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on the island, and the CEO of Coffee from the Heart. I got a contract to sell the beans to Dad’s competitors, the local upscale cafés in Washington. They love the fact they’re getting a good deal from the daughter of the man who is their biggest competition.”
    “I bet that hurts the old man’s pride.”
    “A little.”
    At his understanding grin, she remembered the old times, when she and Jarrett boldly made their own way, refusing to take money from her wealthy parents. It was only after his assignments as a SEAL took him away from her so much that she turned to her trust fund for shopping and other empty pursuits to pass the time.
    Sometimes she wondered if the extreme measures she’d taken after the divorce—moving here and starting her own nonprofit, had been to prove herself. Prove she was capable of being successful on her own. Prove she wasn’t a failure, like her marriage had been.
    They reached the building and she couldn’t help a tinge of pride. Solar cells powered the lights, and the hot water heater was a black plastic tank. Efficient and economical. Jarrett looked impressed as she took him into the processing room. The women washed mangoes at a long sink and looked up and said a shy hello. A tall woman with dark-colored skin in her late thirties came over. She wore low heels, a blue dress and had a white apron tied around her waist.
    Lacey introduced Jarrett to Collette March, the manager of the mango marmalade project. Educated in the States and extremely efficient, Collette was a hard worker and good at motivating the women.
    “Are those jars of jam ready for shipping yet?” she asked.
    Collette nodded. “Yes, Miss Lacey. And the two you want shipped to the US to your father, as well. They’re all in the storehouse.”
    As Collette hurried back over to supervise the women cutting the fruit, Lacey tossed Jarrett a mango. He bit into it, juice running down his chin. She grinned at his surprised look.
    “It’s better than the mangoes I’ve had in the States. Tastes like a tropical drink without the alcohol.”
    “That’s the special appeal of these mangoes, and what makes the jam so tasty. We buy from local farmers, though we grow our own, as well, on the property.”
    As he finished the fruit, she took him into a room where women sat at long tables, hand-peeling the fruit and then slicing it into sections.
    “It’s pretty easy to convert this into a large-scale operation because I have the labor. I hire women from the community and I pay them more than they’d make at the local sweat shops. I employ mainly women, and as a condition of employment, they have to attend classes here on Saturdays in reading and writing if they are illiterate.”
    At another table women were putting the mango slices into big pots with pectin, the main ingredient needed to make the jelly. Jarrett gave a friendly nod to the women as she showed him the area where the fruit was prepared and cooked.
    “The pectin keeps the jam from getting too runny. Next we cook the fruit with the sugar. And we boil the jars to sanitize them before they’re filled and then after they’re filled. Boiling after keeps the fruit from spoiling. We have to set the jars overnight to cool them and then in about ten days the mixture is ready to eat. We ship it out immediately because it lasts a little over a year.”
    “How the hell did you learn so much about making jam?” he asked. “You could barely cook.”
    “I wasn’t that bad!”
    “Sweetheart, you made eggs so hard-boiled they could pound nails.”
    At his wicked grin, heat suffused her face. Lace wasn’t certain if the blush was from his teasing or the endearing sweetheart .
    “I’m learning, though I have Rose. She’s the best cook in the region. She’s the one who gave me the recipe for the marmalade. The local women I employ have given me new ideas, too. They wanted jobs and they had skills. I learned a lot from them.”
    “And I’m sure they’re learning a lot