Cara Lockwood - Shelter In The Tropics

She’s got nowhere left to run

After a year of searching, ex-marine turned private eye Tack Reeves has finally located Cate Allen. She’s traded in her high heels for flip-flops but Tack would recognize the stunning beauty anywhere. He just needs proof. Posing as a tourist at her Caribbean resort is the perfect cover. Except that the closer Tack gets to Cate, the less his case makes sense...and their intense attraction is only fueling the confusion. When he learns that the mom and her four-year-old son are hiding from her abusive ex, he vows to protect them. But Cate may not let him when she learns why he’s on the island...

“Cate. Cate Dalton, St. Anthony’s Resort,” she said, not missing a beat.

The lie came out of her mouth smooth as silk.

Cate. The woman hadn’t even changed her first name. Now it all seemed so obvious, but before, when he’d been rummaging through hundreds of records, he never would’ve guessed she’d done something so careless. Everything else, every bit of her trail, had been so carefully scrubbed. She’d left hardly any clues. But she’d kept her first name.

He wanted to know why.

A tiny little scar barely the length of a nickel ran across her chin. It hadn’t been in the photographs he’d pored over, and he wondered what it was from.

“We spoke on the phone,” she said. “This is your first time to the Caribbean?”

“That’s right.”

He could lie, too. No need to tell her he’d been hopping from island to island for the last four months, on one goose chase after another, starting to wonder if he needed to rethink his new career as a private eye.

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to share with you my new book, Shelter in the Tropics, a story about two people running from their pasts and desperately hoping for a fresh start. It takes place on a Caribbean island I created, St. Anthony’s, after the patron saint of lost things.

I loved the idea of a place where people who might be lost in different ways come to find themselves—and each other. This is the first story I wrote on this island, and I hope it won’t be the last!

Cate has fled an abusive relationship with her child, hoping to hide from her very powerful and very rich ex-husband, who will stop at nothing to get her and his son back. Tack Reeves, riddled by guilt from his service in Afghanistan and haunted by a dishonorable discharge, is a private eye hired by Cate’s ex.

Except Tack discovers very quickly that his own redemption might come by protecting Cate from the man who wants to destroy her.

Together, Cate and Tack must learn to face the demons of their pasts and move on. Together, they’ll find the strength to do it on this very special island.

I think life can be complicated and we all deserve second chances. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is to forgive ourselves for mistakes we’ve made, but with love and patience, I believe we can do it. I hope you enjoy this book and St. Anthony’s Island.

Here’s to the restorative power of Caribbean sunshine, love and forgiveness!

All my best,

Cara

Shelter in the Tropics

Cara Lockwood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CARA LOCKWOOD is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than fourteen books, including I Do (But I Don’t), which was made into a Lifetime Original Movie. She’s written the Bard Academy series for young adults and has had her work translated into several languages around the world. Born and raised in Dallas, Cara now lives near Chicago with her two wonderful daughters. Find out more about her at caralockwood.com, friend her on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/authorcaralockwood, or follow her on Twitter, @caralockwood.

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Dedicated to my daughters, who challenge me to be my best self.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

St. Anthony’s Island, the Caribbean Sea

WELCOME TO THE Island of Lost Causes.

Tack Reeves couldn’t help but shake his head at the sign that greeted him at St. Anthony’s baggage claim. Looking around at the crowd of tourists in T-shirts and flip-flops, nothing seemed very lost about this tiny Caribbean airport. He grabbed his old faded olive green seabag from the ground near his feet and moved with the tourists, though his jeans and plain black T-shirt looked out of place in the sea of neon around him. People herded together like this reminded him of the markets in Kabul, Afghanistan, where it was impossible to tell the citizens in the crowd from the insurgents. He felt that old familiar steel ball of unease at the center of his stomach.

One redhead wearing too-high platform sandals bumped into him, making him flinch. She looked up, smiling sheepishly as she apologized for the accidental contact. The old Tack, the one before his sixth deployment, would’ve found time to talk to the twentysomething in the barely there sundress. Maybe even had the clothes off that fit little body before she’d managed to get her first tan lines. But those carefree days were long gone.

Besides, he had a job to do.

It was probably another dead end, like the dozens he’d run down in the last year. His target, Cate Allen, was like a ghost. Her billionaire husband had hired him to find her and his son, but after nearly a year of working the case, he was starting to think seriously the woman might be dead.

At the very least, she really, really, didn’t want to be found. He was following the latest lead to this small island, hoping this time he’d finally get a break. But it was a long shot. Cate Allen was a missing wife to a famously reclusive billionaire. He’d quietly offered ten million dollars for her return, but nobody knew about this except a chosen few. How he’d kept it out of the news was anyone’s guess, but Tack figured money had something to do with it. He steered clear of the other tank-top-clad college coeds on their way to spring break. At the end of the gleaming steel baggage carousels stood a group of drivers, holding up signs. One of them bore his name: Reeves.

He looked up at the woman holding it and for a second nearly froze in his tracks.

Could it be...?

On the surface, this woman looked nothing like Cate Allen, the dazzling, overly made-up brunette socialite, always in designer stilettos, Chanel suits and bright red lipstick. This woman screamed quintessential beach bum with the long blond hair in a loose braid down her back, the aviator sunglasses perched casually in the neckline of her scooped tee and the flip-flops on her feet exposing toes that lacked nail polish. But Tack had memorized the photos he’d trolled through online. He knew every laugh line, every little quirk of her face. His gut told him, This was her.