For everyone who dreams of going home…

       and realizes that dream

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter One

      As a doctor, Morgan Kelly was more than familiar with the male body and couldn’t really remember the last time she’d looked at a man as anything other than a patient or a curiosity. But as she walked alone on the hard sand of the beach on Shelter Island in Puget Sound and lifted her face into the cold December air, she stopped in her tracks. A naked man was standing thirty feet above her.

      At least she thought he was naked. He was on the decking of a guest house on an exclusive estate, and the wooden railing hit him just below his waist. From the distance and in the rapidly failing light of the day, she couldn’t make out his features enough to know if she recognized him or not, but she definitely could tell his stomach, chest, broad shoulders and strong arms were bare. The temperature had to be in the fifties, but he didn’t seem to notice at all. It was as if the bitter wind blowing over the choppy, dark waters of the sound didn’t exist.

      He stared out across the sound to the mainland of Washington State before he glanced north, then south. For a fleeting moment she was certain as his gaze came toward her, that he saw her, a lone figure, all five feet three inches of her in her faded college sweatshirt, jeans and heavy boots, her flame-red hair pulled into a ponytail. But he didn’t react to her presence if he did. Instead he looked back across the waters playing around her boots.

      He cupped his hands at his eyes, and she thought she saw a dark mark on his left shoulder, then thunder sounded and she looked away to the heavy gray of the sky above. A few centuries ago, the noise would have been the roar of a cannon that famed pirate Bartholomew Grace would have fired at his enemies who dared to disturb the peace of his Shelter Island refuge. The original owner of most of the island, old Bartholomew had come here every fall, staying until spring, either to celebrate his victories if he’d had a successful campaign in the south, or to recoup from his losses if fate had turned against him on the high seas.

      But this wasn’t where Bartholomew would have been scanning the horizon; he would have been in one of the turrets of the main house. She’d only seen the house from her father’s boat when they’d been on the sound, and from a distance it looked for all the world like a castle. Its multiple turrets towering in the air, the home was built out of rock, stone and dark wood. This stranger had to be staying in the guest house she’d been told was on the property.

      Instead of pirates occupying the house and land now, Bartholomew’s descendants, Anthony and Celia Grace, did, along with their only child, Ethan. They’d lived on the island for as long as Morgan could remember. But since she’d left ten years ago, things had changed. She’d heard that Ethan’s parents had taken off to Europe about five years ago and had been back only once or twice. Their son seemed to have inherited the estate, but he returned sporadically, too. The thought that he was the man at the railing came and went; Ethan Grace wouldn’t be staying in the guest house.

      Most of the year he lived on the mainland and, depending on who you asked among the locals, that meant Seattle, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco or New York. Maybe he had residences in all those places; he certainly had the finances to live wherever he wanted. He’d taken over as head of the corporation his grandfather, then his father, had run, and according to her own father, that company “ate up and spit out everything in its path.” He’d made a comment about the pirate’s occupation being revisited on his descendants, and that Ethan used money and the law as his weapons while Bartholomew had used gunpowder and swords.

      She’d walked these beaches all of her life before she’d left for college, but this was her first exploration since her father had asked her to come home. She’d arrived a week ago and loved to be finally doing what she called “beach wandering.” She paid no attention to the Private Beach signs she’d passed before seeing the man. Maybe he was an early arrival for the big wedding reception Ethan was giving for his friend Joe Lawrence, another islander who had come back about six months ago.

      There was a lot of gossip from her father’s patients and the people she knew in town about Joe’s wedding to Alegra Reynolds, the founder of the Alegra’s Closet boutiques. They’d marry privately, then have their reception at the Grace estate. Some of the locals had been sent invitations, but Morgan wasn’t among them. No reason she would be; neither Joe Lawrence, nor Ethan Grace had been in her circle of friends in the old days.

      There was a flash of lightning in the east, then more thunder rolled across the heavens, shaking the air around her. She looked up and down the beach, then decided to head back. She stepped toward the water and couldn’t resist looking up again. The man was still there despite the growing cold that was cutting through her sweatshirt and his decided lack of clothes.

      She exhaled, unaware until then that she’d been holding her breath, then she turned to the water. She was reluctant to go back to the office and check the phone service. She had her cell phone in her pocket, but even so, she felt the weight of the responsibility of being the only doctor on the island at the moment. Her father was on his first vacation in years—one unplanned when a good friend had invited him to visit—and she’d agreed to come back and take over his practice until he returned. Simple, right? But it was anything but simple.

      She watched the lights on the mainland flashing to life through the gathering mists of dusk, and could smell the hint of rain in the air. She liked rain. She liked the moods of the island. Maybe the weather wouldn’t be good for the upcoming reception, but it would be good for her. Even the rich Graces couldn’t control the weather, especially on Shelter Island.

      She finally turned to walk back up the beach, deciding to go directly to the office. But she had only taken a few steps when she was startled by a loud crash that had nothing to do with the impending storm, but it did come from above her. A deep male voice yelled at the same time, and although she couldn’t quite make out the words, she had no doubt from the tone, that that might be for the best. She turned and moved closer to the water so she could get a better angle to look up at the decking.

      She stared hard, trying to make out any movement, but all she could see were lights that were on in the house now. She turned to leave, but as soon as she took a step, another crash came from the house. It sounded like glass breaking this time, along with something heavy hitting an unforgiving surface. But this time, there was no yelling, just the low sound of foghorns over the water and the cry of a night bird in the air.

      She could have kept walking, and would have if she hadn’t finally heard someone scream in anger or pain or both. That drove her to change all her plans. She looked around and spotted a series of broad steps that led to the top of the bluffs defined by lights so dim they were little more than a blur. Jogging over to the well-fashioned stairs in the rock wall, she grabbed the cold damp metal railing that ran up one side.

      She climbed as quickly as she could, not at all sure what she’d find at the top, but images of a naked man lying prone on the deck, bloodied and in pain, flashed in her mind. She’d look to make sure everything was all right, then she’d leave. Being a doctor, she’d learned that you offered help first and worried later about the details. The