Destiny Bay Boxed Set Vol. 1 (Books 1 - 3)

by Helen Conrad

  She forced herself to meet his crystal gaze. “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth. What I knew of it, anyway. That I’d convinced you to come to see them. She wanted to know every detail of your life for the last seven years. Jennifer . . .”. He took her hand in his and gazed earnestly into her eyes. “Jennifer, she wants to see you so badly.”

  “But he doesn’t.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  She swallowed hard, then smiled. “So you have come, once again, to drag me back to Destiny Bay and make me prepare to do ‘the proper thing.’"

  “You’ve got it.”

  Lord, how she loved him! But there was more to this tangled web than he knew, even now, and she wished she could think of some way to tell him. “What if I refuse to go?”

  Before he could answer, the waitress arrived with her heavy tray. She put plate after plate of food in front of Jennifer, glanced balefully at the crowded table, and shook her head. “Some people don’t know a good thing when it’s staring them in the face,” she grumbled good-naturedly before striding off.

  “I’ll tell you exactly where I stand on this,” Jennifer continued between bites of French dip sandwich. “I don’t think going back to see them will do any good. They’re better off without me. I don’t belong in the country club set they—and you—live in.” She waved a hand at herself, taking in her own tiny shorts and halter-top. “Look, at me, Reid. This is me. I couldn’t change into an Astrid if I wanted to.”

  “Have you ever really tried?”

  Oh, now this was too much! “You better believe I tried,” she told him, voice low and trembling. “Don’t you go second-guessing me on this, Reid Carrington.”

  “Then try again.”

  She shook her head.

  His face had hardened into the steel mask she hated to see on him. It took all her courage to hold his gaze.

  “Too busy jumping out of airplanes, are you?” he retorted, sarcasm stinging in his tone.

  She opened her mouth to deny it, then snapped it shut again. “Among other things,” she said instead, downing the last drop of vanilla milk shake. “Like eating myself into a stupor,” she muttered. She pushed her plate out of the way and pulled the hot fudge sundae into its place. “Want a bite?”

  He glanced at the spoonful of ice cream dripping with dark brown sauce that she was holding toward him as though he thought it might be laced with strychnine. “Thank you, no.” He watched as she popped it into her mouth, eyes narrowed with disbelief. “You’re a bottomless pit.”

  She shrugged, spooning for another bite. It felt smooth and cold and delicious on her tongue. If only the small ecstasies of life could really blot out the larger pains.

  “If you could take a break from all this fun you’re so busy having—“ he began again, but she interrupted.

  “Give me one good reason why I should go.” She waved the spoon, again filled with ice cream.

  Reid grabbed her wrist before she could shovel in another bite. “I’ll give you one good reason,” he said urgently. “I love you. Is that reason enough for you?”

  “What?” She gaped at him. “Now? With my mouth full of hot fudge sundae?”

  His reluctant smile lit his eyes and softened his face. “That does make it more difficult,” he admitted, “but I don’t expect perfection.”

  “You don’t?” She wished she could believe that.

  “No, Jennifer, I don’t. I love you the way you are, and I want you with me.”

  She looked quickly around the room, swallowing hard, to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. “Oh, Reid, I can’t believe it . . .”

  “Why not?” He seemed so calm about the situation. “It’s been obvious for years.”

  “Has it? I didn’t know that ... I guess I’m not so quick on the uptake.”

  He reached across the table and captured her chin in his hand. “Come back with me, Jennifer. Stay with me.”

  She stared at him, and against her better judgment, she didn’t let emotion carry her away. Instead, she analyzed.

  “Stay with me,” he said. Implicit in that was, “Talk to your mother, work on your father, try to be a good daughter . . .” Was that a large part of his so-called love? His deep and abiding need to make her parents happy as he thought they’d made his own parents? Her heart fell at the realization that it very probably was.

  “I love you the way you are,” he’d said. But what did he really know about the way she was? All he’d ever seen was how she was in his environment. What would he say to the real Jennifer? Did he really understand her life or know what kind of people she was comfortable with? She sank back in her chair, pushing aside his hand, and she wondered.

  Though outwardly calm, Reid’s nerves were going haywire. He’d told her he loved her. He hadn’t planned to do that, but it had seemed natural at the time. In return, she hadn’t given him a clue as to how she felt. All she gave him were jokes and skepticism. Was he being a fool?

  The hard steel of his determination brushed that aside. Fool or no, he wanted her. If she didn’t love him now, he would make her love him—somehow—because he couldn’t imagine life without her.

  “I’ll go back with you,” she said slowly. “I’ll take a month off from The Magnificent Munch, and we’ll see how it goes.”

  He nodded, eyes shining. If he couldn’t convince her to love him in one month, he didn’t deserve her.

  “I’ve promised to join my friends for a celebration tonight,” she went on, “and I don’t want to disappoint them. Why don’t you join us?”

  He frowned. An evening of barhopping with Eddie and the gang didn’t entice him. He wanted her all to himself, and he wanted her now. But he saw the question in her eyes. This was some sort of test. His mouth twisted in a grimace, but he nodded. “Sure, why not.”

  She smiled. At least he hadn’t turned that down. Maybe things were looking up.

  Though, probably not. Having Reid say that he loved her didn’t make anything any easier. Conflicting waves of emotion washed through her. She wanted to shout it to everyone within earshot, but she was afraid.

  Later that night, as she prepared to go out, she let herself dwell on it, and what she felt scared her. She didn’t dare let herself expect too much.

  She dressed carefully. She wanted to be “appropriate” again, but this time not for the country club crowd. This time street flash was more her goal. She tied a lace headband around her curls and put on silver earrings that dangled down to touch her shoulders. Her blouse was white lace with flutter sleeves, and her pants were black lace, lined with silk, and ending just below the knees, exposing a lot of calf. A huge purple and gold belt hung low on her hips. Her shoes were flat, her black nylons studded with rhinestones.

  The security guard announced Reid just as she was finishing her makeup. She opened the door to him in trepidation, then waited for him to say something.

  His blue gaze flickered up and down her. A puzzled look furled his brow. “Is it Halloween already?”

  “Reid!” But there was a twinkle in his eyes. “Really . . . tell me what you think.”

  He surveyed her as she twirled to give him a better look. “I think you ought to wear a bra,” he said gruffly, and she gave up, laughing.

  “Can this be the same gentleman who claims he used to maintain a vigil on my ‘curves’ in the old days?”

  “It most certainly is.” He pulled her close for a quick kiss. “And that same gentleman is now feeling a bit possessive about those ‘curves.’ He doesn’t want to share.”

  She kissed him back, feeling desire stir. For just a moment she considered forgetting about going out. How sweet it would be to spend the evening here alone with Reid! But, no, she had something to prove tonight.

  They met Eddie and Martha and a group of five or six others outside the restaurant. Jennifer’s outfit was right in step with the others, and Reid was the oddball in his nicely pressed jeans and turtle neck sweater. At least he hadn’t worn his three-piece su
it.

  “You’ll love this little eatery,” Eddie told them all gleefully. “The waiters are all robots.”

  Incredible as it seemed, it was true. They sat at a long, narrow table, and two robots, looking like round refugees from a science fiction movie, glided up and down the aisles, taking orders and bearing them back on stainless steel trays.

  “Your order, please,” the robot named Hank intoned in computer monotone.

  “I am not going to talk to a damn machine,” Reid grumbled, but Jennifer laughed and chided him out of his snit.

  “Oh, come on, give him our order. Order anything ... as long as it’s sushi.”

  “One order of mixed sushi,” Hank droned mindlessly.

  “No, wait.” Reid looked annoyed. “I do like yanagi, but I’m not a big fan of raw fish.”

  “Well I am,” Jennifer laughed. “I’ll take spicy tuna. But you don’t have to order the kind with the raw fish. How about California Roll? That’s got avocado and very well cooked shrimp.”

  Hank was as efficient as ever. “One order California Roll. Hold the hay. Ha ha. My joke.”

  Everyone at the table groaned. “Who programmed you, Hank? Henny Youngman?” Eddie asked.

  But all Hank would say in reply was, “Your order, please.”

  The food was really quite good, and Reid even liked the sushi. They might have left the restaurant without incident if Eddie hadn’t decided to fall in love with Harriet, Hank’s female counterpart. He tried to serenade her with his own unique rendition of “Indian Love Call,” but all she would do was blink her red and green lights and say in her metallic fashion, “Thank you for coming. Have a nice day.”

  “Unrequited love is really a bear,” he complained as they walked into the parking lot. “Let me tell you, people, a mechanical brush-off is about the worst kind around. I need to go someplace really wild to get Harriet out of my system.”

  “How about the Parrot?” Martha suggested.

  The Parrot was a cute little nightclub. Unfortunately, it was also a punk nightclub. Everyone inside looked like survivors of a nuclear blast, and the band sounded like missiles shooting out of silos, detonations and all. Most in their party pulled out their cell phones and began texting to communicate. But Reid balked at that.

  “We can’t talk in here,” Reid yelled, his lips almost pressed against Jennifer’s ear.

  “You’re not supposed to talk in here,” she yelled back.

  “What?”

  She laughed, shrugged, and pulled him over to the dance floor. They danced, or bumped, or whatever it was called at the moment. Reid didn’t mind bumping Jennifer, but he had trouble with the bumps from other couples, and Jennifer had to restrain him more than once from taking action against someone he thought particularly rough.

  There was a break in the music, and he shook his head, looking down at her. “This isn’t dancing. This is a New York subway at rush hour.”

  “Fun, huh?”

  “Not really.”

  She looked around at the other patrons with their spiked hair and tattooed foreheads. Suddenly, she realized she didn’t think so either. “Let’s go somewhere else,” she called to Eddie.

  Eddie looked resentfully at Reid, but he nodded. “Okay. How about the Lili Marlene?”

  The Lili Marlene was perfect for Reid, Jennifer decided when they walked in. The lounge was long and dimly lit and decorated in forties decor. A torch singer sat on the piano at the far end, her hair piled high, her dress complete with padded shoulders and a nipped-in waist, singing the songs that sent the boys off to the Second World War.

  “Now this is the kind of place I can appreciate,” Reid said. “At least we can talk.”

  They took a round booth so that they were all facing one another. The waitress came, and everyone ordered mineral water or fruit coolers—except Reid, who asked for a scotch and soda. All heads swiveled toward him as he spoke.

  “A dinosaur among us,” Eddie said in a loud, elaborate stage whisper as he popped a couple of pills in his mouth. “Who’s going to tell him that no one drinks hard liquor anymore?”

  “Who’s going to tell Eddie,” Reid returned, his voice deceptively lazy, “that this dinosaur doesn’t give a damn what ‘everybody’ does? He can think for himself.” With arrogant deliberation, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped it on the table. He glanced around at all the staring eyes. “You jump out of airplanes ... I smoke. We each tempt the devil in our own way.”

  Everyone laughed, but there was an underlying sense of tension that no one could ignore.

  It’s as though we’re both struggling for Jennifer’s soul, Reid thought to himself, watching Eddie. I’m not at all sure I’m going to win.

  But he had an opportunity to meet more of Jennifer’s friends. There was Suzy, dressed like a bag lady understudy, who taught horticulture at a local college, and Davy, who played in a rock band.

  “It’s so unusual to get Davy to come along anymore,” Martha said happily. “He’s in a rock band. They’re real popular. We were lucky we caught him on a night when they didn’t have a gig.”

  “What instrument do you play?” Reid asked the tall, skinny young man.

  “It’s not an instrument, exactly,” Davy said. “I kinda make a special noise.”

  “Oh?” Reid looked suddenly reluctant to pursue this subject. “What kind of special noise?”

  “Like this.” He began to demonstrate, opening his mouth and pulling one lip to the side, making a funny, plopping sound. Reid looked to Jennifer for help.

  “It’s great, man,” Davy enthused. “Blows them away.”

  “Not now, Davy,” Jennifer said quickly. “The singer is still on. She doesn’t need competition.”

  Others were introduced to Reid one by one. There was an aspiring actress and a cartoonist and an older man who was working on his doctoral thesis in sociology.

  “It’s been fifteen years since I began,” he confided to Reid sadly. “The flux, you know, the constant movement, the ebb and flow of the human condition— it becomes impossible to end the darn thing. Every time I think I’ve come to a firm conclusion, someone does something to knock it out of contention.”

  Reid made sympathetic noises, but he found his gaze slipping more and more often to see what Jennifer was doing. He felt her beside him even when they weren’t touching. And he wished the others would get up and go away.

  “Reid, I want you to meet Jarvey,” she said, intercepting his look and gesturing toward the last of the group, a slight, blinking man in huge, horn-rimmed glasses. “He’s a bird trainer.”

  “How nice.” Reid barely gave the poor man a nod before dismissing him, pulling Jennifer into the crook of his arm, and nestling close to her ear. “Can we get out of here?”

  “No,” she whispered back, enjoying the warmth of his breath on her cheek. “And you should be nicer to Jarvey. He’s an interesting man.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Reid murmured, breathing in her fresh scent. “But right now I’m more interested in a woman.”

  “Really,” she giggled, snuggling closer to him. “Talk to him. He trains birds to sing like Bing Crosby.”

  Reid stopped short, frowning. He cast a quick glance around her to where Jarvey was still smiling hopefully. He gave him another nod, then came back close to Jennifer. “You mean—the blue of the night and the gold of the day and all that?”

  She laughed. “He’s a genius. Close your eyes and you’d swear those birds were little Bings.”

  Reid groaned and pressed his face to hers. “I’ve got to get you out of here before we both go crazy.”

  They got out, but the others came with them. From there they went to another dance club called La Difference. Smoky and crowded, it offered barely dressed waitresses and waiters in tiny loincloths.

  “This is a strip joint,” Reid announced to Jennifer with a frown.

  She hesitated. “Kind of. But classy.”

  Reid looked around. “Paint a whore gold, she’s
still a whore,” he muttered.

  “Don’t be sexist,” Jennifer said, grinning at him. “This place isn’t.”

  He realized what she meant when he saw who was doing the stripping.

  He turned to her slowly. “Do you really expect me to sit here and watch a man take his clothes off?”

  “No,” she teased. “You can sit here and watch me watch a man take his clothes off.”

  So he did. Not an emotion appeared on his face. But Jennifer began to get very nervous. She knew he didn’t like the places they’d visited tonight; and to tell the truth, seeing it all through his eyes, she was beginning to have doubts herself.

  The male stripper left the stage to the uproarious applause and whoops of the audience, and then a couple came on, doing a dance that left as little to the imagination as their skimpy costumes did. Swaying back and forth, with accelerating moans and groans, they looked authentic. Too authentic.

  “Wow,” enthused Eddie. “You’d need a microscope to see if they’re dancing or ...” He laughed, then looked at Reid antagonistically. “Really good stuff, huh, Carrington?”

  Reid’s face was oddly cold as he looked back at Eddie. It was evident that he’d had about enough. “If you like this sort of thing. I’ve never considered sex much of a spectator sport myself.”

  Eddie’s eyes gleamed. He was preparing a reply guaranteed to point out Reid’s supposed prudery when Reid beat him to the punch, turning to Jennifer and speaking in a voice that carried to the entire table.

  “Why are we sitting here watching dancers pretend to do what we could do for real all by ourselves?” He raised an eyebrow, holding Jennifer’s gaze with his electric stare. “That’s an invitation, Jenny. Are you coming with me?”

  He knew he was taking a gamble. He was asking her to choose, right now, in front of them all. But he had to know what her answer would be.

  Jennifer stared at him—shocked yet somehow uplifted. Suddenly she began to see the superfluous nature of her “fun.” What was she doing hanging around with this desperate crowd—these players-at-life— when she could have a real man of her own, when she could really live? It didn’t make sense.