“I just don’t understand why she’d do this to us!”

Garrett didn’t expect either parent to ask how he was, how his life was going. The conversation was immediately about them. “Caroline didn’t do anything to you. She did it to herself.”

His mother rubbed her temples as if she were at the end of her rope. “That’s the point. That’s the exact point. Everyone will talk. Especially with all this scandal about Bunny’s death and those diaries…Now there’s just more fuel to the gossip fire. People could think we did something, when you know we gave that girl every advantage a daughter could possibly have. I swear, Caroline was selfish from the day she was born-”

“Mom. She’s troubled. She has to be in major despair over something or she’d never have done this.”

“Oh, pfft.” Barbara stood up, waving her glass. “She’s spoiled and wants attention. Like always. She doesn’t think of me or your father. Or our reputation in the community. She has everything she ever wanted in this life, but does she ever think of us?”

Okay. He’d been in his parents’ house all of ten minutes and already he wanted to smash a wall. That fast, he remembered why he’d left Eastwick and never looked back.

Later, though, when he lay in bed in the spare room, he recalled how hard it had been to leave his younger sister alone back then. And more than that, how painful it had been to leave Emma.

Right now it just didn’t matter if his parents drove him as crazy as they always had. He couldn’t leave his sister to the wolves. Until her husband came home from China-and until Garrett was certain she was going to be all right-he was staying here. Which meant he had to find a way to make his business work here for an indefinite period of time.

Before drifting off to sleep, Emma’s face whisked into his mind again. Her thick, glossy hair used to swish all the way down her back. Now she wore it shoulder length, but it was still like moonlight on black silk. So raven-dark, so rich, yet with light in every strand. Her soft mouth was as evocative as it had always been. So were those unforgettable eyes, so deep blue they were almost purple. Eyes a guy could get lost in.