Heather Graham - Hurricane Bay

Still, sleep eluded him.

Someone had been in his house. And they had done a lot more than eat his porridge or sleep in his bed.

Only one thing had been taken.

He told himself he couldn’t be sure. The house was filled with the accumulation of years.

Still, he knew in his gut that there was definitely one thing missing.

And that one thing could damn him.

Kelsey jerked up and nearly screamed at the sound of loud pounding at her door.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but going out to Andy Latham’s had spooked her. And Dane had been acting strangely, too. It was weird how life could change. She had adored him so much once; it had almost been hero worship. Then there had been the years when she kept a polite and civil distance at those few social occasions when they were at the same place at the same time. They’d gone from being best friends to stiff acquaintances. Then they hadn’t seen each other at all for…two years, at least. Since the last time she had seen Sheila.

And now…

She could still hear Sheila’s voice in her mind. She hadn’t seen her in a long time, but she had known Sheila well. Known her when she was angry, caustic and careless of the feelings of others. Known her when she was depressed and down on herself. She knew the way Sheila sounded.

And this time, she had sounded…

Scared.

Kelsey had found herself upset when Dane left. And oddly frightened and unnerved when Cindy left—and she was only on the other side of the wall. Face it, she was actually feeling scared, though of what she didn’t know, when she’d locked the door and gone to bed for the night. And she hadn’t really slept. She’d dozed and awakened, dozed, and awakened again. She hadn’t really been asleep when the knocking had sounded; it had just been so loud and sharp against the dark and quiet that it had startled her.

Bolting to a sitting position in the bed, she took a moment to tell herself that the noise was just someone knocking at the door—and thieves and psychos rarely knocked.

She crawled quickly out of bed. Since her night attire consisted of a long, heavy cotton, one-size-fits-most T-shirt with a frazzled duck saying something about needing coffee, she walked through the darkened house to the front door without a robe, not bothering with slippers, either.

Her mom still got mad at her for walking around without shoes all the time. Even in the Keys. Walking around barefoot and getting your feet dirty made you look like white trash, or so Jennie said.

Amazed at the thoughts that came to mind in a darkened house in the middle of the night, Kelsey reached the door and looked out the peephole. The yellow porch light beamed down on two men: Nate Curry and Larry Miller.

She opened the door, no longer at all frightened, but quizzical and irritated. “What the hell are the two of you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Nate, a true beach boy, tanned to pure gold, blue-eyed, blond-haired, seemed taken aback. “It’s not the middle of the night. It’s just after two.”

“It’s 2:00 a.m.,” Larry said, his expression somewhat rueful. Even when he was standing in cutoffs in the sand, Larry Miller looked like an executive. His dark brown hair always gave the appearance of a neat, fresh cut. Kelsey didn’t think she’d ever seen him anything but clean-shaven—five-o’clock shadow didn’t dare darken his door. He was dressed casually in a polo shirt and knee-length Dockers, but both were pressed and clean. His boat shoes didn’t have a scuff. The overnight bag he carried, which should have looked as laid-back as a duffle, bore a designer name. He had the profile to fit the image, as well. Features chiseled like a classic Greek statue.

“I don’t close the bar on weeknights until 2:00 a.m.,” Nate said. He stared from Larry to Kelsey. “Okay, so maybe to some people that’s the middle of the night.”

“I was just going to go to a hotel,” Larry said, looking at Kelsey, still apologetic. “But I went by Nate’s. He reminded me that this place has two bedrooms. And if Sheila shows, I can just bunk over with Cindy.”

Kelsey stepped back, letting the men enter. “Larry, you’re more than welcome here—as much as I am, surely. You’ll have to take the spare room. I’m in Sheila’s—I know it sounds silly, but it makes me feel closer to figuring out her moves somehow. But what are you doing down here at all?”

He shrugged. “Two things. You sounded upset on the phone, and I didn’t want you to go getting all worried about Sheila. She’s been known to take off before. Second…I don’t know. You’d been to see Nate, Cindy was here, Dane had come over…I guess I was seized by a rush of nostalgia and decided I had to come down, too. My nostalgia was tempered with reason, of course—I didn’t want you to be alone and upset.”

Nate made his way past both of them. Unlike Larry, he unmistakably belonged here. His tan was straight from the beach, not acquired in any artificial bed. He had a complete ease of manner in cutoffs or swim trunks, a T-shirt or his bare chest. He could dress well when he needed to and looked like a million bucks. But an hour or so with a tie on, and Nate went crazy. He’d been born in the islands, and he loved them. He’d never had the least desire to leave. He’d gone far enough north to get a degree from Florida International University in hotel and restaurant management, just so he could further improve the Sea Shanty. A vacation to Nate meant taking a boat over to the Bahamas. He had no desire to head for the snow and couldn’t care less if he ever saw a country that didn’t offer a good reef for diving, sun, sand and warmth.

“You got coffee, Kelsey?” he asked, heading straight for the kitchen.

“Yes, I have coffee,” she said, glancing at Larry with a shrug and following Nate. “But it’s 2:00 a.m. You’ll wind up staying awake all night.”

“Nope. I never stay awake all night,” Nate assured her. He was already digging through the cabinets.

She walked behind him, caught a prying hand and said, “If you want coffee, let me make decaf, and that way Larry and I can join you.”

“She’s in her mid-twenties, and already her spirit of adventure has departed,” Nate said to Larry, over Kelsey’s head.

“My dislike of lying awake all night unable to sleep has kicked in, that’s all,” Kelsey said. Giving Nate a little push out of the way, she found the decaf and began preparing the coffee.

“You got anything to eat in here?” Larry asked.

“You just came from Nate’s place—why didn’t you order food if you were hungry?” Kelsey asked. She didn’t want to say that she was actually glad to see them, as annoying as they might be. They were giving her a pleasant sense of security.

“His late-night menu doesn’t offer a lot,” Larry said.

“Hey!” Nate protested. “Conch fritters, conch chowder, snapper sandwich, veggie burger, hamburger. What are you expecting at this hour of the night? A sissy fruit and yogurt salad, or some alfalfa sprouts?”

“Your eating habits will give you a heart attack one day,” Larry said. “I can already hear your arteries choking.”

“You’re going to be one of those health freaks who does marathons and drops dead running down the block,” Nate told him.

“You have cereal?” Larry asked Kelsey.

“Raisin bran. Help yourself.” She was measuring coffee.

Larry had no problem helping himself to food. “Ah-ha! She has yogurt and fruit. I knew it.”

“And beer,” Nate said, taking one.

“You just left a bar.”

“I never drink when I’m working my own bar.”

“You just asked me for coffee.”

“The coffee and the beer will cancel each other out.”

Kelsey shook her head and let the coffee perk. She crawled up on a bar stool next to Larry. “What about work? We’re both gone now.”