For the Taking

“We’ve just had an accident. Rob was driving, but it wasn’t his fault….”

“Oh, Lord, Susie, are you all okay?”

Susie and her sister Megan helped in the tearoom kitchen every day, while Susie’s husband, Rob, came part-time to keep the garden in shape and handle maintenance. Susie and Rob were in their late twenties, hoping to start a family soon, and Lass was close to them.

Well, as close as she ever let herself get to anybody.

“We’re fine.” Susie burst into tears.

They were obviously not fine. In a rambling account, Lass heard the details. Susie had lacerations on her face, Megan was being assessed for a head injury and Rob had probably broken something, but they weren’t yet sure what. They were at the emergency department of the local hospital.

“I’ll try to get out to you as soon as I can,” Susie promised, “but they want to put dressings on the cuts, and—”

“Susie, you’re not coming in today, okay? None of you. Or tomorrow. Not till you’re ready. It should be quiet. I’ll—”

“Quiet? It’s the middle of school summer break!”

“I’ll manage. We can still get quiet days sometimes. You just look after yourself and Megan and Rob.”

The fact that Susie stopped arguing at once was proof that neither she, her sister nor Rob were fit to come in. Lass put down the phone, and faced the knowledge that “managing” wouldn’t be nearly as easy as she’d claimed. She opened in less than an hour, and still had the salads and sandwich ingredients to set out, the quiche fillings to prepare, the coffee machine to start, the scones to make, the cream to whip….

And she didn’t care.

“Show me the photos, Loucan.”

Coming through the doorway from the kitchen, her bare feet cool on the polished hardwood floor, she found him standing in front of one of the two sets of French doors that opened onto the veranda, in the direction of the sea.

He was watching the sparkling blue ocean, just the way she always did. Silent, still and totally absorbed. Hungry for it. Listening to its call.

But he couldn’t hate the power of that call, the way she did.

He turned at her words, and he wasn’t holding the photos anymore. Where had he hidden them? She couldn’t tell. Not in the T-shirt pocket.

“I heard your conversation,” he said. “Your help can’t make it today?”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m worried about them, not me. It seems as if none of them is seriously hurt, fortunately. Please show me the photos of Phoebe and Kai. And—and Saegar, too.” The brother and playmate she’d loved. “Do you have pictures of him?”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“News about him, then? You told me the other day you were in touch with him.”

“You didn’t believe me.”

“I do now. Tell me. Show me.”

“Not yet. Tell me what’s in it for me, first, Thalassa.” His blue eyes burned with a cool fire, an assessing look she didn’t trust. “Meet me halfway. If I give you what you want, will you listen to me? Will you give me—?”

“No!” she cried, pressing her palms to her ears. “How can you talk about giving? Your father and his supporters took from me something that can never be replaced. They took my mother’s life with unspeakable violence, and without warning.” She drew a shuddery breath and had to struggle to keep going. “I’m giving you nothing, Loucan!”

As always, when she thought about her mother’s death, she couldn’t fight the secret, nightmare memory. Cyria—she’d only ever called her guardian Aunt Catherine in public—was the only other person who knew what Lass had witnessed as an eight-year-old child, and now Cyria was dead, too. That death, at least, had been peaceful.

Her mother’s, Wailele’s, wasn’t.

Oh, dear God, must I see it in my memory for the rest of my life?

Still, after twenty-five years, the sight of blood in the water panicked and terrified her, and she had told Cyria time and again that she would never go back to Pacifica, where such violence might happen once more.

“Then I guess the photos aren’t needed today,” Loucan said, cutting across her relentless unfolding of memory. He still seemed cool and totally in control.

“How do I even know they’re genuine?” she argued. “I haven’t seen Phoebe or Kai in so long, those couples could be anyone.” She didn’t really believe that. She knew in her heart that they were Phoebe and Kai, and their new husbands. All the same… “I don’t trust you, Loucan!”

“That’s obvious,” he said. “And I can understand it.”

“I hope so!”

“What I can’t understand is that you’d deny yourself the chance to connect with your brother and your sisters purely because you don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“Not so surprising, if you’d think about it a little more.” Deliberately, she kept her voice hard. “You’re apparently willing to blackmail me by keeping me in ignorance of the only family I have left. What that says about your character doesn’t inspire me to get to know you any better. But you’ve given me some facts about Phoebe and Kai and Saegar. Where they’re living. The names they use. I’ll be patient.”

“You’re saying—”

“Yes. I’ll track them down myself, or I’ll employ someone to do it. I don’t need you, Loucan. Your blackmail attempt has failed. And now I need to open up the tearoom. You can let yourself out.”

She slipped her feet into her sandals, pulled a bunch of keys from her pocket and opened the door, quaking inside. What would he do? Would he call her bluff? Could she bear it if he gave up and left, without telling her more about her siblings and without showing her the photos? Would the facts she now had be enough to trace her family on her own, as she’d suggested?

The heels of her silly, impractical shoes rapped like gunshots on the stone flagging of the veranda. Why did she buy these things? She had a dozen pairs and they killed her feet all day. Her clientele wouldn’t raise their eyebrows if she wore flats. Half the time she kicked her shoes off behind the counter and didn’t even notice.

She felt her breasts bounce as she clicked along to the end of the veranda, and was self-conscious again, aware of her own body in a way that was unusual. She didn’t like to think about where Loucan’s gaze might be focused.

He was a powerful man. Powerful in his position at the center of the chaotic situation that apparently still existed in Pacifica. Powerful in the aura of determination and ruthlessness that he exuded. He hadn’t given up. He would call her bluff; she was sure of it. Was he watching? Why didn’t he say something?

Loucan didn’t find his voice until Lass had reached the end of the veranda. He couldn’t understand his own reluctance to speak. She wouldn’t carry through on her threat, he was sure.

And yet he heard himself saying, with a husky note in his strong voice, “Wait!”

“Yes?” She turned, and he saw that he’d been right. She wasn’t remotely cool about this. He saw her hands shaking and her eyes glittering with hot tears.

“I’m not going to blackmail you.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness that he couldn’t remember ever using before in his life. “And I was wrong to imply that I would. I want your alliance and your trust, not this.”

“Sure you do, Loucan.” She pivoted and stepped from the veranda onto the paved path that led to the tearoom.

“Lass, listen to me—”

“No!”

He followed her, faster than she was in those frivolous, kittenish heels. Hearing him gaining on her, she kicked them off once more, and abandoned them in the grass at the side of the path. He caught up to her anyway, grasped her shoulder and spun her around. He pinned her to the spot with the sheer force of his will.

“This is how wars start,” he said urgently. “This is where violence comes from. When people can’t find a way to talk.”