by Elise Noble
Which was why I hadn’t told him about what happened in my apartment that night last year. He’d been preparing to sit his finals at law school, and if my stupidity at letting my guard down on a night out had led to him failing, I’d never have forgiven myself. And by the time the exams were over and he’d passed, it was too late for me to spill my secret. He’d only have been hurt that I’d kept it from him in the first place, and I’d never dreamed that it would come back to haunt me a year later.
“Yes, I’m staying at the Crowes’ place.” My turn to sigh. “Thanks for helping.”
4
Luca
What was I doing here? A good question. I could have driven Brooke back to her apartment, moved Vega from Deck’s truck to her car, and crawled back to bed. The veterinarian in Coos Bay would’ve helped to get the dog out when Brooke arrived. He probably had staff for that. But I’d seen the way the new veterinarian in Baldwin’s Shore had looked at her, and I didn’t like it. So no, I didn’t want to take a chance that his colleague in Coos Bay might feel the same way, and yes, I was an asshole.
What had happened to Dr. Stockton, anyway? He’d taken care of the animals in Baldwin’s Shore for as long as I could remember. Had he retired? Or died? I’d have to ask Aaron because Brooke was giving me the cold shoulder again.
My own fault, but I still hated it.
Not for the first time, I wished we could turn back the clock. Wished I’d travelled to Fort Benning two weeks earlier. I’d considered it. My sister had already left to backpack around Europe, my father was being more of a prick than usual, and a cheap motel in Georgia had never been so appealing. But I’d stayed. Because of her.
I’d bunked at the Bartletts’ home, spent too much time with Brooke, got too close, and ended up hurting her. Now I had to live with the consequences.
“Want to pick up food on the way?” I asked.
“Do we have time?”
“If you’re hungry, we have time. Is the Steak ’n’ Shake still open?”
“Viola May’s gonna run that place till the day she dies.”
“At least someone’s stuck around. What happened to Beer Me Up?”
That place had been a Baldwin’s Shore institution. Skip, the owner-slash-barman, had rolled into town when I was seven years old, along with his conspiracy theories and a crow named Barbara that sat on his shoulder like a pirate’s parrot and squawked at anyone who came near. When she died, he’d had her stuffed, and she took up residence in a glass cabinet behind the bar, glaring out from her spot between a leprechaun perched on a rainbow and a chunk of metal Skip swore came from a spaceship. But when I’d driven past on the way to rescue Brooke, the bar’s name had been changed to Applejack’s. Applejack’s. Sounded like a place that served fancy cocktails and designer peanuts.
“Well, Skip got busted for serving alcohol to a minor…”
“Busted by who?”
“Uh, Colt.”
“Colt busted Skip? But Colt started drinking Pilsner at Beer Me Up the day he turned sixteen.”
Which, by Skip’s twisted logic, was just fine because sixteen was the legal drinking age in Germany. When drinking German beer, do as the Germans do—that was his philosophy.
“A couple staying over at the new resort kicked up a fuss. Their son got so drunk he couldn’t even walk, and the boy was only fifteen. Tall for his age, but Skip didn’t ask for ID.”
“So maybe the parents should have kept a closer eye on the kid?”
“That’s what Sheriff Newman said, but they kept complaining and complaining, so he figured the easiest thing to do would be to have Colt pick up Skip on a misdemeanour and then dismiss it once the idiots had gone back to LA.”
“LA? Figures. But that still doesn’t explain how Beer Me Up became Applejack’s.”
“Because when Colt fingerprinted Skip, he realised that he wasn’t Skip at all. He was a fugitive who’d been on the run for two decades.”
“A fugitive? What’d he do, rob a liquor store?”
“No, an armoured car.”
What the fuck? Skip had acted like everyone’s crazy uncle. Sure, he kept a baseball bat behind the bar, but robbery? Shit, my mom had worked for him as a barmaid, and she used to take me there to pet the crow.
“Are you serious?”
“Yup. He worked for the armoured car company, and when his partner stopped for an emergency bathroom break, he hit him over the head and drove off with the truck and four million dollars’ worth of gold.”
“What happened to the loot? He sure didn’t spend it on the bar.”
“Nobody knows. He wouldn’t say. And after he went to prison, a girl from Seattle bought the joint and turned it into Applejack’s. It’s nice. Classier, and a hundred times better than the Cave.”
I wasn’t sure Applejack’s was my kinda place, but you know what was nice? That Brooke was talking to me in whole sentences. And she was right about the Cave—or the Cavan Arms, as it was more formally known—which was the other bar in Baldwin’s Shore. The place had been run by the O’Donnells for three generations. Sean O’Donnell, the youngest of the clan, was my age, and he was the jerk who’d come up with “crater face.” So that meant if I wanted to go out for a drink, I was stuck with Applejack’s whether I liked it or not.
The Steak ’n’ Shake came into view on the left, and apart from the picnic tables that had appeared on a square of patchy grass at the edge of the parking lot, the place looked exactly as I remembered—a low brick building with a blinking neon sign on a pole outside. Through the big glass windows, I could see the turquoise vinyl booths where I used to sit for hours with Brooke, Aaron, and Addy, making a single milkshake last all evening because it was the best way to avoid going home and I was too poor to buy another.
The lady behind the register hadn’t changed either. Viola blinked a couple of times, then ran around the counter and crushed me in a hug.
“Luca Mendez! Nobody told me you were in town.”
“Only got back yesterday.”
“Well, it was about time you came back to take care of that father of yours. Family’s important. And is that young Brooke in the car with you?”
I ignored the first comment. “Yes.”
“Aw, I always said you’d make a lovely couple.”
“I’m only driving her to Coos Bay as a favour. Her dog’s sick.”
Viola’s face fell. “That’s a disappointment, and the dog too, but I’m sure you’ll see sense. Girls like that don’t come along every day. What can I get for ya?”
I’d almost forgotten how persistent Viola could be. Sweet, but persistent. Even if she had the wrong end of the stick, she’d use that stick to push you around to her way of thinking. But since I didn’t plan on staying in town for long, the smartest thing to do was nod, smile, and order our food.
“Three cheeseburgers and fries, plus two chocolate milkshakes and a bottle of water.”
Viola winked at me. “I’ll slip some cookies in too. Good to see you again, Luca.”
Back in the car, Brooke’s earlier chill soon evaporated.
“Three cheeseburgers? Didn’t they feed you on your top-secret mission?”
“One of them’s for Vega, and it wasn’t top secret. I was running security at a new Eritrean gold mine.”
And then the mine’s owner had fallen out with the government, the project got put on hold, and all the foreign employees were kicked out of the country with twelve hours’ notice. I’d barely had time to pack my bags before I got escorted to the airport. Hence ending up on a mattress in Aaron’s half-built home. I hadn’t had time to make an alternative plan, and then I’d promised to lend a hand with the construction work…
“Vega’s not meant to eat cheeseburgers. The lady at the shelter said to feed him on kibble.”
“Do you have any kibble with you?”
“No, but—”
“Look at those eyes. You want a cheeseburger, don’t you, boy?”
“Luca…”
&nbs
p; “How can you say no to that face?”
Brooke folded her arms. “Fine. He can have a small piece of cheeseburger.”
“How about fries?”
She just glared at me, and my testicles shrivelled.
“It’s a no on the fries?”
At least the dog liked me.
And so did the orthopaedic veterinarian, it turned out. Carly was a pretty redhead in her mid-thirties who’d moved to Coos Bay after her divorce. And the more she smiled at me, the more Brooke scowled.
Interesting.
And also awkward.
“It should be straightforward to fix,” she told Brooke. “It’s good that you brought Vega in so quickly. He can stay overnight, and I’ll operate in the morning.”
“And you’ve done operations like this before?”
“Many, many times. Cranial cruciate ligament injuries are one of the most common orthopaedic problems we see in dogs.”
“How long will it take him to recover?”
“Five to six months, and it’s imperative that his movement be restricted at first in order for the repair to heal. He’ll need to be confined to one room, or crated if you leave him unattended. Can you remove the furniture in case he gets tempted to jump?”
“Uh, not really. My apartment’s really tiny. He’ll have to stay in the living room, but I only have a couch.”
“You could put cardboard boxes on the seats to discourage him.”
“I will, I’ll do that.” Brooke nodded. “How long until he can climb stairs again?”
“As long as everything’s healing as it should, around four months.”
Brooke chewed her lip, and I’d seen that look in the past, right before she ran out of my bedroom crying. Hell, I’d never forget those tears.
“I’ll come over and carry him into your apartment whenever you need me to,” I told her.
“For how long? Aren’t you leaving town again?”
“You two don’t live together?” Carly asked. “I just assumed…”
“Luca’s a friend of my brother’s,” Brooke told her. “We barely even know each other.”
Ouch. That hurt. That really fucking hurt.
“Okay, I understand. If you keep Vega confined and perform mobility exercises every day—I’ll give you notes on those—that can help to speed up the recovery. Do you have access to a swimming pool? Hydrotherapy can be beneficial.”
Brooke shook her head “no,” and she looked so miserable that I wanted to grab a spade and dig a damn pool myself.
“Where can I get a crate?” she asked softly.
“The pet store might have one, or you could try Isaac back in Baldwin’s Shore. He keeps one or two to lend to patients. I’d offer myself, but all of mine are being used right now. And I understand from Isaac that you’d like to work out a payment plan?”
“Is that possible?”
“I’ll accept half up front, a quarter at the end of next month, and a quarter the month after?”
I’d have paid the whole amount right then, but Brooke was both proud and stubborn and I knew she’d turn the money down. I also knew that I’d be calling the office to pay the outstanding balance before the next installment was due. As she’d said, I didn’t plan on sticking around, and if I wasn’t there, she couldn’t argue with me, could she? On the way to the truck, I wadded up the phone number Carly had slipped into my hand and dropped it into a trash can. Maybe in a different time, in a different city, I’d have been tempted, but not here… Not with the sweet scent of Brooke’s vanilla shampoo still lingering in the air.
The trip back was quieter without Vega panting in the back seat. Brooke spoke to Isaac, and he promised to have a crate available for her tomorrow morning. I offered to borrow the truck again to pick it up, and she shrugged, which I took to mean “yes.”
The sky was darkening by the time we got back, but my suggestion that we stop at Mary’s Coffee House—a family enterprise that morphed into Papa’s Pizza in the evenings—on the way was met with a frown.
“I just want to go home.”
“You need me to move your couch? Make space for that crate?”
“I can do it.”
“I don’t doubt that for a moment, but do you want a hand?”
“No.”
Great. We’d graduated to one-word answers. Were we destined to dance awkwardly around each other for the rest of our lives?
“So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me when you’re ready to go?”
“I don’t even have your number.”
“Give me your phone.”
“Just give me the number. I can type it in.”
Out of stubbornness? Or because there were things on her phone she didn’t want me to see? I hoped for the former. Stubbornness, I could handle, but we’d trusted each other once, and the thought of that trust being gone for good left me with an ache worse than a bullet wound—I knew that from experience.
Still, I recited the number and then waited as Brooke climbed the steps to her shoebox of an apartment. The home Aaron planned to build for her was ten times the size, and I’d do my part for as long as I was in town. Muscle in exchange for a roof over my head—that seemed like a fair deal to me.
Brooke paused at the top of the stairs that went up the side of the garage, then bent to pick something up. What was it? A package? No, more like a vase of flowers. The headlights lit up the white blooms. Fuck. Who was sending her flowers? The overly attentive vet? A secret admirer? Or a boyfriend I wasn’t aware of? All three options sucked, and worse, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
5
Brooke
“You okay, hun?” Darla asked two minutes after she arrived at work.
My boss was entirely too perceptive at times. Kind, but too observant for comfort. Was it the black circles under my eyes? The tear streaks? My pale skin? Because I’d tried to cover those up with make-up. Or was it the fact that my hands wouldn’t stop shaking?
Since Adeline, who’d been my bestie since elementary school, was still living in Coos Bay, Darla was the closest thing I had to a girlfriend in Baldwin’s Shore. We’d first met a little over four years ago when Darla started work as a live-in nurse for the oldest Mr. Baldwin—yes, one of those Baldwins—and I was still caring for Nonna. We used to bump into each other when I took Nonna for walks by the beach. Well, pushes, because after two strokes she had to use a wheelchair. But she still loved to watch the sea. To listen to the waves. To feel the salt spray on her face. Mr. Baldwin insisted on walking along the coastal path every morning, even toward the end when he could barely manage to shuffle fifty yards with help, and Darla used to hold his arm so he didn’t trip. Mr. Baldwin was a kind old soul, not like most of his grandchildren. I’d gone to school with all five of them, and the only one I cared to spend longer than thirty seconds with was Sara. Maybe because underneath the Baldwin veneer, the two of us had something in common—we’d both lost our parents at a young age. Both from automobile accidents too, although rumour said her parents had been forced off the road deliberately.
And while I’d been blessed to live with Nonna, she’d been taken in by her uncle, Easton Baldwin Jr—EJ—plus his second wife and his poisonous offspring. I guess Parker was okay—he was the older of the two boys and not out-and-out obnoxious like Easton the Third—but their two sisters took after EJ’s viper of a first wife and reminded me of Cinderella’s siblings.
After Mr. Baldwin died, Darla had stuck around in town and opened up a craft store on Main Street, and when I moved back to Baldwin’s Shore in a hurry and the only job advertised was a waitressing position at the Cave, she’d offered me a job as a retail assistant, even though she couldn’t really afford it at the time. I’d almost cried with relief. After my nightmare in Coos Bay, the thought of waiting on the men who frequented the Cave—and it was mostly men—left me nauseated.
Truth be told, I’d figured that I’d only be at the Craft Cabin short-term. A stopgap to tide me over until I’d
licked my wounds and found something better. But those wounds refused to close, and a year later, I was still there. Right now, I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Years ago, I’d set myself a goal to be happy, and with that goal had come dreams of a college education, a high-powered job, a swanky apartment, and vacations in the Caribbean.
Crawling back to Baldwin’s Shore had left me feeling like a failure.
As if I’d lost at the game of life.
The people close to me? They’d all won.
My brother was a lawyer, Luca had travelled the world, and Addy’s social life would make an A-lister envious. Romi had battled her demons and made her fortune by walking runways from New York to Milan. Colt had gotten a job in law enforcement. They all adulted properly. Knew what they wanted and moved mountains to get it.
I taught five-year-olds how to make monsters out of modelling clay.
But at least through working for Darla, I’d rediscovered an old love of painting, and just as it had helped me to heal as a child, it was helping me again now. By turning my feelings into brushstrokes, by pouring the darkness inside onto canvas, I found I could breathe again. Of course, I never showed those paintings to anyone. Instead I destroyed them. Crumpled them up, shredded them, sometimes even burned them. It was my own personal therapy.
And it had been working until Cupid raised his bow again.
Now I’d been pushed back to square one, and all I could do was paste on a smile and paint landscapes in public.
Three of us worked at the Craft Cabin now—Darla, me, and Paulo. Three-quarters of our sales came from online, and when we weren’t packaging up goods or making tutorial videos for the store’s website and YouTube channel, we ran classes for locals plus the occasional tourist as well as manning the register. Paulo was the tech guru, Darla was amazing with her hands, and I’d discovered I quite enjoyed teaching.