Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT Caribbean Nights #9) - Kat Cantrell Page 0,26

she’d so desperately needed a year ago.

Which was fine. She hadn’t asked for any volunteers or reminders that she’d been so needy. Better that he hadn’t been offering anything more.

Men were good for one thing. She’d gotten two stellar orgasms out of the deal and kicked him out without letting on how much she’d wished they could keep going. What wasn’t to like?

Except it had taken all night to put all her shattered pieces back together, especially since she didn’t permit one single tear to fall. Crying might have been cathartic where the releases hadn’t been. She and Charlie were over. Why couldn’t she get that through her stubborn heart?

After taking the world’s fastest shower, she threw on a sundress and packed a bag, then flagged down a cab to Grand Bahama Airport, which was fortunately only about a ten-minute drive. She found the girls in the baggage claim area where she’d texted them to wait for her. Carly and Hannah were easy to spot with their matching strawberry blonde hair, which was so much lighter and prettier than the Ronald McDonald red of Audra’s hair.

Jeez, they’d both noticeably grown since the last time she’d seen them. Late growth spurt. Isaac had topped Audra by four inches at sixteen.

Grief caught her sideways, thanks to the two hours of sleep she’d gotten. Carly, Hannah, and Isaac were triplets, and she still wasn’t used to the empty spot where their brother should be.

Carly caught sight of her first, but then her gaze traveled over Audra’s shoulder, clearly scouting for someone. “No delish boyfriend?”

“Not today.” Audra smiled and left it at that. She hadn’t told her mom or her sisters that she’d broken up with Jared. They all loved him, mostly because he had money and charm in equal measure, and she’d always been very careful not to mention his bad qualities. The less she thought about them, the less real they were. The less she remembered she’d only stayed with him because she couldn’t bear to deal with life alone.

But at the end of the day, Jared was ruthless and had no conscience. The points Charlie had made about her role in his problems had lodged in her stomach, and nothing she did could budge them. Because he might be right. If only Isaac hadn’t died… But that was a sure path to ruining her three-day weekend, so she didn’t go down it.

“Why not?” Hannah pouted, flipping her hair over her shoulder in a move that Audra suspected was meant to attract the attention of the two teenage boys on the other side of the baggage carousel. “I was looking forward to riding in Jared’s limo.”

The last time they’d flown down, Jared had treated the girls like rock stars, and they’d obviously expected this trip to follow a similar agenda.

“Are we going to have to take a cab to the resort?” Carly asked as she shouldered her bag. “I hate cabs.”

The girls were seventeen and difficult. Since part of that difficulty stemmed from the fact that they’d lost their brother too, Audra let it go. Of course, she was the one who’d mourned Isaac’s death the most. Carly and Hannah had bonded almost from the moment they’d been born, leaving the lone male Reed child to fend for himself. Their dad had left when the triplets were nine months old, never to return, and their mother lapsed into the first of many periods of grave depression.

Despite an eleven-year age difference, she and Isaac became buddies. They’d been each other’s pod, like two dolphins who had gravitated to each other because no other pod would take them.

And then she’d lost him. Her fault. He’d been miserable in Miami, and she’d invited him to come live with her. But she’d just gotten her first job after receiving her doctorate, and FARC expected a lot from its employees. She’d had so little time to monitor her brother’s activities. Isaac had fallen in with some older wealthy, privileged types who liked fast boats and lots of alcohol.

Ironic that no one else had even been hurt when the boat flipped over.

Shaking off the morbidity, she herded the girls to the cab stand, shushing their protests. “A cab ride will not kill you.”

Her sisters glowered at the line snaking away from the cab stand, glowered at Audra, and then spent the fifteen minutes they had to wait either mumbling to each other or buried in their phones, likely texting each other despite being within touching distance. Audra rolled