Before a couple of months ago, Ward would’ve been happy to trade stories. Compare the relative merits of redheads to brunettes, for example. Debate if the reckless triumph of a quickie in a restaurant bathroom was more or less exciting than the overall allure of a gymnastically trained cheerleader.
Not to get all girly about it, but Ward felt gypped. He’d just gotten to know Zane and Gray. They should’ve gone camping this summer. Swapped stories around the campfire. Peed off of waterfalls. It was how guys cemented their friendship. He and Joel had done it, years ago. Came home with a bucket full of trout, hangovers that lasted two days, and a story involving a sleeping bag and a squirrel that they’d vowed to take to their graves. It had been awesome.
Not only had he missed out on the beer and bonfire with these guys, but his window on hearing those stories had slammed shut. Because his new friends had gone and fallen in love with Ward’s best friends from high school. Fine. Gray and Ella, Zane and Casey—they were all happy. Perfect for each other. Whatever. Why couldn’t they have waited to fall in love until after one damn long weekend in the woods? Now certain topics were forever off-limits.
Ward dug deep into the water. Somebody had to pick up Zane’s slack. Still. “Seeing as how you’re engaged to my best friend, let’s not go into detail about the notches on your bedpost. Once I know something—anything—Casey worms it out of me.”
“But she wouldn’t have any way of knowing what we’re talking about right now.”
“Female magic,” said Gray.
“It’s the only answer,” Joel agreed.
He couldn’t explain how Casey did it. Ward just knew she could. She’d worked her mysterious mojo to get too many secrets out of him over the years. The name of the girl he’d lost his V-card to—in the Thunderbird from their production of Grease on opening night. The embarrassing fact that he’d cried after getting a birthday card nine months after his mom walked out on them—and three months past his actual birthday. Even that he’d sold his own plasma when things got tight after leaving college.
“I’m telling you, she’d figure out something new was in my head, and not let up until I spilled. Be warned, Zane. You’re going to have your hands full.”
“Every night, if I’m lucky. Both hands.”
This time, Ward splashed him. A lot.
“Can we get back to the questionably weak motivation you’ve offered as to why I had to get up at the crack of ass?” Gray had passed pissy and backtracked to a full-on whine. This guy really was not a morning person. “There wasn’t even coffee brewed when I left this morning. And I live in a hotel. There’s almost always coffee going.”
“You don’t need coffee if you get the kind of wake-up Casey gave me...” Zane’s voice trailed off suggestively. Hell, forget suggestively. He did everything but install a neon I Just Got Laid sign at the bow of the boat.
God. Ward would jump overboard to avoid hearing any more. “Seriously. You’ve gotta stop. I refuse to picture my best friend doing anything naked.”
The newly engaged drove him freaking nuts. Zane and Gray swaggered around like they’d just single-handedly defeated an army of thousands. Casey and Ella focused an ungodly amount of their conversations on things like lace versus satin wedding dresses. Peonies versus calla lilies. Ward had been perfectly fine never knowing what a calla lily looked like. Now that knowledge was taking up room in his brain previously allocated for something important. Like the pitching stats of the two teams most likely to head into the post-season against his beloved Yankees. “Also, it’s bad form to rub it in when I’m in a dry spell.”
Never mind that it was a dry spell of his own making. Last night wasn’t the first time he’d said no to a pretty smile with no strings attached. Ward found it harder and harder to concentrate on the woman in front of him, no matter how beautiful, when he was thinking about Piper...which was all the time. Yes, they’d both dated in the years since they broke up. No, he didn’t have a shot in hell at ever getting her back. Thinking about her wasn’t a choice. It was an involuntary reaction, like blinking and breathing.
“Sorry for the last-minute heads-up. It was easier to tell Ella just to get your ass down to the dock without going into explanations.” Zane shook his fist at the sky again. “The head of the Geology Department challenged me to a race.”
“So go out to the quad at recess and run laps around him.” Gray barely made it through the sentence before snickering.
“No, dipshit, a sculling race.” Zane dropped his hand to clap the thin metal skin on the side of the boat. “At the Seneca Lake Fall Festival.”
Gray fell out of rhythm. Bobbled his oar. “But that’s only...what...ten days away.”
“Which is why we’re practicing right now.”
We? Not by a long shot. Zane worked his arms more lifting a mug of coffee at Cosgrove General than he was right now. Ward gave a fast swipe to his forehead with one forearm. “Some of us are practicing. Some are sitting on their ass flapping their lips.”
“Hey,” Gray asked. “I’m just bringing him up to speed. He’s got to know what he’s fighting for to give it his all.”
“You’ve got two minutes. Then your oar goes back in the water,” threatened Ward. He was always up for competition. If Zane needed his help, he was in. No questions asked. As for the early hour, it didn’t matter if his morning workout was in a boat or on a treadmill. But he’d be damned if he’d let Zane get away without breaking a sweat too.
Zane’s oar snicked back into place. “I met Rick, the chair, in the campus gym last week. Barely finished introducing himself to me before he threw down the challenge. He probably thinks that since I’m new in town, I won’t be able to pull together a real team. Those science guys think they own the campus. Expects this to be a cakewalk. Since, you know, I’m in the Sociology Department, all I must do is sit behind a desk and exercise my brain...”
“It’s all he does too,” countered Joel. “He doesn’t spend all day clawing at boulders with his bare hands.”
“Geology, Sociology, it doesn’t matter. You’re all professors.” Gray, at least, was panting. Putting just as much effort into it as Ward. Joel, who rowed the mile to work and back every day for fun, probably wouldn’t feel a burn for another half hour. “The only exercise you get in the classroom is stroking an imaginary beard while you pose and ponder for your students.”
The thought of Geology Rick pretending to be a badass irritated the hell out of Ward. Was he trying to prove to Zane he was the big man on campus? That a bunch of rocks on a shelf made Rick bigger than Zane, the rich, famous and bestselling author? Zane, who had fought his way out of tribal cults in the back beyond of nowhere with a just a gun and his considerable wits? God, Ward could not wait to help crush this idiot. “None of them would survive pulling a single shift at my distillery.”
“Not a bad idea.” Zane tapped his fingertips together like a cartoon villain. “Humiliation as punishment. If their team loses, they all have to come help you for a day.”
Sounded good. Ward had people pitch in all the time. It was amazing how many interested tourists were willing to kill a few hours slapping labels on his bottles. “What if you lose?”
“Not going to happen. I’ve got a boat full of ringers. The super soldier in the back could probably win this race without the rest of us picking up an oar.”
“I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m a chef. Why can’t you people remember that?” Joel’s testiness proved that Gray’s bad attitude was as contagious as a head cold.
The peaceful pink tinge to the water from the sunrise would be a waste if everyone spent the whole time bitching. Time for a reset. “Let’s take five.” He pulled in his oar. Twisted around to face the mountain of muscle with coal-black curls hanging out from beneath his grape-green Mayhew Manor cap. “Look, Joel, it makes us feel cool to hang out with a guy who could probab
ly kill all of us with just his pinkie. Don’t take that thrill away from us.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor.”
“Don’t bother. The truth’s often a letdown.”
Zane’s oar clattered to the bottom of the boat as he twisted back around. “I disagree. Truth is sometimes much more awesome than what you expect. How long do you think a snail can sleep?”
Talk about random. Ward had no idea how the professor kept so much trivial shit stored in his head, on top of all the scholarly stuff that would’ve filled any normal brain to bursting. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” He beckoned with his palms. “Give me your best guess.”
“A day,” grunted Gray.
Nah. This had all the makings of a trick question with some impossible-to-believe answer. Ward stroked a hand over his three-day stubble. “Bears can hibernate for a whole winter. I’ll take the long shot. Six months.” Hell, he didn’t even know if snails lived that long.
“Try thirty-six months,” Zane intoned slowly. “Three years!”
Ward slapped his hands together as if clapping erasers. “Well, that cinches it. Even if Joel single-handedly brought down every terrorist organization in a hundred-mile radius in one day—it still wouldn’t be half as impressive as Sleepy the Snail.”
Their laughter bounced off the leafed-out trees reaching over the canal. Even Joel joined in. For about two seconds. Then he cleared his throat. Hard. Hard enough to startle away a trio of birds overhead. “You ready to hear something actually impressive?”
Carefully, giving the guys a chance to compensate for the weight shift so the boat didn’t turtle, Ward threw a leg back to straddle his seat so he could see everyone. “Gonna be hard to top Zane’s snail factoid.”
Teeth gritted, jaw tight, Joel muttered, “Dawn and I are going out.”
“Only took you...what...three years to get up the balls to ask our mayor out? I asked Ella to marry me after less than three weeks. Talk about moving at a snail’s pace,” Gray huffed.
That earned him a glare that would’ve shut up many a weaker man. Hell, it would’ve had them diving out of the boat. Slowly, eyes narrowed, Joel drawled, “Lots of women prefer a man who knows how to take his time.”
Gray shook his head. “Come on. Three years, Joel. You took enough time to date, marry, have a kid and get divorced.”
“Well, we’re starting with a date.”
Joel was at least ten years older than the rest of them. Had to be pushing forty or right past it. Ward would’ve thought that, by that age, he wouldn’t want to waste another minute by going slow. The fearless black-ops/special-ops/whatever-dangerous-sneakiness soldier must really be scared about taking things with Dawn to the next level.
“Hang on.” Zane leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “You asked her out a while ago. Right after Casey and I got engaged. Back in July, right?”
“I was going to. But I backed off for a while because you popped the question. Her face lit up when she talked about basking in the joy of her stepdaughter’s happiness. I didn’t want to mess that up.”
“Great.” Zane rolled his head to crack his neck. “So your snail’s pace is now my fault?”
“A little, yeah. More than a little, actually.” Joel tugged off his cap, roughly scrubbed a hand through his curls, then resituated it. “As soon as Dawn said yes to a date with me, she flew off to Iceland with both of you to meet Casey’s father.”
Talk about slamming the brakes on. An ex-husband back in the picture was a guaranteed damper. This particular ex-husband had run off with his young daughter and joined the infamous Sunshine Seekers cult. It took Dawn almost two years to track down Casey and rescue the eleven-year-old girl. The dad—the man Ward still wanted to beat black and blue as payment for everything he’d put Casey through—fled all the way across the Atlantic to avoid prosecution.
When Zane showed up this summer, he got all hot and bothered about tracking down the lone survivor of the secretive cult. His bloodhound-like pursuit almost lost him the girl. In the end, though, Casey agreed to introduce him to the father she hadn’t seen in fifteen years so he could write the definitive book on the Sunshine Seekers. Awkward didn’t begin to describe that reunion. Casey had been one big exposed nerve. She’d texted Ward from the airplane, the airport, the taxi and even the lobby of the hotel leading up to the meeting with the jerkwad. Dawn went along to smooth the waters, so Zane and his brimming bank account had sent her on a dream vacation to Paris afterward as thanks.
Ward figured he’d throw the blame bomb on Joel’s behalf. “Professor, that is totally your fault.”
Zane dipped his head, brown hair falling forward onto his forehead. “Point taken. But Dawn got back three weeks ago. I’m not taking the blame for this latest holdup.”
Ah. Ward thought he knew exactly who to blame. Every bit as much as he knew Joel would never cop to the real reason. But for a supposed ex-soldier, he sure disappeared with regularity and returned with bruises, gashes and a weak-ass cover story.
“Pretty sure that’s Uncle Sam’s fault. Or are you still going to try and convince us—” Ward poked Joel’s sneaker with the tip of his oar “—that your recent surprise trip, where you gave your boss no notice and left in literally the dead of night, was a vacation?”
“What he said,” chimed in Gray, the boss in question. He managed the Mayhew Manor hotel where Joel was the executive chef. Gray had been caught off guard when Joel vanished. But his fiancée, Ella, who owned the joint, had assured him that it was just something they had to put up with every so often to keep the CIA-trained kitchen wizard around. And Joel always used his vacation time for the missed days.
Joel plucked his sunglasses from where they hung at the collar of his shirt and shoved them onto his nose. “No comment.”
“Thought so.” Ward would get it out of him someday. Probably wouldn’t succeed unless he interrogated Joel under laughing gas at his next cavity filling, but he wouldn’t give up. Curiosity, sure. But also because Ward was certain the man deserved the kind of heartfelt thanks for his service that a paycheck, or even a slew of medals, never covered.
“The point is, we’re going on a date. Our first date.”
Whoop-de-fricking-do. First dates were only scary when you didn’t know the person. When you weren’t sure if they’d laugh at your jokes or share your addiction to buffalo chicken pizza. “No big deal. You’ve been friends since the day you came to town. She’s literally cried on your shoulder, gotten drunk with you and cooked you dinner a hundred times already. What’s left to be nervous about?”
“Everything.” Joel jabbed his oar at the water. “Everything will be different. Everything will matter more.” He jabbed twice more, turning them in a complete three-sixty.
Yeah. Ward knew the feeling. Or at least, he could imagine it. If, by some miracle, Piper ever quit holding her grudge against him and gave Ward a second chance, it would so matter.
“Don’t be a pansy.” Gray swished them back around with short, hard swats. “The only thing that’s different is that you get to kiss her at the end of the night. If a fourteen-year-old virgin can muster up the balls to get through a first date, so can you.”
Normally, Gray was easygoing and fun. Exactly the kind of person you’d want out in a boat with you predawn. This short-tempered version might as well be a clone of Ward himself. And nobody wanted more of that. Ward reached out to bat the brim of Gray’s cap. “You really woke up on the wrong side of the bed, Locke.”
“That’s assuming I slept in a bed, Cantrell. Which I most assuredly did not do.”
“You guys go nuts and sleep out on the balcony?”
“No. There was a girl emergency last night.” Gray curled a hand around his neck and rotated into it. “Piper called after midnight, all worked up. She and Ella were on the phone for God knows how lo
ng. I finally gave up and slept on the couch. Which is not actually a couch, but a love seat. Only two cushions long. Misery.”
Zane sucked in air between his teeth. “Ouch. On the bright side, rowing this morning is probably great for you. It’s stretching out all those kinked-up muscles in your back.”
“I’m not feeling that particular silver lining just yet.”
Were they really talking about stiff muscles? Everyone in the boat loved Piper. Was Ward really the only one with his stomach up in his throat right now? “Can we get back to the emergency? Is Piper okay?”
“Isn’t she always?” Joel noted with an approving smile. “That’s one cool customer.”
“Gray just said she had an emergency. Don’t dick around with me on this.”
“Chill,” Gray ordered, his voice with a sharper edge than it had all morning. “You know if there was truly something wrong, I would’ve rallied the troops last night.”
He stared off at the silver flash of a fish jumping, and the glimmering ripples it left behind. Eased his finger off the hair trigger of his temper. “Yeah. I know.”
“Here’s what I know,” Gray said in a more measured tone. “She got all worked up because her dad turned down her proposal to expand into doing a line of port at the winery. And he delivered the bad news over email, no less. Piper’s hurt as a daughter, and frustrated, no, mad as hell as an employee.”
“Screwed two ways as only family can.” Ward knew the feeling. Intimately. He remembered the day the lawyer told him his dad left him the farm...along with its mountain of debts. Screwed didn’t begin to describe it.
“It gets worse. Apparently her Grandpa Will always wanted to make port. It was his ‘dabble during retirement’ pipe dream.”
Ward knew he should bring the newcomers up to speed. “Will Morrissey died two years ago. Just six months after retiring. Cancer. Barely got the diagnosis before he went in the ground. Piper took it hard.”
Gray looked sideways and down. “I guess she made him a deathbed promise to make that port line happen.”
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