Secret Harbor

Book 3: Windfall Island

by Anna Sullivan

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

SCANDALOUS SECRETS LEAD TO DEADLY DESIRE . . . Ten years ago, Paige Walker left her beloved home of Windfall Island to become an actress in Hollywood. Now she's coming back a star, honored with awards and beset by scandal. Escaping from a tabloid frenzy of gossip and lies, Paige wants nothing more than to surround herself with old friends. She never expected to meet an infuriating-and sexy-stranger . . . or to find herself in true danger. Brilliant attorney Alec Barclay came to Windfall to look for the kidnapped, long-lost heir to the Stanhope family fortune. What he finds is the most beautiful and enigmatic woman he has ever known. If his suspicions are correct, she's the heir he's been looking for . . . and the target of a deadly conspiracy. Drawn together by desire-but haunted by secrets of the past-Alec and Paige try to unlock a mystery as dangerous as it is irresistible. But every passion has a price . . .

Release date: February 24, 2015

Publisher: Forever

Print pages: 417

Sample

Prologue

October 18, 1931


Jamie Finley stood in the small front room of a little frame house, on Windfall Island, off the coast of Maine. In one arm he held a baby swaddled in serviceable cotton and plain wool. She’d come to him wrapped in silks and satins, a king’s ransom in jewels around her neck. It seemed all the same to her, though, wool or satin, as long as she was dry and warm and boasted a full belly.


The jewel that had adorned her now weighed heavy in his pocket, as heavy as it lay on his conscience, a necklace of diamonds and rubies the color of blood— No, the color of her blood was blue, he reminded himself, no matter the plainness of the clothing on her little body.

By rights the necklace should go back to the Stanhope family. Yes, he knew where the babe had come from now, how she’d found a place in the little boat they’d rowed back from the rumrunner called Perdition, just before it exploded and was swallowed up by the hungry and unforgiving depths of the Atlantic Ocean.


He’d heard of the maid who’d taken her from her rich crib in the palatial house. Selfishness she’d claimed, just a young girl wanting a night of fun. The bauble in his pocket told a different story altogether. The bauble spoke of greed.

There’d been a search, of course; those with such great piles of money could not only afford it, but they’d demanded it. The cops and the Feds had come to Windfall Island, but their questions and their nosing about had been halfhearted at best. They all thought the poor lass dead, and their efforts were made only to placate and humor a mother who must be grieving terribly.

That weighed on Jamie, too, another stone added to the boulders already sitting on his shoulders. But there were other mothers grieving, so many on this tiny island plagued with a measles epidemic that plucked the very old and the very young like apples from a tree, with no rhyme or reason. He’d always believed things happened in God’s time and for God’s reasons, but sometimes it made little sense to a simple man.

Jamie sighed, his hand dipping into his pocket to feel the cool, smooth stones, the corners on the diamonds and rubies nestled in their points of gold. No, he couldn’t send the necklace back without causing a furor. He couldn’t sell it, either, wasn’t clever enough to know how to go about such a thing without bringing wrath and ruin down on his little community.

As for the child, well, there’d be no sending her back, either.

When he’d left the Duncan house, he’d walked the village with her, warm and asleep, propped on his shoulder. The babe’s fine blanket remained with the Duncans, fair exchange for the dry clothing she now wore, and the hardy wool that had kept her bundled so warmly against the chill, damp night air. He’d searched his mind, and his heart, hoping to find the right course of action. Now the choice had been taken out of his hands.

He looked across the room to the woman rocking by the fire, rocking with her arms empty, her heart broken, and her mind…God forgive me, he thought as he crossed to her and put the child into those empty arms, as he listened to her call the babe by the name of her own daughter, nearly the same age, that she’d lost only hours before.

When her rocking evened out, when the lines sorrow had dug into her face smoothed, when she looked up at him and the shadow of loss was softened in her eyes, he knew he’d do it again, a thousand times over, to spare her one more minute of the kind of sorrow only a mother could feel. He made himself forget she wasn’t the only mother suffering.

As for the necklace, well, he’d rest on his faith there, too, faith and tradition, for what else could a man trust to but God and the law?

Since the salvaging days, Windfall Island had always been led by one man, chosen by the others because he was the smartest, the fairest, and the hardest. A man who could look past friendship when he arbitrated disputes, who’d consider what was best for the island when it came to dealing with the outside world, and do what it took to get all the islanders on board. And at times, he’d have to hurt some to do right for all.

John Appelman was that man. Jamie took the necklace out of his pocket—minus the egg-sized ruby pendant surrounded by diamonds that he’d already removed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to rob the child of her heritage altogether. She’d learn of it someday, he thought, and there providence would guide her as it had guided him.

John took the circlet of smaller diamonds and rubies and slipped it into his own pocket. They walked to the door, both of them pausing at the threshold to look back.

“You did right by her and the babe, Jamie,” John said, clasping his shoulder. “Now I’ll do what’s right for the rest of Windfall with this.” He patted his pocket as he pulled open the door. “It’ll get us all through the winter and then some.”

John had never let the island down before; he wouldn’t fail them now. The necklace would be disposed of carefully, and the proceeds used to provide what Windfall needed. And John would talk to the others, Giff, Norris, Meeker, make sure their tongues stayed behind their teeth, though they’d never know what really happened to the child.

And he, Jamie thought as he took one more look across the room, would have to find a way to live with his conscience.

Chapter One

Paige Walker, Oscar winner, Tony nominee, Hollywood’s Darling and America’s Sweetheart, surveyed her gurgling toilet and thought about just how far she’d fallen. One minute she’d been on top of the world—hell, she’d owned the world, or at least the part of it that either made movies or saw them. And those were the people who’d mattered to her.


It gave her no pleasure to admit that now. In fact, it made her feel even smaller—if that were possible—after the very people, those moviemakers and moviegoers she’d once treasured, had dropped her flat on her religiously exercised and very well-shaped ass.

And then she smiled, because instead of the inevitable rocky landing, the people of Windfall Island had caught her. Or maybe they’d let her catch herself. It had been her idea to come home, but after ten years without a single visit, they could have shunned her. Or worse.

One call to the press would have brought reporters circling like vultures to peck at her already-bruised feelings and photographers to snap up whatever scraps of her privacy remained, so they could perpetuate and feast off the scandal that had rocked her world and sent her running to the only place she could find shelter, welcome, acceptance.

Whether or not the Windfallers believed she’d made the sex tape currently burning up the World Wide Web, not one of them had ratted her out. Once a Windfaller, she thought fondly, always a Windfaller. There’d been a time that would have embarrassed her.

But she’d learned the value of friendship.

She’d learned the value of home, too, something else she’d discovered too late.

Her mother had died when she’d been a little girl just shy of ten. Suzie Walker Morris had been beautiful, almost ethereal, slim as a wish, hair like sunshine, the face of an angel. Her head had certainly been in the clouds, Paige remembered, even if she’d married a man so earthbound he made his living digging in the dirt. Good, clean dirt and good, clean work, Matt Morris had always called the small fields he’d tilled and the odd jobs he’d done in order to make ends meet.

Her father hadn’t been what anyone would call demonstrative, but he’d been even-tempered, fair, and in his way loving. He’d fed her, housed her, and seen to her needs as best he could, even after Suzie died, and caring for a moody, emotional girl growing into her teens couldn’t have been easy for him.

And he’d kept the truth from her because he’d known the truth would hurt.

She’d never let him know he’d failed.

Paige had learned the details of her mother’s death anyway; she could hardly have avoided it on an island like Windfall, where everyone knew everyone else and gossip was the first order of business. Her mother had been in a fatal accident on the mainland. Wrong car, wrong man—or maybe wrong drunk would be more appropriate. It hadn’t been the first time Suzie had broken her vows, though it had been the first time Paige had heard of her mother’s inconstancy, and her father’s tolerance and forgiveness.

It had been the first time she’d understood that old saying about books and covers. The first time she understood that she could be whoever she chose to be. And that image was everything—whether or not it was the truth.

She’d taken her mother’s name, if only to remind herself that the life she’d chosen very rarely resembled reality. And to thumb her nose at those who’d found joy in dragging a dead woman’s reputation through the mud.

But it was her father she missed, desperately. Matt Morris had passed away suddenly while Paige was off making her mother’s name into something she could be proud of. She’d gotten the news of his death on a movie location in a patch of eastern European countryside so remote she wasn’t sure the locals even knew about television, let alone movies.

By the time her publicist managed to contact her, it had been too late for her to make it back to Windfall Island for the funeral. Of course, she’d been judged for that, and for not coming back to at least visit his grave, because that would have meant accepting. It had been too devastating to lose her only pillar, the man who’d been so quietly proud of her, though the one time she’d brought him to Hollywood he’d been unhappy and out of sorts. And she’d always been too busy to come back to Windfall. Or so she’d told herself.

Silly now, she thought as she looked back, silly and stupid to believe the world wouldn’t have accepted her humble beginnings. But she’d been silly and stupid in the early days, and then it had become a habit to keep her private life private, not to mention good sense in a place where reality and truth were just concepts to be interpreted and presented to the world. She’d become a commodity; Paige had accepted that. She refused to become a cash cow for greedy, deceitful scum who considered it a satisfying day’s work to trash reputations and peddle lies in pursuit of that almighty dollar. Her father, she knew, had understood.

Her doorbell chimed the first four notes of “Somewhere My Love,” and the corners of her mouth curved up as she made her way downstairs. “Somewhere My Love” was the theme song of December Sunshine; Laura Galloway had been her breakout role, the one that had made her famous at the ripe old age of eighteen. It felt like just yesterday, she recalled, and oh so long ago.


She opened the door, then stepped back, feeling the smile bloom slowly on her face and heat rush through her—the kind of sudden, breath-stealing desire she hadn’t felt for a man in a long time. She let her gaze skim down from his dark hair, barely registering handsome features before moving down a coat-covered body to strong legs clad in jeans, worn white at the stress points. And then she noticed the toolbox in his hand.

Her eyes lifted to his. “Are you the plumber?”

“No,” he said shortly, shaking the rain out of his hair. “‘Somewhere My Love’?”

The mocking tone in his voice snapped her back.

She drew Paige Walker—the slightly raised brow, the purposely sarcastic smile, the overtly sexual body language—around her like armor. “I had the house renovated after my father died,” she said with deliberate calmness, and felt the instant, familiar pang.

Even knowing her father was gone, she’d hadn’t had the heart to sell the house. Instead, she’d had it remade to her exacting specifications, then rented it out to summer vacationers who preferred the semblance of home to the convenience of a hotel. When she’d first walked in, she’d been pleased and surprised to discover it still had the feel of a cottage, even with the modern improvements.

She’d had the back windows widened to bring Secret Harbor and the Atlantic beyond, with all her moods, right into the house. Otherwise, she’d gone for utility, comfort, and peace. The kitchen was granite, glass, and stone, with appliances paneled to match the cabinets. The rest of the house boasted dark wood floors, furniture chosen for comfort, and walls in a pale cream color that seemed to glow warmly in even the tiniest amount of light.

“I’m not sure what the contractor was thinking when he chose those particular chimes for the doorbell,” she continued, “but since he’s a Windfaller, I’m leaning toward humor rather than flattery.”

“There was nothing funny about December Sunshine.”


“Ah, you’re a moviegoer.”

He shrugged. “I was dating a woman who liked that kind of sappy melodramatic romance.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry she made you suffer so horribly. But you probably deserved it.”

“No man deserves that kind of punishment,” he said, a touch of humor diluting the disdain in his voice.

Paige leaned against the edge of the door, truly amused now, instead of only acting like it. “Millions of people around the world would disagree with you, including the critics. December Sunshine won several awards.” And so had she.


“No accounting for taste, I guess.”

“True, but it’s not too late for you to cultivate some,” she said, nearly laughing out loud when he only sent her a blank stare. “I don’t remember you.” And there was no way she’d have forgotten this man. And it wasn’t just his looks. He had charisma, that undefinable something that just naturally made a person look at him twice, then look again. “What’s your name?”

“Alec Barclay.”

She straightened, feeling a split second of shock before she retreated back into her role. Alec Barclay, friend to Dex Keegan and Hold Abbot, scion of one of the wealthiest Boston families, lawyer to the Stanhopes, and arguably the most eligible bachelor in America. A man who didn’t think twice about saying what was on his mind, even when he had no idea what he was talking about. Or to whom.

She’d managed to avoid him completely when they’d all been in Boston a couple of weeks before, trying to unravel the mystery of who Eugenia Stanhope’s long lost heir was. Or maybe he’d missed her. But clearly he hadn’t missed her sex tape.

“Alec Barclay,” she said, careful to keep her voice even and her tone lightly amused. “What was it you were quoted as saying about me and my…situation? ‘I wouldn’t have expected an actress of Paige Walker’s caliber to stoop to that kind of publicity stunt, but it’s been a few years since she’s won a major award.’”

He held up a hand to cut her off. “I remember.”

So did she, Paige thought. He’d finished the quote with a tongue-in-cheek reference to her “going the extra distance” to get a role, which might have been amusing if it hadn’t referred to a particularly embarrassing portion of the tape that had the woman everyone thought was her on her knees.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I was misquoted.”

“Were you?”

“No.”

When Paige found it difficult to hold his gaze, she reminded herself that she’d done nothing wrong, even if Alec Barclay and the rest of the world thought they knew differently. But she had to swallow a couple of times before she was confident she could get words out. “Why are you here?”

He held up the toolbox.

“You’re here to fix my toilet?”

“I can fix a toilet,” he said with the snap of defensiveness in his voice.

“Who said you couldn’t?”

“You did, by the way you looked at me.”

“Well, Counselor,” she said, “it’s not every day one of the Boston Barclays shows up at my front door to play plumber.”

“There’s more to me than a suit and a family name.”

She smiled in satisfaction. “Don’t like it when someone makes assumptions about you?”

His eyes went frosty gray. “Can we just get this over with so I can get Jessi and Maggie off my back?”

At the mention of her two closest friends, her smile widened. She’d missed them more than she’d realized in the ten years since she’d left Windfall. And okay, she was the one who’d neglected to maintain the connection. But now they’d come back together and proved there was a silver lining in every cloud.

Those who’d sought to bring her down had instead reminded her of what was important in life and given her a precious gift, one she wouldn’t take for granted again.

He stared at her and she realized she’d let her guard down. She wiped the smile off her face. “I’ll wait for Yancy,” she said curtly, referring to the island’s one and only plumber.

“Now you’re just being stupid.”

“Well, put another black mark in my character column, Counselor.”

“This is ridiculous.” Alec shoved by her to stand, dripping, in her foyer. “Where’s the bathroom?” He stripped off his coat and handed it to her, retrieved the toolbox from where he’d set it, then turned a slow circle before heading off toward the kitchen.

Paige dropped his coat on the floor and followed him, collecting the throwaway, untraceable cell phone she’d bought before she left Los Angeles.

Alec strode into the little hallway leading to her back door, with her laundry room on one side. He took one look into the powder room opposite, with its pale blue walls and crisp white and chrome fixtures, and turned on his heel. “That one’s fine,” he said abruptly, brushing by her again to retrace his steps to the staircase opposite the front door.

She whisked up the stairs behind him and into the master bedroom, and found him staring at her bed, an old iron frame she’d found online and hired Maisie Cutshaw to paint white and dress with a quilt of her mother’s.

He glanced over his shoulder, their eyes locked, and heat slammed into her, a wall of heat and hunger that arrowed straight to her belly, then spread through her. And when his eyes dropped, she felt his gaze slide over her like a caress, a not particularly gentle one, considering the set of his jaw. But then suddenly she wasn’t craving gentleness.

“Calling the sheriff?” he said. “Going to report a breaking and plumbing?”

She looked down, remembering the cell phone in her hand. And felt foolish for thinking he’d spent even a split second admiring her body. Alec Barclay obviously wanted nothing to do with her, lust notwithstanding.

This time when she met his eyes, she had no trouble recalling that. “I’d tell you to stop being an ass, but it’s too late.”

“I’d tell you a thing or two,” he said with a faint smile, a quick glance at the bed, “but my mother would know somehow.”

“Afraid of your mother?”

“I’d call it healthy respect.”

“Nice to know you respect someone.”

“I respect a lot of people.”

“Just not me.”

He shrugged. “You said it. I didn’t.”

“Right.” She crossed her arms. “Because nothing you’ve said or done could possibly lead me to believe your opinion of me is subterranean?”

“Well, it gives you plenty of room for improvement.”

“If only I cared what you think…” His grin brought a reluctant smile to her face. They both liked a little conflict, it seemed. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll watch one of my movies and bask in my own greatness. I’d say it’s been nice, but—”

“But you don’t like me. Since I’m only here to provide menial labor, you can think of me as one of the little people who are easily overlooked.”

That did it. Maybe because he was right—not that she’d overlooked the “little people,” but because she’d thought of them like children, whose love she never had to question. Until they bought into a lie—just like Alec Barclay had.

She stepped in front of the bathroom door. “Get out.”

He simply shifted her aside. He didn’t touch her any longer than necessary, she noticed.

“I’ll go,” he said, “just as soon as I’m done.” He walked into the bathroom and set down his toolbox. His eyes went from the still-gurgling toilet to the bathtub, a bottle of cleaner and rubber gloves on the edge of it. He looked over his shoulder, both eyebrows raised.

“I know how to clean a bathtub.”

He snorted softly. “I’d take some photos, if I thought anyone would believe it.”

No, but they’d believe she would prostitute herself with a director so he’d cast her, when all it would take was a phone call from her agent to have him begging her to be in his little movie.

But while she didn’t blame the public for being taken in, Alec Barclay should have given her the benefit of the doubt. There were two sides to every story, right? A lawyer should know that. A lawyer should at least ask her if the rumors were true. Alec Barclay, well, she didn’t know why he wanted to believe the worst of her.

And she didn’t care. “Small minds always believe what’s easiest.”

“All minds believe what they see.”

“Oh, so you’ve watched that tape?”

“No.” And she could see he realized how neatly he’d trapped himself. “But you haven’t denied it.”

“I don’t owe you any explanations, Counselor.”

“You’re right,” he said equably, “but no matter how far you run, you still have to live with yourself.”

“Get. Out.” She bit off the words, let anger take her toe-to-toe with him.

He loomed over her; she glared up at him. Her heaving chest brushed his and with their mouths only inches apart, the sear of fury turned to a fire in her blood. Her eyes dropped to his mouth. If she lifted to her toes, or he leaned down…

She raised her eyes, saw the heat in his, the edge of temper turning to desire. But as he started to close the distance between them, she took a step back.

She had no idea what to do with the need burning through her like molten gold, but she knew if he saw it they were both lost. So she turned away. If he kept pushing, she’d let him think whatever he wanted, as long as he touched her. Took her.

It made no sense; they’d just met, and he harbored such a low opinion of her. Still, Paige told herself, she was having a physical reaction to a handsome man, nothing more.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his deep voice still so close beside her it made her shiver.

“Suppose we call a truce?” she suggested as she eased away from him. “I don’t like the idea of pulling our friends into”—she spread her hands, risked a glance at him—“whatever this is.”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I’ll be at the Horizon later. Why don’t you let me buy you a drink? Maybe we can be friends.”

“No, I really don’t think so. I’ve had too much experience with people like you—”

“People like me?” He stepped around to face her. “Care to elaborate?”

She really shouldn’t have. There was enough animosity between them already. But, hell, he’d made no secret of how little he thought of her. “You’re a judgmental hypocrite,” she said. “Before you even met me you decided what kind of woman I was. You think I made that sex tape, that I made it and released it for publicity.”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“What’s the point?” And hell would freeze over before she defended herself to him. “You’ve already decided what kind of woman I am. But you’d go to bed with me anyway.”

“Aren’t you taking a lot for granted?”

“No.”

“Now there’s a word you weren’t saying a minute ago.”

But she was the one who’d backed off first, and they both knew it. “You should go.”

He held her eyes, then nodded. “Just one thing. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other until we can all unravel who the Stanhope descendant is and keep everyone safe.”

“And?”

“I won’t have any trouble keeping my hands to myself. Until you ask me to put them on you.”

“Aren’t you taking a lot for granted?” she parroted back at him.

“No.”

She shook her head, smiled a little. “There’s heat between us, Counselor, I won’t deny that. But there’s no warmth, and I find these days that I value warmth much more.”

“So you’re looking for love and devotion?”

“No.” Not from him, at any rate. “Some level of respect would be nice, but you don’t strike me as a man who changes his mind or his opinions.”

“Not without a good reason.”

She spread her hands. “I can’t give you one.”

“Can’t or won’t?” He stepped forward, but the hand he reached toward her curled into a fist before he dropped it back to his side. “Give me a reason, Paige.”

She shook her head. “As you said, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. Best you hold on to that low opinion of me. It’ll save you from doing anything you’ll regret.”

He stared at her for a long, humming moment, his eyes as unreadable as his expression. As he turned on his heel and stalked off, she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d lied to him, after all, Paige thought.

Alec Barclay desired her; it was straight and honest lust. But she didn’t feel heat unless there was warmth, too, at least on her side. Heaven only knew why she should be drawn to Alec—his strength maybe, his intelligence, his humor.

But even if he knew the truth, sooner or later she’d do something to disappoint him.

She always did.

Chapter Two

The streets in Windfall Village were unnamed, as were the businesses, except for the pictograph signs that harkened back to a time when few of the island’s inhabitants boasted the skill to read. The tourists found it quaint. The Windfallers just shrugged it off; they knew where they were going.


The Horizon Inn had occupied the same spot on the main street in Windfall Village for nearly three centuries, just across from the docks. It had started life as a rough place that catered to the rough men who did what needed to be done to survive. With Prohibition, a kitchen was added and food was served—along with illegal booze—and when the island began to attract attention for its history, rooms were added for the tourists who flocked there in the summer, bringing prosperity at long last.

The Horizon’s clientele might run toward law-abiding citizens now, but its big main room had changed little.

The bar was made. . .