Engineering, maybe. Jasper loved building things, even though he claimed he was going to be a “destruction worker” when he grew up.
“Is that smile for me?” Dominic asked, his dark eyes flashing as he walked up the trail from the beach.
Harley tilted her head to one side, letting her grin stretch wider. “It could be. If you say the torture is over for the day.”
“Not yet, beautiful.” Dominic’s hand lingered on her waist. He nodded toward the makeshift weight room he’d set up on the covered patio. “Come on, let’s do legs and abs and then we’ll call it a day.”
Her sister Hannah’s former bodyguard had spent the past three months whipping Harley into the best physical shape of her life, insisting she needed to keep her body as sharp as her mind. In addition to serving as her personal trainer, he was also concealing her whereabouts from her sister’s psychotic new husband, Jackson, a man Harley suspected wanted to kill her. Not that Jackson didn’t have every reason to want her dead after what she’d done to him, but she had a son to raise. She had to stay alive and Dom was helping make that happen.
In exchange, Harley spent several hours a day sweating in the brutal Thai sun and her nights pretending she didn’t realize that her lover would rather be sleeping with her sister.
“Let me get Jasper into the bath,” she said, catching Dom’s hand and giving it a light squeeze. “I’ll meet you there.”
“All right.” He stretched his arms overhead, his white tee shirt riding up high enough to reveal the taut planes of his stomach. “I already put his boogie board away. All he needs to do is grab his sand toys.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, letting her eyes skim up and down Dom’s frame. He was a beautiful man—long and lean, with muscles on top of muscles, caramel skin, amber-flecked eyes, and a classically handsome face. It had certainly been no hardship to spend a few months on a beach with him, but it wouldn’t hurt to say goodbye. She had enjoyed their time together, but she wasn’t looking for long-term attachments.
She only had space in her heart for Jasper. Her son was her first—and only—priority. There wasn’t room in her crazy life for anything else.
“But don’t be too long,” Dom continued, backing away. “We should leave by four. Traffic’s been bad getting in and out of town since the mudslide.”
Harley nodded and started across the sand to help Jasper gather up his toys. He loved bath time and would play until his skin was pruned all over if she let him. Today she would set his timer for an hour. That should give her plenty of time to finish her workout, grab a quick shower, and finish packing Jasper’s bag for the trip. Maybe his last trip.
Please let it be the last.
She didn’t know how much longer she could keep sending her son away not knowing when or if she would ever see him again.
“Tub time,” she said, forcing a smile as she squatted down at the edge of Jasper’s sand pit. “Have you found the buried treasure yet?”
“I’m not finding it, I’m leaving it.” Jasper scrambled out and began tossing his extensive collection of sand toys, favorite red shovel, and alligator beach towel down inside the hole. “I’ve already drawn a map to leave in my room. That way the next kid who lives here can go on a hunt for my treasure and then we’ll be friends.”
Harley’s throat tightened. “So I guess you saw your suitcase in the laundry room.”
“You can’t take sand toys on the airplane,” Jasper said, not meeting her eyes as he shoved a mound of sand toward the edge of the pit, sending it sliding down on top of his treasures. “A little help here, lady?”
“I’m not a lady, I’m your mother,” she said, finishing her part of their inside joke even though her heart wasn’t in it. But neither was Jasper’s, and he wasn’t moping. He was burying treasures for a friend he would never meet.
She helped him fill in the hole, not bothering to tell him that the tide would probably wash away his treasures long before any other child came to find them. She’d chosen this island off the coast of Thailand because it was remote, sparsely populated, and far outside the stomping grounds of the typical tourist. The rental house they’d leased had stood empty for a year before they had come to stay and would probably stay empty for months after she had packed up their things.
After the sand was smooth again, she and Jasper stomped over the top a few times, tamping it down until a darker, damper spot than the surrounding sand was the only sign that the beach had been disturbed.
With one last stomp, Jasper took her hand. “Are you coming this time, Mama?”
“No,” Harley said, leading the way back toward the bungalow. “Dominic is going to be your travel buddy. I have to take care of a few things and close up the house. Then I’ll come meet you. It shouldn’t be more than two weeks, three at the most.”
Jasper frowned. “What about Miss Louisa? Am I still supposed to call her if something goes wrong?”
“Yes. Call Miss Louisa first and if she’s not available call Mr. Tim and he’ll know what to do.” Harley hated that her six-year-old was so intimately acquainted with potential danger, but their plans and backup plans had kept Jasper safe when she was taken captive last December. If some of his innocence had to die in order to keep him alive, it was a price she was willing to pay. “But you know Dom is smart and careful. You shouldn’t have any problems and you’ll be having so much fun exploring a new city you won’t even have a chance to miss me.”
Jasper dropped her hand to turn on the waterspout near the door and leaned down to rinse his arms and legs. “I would rather stay at the beach with you. I like the beach better than the city. Even Paris.”
“Me, too,” she said, ruffling his sandy hair. “Maybe someday soon we’ll have a forever house on the beach.”
Or you will, when I’m dead and you go to live with Hannah on her island.
Harley pushed the thought away and helped Jasper get the sand out from between his toes. She wasn’t going to die and leave Jasper to be raised by someone else. Hannah would love him like her own, Harley was sure of it, but Hannah’s husband, Jackson, was another matter.
Harley had done terrible, unforgivable things to Jackson back when she was a young woman with more lust for vengeance than sense. Framing a man for rape had been one of her uglier moments, but whether Jackson’s hatred for her was justified or not, she didn’t want her son raised by a man who might make Jasper pay for her sins.
Jasper had never known anything but a mother who loved him more than life and that’s how things were going to stay. He was never going to know what it felt like to be shut out of a parental figure’s heart.
“Can I bring my bath toys on the plane?” Jasper asked as they let themselves into the house and headed for the bathroom.
“We can buy more bath toys at our new place.” Harley started the water running, making sure it was a little on the hot side since Jasper would be playing for a while, and turned to help him undress. “But I have a special surprise for you. I’ll give it to you at the airport.”
Jasper’s head popped free of his blue rash guard, his eyes dancing. “Is it for my collection?”
Harley shrugged mysteriously. “You’ll have to wait and see.” She leaned in, cupping his chubby cheeks and pressing a kiss to his sun-warmed forehead. “Remember to turn the water off before it gets too full, okay? And scrub your hair good. You don’t want to carry sand with you onto the plane.”