Face the Fire Page 0,4

let out a splinter of the rage. Even that had books and knickknacks on her shelves rattling and jumping. That he would have the nerve, the insensitivity, the stupidity to waltz into her store.

To stand there and smile at her as if he expected her to shout for joy and jump into his arms. And to look baffled when she hadn't.

Bastard.

She clenched her fists, and a thin crack snaked across the glass of her window. She'd known the moment he'd walked in. Just as she'd known the instant he'd come onto the island. It had washed over her, flooded into her, as she'd sat at her desk completing a stock order. Pain, shock, joy, fury, all so intense, all so immediate, she'd been dizzy from them. One stunning emotion slamming into another, leaving her weak and trembling.

And she'd known he was back.

Eleven years. He'd walked away from her, leaving her hurting and helpless and hopeless. It still shamed her to remember the quivering mass of confusion and grief she'd been for weeks after he'd gone. But she'd rebuilt her life on the ashes of the dreams that Sam had burned beneath her. She'd found her focus, and a kind of steady contentment.

Now he was back.

She could only thank the fates that her foreknowledge had given her time to compose herself. How humiliating it would have been if she'd seen him before she'd had a chance to prepare herself. And how satisfying it had been to see that flicker of surprise and puzzlement cross his face at her cool and casual greeting.

She was stronger now, she reminded herself. She was no longer the girl who had laid her heart, bleeding and broken, at his feet. And there were more - many more - important things in her life now than a man. Love, she thought, could be such a lie. She had no place, and no tolerance, for lies. She had her home, her business, her friends. She had her circle again, and that circle had a purpose. That was enough to sustain her.

At the knock on the door, she blocked her feelings, her thoughts again, then slid onto the chair behind her desk. "Yes, come in."

She was scanning the data on her monitor when Sam stepped inside. She glanced over absently, with just a hint of a frown in her eyes. "Nothing on the menu to tempt you?"

"I settled for this." He lifted the coffee, then pried off the top and set it on her desk. "Nell's very loyal."

"Loyalty's a necessary quality in a friend, to my mind."

He made some sound of agreement, then sipped the coffee. "She also makes superior coffee."

"A necessary quality in a cafe chef." She tapped her fingers on the desk in a gesture of restrained impatience. "Sam, I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude. You're more than welcome to enjoy the cafe, the store. But I have work."

He studied her for one long moment, but that slightly annoyed expression on her face didn't waver. "I won't keep you, then. Why don't you just give me the keys, and I'll go off and settle in?"

Baffled, she shook her head. "Keys?"

"To the cottage. Your cottage."

"My cottage? Why on earth would I give you the keys to the yellow cottage?"

"Because." Delighted to have finally broken through that polite shield, he drew papers out of his pocket.

"We have a lease." He set the papers on her desk, leaning back when she snatched them up to read.

"Celtic Circle's one of my companies," he explained as she scowled at the names. "And Henry Downing's one of my attorneys. He leased the cottage for me."

Her hand wanted to tremble. More, it wanted to strike. Deliberately, she laid it, palm down, on the desk. "Why?"

"I have attorneys do all manner of things for me," Sam said with a shrug. "Added to that, I didn't think you would rent it to me. But I did think - was sure - that once a business deal had been made, you'd keep your end."

She drew in a long breath. "I meant, why do you need the cottage? You have an entire hotel at your disposal."

"I don't choose to live in a hotel, nor to live where I work. I want my privacy and my downtime. I won't get either if I stay at the hotel. Would you have rented it to me, Mia, if I hadn't gone through the lawyer?"

Her lips curved now, sharply. "Of course. But I'd have bumped up the monthly rent. Considerably."

He