“What?” Michael spluttered. “How?—”
“I don’t know the details yet,” Linda said. “Maggie just called me. I’m leaving now.”
“I’ll call Tom,” Michael offered.
“Thank you. Please call me right back when you have news.” Linda glanced at her watch, already calculating the long drive. “I’d better go. I just wanted you to know about Uncle George and to let you know there’s been a change of plans. You’ll have to bring Lily to Sanibel instead of the cabin.”
“Of course,” her brother said without hesitation. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. I’ll have to move a few things around at the office first, but we’ll be there.”
Linda ended the call and slid behind the wheel. She started the engine and pulled away from the curb, the house shrinking in the rear-view mirror until it disappeared completely.
She hated that Uncle George had been hurt. The thought of him lying in a hospital bed at eighty-five years old, in pain, made her stomach twist with worry. He had always been the steady rock of their family. The man who had taken her mother, her brother, and her in after her father died in combat when she was seven, and Michael was eight. Uncle George had given them a home next to the generational Hearts Hotel and had never once made them feel like a burden.
An hour later, as the Miami traffic thinned and the long road toward Sanibel Island stretched ahead, a quieter thought slipped into Linda’s head.
Uncle George had invited her to come home when he first learned what Richard had done. How her ex-husband had left her basically broke. Uncle George had told her the penthouse was hers whenever she needed it and that the family would figure things out together.
This was not the way she had wanted to accept that invitation. Not with worry and a broken hip and a frantic drive up the coast.
Still… maybe it was not such a bad idea after all.
She glanced in the rear-view mirror at Sophia and Jake, who were already chattering happily about the beach festival and Uncle George’s golden retriever, Buddy, and the big wrap-around porch at Heart House.
Linda smiled, small and tentative, as the first hint of Gulf breeze touched the open window.
It was in that moment that Linda knew going to Hearts Hotel might not be such a bad idea after all. The children loved it there, the beach, the big old house next door, Uncle George’s penthouse, and the freedom of summer days that felt endless. Plus, it would save her a great deal of money she simply didn’t have right now. As for the job interview she had lined up in Miami, Linda made a mental note to call the Historical Society and reschedule the interview. The job would still be there in a week or two. Uncle George had been hurt. That was what mattered.
And while it was not an ideal hand fate had played, perhaps this summer was exactly where they all needed to be.
DARIUS
Darius Wayne stood at the tall windows of his Miami waterfront home, gazing out at the glittering expanse of Biscayne Bay. The late-afternoon sun painted the water in shades of gold and rose, the kind of view most men his age would pay a fortune to wake up to every morning. He had paid that fortune twice over, in fact, and yet today the beauty felt almost distant, like a painting he admired but no longer truly lived inside.
He turned as Penny Rawlings stepped into his home office, her heels clicking softly on the polished marble floor. At sixty, she still carried herself with the quiet confidence of a woman who had built her reputation on sharp legal instincts and unwavering loyalty. She had been his attorney and business advisor for nearly thirty years, and in all that time, she had never once sugarcoated the truth.
“Congratulations are in order, I hear,” Penny said, setting her leather folder on the wide mahogany desk. “You finally secured one of the beachfront properties you’ve been after… well, since I’ve known you for… what… forty years?”
“It was unfortunate that the owners never got to enjoy the benefits of the money that I paid for it.” Darius allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. “How many times have we approached the late owner of that house to sell to us?”
“At least every two years for the past forty years,” Penny answered. “I brought all the paperwork to finalize, and the paperwork you wanted on the parcel of land beside the house and the other property that joins it.”
“If the rumors are true,” Darius told her, taking the folder and opening it, “it won’t take a lot in the property’s current state to acquire it.” He frowned as he thought he’d feel a lot more elated about the current property he’d purchased and the other two he was about to swoop in and acquire. But he didn’t. There was a heaviness around his heart, and it intensified as his mind pictured the magnificent stretch of coastline that ran along the front of one of his new properties. “The private reserve between the two properties makes the whole thing perfect. Once I have those two pieces of land, the entire coastal stretch will be mine.”
“Then why—” Penny studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “—don’t you look a lot happier than you do right now?” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you having second thoughts?” Her brows shot up at a realization. “You haven’t gone and grown a conscience on me, have you?” Her eyes didn’t leave his face. “Darius, you’ve been after that property since before your father died. It’s been your one elusive goal.”
“I know,” Darius said and drew in a heavy breath. “I’m just tired, I guess.”
“Well, you have been burning the candle at both ends since you took over this company from your late parents,” Penny pointedout. “And in all that time I’ve not known you to take an actual vacation.”
“I’ve taken many vacations,” Darius told her, a little defensively. “Heck, I’m always jet-setting off to some exotic destination or other with sparkling blue water and lazy, untouched stretches of golden sand as far as the eye can see.”
Penny rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Again, that’s called research, not a vacation.”
His eyes fell on the deeds to his new property, and again his mind pulled up a picture of the beautiful bay his parents had loved. Darius and his sister had loved vacationing with his parents when they were kids. It held all their happiest family memories together. Because of his parents’ accident that took their lives when he was in college, and his sister had just finished high school, he had immediately stepped up and ensured that Isabel had a home and stability. Darius had to step in and take over the company to prevent the stock from tanking and appease shareholders.
The weight of those early years still sat on his shoulders some days. He had been barely twenty-one, suddenly responsible for a grieving teenage sister, a sprawling family business, and thousands of employees who depended on the Wayne name. Nights blurred into days as he attended lectures during the day and pored over balance sheets and contracts at night. It had been such a relief when Penny had joined the Wayne Group and became his rock. She had stood by his side for the past forty years, quietly guiding him, protecting him from the worst of the board’s skepticism.
Penny’s voice softened. “You were so young when you took it all on. Most men your age were still figuring out who they were. Youhad to become the head of a major development and hotel chain almost overnight, as well as the father figure to your younger sister.”
