Page 42 of Three Little Wishes

So of course Willow had been thrilled when Cami ventured out of her room, smiling at the boys with an excited gleam in her eyes. Okay, so the excited gleam had worried her, and she’d learned soon enough that it should.

When Cami tried to drag Riley over to meet the boys, literally drag her, a fight had broken out between them, and everyone had learned just how muchfunthey’d had earlier in the day.

And because if Willow had any luck at all, it was bad luck, Noah had arrived in time to hear about Cami’s near flashing and Riley’s near drowning, which was bad enough. But they didn’t stop there. Oh no, they had to share what had happened on Main Street.

“What are my other options?” Noah asked, tracking her approach as a lion tracks its prey.

“An angry kiss?” She blamed the way the firelight danced on the hard angles of his gorgeous face for the suggestion.

“As tempted as I am to find out what an angry kiss feels like, I don’t think it would be conducive to the conversation we’re about to have.”

“Just to say, my vote would be for the angry kiss instead of the conversation,” she shared as she took a seat on the Adirondack chair beside him.

“Noted. But you’ve piqued my curiosity. Just how good is an angry kiss?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had one.” She tilted her head, thinking back to her last boyfriend. “Unless you count someone kissing me to shut me up as an angry kiss.”

His lips twitched. “I admit I’ve been tempted to kiss you for the same reason.”

“Maybe we should stick to the conversation you wanted to have,” she said, smiling when he laughed. “But teasing aside, Noah, I’d understand if you want Cami and me to leave.”

“I don’t wantyouto leave. Your aunt is another story, but for reasons unfathomable to me, Riley informed me that she wouldn’t speak to me for a month if I asked Cami to leave. I didn’t tell her that wasn’t her best negotiating tactic.”

After Cami and Riley stopped arguing, Noah had taken his sister down to the beach to talk, and Willow had brought her aunt inside to do the same. She had a feeling Noah’s conversation with Riley had been more productive than hers with her aunt.

“You didn’t have to. She’d figured it out by the time she came in to help us with dinner. She said, I quote, ‘My brother is the only person I know who would be happy living on his own on a deserted island.’”

“She’s not entirely wrong. I do like quiet and my own space.”

“I think you’d be bored in a week.”

“I’m looking forward to finding out.”

“What do you mean?”

“An hour after the company is dissolved on the thirteenth, I leave for a polar expedition in the Canadian High Arctic, and then every six weeks after that, I’ll be joining expeditions in remote locations around the world.” He couldn’t hide his excitement. There was a light in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in the past few days.

But she had seen it over the course of their three weeks together during the summer of 2011. “I remember you talking about this. Not this exactly, but how you wanted to travel the world. The places you wanted to see.” He’d had aninsatiable curiosity she’d admired. She had been a little in awe of him, even back then.

“I hadn’t thought about it before, but now that you mention it, I guess I did begin planning my itinerary then. I’ve refined it over the years but it hasn’t deviated much from the original plan.” His gaze followed the sparks from the fire shooting up into the night sky. “I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity for another ten years, at least. My mother’s death, sadly, expedited things.”

“Your mother had planned to dissolve the company in ten years?”

He nodded. “She was tired. I should’ve pushed the issue for her sake, not mine, but she had other people in her ear. Over the past three years, I acted in the capacity of her co-CEO to take some of the burden off her and to give her more time with my sister.”

“Riley mentioned you were head of the legal department. Did you continue in both roles?”

“I did. My mother didn’t like to delegate or give up control, unless it was to a member of the family, and I was the only one. It was the same when my grandfather ran the company. My mother had been the head of public relations, and she’d stepped into his shoes hours after he died. I don’t think she ever felt comfortable in the role.”

“Since you’re dissolving the corporation, I’m guessing you didn’t either.”

“I didn’t want any part of it, to be honest. But I wasn’t given a choice. Like my uncle, I’d been groomed for the role since birth. Unlike me, from what I’ve been told, he couldn’t wait to take over the reins of the family business. My motherused to joke if Will, that was her brother, had had his way, he would’ve staged a coup and thrown my grandfather over.”

“I didn’t know you had an uncle.”

“He died the summer of ’94. Totaled his car just outside of Sunshine Bay. He was only eighteen.” He glanced at the beach house. “My grandparents closed up the beach house and rarely came back. It was my mother who convinced them not to sell. She loved it here, and so did my father.”

“I’ve never heard you mention your father.”

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