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happen.”
    “I was going to be somebody, Bri.”
    “You are somebody. Alexa Hathaway, Island Princess.”
    She rolled her eyes before she picked up her coffee. “I didn’t last a year in New York. Not a damn year.”
    “Who wants to?” The very idea gave him the creeps. Crowded streets, crowded smells, crowded air.
    “It’s a little tough to be an actress on Desire.”
    “Honey, you ask me, you’re doing a hell of a job of it. And if you’re going to sulk, take the waffles up to your room. You’re spoiling my mood.”
    “It’s easy for you.” She shoved the waffles away. Brian nabbed the plate before it slid off the counter. “You’ve got what you want. Living in nowhere day after day, year after year. Doing the same thing over and over again. Daddy’s practically given the house over to you so he can tromp around the island all day to make sure nobody moves so much as one grain of his precious sand.”
    She pushed herself up from the stool, flung out her arms. “And Jo’s got what she wants. Big-fucking-deal photographer, traveling all over the world to snap her pictures. But what do I have? Just what do I have? A pathetic résumé with a couple of commercials, a handful of walk-ons, and a lead in a three-act play that closed in Pittsburgh on opening night. Now I’m stuck here again, waiting tables, changing other people’s sheets. And I hate it.”
    He waited a moment, then applauded. “Hell of a speech, Lex. And you know just what words to punch. You might want to work on the staging, though. The gestures lean toward grandiose.”
    Her lips trembled, then firmed. “Damn you, Bri.” She jerked her chin up before stalking out.
    Brian picked up her fork. Looked like he was two for two that morning, he thought, and decided to finish off her breakfast as well.
     
     
    WITHIN an hour Lexy was all smiles and southern sugared charm. She was a skilled waitress—which had saved her from total poverty during her stint in New York—and served her tables with every appearance of pleasure and unhurried grace.
    She wore a trim skirt just short enough to irritate Brian, which had been her intention, and a cap-sleeved sweater that she thought showed off her figure to best advantage. She had a good one and worked hard to keep it that way.
    It was a tool of the trade whether waitressing or acting. As was her quick, sunny smile.
    “Why don’t I warm that coffee up for you, Mr. Benson? How’s your omelette? Brian’s an absolute wonder in the kitchen, isn’t he?”
    Since Mr. Benson seemed so appreciative of her breasts, she leaned over a bit further to give him full bang for his buck before moving to the next table.
    “You’re leaving us today, aren’t you?” She beamed at the newlyweds cuddling at a corner table. “I hope y’all come back and see us again.”
    She sailed through the room, gauging when a customer wanted to chat, when another wanted to be left alone. As usual on a weekday morning, business was light and she had plenty of opportunity to play the room.
    What she wanted to play was packed houses, those grand theaters of New York. Instead, she thought, keeping that summer-sun smile firmly in place, she was cast in the role of waitress in a house that never changed, on an island that never changed.
    It had all been the same for hundreds of years, she thought. Lexy wasn’t a woman who appreciated history. As far as she was concerned, the past was boring and as tediously carved in stone as Desire and its scattering of families.
    Pendletons married Fitzsimmonses or Brodies or Verdons. The island’s Main Four. Occasionally one of the sons or daughters took a detour and married a mainlander. Some even moved away, but almost invariably they remained, living in the same cottages generation after generation, sprinkling a few more names among the permanent residents.
    It was all so ... predictable, she thought, as she flipped her order pad brightly and beamed down at her next table.
    Her mother had