by CA Quigg
She knew Sundown Sands inside out, was passionate about it, and she needed my investment. Plus, her father assured me, she wasn't interested in romance. That was more than fine by me. Something about her husband walking out on her. The last thing I wanted was to marry a woman with hearts in her eyes. Love was for masochists. I fell in love once and gave my heart twice. Ten years later, and Louise's lies still whispered my name.
I picked up a broken seashell and glanced around the lush landscape. Elizabeth, who looked like she was participating in the mannequin challenge, remained statue still and stared at the tumbling waves. I half expected her to spew gibberish and rock back and forth.
Beaufort had allowed the place to fall into a shambles. Millions could be made if Sundown Sands Country Club was in the right hands. And I intended to be the one to make those millions.
I wasn't lying to Elizabeth about what I wanted to do to the place. The beach was ideal for water sports, the ancient oak trees would conceal the cabins I hoped to build, and the main house would make an ideal boutique hotel.
Elizabeth nudged her cat-eye glasses into place, cleared her throat and broke the mile-long silence between us. "Why did you ask me to marry you? Was it for my sparkling wit? My willowy figure? Or do you make a habit of asking strange women to marry you?"
"I need a permanent resident card, or a green card as it's more commonly known." There was no point trying to dress it up or make it sound like something it wasn't.
"Of course you do." She didn't soften her sarcasm with a smile or a laugh. "Committing fraud sounds like an excellent way to begin a business partnership and a marriage. Maybe we should rob some banks and a few jewelry stores while we're at it. Although, Caden and Elizabeth doesn't have quite the same ring to it as Bonnie and Clyde."
She took off her glasses, so they dangled from between her fingers, and turned to face me. Dark circles bruised her skin, and eyes greener than a blade of grass peeking through melting snow viewed me coolly.
"I'm sure there are easier ways to get a green card than marrying someone you're not attracted to let alone love. What about a work visa?"
"Believe me, I've applied for a new visa, but I think I'm being punished for ignoring letters from the immigration office. And how do you know I don't find you attractive? I happen to find the sexy secretary look very enticing." Okay, she wasn't the kind of woman I usually fancied. I preferred tall, leggy blondes out for a good time and nothing else, but something about Elizabeth Beaufort warmed my blood.
She rolled her eyes and heaved out a sigh. "Do you really think I'm that gullible?" She stood. The back of her wet skirt clung to her perfectly rounded ass, which warmed more than my blood. My hand itched to redden her cheeks.
"What's a girl to do?" she said with a shrug. "Break the law and risk going to jail so I can save my family's legacy or allow the place to go into foreclosure and lose everything we've worked for."
I resisted the urge to laugh. "I suppose that's one way to look at it."
I pushed myself up from the sand and stood a few inches from her. A mouthwatering trace of citrus and roses floated off her skin, and to prevent myself from burying my face in her neck and sampling her warm softness, I stepped away.
The last thing I needed was a sexual assault charge. I would get kicked out of the country so fast, and hard I would fly across the ocean without the aid of an airplane.
"Can't you see how much potential this place has, Lizzie?"
"Elizabeth." Her eyes flashed with blood draining scorn. "Don't you think I already know that? This place has been in my family for almost two-hundred years."
"And it'll be in your family for two more weeks if you don't accept what I'm offering."
She pressed a hand against her chest. "Be still my beating heart. You're such a romantic. With a sterling silver tongue like yours, I'm surprised you're not already married with a horde of ankle biters hugging your legs."
I flung the seashell still in my hand into the ocean. "It'll be a cold day in hell before I get down on bended knee. I'm not the marrying kind. And I'll never have kids." Once upon a time, I wanted a huge family, but after everything that had happened, I would never put myself through falling in love with a child just to find out she was never mine. "So, what do you think?" I asked.
"What do I think?" She tapped a red-tipped fingernail against her full, pink lips. "I think I'd rather marry an unwashed tramp who talks to rats and screams at his imaginary friends."
"If that's the kind of man you want, you should stand outside my apartment building on 54th."
Instead of laughing, she frowned. "The answer's no. No to the business deal and no to the marriage proposal."
I had less than a month before my current visa expired. If she didn't marry me, I was screwed. I'd promised my investors a huge return on Sundown Sands-losing face wasn't an option. If it all went south, there were a few other options I could try. I could set up an office in London and travel back and forth on a tourist visa. It would mean I'd have to work here illegally, and could also mean the loss of several lucrative deals.
"Listen," I said, "how about I cancel my meeting in the city and stick around here for few days? Meet me for dinner. We can discuss things in more detail."
"I don't want to discuss anything in more detail." Her words were as flinty as her eyes. " If I ever marry again, it'll be for love. It won't be because my father has decided to use me as a sweetener in a business deal." Her words wavered, and she firmed her lips as if she was afraid to show any emotion other than indignation.
I turned my attention to the majestic white towers of the main building sprouting through the tree line. "We could bring it back to its glory, y'know. Make it the place it was meant to be."
"My answer's final, Mr. Gallagher." She strolled toward the trees, kicking up sand with every step, and I couldn't help but watch the hypnotic swing of her hips and the way her damp clothes clung to her curves.
"Not if I can help it," I whispered.
Chapter 4
Elizabeth
A crowd of locals gathered around the stage of O'Halloran's Craft Brewery and Bar for Sean's weekly game show night. Raucous laughter drifted out to the patio where I sat beneath a heat lamp, skimming through my phone while sipping on a glass of Pinot Noir.
The cool fall weather meant it wasn't warm enough to open the folding doors from the bar, but sitting here, listening to the ebb and flow of the waves, and inhaling the ever-present scent of brine calmed my clamoring thoughts, of which Caden Gallagher and his wicked smile were front and center.
On Monday evening, he'd emailed me his proposed plans. Not opening them was a battle I'd fought throughout Tuesday but by bedtime, it was a battle I'd lost.
The plans showed everything I wanted for Sundown Sands-fountains, swimming pools, fire pits, cabins, and the spa I dreamed of. This morning, he sent me a simulated video of the plans. And now an aching want haunted my every minute.
I set my phone on the table and took a sip of wine. Another battle I'd lost was entertaining Caden's bat-shit crazy marriage proposal. Google told me hundreds of horror stories about green card scams. There was no way I could risk a quarter of a million dollar fine and a spell in prison.
"Penny for them?" My stepsister Darcy flitted out to the patio with a bottle of Sean's latest IPA in one hand and an open bag of cheesy Doritos in the other. Her egg-sized solitaire winked in the light and weighed down her finger. With her doe eyes and cropped chestnut hair, she resembled a pixie-a fierce pixie who would kill for her family and friends.
"You and Peter not playing tonight?" I asked, snagging the bag of Doritos from her hand.
"Wine and nachos. You're a classy kind of chick." Darcy said, giving up the goods without a fight.
"Growing up with you and your sisters, how could I be anything but?"
"Bitch," she said and laughed. "We're not playi
ng because we wanted to let someone else win. It's not fair that we keep winning the grand prize every week."
"Very noble of you to give someone else the chance to win a large pizza and two sodas from Santino's."
In two months, Darcy would become Mrs. Peter Wilde. Ironically, there was nothing wild about her insurance salesman fiancé. There was no excitement or danger behind his eyes, and I never trusted him. Darcy needed someone who challenged her. Not someone who wagged his tail and rolled over like a good boy, but I wasn't someone who interfered in other people's relationships and would get no thanks from my sister if I did.
I first met Darcy soon after our parents got together. We were both eight and became instant enemies, and both did what we could to get the other in trouble. "She did it," was our favorite phrase. We didn't become best friends until an incident in middle grade when Darcy beat up a boy for making me cry. Darcy was the only one allowed to do that. Ever since then, she'd had my back, and I'd had hers.
"What's with all the moping?" Darcy pulled out a chair and sat. "You're usually front and center on game show night."
"Dad's gone off the rails again."
"What set him off this time?"
I ran a fingertip around the rim of my wine glass. "Who knows, but at a guess, I'd say his and mom's wedding anniversary."
"The happy anniversary card hasn't arrived yet," she said and sighed. "One of these days he'll get over it."
"It's only been twenty years, give him time." Before digging into the Doritos, I ripped the bag down the center and placed it in the middle of the table. "We're in big trouble this time. I'm not sure if I can get us out."
Darcy reached for a cheesy triangle of goodness and raised it to her lips. "How much?"
"Enough to buy a small country. We'll probably go into foreclosure at the end of next week."
"Shit. Can you get a loan?" Darcy crunched the nacho and then licked the yellow residue off her fingers.
"His credit is as shot as mine." I tapped a nacho against my lips and glanced at my sister's sympathetic face. "I'll think of something."
Darcy frowned so hard that the wrinkles on her brow made her look like a Shar-Pei. "And, of course, Trip is letting you handle it by getting shit faced."
"You know it." I pressed my fingers onto the foil packet to pick up the crumbs then sucked them from my fingers. "And blaming everyone else."
"By everyone else you mean you," Darcy said, her voice rising in anger.
"If he didn't binge drink and vanish for days on end, I think we could make things work. It's the gambling that's gotten us into this mess."
"Talk to my dad," Darcy said. "He doesn't have the kind of money you need, but he might have some advice. Help you come up with a solution."
"Can you imagine the fallout from that? No thanks. Having a root canal on all my teeth without anesthesia sounds preferable." If I confided in my sister I already had a solution, one that could land me in prison, what would she say? We usually told each other everything, but that I had even considered marrying a stranger was too much to admit to anyone. Even myself.
"I wish Peter and I could hold our reception at the club." Darcy tore the label from her bottle of beer and shredded it to ribbons. "The place would be fab. If the ballroom wasn't as messed up..."
"And the grounds. And the entire building."
"Cheer up, ladies, it might never happen." Sean sauntered toward us, pulled out a chair and sat. In the past twenty years, he hadn't changed much. Sure, his hair was grayer, and he had a few lines around his eyes, but he was fitter and happier than most twenty-year-olds I knew. "How're things in the big house?"
"Good. Great," I lied.
I loved Sean, and he treated me like I was his daughter, but I wouldn't betray my dad by telling him how bad things were. Sean was a good man who worshiped my mom and his five girls, and over the years, too many times to count, he'd offered me his help and a shoulder, but I always refused.
"Where's mom?" I asked, looking over Sean's shoulder. "I'm surprised she's not here. I know how much she loves beating you at Fill in the Blank."
Sean winked and laughed. "That's only because I let her win. She and a few of her friends got together. They're nattering about grandbabies or the lack of."
My phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and saw it was my oldest sister Sage. Why was she calling? She never called. Not that we didn't like each other, we did, but our relationship involved nothing more than talking about the weather and asking about work. Sage kept everyone at arm's length, not just me, so I didn't take it personally.
"Sage?"
"It's your dad," she said in a rush of words, "you need to come to the hospital. Quick."
"What happened? Is he okay?" I shoved away from the table so hard, my glass fell over, spilling blood red wine across the table. Sean and Darcy stood, their eyes wide and their faces creased with questioning concern.
"What is it, love?" Sean asked.
"Sage, tell me what happened." My voice sounded as if someone had hacked at my vocal cords with a serrated knife.
"I don't know all the details. I just know he was rushed in two minutes ago."
"I'm on my way." My body went on autopilot, and I was already on the move before I even realized it.
"Lizzie, wait," Darcy called after me.
"It's Dad." I glanced back, my feet picking up speed. "I need to get to the hospital."
"I'll drive you," Sean said.
I shook my head. "No, it's okay. The game. Your customers."
"I think they'll be all right without me. Getting you to the hospital is all that matters. You're in no state to drive."
"I'm coming too." My sister reached out, clasped my hand and squeezed. "He'll be okay."
I nodded. Numbness enveloped me, and I felt like I was floating outside of my body as if the shock had hurled my soul from within the confines of my skin. I wouldn't cry, and I wouldn't collapse. I would stay strong and later when I was alone, I would show all the emotion I wanted.
As much of a pain in the ass Trip Beaufort was, and as much as his narcissistic behavior pissed me off, he was my dad, and I didn't want anything to happen to him.
When I'd left work earlier, he was in his office drinking and said he had no plans other than finding a way to save the club since his 'good for nothing daughter' wouldn't help. He was still in a sulk over Caden. Said we would lose the club and our livelihood because of my selfishness. He would never admit his greed had anything to do with it.
The drive to the local hospital took longer than a year, and my heart didn't stop speeding the entire time. Sean dropped me outside the ER, and I darted inside with Darcy on my heels.
Sage, who always looked like an extra from Mad Men, stood by the admissions desk with her arms crossed, in deep conversation with the Sheriff. Tom was a few years older than me and was in college by the time I was a freshman in high school, and since he'd become sheriff, he'd escorted my father home in his cruiser more nights than I cared to remember.
"Is he okay?" I asked, rushing toward them. "Can I see him? What happened? Where is he? Is he de-"
Sage placed a reassuring hand on my arm. "The doctors are with him now."