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“What do you care?”
“I don’t. I—” It came to her in a flash. An impossible idea … She closed her mouth. Opened it. “When are you leaving?”
He regarded her suspiciously. “Tomorrow morning.”
“And … Are you coming back soon?”
“Not sure. I’m starting a new job. Maybe September. What difference does it make to you?”
Her mind raced. She loved this house … this island … She swallowed. “If … you’re not going to be using the house for a while …” She did her best to keep her voice even, not let him see how important this had become to her. “I might want to rent it. I have some things to do, and this is as good a spot as any.”
“What kind of things?”
She wasn’t telling him about the panic she experienced whenever she thought of going back to Washington. Instead, she shrugged. “Take a real vacation. Cook. I have some writing to do for my father. You can apply my cleaning fees to the first month’s rent.”
He regarded her stonily. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
She wasn’t giving up so easily. “So all that talk about how you screwed up was just talk, right? You don’t have to back it up? Make some kind of atonement?”
“Atonement? That’s what this would be?”
Atonement, but not forgiveness. “Why not?”
He stared at her for a long time, and she stared right back. “All right,” he finally said. “You can have the place for a month. Rent free. And my sins are all forgiven.”
Not by a long shot. “Deal.”
A rabbit darted across the yard. She escaped to the dock, where she pulled off her boots and dangled her feet toward the water. The only deep emotion lurking behind that airport kiss had been guilt. Still, with the prospect of being able to spend more time on the island, she wasn’t going to regret the impulse that had brought her to this place where she was free from everyone’s expectations. She could be herself, even if she was no longer certain exactly who that person was.
With the sun beating down on the dock and her tutu skirt itching like crazy, she got too hot and climbed back up to the house. Panda was fixing the backdoor windowpane she’d broken. She decided to skirt the house and go in the front so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but on the way, she glimpsed a bright red T-shirt moving through the woods. Her nerves were already stretched too tight from the day’s tension, she was sick of being spied on, and something inside her snapped. “Toby!” She ran into the trees. “Toby! You come back here!” He kept running, and she barely avoided a tangle of wild blueberries as she charged after him.
He knew the terrain better than she did, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t letting him get away. Just as she jumped over a thick patch of bracken, she heard something coming toward her from behind. Panda barreled past her. Moments later, he held the terrified twelve-year-old by the back of his T-shirt. “Who do we have here?” he said.
She’d forgotten about Panda and his bodyguard instincts.
Toby was too terrified to struggle. Panda’s grip on the red T-shirt made it bunch under the boy’s armpits, revealing his bony rib cage and a sizable gap at the waistband of his oversize camouflage shorts. They hung to his knees, his skinny legs jutting out beneath. As annoyed as she was about being spied on, she couldn’t stand the fear in his eyes, and she touched Panda’s arm. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” he drawled. “The kid looks dangerous.”
Toby’s literal mind didn’t recognize sarcasm. “I-I-I’m not dangerous.”
“This is Toby,” she said. “His grandmother is your housekeeper.”
“Is that so?”
“Lemme go!” Toby cried. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not true,” she said as Panda relaxed his hold on the T-shirt. “You’ve been spying on me for days, and I want it to stop.”
Free of Panda’s grip, Toby got his swagger back along with his belligerence. “I never spied on nobody. My grandma sent me over to make sure you didn’t trash the place.”
“I’m being policed by a ten-year-old?”
“Twelve!”
As she very well knew, but Viper wasn’t as sentimental about kids as Lucy. “You need to find something better to do with your time,” she said.
The boy jutted his jaw and stared her square in the eye. “I haven’t been spying. You’re lying.”
