, Tory placed the photo frame on her bedside unit. She didn’t normally travel with a picture of her brother, but this trip was special. Michael was the reason she’d jumped at the unexpected offer when her publicist had called. She wanted to visit the place where her brother had spent the last months of his life, see the islands where he had been so happy. He’d joined the DEA straight out of college, and his first big posting had been to the Caribbean, working with local authorities, using his pilot’s skills to best effect in undercover operations. She could still recall the vivid descriptions of the islands in his letters and e-mails home. She wanted to see the Caribbean through his eyes. Maybe it would help her say goodbye to him at last.

      Sighing heavily, Tory crossed to the en suite bathroom to stow her toiletries. She caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror—her blue eyes looked troubled, her skin pale after months of winter. She had the same dimpled chin as her brother, but her nose was more snubbed than his. Her shoulder-length blond hair was starting to frizz a little from a day in the Florida humidity, and she smoothed it with her hand. She knew she was generally considered more pretty than beautiful, but she’d never had a problem with her looks—except for her curly hair. Fortunately a few minutes with her straightening iron fixed that every morning.

      She tried a smile in the bathroom mirror. She looked tense, uptight.

      Unbidden, words