by Raine Miller
But Brooke had already grabbed her things and was at the door when she turned back one last time, her long blonde ponytail whipping around her neck from the force. She was so very angry, but her composure was a thing of magnificence—and her words spoken in that accent of hers, awe-inspiring. I couldn’t take my eyes away for anything.
“Take it out of my final pay. And then you can fuck off.” My dick is so hard for this girl right now.
Then Brooke was really gone.
“I’ll cover any damages, but I sincerely doubt there will be any. The guy who grabbed her was way out of line and I witnessed the whole thing. I’ll cover the dry-cleaning bills, too.” I handed the fool my card and left him standing there in the kitchen with his mouth hanging open like a goldfish gasping its last breaths.
I caught up to her out on the street where she was in line for a cab. She looked me over as I walked up but she didn’t say a word.
“Hey, those were some impressive self-defense moves you’ve got,” I said.
“Sorry you were in the line of fire in there.” She indicated her head toward my suit, which was pretty much trashed with shrimp cocktail sauce.
I shrugged. “It’ll clean. How about you? Are you all right after that disaster in there?”
“I’ll be fine as soon as I can get home.” Her voice didn’t sound as strong as before, and I sensed the adrenaline was wearing off. She was upset and rightly so.
“Can I give you a lift? My car can be here in five minutes and I’d be happy to take you wherever you need to go.”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible unless your car can float on water.” She checked her watch. “Besides, I don’t know you and I would never get into a car with a man I don’t know.”
“Fair enough,” I said. Although I was disappointed she wouldn’t take me up on my offer, I had to agree with her superior logic. A girl who looked like her definitely shouldn’t go with any man she didn’t know. It would be dangerous. For some reason I hated the idea of her in any kind of danger. “I’m really sorry you had to endure that crowd tonight. I hope I didn’t do anything to offend you—”
“I saw you stand up to him, and I thank you for that. And no, you didn’t offend me with your ignorance of meatballs. I’m happy to have helped sort out that little problem for you. Now you are an informed connoisseur of the rare delicacy called a meatball, and you owe it all to me,” she replied with a hint of a smile.
She was so awesome, trying to joke around with me when it was apparent she was still upset about the clusterfuck that had happened to her inside that reception tonight. She looked beautiful, but very . . . sad. If I had to choose a word to describe how she appeared to me, it would have to be sad. And that bothered me greatly.
“Thank you for the meatball tutorial. I enjoyed it very much. I’m Caleb by the way. Caleb Black—”
I was interrupted by her phone chiming out the unusual but unmistakable ring tone of Ricky Martin’s “Shake Your Bon-Bon.” Interesting choice I thought, as she turned away to take the call.
“Fucking hell, I’m so glad you called me back.” The word fuck in that accent—damn . . .
“I can still catch the eight-thirty ferry if I hurry so I’m going home after all. I won’t be staying over.” Ah. That’s not possible unless your car can float on water. Got it.
“Long, dreadful story. Suffice to say I’m looking for a new second job.” She needed a second job?
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” The offices on Hereford Street.
“I love you, too.” Boyfriend or just friend?
My stalking skills were improving by the second if I was now capable of listening in on entire conversations and deciphering them. I’d caught every word she’d spoken. A cab pulled forward for her, and she said clearly, “Blackstone Island Ferry Company,” to the driver as she got in.
I watched her cab pull into traffic and drive away until it was out of sight.
She never looked back to say good-bye.
She hadn’t told me her name, either, but I knew it was Brooke. Brooke who lived on Blackstone Island and worked in the design studio on Hereford Street next door to Starbucks. She was beautiful and witty and feisty. I was more than impressed by her no-nonsense attitude throughout the night with her boss and the patrons. Brooke was no shrinking violet, plus she had the most amazing voice I’d ever heard.
That was all the information I had been able to gather about her, but it was enough to find her again if I wanted to. There was no if. When.
And it was more than plenty.
Brooke
Thank you, Will. I was racing to make it in time,” I said to the captain as I boarded the final ferry crossing to the island for the night.
“Two minutes to spare.” Will Darlington, who ran Blackstone Island Ferry Company, never failed to mention how much time I had left before departure. It was our little running joke. I think he would’ve let me on late if he saw me running for the dock, but so far I’d never missed my boat.
“Ages of time, Will. Two minutes to spare and with running in heels, I feel I’ve been a complete success.”
That earned me a shy smile and a slow shake of his head. “Glad to have you on board, Brooke.” Will was not much of a talker, but he was kind and very serious about captaining his boat. Another one of those hardworking islanders who put in long hours to make a living in a challenging economy. If you loved your work, as I supposed Will did, then all the better.
Once I found a seat inside where it was warm, I let my guard down for the first time in the past three hours. I became suddenly very sleepy, not wanting to think about the arsehole who’d grabbed me, or the fact I’d just left a shit job, or the lack of money, or any of my problems.
So I folded my arms on the table and rested my cheek on the arm of my wool coat.
I closed my eyes and allowed the sway of the boat to rock me to sleep.
A gentle hand to my shoulder and my name being called woke me one very fast hour later.
“Everything okay, Brooke?” Will’s green eyes looked down at me in concern. “We’re here and I have to close her down for the night. Everyone is off the boat.”
“Oh! I crashed. I’m so sorry,” I began. “I’ll get going.” I rushed to get up and gathered my bag.
“No worries at all,” he assured me in that kindly shy way he’d perfected. “You take care driving home.”
“Goodnight, Will.”
“Night, Brooke.”
I sensed that if I’d given any encouragement to Will Darlington beyond friendship, I could’ve had him. He didn’t come on to me and he was always a gentleman in every way, but a girl knows the signs when someone is interested. Will was nice, really good-looking, hardworking, and an excellent catch for any girl, but he wasn’t for me. More accurately, I wasn’t for any man right now. Too soon. Too much. Too hard to imagine being with somebody again when I was still working on finding the person I’d been before. The person I’d been before I’d allowed him the power to nearly destroy me.
He’d very nearly accomplished just that, and I couldn’t—wouldn’t—make that same mistake again.
I made my way to the parking lot and started up Nan’s 1980 Jeep Cherokee, lovingly named Woody due to the faux wood paneling trim on the outside and within. I was always grateful for Woody’s reliability, because even though he wouldn’t deliver the smoothest ride over four miles of bumpy lanes in the dark, he would get me there safely. You had to know where you were going, or you’d be lost in the middle of a meadow or a wood with only one wrong turn. I always took it easy because little creatures had a tendency to leap out in the night and it wrecked me for days if I accidently hit a rabbit or a night bird.
Nan’s cottage stood solid and cozy on her perch at the top of a gentle hill overlooking the sea. It was dark now, but the Fairchild Light illuminated the cape below. The island had a lighthouse for each port—Fairchild Light at the southern end, and West Light on the western shore where most of the mansions and
estates were built between the shelter of the island and the mainland, protected from the harshness of the open ocean.
As I parked and went inside, I got that little flip of panic down low in my belly. It was worry about how much longer Nan could remain here in the cottage. I didn’t know that answer. I did know she owned it outright and that it was the only thing of value my grandmother possessed from her marriage to my grandfather. He’d died when my mum was a baby, so even my mum had never known her father. Nan never remarried after my grandfather died, but instead gave her life to her work at Blackwater estate. Unencumbered with a mortgage and given the land value on a resort island with an unobstructed view, it had to be worth a significant amount. But it was a very small property, and it wasn’t in the exclusive area where the luxury hotels and private estates were located. I couldn’t imagine selling and moving Nan somewhere else. Where would we go? But the money situation wasn’t going to get better and I needed to at least make inquires. I’d make a point to visit Herman and ask for his advice. If anyone would know, it was him. Maybe Nan could take out an equity loan on the cottage and that would get us through.
Who was I kidding? Get us through our financial troubles until we won the Massachusetts State Lottery? Yeah, right.
Frustrated, I set off to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The hour was far too late for caffeine now, and I needed sleep after the shit day I’d had. I peeled off the boots first. It bothered me that my beloved boots were what prompted my problems this evening. They’d certainly brought me unwanted attention while I was serving. Hadn’t Eduardo greeted me with “those boots are screaming ‘do me ’til I can’t take it anymore’” just this morning? This morning seemed like it had been ages ago now. If I’d been working tonight in my regular uniform clothing, would that heinous man still have grabbed me and said those horrible things to me? I shuddered at the remembrance. The harsh movement and possessive touch of his mean little hands on my body had just brought it all back so quickly. My only thought was to get him off me, because I couldn’t bear being touched roughly anymore.
It was too close to the way he had touched me. And I would never forget how that felt. I wanted to forget . . . I just didn’t know if it was possible for me to forget.
There was a spot of cocktail sauce on the collar of my one-day-old white shirt. Crap. I treated it with a bleach pen and set it to soak in the bathroom sink but figured it was probably ruined since it was white. Something in the sauce made it next to impossible to get out of clothing. I’d ruined clothes before from shrimp cocktail sauce. My stomach took another dive as I realized there were several expensive suits splattered tonight, and my pay from the job wouldn’t come even close to covering the cleaning of designer suits. Hopefully the dry cleaners had a magic solution to remove the stains. It was Martin’s problem anyway. He could find the arsehole who’d caused the whole mess and have him pay.
You broke a man’s nose tonight. Yes, I did. And I would do it again in the same situation—in a heartbeat.
I looked down at my legs.
The scars on my right calf and knee were the reason for the boots or tights when I wore skirts. The scars were ugly, yes, but mostly I just didn’t want to have to see them and . . . remember.
“YOU have an admirer, condesa, look what’s been delivered for Brooke.” Eduardo strolled up to my work area with a gorgeous pot of dark red peonies and set them down on my desk. The flowers were a stunning cranberry red with most of the stems still in the round-bud stage. They would become huge blooms when they opened. Striking and unusual, and totally unexpected.
“Who from?” I couldn’t imagine who would send me flowers. Martin? No, he was too cheap for flowers. These looked expensive, plus it was a plant and not a vase of cut flowers. I could plant it in the ground in Nan’s garden eventually and enjoy them for a long time.
“Read the card, ay Dios mío, what are you waiting for?” He plucked it from the bouquet and shoved it at me. “I will die before you tell me who sent this to you.”
“You really should have been an actor, Eduardo,” I told him as I opened the envelope and read the card.
Brooke,
Please accept these flowers as a token of my appreciation for the meatball lesson last night.
It was unforgettable.
Caleb
The guy with the black eye. Unforgettable? He’d made the effort to be nice even after he’d been knocked down by the arsehole who’d put his hands on me. Why? Why send me expensive flowers, and furthermore, how did he even know where to send them? He knew my name. I wondered if he’d asked Martin, but that would be a really low blow for Martin to disclose my information to a stranger. Also illegal.
I handed the card to Eduardo so he could read it.
Remembering our conversation from last night, I recalled how he’d offered me a ride, which I hadn’t accepted, but he hadn’t turned nasty when I’d declined his invitation. I appreciated that part of his personality most of all. A man who understood the word no wasn’t that easy to find in my limited experience. They seemed to be few and far between. I was tempted for a moment, to call the number written in bold black pen on the back of the card that I could now see clearly visible from Eduardo’s hand. But what would I say?
Caleb. I couldn’t help smiling when I remembered how cute he’d been with me over a tray of meatballs. Surely the most ridiculous conversation ever, yet he’d gone to the trouble to send me flowers that even looked like a meatball while in the bud stage. I studied the flowers again. The color was spot on. So pretty. Wow.
What a very clever man this Caleb was.
Incredibly handsome, too. Even wearing the results of that devastating blow to his head.
I endured the teasing of the peonies sitting prettily upon my desk for the next two hours before I said to hell with it and gave up the struggle. My excuse? I’m a woman and my curiosity won out. I sent him a text.
Caleb, thank you for the beautiful flowers in meatball red. Very lovely gesture . . . but . . . how did you know where to find me? –Brooke
My phone rang about one minute later, and I couldn’t help but smile for a second time.
Caleb
Yes,” I said when her text came through, maybe a little too enthusiastically, but what the fuck did I care? I owned the company, and Brooke had just given me her number.
Victoria stopped her rundown of my schedule and looked up from her notes curiously.
“I need to make a call—we’ll finish after lunch,” I told her, knowing she understood what I really meant. Which was, “get out and give me privacy.” Victoria Blakney was no dummy, and that was why she was my PA. She was also my best friend’s little sister and the perfect candidate for the job as my personal assistant. I’d known her since she was a toddler, and she knew the world in which I moved as well as or better than I did. Since it was the same world for her.
“The red peonies?” she asked as she got up from her chair.
“Maybe.” I added Brooke into my contacts and ignored Victoria.
“Thought so.” I could hear the smirk in her voice as she went out, closing my door with a soft click.
I hovered my finger over Brooke’s number for just an instant, realizing I was making a conscious decision to pursue her. So much for my vow to swear off women for a while. There was something about her I couldn’t turn away from. I had to know more.
My finger tapped the green circle.
It rang five times before she picked up, and with each ring I think my grip on the phone grew a little tighter.
“Hello, is this Caleb calling?” Ahhhh . . . that voice of hers had power . . . over me. She spoke and for some reason I lost the ability to speak. It was insane.
“Yes, Brooke, it is.”
“You have excellent taste in flowers. I’ve been enjoying them all morning, but why did you send them?”
“I thought you needed some cheering up after what happened last night.”
“Ah, that’s very kind of you, but how did you
know I worked here?”
“I’d say it was fate, Brooke.”
“And how’s that?” I couldn’t tell if she was getting ready to tell me to get lost or not, so I figured I had nothing to lose by telling her the honest-to-God truth.
“I saw you yesterday morning getting coffee at Starbucks, and then you walked into the offices next door. When you showed up at the cocktail party serving, your boots reminded me that I’d seen you just that morning. I had to take a call and stepped under the eaves of your offices to be out of the way of sidewalk traffic, and I could see you through the front glass.”
“That was you?” A shot of something hit me painfully right between the chest, and I had to bring a hand up to rub it.
“Uh-huh, it was me. Why do I get the feeling you saw me as well, Brooke?”
“You were wearing sunglasses on account of the blow to your head?” Yep, she saw me.
“Yes. I was devastated by it, remember?”
She laughed and I wished I could see her. “Oh yes, I remember very well just how devastated you were, Caleb. You had absolutely no recollection of what a meatball was.”
“Right. I think my memory was slightly damaged from the devastating blow to my head, but thankfully you were there to clear up my confusion. I was lucky.”
“How is your injury today?” The fact that she asked was nice.
“Looks worse, but it doesn’t hurt a bit.”
“Well, I am happy to hear that, but Caleb, how did you know my name was Brooke?”
“I heard your boss call after you when you left the room.”
“You’re quite the Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?”
“Not really, but my hearing is pretty good. For example, I heard you tell your cab driver to take you to the Blackstone Island Ferry Company, so using my superior powers of deduction, plus the fact you said you were going home, I am guessing you live on the island.”
“Are you stalking me, Caleb?”
Yes. “Not at all, Brooke, just being observant and taking note of some things we have in common.”