Hurricane Bay. Heather Graham

“Okay, so maybe to some people that’s the middle of the night.”

      “I was just going to go to a hotel,” Larry said, looking at Kelsey, still apologetic. “But I went by Nate’s. He reminded me that this place has two bedrooms. And if Sheila shows, I can just bunk over with Cindy.”

      Kelsey stepped back, letting the men enter. “Larry, you’re more than welcome here—as much as I am, surely. You’ll have to take the spare room. I’m in Sheila’s—I know it sounds silly, but it makes me feel closer to figuring out her moves somehow. But what are you doing down here at all?”

      He shrugged. “Two things. You sounded upset on the phone, and I didn’t want you to go getting all worried about Sheila. She’s been known to take off before. Second…I don’t know. You’d been to see Nate, Cindy was here, Dane had come over…I guess I was seized by a rush of nostalgia and decided I had to come down, too. My nostalgia was tempered with reason, of course—I didn’t want you to be alone and upset.”

      Nate made his way past both of them. Unlike Larry, he unmistakably belonged here. His tan was straight from the beach, not acquired in any artificial bed. He had a complete ease of manner in cutoffs or swim trunks, a T-shirt or his bare chest. He could dress well when he needed to and looked like a million bucks. But an hour or so with a tie on, and Nate went crazy. He’d been born in the islands, and he loved them. He’d never had the least desire to leave. He’d gone far enough north to get a degree from Florida International University in hotel and restaurant management, just so he could further improve the Sea Shanty. A vacation to Nate meant taking a boat over to the Bahamas. He had no desire to head for the snow and couldn’t care less if he ever saw a country that didn’t offer a good reef for diving, sun, sand and warmth.

      “You got coffee, Kelsey?” he asked, heading straight for the kitchen.

      “Yes, I have coffee,” she said, glancing at Larry with a shrug and following Nate. “But it’s 2:00 a.m. You’ll wind up staying awake all night.”

      “Nope. I never stay awake all night,” Nate assured her. He was already digging through the cabinets.

      She walked behind him, caught a prying hand and said, “If you want coffee, let me make decaf, and that way Larry and I can join you.”

      “She’s in her mid-twenties, and already her spirit of adventure has departed,” Nate said to Larry, over Kelsey’s head.

      “My dislike of lying awake all night unable to sleep has kicked in, that’s all,” Kelsey said. Giving Nate a little push out of the way, she found the decaf and began preparing the coffee.

      “You got anything to eat in here?” Larry asked.

      “You just came from Nate’s place—why didn’t you order food if you were hungry?” Kelsey asked. She didn’t want to say that she was actually glad to see them, as annoying as they might be. They were giving her a pleasant sense of security.

      “His late-night menu doesn’t offer a lot,” Larry said.

      “Hey!” Nate protested. “Conch fritters, conch chowder, snapper sandwich, veggie burger, hamburger. What are you expecting at this hour of the night? A sissy fruit and yogurt salad, or some alfalfa sprouts?”

      “Your eating habits will give you a heart attack one day,” Larry said. “I can already hear your arteries choking.”

      “You’re going to be one of those health freaks who does marathons and drops dead running down the block,” Nate told him.

      “You have cereal?” Larry asked Kelsey.

      “Raisin bran. Help yourself.” She was measuring coffee.

      Larry had no problem helping himself to food. “Ah-ha! She has yogurt and fruit. I knew it.”

      “And beer,” Nate said, taking one.

      “You just left a bar.”

      “I never drink when I’m working my own bar.”

      “You just asked me for coffee.”

      “The coffee and the beer will cancel each other out.”

      Kelsey shook her head and let the coffee perk. She crawled up on a bar stool next to Larry. “What about work? We’re both gone now.”

      “Tomorrow is Friday. I left a message with my secretary that I was working at home. I’ll drive back in on Monday sometime,” Larry said. “Don’t worry, I’m a golden boy at work, you know that.”

      It was true.

      “Um. Let’s hope you’re not so golden that they don’t get the idea to cut my vacation short,” Kelsey told him.

      He laughed. “You’re the golden girl. The idea lady. The creative genius. You’re safe.”

      “Is that coffee done, Kelsey?” Nate asked.

      “Looks like it. Why don’t you pour me some, too?”

      Larry jumped when the phone on the counter in front of the coffeepot rang.

      “Who the hell would be calling at this hour?” Larry asked.

      “Yeah, two o’clock in the morning,” Kelsey murmured. “Answer it.”

      Larry did so. Even from where they were sitting, the others could hear Cindy’s voice over the phone. She had recognized Larry’s “Hello?” But she wanted to know what he was doing in Kelsey’s place in the middle of the night.

      “Time is relative,” he told her. “Actually when I talked to Kelsey earlier, she sounded a little down, and I thought seeing you and Dane sounded really good, so I decided to play hooky from work and drive on down. For the weekend, at least.”

      Cindy said something Kelsey couldn’t quite catch. Larry hung up the phone.