Beach House No. 9

by Christie Ridgway

  Jane was the only one still paying David any attention.

  “I guess I’ll go see if I can have a word with her,” he said, already moving away from his kids. Every step felt like a mile, but he didn’t falter. The distance from them was what he’d been working on for months. It was also what had pissed off Tess, but he figured it was the only way he could survive.

  Love hurt so damn much.

  He approached the restaurant from the side entrance. For a moment he was startled by his reflection in the plate glass windows. Less soft now, he looked more like his own father, Lawrence Quincy, a spare and stiff man who had seemed to regard his children like necessary but not-much-wanted accoutrements of modern life. David had not always admired that about him. Now he strove to emulate the emotional aloofness.

  He caught sight of his wife, seated at a small table on the deck. Her back was to him, and across from her was a man in beach casual lightweight pants and a short-sleeved shirt—the kind of thing David had in his closet but rarely wore now that he was splitting all of his time between the office and the gym. Tess had her hair in one of those messy knots that appeared to have been put together in a moment and with one pin, but that he knew for a fact could take her up to thirty minutes to perfect.

  It was a sexy look he’d always loved on her.

  Apparently her companion felt the same, because he leaned forward and reached for the hand she had resting on the table. He covered it, a gesture so proprietary that David had to suppress the vicious urge to rip off the bastard’s arm.

  But he wouldn’t, he promised himself, breathing deeply. The slick dude was the kind of man Tess should have married from the beginning. With a charming manner and affable smile, he would be able to schmooze a room instead of setting everyone to snoring with talk of commissions and expense sheets.

  He and Tess had been a mismatch from the very beginning. She should have married another of the talent agency’s famous clients instead of the guy who sat behind a desk perusing financial statements. Despite what was said in the press, not everyone in the entertainment business lacked morals.

  And boring men who played with numbers all day could be the biggest fuck ups of them all.

  As if she heard that thought, Tess turned, her gaze landing on him. Even from a deck away, her blue eyes stood out, and he was transported to that day fourteen years before. They’d collided in the entryway at work. With a sick feeling he’d watched her fly back, then fall to the floor.

  He’d rushed to her side, horrified he’d hurt her and, worse, that he’d hurt her, the OM girl, who had some strange hold over the nation. He’d heard through the grapevine she’d just been booked on Leno, and here he might have broken her tailbone.

  But she’d been laughing when he’d helped her up. Next thing he knew, his normally reserved self had insisted he buy her a cup of coffee. They’d walked down the street to the small sidewalk café where there were often sightings of celebrities that made it into Star magazine or episodes of Entertainment Tonight. He hadn’t seen anyone but Tess.

  She still captured his attention.

  Her hand gestured him near. He threaded his way through the restaurant tables to stand beside her. “I was hoping you had a few minutes to talk,” he said.

  Her glance took in the empty plates on the table and then swept up to the man across from her. “Uh… Do you remember Reed Markov? He was the head photographer on the OM stuff, and—”

  “—I call Tess about every two months, trying to convince her to get back in the business. I have the perfect project for her.”

  David narrowed his eyes. Sure. He knew exactly what kind of “perfect project” the other man had in mind. He recognized Reed now, remembered him from the early days of dating Tess.

  “I wasn’t sure the two of you were still together,” Reed was saying.

  David crossed his arms over his chest. “I recall you having trouble with that,” he said. Another time, after they’d been married, Tess had invited the photographer to a cocktail party at their place. Reed had mentioned a perfect project then too, one that involved coaxing Tess to leave the house where she lived with her husband for a big bash in the Hollywood Hills that very night.

  Classy guy.

  The tension in the air, he figured, was what got Tess out of her chair. “Well, thank you, Reed. I’ll be in touch.”

  Reed stood too. “I’d like to help you in any way I can, Tess.” Then Mr. Perfect Project leaned over to kiss David’s wife. On the mouth.

  Maybe it was an air kiss gone awry. Maybe it was a casual kind of Hollywood farewell. Maybe a man who hadn’t touched his wife’s lips in months shouldn’t object when they encountered those of someone else.

  That man wasn’t David.

  His fingers curled into fists, and as the three of them walked across the deck together, a whirlpool of angry heat swirled in his belly. At the exit, Tess turned toward the beach while Reed started for the parking lot. David paused, looking between the two, his heart pumping the caustic burn through his system.

  “Are you coming?” Tess asked.

  “You go ahead. I just remembered something else I have to do.” Then he quickened his stride and found Reed unlocking the door of his classic convertible. “Markov.”

  The other man leaned against the side of his vanilla-cream Mercedes. His expression no longer held any faux friendliness. “What?”

  David got close enough to smell the garlic on his breath. “You have legitimate work for my wife, and if she’s interested, fine. But if you pursue her in any other way, I’ll tear your head off your body and roll it down the closest alley like a bowling ball.”

  He didn’t wait for a response. Instead he stalked off, heading for his car and not his wife. There was no reasonable discussion to be had. No granting of requests. To hell with all that!

  To hell with giving her a divorce.

  He was a lousy husband and father, and just to prove it, he wasn’t going to let his family go. He’d find a way to keep his distance, to keep himself safe from his crushing love for them, but seeing her with another man made it perfectly clear what David wasn’t going to do.

  He wasn’t going to let Tess and Rebecca and the boys get away.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, fog came to Crescent Cove about the same time that Griffin returned to Beach House No. 9 with Private at his heels. Jane heard the door open and shut and called out to him from her place on the love seat in the room that was the designated office.

  The office that had been empty of its writer all day long—even though she’d rededicated herself to being all-business.

  With that thought, she shot a guilty glance at the trash can beside the desk. At the bottom of it lay the bottle of skinny margarita she’d polished off. When the clock had read five, though she couldn’t hear the blow of the conch shell up the beach, she’d decided a drink might smooth over her frustration. Some bikini must have left the partially full “diet” adult beverage behind, and she’d sipped at the lime-and-tequila concoction for the past three hours.

  She might be a tiny bit tipsy.

  And maybe even lonely. Her work often took her away from home, so she was accustomed to her own company, but tonight…tonight of all nights she wished she’d made arrangements to meet a friend or three.

  She did have friends, good ones who had stood by her after the Ian debacle, but their sympathy too often seemed like pity. It was bad enough to feel like a fool without knowing other people considered you one as well. So she’d been declining invitations and keeping to herself for months, not realizing how alone she might come to feel.

  Private’s nails clicked on the hardwood as he rushed forward with a friendly greeting, pushing his face against her hand. Grateful for the canine enthusiasm, she stroked his head while sending his owner a baleful glance. The man was twelve hours late! He stood on the other side of the threshold, a dark shadow looming in the unlit hallway. “Griffin,” she said, peering toward the gloom, “this morning you p
romised to be back right after lunch. It’s dark out.”

  “My dog had to see a man about a horse,” he said.

  With a sigh, she ignored the absurdity of that and patted the leather seat beside her. Though the hour was late and she suffered from that slight inebriation, she might as well get some work out of him. That’s why she was here, right? “Come sit down now, then. We can at least start thinking about progress.”

  His steps crossed the floor in the slow meter of a funeral dirge. He dropped to the cushion, and his weight bounced her a little, sending her head on a short woozy spin. When her brain settled, she saw he was sprawled in his seat, his head back, his eyes closed. She’d drawn the drapes against the evening dampness, and the lamp on the side table cast a glow across his face. It warmed his tan skin, but still she could see he was exhausted. Despite her bad mood, concern nibbled at the edges of her heart.

  A chenille throw covered her knee-length full skirt and long-sleeved T-shirt, warding off the fog’s chill. For a moment she considered tucking the soft fabric around Griffin and then encouraging him to drift into real sleep.

  “Are you going to just stare at me in longing all night?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

  Her sympathy evaporated, and the residual wooziness disappeared. “You wish,” she replied, her voice brisk. “For your information, I was considering calling an embalmer. Frankly, you look ghastly.”

  “If you’re phoning the undertaker, wouldn’t that be ‘ghostly’?”

  Even his wisecrack sounded tired. “Don’t you sleep?” she heard herself ask.

  At the question, he opened his eyes, then shifted into a more upright position. “Hey, it’s not my fault your snoring registers decibels louder than a power mower.”

  “I do not snore.”

  “I can’t tell you how many soldiers were convinced of the very same thing, honey-pie. But sure enough, come rack time they’d be sawing logs on the bunk beside mine.”

  She tilted her head. “How did you ever get any rest?”

  “Pills. Prescription sleeping pills,” he said, stretching his arms along the back of the love seat and closing his eyes again. “Don’t look so shocked. Armies have always offered relief to soldiers in combat zones. General Washington gave his guys at Valley Forge rations of rum in an attempt to keep them calm and well rested.”

  She hadn’t realized. “Are you still taking them?”

  “No.” His eyes opened, and then his gaze shifted away. “Not after—not anymore. Now I count grains of sand.”

  “Well, that’s a task destined to keep you up all night,” Jane said. She knew he had the TV going in his room that long, anyway. Since staying at his beach house she’d noted its low drone never subsided from when he went to bed in the evening until he went for coffee in the kitchen the following morning.

  Obviously she hadn’t been sleeping all that great either. Images kept popping up to disturb her. Griffin in his pirate gear. Griffin jumping off the cliff. His mouth as it descended toward hers in the laundry room. His hands on her in the storeroom at Captain Crow’s. That same touch in this very room yesterday.

  After that near-kiss, she’d run to No. 8 and played with Tess and the kids until sundown, while a series of warnings ran over and over in her mind. Don’t get involved with the client. It’s bad for business. Don’t get involved with the client. It’s bad for you. Then this morning, after giving herself another stern talking-to, it was Griffin who’d left, claiming an appointment he couldn’t miss.

  “But enough about me,” he said, starting to rise.

  Reaching over, she clamped a hand on his knee to push him back down. “Nice try. We can at least map out some page goals. Let me call up a calendar.” Keeping one hand on him, she lifted her laptop from the side table and set it on her lap.

  “Could you move up your hand a little bit?” he asked politely.

  Already tapping on the keyboard, she didn’t look away from the screen. “Sure—” she started, then she broke off and yanked her hand from his leg as if it was on fire. “Stop that.”

  He was trying to look innocent. “But you had this cute little frown right above your cute little nose. I was only trying to get a cute little hand job—you were so caught up you wouldn’t even have noticed.”

  “Oh? You’re that small?”

  “Now you’re just being insulting.”

  “So?” He was trying to run her off again, or at the very least distract her from her purpose. “What are you being when you pull stupid stunts like that?” Without waiting for an answer, she scooted closer, tilting the laptop so he had a better view of the screen. “Here’s the next few weeks. Why don’t we set targets—”

  “I can’t do this, Jane,” Griffin said.

  Anxiety gripped her stomach, which did not do good things to the margaritas still sloshing inside. If he came to the point where he flat-out refused to work instead of just doling out excuses, she’d have to face that she’d failed yet again. The flat of her palm pressed her roiling belly. Word would get around, would get back to her father, would have Ian Stone spreading icing on the cakes that were the stories he’d already told about her. “C-can’t do what?”

  “Can’t look at the calendar on the screen. The angle’s wrong and the light’s crappy.”

  She let out a silent breath. “Oh. Okay.” With the laptop set aside again, she reached for the briefcase at her feet and rummaged for the paper calendar she carried with her. It was smaller than a paperback book, and when she began fumbling through the pages to find the correct month, Griffin pulled it from her hand.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, giving her a sharp look. His noninebriated self found the correct page right away.

  It meant she had to cozy up closer to him so they could both see. As she moved, the throw slipped from her lap, but she let it fall, because she was warm enough now with her bare leg against the soft denim of Griffin’s jeans and her shoulder pressed to his muscled one. This close, she could breathe in his scent, a citrus-and-sage smell.

  Even without the cushion bounce she went woozy again. Was his a bar soap, she wondered, or was he a man who used body wash in his morning shower? In her mind’s eye she could see him squeezing a liquidy gel into his big hand. Then he’d rotate his palms together, spreading the lubricious stuff around. Once coated, he’d smooth them along the sinewy length of his arms and legs she’d noted when he’d climbed the cliff at their first meeting. Next it would be another round of gel, another wet swirl of his palms, and finally he’d run them over his chiseled pectoral muscles and down the rippled abdominals she’d seen those times he’d been shirtless. After that, his hands would move lower, to that place she’d only felt…

  “Jane?”

  At the sound of his voice, she jumped, yanked from the impromptu fantasy. Her face went red-hot. Don’t get involved with the client. It’s bad for business. Don’t get involved with the client. It’s bad for you.

  She slid a glance at him. He was staring at her with those X-ray eyes of his.

  “What?” Her defensive tone made her wince. “I mean, uh, what?”

  “It’s your birthday,” he said, glancing at the booklet. “I didn’t know.”

  She waved a hand, cursing herself for having written that onto today’s square. Silly of her, really. Silly and emotional. “Why would you? It’s no big deal.”

  He frowned. “Did you do something special today?”

  “Besides waiting around for you to make an appearance?” And drinking a whole lot of margaritas, which now felt like a very bad idea because the effect seemed to be steering her dangerously off course. “No.”

  Now it was his turn to wince. “If you’d said something—”

  “Griffin. I’m a professional with a job to do—and that job is to help you meet your deadline. So whether or not it’s my birthday or Private’s birthday or even your birthday, now is the time for business.”

  “If it was my birthday I’d want a present.”

&n
bsp; “I’ll keep that in mind. Now, about your due date—”

  “Is that why you went to visit your father? Was it for an early birthday celebration?”

  “My father doesn’t celebrate birthdays.” She might be a little bitter about that, which also went to explaining her thirst for the salty, limy beverage she’d imbibed. “He celebrates accomplishments. Accolades. Success.”

  And what did she have to show for being another year older, she thought, her mood going morose again. Thanks to Ian Stone, her career was a mess and her heart had been battered.

  “So how did your visit with your dad go, anyway? You didn’t say.”

  “I was a little late arriving,” she remembered, her face heating. Because she’d stopped at a drugstore for a package of cotton underwear. Her car had been in the restaurant parking lot, and she’d decided against returning to No. 9 at that particular moment in case Griffin had followed. She might have jumped him.

  “I’ll bet he doesn’t care for tardiness.”

  “Yes, well…” She shrugged. “Can we get back to—”

  “That’s why you should have forgone the underwear. You’d have been distracted and thinking more of yourself instead of worrying about meeting dear old dad’s expectations.”

  Her face went hotter. “How did you know…?”

  “That you stopped to replace your panties? Because you’re so predictable, Jane.”

  His condescending tone was wearing on her. “And you aren’t? Let me tell you, I was more surprised that you made it back tonight before I was asleep than I was that you didn’t keep your word and return after lunch.”

  His face closed down. “You shouldn’t count on me.”

  “Don’t I know it.” The only place he’d been reliably showing up had been in the naked-guy fantasies that were occurring way more often than she liked. “We should have been working today.”

  “I had to see someone, all right?” He snapped out the words. “I told you that.”

  “A convenient dodge.”

  “It wasn’t convenient at all, damn it.” His expression was hard. “A guy from the platoon took a plane all the way out here from Philly. He had five hours in L.A.”