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be able to catch her in his own golf cart. Only when he left through the kitchen door and stared at the empty spot he’d parked in, he realized that wouldn’t be possible after all.
    “Son of a bitch.” She’d stolen his golf cart. His eyes narrowed and his mouth tugged in a reluctant smile.
    “Game on, Jess. We’ll just see who’s left standing.”
    Now he only had to figure out a way to go after her and take what was his. It was a good thing he was already wet.

Chapter Three
    ‡
    J essie’s laughter—as she imagined the look on Luke’s face once he realized she’d taken his golf cart—was short lived. The closer she got to the cabin on the northeast end of the island, the more the fear she’d never hoped to feel again clawed at the pit of her belly.
    She didn’t know why she’d come this direction. She should’ve driven straight to the inn to see if they had any rooms available, but something had pulled her to take the opposite path and drive the cart down the rutted road that led to her childhood home.
    The rain was unforgiving, and she might as well have walked for all the protection it offered against the wet. Her dress was plastered against her skin and droplets of water trickled from her hair down to the base of her neck. And though the temperature was already hot and muggy, she shivered at the sight of the two-bedroom clapboard house as it came into view.
    Paint peeled in long strips along the boards and one of the blue shutters hung crookedly from the front window. The porch sagged and the mesh screen had a jagged tear. It was a small square of a house and it sat on stilts to protect from flooding.
    She stopped the golf cart under a tree so her suitcase would have some protection against the weather and she slipped off her sandals. They’d do nothing but sink into the sand. Plants had overrun the yard so some of them came waist high, and the tree that grew closest to the house looked like it might fall on the roof at any time.
    The rain soaked her to the skin the moment she left the shelter of the golf cart and she made her way to the middle of the road so she faced the house like a gunslinger.
    Jessie tried to tell herself it was a house like any other. That it was wood and glass and it had given her a place to sleep and a desk where she could do her homework. But it would’ve been a lie. A home was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to give shelter and comfort. And the people inside the house were supposed to love.
    She didn’t remember that kind of love after the age of five when her mother died. The house that stood before her was nothing but a mockery, and she’d see it burned to the ground before she would ever step through the door again.
    The rage inside her built in speed and intensity until she thought she’d explode if she didn’t find an outlet. The animalistic sounds that tore from her throat went unnoticed and the scalding tears went unchecked. She searched the ground for something—anything—that would do the kind of damage she envisioned.
    Triumph roared through her as she found broken pieces of brick where old Jesse had tried to lay a sidewalk. Her arm reveled in the weight as she hurled it toward the front window, and with every brick she threw, every shattering sound of the windows, the rage ebbed to a quieter storm.
    *     *     *
    It was barely a fifteen-minute walk to old Jesse’s place, a little quicker if one knew a shortcut. And even faster still if a scream loud enough to pierce through the raging storm could be heard.
    Luke reached the edge of the clearing just in time to see her launch the first brick. His mouth dropped open in shock and he stood frozen as he watched the destruction. The pain on her face and the screams that sounded as if they were ripping from her soul made his heart ache for her.
    “Jesus,” he whispered. And when her foot caught on something and she went to her knees he started to run.
    She was huddled on her knees, her arms over