Beach House No. 9

by Christie Ridgway

  “There’s no need to discuss Ian,” Jane put in.

  “But I still don’t understand how you could end that association,” Corbett said, frowning. “He seemed to find you talented, and he himself is such a star in publishing that it was foolish of you to—”

  “It was time for a change,” Jane said. Though, good Lord, taking on Griffin was turning into its own potential disaster. She could feel the imprint of those kisses on her lips, the heat of his hands on her bare flesh. No previous relationship had prepared her for her incendiary response. He likely thought she was easy pickings now. Squirming on the stool, she tried redirecting both her thoughts and the conversation. “What have you been up to, Phil? Byron, how’s Caitlyn enjoying her new job?”

  He scowled at his laptop. “Caitlyn who?”

  Really? “Your girlfriend of three years?”

  “Ah. We broke up.”

  “By!” Jane surged from her stool to take a seat next to her older brother. “I’m sorry. How are you feeling?”

  The warm sympathy in her voice appeared to snag his attention. He actually turned his head to gaze at her. “I’m feeling…busy? That’s why she broke it off. I have this project that demands a lot of my attention, and she didn’t like sharing me with a slide rule, she said, which is ridiculous, because I haven’t used a slide rule since I was six and Dad showed us how to do logarithms.”

  Jane could only sigh. “Oh, Byron.”

  “I for one think it’s good he found out how flighty she is now,” their father said. “Before he married the woman.”

  “Flighty!” Jane protested. Caitlyn had been perfectly nice and had stuck by sensitivity-challenged Byron for years.

  Her brother nodded. “She was making rules. No computer at the dinner table.”

  “You’re all hopeless,” Jane murmured.

  Phil glanced over. “I heard that. I also heard that the real reason Ian Stone’s not your client is because the two of you no longer have a romantic attachment.”

  “Jane!” her father said, disapproval written all over his face. “Is that true? If I’d known you were treading down that path I would have counseled you on the foolishness of mixing the professional and the personal. Your career is much more important than a romance.”

  She glared at the tattletale in the family. Avoiding a lecture against having a love life was why she didn’t tell her father who she dated. “It’s water under the bridge, Dad. Ian and I were done months ago. I’ve got the new client now.” Who was already muddying the waters with another unwise professional-personal mix. She pressed the heels of her hands against her throbbing temples. What was she going to do about it?

  “Uh-oh,” Byron said. “Jane’s got that look on her face.”

  “What look?” she demanded. “I’ve got a headache.”

  “Yeah, the same headache you had when you wanted that kid who lived next door—what was his name…Ed?—to ask you to your prom. It’s your love headache. Are you getting silly and emotional with your new client too?” His voice took on an annoying elder-brother teasing slyness. “Does he find you lovable, little sis?”

  Silly and emotional. He’d picked that up from their father, Jane thought, now glaring in Byron’s direction. It was true that when the Pearson men ate meals they rarely paid attention to the plate and were instead engrossed with their work. Which meant there had been plenty of opportunity in those many years they’d lived together for her to have slipped poison into her brother’s mashed potatoes. Damn her for the oversight.

  Her father rose, yet another frown on his face. “What’s this, Jane?” Corbett came to stand before her, his austere good looks making his expression appear only more critical. “I don’t pretend to understand why you chose this field, but in any case, you need to think like a professional.”

  “Dad—”

  “Just direct your attention to doing your job, my girl.” He pointed a bony finger at her, the same one that he’d used to point out the errors in her geometry proofs. The sigh he released was the same too. “It goes without saying….”

  But he would, she thought, bracing for it.

  “It’s much better to be competent. You can’t count on people, Jane. You can’t count on people or the strength of their emotional attachments. So it’s much better to be competent than lovable.” His frown deepened. “You hear me?”

  “Yes, Dad, I hear you.” After a minute, she stood to brush another kiss against his cheek. “Thanks.”

  And the gratitude was sincere. What had been silly and emotional of her was dreading this visit, she decided. Her father’s disapproval never failed to motivate her in some manner or other and now was no different. She was going to put the incident in the storeroom with Griffin into perspective. And in the past. It was a brief lapse of judgment best forgotten. She’d direct her attention to doing her job.

  That was clearly the best way forward. When she returned to the cove, she’d be refocused on business and absolutely immune to any further physical entanglements.

  * * *

  TESS SAT ON ONE of four cushioned chairs gracing the small porch that overlooked the ocean at Beach House No. 8. She pretended she wasn’t spying on Teague White, who was back on the sand. She couldn’t see the Tee-Wee in him; there was no residual sign of small and scrawny in his tall, muscled form. “Big and brawny,” she murmured aloud, then, guilty, glanced around to ensure she was alone.

  But she was. Alone.

  The three older kids were inside the bungalow. Russ, ensconced in the matching lounge chair, was out like a light, curled in a ball on the seat pad. The ocean air and play in the sand had exhausted him. As was his wont, the baby had pulled his blanket around him until he looked like nothing more than a small pile of lightweight fleece.

  Squelching another tiny flare of guilt, Tess glanced back at Teague.

  He was looking her way. Their eyes met.

  Her ego argued with her conscience. If she waved at him, he’d come over; she could see the truth of that on his handsome face. Then he’d flirt a little. Maybe ask her to run away to Arizona again.

  Make her feel like a woman, not a wife set aside by her husband.

  Pulse speeding up, Tess stood, then crossed the short distance to the rail. She started to raise her left hand, then paused as her wedding set caught the sunlight. On their tenth anniversary, David had given her another ring to wear with her simple gold wedding band. The one-carat solitaire was surrounded by a circle of smaller diamonds. He’d said it reminded him of the brightness of the stars on the night she’d agreed to marry him.

  “Tess?”

  She whipped around, stumbling so that the small of her back smacked the wooden railing. “David?” Had she conjured him up? Because it was definitely her husband, dressed in business attire, the sun picking out threads of red and gold in his short brown hair. “What are you doing here?”

  He frowned. “We made a deal when we signed up Duncan and Oliver for summer soccer. I take them to practices.”

  She glanced at her watch. “You’re early.” Even with the traffic he would run into, there was plenty of time. It annoyed her that he’d come now, when he wasn’t expected, yet had stood her up two days before. The feeling turned to sarcasm in her throat. “I thought you were so very, very busy.”

  David’s jaw tightened. “I texted you about that. I had a lunch meeting already in place—yes, I know it was a Sunday, but I couldn’t get out of it and you didn’t give me enough notification to make other arrangements.”

  “Arrangements, schmarrangements,” she muttered, aware she sounded no more mature than Rebecca. But he could have gotten away if he’d wanted to! He was the head of the accounting department at one of L.A.’s largest and most prestigious talent agencies, Wallis-Downs. That’s how they’d met. She’d been on her way to the parking lot following a meeting with her agent. He’d been coming in the door, putting them on a collision course that had landed Tess on her butt with David standing over her.

  You’re
her, he’d said, like Teague had yesterday, recognizing the OM girl.

  “You’re something,” he said now, his voice tight. “Upset about where I’ve been or not been when you’re the one who left our home.”

  You left our marriage! she wanted to shout at him. Sometime when Russ was not long out of newborn-sized diapers, David had left behind his husband and father responsibilities. He used to be so good at them too, coaching Rebecca’s rec league basketball team every winter, every Sunday taking a parade of neighborhood kids along with his own to the park down the street. Then, all of a sudden he’d traded those in for weight lifting at the gym and an obsession with spin classes.

  Tess’s gaze dropped to his favorite cordovan loafers, then moved up to take in the slacks and dress shirt she’d bought him just weeks ago, following the loss of those fifteen pounds he’d been complaining about for years. There was a stain on his necktie, and habit had her stepping forward, ready to sponge it clean. But she forced herself back against the rail.

  His eyes narrowed at the movement. “What’s going on, Tess?” he said. “When the hell are you coming back?”

  He was supposed to sound as miserable as she felt. Not demanding and defensive. “What’s wrong with Crescent Cove?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing wrong with our house. And it’s our wedding anniversary next month. I thought you wanted a big party.”

  That was when she’d still been able to convince herself they had something to celebrate. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea anymore.”

  “Because I missed lunch?”

  “The boys wanted to see you. No matter where we are, they’re still your kids.”

  “Of course they’re my kids,” he ground out. Then he huffed a sigh and dropped onto the chair she’d vacated. “I talked to them when I came in. They didn’t look up from their Legos. Rebecca was too busy texting to enter into a conversation. How are they?”

  The question sounded rote. Or resigned. Tess closed her eyes. “Rebecca seems to be tolerating her mornings at summer school.” In the old days she would have told David about their daughter’s threat to get pregnant. They would have groaned and laughed together over another episode in what they’d labeled “Teen Theater.” But talk of teen pregnancy seemed too awkward a topic right now.

  “And the boys?”

  “They made buddies with a pair of cousins on vacation up the beach.”

  David nodded, then scanned the sand and the nearby houses. Tess followed his gaze, though she skipped over the firefighters who were gathering on either side of a volleyball net. “What number did we honeymoon in?” he asked.

  A pang stabbed Tess’s heart. She’d told herself she had come to Crescent Cove because Griffin was here, but was it really something else? Had she hoped to recapture the magic of those three days and nights following their courthouse marriage? That’s all they’d been able to afford, since David had been adamant about saving for a down payment on a house. He’d been so serious, eight years her senior, already settled in his career. She’d been nineteen, unfazed by the brushes with celebrity she’d had as a commercial actress, native Los Angeleno that she was, but simply dazzled by the look on a particular man’s face.

  Dazzled by him.

  You’re her, he’d said that morning in the glitzy Century City office building. He’d been in a suit and tie then too, his brown hair cut business-short, his features regular yet unremarkable. But his eyes…oh, his eyes had made Tess quiver, their color a golden whiskey-brown that only little Russ had inherited. Her other children claimed the baby was her favorite, and, like every good mother, she denied it, but his eye color was definitely her favorite, because it was his daddy’s eyes that looked out from her smallest boy’s face.

  “What’s that guy doing?” David suddenly rose, then stalked to the rail.

  “What? Huh?”

  “There’s a guy over there on the volleyball court staring at us. Staring at you.”

  Tess pretended she didn’t know who he was talking about and glanced over her shoulder. “Oh,” she said, shrugging, “that’s little Tee-Wee White. We knew him when we were kids. I think Gage put him upside down in a garbage can the first day he showed up on the beach.”

  David grinned at that, looking more like the man she’d married. “Speaking of Gage…have you heard from him lately? Is he okay?”

  “Griffin says so. He’s the one I’m worried about….” Tess frowned, letting that thought die off. In the old days, she would have discussed this with David too. Her concern over how her brother wasn’t coping with his year’s experience in Afghanistan. But her husband had turned away from her now, and she didn’t feel like talking to his back.

  She’d spent too much time at their home in Cheviot Hills talking to his back.

  “He’s still staring,” David muttered.

  Tess gazed at the stretch of her husband’s shoulders beneath the smooth poly-cotton—light starch, she always told the dry cleaner—wider now that he’d become a dedicated gym rat. “I’m thinking of getting back into commercials,” she said.

  The sudden turn in conversation had him spinning. “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I could do it. You know my agent calls me up twice a year—”

  “Your agent! I never liked him when he worked at Wallis-Downs. He’s worse now that he’s on his own. That dirty old man calls you up twice a year just so he can drool—or worse—to the sound of your voice.”

  “Ew!” She glared at him. “That is not true.” And his derision only made her more determined to pursue the idea.

  David appeared to read the intention on her face. “Who would watch the kids?”

  He wouldn’t, she thought. “Day care. A nanny, maybe.” David wanted distance from her and their children. He’d proved it, with all those weekend work lunches, all those spin classes and bench presses. Then conscience pricked her a little, because he was here, after all, to take Duncan and Oliver to soccer.

  “Did you tell the boys to track down their shin guards and cleats?” she asked, her voice warmer, because he had followed through on his promise.

  “Yeah.” David nodded. Hesitated. “But could you pick them up afterward, Tess? There’s this spin class I’d really like to make.”

  Again, her temper spiked but then was washed cool by a wave of chilly disappointment. She just stared at him, gritting her teeth to hold back her tears. Where did you go? Where did my wonderful husband and dedicated family man go?

  She tried tracing back the change for the hundredth time. And then she had it. Maybe it took getting away from their home to see the situation clearly. The hinge was his fortieth birthday. Everything had seemed normal until then. They’d bickered over the usual stuff, of course, whether Rebecca planned too many sleepovers, whether they really needed that second fridge in the garage, but they’d still had those quiet moments when one or the other would look over and say, “I love you. You should know how much I love you.”

  Now Tess didn’t know anything. The ocean breeze ruffled his hair. Maybe they should have it out now. She would put it to him, insist he tell her what was going on.

  “Dah?”

  Both their heads whipped toward the other occupied chair on the porch. Russ was sitting up in his nest of blanket, his whiskey eyes trained on his daddy. “Dah?”

  Expressions chased themselves so fast across David’s face that she couldn’t catch a one of them. “Russ,” he whispered. Then he looked over at Tess. “I’ve got to go. Don’t want to be late to soccer.”

  In a blink he was gone, without another glance at their youngest child.

  “Dah,” Russ said, his voice rising to a wail.

  Tess rushed to him, taking him into her arms for comfort. For both their comfort. “Sweet baby,” she said against his soft hair as he snuggled close. His warm weight settled her unsteady heartbeat. “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay.”

  For her too, she decided. And it was okay David was gone. She was glad s
he’d lost the chance to grill him on the great change that had come into his life.

  Because she was pretty sure she wasn’t ready to hear the truth.

  * * *

  GRIFFIN DIDN’T flinch when Jane confronted him in the kitchen the morning following her visit to her father. He set down the newspaper and gave her his full regard. After that titillating exchange of kisses in the storeroom at Captain Crow’s, he figured he knew exactly how to handle her when her badgering became unbearable. When she started nagging him about the writing and about his feelings, he had a simple strategy he could implement.

  She’d had a day and a night to mull over what had happened between them, and about now he imagined she’d be very wary of any repeat of their lip-to-lip, skin-to-skin contact. Sure, there was definite chemistry between them, but he’d bet she didn’t appreciate it in the least. As smokin’ hot as they were together, she’d appeared bewildered by the subsequent sexual daze. To be honest, her sweet confusion had surprised him—and was yet another turn-on—but the dazzle would surely put up Jane’s hackles.

  The minute he started smoldering at her again, she’d go into full retreat. Giving him the upper hand.

  He’d had many long, wakeful hours in the dark to convince himself of that conclusion. And to decide that he was right…the best way to keep her out of his head would be by coming on to her.

  Her hands were on her hips and her eyes were narrowed. “What are you grinning like that for? Give me one good reason why you didn’t do as you promised and set up your home office yesterday.”

  “You’re cute when you’re lecturing me,” he said, ignoring her question. She was. She had on a prim little pale blue dress, the cotton dotted with sprigs of white flowers. Her flat shoes were white too, with a leather bow over the toes. “Tell me about your panties. Are they another pair with baby-doll ruffles? Or something different? I love those kind with a lot of cheek peek.”

  Her eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open.

  My work here is done, he thought, lifting the newspaper again.

  She snatched it from his hands and tossed it onto the counter behind her. “Let’s go, buster,” she said, grabbing his wrist and tugging him to his feet. “I almost broke my neck on the boxes when I came in the door last night.”