Mai Tai Marriage

by Chris Keniston

  And there she blows. First shot fired over the bow. With Graham suddenly in Hawaii, Lexie should have seen this coming. Recognized her mother would never give up on what she wanted from Lexie. Once again she grabbed the blue dress and opted for the coward’s way out.

  Holding the black cocktail dress, Lillian Hale followed her daughter. “Jarrod turned the reins of Montgomery Industries over to Graham a couple of years ago. He’s made sweeping changes. Expanded the business. Jarrod says the company has never been better. Now that Graham is no longer married to that bimbo of a wife, with a merger, he would be the perfect candidate to follow in your father’s footsteps and run both companies.”

  And another shot, a near miss. Biting her tongue, Lexie made her way to the dressing room door the sales woman had set aside for her. She was not going to return fire. Graham was part of her past, not her future, no matter what her mother believed or wanted. Later, when they were alone, she’d talk to her father and ferret out the truth of the company status. Of his health.

  “That is, of course.” Lillian looked her daughter in the eye. “If he were family.”

  And a direct hit! “Are you trying to tell me you have another daughter you’ve never mentioned or are you and Daddy thinking of adopting Graham?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve let you spend the last few years finding yourself here in Hawaii and it’s time to come home and get serious about your life.”

  “With Graham?”

  “Yes. With Graham.”

  “And what about Jim? You remember him. My husband.” Thank heaven she was so spitting mad at her mother that the word husband didn’t stick in her throat.

  “A minor inconvenience.”

  “Inconvenience? Mother. Listen to yourself. Give me one good reason why I should divorce the man I love to marry a self-centered pompous ass like Graham?” Lexie almost flinched at her own words, waiting for a bolt of lightning to strike. Longed for? Yes. Craved? Absolutely. But loved? If she were Catholic, she’d start her penance now.

  “You deserve better than a Navy man. You have the best education money can buy. Your bloodline can be traced back to—”

  “I’m not a pedigreed poodle, Mother.”

  “And you are not a street mongrel either.”

  Her fists clenched at her side. Never in her life had she ever wanted to strike her mother. She had very often disagreed with her mother’s old-fashioned perspective on life. Especially when it came to social strata and the woman’s role in the modern world. But never had she simply wanted to smack sense into the woman. “Jim does not deserve that. He is good and honorable and caring—”

  “Hey.” Emily came up beside her, placing a gentle hand on Lexie’s arm. “We’re starting to draw a crowd.”

  Lifting her chin and straightening her spine, Lillian lowered her voice. “You’ve only known him what, less than a month?” Her mother tilted her head at Emily. “Emily told me the whole story. Jim neglected to mention that you met through Billy very recently. You can’t possibly be in love with the man. Infatuated, yes. Lust, probably.

  “Face it, Alexandra. Officer or not, nice or not, your current choice of husband is beneath you. He’s probably after your money. With Graham you would never have to worry about that. Real and lasting love takes time to build and you and Graham already have a history.”

  And wasn’t that sad truth the understatement of the century.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Jim agreed to a round of golf with Lexie’s dad, he hadn’t considered what ten years in the Navy might have done to his game. The way he’d played so far, Alexander Hale probably thought Jim had never picked up a club in his life. Shading his eyes from the sun, he followed his tee shot on the par 4 eighth hole as it bounced off the fairway and settled dead center of the sand trap. Thank heavens they hadn’t teed off on the tenth hole. Instead, they’d played the easier front nine. He shuddered to think how he would have done had they played the back nine.

  “Don’t feel bad.” With a huge grin on his face, Lexie’s dad smacked him on the back. “I’ve had off days, too. What do you say we put this round in the books and skip to the 19th hole?”

  A few weeks ago, if someone had told Jim he’d be golfing with his father-in-law, he would have told them they were insane. Bridget’s father had a philosophy of if-you-don’t-have-at-least-five-men-fighting-over-a-ball, it’s not sport. The appeal of tennis escaped the man. Two people bouncing a ball back and forth over a net was beyond boring. For Bridget’s dad, watching a grown man chase a tiny ball across the lawn was akin to Chinese water torture.

  On the other hand, Jim’s first encounter with a golf club was at the ripe old age of five. Even then, he’d been told the biggest deals of his life would be worked out on the golf course. So he and seven other five-year-olds whose fathers were of the same mindset took golf lessons. By ten he’d been pretty darn good at it. By fifteen he’d known his career choice would not involve boardrooms and bonuses, and he would not need golf skills at Annapolis.

  If he stayed in the Navy long enough to earn a few gold bars, playing golf would come in handy. But he’d need to get better acquainted with his old friends, Putter and Nine Iron. Of course, that would be a long way off. If ever. He still had to be selected for commander before he’d ever make captain, and the Navy only needed so many coaches in charge of all the players. With each higher grade, fewer and fewer men were needed. You didn’t have to be a math genius to understand over five thousand men live on an aircraft carrier, but the ship has only one skipper.

  “What’s your poison?” Alex Hale chose a table near the window at the golf club bar.

  “Beer is fine. Whatever’s on draft.”

  Alex called the waitress over. “Scotch on the rocks and one draft.”

  “We have Budweiser, Heineken and Guinness.”

  “Budweiser is fine.” Jim took the seat across from Alex.

  “If you adjust your grip, you’ll fix that nasty left hook.”

  Every time his swing had hooked left, the ball wound up in the sand trap. “Yeah.”

  Alex followed the waitress with his eyes, and Jim got the impression he was deciding what to say more than he was interested in their server. “Did you know my wife went to school with Graham’s mother? They were roommates in college. Sorority sisters.”

  “Lexie hadn’t mentioned that.” Not that she had any reason to since they’d never dated and barely knew each other. Even if they were married. Sort of.

  “From the minute we knew my wife was pregnant with a girl, Lillian and Allison planned the wedding. I’m pretty sure Lillian used to brainwash Lexie when I wasn’t looking by whispering Mrs. Alexandra Montgomery in her ear.”

  “You’ve known the Montgomerys a long time then?”

  “Long enough.” Alex fingered a coaster, flipped it over, then set it down again. “Ellis and Allison were already married when Lillian and I began dating. Ellis was killed in a crash when Graham was just a little boy. I think around five or six. His grandfather, Jarrod, had a big part in his upbringing.”

  At that moment the waitress re-appeared and set two drinks on the table. “Can I get you gentleman anything else?”

  “Not for now, thanks.” Alex held the glass in his hand, spinning the beverage just enough to see the amber glaze slide up and down the inside. “Allison makes an excellent widow. I suspect much better than she did a wife. It always struck me that the reality of her marriage was much rockier than the saintly memory she’s made Graham live up to all these years.”

  “And has he? Lived up to it?”

  Alex took a slow deliberate sip. “So his grandfather says.”

  The phone in Jim’s pocket vibrated before he could consider what Alexander Hale wasn’t saying. Glancing at the phone number, he quickly debated taking Bridget’s call. He very much needed to talk with her, but now was not the time or place. Reluctantly he hit ignore and returned the phone to his pocket. Next time they talked he wanted more than a few minutes in a
crowded bar.

  Not more than a few seconds ticked by when his phone buzzed again. Alarm shot through him at the idea that if Bridget was calling back so quickly something had to be terribly wrong. Seeing Brooklyn’s name, he relaxed. Pushing his chair back, he held the phone up to his ear. This call couldn’t wait. “Excuse me, I need to take this.”

  Alex waved him off and pulled out his own cell phone.

  “Hey,” Jim said, one hand over his other ear.

  “Boy, you people really know how to pick ’em don’t you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “First Nick falls in love with a woman who has the king of rufies in her past. Then Billy is in charge of a couple of kids with the Mexican Cartel after them. And now you’ve fallen for a woman—”

  “I haven’t fallen for—”

  “Okay, married…”

  He had done that. Sort of.

  “…a woman whose ex is only one step away from the first scumbag.”

  Hairs on the back of Jim’s neck prickled. He remembered the stories of how Brooklyn helped put the scumbag away in jail where he belonged. And why. Uninvited, the memory of Lexie’s skin under his fingertips came crashing back to life. “If this guy laid one inappropriate finger on Lexie, I will personally—”

  “No. Doesn’t look like it.”

  Relief ran through him so swiftly he leaned against the nearest wall for support. “What have you got?”

  “Graham Winston Montgomery, only child of Ellis and Allison Montgomery, nee Allison Winston. Only grandchild of Jarrod and Winifred Montgomery. Only heir to Montgomery Industries. Originally ship builders during the Revolutionary War. Now the business is most heavily into supplying weaponry to the military.”

  “How does this make our guy scum?”

  “Well, the part where in less than two years he’s managed to drain the company dry of all assets and is in hock to the rafters of his Hoity Toity three story brownstone makes him the family dunce, but the scum part comes in when you get a peek at the sealed divorce papers.”

  “Go on.” Jim glanced over to check on his father-in-law scrolling through his large cell phone, occasionally tapping information, grimacing or grinning accordingly. It had surprised him that a man reported to be a workaholic would be able to play an entire eight rounds of golf without once looking at his phone. He appeared to be making up for it now.

  “Your wife walked out on her engagement after catching her then fiancé and his at the time less than aristocratic girlfriend, his current ex-wife, in flagrante delicto a la third race at Churchill Downs.”

  “What?”

  “The man has some seriously weird bedroom preferences. It’s all in the attorney’s divorce file.”

  “You saw the private file?”

  Brooklyn remained silent a moment. “I didn’t say that.”

  Jim swallowed a chuckle. In his day, he’d worked with a few interesting men. The SEALs in particular were always a breed of their own. Some of the guys he was still friends with. And even though Jim had never had the honor of working with Brooklyn while he was on Uncle Sam’s payroll, he knew enough about the former SEAL turned CIA operative turned private security to appreciate Brooklyn was one hell of a character.

  “Anyhow,” Brooklyn continued, “Grandpapa insisted on a low-key yet proper wedding to the bimbo. Only five hundred guests.”

  Jim whistled.

  “There were almost fifteen hundred on your wife’s guest list.”

  That shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d been to more than one wedding with the brass that seemed to house a small city.

  “The now ex-wife was more than willing to continue playing horsy with scumbag. She took well to the lifestyle afforded to Mrs. Graham Winston Montgomery. But she drew the line at erotic asphyxiation.”

  Those words had the hairs on the back of Jim’s neck standing on edge again.

  “Our boy started getting into more seriously kinky stuff and it stopped being fun for the dame when he took her to a hard core sex convention in small-town Oklahoma. She filed for divorce the day they got home. She kept very good record of their time together. Including some interesting videos. Grandpapa had to pay handsomely to keep everything out of the public eye.”

  Graham expecting Lexie as his wife to be chained and beaten, and not with velvet handcuffs and feather whips either, made Jim’s blood boil. The rushing sound pounded in his ears and it took every ounce of control he had to brush his anger aside and listen to what Brooklyn was telling him. “Say that again.”

  “All the banks have turned Graham and Grandpapa down. The only chance this family has of pulling themselves out of the financial dungeon this character has put them in is to beat out their competition for an upcoming government missile contract.”

  Jim waited with a pretty good idea of what was coming next.

  “To get that contract, they need an advanced patent held guidance system.”

  “That belongs to—”

  “Your wife’s father.”

  * * *

  “I so can’t do this any more.” Lexie tossed her purse onto the floor and collapsed in the chair between Nick and Billy’s desks. Having used the excuse that her boss couldn’t find a file for some new equipment they’d ordered, she’d stopped at the dive shop, leaving her mother and Emily out by the pool while she hid away in the office.

  Billy looked to Nick for what to say. When Nick gave an almost imperceptible shrug, she saw the loss in Billy’s eyes. “Well—”

  “I hate lying,” she cut in. “And to your sister of all people. And your mother’s invited us all over to her house tonight to celebrate. How the heck are we going to explain this to everyone when it’s all over?” She slumped further into the chair.

  “Emily will forgive you.” Billy cast a quick glance Nick’s way as if asking if that were the right thing to say. Once again Nick offered a minimalist response. Nick had always been the ladies man of the shop, Billy the more reclusive, but neither were very good at handling emotional women. And, at this moment, Lexie was about as emotional as she’d ever been.

  Her nice orderly and carefree life had been turned upside down. How many out of the ordinary happenings in a span of less than two days was a sane person supposed to handle?

  “I’m thinking you need reinforcements,” Nick finally said.

  Billy snapped his fingers. “Of course.”

  Like a well choreographed performance, both men were on their cell phones calling their significant others. Nick hung up first. “Kara’s picking up Bradley. She’ll be here as fast as she can.”

  “Angela’s on her way.” Billy slid his phone onto his desk. “She was working from home today. She’s already out the door. Should be here in five minutes.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we all go to my mom’s and eat and be merry.”

  “For tomorrow we die.” Lexie sighed. Maybe telling her folks that her ex fiancé preferred kinky sex over a solid life with her wouldn’t be as mortifying as she’d once thought. And maybe riding naked down Main Street wouldn’t be so bad either.

  * * *

  About to slip his phone into his pocket, Jim spotted Graham making his way across the bar to where Alex sat. By now Jim knew enough about Graham not to expect him to do the decent thing and leave Lexie and her family alone. But he very much wanted to get a better handle on what this character’s game plan was. Even if Graham managed to break up his and Lexie’s marriage, he couldn’t possibly expect her to marry him and secure the patent.

  Pretending to still be talking, he placed the phone to his ear, paced casually along the wall to the other side of the bar near the large picture windows overlooking the golf course, and wished he had some of his surveillance equipment handy. One of the great things about his job was that, besides blowing up bombs and other explosive devices, hopefully before an unsuspecting civilian or soldier stumbled upon it, he and his men got to play with all sorts of fun gadgets they often used for special operations. Not
that the Navy considered it play.

  Graham’s back was to him. If Jim moved over by the nearest column, he might be able to pick up on the two men talking. Bobbing his head as though agreeing with what the non-existent person on the other end of line was saying, he strained to make sense of the conversation at the table.

  “A little practice…” was Graham’s voice. A bit of mumbling. Then it sounded like Alex replied with, “under the circumstances…another time…” Graham’s voice was steady but held a nervous strain. “Count on me…full support…”

  Damn it. He needed to hear more than every fourth word. Shifting to his left, he realized a fraction of a second too late the waitress was coming around the bend and was about to trip over his size thirteen feet. Dropping his phone, he managed to stretch and grab her around the waist just as she toppled forward. In a balancing spin, he wound up standing in front of the pillar, with an armful of grateful waitress pressed against his chest, smiling up at him.

  Before he could release his hold on her and take a step back, he spotted Graham’s smug grin. The urge to rearrange the man’s face came over him once again. But it was the sharp scowl on Alexander Hale’s visage that gave him a jolt. From the way he glared at Jim’s arms around the still flustered waitress, he’d just jumped to the completely wrong conclusion about his son-in-law and the pretty woman still in his arms. Crap.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lexie and Billy’s baby sister were not what most considered close friends, but only a few years younger than Lexie, Emily had occasionally tagged along on a special girl’s night out. She’d always been around for any major family event, both Everrett family and the dive shop family. Not being able to tell her the truth about the marriage grated on Lexie.

  Jonathan kept watching her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and the parents from the latest bubblemaker class oohed and grinned and congratulated her as if running off and marrying a man you just met were the most normal thing in the world. And with each customer that beamed happily for her, Lexie noticed her mother’s careful scrutiny from wherever she stood.