The resort had been Shelby’s playground as a child—the campgrounds and pier, the pool and tennis courts, even the store and the grill. She’d scooped minnows for customers by the time she was eight, served ice cream when she was ten, cleaned motel rooms when she hit her teens. Her siblings and cousins could make the same claims, and Steven could have added that he had twice saved children from drowning in the lake.
She remembered Aaron asking if she’d ever thought of leaving the business. She’d been completely honest when she’d told him that she had not. Unlike her brother and sister, she thought with a faint sigh. The whole family had begun to sense Steven’s restlessness, and Lori refused to commit her future to the resort until she’d explored a few other options.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” her mother asked, wandering back to where Shelby sat. “You’re not still fretting about the man in Cabin Seven, are you?” she added in a whisper, glancing around to make sure none of her customers overheard the question.
“Not at the moment.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Dark blond hair pulled back into a casual twist, blue-eyed, fresh-faced, fifty-two-year-old Sarah Clements Bell had been mistaken more than once for an older sibling to her three grown offspring. She dressed neatly but casually in resort-logo polo shirts and khakis, wore a minimum of makeup, eschewed jewelry except for her watch, wedding rings and simple stud earrings, and refused to fret about maintaining the perfect figure, though she was probably less than twenty pounds over the ideal weight for her average height. Her husband thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and her children adored her, but none of them made the mistake of underestimating her.
“Shelby, what have you done?” she asked in a low, firm voice. “You haven’t hired an investigator to check out your suspicions, have you? Is that why Aaron Walker came here?”
“No, Mom, that’s not why he came,” Shelby replied, able to look her mother straight in the eyes because that was, of course, the truth. She saw no need to mention the invitation she’d mailed to Andrew recently. How could she have known his brother would show up instead?
She should have realized she wouldn’t get away with the prevarication. “Did you tell him your theories when you took him down to his cabin?” her mom persisted. “Please tell me you didn’t ask him to spy on the neighboring cabin.”
Shelby cleared her throat.
“Shelby!” her mother hissed in exasperation, darting another quick look around. “We can’t talk about this now, but you can bet we will be discussing it as soon as we’re in private.”
“All I did was ask him to keep an eye out while he’s here,” Shelby muttered, feeling entirely too much like a kid in trouble. “It’s not like I officially hired him or anything. He said he didn’t mind.”
“You imposed on his vacation by—oh, my goodness.”
Her mother was looking beyond her, toward the doorway, and Shelby had a sudden inkling of what had caused the startled expression. She swiveled on her seat, then nodded at Aaron as he slid onto the stool next to her. “Didn’t take you long to unpack.”
“That’s because I haven’t yet,” he replied with a shrug. “I was talking to my brother.”
And it hadn’t been a warm and fuzzy call, Shelby mused, studying Aaron’s expression. Something was definitely going on between the brothers, and she didn’t think it took a P.I. to figure that out.
“Mom, this is Aaron Walker. Aaron, my mother, Sarah Bell.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” her mother said, shaking his hand. “Welcome to the resort.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bell.”
“Please, call me Sarah. Can I get you anything?”
He glanced at the menu over the grill. “A grilled chicken sandwich sounds good.”
“Shelby, why don’t you serve Aaron something to drink while I cook his sandwich?”
He requested a lemonade, which Shelby fetched swiftly from a pitcher behind the counter. “I’ve been trying to prepare everyone for seeing you,” she informed him as she set the plastic tumbler in front of him. “You’ll probably still get a few double takes.”
He shrugged. “I’m used to that.”
She studied his handsome face from beneath her lashes. “I’ll just bet you are,” she murmured.
His eyebrows rose, and he studied her speculatively.
Giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder, she said, “Enjoy your dinner. Mom will take good care of you. I have some things to wrap up in my office, but I’ll see you later.”
She heard his stool squeak when he turned to watch her stroll toward the exit. She added a little extra pop to her walk—just because.
She hadn’t flirted this way with Andrew, she remembered, her amusement fading. Because of Pete, maybe. Or maybe the circumstances. But she couldn’t resist drawing those lazy grins from Aaron that made him look so different from his brother. And now she sounded like Mimi, she thought with a wry shake of her head.
It wasn’t as if she expected anything to happen between her and Aaron. He was here for vacation, and he’d agreed to do a favor for her only because she’d given him little choice. She wasn’t the type to sweep a good-looking adventurer, which she considered Aaron to be, off his feet. She wasn’t the “pretty one” in the family—her cousin Hannah held that title. Nor was she the summer-fling type. She’d had plenty of opportunities for that sort of thing, had she been interested, but that just wasn’t her style. Still, she enjoyed a little harmless flirtation as much as the next girl, especially with a man as attractive as Aaron Walker. Those sexy smiles of his were definitely rewards in themselves.
Half an hour later, after finishing the few work tasks she’d had left to do that day, she wandered back downstairs—only to find Aaron still in the diner, now sitting at a table surrounded by members of her family. Maggie sat next to him, with Mimi on his other side. All three of them were eating her mom’s homemade chocolate pie. Uncle Bryan and Aunt Linda sat across the table with cups of coffee. With no one waiting to order at the moment, Sarah sat on a bar stool near the table, participating in the lively conversation.
Shelby noted that Aaron didn’t seem to be saying much—as if anyone could get a word in edgewise with her family—but he appeared to be enjoying himself. She moved toward the cheery group. “Looks like a party going on in here.”
Her aunt motioned her over. “We were just telling Aaron some funny stories about raising you kids in the resort. He said he and Andrew always had family around when they were growing up, too.”
Aaron chuckled. “We could never get away with much. Which doesn’t mean we didn’t try. The terrible trio got into more than a few scrapes, despite being watched almost constantly by our parents, aunts and uncles. Not to mention older cousins who thought it was their job to report on our activities.”
“The terrible trio?” Shelby asked, pulling up a chair.
He nodded. “That’s what they called my brother, our cousin Casey and me. I can’t imagine why,” he added with a humorous attempt at innocence.
Mimi tsked her tongue. “I bet you boys were a handful.”
“Yes, ma’am, we surely were.”
Maggie propped her chin on her hand and studied Aaron with a smile. “For some reason, I can picture you getting up to mischief, but it surprises me that your brother was part of it. He seemed so proper and conservative.”
“I guess he is. Now,” Aaron murmured, and once again Shelby would have liked to know what was going on between the twins.
“Oh,