LITMIR.BIZ

       One

      As she parked in front of the bayside resort, Sarah Ann Dempsey trembled as before the gates of hell itself.

      A humid gulf breeze blew in off Paradise Bay, exotic and perfumed, but offering little relief to the southwest Florida heat. Though only May, the coastline between Tampa and Fort Myers was already sweltering, and the little town of Lostman’s Island was no exception. Beneath her practical gingham shirt, perspiration trickled between Sarah Ann’s breasts, and she curled her sweaty palms around the steering wheel of her aged pickup, willing calmness.

      Impossible.

      But she had a mission. A desperate quest to ease an old man’s mind, and no time for cowardice or feminine vapors.

      “It’s just business,” she reassured herself. Slicking her dark hair back from her damp forehead, she automatically cally tightened her severe but sensible ponytail, then stepped out of the truck.

      The marina had seen better days—and worse. Tall, clattering sabal palms shaded a weathered building, a combination business office, fisherman’s supply and dining hall. White crushed-shell paths connected ramshackle, clapboard guest cottages. A wooden dock stretched into the sparkling waters of the bay, but the majority of the boat slips lay empty. For most of Sarah Ann’s twenty-eight years, the Dempsey truck farm and orange groves had supplied fresh produce to this neighboring establishment. She and Gramps had watched the place struggle, then change hands—and names—again and again.

      But the latest owners were something different. Mystery men, the gossips labeled them.

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