Love Lost & Found (Surfside Romance Book 2)

by L. A. Justice

  But for now, that “something” remained a mystery.

  CHAPTER 37

  ON THAT morning late in January, Alexa Boswell sat at the table with a bowl of instant oatmeal and a cup of coffee. Eating was tricky with the inside of her mouth inflamed from stress. Toast was out of the question, but oatmeal felt like snot going down her throat. Despite having bought her surplus house guest an expensive nightgown and new panties, Gretel slept nude. Glancing over at the couch she saw the pale bare ass. She’d urged Alexa and Hannah to try it.

  “It feels vidunderlig,” Gretel had gushed, “valgfrihed.”

  Word of her sleep habits had filtered down to Bart Dworkin and Walter Otto, the school bullies. Now the hallways of Pelican Middle School resounded with their new chant: “Gretel sleeps without a stitch and chubby Hansel is a bitch.”

  The two teens, united in their shared disdain for the bullies, formed an uneasy alliance. But while Gretel loved that everyone knew she slept butt naked, Hannah was mortified at being called chubby. The “bitch” part she took as a compliment.

  “I’m never eating again,” she announced tearfully. “I’m as big as a house. Bigger!”

  Alexa pulled her close. “Embrace your curves. Don’t listen to those morons.”

  On top of everything else, Gretel needed a laptop for school assignments. Sharing was not an option. Alexa’s first impulse was to ask Mrs. Parry for the cash, but after unearthing her dirty little secret, she knew it would be a wasted effort. As cosmic payback, she pictured driving to Parkland and putting the cheese Danish into the blue Bentley before stealing away in the night, like a thief in reverse.

  How had life had become so complicated? At least the engagement ring was tucked away, along with the beautiful fantasy of the insanely romantic trip to Portland. And even though Luke had not yet replied to her long and heartfelt email, she felt the overwhelming urge to send a text. I miss you. Can we reschedule our New Year’s Eve date?

  She hit SEND, imagining his lean muscular body and the way he made love to her. She needed some of that loving right this minute, or sooner. But that didn’t solve the problem of Gretel’s computer. She wondered if Helen could ask Mr. Frost, or one of her wealthy friends. Oh, wait, she had none—they’d all been bilked by her unscrupulous husband.

  Alexa stopped at Publix to stock up on pumpernickel and bought a six-pack of toilet paper and a roast chicken for Zelda. She knocked and walked in.

  “Hello dear,” said Zelda, unpeeling herself from the couch with a groan. “How’s it going with Bonnie and Clyde?”

  “They haven’t killed each other yet so I guess you could say it’s all good.”

  “Hide the weapons. By the way, last night I painted my toenails for the first time ever.”

  Alexa looked down. “Pearl pink. Nice job.”

  “I had to bend over like a pretzel. I could add a few lines to the Kama Sutra.”

  “Okay, let’s not go there. I heard some of your things were missing.”

  “Could the pickled herring have swiped my frying pan and panties?”

  “Gretel doesn’t cook and goes commando—so probably not.”

  “How long do you have to keep her?”

  “I can’t just drop her at the animal shelter.”

  “Too bad.”

  Knowing she was putting Zelda in a tight spot, she asked, “What’s going on with Luke? He hasn’t answered my emails or texts.”

  “Then stop asking.” Zelda’s answer caught her off guard. “He’s not one of your characters, you can’t control him.”

  “I want him to hear my side of the story.”

  “Silence has its own language. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a hot ticket. You could get any man you want.”

  “Sometimes I wish I could spin myself into a cocoon.”

  Zelda patted her hand. “You just need a new way of seeing things.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I don’t know. But the end of one thing is always the beginning of another.”

  After dinner, Alexa sat at the computer as the girls watched TV. She didn’t have a thought in her brain. Writing a book was hard work. She clicked on a folder marked PIX: Luke on the beach and at the Deerfield Pier, photo after photo of them smiling. She sat back and crossed her arms. #playingthevictim

  Closing the laptop, she walked to her room and rummaged around for her new red lace thong and matching Victoria’s Secret push-up bra she’d been saving for a special occasion. This was it. Pulling on a pair of tight jeans, she slipped into a red sweater with a deep V neckline. Taking extra care, she applied makeup, added dangle earrings, and checked herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she said to the girls, grabbing her car fob.

  Hannah tore her gaze from Shawn Mendes. “Hey hot stuff. Are you going to Luke’s?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So you are. Hope you get lucky.”

  Alexa hoped so too.

  The drive to Luke’s condo in Boca Raton took only a few minutes. The concierge, a polite Latino named Jose, put down his cellphone and glanced at her. He grinned and ran his gaze up and down. Usually Alexa disliked being scrutinized. This time was different. As Zelda suggested, she was trying to see things in a new way. No more playing the victim.

  “Mr. Prescott isn’t here.”

  Her shoulders slumped. There was no point asking when he’d return. Jose wasn’t Luke’s gatekeeper. Unwilling to return home defeated, she drove south to Flanagan’s and gave the valet her car fob. The music was loud, the testosterone palpable. Men in all shapes and sizes and young women in tattered shorts and bikini tops spilled into the courtyard. From the doorway, she scanned the crowd and then felt herself being swept inside. “Hey hot mama,” someone yelled. “Buy you a drink.”

  She smiled and shook her head, buoyed by the idea that she could still elicit offers for free booze. At the bar, she stood for a few seconds when she heard someone call her name. Her tummy flipped and then, suddenly, a man was at her side. Ray or Roy or Robbie, someone on the design team at her office, sidled up to her. He was too close for comfort.

  “Get’cha something?” he asked, slurring his words while signaling the bartender, a tall lanky twenty-something with braids and bare midriff.

  “Amsel Light,” she said, turning around to see if Luke was standing along the wall. A bank of TV sets, most of them playing basketball and a few with football reruns, were muted. Even so, cheers erupted from the crowd. Ray or Roy leaned in toward her, trying to make conversation, but it was impossible to hear a word. She smiled and nodded, took a few polite sips and leaned back as he moved in for a kiss. “Thanks,” she said, leaving the bottle and heading toward the exit feeling proud for stepping out of her comfort zone, even if the evening had not produced the results she’d wanted.

  At least she was being proactive. As she stood outside waiting for the valet to get her car, a thought popped into her head. The list of ideas for the book-writing contest included sweat-drenched athletes. It couldn’t be that hard—a bunch of hot, hunky guys in shorts and tank tops running up and down a court. She smiled. Time well spent, even if she’d have to learn a little about the game. She tipped the valet feeling buzzed with energy and stoked at the idea of getting words down on paper—at least into her computer—as the molecules of her body expanded instead of contracting as they usually did. She slid behind the wheel as the gears in her brain began churning out a plot.

  Her juices were flowing. Not the ones she had originally intended, but that was okay.

  CHAPTER 38

  LUKE HAD a headache and a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. Exiting the men’s room at Flanagan’s, he thought of Alexa. In fact, he thought he spotted her talking to someone at the bar, but he glimpsed only a flash of red, auburn hair, the curve of her back. He quickly dismissed the idea. She wasn’t the type of woman who hung out at bars. But when he walked into his building, Jose said, “Your lady friend was here
looking for you.”

  Now he had to rethink his five-year plan. While he’d made his peace with the ring episode, he realized that he needed to move things up, cut his plan in half. She wouldn’t be available forever. That meant another six months of dating, proposing to her, moving in together for a year, and then six months to plan the big blow-out wedding. Neither of them was getting younger and the thought of losing her made him ill. Or was it too many bourbon shooters?

  In addition to his shortened plan to woo and wed Alexa, he also had a gutsy, ballsy, and dangerous scheme to scramble to the top of the corporate ladder at Data Systems. If he failed, he’d be out of a job. If he succeeded, he’d be a millionaire in a few years. The thought made him dizzy with desire for a luxury home on the Atlantic and a Rolls or Bentley. He hadn’t decided. His brain roiled with ideas. They never stopped. He ran on nervous energy and Red Bull.

  The tech company’s new office was located in a corporate park off Congress Avenue in Boca Raton. Now, as Valentine’s Day approached, he wanted to do something special for the three women in his life. Hannah was easy: a gift card to the mall. Alexa would take some serious thought, but he was most concerned with Zelda and her increasing slippage. Her wild stories of things disappearing and a secret lover, an Uber driver of all people. The temptation to call the car service and demand they fire the deviant was an easy way to diffuse his anger. But he wasn’t absolutely certain any of it was true or if Zelda had a stalker, as she claimed. He thought about their most recent conversation the previous night, before he went out for a few drinks.

  “He parks in the lot and flashes his lights into my apartment.”

  “But you’re on the second floor, how is that possible?”

  “It’s possible, trust me.”

  “Is he there now?”

  “How should I know?” she replied tartly. “I don’t sit here watching him.”

  “Actually, it sounds like you do.”

  “Sometimes Travis Slade comes upstairs, and knocks on my door.”

  “Please call the cops. They can beef up patrols in the neighborhood.”

  “Maybe I can meet one of those beefcakes in blue, but I couldn’t cheat on Travis.”

  “The Uber driver.”

  “You catch on fast.”

  It seemed obvious Zelda was heading down the road to dementia, but he needed a second opinion. Alexa was the best choice.

  The receptionist at the front desk buzzed. “A package for you Mr. Prescott.”

  “Please have someone bring it to my office.”

  The edible fruit arrangement arrived along with a card: Something juicy for a sweet guy. He thought it was from Alexa, but it was signed Esperanza Liu. He sent his real estate agent a thank-you text. That chapter of his life was closed, at least for now. As he stared at his cell phone, he acknowledged he wanted the warm, sexy groove with Alexa back, with or without his five-year plan in place.

  But all thoughts of Zelda, stalkers, edible treats, and yummy moms in sexy teddies had to be set aside as he strode purposefully down the corridor to handle yet another crisis.

  CHAPTER 39

  THE NEW idea for her romance novel was taking shape. Her original protagonist, Desiree Lightfoot, was a slut and a moron. She was history. The new protagonist was Sinclair Falcone, a pro basketball player. She could make him a regular patron at a Miami sports bar where he’d meet Felicity Gold, a tall, narrow-hipped, small-busted brunette who tended bar. Drop-dead gorgeous Sinclair would be clueless that Felicity had a twin named Hope, making the classic love triangle.

  In the privacy of her bedroom, Alexa grinned as she pounded the keys of her laptop. By adding one more personality to the equation she’d make a complicated love quadrangle. Drexel Moss, a financial wizard and bad boy, would be Hope’s boyfriend. The possibilities for fun and flirty mishaps were endless. The twist or trope—not that Bryan Frost would know one if it sat on his face—was that neither man could tell the identical twins apart. Felicity would dump Sinclair for Drexel but her evil sister Hope would bed them both!

  It would be quirky and totally superficial, with no hidden messages and no scores to settle. Straight up chick-lit, fluff with a capital F, cotton candy for the reader’s soul—a bubble gum beach book. They’d sell a million copies. More!

  In order to better understand her fictitious star athlete and the game of basketball in general, Alexa logged onto world-renowned Miami Heat website to buy tickets for Hannah, Doc, Luke, and herself. Theoretically, all men liked sports, so this was the perfect pretext to reach out to Luke without begging forgiveness. And Hannah’s boyfriend Doc, the aspiring ball player, would be thrilled to go. This was undoubtedly a win-win.

  Scrolling around, she found tickets at the American Airlines Arena up in the nosebleed section at $25 a pop. Not wanting to come off as a cheapskate, she noted that premium seating offered free parking and in-seat food service. And while she might be able to call it a tax write-off, she’d have to win the top prize of five-thousand dollars to declare it. Figuring that she’d park Gretel at Helen Parry’s house for the night, she snagged four tickets not far from courtside at just under $100 each. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly, clicked BUY, and scrolled to the total, which also included miscellaneous service and processing fees and taxes. The grand total was nearly a week’s salary.

  And she hadn’t even cleared the date with anybody!

  The printer spat out the tickets as her head pounded with excitement and dread. She planned to tell Luke it was a belated Valentine’s Day present instead of saying it was payback for the Portland trip and opening that ugly can of worms again. The game was a month away—plenty of time to figure it out.

  Sleep was elusive and she awoke before dawn, not only with buyer’s remorse, but totally daunted at the thought of writing about a sweat-drenched athlete playing a game she didn’t even like or understand. And certainly she had no business buying tickets to a ballgame way down in Miami without asking everyone first.

  With the moon still up and panic rising in her throat, she logged onto the Heat website, located the refund policy, and felt like retching. Not only did they credit only a fraction of the ticket price, they added an additional restocking fee! A sporting event was not the way to win Luke back, or make him love her. Hearts have their own agenda—their own ETA. If there was a lesson in this, she hoped she’d learned it. In the meanwhile, she was out a few hundred dollars, which she could ill afford.

  Her coffee was extra strong and laced with three sugar packets. After sleeping for perhaps an hour, she was running on empty as Gretel sauntered into the kitchen dressed in skimpy denim shorts and a pea green tank top. Her stringy ash-blond hair was brushed back, framing blush-covered cheeks.

  “You’re up early and dressed for a change,” said Alexa. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Varm dato.”

  “Varm dato,” Alex repeated thoughtfully. “Hot date?”

  Gretel smiled. “Godt gæt.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Greggers.”

  Hannah appeared in the doorway, rumpled and bleary-eyed. “What’s going on?”

  “Gretel has a date.”

  “With Greg. That’s all she talks about.”

  Alexa asked, “Does Greg go to school with you?”

  “He’s taking me out, ingen kajak.”

  “Kayaking? Nuh-uh.”

  Hannah piped up. “Greg’s a wanksta.”

  “Hold kæft!”

  As if Gretel wasn’t in the room, Alexa asked, “What’s a wanksta?”

  “A guy who thinks he’s tough. But he’s not.”

  Gretel shouted, “Vær stille!”

  Alexa held up her palms to calm everyone down. “Gretel, you’re going to school. End of discussion. Greg can come over later. You can swim downstairs in the pool or watch TV, but only in the living room with Hannah here. That’s the deal.”

  “Lort!”

  “That means shit in case you didn’t know,” said Hannah
, returning to her room.

  With both girls at school, she drove to the corporate park and sat in the car recalling the hike at Bald Peak State Park. What caused her to faint? Was it the altitude, physical exertion, exhilaration and anticipation, or something in the coffee? She might never know.

  She pecked out a text to Rick: How RU? Life is cray-cray here. Miss U. She hit SEND and immediately felt a sense of regret. Instead of giving him hope; she needed to distance herself from the lord of the ring.

  The day sailed along in blissful quiet with Lana holed up in her office and Bryan out playing golf. Then, suddenly, a blistering series of text messages rolled in—so many in fact that Lana heard them and hurried over. “Did someone die?”

  “I’m not sure,” Alexa replied. She texted: Hang on! COMING HOME NOW!

  Speeding east, she pictured a body on the rug, dark stains seeping into the carpet which she’d have to replace. Alexa pulled into her assigned space as a text pinged in telling her the emergency was averted and she didn’t have to come home.

  Gr8, I’m here!!!

  She tucked the phone away and spotted Gretel and Greg, the “wanksta,” packing up their towels and foam noodles from the pool deck. Like Doc, he was tall and spindly. But unlike Doc, who was broad-shouldered and bronzed, Greg was ghostly pale. His neon blue-green board shorts were held up by a whisper. The outline of his ribs was visible and his arms lacked any hint of muscle tone. A thick shock of greasy chestnut hair fell into his vacant eyes.

  In a word: T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

  Gretel appeared to be stark naked in a postage stamp-sized flesh-colored bikini. Since she scorned sunscreen, all exposed skin was cruelly burned. Again. It was obvious they’d ditched school. Nothing could be done about that now. From her vantage point in the car, Alexa watched them unlock the pool gate while juggling a large swan float and all the paraphernalia they’d brought for an afternoon of fun and games. Greg stumbled out of his flip-flops, stopped, and wiggled into them again. A disaster was brewing as they headed up the steps, with his eyes glued to her nearly bare backside. Gretel glanced over her shoulder. For a nanosecond she looked genuinely happy—lykkelig.