CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I KNOW TORTURE IS BIG news these days, but I still think a casual roasting of the guy’s balls over an open flame seems fitting,” Jenna said, setting down her wineglass.
Char grinned. She couldn’t help it. Being in the company of friends was more comfort than she could possibly have predicted. In the two hours since Jenna and Libby picked her up at the train station in downtown L.A., the three women had bonded in a way only women could appreciate.
They’d stopped for an impromptu shoe-buying fest, ate fresh crab on the pier and toasted the news of Mac and Morgan’s official engagement with two appletini cocktails and a virgin pomegranate daiquiri. They were now nursing wine and water at Libby’s Malibu beach house. Alone. Cooper and Shane weren’t due back for another hour.
“I appreciate your outrage on my behalf, Jenna, but this really isn’t Eli’s fault.”
“Jenna’s right, Char,” Libby said, leaning back in a chaise so her puffy ankles were slightly elevated. Now well into her sixth month, she looked very pregnant. But in a healthy, happy way. “Eli should have included you in the official arrangements. Talk about presumptuous! Just because he’s got other kids doesn’t mean he’s automatically Wonder Dad. If his home life was so great, he wouldn’t have been wandering around the Badlands looking for you.”
Char and Jenna looked at each other. “Wow, Lib, you’re a feisty pregnant woman.”
“I think I’m channeling Gran,” she said. And just like that her eyes filled with tears.
Jenna reached out and patted Libby’s shoulder. “It was like this for me, too, after my dad died. I’d be fine—not even thinking about him—then suddenly I’d start sobbing.” To Char, she said, “Coop’s worried all this crying is going to have an adverse effect on the baby.”
“Do you know what you’re having, Lib?”
“Uh-huh. It’s either a boy or a girl,” she said through her sniffles. “I don’t want to talk about it and if Cooper asks you to try to use your influence to get me to change my mind, don’t listen to him. Now, Char, tell us about this secret baby you’ve kept from us for all these years. And we definitely need pictures.”
Char took a sip of wine before filling them in on the details she’d glossed over earlier. Jenna seemed particularly moved by Char’s story of fighting to keep her baby. “You know, after I was raped, I went through a terrible time of waiting to see whether or not I was pregnant. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten my period. To be that confident about your decision at age sixteen says a lot about the person you are, Char.”
Char let her friend’s words sink in for a moment. They felt good. And true. She’d never given herself credit for standing up to everyone—even her aunt. “Thanks, Jenna.”
“You’re welcome. How would you feel about me including your story in a segment of Sentinel Passtime?”
Char laughed…until she realized Jenna was serious. “I…um…I don’t know.”
“Different names, of course. Think about it. You could help me make sure I get the tone right. It might give our younger viewers something to think about. A sort of cautionary tale about the lasting repercussions of impulsive acts.” Jenna winced as if realizing her words might have hurt Char’s feelings. “Not that that was a bad thing in your case, but…you know what I mean.”
Char nodded. “I do. Damien was lucky. His adoptive parents gave him a great life. His first school was in Japan, for heaven’s sake. But I think there’s a part of him that needed to reconnect with me and Eli to find out why we gave him away. That’s the part that breaks my heart. And I can’t do anything about it.”
Libby shook her head. “You’re wrong. You’re doing something right now. You’re giving Eli and Damien a chance to bond. And when you get back home, you and Damien can work on your relationship. The thing that worries me is what’s going to happen with you and Eli.”
Char took another sip of wine. She was tempted to get stinking drunk. Maybe she’d light a fire on the beach and do her own, private vision quest. The old black woman and her mother could join her.
“Eli made his choice. He’s a good father. Responsible and all that. He has to try to work things out with his manipulative, self-centered, slut of a wife, right?”
She saw the look Libby gave Jenna. Shocked. She didn’t know why. “Am I being too blunt?”
“No, you’re being Char,” Jenna said.
“And we’re both glad to see it,” Libby added. “For a minute there, we thought Eli put a spell on you.”
“The swoo?” Char asked jokingly.
“No,” Libby answered firmly. “Swoo is magical.”
“Mystical,” Jenna chimed in.
“Myopic,” Char added cynically.
“That, too. Once Coop put the swoo on me, I was done for,” Libby said, obviously pleased with the concept. “What worries me is you got a full dose of swoo back when Eli was seventeen. Forgive the comparison, but Gran always warned that a young rattlesnake was more dangerous than a grown one because they didn’t know how to ration their poison.”
“You think Eli infected me?”
“Sorta. You’ve never fallen in love since then, right?”
Char didn’t answer. Eli had always been the one. Even when he was someone else’s. “So what’s the cure? Or am I going to swell up and turn green and slowly rot?”
“Ew,” Jenna said, sticking her tongue out.
Libby blanched. “I think I might throw up.”
Char laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “You two are a hoot. I’m glad you’re my friends. How ’bout we agree not to talk about snakes for the rest of the time I’m here? Who needs a refill?”
The sun was slipping behind a fog bank far off on the horizon. The sounds of people on the beach mingled with the steady crash of waves. The air was salty and clean smelling. Char honestly felt as if she could toss her worries up in the air and let the breeze carry them away. Inland. Far, far inland. Maybe all the way back to South Dakota, so they’d be waiting for her when she got home.
“Hey, hey, hey,” a familiar voice called from inside the house. “Never fear, dear ladies, the men have arrived. Char, point us toward the dragon you need slayed—”
“Slain,” another male voice corrected.
“Whatever, Sir Shane of Lexicon,” Cooper put in testily. “We’re here and we brought along Sir William. Because he’s English and they invented dragons.”
“That might have been the Chinese,” added a voice with a distinct British accent.
Char looked at her friends and laughed. “Dragons. Snakes. You people really do live in La-La Land. But I like the idea of my personal legion of knights in shining armor. Cool.” She lifted her arm and pointed north. “He’s that-away, guys. Go get him.”
ELI SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the sand, juggling the disposable cell phone he’d purchased. Char had taken hers when she left two days earlier and he’d felt isolated and out of touch without one. He’d intended to call her first thing, but he had yet to hit Send.
“Coward,” he muttered.
The midday sand was warm beneath his butt. He wasn’t the only person in jeans, but he could tell the natives knew how to dress for this kind of November weather—especially on a Friday afternoon. More layers on top, fewer from the knees down.
Natives.
The word made him want to throw up. A woman in the District Attorney’s office told him the reason he’d been given custody of Damien was to circumvent any legal challenge the Native American community might have made if they’d chosen Char over him.
As if his father’s tribe gave a crap. For his entire life he’d felt like an outsider. When he first moved in with his father, he overheard someone suggest that Eli was there to take advantage of government benefits.
If they only knew. He sure as hell didn’t want that for Damien.
He opened the phone and carefully punched in the numbers he’d memorized. He gazed at the waves gently lapping
on the smooth sand of the beach. A few clusters of people were scattered about. Nothing like it would have been in summer, he speculated.
“Hi. You found me. Leave your number and I’ll find you next.”
He smiled. He hadn’t heard her recorded greeting before. He blew out a sigh and closed the phone.
What he needed to say would probably sound lame and pathetic if he tried to leave a message. “Hi, Char, it’s me, Eli. The idiot who let you go. I’m sorry. Come back. Please.” His jaw tightened.
Maybe if he went for something more positive. “Hi, Char, it’s me, Eli. I talked to Bobbi this morning and told her we’re going through with the divorce as planned.”
Better. But still not exactly right.
“Hi, Char, it’s me, Eli. I miss you. I’m pretty sure my life is never going to be right without you. Marry me?”
He stuffed the phone into his pocket. What kind of jerk proposed on the phone while he was still legally married?
He let out a loud sound of disgust and fell backward in the sand. He kept his eyes closed for two reasons: the sun and his eyes were starting to water. From some previously undiagnosed allergies. Or a sudden-onset cold. Not tears. God, no. He refused to cry in public.
He was so wrapped up fighting off his impending embarrassment he almost missed the conversation coming from a few feet behind him—until he realized he was the focus of it.
“Wow, Shane. How’d you do that? Point your finger, pull the trigger and he topples over. That was awesome.”
“Why are you looking at me? It could have been William. He was using an imaginary bow and arrow.”
“That’s what you use on dragons.”
The last speaker had an English accent.
“It couldn’t have been us. Any projectile—even an imaginary one—would have made him fall forward because we were shooting from behind.”
Eli opened his eyes. They really were talking about him.
“Then why’d he fall over? Maybe he’s on drugs again.”
Again?
“He’s pissed?”
“How could he be pissed? We haven’t even told him who we are or why we’re here.”
“Pissed is Brit for drunk.”
“Why can’t they talk right?”
“They? You mean me, and I’m standing right here. With an imaginary bow and arrow that I’m going to shove u—”
Eli scrambled to his feet and turned around. Three men were standing a few feet away, looking at him with varying expressions: apprehension, amusement and intense curiosity.
“Who are you?”
They looked at each other, as if trying to determine who would answer. All three were around Eli’s height. The blond-haired one looked vaguely familiar. His buddy on his left was dressed all in black. He looked dangerous—in an I-can-afford-to-hire-a-hit-man way. The third—the Brit, he guessed—was slimmer than the other two and dressed more formally.
“Well?”
The blonde put his hand over his heart in a theatrical manner and bowed. “Sir Cooper at your service.”
The dark-haired guy rolled his eyes. “You’re not here to serve him, Coop. You’re here to avenge his contemptible wrongdoings, remember?”
Cooper. Coop. A light of recognition went off in Eli’s mind. This was Cooper Lindstrom. Char’s best friend’s husband. TV star. Uncle by marriage to the girl whose balloons Eli had carried a week ago.
Had it only been a week?
“Sorry. I got carried away by the role.”
The dark-haired guy advanced a step, hand extended in greeting. “You are Eli Robideaux, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Eli replied, reluctantly returning the courtesy. They were acting pretty civilized at the moment, but he’d caught that part about avenging something.
“My name is Shane Reynard. This is Cooper Lindstrom and that’s William Hughes. We’re friends of Char Jones. I’m sure you figured that out.”
“Is she still in California?”
“William’s flying her home tomorrow. He’s a pilot.”
“And Morgana Carlyle’s agent,” the man put in, his accent somewhat less noticeable now.
At Eli’s blank look, he tried again. “Coop’s ex-wife.”
“And costar,” Cooper added pointedly. “Why do you always lead with the ex-wife part? Are you going to tell him she’s engaged to my brother-in-law, too?”
“I don’t have to. You just did.”
Eli couldn’t tell if the tension between the two men was real or made-up.
Reynard coughed pointedly. “We all went together to buy a small jet. Today was our test flight.”
Cooper’s expression turned to almost childlike glee. “We all fly back and forth to the Hills so often this thing is going to save us a bundle. Plus, I’ve always wanted to be able to say I own a jet.”
The look William exchanged with Shane was both amused and indulgent. Eli could tell there was true affection between the men. He was envious.
“Could we possibly take this conversation indoors?” the Brit suggested. “Perhaps over tea? Or a pint?”
“A pint of tea? Are you crazy? Talk about pissing…” Even Eli, who didn’t know this guy from Adam, could tell Cooper was joking.
William gave Eli a droll look then started off. “Come along. You, too, dragon.”
Dragon? He wondered if this had something to do with the book Char had been reading on the flight out. He didn’t ask. “There’s a bar right up the street,” he told them. He was starting to feel like a regular, sadly.
“So who wants to tell me what this is about?” he asked a short while later when they were seated around a table near the window. The location of the table reminded Eli of his breakfast with Char in San Francisco.
“Well, partly, there was the test-flight aspect,” Cooper said, “but we wanted to check you out for ourselves. To see if you’re really as big a jerk as Libby and Jenna think you are.”
That hurt and he didn’t even know these women.
“Am I?”
Shane sat forward, not aggressively, but his focus was intense and a little unnerving. “Too early to tell. But I will say that to someone on the outside looking in, it appears as though you used Char to write this story then cut her out of the final draft.”
Eli sincerely hoped the final draft was yet to come, but he wasn’t going to admit that to a stranger.
He looked at William, who was drinking from his draft Guinness. “How do you fit in?” he asked. “These two are part of Char’s book club, right? But from what I gather, she’s the only single member. I don’t see a wedding band on your finger.”
William held up his left hand for everyone to see. “That is correct and observant. I don’t see one on your hand, either.”
Not the answer Eli was looking for. If the guy was interested in Char, Eli planned to settle this now.
“Relax, Eli,” Cooper said. “William doesn’t have a thing for Char. Thank God,” he added, rolling his eyes dramatically. “We already have this crazy six-degree of separation thing going with Morgan and Mac.”
Shane shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. Anyway, back to Char and Eli’s situation. If you could give us something to take back to the ladies we adore, we’d greatly appreciate it.”
“Are you talking a body part?”
Cooper and William laughed. Shane smiled.
“A heartfelt apology might suffice.”
William sat forward. “I disagree. Jenna seemed quite bloodthirsty the other night. I think she’d appreciate a fingertip. Maybe part of his ear…”
Cooper patted his pockets. “Anyone have a Swiss Army knife?”
Eli took a large swallow of beer. Talking about his personal life wasn’t his way. Especially not with a bunch of strangers, but since these men had Char’s ear, he decided to give truth and sincerity a try.
“I’m assuming Char told you about Damien.”
All three nodded.
“He’s getting the last of his occupational therapy at th
e moment. He suffered some weakness on his left side as a result of the concussion. With any luck, his doctor will discharge him today or tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “He should be done with his therapy. Do you want to meet him?”
“Sure.”
“Great.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Another round?” the thirtysomething server asked. She looked at each of them before suddenly jumping back in surprise. “Oh, my God, you’re Cooper Lindstrom. I love you. I watch your show every week. Honey, I don’t know what’s wrong with the postmaster lady. You could jump in my mail sack any time you wanted.”
Several other patrons looked on the verge of coming over. Shane handled the impromptu fanfare with aplomb, and the men were able to slip out a few minutes later, intact.
“Does that happen often?” Eli asked, leading the way to his rental car.
“You get used to it,” Cooper said, slipping on a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses.
“The same way you do a venereal disease, I’m told,” William added wryly.
“But fame is far less curable,” Shane said with a hint of humor.
Eli shook his head in wonderment. Talk about freaking surreal. A week ago he was freezing his ass on the side of a hill in the Badlands of South Dakota and today he was in California, driving Cooper Lindstrom and entourage to meet his and Char’s long-lost son.
Could things get any more bizarre?
He froze—his hand an inch or so from the ignition—half expecting the voice to make some snide comment about tempting fate.
“What are we waiting for?” Shane asked.
Eli started the car. “Not a damn thing.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“LIBBY, DON’T CRY. PLEASE.”
Libby, Jenna and Char were standing in the shade of a metal building that had housed the plane she was about to board. They’d been waiting at the small, private airport for a little over an hour while William, Cooper and Shane went over some kind of checklist. Even from a distance they seemed as exuberant as young boys on Christmas morning playing with their new toy.
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