URROUNDED BY Aprivate garden filled with the scent of blooming jasmine and frangipani, Kate Donovan stood on the terrace of the villa that Evan had reserved for them at the Island Club and gazed at a scene that looked very much like a slice of paradise.

Beneath a dazzling blue sky with puffy white clouds, graceful sailboats and gleaming yachts glided through the sparkling waters of Maundays Bay. Nearby, sunbathers relaxed on a crescent-shaped beach with sand as white as granulated sugar while attentive hotel employees hovered in the background in case someone raised a little flag, indicating they wanted a chilled towel or a drink or something to eat.

A couple who was trying to paddle a kayak near the shore gave up and waded out of the water, laughing and dragging the kayak behind them. Kate smiled with vicarious enjoyment before a fresh wave of isolation swept over her and drowned it out.

The island of Anguilla was breathtakingly beautiful, and the hotel was a fairy-tale Moorish palace, with domes and turrets and fabulous gardens, but she was completely alone. Instead of distracting her from her grief over her father’s death, being alone in this alien tropical paradise was compounding the unreality and isolation she’d felt since his funeral.

The telephone rang, and she rushed in from the terrace, hoping it would be Evan.

“Kate, it’s Holly. Hold on a second—” Her best friend’s cheerful voice was a balm to Kate’s spirits, as was the familiar sound of barking dogs in the background. Holly was a vet who took in “rescued” dogs while she looked for homes for them. It was almost impossible to have a conversation with her that wasn’t accompanied by a chorus of barking canines. “Sorry about the noise,” Holly said a little breathlessly. “I just took in a rescued Doberman, and he’s stirring up trouble. So, how’s Anguilla?”

“It’s a beautiful island, very pristine.”

“How are you feeling? Have you had any more headaches?”

“Not since the one I had four days ago on the plane from Chicago. It was so bad that when we landed in St. Maarten, Evan made our cabdriver take us to a doctor. The driver took us to his own doctor, a nice old man whose office was in his house and who spoke only French. The cabdriver spoke some English, so he had to act as translator.”

“Thank God you weren’t having gynecological problems!”

Smiling at Holly’s joking remark, Kate said, “Evidently, the cabdriver got the point across, because the doctor decided I was having migraines—that was the only word the doctor said that I completely understood. Anyway, he gave me a prescription for migraine pills that I’m supposed to take every day for the next two weeks. I’ve been taking them, but I think the headaches were probably from stress and they’d have gone away on their own when I got settled in down here.”

“Keep taking them anyway,” Holly ordered sternly; and when Kate promised she would, Holly changed to a lighter topic. “What about the Island Club—what’s it like?”

Carefully keeping her tone upbeat for Holly’s sake, Kate described the hotel. “There are thirty private villas scattered along the beach, each with its own garden and terrace and a panoramic view of the water. Everything is white: the hotel, the villas, even the floors in the rooms. The bathroom is the size of my living room, and the tub is like a shallow sunken swimming pool. The main hotel where you check in is quite small, but the boutiques inside it are fabulous and the food here is superb.”

“Have you seen anyone famous?”

“A bellboy told me Donald Trump stayed here last week and Julia Roberts was here a month ago. There’s a family staying in one of the villas that has a bodyguard who follows their teenage sons around, but I don’t know who the family is, and I don’t think the staff would tell me if I asked. The staff is very, very discreet and extremely service oriented. In fact, there’s a young waiter here I’d love to have working for us. For me, I mean,” Kate corrected, trying to sound matter-of-fact instead of forlorn.

Holly wasn’t fooled. “Do not think about the restaurant. Put Evan on the phone. I’m going to give him strict orders to make you laugh and make love to you so you can’t think about anything else until you come home.”

Kate hesitated and then reluctantly said, “Evan isn’t here.”

“Is he playing thirty-six holes of golf a day or only twenty-seven?”

“He isn’t playing golf, he’s in Chicago.”

“What?” Holly said angrily.

“His father was supposed to get a continuance on an important case,” Kate explained, “but the judge refused to grant it. Evan had to turn around and go straight back to Chicago to either try the case in court or persuade the judge to continue it.”

“When is he planning to get back to Anguilla?” Holly asked bitterly.

“Tomorrow, possibly. Maybe.”

“Evan is an arrogant, thoughtless jerk, and I don’t care what his excuse is for not being there. He barely made it to your father’s wake before it was over, because he had to attend some rich old man’s birthday party. He knew you didn’t want to go on this trip so soon after your father’s funeral, but he made you feel so guilty that you went with him anyway. And now you’re stuck there alone.”

“There are worse places to be ‘stuck,’ ” Kate teased, trying to calm Holly down. From the corner of her eye she saw a large dog sneaking out of the woods and trotting across her garden. She tucked the telephone receiver between her shoulder and ear so that she could unwrap the bacon she’d saved for him in a napkin. “Actually, there’s a rather handsome male here that I’ve been seeing a lot of. Max and I have been having our meals together.”

Holly was instantly intrigued. “What’s he like?”

With the phone still cradled on her shoulder, Kate walked onto the terrace and described the dog as he wolfed down each piece of bacon she offered him, then waited patiently for the next one. “He’s extremely tall with light brown hair and very intelligent brown eyes. He’s surprisingly gentle, too, for such a big guy. I call him Max—short for Maximilian.”

Holly heard the trace of wry amusement in Kate’s voice. “What’s wrong with him, Kate?” she said warily.

“He’s much too thin, he needs a bath, and he’s never seen a hairbrush.”

“My God!”

“And he has four legs.”

“Now, that’s a problem you can’t fix,” Holly laughed. “Are we talking about a dog or a cat here?”

“A very big dog,” Kate confirmed, grinning as she gave the dog the last of the bacon and wiped her fingers on the napkin. “He reminds me of a dog you rescued a long time ago—the one that took us forever to catch. He had short tan hair and a black muzzle. I think you said his breed was originally used to chase tigers and tire them out.”

“Not tigers, lions,” Holly said. “That dog was a Rhodesian ridgeback.”

“Well, Max doesn’t have a ridge on his back and he’s definitely a stray. He has two scruffy girlfriends, much smaller than he is, and they always join us for meals, but Max has started dropping by without them, just to say hello. He’s a bit of a flirt.”

“While we’re on the subject of flirting, will you do me one little favor while you’re stuck there all by yourself, because Evan is ‘too busy’ to get down there?”

“What sort of favor?” Kate asked, instantly wary of Holly’s change in tone.

“Are there any attractive unmarried human males staying at the hotel?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, then have you seen a decent-looking doorman? A cute bellboy?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it would make me deliriously happy if I thought you’d had a fling with one of them while Evan was paying the damned hotel bill,” Holly said spitefully.

Kate smothered a laugh. “Okay.”

The anger in Holly’s voice turned to surprise. “You’ll do it?”

“No,” Kate said with a wayward smile, “but I’ll let you think I did, if that will make you ‘deliriously happy.’ ”

Bantering with Holly had lifted Kate’s spirits a little, and when she hung up, she tried to decide how best to keep herself occupied. She could go for a swim and then have a late lunch in the Sandbar, a cozy little restaurant with a covered patio and Moorish arches. It had a splendid view of the bay, and if she didn’t feel like staring at the water, she could read the book she’d bought at O’Hare Airport called Coping with Grief.

If she didn’t want to do that, she could start making a list of the tasks she needed to take care of as soon as she got back to Chicago. She had things she needed to handle at the restaurant, now that she was solely responsible for it, and she also had dozens of things to take care of relating to her father’s death and his estate.

Normally, the simple act of writing things down in orderly lists made Kate feel much better and more able to cope. In fact, she made lists all the time when she was under pressure—lists of tasks to handle, in order of importance, and lists of pros and cons when she had a difficult decision to make. Holly teased her about being a compulsive list maker, but it worked for Kate.

Now that she had a plan for the afternoon, Kate felt better and more energized. Before another bout of sadness and helplessness could wear her down, she changed into a yellow bathing suit and wrapped a matching sarong-style cover-up around her waist; then she put her book and a tablet from the desk drawer into a green canvas tote bag she was using as a combination purse and beach bag, and she left for the beach. First an invigorating swim and then a delicious lunch.

AYOUNG WAITER materialized the instant Kate’s sandal touched the patio outside the Sandbar, but when he started to lead her to the only vacant table, she hesitated. For one thing, she needed to get away from the tropical sunlight before it scorched her fair skin right through her sunscreen. For another, the three teenage boys with the bodyguard were eating at the next table. They’d already tried their youthful, persistent best to flirt with her yesterday, and now they were eyeing her with renewed hope. “I think I’d rather eat inside,” she told the waiter.

He was truly distressed. “But you would have to eat at the bar, unless you want to wait for a table to become available.”

Kate paused beneath a Moorish arch and looked inside. No one was sitting at the small bar, and the high stools looked comfortable with nice backs to lean against. Eating at the bar would suit her fine. She chose a stool facing the patio so she could look out at the water; then she pulled her book, her notepad, and a pen out of her tote bag. Satisfied that she had everything she needed, she looped the canvas straps of the green bag over the back of her stool and ordered a salad and a glass of tomato juice for lunch.

Towels had been delivered to her on the beach when she walked out of the water, and now a balmy breeze blew through the little restaurant’s open arches, softly drying her damp hair. It was nice to be away from the glaring sunlight, and the conversations at the tables inside were quiet enough not to intrude on her concentration. Kate gazed out at the water, thinking about what list to start on first, tapping the end of the pen on the tablet.

She decided to start with her relationship with Evan. The waiter brought her glass of tomato juice just as she drew a vertical line down the notebook page to make two columns. Above the left column she wrote, “Reasons to Continue”; above the right column she wrote, “Reasons to End.”

She’d been drifting in her relationship with Evan, letting it flounder, because she was unsure whether she truly wanted it to go forward. Holly blamed Evan for many things, especially the fact that he hadn’t put an engagement ring on Kate’s finger after almost four years, but that was mostly Kate’s doing. Whenever she sensed he was thinking about marriage, she did or said something guaranteed to make him hold off and rethink the issue. Her father had loved Evan, and he would have loved the idea of Kate marrying a Bartlett. He’d wanted Kate to have a beautiful life, with no worries about money, ever....

“What’s that?” she asked the waiter when he put a second glass of tomato juice next to the one she’d barely touched.

“Compliments of the young gentlemen on the patio,” he replied with a smile. “They asked that you be given a glass of whatever you’re drinking and that the charge for it be put on their parents’ bill.” Kate bit back a smile of her own and looked outside toward their table.

Three teenage faces grinned hopefully at her. The family at the table beside them obviously knew what the boys had done, because they were watching Kate—so was a couple seated near Kate who’d heard the waiter’s announcement when he gave her the glass of tomato juice.

The boys looked as if they ranged in ages from thirteen to sixteen, and Kate debated a moment about the best way to handle the situation without crushing their egos. “Tell them I said thank you. And—tell them I’m working,” she added. That was a little lame, Kate thought, but it would surely keep them from trying to join her at the bar.

By the time the waiter brought her salad, Kate had written several items on both sides of her list, but she realized she was too emotional right now to make objective judgments about Evan and their feelings for each other. She gave up on that list and turned the page to start a new one. At the top she wrote, “Things to Do at the Restaurant.” She glanced up as her waiter put another glass of tomato juice in front of her.

“Compliments of the young gentlemen.” This time he rolled his eyes and grinned.

When Kate looked around, several couples at tables inside were grinning and watching her, and when she glanced outside at the boys, everyone around them was watching her—except a man seated alone at the table she’d declined earlier. Embarrassed for the boys, not herself, Kate looked straight at them and shook her head slowly, but she smiled to take the sting of rejection out of her warning to stop.

She looked down at the title of her new list, and her hand trembled. Donovan’s Restaurant would be forever linked in her mind to her father. Located downtown, Donovan’s had begun as a little Irish pub founded by her father, and over the next thirty years it had repeatedly expanded and transformed until it was now one of Chicago’s most elegant, and most popular, restaurants. Daniel Patrick Donovan had always been a fixture there—a witty, charismatic man who mingled with his special customers while keeping an eye on every minute detail involving food and service. He had been the spirit and life force behind Donovan’s, and now it was up to Kate to try to carry on without him.

Struggling to keep her emotions under control, Kate went to work on her list. According to the maître d’, the restaurant was booked solid with reservations for the next eleven days, and the waiting list was longer than the usual number of cancellations. Kate needed to learn every detail about the restaurant’s operating budget, and she needed to set up safeguards to make sure she stayed within it.... She needed to have weekly meetings with the staff for a while, until they were confident she could actually take her father’s place—and until she was sure of it. She also needed to see if the new menus her father had chosen were on order. He’d liked those padded maroon leather menus with the word Donovan’s deeply embossed in gold.

He liked maroon leather chairs with shiny brass nail heads, she remembered achingly....

And waiters in freshly pressed dinner jackets...

And sparkling cut-crystal glassware...

And gleaming brass foot rails in the bar...

Kate stopped writing and pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears stinging her eyes. A chorus of laughter rang out from the patio and rippled through the interior of the restaurant. Kate blinked and lifted her head.

“Compliments of the young gentlemen,” the waiter announced.

“Take it back to them and tell them I don’t want it,” Kate ordered, her voice ragged with emotion. She flicked an apologetic glance at her audience within the restaurant; then she bent her head and turned to a new page in her notebook. She began a list of things she had to do at her father’s house.

On the patio outside, the boys let out a groan of dismay when the waiter walked out of the restaurant carrying an untouched glass of tomato juice on a tray.

At the table beside them, Mitchell Wyatt turned his head to hide his amusement and encountered laughing looks from several people on his left. By now, everyone seated on the patio was privy to the boys’ repeated amorous attempts to make an impression on the woman inside.

Although Mitchell had a view of her sitting at the bar, she was in deep shadow, so he had no idea what she looked like. According to the boys, who’d repeatedly expressed their opinion to everyone within hearing, she was “Soooo hot” and “Such a fox.”

The waiter put the glass of tomato juice on their table and sternly informed them, “The lady does not want another glass of tomato juice.”

Trying to ignore the outburst of laughter and the youthful exclamations of disappointment that followed the waiter’s announcement, Mitchell picked up the estimates his contractor had given him, but the youngest boy evidently decided to seek advice from an older, more experienced male. Leaning toward Mitchell, he held up his palms in a gesture of helplessness and demanded, “So, what would you do?”

Mildly annoyed at yet another distraction, Mitchell eyed the glass of unappetizing tomato juice and said, “I’d add a stalk of celery and a shot of vodka, if it was for me.”

“Yes!” the kid exclaimed excitedly, looking at the waiter.

The waiter looked questioningly at the bodyguard, who was seated at the table with them and trying to read a newspaper. The boys looked hopefully at the bodyguard. “Give us a hand here, Dirk,” one of them implored. The bodyguard sighed, hesitated, then nodded at the waiter and said, “Only one.”

The boys cheered and exchanged high fives.

The man at the table on his left laughingly confided to Mitchell, “You can’t blame them for trying. Hell, if I were single, I’d make a play for her. She is hot.”

In disgust, Mitchell gave up trying to concentrate on the list of estimates and looked around for a waiter to bring him his check. The waiter wasn’t in sight. He’d gone into the restaurant.

Oblivious of the commotion on the patio, Kate looked at the tasks she’d written down to do at her father’s house, and the ache inside her grew and grew. Donate clothes to the Salvation Army. Her father’s suits... His favorite green sweater that made his eyes look even greener. He had such wonderful eyes... warm, laughing, Irish eyes. She was never going to see those eyes again.

She was going to cry, Kate realized in horror! She had to get out of there. She closed the notebook and got off the barstool, just as the waiter put a Bloody Mary in front of her and a man strolled in from the patio, heading in her direction. “Compliments of the young gentlemen,” the waiter explained.

“Tomato juice was cute,” she told him. “A Bloody Mary isn’t cute. It’s—inappropriate and offensive for kids to do something like this.”

“It wasn’t their idea, miss,” he said quickly.

“Then whose idea was it?” Kate demanded, not caring that everyone in the restaurant—and probably on the patio, too—was watching to see what she’d do about the Bloody Mary.

“Mine,” the newcomer said from right beside her.

Kate could tell from his deep voice that he was old enough to know better, and she refused to give him the courtesy of a glance. “It’s reprehensible to help those adolescents buy alcohol.” With her left hand, she grabbed her notebook and Coping with Grief from behind her plate; then she slid her right arm through the long straps of the green canvas bag and picked up the Bloody Mary, intending to give it back to him. “I don’t want this—” The straps of her canvas bag snagged on the back of the chair, and she gave the straps an impatient jerk while she thrust the drink at him.

Red liquid erupted from the glass and drenched the front of his white shirt.

“Oh, no—” Kate exclaimed, drowning out his startled expletive and the gasps from onlookers. “I amso sorry!” Dropping everything but the Bloody Mary, she put the half-empty glass on the bar, swiftly exchanging it for her glass of ice water and a cloth napkin. “The tomato juice will stain if we don’t get it out right away,” she babbled, unable to look him in the eye.

When she doused his silk shirt with freezing-cold water, Mitchell’s skin flinched, and when she began dabbing madly at the mess with her cloth napkin, and apologizing frantically, his annoyance switched to reluctant amusement, but when she told the hovering waiter to bring her some club soda, Mitchell drew the line: “Do not give her anything else to pour on me,” he warned. “Bring us a towel instead.” She’d spilled the drink on him before his eyes had adjusted to the shadows, and she hadn’t lifted her gaze above his chest since then, so he had no idea what she actually looked like except that she was about five feet six inches tall, and she had long, dark red hair that was very thick, damp, and curly. Beyond that, all he could tell from his current vantage point was that her eyelashes and eyebrows were the same color as her hair. He tucked his chin down and addressed her eyelashes. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to say, ‘Thank you kindly, but no’?”

Kate finally realized he wasn’t furious, but her relief was offset by shame. “I’m afraid your shirt is ruined,” she said as she reached for the waiter’s towel with her right hand and shoved the fingers of her left hand between the buttons of his shirt and his bare skin. “I’ll try to blot as much of this off as I can.”

“That sounds like a better plan than trying to drown it.”

“I couldn’t feel any worse about this,” she said in a muffled voice.

“Yes, you could,” Mitchell said, but his attention was on the title of the book she’d dropped, and he was trying to read it upside down.

“How could I?”

“I didn’t intend for the boys to send you that Bloody Mary,” he replied just before he realized the title of the book was Coping with Grief.

Stricken, she finally lifted her face to his, and in a flash of blinding clarity, Mitchell realized exactly why three teenage boys had been making fools of themselves over her. Framed by a mass of curling titian hair, and without a trace of makeup, her face was striking, with ivory skin, high cheekbones, and a small square chin with an intriguing cleft in the center. Her nose was straight, her mouth soft and generously wide, but it was her eyes that momentarily mesmerized him: Beneath gracefully winged dark red brows and a thick fringe of long russet lashes, she had large green eyes the startling color of wet leaves. Belatedly, Mitchell realized those eyes were shimmering with tears, and he felt a sharp, idiotic pang of regret for his part in causing them.

“Naturally, I want to pay for your shirt,” she said, stepping back and turning away.

“I’d expect nothing less from someone with your lofty principles,” Mitchell said lightly, watching her put the towel on the bar and reach for her canvas bag. She wasn’t wearing a ring on her left hand, he noted.

Kate heard his joking tone and couldn’t believe how nice he was being. Or how incredibly handsome he was. With her back to him, she took her checkbook out of her bag and groped in it for a pen. “How much shall I make my check out for?”

Mitchell hesitated, preoccupied with rapid observations and assessments: The Island Club was an extremely expensive, elitist little hotel, yet her wristwatch and the ring on her right hand were inexpensive, and her canvas bag had the name of a bookstore on it, not a designer logo. That meant she was probably here with someone who was paying all her expenses. With her striking good looks, she’d undoubtedly have wealthy men standing in line to take her to the best places and show her a good time... but the bathing suit top she was wearing was a little on the modest side for a “good-time girl.” Besides that, there was something soft and vulnerable about her and even a little... prim?

When he didn’t reply, Kate turned around and looked inquiringly at him.

“This is an extremely expensive shirt,” he said gravely, but with the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “If I were you, I’d offer to take me to dinner instead.”

Startled laughter welled up inside Kate, pushing past the aching misery she’d felt for nearly two weeks. “Your shirt is that expensive?”

He nodded with sham regret. “I’m afraid so. Taking me to dinner would be the wisest choice for you financially, believe me.”

“After what I just did to you, you want to have dinner with me?” Kate said, finding that a little difficult to believe.

“Yes, but with only solid food around. No liquids within your reach.”

Unable to keep a straight face, Kate bent her head, her shoulders shaking with mirth at his dire tone.

“I’ll take that to mean you’re prepared to discharge your debt—shall we say at eight o’clock tonight?” Mitchell said smoothly, wishing he could see her expression.

She hesitated a moment; then she nodded and finally lifted her face to his. Mitchell’s gaze dropped from her eyes to her entrancing smile, and his heart missed a beat. When she smiled, she had the most inviting, romantic mouth he’d ever seen.

“I’m Kate Donovan,” she said, her pretty mouth relaxing into a friendly smile as she held out her hand.

She had a nice handshake, Mitchell decided as her long fingers slid across his palm and grasped his hand. “Mitchell Wyatt,” he replied.

Kate’s mind switched to practicalities. Evan had made advance reservations for the two of them to dine that night at Voyages, the hotel’s beautiful all-glass restaurant at the water’s edge. “Let’s meet at Voyages at eight o’clock,” she said.

“Let’s meet in front of the hotel, instead. I have another restaurant in mind.”

Vague uneasiness crept over Kate, but she was preoccupied with his ruined shirt; his handsome, tanned face; and a sudden awareness that everyone inside the restaurant was either watching them or listening to them. “All right,” she said, and gathered up her belongings. Rather than leave via the patio and walk past the teenagers’ table, Kate turned toward the exit behind her, which also enabled her to cut diagonally across the sand to the villa where she was staying. Halfway there, she glanced over her shoulder, and when she didn’t see a tall man behind her with a large red splotch on his shirt, she realized he’d left the restaurant via the front entrance. Guiltily she wondered what sort of hilarity he’d had to endure from the teenagers on the patio when he passed by them