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had just given her the finger. Without a word, she jumped to her feet, stumbled over the hem of the robe, regained her balance, and then fled back into the cottage.
    Jake stopped, taken aback. He waited for a few moments to see if she would come out again, but the cottage was now as silent as its neighbors. The curtains moved slightly, and while it was probably just the wind, he had the sudden feeling that she was standing there, hidden behind the fabric, peeking at him.
    Weird,
he thought, wondering what could have spooked her. If the sight of a man in swim trunks frightened her so much, she was in for a seriously terrifying vacation. He shrugged, lifted a hand in a brief wave toward the curtain, and continued on down the beach.
    “My dear,” said Elaine McKee Culpepper Von Reinholz Newberg, “what on earth are you doing?”
    Guiltily, Molly jumped. Her heart was still hammering so hard that she could hear the beat of the blood in her ears, and her cheeks were hot. She released her grip on the curtain, and turned, feeling foolish.
    “Nothing,” she said.
    Elaine raised her eyebrows. She was wearing black satin mules, a red silk nightgown with a matching robe, and diamond earrings. Her hair was pinned into a neat chignon, and her makeup was perfect. It was five minutes after eight A.M.
    They had arrived at Gold Bay late the night before, after a six-hour snow delay at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Commercial travel took them only as far as Antigua, where they were met by a Gold Bay helicopter that whisked them and their baggage over the last stretch of ocean to the resort's private island. Molly had been surviving on minimal sleep in the days prior to the trip, working nights to get two hundred freshman final exams graded before she left town, and by the time they arrived at Gold Bay, she was so dazed with fatigue that her brain had barely processed the scene around her. She had tumbled into bed after a brief discussion with Carter and Elaine about the fact that they were three people in a two-bedroom cottage. Elaine had explained that it would be perfect for Molly and Carter to share the room with the twin beds, and although her logic was dubious, Molly had been too tired to argue.
    She slept as deeply as she had ever slept in her life, and woke at seven with a fuzzy awareness of warm, jasmine-scented air and the sound of breaking surf. Carter was still snoring gently, an unidentifiable blanket-covered lump in the other bed, when Molly opened the bedroom door and slipped out of the shuttered darkness into the dazzling morning sunshine.
    “You look as if you've just seen a ghost,” Elaine said.
    Molly shook her head. “Worse,” she said. “I saw Jake Berenger.” She felt like an idiot, which was a bad beginning. Without her glasses, anything farther away than twenty feet had the colorful cloudiness of an Impressionist painting. When the vague shape of the person walking toward her had suddenly resolved itself into a tanned man with an unmistakable face, Molly had been as shocked as if a photograph had suddenly come to life and winked at her. She had reacted instantly, without thinking.
    “Jake Berenger?” Elaine said skeptically. “Where? Here? Are you sure?”
    “Yes. He just walked by. He…waved to me.” Molly winced at the thought. He had known that she was looking at him from behind the curtain.
    “How odd,” Elaine said. “I can't imagine why he'd be wandering around at this hour. He saw you, then…like that? Good heavens. Well, not to worry. He won't remember you.”
    “Thanks,” Molly said coldly. “I feel much better now.” But she knew that it was true. Even if she had been sitting on the deck wearing a see-through negligee and singing “I Feel Pretty,” Jake Berenger probably would not remember her. He was handsome, she thought wistfully. He had wind-tousled black hair and a chest with muscles that curved like dunes on the Sahara. There were not a lot of men in Belden, Wisconsin, who looked