ísa didn’t immediately panic. “Is Martha with you?”
“You know Mrs. M. would never abandon me,” was the outwardly upbeat response that struggled to hide Catie’s worry. “I just… Can you see if you can find out where Dad is? So I know he’s okay?”
ísa rubbed at her heart, hurting for her little sister. Catie kept on loving Clive even though he let her down over and over again. ísa often thought that what Clive was doing to Catie was worse than what Jacqueline and Stefán had done to ísa. At least being ignored came with a sense of certainty that eliminated hope. Clive, by contrast, showed Catie just enough care to keep her hopeful that, next time, he’d act more like her father and less like an overindulged child.
“Of course I can,” ísa said in response to her sister’s halting request. “I’ll call you back tonight.”
“Thanks, Issie.”
Hanging up, ísa got into her car and began to go through her list of Clive’s friends—she’d collected their names and numbers over the years for exactly such a situation. It took her a half hour to track him to a casino in Sydney, Australia.
Leaving the country without telling his daughter?
That was a new low even for Clive.
When she got him on the phone, he was full of apologies that she knew were meaningless. Clive was from her mother’s “pretty arm candy” phase.
“Martha’s so dependable,” he said, all warm bonhomie. “I have total faith in her. I’d never have left my little girl otherwise.”
“Call her,” ísa ordered, channeling the Dragon, her tone blasting Clive with fire. “If you don’t, I swear I’ll report you for child endangerment. Imagine what that’ll do to your credit line.” Because that was the only thing about which Clive appeared to care.
“Sure, sure, sure. No need to get tough, ísa. I’ll call her right now.”
“I’m going to check with her in five minutes to make sure.”
She was sitting in the driver’s seat waiting for those minutes to pass when there was a knock on her window. Jumping for the second time that day, she glanced up to see Sailor on the other side, his forehead scrunched in lines that could’ve either been concern or anger.
ísa didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to deal with the man right then. He reached too deep into her without even trying, was dangerous to her dreams. But, given that he was also as stubborn as a goat and still staring at her, his jaw getting increasingly more set, she rolled down the window and said, “I had to deal with a family thing,” before he could ask her why she was still sitting in the parking lot as the world went dark around them.
“Is it done?” Sailor asked. “I won’t leave you here alone.”
Something tight uncurled inside her, and she didn’t know what it was. ísa wasn’t used to someone looking after her. The thought was ludicrous. She’d been looking after everyone since before she could drive. But Sailor was giving the distinct impression that he wasn’t about to budge until she did.
Right then she didn’t feel like just a distraction. An annoyance maybe… but an annoyance important enough to make him alter his own plans. “Who made you the ísa police?” The cool words just fell out of her mouth.
As the vase had once been thrown from her hands.
He made a distinct growling sound. “My truck’s not budging until you drive out of here, spitfire, so stop trying to scare me off.”
ísa scowled back at him even though the fluttering, mushy thing inside her was getting worse. He was really going to stay. Even though he was clearly tired after a long day of hard, physical work. “I’m nearly done.” Her phone rang in her hand even as she spoke.
It was Catie on the other end, ecstatic that her father had gotten in touch.” Thank you, Issie,” she said on a delighted laugh. “I knew you’d do it.”
Happy for her sister but worried about how many times she’d have to do this before Catie was old enough to move out and have an independent life free of a father who was, quite frankly, a charming parasite, she said the words her sister needed to hear, then hung up.
“All done,” she told Sailor, the vulnerable mushiness inside her terrifyingly close to the surface. “You can go home with a clear conscience.”
And still he didn’t leave.
Reaching out, he rubbed gently at her forehead as if rubbing away a frown. “Have you eaten, spitfire?”
ísa tried to bring his actions down to the physical, to the erotic tension that simmered between them, and failed. There’d been too much tenderness in his question, in his touch. “I was going to pick up takeout on the way home,” she said, terrified in a way she’d never before been terrified.
If he kept acting this way, how was she supposed to keep from falling for him? For this twenty-three-year-old man with huge dreams and an ambition to match? A man who wouldn’t be ready to settle down for probably a decade yet, when a stable home was all that ísa had ever wanted to build.
She couldn’t wait ten years. It would destroy her.
And she could never be with a man for whom his business was his priority.
She should start her engine and drive as far from him as possible.
Brushing his knuckles over her cheek, the affectionate action freezing her in place as surely as if he’d placed those handcuffs of his on her wrists, Sailor glanced at his truck. “I’ve got to drop Jake home. But after that I was planning to go to my place and throw a fish steak on the grill, then work on the updated quote.”
ísa looked up, met his eyes.
It was a mistake.
Because his smile was a light in the blue as he said, “I could make that two fish steaks and you could help me with the quote.” Another brush of his knuckles. “It’ll go much faster if my demanding boss is right there to tell me what expenses she won’t authorize.”
ísa knew she shouldn’t. This was shaping up to be a horrible, horrible mistake. But no man had ever smiled at her that way, as if having ísa with him was the best thing he could imagine. As if she was his version of rocky road ice cream and chocolate cake combined. She knew it was an illusion, that Sailor Bishop was probably just very good at charming women, but she said, “That sounds nice.”
Maybe a woman had to make that horrible mistake before she finally learned her lesson.
“Here’s my address.” Sailor tapped it into her phone. “Meet you there in forty minutes?”
When ísa nodded, he rose, patting the top of her car. “Drive safe, spitfire. We’ll follow you out.”
That strange feeling in her stomach again at the idea of Sailor watching over her.
ísa didn’t know what to do about it, how to process it.