Free No Virgin Island by C. Michele Dorsey Page A

disease was gone, even though his body remained present. “How can you mourn a loss when you are sitting across the table on your lovely deck overlooking the Caribbean staring into his vacant eyes?” Lyla had asked.
    “You already have, dear,” Lyla said now. “You’ve listened.”
    “You call any time. All of this will be behind us by the time we meet for our book club next week,” Sabrina said.
    “I certainly hope so, dear, but in the meantime, I’ll get the gun out of the safe and if I meet anyone who looks like or works for that horrible hack, Faith Chase, I’ll give it to her between the eyes.”
    Sabrina clicked off her phone and took another sip of the Bombay Sapphire delight.
    “I finally know who I want to be when I grow up, Henry.”
    “And who’s that?”
    “Lyla Banks.”

Chapter Thirteen
    Deirdre walked out of the master bathroom, tying the sash to her white gauzy cotton robe, wishing it weren’t so short or transparent. She didn’t want to remind Sam about what he was missing after he’d attempted to make love to her. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Didn’t he know?
    Sam sat on the edge of the huge mahogany four-post canopy bed, so high you had to climb on a stool to lie on. Deirdre watched his long, graceful feet dangling above the tile floor. A gentle breeze sneaked through the sliding screen doors. She knew he was thinking what a waste of a beautiful night in the Caribbean this was.
    She climbed into the huge bed, leaving on her robe and nightie beneath. He lumbered onto his back. She waited a few minutes. Sam was still, but she knew from his breathing that he was awake.
    “It’s not a honeymoon, Sam. You know that,” she said, her mouth in a pout Sam had once called beautiful.
    “Deirdre, we’re stuck, for lack of a better word, in a villa so opulent I couldn’t have even imagined it. We’re here until they clear Villa Mascarpone. Why can’t you just go with it? Try to enjoy this as if it really were a vacation until we get over there.”
    “Because I am consumed. Consumed and confused. We were so close. What happened? What went wrong?”
    Deirdre turned to him now as he lay back in bed, stark naked, just wanting what any man in bed with a lovely woman would want.
    “How do I know? Neither of us expected him to die here. It’s bizarre but probably totally irrelevant to us. It only complicates things, Deirdre. It doesn’t necessarily change them,” Sam said, reaching out to take her hand.
    She curled her fingers around his and gave them a squeeze.
    “I’ve waited so long, Sam. I’ve spent so much time and energy, not to mention nearly all the money Daddy left me. I can’t help how I feel. And what are we supposed to do now?”
    He rolled over and faced her. Deirdre knew he found her what he called “stunning in a fragile way.” Wasn’t that why she’d brought sheer white cotton lingerie, giving him the hint of what was beneath? He had been seduced by her subtlety, which was lost on most men. It certainly had been on her ex-husband.
    Ever since Sam had seen her at a faculty meeting one fall in South Hadley, he had been devoted to her. He had heardthe stories, even read some of the newspaper clippings. But it didn’t matter. He was under a spell when it came to her.
    “Honey, I was only trying to make love to you, make you feel better. I wasn’t trying to upset you,” Sam said, tracing his index finger under her chin.
    “I know, I know. But you knew this about me when we got married. I can’t do anything about it. You know I love you; it isn’t about that.”
    Sam sighed.
    Deirdre knew Sam appreciated that, for the most part, they had a good life, both of them now tenured professors at Mount Holyoke College. He taught history; she taught English. They had a beautiful home. They even had a golden retriever. But it wasn’t enough. It just couldn’t erase the past, give back what had been taken from her.
    “Of course I do. Deirdre, I get it. I cannot imagine