From Hatteras north, tourism had been prevalent since the Civil War, though Millionaire’s Row in Nags Head had seen a vacation-home-building boom between the 1920s and 1950s. That boom had never really included the southern islands of Ocracoke and Corey, where commercial fishing was still a way of life and tourism had only started in earnest about twenty years ago. It was a growing industry still dwarfed by the northern towns’, and Ocracoke, five times the size of Corey, with a regular ferry from Hatteras, saw about ten times the business as small and hard-to-reach Corey.
Laire zipped past the bustling town of Hatteras, spying a pair of dolphins playing in her wake off the portside and giggling at their antics. From Hatteras, she zoomed past Frisco, then slowed down as she neared Buxton, anxious that she not miss the house expecting her father’s delivery. Checking her watch, she was gratified to see she’d made good time. It was almost four o’clock, which meant she didn’t need to rush.
She cleared Brooks Point, hugging the Buxton shoreline at Brigand Bay, careful that her arrival so close to shore was wakeless. The first house she saw had the four-story rectangular tower she recognized from her father’s instructions. Beside it was another large house, then another. Then, sitting slightly apart from the other three mansions and bigger than them combined, she recognized her destination: Utopia Manor.
Three stories high, with five pronounced gables on the roofline, a green lawn, a pool, and a long boardwalk that led directly from the house to the Sound, she couldn’t have missed it if she tried. It was the most beautiful house she’d ever seen.
On the lawn between the house and the pool, she could see hired help setting up tables in the late-afternoon sunshine, unfolding chairs and scurrying about with linens and china. Her father hadn’t filled her in on what festivities were taking place at Utopia Manor tonight, but one look at the preparations told her that whatever it was, it must be a big deal.
Throwing the buoys over the side, she slowed to a crawl, cutting the engine to drift in alongside the pristine dock made of new lumber. Leaping from the bow with a line in her hand, she knotted it to a shiny chrome cleat, then jumped back on board to shimmy aft and do the same for the stern. Once she was securely tethered to the dock, she reached for the paperwork in her hip pocket, unfolding the invoices as she hopped back onto the dock. She ran a quick hand through her windblown hair and straightened her shirt before heading up to the house.
It wasn’t a short walk on the winding boardwalk, over the shallows and sand dunes, and included several sets of stairs up from the water’s edge to the house. Suddenly Laire wondered how smart it had been to insist she could carry the six packed coolers on her own.
Good thing she was early. She could take her time if she needed to.
She sighed with pleasure as she walked past the perfectly manicured rolling lawn and around the beautifully landscaped pool area, heading around the house as her father had instructed.
“Hey!”
She heard his voice before she saw him.
Had she known the ultimate cost of that simple glance heavenward, maybe she wouldn’t have stopped. Maybe she would have just kept on walking with her head down. But fate held no warnings for Laire Maiden Cornish.
Shielding her eyes, she looked up at a deck wrapped around the second floor of the mansion, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust as he came into view.
There, in the glittering sunlight . . . a boy.
No, a man.
A young man, a little older than she, tall and muscular, with jet-black hair and a square jaw, dark brown eyes, and a deep tan. He wore a robin’s-egg blue bathing suit with Kelly green palm fronds in a small repeat and a pair of sunglasses buried in his thick hair. In one hand, he held a phone up to his ear, and in the other, he slowly swirled a glass filled with ice and clear liquid. He stared out at the sound, concentrating on his call.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Can you hear me now?” He huffed with annoyance, pulling the phone away from his ear and squinting at it before trying again. “Pete? It’s Erik. Can you hear me?” He set the glass down on the balcony’s wooden railing and gave his phone his full attention. Staring down at it, he muttered, “Shit. No reception.”
It’s Erik.
Erik.
His name is Erik.
Feeling a sharp burn in her lungs, Laire realized she’d been holding her breath and sucked in a huge gulp of air as she stared up at him, frozen in the moment, utterly mesmerized.
She had never seen a more perfect, more handsome person in her entire life.
The sun glinted off his dark hair and wrapped his body in gold, making him appear godlike so very far above her. Were she the type to swoon, Laire imagined she would have been a puddle of goopy longing on the ground below him, content to sacrifice her pride for a glimpse at his beauty.
“Erik, honey? Can you come down here please?”
The voice was loud near her ear and startled Laire, who whipped her head around to find a woman standing directly behind her, looking up at Erik. She was tall and elegant, with very dark brown hair in a tidy chignon. Wearing a chic black bathing suit and a patterned sarong, she could have walked out of a magazine.