by T. K. Leigh
Sitting down on my dressing chair, an unexpected memory of my childhood rushed forward, surprising me and almost leaving me breathless. After the initial shock wore off, I softened my expression. I couldn’t help but reminisce about all the times I would sit in the dressing chair of my mother’s closet, watching her as she donned a gown for whatever gala she was to attend with my father. She was so breathtaking, her beauty exotic and different, which was what drew my father to her all those years ago, despite the fact that he was easily fifteen years her senior.
Shaking off my memories, I gathered a few clothing options and placed them on my bed, snapping some photos and sending them to Brayden in the hopes that his flight hadn’t departed yet. My mood lightened when I instantly received a text from him, ordering me to wear the billowy red dress. Lowering the thigh-length dress over my head, I fixed the semi-revealing V-neck so no one would get an unexpected surprise. I arranged my long dark hair, allowing it to retain a bit of its natural wave, and clipped most of it up in a messy but organized manner, my back remaining exposed.
I lightly powdered my face and added a touch of blush to my dark complexion, thanks to my half-Latino heritage, finishing the look by adding a hefty amount of liner and shadowing to my hazel eyes, giving them a dramatic and powerful effect.
I slid on a pair of overpriced designer pumps Brayden had spoiled me with, which added at least four inches to my five-foot-five frame, and checked my reflection in the full-length mirror. Thinking a second opinion wasn’t such a bad idea, I grabbed my cell and snapped a quick photo, sending it to Brayden. Within seconds, I received a response.
Damn, baby girl. You look good enough that if I were there, you might just turn me. Have fun and text me when you’re home so I know you’re okay.
Smiling, I texted him back.
I will. And you better text me when you land. Love me!
I placed my phone in my clutch, then walked down the hall and into the kitchen, Meatball close behind me every step of the way. My cat was generally extremely independent, unless he could see the bottom of his food bowl. In that case, he was on DEFCON 1, his eventual destruction imminent.
At least, according to him it was the end of the world.
“Okay, buddy. Time for dinner.” Grabbing a bag of his kibble, I poured some fresh food and water into his bowls, his attention now devoted entirely to his meal. “See ya later, Meatball.” He continued to ignore me without so much as a low meow in appreciation, and I retreated from the kitchen, leaving my condo.
Maneuvering the streets of Spring Break central, I actually began to look forward to my usual Friday night outing with my best girlfriend. As a twenty-six-year-old woman, I was well-aware that South Padre Island wasn’t the ideal locale for someone my age, but with the influx of tourists, it was the perfect spot for Jenna and me to start our dream business together.
Approaching our usual Friday night hangout, I pulled into the parking lot of the wine and tapas bar, throwing the valet the keys to my car. I smoothed my dress and entered the small restaurant, seeing businessmen attempting to wine and dine potential clients in the swanky and upscale establishment. Not surprised when I was unable to spot Jenna, I settled into the somewhat empty bar. I had grown accustomed to Jenna’s relative disregard for being on time. It still irritated me on occasion, but I had learned to simply brush it off and move past it.
“What can I get for you?” a chipper blonde bartender asked. I hadn’t seen her there before. “Margarita? Pina Colada? What’s your poison?”
I scrunched my nose in displeasure. “No. None of that crap. I’d like a bottle of your reserve Tempranillo.”
The bartender quickly retreated from me, heading toward the wine cellar.
I grabbed my smart phone to keep myself occupied while I waited for my wine and Jenna, and surveyed my calendar for the next few weeks. Nearly every minute was planned out. That was how I liked things. I could control situations that were planned. I had always felt helpless when faced with the unexpected. I needed control.
“You going to drink that whole bottle by yourself?” a deep voice broke into my thoughts, startling me momentarily.
“So what if I am?” I retorted, not looking at the source.
“Didn’t mean anything by it. My apologies.”
Intrigued, I raised my head, glimpsing the body attached to the deep voice sitting in the corner of the bar, toying with a tumbler of an amber-colored liquor. He must have sensed my eyes on him and turned to meet my gaze.
“You got a name?” he asked, surprising me with his complacent forwardness.
“Yeah. Thanks for your concern.”
“Oh, I’m not concerned. Far from it.” His voice turned melancholy as he refocused his attention on the glass in front of him, picking the cherry out of the liquor and eating it.
I followed his hand and spied five stems on the cocktail napkin in front of him before turning my eyes back to my phone. I was in no rush to start a conversation with any man who appeared to be intoxicated by six o’clock on a Friday evening.
“What’s your deal?” he asked bluntly. “It’s Spring Break, but you don’t seem to be the typical spring breaker. No offense.”
“None taken. Considering I may be the only twenty-something female on this island who’s not one tequila shot away from having her stomach pumped, I suppose it would look odd.”
“Not odd,” he said. “Just unusual.”
“Same difference.”
“Sorry about the wait,” the bartender said, walking up with a bottle of wine. “Took a while to find this one.” She presented the bottle to me and I nodded in approval, signaling for her to open it. After tasting it, I nodded once more, and settled in to enjoy my choice of wine and, hopefully, a peaceful moment before Jenna arrived.
Sadly, I didn’t get my wish.
“So, tell me,” that insistent, yet charming voice said. His tone was slightly raspy and lacked the typical southern drawl, but there was something amazingly sensual about the way even the simplest word rolled off his tongue. He wasn’t even slurring his speech all that much, which I found odd. If I had drank the number of beverages he had, I would probably be unconscious. “Why is a beautiful woman such as yourself sitting alone at a bar on a Friday night?”
“What? You mean when I could be at one of the shitholes on the beach, finding some broke college student to buy me a cheap beer or shitty drink?” I scrunched my nose in obvious displeasure at the notion.
“They’re not all shitholes,” he interjected quickly. “There are some decent clubs and bars the typical college crowd probably couldn’t afford.”
“Yeah… I’m all set. I went to college. I had that experience. I don’t need to relive it.”
“So why are you here then?”
I looked up from my wine, exhaling in frustration because he didn’t take the hint to leave me alone, and met his green eyes once more. He was an alarmingly attractive guy, and he was gazing at me with an expression that was part cockiness and part intrigue. His dark hair was messy, the ends light, probably from the sun. He had a strong jaw and high cheek bones that made him appear exceedingly sexy but adorable at the same time. He wore a pair of khaki shorts and a light green linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing muscled forearms. His skin was tanned, and I assumed that he worked outside.
“I just am,” I spat out.
“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up defensively, grabbing the glass in front of him and downing it. He pushed up from his barstool and walked toward me. “I’ll let you drink alone, which is what it appears you want.” He leaned closer, the smell of bourbon oozing from his pores. “It was nice to talk to you, even if it was purely one-sided.”
He held his hand out and I looked at it guardedly.
“It’s just a hand. See, what happens is, when you meet someone, the polite thing is to say ‘nice to meet you’ and shake hands, even though you may never see each other again, which kind of sucks but, living here, you get used to i
t.”
Reluctantly, I held my hand out and allowed the attractive man to take it, searching his face for whether I knew him. I had been living here for nearly five years and had yet to meet or see him. On an island full of tourists, the locals tended to know each other. This man was a complete mystery to me, and the way he just threw several hundred dollar bills on the bar when his tab couldn’t have been more than seventy dollars certainly piqued my interest.
He grasped my hand, shaking it, his fingers lingering slightly longer than socially acceptable, turning the cordial gesture into something much more intimate. Something entirely unexpected.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” His voice was smooth, those eyes burning me. I felt a warming sensation coat my stomach, followed by a slight fluttering. I couldn’t remember the last time I had encountered someone who seemed to beguile me from the unexpected combination of a sexy voice, a sensual touch, and a spellbinding stare.
“Mackenzie,” I blurted out, lost in the moment. “My name’s Mackenzie.”
A mischievous smile crossed his face, his teeth brilliant against his darkened skin. “Mackenzie,” he repeated, keeping my hand clutched firmly in his, his fingers lightly caressing my knuckles in a way that made my skin tingle.
I didn’t want him to ever let go.
“Thank you for the wonderful, albeit abbreviated, company.” He held my hand up to his lips and placed a simple kiss on it before letting go.
I sat dumbfounded as he turned from me and headed toward the exit.
“Wait. Don’t you have a name?” I called out once I found my voice.
“Yes, I do.” He paused and winked slyly. “Thanks for your concern.” He opened the door and left, my mouth agape as I received a taste of my own medicine.
Just as the chiseled backside of the stranger grew fuzzy, the whirlwind known as Jenna flew through the doors, glancing over her shoulder to see what I was gawking at before proceeding toward the bar. “Who is that?”
“Who?” I asked, fixing my expression and drinking a hearty gulp of wine. The last thing I wanted was Jenna to pry and see something that certainly wasn’t there. She had been on me for years about finally settling down with someone with whom I could have a future. But it wasn’t time yet and she knew that.
“You know who, Mack,” she said, adjusting her blonde hair. “That guy who just left. Man, he was one fine piece of ass, wasn’t he?”
“I suppose, if you’re into tall, dark, brooding, exquisitely sculpted men. And why are you looking? You’re married!”
“I’m married, not blind. So what do you think? Vacationer who stopped by the bar to get away from the wife and kids?”
I slowly shook my head. “No. He said he lives here.”
“Hmm… Must be new to town. I haven’t seen him around.”
Trying to subdue my flushed complexion, I was at a loss as to why I couldn’t shake the interaction. I had barely spent five minutes with him, but there was something about his uninterested demeanor that fascinated me. He was confident and sure, unmoved by my tried-and-true diversion techniques to get a guy to leave me alone.
“You’re blushing, Mackenzie Sophia!” Jenna exclaimed. “You want him, don’t you?”
“No,” I said, gulping down more of my wine. “Locals cause too many complications.”
“What about Mitchell? He’s from the area,” Jenna said, eyeing me.
“Case in point. He caused far too many complications. We had a perfectly good thing going, then he wanted to take it to the next level. I don’t need the distraction of a relationship in my life right now. Not when we’re about to open the restaurant.”
It was silent for a moment and I could feel Jenna’s gaze burning my skin.
“I don’t want to hear it!” I exclaimed, holding my hand toward her to prevent her from saying what I knew she was about to. “I’m not going to waste my time on a relationship for the sake of a relationship. I want to be completely swept off my feet. I want my heart to race at the mere thought of being in his presence. I want to feel−”
“Like you’ve finally found the missing piece,” Jenna said, completing the sentence she had heard too many times to count.
“Yes,” I exhaled, my expression taking on a dream-like quality. “I’ll never forget the way my father used to look at my mother. It was a look of complete…”
“Love?” Jenna asked, grabbing the bottle and filling her glass.
Taking a sip of wine, I shook my head. “No. It was so much more than love. It was a look of absolute reverence. In one look, regardless of the fact that I was probably only eight at the time, I knew he would lay down his life for her. And for me. After he died, she always told me these amazing stories about their love. It put any fairytale to shame, and I think that’s why I loved their story so much. She always said my father was her turtledove, the only person she would ever love. I guess it makes me hopeful for my own happily ever after. For my own turtledove. But only when the time’s right.”
Jenna chuckled, shaking her head. “You do realize these things tend to happen when you least expect it, don’t you? I know you probably have the next twenty years scheduled to the second, but love doesn’t always happen when we want it to.”
I opened my mouth to respond.
“Love sometimes has its own way of sneaking into your heart,” she said, cutting me off from protesting. “Just because, in your head, you don’t have yourself meeting the man of your dreams until five years in the future on April twenty-first at an extravagant society dinner doesn’t mean you should ignore the opportunity to break from your mental timetable. I know you’ve heard this speech before−”
“Over and over again,” I mumbled.
“And I’ll continue to play it on repeat until the words finally sink into that thick, stubborn skull of yours. One day, you’ll meet someone who will make you want to throw all those controlling tendencies out the window. And I can’t wait for that to happen.”
I tore my attention from her, not wanting to admit the truth of what she was saying, and my eyes caught the large television screen in the bar. A reporter for the local news was standing outside a small brick building I had grown to know quite well over the past few months… The local Chamber of Commerce.
“Do they know anything yet?” I asked Jenna, whose eyes were also glued to the screen. Her husband was one of the chairpersons of the chamber.
“No. Nothing. They’re still searching for her body, but they haven’t turned up anything yet. The ocean is a big place.”
I nodded as the reporter’s voice cut through the bar, all the locals watching the broadcast, desperate for answers about a crime that seemed to rock our small slice of paradise and reminded us all that life wasn’t a permanent vacation.
“Breaking news just in today. A body discovered on the eighth green of the South Padre Island Golf Club earlier this morning has been identified as that of missing secretary of the South Padre Chamber of Commerce, Elizabeth Weiss. Ms. Weiss was reported missing ten days ago, sparking a county-wide manhunt. Foul play was suspected from the beginning of the investigation when the Chamber of Commerce’s office was found in disarray and Ms. Weiss failed to show up for work. The coroner has confirmed that she was murdered, a single gunshot wound to the head. No other details have been released to the public at this time. The police ask anyone with information that could assist them in determining who is responsible for this senseless murder to please come forward.”
“Shit,” I mumbled. I had just spoken with her a few weekends ago. She was an older woman in her mid-sixties who owned a small coffee shop just down the street from my restaurant. We had grown somewhat friendly over the past few months. “Do you think Richard knows?”
“I’m sure he does,” Jenna said. “He’s been gone most of the day. I had a feeling they found something when he got a phone call early this morning and abruptly left. If there was a problem at the hotel, he would have just called someone else to handle it, so he must have known.�
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A loud buzzing sounded, startling me, and I looked down at my cell phone to see a call coming through from an unknown number. I glanced at Jenna, silently asking permission if she minded. Her irritation was loud and clear.
“I have to take it. What if it has something to do with the restaurant?”
“Fine.” She waved me off. “Go ahead. I know you’ll be on edge all night long if you don’t.”
“Thank you,” I said, answering the call, heading toward the exit to hear better.
“But don’t bitch if you return to an empty bottle of wine,” she shouted after me.
I discreetly flipped her off just before opening the door and stepping outside. “Hi, this is Mackenzie,” I spoke into the phone, my voice exuding all the professionalism I could muster.
Initially, silence greeted me on the other end. Then there was heavy breathing.
“Hello?”
Nothing. More breathing. It grew heavier and heavier.
My hands became clammy, my heart racing as dread overwhelmed me. It was the third such phone call I had received over the past week. At first, I thought it was simply a prank call, some stupid teenagers thinking they were being funny, but I was beginning to think there was more to it. Each call had been the same. All I ever heard was heavy breathing followed by the clicking of an unloaded gun.
And that’s when I heard it, just like the last few phone calls.
Click.
Click.
BANG!
Frantic, I hung up the phone, my chest heaving in distress.
He actually fired his gun!
I had no idea what to make of it or who could possibly be on the other end. Closing my eyes, I tried to calm my nerves, my entire body trembling from the ominous nature of the phone call.