Free Forever Beach by Shelley Noble Page A

don’t know why they didn’t adopt you. At least you’re white.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Anyway. It won’t be any good you coming here. I’m going to stay if I can. I can get an education here. They’re some kind of important people. I’m going to get everything I can from them. Then one day I’ll come find you and you won’t have to worry about where you’re going to live ever again.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Why haven’t you written to me?
    Your sister,
    Nonie
    â€œDid you order anything yet?” Garrett asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down next to her.
    Ilona shook her head, momentarily speechless from the unexpected memory. Garrett raised his hand. A waiter appeared at their table. “Gin and tonic with a twist,” Ilona said.
    â€œI’ll have the same,” Garrett said. “Actually,” he said, leaning closer as the waiter left to get their drinks, “I’d kill for an icy Bud Light right out of the bottle. But the bad taste brigade would blackball me from the veranda bar.”
    Ilona laughed. They were all hiding something.
    Their drinks came, and Ilona’s mind began to wander to her divorce case. The problem with socializing with lawyers was that you could never discuss your work. And she didn’t really think Garrett wanted to hear what the latest interior designer had charged her for the brilliant idea of putting a few colorful pillows around the living room to make it “pop.”
    Ilona felt like popping the designer, but she signed the check and smiled and maneuvered the woman toward the door, while she thought, Next time I’m hiring a man, and don’t have anyone call me for a reference .
    â€œOh shit,” Garrett said, drawing her attention back.
    â€œWhat? Are you just realizing that I beat your socks off?”
    â€œNo,” he said smiling, his glass half raised to his lips. “Your ex just came in, and with the new wife.”
    â€œHe never comes to the club on Saturday. Saturday is for sailing or polo. Sunday’s the club for brunch, Wednesday for tennis.”
    â€œWell, he’s here today.” His smile broadened and he lifted his chin. “He’s seen us and he’s headed this way.”
    Ilona shrugged. “And we were having such a lovely time.”
    â€œAnd there’s more,” he mumbled before he half stood and shook hands. “Kevin,” he said in his most jovial voice. “Where you been keeping yourself?”
    â€œBusy,” Ilona’s ex-husband said.
    Kevin Morrissey Blake had been handpicked by her parents. The wedding had been overrun with dignitaries, the dress cost thirty K, and the marriage lasted all of three years.
    Ilona didn’t wish it back. She wasn’t sure she even liked him. Tall, blond, decent enough to look at. A man who knew what he wanted and went after it. And what he wanted was a political career, and the way he went after it was to woo Ilona and then her father.
    He still had her father, and he was welcome to him. They were welcome to each other.
    She fortified her smile and turned to say hello. But her gaze went right past Kevin’s beaming face to his new blond wife. The bitch was pregnant. He’d come to gloat.
    But Ilona had spent the last ten years in a courtroom, and she wasn’t about to fall for this little piece of malice aforethought. “Why, look at you,” she said enthusiastically. “As round as a tomato.”
    She rubbed the model-thin trophy wife’s baby bump.
    The woman, whose name Ilona had conveniently forgotten, blushed, smiled up at Kevin for support. Ilona could have told her that was useless; he was watching Ilona, his head tilted slightly, trying to figure out what she was thinking. He would never get it.
    â€œSo good to see you two,” she continued, like they were all best buds.
    Kevin