Victoria Dahl - Crazy For Love

What had his brother said? He likes to be in the middle of everything. Even digging a fort with two five-year-olds.

“Does he know them?” Jenn asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I guess you shouldn’t be too flattered that he’s tagging along on our dive trip, huh?”

Chloe reached over and gave Jenn’s shoulder a halfhearted shove. “Meanie. So tell me about the other Sullivan brother. He’s a little reserved.”

“He’s sweet.”

“Really? I was going to guess stern.”

“No! He’s serious, yes, but really nice.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Chloe nodded sagely. “Nice enough to get it on with? Because you were looking at him last night like he was a big old hunk of man candy, darlin’.”

Jenn’s face blazed scarlet. “I was not! Oh, God, I was. He’s so sexy that I can’t even think when I’m looking at him.”

“You should— Wait.” Chloe tilted her head toward the open window behind her. “Is my phone ringing? I thought I’d turned it off.”

“Oh!” Jenn started to spring to her feet, but her plate was still on her lap and it tumbled down to the porch, misting her legs with powdered sugar.

“I got it.” Chloe stepped over her and walked inside. She didn’t know why she was looking for the phone in the first place when it was as likely to be a reporter as anyone else. But answering the phone was a Pavlovian response, she supposed.

She found it on the coffee table and glanced at the number, which sent an immediate shock through her system. DeLorn Limited. It was Thomas’s mother…or Thomas.

Stomach clenching into a ball of cement, Chloe pushed the button and croaked out a hello.

“Hello, Chloe,” the voice said. Though Mrs. DeLorn’s deep voice was nearly the same timbre as her son’s, her old-school Virginia accent immediately gave her away.

“Mrs. DeLorn,” she said a bit breathlessly. The woman ruled over her empire with an iron fist, but somehow Chloe had always liked her. And strangely enough, Mrs. DeLorn had liked Chloe. “You look a bit like my younger sister,” she’d said the first time they’d met. And because her sister had died as a teenager, Chloe had seemed to fill a place in the woman’s heart. They’d been close. Or so Chloe had thought. “It’s been a long time.”

“I’m sorry, my dear. This has all just been so tragic. You know I had to take to my bed when we first got the news about the crash and then…Well, my word. I don’t know what to say. I honestly don’t.”

Chloe could believe that. And she hadn’t exactly reached out to Mrs. DeLorn, either. Her heart softened a little. “I know you must be feeling pretty low.”

“Oh, you can’t imagine,” she said. “But how are you getting along, Chloe? I suppose the investigators have been hounding you day and night?”

“Um.” Was investigator some old-fashioned word for paparazzi? “The press has been giving me a hard time, yes.”

“Oh, the press. Yes, they are awful, awful people. They scurry around outside our office building like cockroaches. I wish I could squash them all under my shoe and be done with them.”

“Yuck. Well, I’m sorry to hear they’re bothering you, as well.”

Mrs. DeLorn abruptly changed the subject. “Do you remember that trip we took to the Cherry Blossom Festival this spring?”

“Oh, of course.”

“We had such a lovely time and the hotel suite was so nicely outfitted.”

“Yes.” Did she just want to stroll down memory lane? The trip had been nice, but not exactly the highlight of the year. Chloe had lobbied for returning to Richmond that night so she could sleep with her fiancé instead of in the bedroom next door to his.

“Well, I’m sure you remember…Thomas was going on and on about that all-terrain vehicle he wanted for this fall’s quail season and I gave him a little extra to help him out.”

“Um. Okay.” Chloe made a face at a watercolor painting of seabirds that hung on the wall. What the hell? Maybe all the stress was proving too much for the old lady.

“You remember that?”

“I remember him talking about the ATV, yes.”

“And when you two dropped me off at my place?”

“Yes?” Chloe asked shortly, belatedly remembering that one of Mrs. DeLorn’s pet peeves was one-word sentences. We’ve lost all the elegance of our language, she would complain. Which maybe had something to do with Thomas’s strange tendency to speak in full sentences during sex. Oh, yes, Chloe, I love how it feels when you do that.

She managed to choke back a laugh, but her amusement was made worse by Mrs. DeLorn’s irritated huff. “Well, I was only calling to remind you of the money I loaned Thomas.”

Chloe couldn’t hide the incredulous shock in her voice. “Mrs. DeLorn, I don’t know anything about that. Are you trying to imply that I share part of the debt? Unfortunately, I’m kind of high and dry right now. I put a lot of money into the wedding. I’m sure you remember?”

She’d never been rude to the woman before, but she couldn’t believe this was the conversation they were having after her son had turned Chloe’s life upside down. When Mrs. DeLorn had left those messages, Chloe had expected some sort of plea for forgiveness on behalf of Thomas. What the hell was this?

There was a long enough pause that Chloe was left wondering if Mrs. DeLorn had hung up, but then she finally made a little humming sound in her throat. “I’m so sorry about that, dear. You know, why don’t you let me take care of those bills?”

Chloe pulled the phone away from her face to look at it in shock. When she pressed it back to her ear, Mrs. DeLorn was still talking. “—Always been generous with both of you when you needed help. I won’t begrudge you a little cash any more than I’ve begrudged Thomas all the gifts I gave him.”

What in the world? She was tempted to just agree, but it felt a little like being bought off, so Chloe thanked her for the offer and told her she’d consider it once all the bills were sorted out. Thomas owed at least half of the deposits, after all, if not all of them.

Then she hung up the phone and stared at it for a little while longer.

“What was that all about?”

She spun to see Jenn standing in the doorway, legs still streaked with white. “I think Mrs. DeLorn is losing it.”

“That was Mrs. DeLorn?”

“Why do you look so freaked out? You don’t even know how weird she was being.”

Jenn’s shocked look quickly turned to nonchalance. “What did she say?”

“She was just talking about some money Thomas owed her. It was strange as all hell. So what’s Max doing?”

“Still digging.”

Chloe tossed her phone back on the table and went out to watch the show.

MAX SULLIVAN WAS HOT on land, but on a boat…on a boat he approached nuclear levels of hotness. Chloe watched him with the complete freedom offered by her dark sunglasses as he spoke with the diving guide. He looked perfect out here, hair tossed by the sea wind, sun glinting off the golden hairs on his strong arms. His mouth widened with a laugh as he slapped their guide, Jacob, on the arm and shook his head.

A few words drifted to her ears, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Names of dive sites or harbor towns, she assumed. The guide’s eyes took on a starry look of admiration as he shot questions at Max.

Ten minutes of excited conversation later, with a couple of miles of sea behind them, Chloe half expected the guide to turn and ask if they’d be willing to skip their lesson so he could dive with Max Sullivan. Instead, he shook Max’s hand and gestured generously toward the tanks lined up against the side of the boat.

Max knelt down and began picking up tanks and shifting them around as if they weighed nothing. Chloe knew they were heavy. Just as she’d suspected: utter hotness.