Caribbean Christmas (2 page)

“Sassy, I’m going—”

“Saskia, please. I feel about eight when people call me Sassy. Going to school with my name was a lesson in torture. A silly first name and an unpronounceable last name. I didn’t even have a middle name to fall back on.”

He stepped into the shade. “Would have been a perfectly boring name in Holland.”

She nodded and reclined back into the hammock. “I’ve only been there for vacations.”

“I remember. You were quite the whirlwind.” She’d visited a few times, always leaving broken things in her wake. His father had sons who’d been taught to toe the line, so the flighty girl-child who danced through his home and gardens had always left things in disarray. He hoped this visit wouldn’t cause the same chaos for Dutch.

“Sitting still is not really my thing.” She twisted and fumbled out of the hammock. “Whoa, the ground just jumped up at me there.”

Her bright, disarming smile almost took him in. Then he remembered she was a self-involved tornado who used her father as an ATM. She may have grown into a beautiful woman, but Dutch’s daughter was off-limits for more reasons than respect for a man who was more of a father to him than his own.

He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “Can I ask you something?”

“Um, okay.” She shifted her odd bag on her shoulder. The thing looked like it was barely holding together.

“Why are you here?”

“I know the weather here is the same year round, but it is Christmas.”

A tingling sensation slid up his spine as she evaded the question. “But Dutch had no idea you were coming.”

“I thought surprising him would be fun. When the airline had the last-minute sale, I grabbed a ticket and just came.” She shrugged, but her gaze drifted over his shoulder. Yes, the view was amazing, but it also felt like there was something she didn’t want to tell him. And it was that very something that had him worried for Dutch.

“How long are you staying?”

“Why, are you trying to get rid of me already?” She squared her shoulders and looked up at him, her blue gaze connecting with his. He measured her reaction and studied her eyes, beautiful golden centers surrounded by a sea of blue. He’d never seen anything like them, not that he thought much about eye color at all. And he probably shouldn’t be spending so much time staring at the gorgeous eyes of Dutch’s daughter.

“I just want to help. I can shift your dad’s schedule so he can be with you while you’re visiting.”

“You’re the one making him work every day?” She slid her hands to her slim hips. “Maybe you’re the one I need to talk to. He is sixty years old. He shouldn’t be working so many trips. This is the time in his life when he should be enjoying his boats, not captaining them for someone else.”

Joe smiled. He couldn’t agree more, but Dutch had a stubborn, prideful streak Joe completely understood. While the older man wasn’t stupid enough to let everything he’d earned slip away, he wasn’t about to let it be handed back to him without working for it.

He cleared his throat and grinned at his new ally, at least in this. “I’m sure that’s something you can take up with your dad. I handle the logistics of the business, but he loves the open water. I’d love to see him just handle the research vessel. It’s what he does best.”

She nodded. “He does love to show the researchers things they thought they knew. I have until Christmas to convince him to take it easier on himself. Either that, or maybe I’ll take him home with me.”

Joe couldn’t contain the laugh. “Dutch will never leave Anguilla.”

Saskia’s determined smile had him second-guessing himself. “We’ll see about that.”

Chapter Three

“What in the world?” Saskia exclaimed as she stepped into her childhood home, finding nothing she could recognize. What had once been the cozy and cluttered home of her scattered parents had morphed into a bright, modern space.

“About that,” Joe spoke from the front door. “There was a lot of damage after the hurricane. It was a great opportunity to open things up.”

She looked up at the oversized lantern hanging in what was now a two-story entry. “What happened to the bedrooms that were up there?”

“We reworked the upstairs into two suites so we could have the high ceilings to open up the great room.” He stepped inside and placed her duffle beside the door. “We managed to build almost all of the furniture ourselves.”

He sounded proud, which made the sadness she felt at having her childhood home erased feel out of place. “You helped him do all this?”

Joe nodded and scrubbed his hand on the back of his neck, the muscles of his tanned chest bunching with the movement. If she weren’t so unsettled, she might snap a picture of him in all his masculine beauty to text back to her roommate. Holly would enjoy the story all the more with visual aids.

“It’s strange. I thought I would always feel at home under this roof. But this is…” She waved her hand through the air, at a loss to describe the magazine-perfect space.

“To be fair, it is a different roof. Solar tiles.” There was something behind his smile, understanding maybe. He always was the only one of those Prinsen boys with half a heart.

“How long have you been here?”

“On Anguilla? Three years come New Year’s. Harm came over a year later.”

She tried her best to suppress a shudder. “Is he still mean? I’ll never forget how he locked me in the basement storage closet.”

Joe laughed. “Hey, I let you out. Harmannus has always had his own agenda. We’re all basically the same age so we had no idea what to do with a little sprout getting all up in our business.”

“You mean cockblocking your adolescent hormones. I may have been young, but I knew you only came to visit to check out bikinis on the beaches.”

He coughed. Was he blushing? “Well, people wear a lot more clothes in Holland.”

“So is that why you stayed with my father? So you could spend the rest of your days in board shorts?” Not that any hot-blooded woman would ever complain. She felt as aware of him as he must have been ogling tan lines as a teen.

He looked around the picture-perfect interior of the house so she followed his gaze. They’d even replaced the small galley kitchen with a stainless steel version. She spied the door off the kitchen and wondered if anything was left of her childhood bedroom.

Joe cleared his throat. “I’m going to let you get settled in for a bit. I’ll bring something up for dinner when I am done at the shop.”

“You don’t have to keep me company. I’m sure I can find my way around, even if the floor plan has changed.” She grinned at him and decided that as childhood crushes went, she’d done pretty well for herself. He still had that regal look of a fairy-tale prince, the smiling eyes and perfect profile. But now his body had been honed for a woman’s fantasies.

“It’s not a problem. I have to come home with dinner for myself anyway.”

“Wait, are you saying you live here?” Her awareness of him spiked, the aftershocks left her reaching for the back of the white sofa. Three nights under the same roof without her father to chaperone. She’d have to rein in her attraction, and there was no fun in that.

If the hotels didn’t cost as much a night as her first car and book up two years in advance, she might opt to stay elsewhere. The very last thing she needed was an awkward conversation when Joe caught her ogling him. Who knew what he’d tell her dad.

Joe nodded slowly, looking at her like she was some special breed of idiot. “Dutch never mentioned that?”

She shook her head. “He never connected any dots for me. There was a Joe, a retired guy who kept buying up property on the island as investments and was interested in learning more about sailing so he put some money into the business.”

“All true.” He walked back to the still-open door. “Maybe when you talk to Dutch, you should listen.” His expression hardened as he stared at her.

His clipped words took her so off-guard it took a moment before she could manage to ask what right he had to tell her anything about her own father. And by then, he’d slammed the door behind him.

Saskia sank down onto the soft mattress, her fingers spreading along the coverlet she’d crocheted herself the last time she’d spent the full summer on the island. Deep-red, dusty-orange and a ridiculous electric-pink that could have seemed like a good idea to only her ten-year-old mind. Color choices of yarn had been limited, but not that much.

Her dad had told her it was beautiful and she’d believed him. He’d told her she had a talent for crochet, and she loved the freedom of it so much she’d turned it into a business. Ugh, how she hated the business side of things. If not for her roommate Holly handling all that, the brand never would have grown large enough to garner the attention of magazine stylists, and now the retail offer.

Well, it wasn’t really an offer anymore. She’d agreed to hand over her designs as often as possible so they could be mass produced and sold for exorbitant prices. So why did she feel lost instead of successful? Selling the company had been Holly’s plan all along, but Saskia had never given much thought to it actually happening. She’d been happy to earn a living making beautiful crocheted bathing suits. She’d been happy.

Now how was she supposed to fill up her days? She didn’t want to be stuck in an office trying to micromanage the day-to-day operations of Sassy V Beachwear. She felt like a child’s doll left behind from summer camp.

She wished her father was here for guidance. Three more days of trying to figure it out for herself and she might go crazy. Holly thought she’d lost it completely when she’d suggested starting over with children’s hats. Or headbands. Or little girls’ dresses. Scarves, booties, stuffed toys.

The feeling of
now what
echoed against the walls of her childhood bedroom. Her father had changed every single thing about the house, but not her room. It had to be cleaner than she’d left it, but it felt like home. The maps of Europe and the US she’d embroidered still hung on the wall beside framed photos of her and her father on their adventures. Scuba, snorkel, sail, kayak—if it was on the water, they’d done it together.

She rose from the bed to get a closer look at the group photo from her father’s fiftieth birthday party. Friendly faces from the island surrounded them, but next to her father stood Sebastian Prinsen, actually smiling. Behind him loomed his three taller sons.

She racked her mind for memories of the family. Their visits hadn’t usually coincided with hers, so she had vague recollections of Harmannus teasing and taunting, Antonnis ignoring her as best he could, and Johannes trying to keep them all out of trouble. Including her. She’d been able to be even more daring than usual when he was around, knowing he would rescue her if she needed it.

Why hadn’t she thought to connect him to the friend her father spoke so fondly of? She’d imagined an Americanized version of her father, letting her assumptions keep her from needing to ask any questions of her father’s new partner.

One thing was for certain. She wasn’t leaving this island until she’d made sure the young businessman wasn’t taking advantage of her father’s generous spirit.

Chapter Four

She’d changed her clothes. Joe froze with his hand on the key still in the door. He stood on the deck of the now-deserted shop and watched Saskia carefully pick her way down the hill, avoiding the sea grapes and shooing a handful of goats out of her way with a tangle of sea-bean vines.

He’d hoped she’d stay put at the house where he could control who told her what, but he hadn’t exactly expected her to. What little he remembered of her didn’t jive with doing as she was told.

The cutoffs and tank were replaced by a dress that seemed to be little more than a scarf knotted on one shoulder. The way the blue material clung to her lithe frame meant there was more to it than the knot, but he had no idea how it stayed in place. The soft breeze should have been able to lift it away and showcase her body to the sun.

He cleared his throat, locked the door and put his libido firmly in check. He’d let a woman’s beauty distract him from her true nature before, and it had nearly destroyed his family. Then he could claim he was blindsided, but this time he knew what was coming. It was no coincidence that Dutch had denied his wife’s latest demand for money and their daughter had arrived a week later.

He shifted his mind back to that frustration and disgust. How could Dutch’s own family not see how kind and capable he was, instead constantly reducing him to a bank balance?

Saskia made her way to a deserted strip of beach north of the harbor, and he headed there. She didn’t seem to have a plan, just wandering across the sugar-white sand and pausing to examine the beach-stone sculptures. With miles of beach on the island, large coral formations sometimes washed ashore and locals tended to collect and stack them into creations that seemed more modern art than ocean waste. He caught up with her on the soft beach, slipping out of his sandals to join her.

“Headed anywhere in particular?” he asked as he fell into step beside her.

“I’m trying to get a lay of the land. I was thinking of borrowing a sloop and sailing around the island to see what’s changed.”

Perfect. Keeping her offshore would keep her from any island gossip. “That sounds like a great idea for tomorrow. We can pack a lunch and stop at Seal Island. Or we can rig up the schooner if you’re willing to help and surprise Dutch on Sombrero.”