The Promise of Lightning

by Linda Seed

  “Oh, nothing. Just the way you kind of sparkled when you asked about him.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did,” Breanna said. “Oh, shit. You did. And then you blushed.”

  “No, I—”

  “Oh, crap, Megan. Are you hot for Drew? Because Liam’s going to—”

  “No!”

  But she was blushing; she could feel it. She put a hand to her cheek to hide the rising color.

  “Oh, man,” Breanna said miserably. “You and Drew. Poor Liam. I mean, he’s kind of a jerk, but he’s still my brother.”

  As though summoned, Liam walked in the front door of De-Vine, saw the three women, and froze in surprise.

  “Oh. Hey. Mom sent me to pick up some champagne for the … ah, shit. I’m not even sure. For one of the Wedding Week things. The rehearsal dinner, I guess.”

  “Right,” Rose confirmed. “She called ahead. Here, let me go in the back and get it.” She vanished into the back of the store while Megan and Breanna sat at the bar awkwardly.

  “We just … stopped in,” Megan told him. “On the way to my place.”

  “All right,” Liam said. “Hey, if you think you and Bree will be done with your thing in time, I could still come over after you’re—”

  “I’m staying over,” Breanna put in quickly. “Girl sleepover. We planned it a while ago.”

  He looked crestfallen. “Oh.”

  Rose came back out carrying a box full of wine bottles. She put the box on the counter and rang up the sale.

  Liam paid, hefted the box, said his goodbyes, and went out the door and onto Main Street.

  “Dead man walking,” Rose announced in grim tones.

  Megan leaned over and slowly banged her head against the surface of the bar.

  Drew went back to his hotel feeling spent. He wasn’t much for parties in the first place, but a party at the Delaney house—one that featured his mother as a bonus attraction—had left him feeling wrung out.

  He took a long shower followed by a slow walk on the beach. The evening was growing dark, and the tourists had mostly retreated to their hotel rooms along Moonstone Beach Drive, so he was alone with his thoughts.

  One of those thoughts was that Liam’s girlfriend maybe had a point. Liam had acted like a dick when Drew had shown up at the house—he had, in fact, acted like Liam—but that didn’t mean Drew was right to take the bait. He could have been more mature. For one thing, he could have kept it in mind that he, himself, had acted like a dick on his last visit, and maybe that’s why Liam wasn’t more welcoming to him.

  Thinking that Liam’s girlfriend hadn’t been altogether wrong led Drew to think about the woman herself. No, he hadn’t enjoyed being confronted in Sandra’s sewing room. But he had to admire anyone who saw what they believed to be an injustice and who stood up and said something. Most people didn’t. Most people just quietly stewed.

  Megan had Liam’s back. Drew wondered if Liam appreciated that, or if he even knew it.

  What had Liam ever done to deserve a woman like that? Well, he was richer than a small country, for one thing. That tended to afford a man opportunities with women.

  Except, Megan didn’t seem like someone who would be interested in a man for his net worth. Drew had become well acquainted with that kind of woman in the time since he’d inherited Redmond’s fortune. He’d had plenty of opportunities, though he’d been smart enough not to take them.

  He’d only spent a few minutes with Megan, but his instinct told him that she did what she did because she meant it, not because there might be a profit in it.

  Of course, his instincts had been known to be wrong. Take his marriage, for instance.

  By the time he got back to his hotel room, with sand in his shoes and the smell of the ocean on his clothes, he was feeling a little better about things.

  He fed Eddie, cleaned out the litter box, and refilled the cat’s water dish.

  Tomorrow, he had golf with the Delaney brothers. He didn’t golf—never had, in fact—but he guessed that didn’t matter. It was a chance to reach out to the Delaneys and maybe smooth some ruffled feathers.

  It was time.

  And if that didn’t work, he could always beat the crap out of Liam with his driver. Then, the day wouldn’t be a complete loss.

  Chapter Six

  They went to a golf course in Paso Robles for a nine a.m. tee time. The course wasn’t Pebble Beach, but it wasn’t bad, either. The greens were as lush as the local water restrictions would allow, and the course offered a view of graceful, low hills dotted with grape vines heavy with fruit waiting to be turned into wine.

  Isabelle, with Colin’s help, had organized a kind of informal tournament, with the members of various foursomes competing for bragging rights. A group that included Mike, Orin, Drew’s uncle Joe, and one of the ranch hands was set to tee off right before them. A little later were some guys Colin knew from the law firm where he used to work.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess that the lawyers probably had the edge where golf was concerned. Fortunately, Drew wasn’t out to win; his simple goals were merely to avoid getting in a fight with Liam or falling into a water hazard.

  Drew and Colin had driven to the course together in Colin’s rental car, and Liam and Ryan had paired up in Liam’s truck. Because Colin was the only one of them who owned his own golf clubs, the rest of them had to rent clubs at the pro shop before they loaded up their carts and drove out to the first hole.

  Colin teed off first, and even though Drew didn’t know a damned thing about golf, it seemed to him that Colin just looked good—it wasn’t hard to imagine him playing alongside some minor PGA pro. The ball flew farther than Drew would have thought possible, though it did veer slightly to the right of the green.

  “Well, shit,” Liam grumbled, glowering over the pure grace of Colin’s shot. “I hope you don’t expect me to do that.”

  “It’s not that hard. Here, I’ll show you.” Colin came up behind Liam and tried to move his brother’s arms into the correct position, but Liam glared at him.

  “You better back the hell off,” he said.

  “Fine.” Colin raised his arms in surrender and stepped away.

  Liam must have had some natural athletic ability, because he didn’t do too badly. He did miss the ball entirely on his first swing, but then he managed to get it halfway down the fairway on the second try, a little bit off in the rough but not so far that it wasn’t salvageable.

  “Not bad,” Colin observed, giving Liam a smack on the shoulder.

  Ryan had played before, and while he wasn’t as good as Colin, he did seem to have some idea what he was doing. His ball made it farther than Liam’s and landed smack in the middle of the fairway.

  That left Drew, who had never picked up a golf club before let alone hit anything with one. He figured his male pride didn’t preclude him getting a little advice.

  “Hey, Colin? Little help?”

  Since Drew had rarely asked for Colin’s help with anything, the man seemed not only willing but eager to oblige.

  “You’ve got your grip all wrong. You’ve got to put your left hand here, like this.” Colin used his own hand on his own club to demonstrate. Drew adjusted accordingly.

  Colin led him through a couple of practice swings and then teed up the ball for him.

  Drew’s first ball veered off into the trees, so they all called it practice and let him do another one. The second one was only marginally better; Drew clipped the top of the ball, and it rolled off the tee and down the fairway maybe fifty yards at best before coming to a rest.

  “Good shot,” Liam observed. “If you’re playing against an eight-year-old girl.”

  Drew calculated his choices: He could get into it with Liam here and now, maybe challenge him to a fistfight and decide this thing once and for all. Or, he could be a good sport. He went with the last one.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll bet there are more than a few eight-year-old girls who coul
d take me.”

  Liam had been trying to pick a fight, and Drew could see on his face that he didn’t quite know what to do now that it hadn’t worked.

  Colin clapped Drew on the back. “You’ll get there. Now, I’m thinking you need your three-wood for the next shot.”

  Drew continued not to take the bait that Liam put out there, and eventually, Liam began to drop his defensiveness and relax a little. As the morning went on, Liam started to chat with his brothers as though Drew weren’t there—which was just fine with him.

  Liam must have been thinking about everything surrounding Colin’s impending nuptials, because around the fourth hole, when they were all standing around the green waiting for Colin to putt, he said, “Do you think Megan wants to get married?”

  The question hit Drew right in the gut, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because of his own bad experience with marriage. Maybe because the idea of Liam settling down with a woman, maybe having some kids, was surprising. Or maybe because of the reaction Drew had experienced to Megan—a reaction that didn’t necessarily mesh well with the image of her married to Liam.

  “You probably ought to ask her,” Ryan said, not unreasonably.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Liam said. “But right now, I’m asking you what you think.”

  Ryan considered the question. “She ever said anything about it?”

  “Not lately.” Liam scowled. “We used to talk about that sort of thing sometimes. Back when I first moved out here from Montana. But we don’t talk about it much anymore. Which is weird, I guess, because we’ve been together two years now. I know she wants kids someday.”

  Colin sank his putt and came to stand beside Liam while Ryan took his place on the green.

  “You thinking of popping the question?” Colin asked.

  “No. Ah, hell. Maybe.” Liam scratched at the back of his neck. “The thing is, she seems kind of … different lately. Not unhappy, exactly, but … not happy, either. I wonder if maybe all this wedding stuff is making her wonder why we haven’t gone there yet.”

  “Instead of you wondering, maybe you two ought to have a conversation,” Ryan suggested again, since the idea hadn’t seemed to take the first time.

  Liam was silent as they all watched Ryan putt. He missed the hole, took another shot, and got it in.

  “It’s just … women want commitment, right? Isn’t that what they’re always saying?” Liam seemed truly baffled by the eternal question of what women want.

  “I think it depends on the woman,” Drew suggested. It was a risk to jump into the conversation, but Liam just shot him an irritated look and didn’t remark on it.

  “What a woman wants is for a man to have a damned conversation with her,” Ryan put in.

  “What I was thinking,” Liam said as they walked back to their carts, as though Ryan hadn’t spoken, “was to maybe ask her. You know, to marry me. This week, even. At the reception.”

  It was clear from the expression on Liam’s face that this was what he’d been asking them about all along. He wasn’t looking for advice on the needs and desires of women. He was asking Colin if it was okay to propose at his reception.

  The three of them stopped and stared at Liam until he started to squirm under the pressure.

  “It was just a thought,” he said.

  Colin got into the driver’s seat of his cart, and Drew got in beside him. “If that’s what you want, it’s all right by me,” Colin told Liam, who was standing on the grass beside Colin and Drew’s cart. “Let me run it by Julia first, though, in case she feels like you’re hogging her limelight.”

  “She won’t think that,” Drew said. He knew his sister well enough to know that she’d be delighted by the idea—though Drew, himself, was less delighted.

  “No, she won’t,” Colin agreed. “But I still have to ask her.”

  “Well, just … mention it, see what she says,” Liam told him.

  They headed off to the next hole, with Drew feeling vaguely sick. He told himself it was because his instinct said Megan didn’t want to get married—maybe didn’t even want Liam at all. He’d seen the way she’d untangled herself from him at the house the day before, the way she’d dodged Liam’s kiss.

  The sick feeling—it was a natural reaction to knowing a guy was about to get his ass handed to him by the woman he loved.

  That was all it was.

  After the tournament—where Drew came in last—he thought that he might drive down to Morro Bay and rent a boat for some fishing. He always felt most like himself when he was alone out on the water.

  But first, he checked his phone to make sure the world had managed all right since the last time he’d looked at it.

  He had a few voice mail messages: the usual pleas from people who wanted him to buy things or donate money. He deleted them.

  He also had a string of text messages from Tessa.

  Drew, please call me right away.

  Please, it’s urgent.

  This is a LIFE AND DEATH EMERGENCY, Drew. CALL ME!!!

  His every instinct had told him to delete the texts and pretend he never got them. But he’d loved her once.

  Against his better judgment, he called.

  “Drew! Thank God.” She sounded out of breath.

  “What’s going on, Tessa?”

  “I didn’t think you were going to call! Drew … How have you been?”

  “Tessa. What’s the emergency?”

  “Can’t we just take a minute to talk first? It’s been a while, and—”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Wait!”

  It turned out her “emergency” was that she had applied to rent a new apartment in Bozeman—something bigger and better located than her current place—and she didn’t have the money for the deposit.

  “That’s your emergency?” His face began to grow hot, and he was clutching his phone so hard it was in danger of shattering. “You need money for an apartment?”

  “You make it sound like it’s nothing. Like it’s no big deal. But I’ve already given notice at my place, and I’m going to be homeless in a week if I can’t come up with the money.”

  He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming at her. “You might use some of the money you stole from our joint accounts,” he said.

  “ ‘Stole.’ That’s how you see it.”

  “That’s how it was.”

  “It’s only a few thousand dollars, Drew. What is that to you? It’s nothing. You have so much.”

  He was standing outside the main house at the ranch after Colin brought him back. He looked up at the canopy of an oak tree above him, at the gentle light filtering through.

  “We’re not married anymore, Tessa. It’s not my job to provide for you.”

  “Well … we could be. Married again, I mean. Oh, Drew, if you’d just give us a chance, we could—”

  He hung up on her.

  After that, he was too dispirited for fishing. He got into his car and drove back to the hotel.

  The Wedding Week schedule had Drew down as one of three designated drivers for the women attending that night’s bachelorette party. His evening would be his own until he got a call from Julia that the party was over. Then he would go over to Ted’s in his rental car, which seated four comfortably or five a little less comfortably, and provide safe and sober transportation to whoever needed it.

  Ryan and Mike—the other two designated drivers—were planning to hang out and have pizza at Ryan’s place until it was time for them to perform their duties, and Ryan called Drew to see if he wanted to join them.

  Drew liked Mike, and he kind of liked Ryan, too, despite the fact that he was a Delaney. Besides, the book he’d brought wasn’t that good. So he fed Eddie, then headed over to Ryan’s house on the Delaney Ranch property.

  When he got there, Ryan’s wife, Gen, had already left for the bachelorette party. Mike was sprawled on Ryan’s sofa with a bottle of Coke in his hand, a bag of Doritos open on the coffee table in front of him. Ryan w
as putting out a platter of corn chips and salsa while they waited for the pizza.

  A guy Drew didn’t know—thirtyish, blond, with glasses that made him look studious—was sitting in an armchair next to the coffee table.

  Ryan made the introductions. “Drew, this is Will Bachman, a friend of mine. Will’s offered to help with the driving. He claims it’s for the sake of safety and good citizenship, but it’s actually so he can have a kid-free evening for a change.”

  Will offered a wave. “Actually, that’s not accurate. Rose’s mother is watching Poppy tonight at our house while Rose is at De-Vine. I came so I could have a mother-in-law–free evening.”

  Drew wandered into the living room and took a seat. “Rose is your wife? From the wine shop?” He tried to reconcile the idea of the tattooed, purple-haired woman from the wine bar whom he’d met last time he was in town, with her facial piercings and her edgy fashion sense, with this somewhat geeky-looking guy on Ryan’s sofa.

  “A couple of years now,” Will confirmed. “We have a two-year-old.”

  He seemed to be saying the last bit by way of explanation for his overall frazzled look and the dark circles under his eyes.

  Of course, Drew already knew Mike. He raised a hand to the man in greeting. Mike was in his late fifties, with a balding head and a shape that suggested the Doritos in front of him were his main source of nutrition. Drew knew from Julia, though, that Mike could heft a sixty-pound bag of concrete like it was weightless.

  Ryan offered Drew a Coke, which he accepted in lieu of the beer he would have preferred. Once he was settled, the other three resumed the conversation they’d been having when he’d arrived. The topic was marriage, weddings, and women.

  “You couldn’t make me get married again if the woman was made out of beer and hundred-dollar bills,” Mike said. Like Drew, Mike had been through a divorce that had left him emotionally and financially traumatized.

  “Unless your ex agreed to take you back,” Drew said.

  “Yeah, unless that.” Mike shook his head sadly at his own pathetic state. “Only woman I’ve ever loved. Only woman I ever will love. I’m a goddamned Hallmark card, if the card is about divorce and loneliness and wanting to kill yourself.”