But the kick in the gut was that he still felt for Claire, even after all of that. Too often, even now, he recalled their sunset dinners on the beach, how they would dance in the dark in their own living room. How insanely happy they were when she told him she was pregnant and the first time he saw her holding Lexi. How Claire felt curled up against him, or under him...
The airplane intercom kicked on. The voice of Don Thomas, a pilot he’d flown with many times, interrupted his agonizing: “Good afternoon. We’re beginning our descent into the Los Angeles area. Local arrival time should be 2:14 p.m. with a temperature of eighty-four degrees, cloudy with a light northwest wind. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for landing. Welcome to or back to the United States.”
Someone in the plane actually clapped. An attendant began announcements about tray tables, seat backs and turning off electronic devices. Yeah, he thought, welcome back to the United States, but he was going to soon head out on yet another flight, to a state far from California, to see Lexi, of course, but also to see the woman he couldn’t get out of his head and his heart.
* * *
Frustrated she had to move so slowly, typing on the keyboard with one hand, Claire had switched to her smartphone to find websites and articles on a variety of subjects: Nick’s law firm; Francine Montgomery; Jasmine Montgomery Stanton; Palatka, Florida; on and on. There wasn’t much about Shadowlawn besides brief mentions of it. Kingsley Plantation near Jacksonville, rather than the little town of Palatka, got all the publicity, but then it was already open to the public and evidently thriving. Pressed for time, Claire gave everything a mere skim read.
She searched references to Nicholas Markwood, Jr., but she had not found one hint about his under-the-radar company he’d called South Shores.
Still, she could patch together why such an entity probably existed. Nick’s father, Nicholas Markwood, Sr., had committed suicide when Nick was ten, evidently over a bad land development deal that had swept him into debt and ruined his reputation and the reputation of his law firm, which Nick had resurrected later. Nick Markwood, the father, had left investors holding the bag for his bad deals, though he’d claimed he’d been duped. His world—and, no doubt, young Nick’s—had collapsed.
Nick was an only child who had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth that was evidently, she assumed, tarnished by the scandal and his notorious father with the same name. But he had put himself through the University of Miami undergrad and law school on scholarships and hard work, even bought his mother a property in Naples before she died, quite young, of cancer. He lived in that same house in the Aqualane Shores area of Naples when Claire had imagined he at least owned a place in tony Port Royal or Quail Creek West. She looked up a photo of his house on Google. It wasn’t pretentious or even very big, though it was on a canal. And the boat moored behind it was hardly a yacht, more like a fishing boat with an inboard motor.
So—surprises all around about Nick. Still, she was going to use her last ploy to see if he would really trust her to take the case he offered and to let her handle it her way, not his. No coddling Jasmine Montgomery Stanton just because Nick wanted that. Shadowlawn Plantation and the generations of women who had run it, including most recently Francine Montgomery, intrigued her. Nick intrigued her. And if he accepted her restrictions and rules when she told him the truth about herself that she’d shared with few others in the past twenty years—only Jace, who didn’t understand, and a kind nurse, who did—she’d take Nick’s South Shores case.
Nick could not believe he was paying to get into the Naples Zoo. He hadn’t been here for years, not since it was small and called Jungle Larry’s and he used to spend time here with his dad. After he lost his father, he couldn’t bear to come back. But he hadn’t protested when Claire had told him that, if she was leaving with him tomorrow, she was spending this day with her daughter, niece and sister, doing something special for her child—bringing her here.
He’d left his suit coat and tie in the car and rolled up his sleeves, but he still felt warm, overdressed and out-of-it with this casual crowd. Running shoes and flip-flops were the order of the day, which made him feel like these Italian leather loafers were screaming, “Look at me!” The crowd was heavy with grandparents doting on kids, especially in the playground area called the Cub Corral. It was a big, much improved zoo over Jungle Larry’s, that was for sure. Hell, this whole mess with Jasmine—and now Claire—was turning into a zoo anyway.
He followed the signs toward the Primate Expedition Cruise where Claire had said she’d meet him. She had to tell him something important, and if that was okay with him, she’d said she’d sign on the dotted line and leave with him tomorrow morning. He admitted to himself that he could have employed any of the three what he privately called psych-out-the-bad-guys consults the firm had used but he wanted Claire. He supposed, if he was honest with himself, he wanted her in more ways than one.
He took the right-hand path that skirted Alligator Bay. Across the small stretch of water, zoo workers were feeding the alligators. The whole thing reminded him of how his father’s former friend, a man he should not have trusted, had turned into a carnivorous beast. The man he’d grown up calling Uncle Clay had turned out to be a monster. Nick had been only ten, but those memories still haunted him.
Haunted: that reminded him that he’d better tell Claire about the ghosts that supposedly inhabited Shadowlawn before he took her there. He’d never seen them, but Francine and Jasmine had sworn they existed. Supposedly, the one who had thrown herself from the balcony only appeared to women. Francine had joked that would be a big draw if the plantation was opened to the paying public: “If you have ghosts, tourists will come.”
He scanned the area near the cruise dock where people were waiting for the boat to leave. Screeches of monkeys pierced the sound of children’s chatter. Claire had a sun visor on, but her red hair shone like a beacon. She spotted him, too, where she was waiting in line with her little group. She said something to the other redhead, obviously her sister, and came over, holding her little girl’s hand.
The child was cute with blond hair barely tinged with red. “Nick, I’d like you to meet Alexandra, whom we call Lexi.”
He smiled at Claire and squatted to get to Lexi’s height. “Are you having fun with your mom today?”
“Lots. We’re going to see everything here, but I don’t like the snakes. Their place here is called Snakes Alive. My cousin Drew threw one at Jilly and me in the backyard. He’s in school today—first grade.”
“Drew should not have thrown the snake. You know, if you pretend you’re not scared of them, maybe tell Drew you really liked seeing them at the zoo, he won’t do that again. He probably just likes to scare girls. Alexandra is a pretty name. There was a Queen Alexandra once.”
“Well, Mommy said so, but I’d rather be a princess. You know, like Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Pocahontas and Jasmine.”
At that last name, he stood. He had business to attend to here. “She’s a walking Disney encyclopedia,” Claire put in. For the first time, he realized Claire was fairly tall at about five-ten. At six foot two, he was used to towering over women.
“And she’s bright, like her mother,” he said. “Your sister’s gesturing. I think the line to get on the boat is moving.”
“I’ll get Lexi to her and be right back. We can talk while they take the little cruise,” Claire said and ran, holding Lexi’s hand, back to deliver her to her sister, who kept looking their way.
He snagged a bench, and Claire came right back. “I don’t know what I’d do without Darcy—even when we were small,” she told him and sat on the bench, angled toward him. He turned to her. The hot breeze ruffled her blue sundress above her knees and she smoothed it down. A moment of silence passed while they