to the closest island airport, then had taken a water taxi to the island. It was called Pelican Cay, and it was picture-book beautiful, with rows of pastel-colored houses climbing higgledy-piggledy up the hill from the harbor, and narrow asphalt roads that wound through town and then in two or three directions out of town into what looked almost like jungle.
One of the islanders met their water taxi, an old man named Maurice, who drove a purple Jeep and gave her a deep courtly bow when he took her suitcase and helped her in.
“My car,” he said, “she matches your hair.” And he beamed broadly when Sierra grinned.
Dominic, for his part, was quiet. He seemed nervous, wary, a little gunshy, Sierra would have said. She watched him openly as he got into the front seat next to Maurice. When he turned his head, she noted a tight line at the corner of his mouth and the fact that he hadn’t taken off his dark glasses since they’d set foot off the plane.
“It’s lovely,” she said, reaching up to put a hand on his shoulder and when he touched it automatically, she laced her fingers through his. “Thank you for bringing me.”
“My pleasure,” Dominic said. But he certainly didn’t sound like it.
“It be our pleasure to have you back, Mr. Wolfe,” Maurice said as they bounced through the narrow streets. “We miss you.”
Dominic’s mouth tightened even further. But at last he nodded at Maurice. “Thank you.”
Maurice smiled again with great good cheer. “But now you here, it be like you never left. Only good things. And you enjoy it!” He slanted Dominic a sidelong look. “This be your honeymoon, yes?”
Dominic hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
Maurice laughed, delighted. “You definitely enjoy then! My Estelle, she give you plenty of privacy. Estelle be the cook an’ housekeeper,” he told Sierra. “I tell everyone to give you plenty of privacy.” He laughed again. And Sierra was enchanted to see Dominic blush.
“We’ve been married a while,” he said stiffly. “We’re hardly newlyweds.”
“Hardly,” Sierra agreed, but then the imp within her made her say, “But we’ll enjoy all that privacy, you can be sure!”
She and Maurice laughed together. Dominic retreated behind his sunglasses, and Sierra wondered if she’d made a mistake by teasing him.
But she knew she had to treat him as she’d always treated him. They were having a honeymoon. They were getting to know each other. They needed to be who they really were for this to work. They couldn’t try to pretend.
They had to be themselves.
Nathan, not for the first time, had been wrong.
Why the hell had he listened to his stupid younger brother? What the hell did Nathan know about being married or making things work with your wife?
Nathan wasn’t married, never had been!
He was as footloose and free as a bird. He’d never even been engaged, never been in love, never even looked at the same woman twice as far as Dominic knew.
So where did he get off telling Dominic what to do?
And why the hell had he listened?
Because in New York City in a steel-and-glass building where he was strong and clever and in control, it had made a certain sort of cockeyed sense.
And so he’d finished up his work and gone home to tell Sierra he’d made arrangements for them to fly to the Bahamas. He’d made it sound enticing, charming, delightful—the perfect honeymoon paradise.
But the closer they’d got, the more he’d choked.
The sight of the town as they’d crossed the water had brought it all back. All the memories. All the hopes. All the disaster.
And then Maurice had been there to meet them, which had been his father’s doing, no doubt. Maurice, who had come to him with the news that Carin wasn’t there. Maurice, who had patted his arm and said sadly, “I think maybe she panic, you know?” Maurice who had then gone and told his father who had begun to send people on their way.
Maurice knew.
Dominic didn’t know if Sierra knew anything or not.
He didn’t see how she couldn’t. He hadn’t said anything, but Mariah probably had. Mariah, married to Rhys, would know something. Rhys would have told his wife about the place in the Bahamas. He’d even brought her and the children down here a couple of months ago.
“It was therapeutic,” he’d told Dominic after, because he’d had his own ghosts to lay to rest. “You ought to go back sometime.”
But Dominic hadn’t wanted any therapy like that.
Not then. He didn’t now, either, suddenly. He