by Elise Noble
“I understand. And until I received the card this year, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that I hadn’t consented and then blanked it out. But these gifts… They’re just sinister.”
“Yeah, I have to agree. If the guy was on the up and up, he’d have signed the notes.”
And last, but by no means least, I had to spend two weeks living with Luca, and I was so messed up inside that I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to whack him with a leftover piece of two-by-four or crawl into bed beside him. The sensible part of me, the part that was hanging onto my sanity by one thin thread, understood that both options were out of the question, but if that thread snapped…
Perhaps I should have taken a flight to London.
Vega woof-growled in his sleep, his legs twitching as if he were chasing squirrels in his dreams. Moonlight filtered in through the huge windows, and I pulled the quilt tighter around me. There were no drapes, no blinds. Nothing to stop my stalker from turning into a peeping Tom. Was he close? Did he live on the same street? Shop at the same stores?
At this hour, there was no traffic outside, and if I listened hard enough, I could hear Luca’s quiet breathing. He hadn’t been kidding about sleeping right outside the door. Since there was nowhere open to buy a cot today, he’d folded a couple of blankets in half, added a pillow, and crawled under a spare quilt. He’d slept in far worse places, he assured me, but that still didn’t make the situation okay.
Nothing could make the situation okay.
This room would be one of the guest bedrooms when Aaron’s home was finished, but even so, it was the size of my entire rented apartment. Aaron’s bedroom wasn’t finished yet—it had wires hanging out of the ceiling because Brady was still working—but it would be even bigger, with a dressing room as well as an en suite. After living in a New York studio for years, my brother had craved space, and Jackson Pettit, who’d run the car dealership until he had a heart attack at the age of sixty-three, had offered the building for a steal on the condition that Aaron mowed his lawn every week the way he had when he was a teenager. An opportunity too good to turn down. Aaron hadn’t wanted to take advantage of the old man, but Jackson was friends with Asa, and Asa let slip that Jackson had terminal cancer and just wanted the place to go to someone who’d restore it rather than knocking it down. So Aaron got two cavernous floors plus a roof terrace, a smaller service building that would one day house the law firm, and a falling-down shed.
Amazing how small fifteen thousand feet could feel when I was sharing it with Luca Mendez.
But at least he made coffee. There was a microwave in the half-built kitchen, and Luca knocked on my door at eight o’clock the next morning with a steaming mug.
“You dressed?” he called.
“Yes.”
Mainly because I hadn’t gotten undressed.
“Hope you still take cream and sugar because that’s what I put in it.”
“I do.”
I’d decreased from two spoonfuls to one, but when I’d tried cutting the sugar out completely, it was the worst week of my life. Of course, that had been before last March. I’d since learned that all things were relative.
“How are you feeling? I left you to sleep as long as I could, but if you’re planning to go to work, then you need to get up. Plus I need to use the bathroom.”
Ah, yes. The awkwardness of sharing one bathroom, a bathroom whose door happened to be in the room I was sleeping in. The nasty staff restroom had been demolished now, ready to be overhauled in the next block of plumbing work. The plumber slotted us in during his slow weeks at a discounted rate. At first, there’d been a backup bathroom in Aaron’s trailer, but something had gone wrong with a pipe not so long ago—he did tell me the details, but my eyes had glazed over while he was talking—and he’d had to decide whether to invest money in fixing it or in finishing a nicer bathroom inside. He’d picked the latter, much to Clarissa’s disgust. Oh, she liked the idea of living in a giant, luxurious home, but the interim stage where everything was difficult and a bit icky meant that she and my brother spent most of their time together at her apartment in Coos Bay. I’d been there a handful of times, and it was soulless, just like her.
Brooke! Okay, scratch that final thought from the record.
“Sure, sure. I’ll take Vega outside while you, uh…”
“Shit, shower, and shave.” Sometimes, I forgot just how blunt Luca could be. “But you’re not taking Vega outside alone. Have you forgotten everything we talked about last night?”
“No, but—”
“I’m your fuckin’ shadow. Give me ten minutes.”
Ten minutes was barely enough time to drink my coffee. I still had a mouthful left when Luca walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, and I nearly spluttered it everywhere. Holy heck. He’d always had muscles as a teenager, but this was taking things to a whole other level. That body… It was as if a master craftsman had sculpted every curve and sinew out of marble, inch by painstaking inch, then stretched skin over the top. And Luca had a tattoo? That was new. Ink curved across his chest, over his shoulder, and down his left arm. I took a step forward for a closer look, then quickly stopped myself and screwed my eyes shut. Backed away. Tripped over Vega.
My arms windmilled as I tried and failed to get my balance, then my stomach lurched as I waited for the inevitable thud of klutz meeting concrete. But it didn’t happen. Instead, I got to experience the damp squish of dimwit meeting divine being. When I finally plucked up the courage to open my eyes, Luca’s face was an inch from mine, his tattooed arm around my back like a steel band.
“Th-th-thanks,” I stuttered.
“You okay?”
Absolutely not. My heart was careening around my chest like a bowling ball tossed by an uncoordinated toddler. But at least I didn’t have any bruises.
“I am now.”
Luca grinned, and it wasn’t a “thank goodness Brooke isn’t splattered across the floor” grin, it was a lazy, sexy, “I’m so awesome” grin. Then he seemed to catch himself, and his expression quickly turned serious again.
“You need to watch where you’re going. Neither of us wants to explain an emergency room visit to your brother as well as everything else.”
“Thanks for that stunning piece of advice. I’d never have thought of it myself.”
He chuckled as he set me back onto my feet.
“Still the same old snarky Brooke.”
Could you blame me? Snark was one of the few defences I had against Luca’s charms. I tried to change the subject, but because my brain didn’t fully function at that early hour, I changed it to something even worse.
“You got a tattoo?”
Up close, I saw how detailed it was. The intricate design made it look as if his skin had been peeled back, and underneath were cogs and gears and linkages, steampunk style. I spotted a compass and a clock lurking among the metalwork. The hands were set to ten past six, and the compass pointed west. Was that significant?
Before I could stop myself, I reached out and traced the largest cog. Luca stepped back in a heartbeat.
Dammit, could I act any more inappropriate?
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Yeah, I got a tattoo.”
“I’d better take a shower.”
Before I managed to do anything else stupid, I ran into the bathroom, then snorted out a laugh because Luca had drawn a smiley face in the steam on the mirror. I’d almost forgotten how he used to do that. Whenever I was feeling down, I’d find his messages lurking—a Post-it inside my locker door, a doodle on my notepad, and one morning, his footprints in the snow outside my bedroom window.
How I missed the easy camaraderie we used to have. All that remained was awkwardness plus embarrassment on my part.
I’d left my blow-dryer at home, so once I’d showered, I towel-dried my hair and twisted it back into a lumpy bun. Did it look okay? It would have to do. Luca had closed the bedroom door on his way out, thank goodness, and he’d taken Ve
ga with him as well. The sound of power tools told me Decker had shown up for work, so I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and steeled myself to answer his questions about why I was sleeping in Luca’s bed instead of my perfectly nice apartment. Oh, hell—Deck wouldn’t think Luca had been in it with me, would he? Because that would take some explaining.
When I got out into the great room, I found not only Deck but Brady too, both busy working.
“Hey, Brooke.” Deck saw me and raised a hand in greeting. “Sleep well?”
“Not really.”
“Hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet in your dreams?”
“Huh? What feet?”
Deck chuckled. “Denial’s the best policy, huh? Luca told us all about your mouse problem.” Oh he did, did he? “I had squirrels in the attic a couple years ago. Trapped the critters, but they just kept coming back.”
Brady was balancing on top of a ladder with a pair of pliers in his hand. Wires sprouted out of the ceiling like mutant vines. My brother had decided to go for the semi-industrial look in the great room—exposed ducting, bare light bulbs with decorative filaments, a red brick feature wall with posters of old cars and motoring memorabilia in a nod to the building’s past. His coffee table was made from an old engine block he’d cleaned up, and he’d rescued a bench seat from a 1954 Buick Skylark to use as a couch.
“Don’t tell Brooke your rodent horror stories,” Brady said to Deck. “Or she won’t sleep tonight either. You finished with that saw? I need to shut off the power again.”
“I need fifteen more minutes. Luca asked me to make a holding pen for the dog, and I gotta finish cutting the uprights for the frame.”
Just then, Luca walked in with Vega. He’d put on a T-shirt now, which was both a crying shame and a welcome relief.
“Ready to go to the store?” he asked.
“I’ll just grab my purse.” Outside in the car, I raised an eyebrow. “Rodents?”
“Figured it would be easier to explain a mouse infestation than a stalker.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
“Tell one person in a town this size, and everyone’ll know by the time the bars close. I don’t want the asshole lying low and then coming back in a month or a year when I’m gone. But I did ask Brady to fit a security camera over at your apartment, and Deck’s gonna replace your front door. I’ll set up a bunch of mousetraps to make the cover story look convincing.”
“But I can’t afford—”
Luca held up a hand. “You don’t have to.”
“That’s—”
“I’ll save you the trouble of coming up with some bullshit argument by telling you right now that I’m gonna ignore it.”
Luca was Schrödinger’s Asshole—both sweet and frustrating at the same time. Past experience told me it would be pointless trying to reason with him, but that didn’t make me feel any less guilty for upending his life and ruining his downtime.
13
Brooke
“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Paulo, happy birthday to meeeeeeeeee.”
The rest of us were singing too, but Paulo’s voice eclipsed all sixteen of ours. He was winning in the drinking stakes as well, and as he waved his glass around, half of his cocktail splashed onto the floor of the private dining room. Luckily, it was tiled. A waiter hovered in the background with napkins in his hand and a pained expression on his face.
Unlike some of the town’s long-term residents, Paulo didn’t bear any grudges toward the Peninsula Resort, and that was where he’d decided to hold his birthday party, partly because the view across the beach was fantastic, but mostly, I suspected, because the cocktail list stretched to three pages. He’d started at the top, and halfway down the first page, he showed no signs of slowing.
Luca muttered skyward as Paulo tripped over thin air and fell backward onto his chair.
“Is he always like this?”
“Yup. I already booked him a cab home.”
I’d also swapped shifts with him tomorrow so he could stay in bed and nurse his hangover—he always got a headache after too many cocktails, but he never changed his ways—so I’d limited myself to two cocktails and then switched to water. That wasn’t a bad thing because the prices were eye-watering. And admittedly justified. The Peninsula Resort was the epitome of luxury, all dark wood and marble and chrome with a spa, three restaurants, a business centre, two swimming pools, lush grounds, a private beach, tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, and staff that catered to your every need. Vacationers would stay for two weeks and never leave the resort, which was one reason the locals hated it so much. Not many of those tourist dollars trickled into the local economy. Add in the fact that the private beach had been open to the public under the old owner of the property, an eccentric millionaire who’d only visited once a year to paint watercolour landscapes, plus the fact that the mysterious new owner—who rumour said was an actual billionaire—kept to himself, and a great deal of resentment had built up.
Old suspicions died hard.
But Paulo loved cocktails, and he said we only lived once, so I’d dressed up—in smart pants, not a skirt, because even with Luca by my side, I wasn’t feeling that brave—and come with an open mind. And the place was beautiful.
Paulo had been only too happy for me to bring Luca along, and now we huddled at the far end of the table with Darla, watching in horror as the paper streamers draped around Paulo’s neck dangled perilously close to his birthday candles. He’d just turned twenty-seven, but he approached the event with the glee of an eight-year-old. Darla glanced toward the fire extinguisher tucked discreetly in the corner. Would Paulo live to see twenty-eight?
“Make a wish!” Annie from the hair salon shouted. Paulo was one of her best customers.
“Okay, I wish—”
“Shh, shh! You’re not supposed to tell us.”
He blew out the candles, and everyone who was still vaguely sober let out a collective sigh of relief. Luca and Darla were drinking water too—Darla was teetotal, and Luca said he needed to stay alert. Although the evening was fast heading toward raucous, it had provided a welcome respite from my troubles. Maybe too much of a respite. I’d enjoyed the evening with Luca far more than I had a right to. Yes, he still had that dark, dangerous energy lurking under the surface, but the exterior was more polished now, like a stick of dynamite channelling George Clooney. He’d even worn a dress shirt. An ironed dress shirt.
“Five bucks says he wished for a bottle of Advil,” Darla said.
“Nobody who’s known Paulo for longer than five minutes would ever take that bet.”
“Too bad. What do you think of this place?”
“I’m scared to touch anything in case I leave fingerprint smudges, but it was worth coming just for the view.” On the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was setting in a blaze of pinks and purples and oranges. A lone couple walked on the sand, and the girl threw back her head and laughed at something, wild hair blowing behind her in the breeze. “Maybe I could use sunsets as a theme for next week’s craft classes? Painting for the adults and collage for the kids?”
Darla grimaced. “Please, no glitter.”
“I promise I’ll hide every tube. Think Paulo would mind if I snuck outside to take some pictures?”
“I doubt he’ll even notice. His vision has to be blurred by now.”
“I’ll be back in time for coffee.”
Of course, Luca shadowed me, one hand on the small of my back as he guided me through the door to the beach. The manners were new too, and I felt an irrational stab of jealousy as I wondered where he’d learned them. Who he’d learned them with.
“There aren’t many things I miss about Baldwin’s Shore, but this view is one of them,” Luca said. “I’ve gone weeks where the only water I saw was in the canteen on my belt.”
“I love the sound of the sea. Before all this…this stuff happened, I used to like visiting the beach in the mornings. Not this
beach, obviously, but the one to the north near Turtle Rock.”
I’d take off my shoes and walk barefoot through the sand, scrunching it between my toes. In summer, I’d paddle in the waves that rolled onto the shore or take a bathing suit and swim. Not all the way to Turtle Rock—I wasn’t that brave—just back and forth where a spit curved out to form a sheltered lagoon. When I was a teenager, I’d always wanted to climb the rock with my brother and Luca, but neither of them would let me and I’d probably have chickened out anyway. After all, the turtle was my spirit animal—when life got uncomfortable, I tended to hide away rather than sticking my neck out to face danger.
“We can walk on the beach in the morning if you want.”
That was unexpectedly sweet, but it didn’t solve the long-term problem.
“You’ll be gone in two weeks. If the stalker’s still out there, then a spur-of-the-moment stroll is out of the question.”
“We’ll catch him. Colt’s speaking to the detectives in the Investigation Section, and Brady’s installed a camera outside your apartment.”
True, and he’d also set the lights on a timer so it looked as if I were home. The camera was a motion-activated wireless model that hooked into my Wi-Fi, and when I received an alert, I could log in through an app on my phone to see the feed in real time. I dreaded to think how much that set-up had cost Luca.
“I’m trying to stay positive, but…” I trailed off. How did I explain that I just wasn’t that lucky? “This is a good spot for the photos.”
I only had my phone camera, but it was good enough to capture some half-decent shots of the blazing sky with the waves breaking in the foreground. I might also have snapped a few pictures of Luca when he wasn’t looking. Who knew when he’d show his face in Baldwin’s Shore again? Those images might have to last me for the next eight years.
The wind whipped through my hair, and I shivered from its sudden bite. My sweater was still hanging over the back of my chair in the restaurant.
“Cold?” Luca asked.
“A little.”