LITMIR.BIZ

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off? She couldn’t have that. Not until she got their stories straight. Otherwise, she would be on the receiving end of a lifetime of lectures from not just her father, but everyone else in the family, as well.

      “I’d really love to, Cris, but there’s something important I have to get to.” She looked at Jorge. “Jorge, can you get my father down here, please? There,” she told Cris. “All done. Gotta fly.” She grabbed the large brown bag Jorge had brought her and left the kitchen through the back delivery entrance.

      She left a bemused Cris staring after her in her wake.

      Stevi circumvented the veranda at the back of the inn and made her way to the same side entrance she and Silvio had used earlier. Again, this was the long way around but if she’d gone out through the dining area, Alex and Andy would have grilled her.

      The way she saw it, it was better to avoid questions altogether until she had some viable answers.

      As she skirted the grounds, her thoughts went back to what she’d just discovered. Cris was going to have another baby. That made two babies being born in the not-too-distant future. Life was moving right along for Alex and Cris, she thought with a touch of envy. They each had a great husband and now they were busy creating their own families.

      And where did that leave her?

      Confused and restless, that’s where, she thought.

      Not just that, but with an unidentified man lying in her bed, unconscious to boot.

      Life had certainly gone from dull to extremely tangled in a few short hours, Stevi thought as she reached her door.

      It was still closed, she noted. Either the stranger was still inside—or he had made an orderly escape, closing the door behind him after he departed.

      Holding her breath, Stevi tested it: still locked. Turning the key, she eased the door open.

      Her mystery man was just where she had left him, sleeping in bed. Coming a step closer, she never took her eyes off the man. Just as on the beach, he didn’t look as if he’d even moved a muscle since she had left.

      She set the bag of food down on the writing desk in the corner, then quietly crept over to the bed.

      She studied the man for a long moment. “Are you getting better, or worse?” she wondered out loud. “Am I helping you by keeping you hidden here, or am I destroying any chance you might have to get well? I wish I had a little guidance here,” she admitted. “There’s nothing on the internet to cover this situation. Can’t type in ‘What to do with an unknown, unconscious man encountered on the beach’ and have Ask.com come up with an answer.”

      She had hoped that he might be up by now and able to eat, at least a little. He needed to build up his strength after all that blood he lost. When she’d picked up the two orders, she’d wanted to give him first choice of breakfast.

      But since it appeared he was going to be out for a while, she decided to eat one and leave the other covered plate for him.

      Choosing the eggs and ham, she brought the plate to his bed and sat in the chair she’d pulled over earlier. She took a bite absently and her taste buds almost sprang to life. She’d forgotten that it was impossible to eat anything that Cris prepared absently. It was a gift, she decided.

      “You’re missing a really good breakfast,” she told her sleeping mystery man. “But, knowing Cris, she’d be happy to whip up another order if you like scrambled eggs.” Her words came back to her and Stevi laughed shortly. “Here I am, second-guessing what you like to eat and I don’t even know your name, or who you are, or what you’re actually doing here on our beach.”

      There had been no wallet, no driver’s license, no ID of any kind on his person. Silvio had gone through his pockets the moment he had the man on the bed. It had made Silvio more suspicious.

      “So who are you?” Stevi asked. “What do I call you? Are you with some drug cartel and you got caught in the middle of something really bad? Bad enough to bring out guns?

      “Or are you some wealthy playboy whose cabin cruiser got boarded by pirates? Right...there aren’t any pirates trolling the coast of Southern California,” she reminded herself. “You know, I’m really running out of guesses here. You’d better come to soon and help me out or Silvio will insist that we call the hospital and they’ll take one look at you and call the police...and I have this gut feeling that won’t be a good thing to do. Am I right?”

      He went on sleeping.

      Finished with breakfast—which she had wolfed down in between questions—she set the plate aside on her writing desk. Leaning forward, she pushed aside a lock of medium brown hair that had fallen over his eyes.

      “Who are you?” Stevi whispered. “Are you ever going to wake up and tell me?”

      She supposed the real question here should be, was he ever going to wake up, period? What if he had slipped into an actual coma? She didn’t know much about things like that but she’d heard that those kinds of conditions could go on indefinitely.

      Maybe forever.

      Then what?

      Then she’d tell her father everything and ask for his help. Get professional medical care.

      She knew that even though Richard Roman might get annoyed with her for having done something that she was certain he would label “dangerous and foolish,” he wouldn’t waste time with recriminations. He’d just handle it, the way he handled everything else that came his way.

      To her, her father was one of the dependable forces of nature. A great comfort to her.

      But for the time being, Stevi needed to prove herself—not in anyone else’s eyes but her own.

      She looked up to her two older sisters, Alex and Cris. Their lives were basically set, their paths more or less chosen and mapped out, while hers felt as if it was scattered all over the place and right smack in the middle of it was this slanted incline, perfect for skateboarding. And right now, she was going down it, ninety-seven miles an hour.

      Could she execute the move, or was she going to crash and burn?

      She had no idea.

      “You’re going to have to hurry up, you know,” she told him. “I can only hold everyone off for so long. Right now, I can tell them that I’m working on a painting and that I don’t want to be disturbed. They’ll buy that. The family’s usually pretty good about that sort of thing,” she confided. “They give me my space, which in this case is actually your space. But sometime or other, they’re going to want to see a painting, so pull your act together and come around. In the next twenty-four hours, please.” Then she added, “Even faster would be nice.”

      Boy, that had to have sounded weird to him if he could hear her.

      “I don’t mean to rush you but hiding you in my room and not telling Dad or any of them about this is making things difficult for me. I’m not much on keeping secrets, if you must know, so the sooner you can open those eyes of yours, the better it’ll be for both of us.”

      Picking up the coffee Jorge had slipped in the bag, she took off the lid. She sat sipping and staring thoughtfully at the unconscious man.

      Her brain was going in three directions at once, all at top speed, coming up with different theories, each more fantastic than the last.

      “Maybe you’re a spy. Or a secret agent.” Her words echoed back in her head and she stared at him even more intently, as if that would give her some sort of an answer. “Omigod, could I be sent to prison for harboring you? Worse, could my family get into trouble for this?” The thought of getting her family into trouble over something she was doing horrified her. “Maybe I’d better call the police,” she said, automatically reaching for the phone that was on the nightstand by her bed.

      But then she stopped midreach. That same gut told her the details about this situation would eventually be brought to light and that she wouldn’t

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