Laguna Beach: A Treasure in Laguna (Kindle Worlds Novella)
Page 9
“Okay. Think hard, Jenny. Things could change fast and I want you ready to move forward.” Now he was back to the show. He was an idiot.
She tilted her head, wetting her lips. He had the feeling he was being judged. Letting his hands drop to his sides, he faced her head-on.
“Just people. Just you and me. We have a good time together. We laugh. We’re both outdoorsy. We have similar backgrounds. It could work.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s worth considering.” She kissed his cheek and walked away, not toward the ballroom where the class continued, but in the direction of the main doors leading out of the hotel.
He closed his eyes, feeling the pain, the embarrassment of having his feelings all but rejected. She was too into her own damaged self-image to really engage with him. How deep did the trouble lie? What was it going to take to fix them?
Jenny never took a day off. It might be Sunday, but she was sitting in her office chair at Laguna Gold Pizza, creating her first-week sales report for June so she’d know what to order for the coming week. On Sunday, she usually indulged herself with a mid-morning mocha instead of sticking to water, but otherwise it was business as usual, the noise from her kitchen staff the daily soundtrack of her life. She’d done nothing but work for years, or de-stress from work with her yoga practice.
Friends had told her she needed to learn to delegate, but she liked the sensation of control, so she did it all. Yes, she could have hired more staff, but doing so much herself had given her the funds to buy a home in a place as expensive as Laguna Beach. She could justify it. Licking her lower lip, she considered the evidence. Was she still staffing so lightly to cover her personal bills? She hadn’t bought anything new for her condo in a couple of years. Her fingers went to her computer mouse and clicked away, pulling up her personal investment account. She grabbed a pen to take notes.
Her hand tightened on the pen until she heard the plastic crack. Wow. She hadn’t realized how much money had accumulated since she finished decorating her condo. Following typical investment recommendations, she’d had money transferred to her mutual fund account every month and never checked the balance. If Crowe knew how well she was doing he’d be asking her to invest along with Josh. Her bank account was actually pretty healthy.
She logged out of the website and leaned back in her chair. If she hired a full-time person to manage the front counter, an assistant manager even, she’d have enough time to do the show with Crowe. The thought made her stomach quiver. Come to think of it, she was so flustered after the previous night that she had forgotten to buy her Sunday mid-morning mocha.
Did she want to do the show with Crowe? She’d told herself no for days. A part of her knew she wasn’t good enough for such a dynamic guy. But he’d told her otherwise. He wanted her, and for more than just the show.
Crowe Erickson wanted a girlfriend. He wanted her. The real her. And she hadn’t realized it. Strange that the guy in this relationship was the good communicator. Her leg jumped, the muscle flexing. She massaged the muscle until it calmed.
As for herself, of course she wanted him back. Or wanted to go forward after their one-night stand. If he knew the real her, and still wanted her, well, she’d be a fool to turn him down. Crowe was handsome, intelligent, sexy, funny, accomplished. And had unusually complex interests. How often did you find a guy who cared about more than sports, cars, and his own body? He was actually insightful. And he had great relationships. His older brother would follow him anywhere. His buddy Justin too. He claimed she had charisma but it was really his gift.
Her alarm went off. Time to open the restaurant for business. It might be Sunday but there was no day of rest here. She’d never even wanted one. Today, though, she’d prefer to be getting muddy in that cave with the boys, seeing how a metal detector worked, and trying to be funny. Somehow, that thought didn’t frighten her anymore.
She hit the button on her cell phone to turn off the alarm then went to unlock the front door. At her office door, she paused, reaching for the doorframe to steady herself. Her staff moved around the kitchen as usual, prepping for the day, as if nothing momentous had happened. After three years, she was going to pursue having a boyfriend. And for the first time since she’d started working at sixteen, she was looking at an exciting career change. Treasure hunting, of all things. Who chose to do something like that? Her, that was who! She put her hands to her cheeks, feeling the muscles flex as she grinned. It was about time.
At close of business, she’d write an advertisement for an assistant manager and find someone reliable to hire over the week. Her new life required more free time. More bed time. Her cheeks heated and she felt a funny little flush along her rib cage. Everything was changing, and she actually liked it.
Since she’d forgone her morning mocha, Jenny went across the street during the afternoon lull and bought an ice-blended coffee, dragging her sister along, who had stopped in to ask some accounting questions. Delilah knew coins better than anyone but math, ironically, wasn’t her strong suit.
“Heaven,” Delilah said in the café, taking a deep sip of her whipped cream–free ice-blended mocha. “I’m glad I didn’t live in a world before these drinks existed.”
Jenny perched on one of the stools that looked out of the picture window onto the street. “I cannot believe I’m keeping an eye on my restaurant even when I’m on break.”
“You’re obsessed.” Delilah perched next to her. “You need to get a life.”
“If Crowe gets his show I’ll have a new one,” Jenny said.
“What’s happening?”
“He finished his promo reel, then did a new version. I assume he’s sending it back out.”
“Was I still featured?” Delilah batted her eyes.
“Ask him. He has a phone.”
“Haven’t you seen it?”
“No. We both went to that improv thing last night.”
“How did it go?”
“I didn’t stay long. The teacher singled me out and I freaked and left.”
Delilah bit back a laugh then said calmly, “How come?”
Jenny shrugged. “I had issues to work out about spontaneity and my sense of humor.”
“You’re still hung up on your old show.”
“You told me I wasn’t funny.”
“When you teased me!” Delilah protested. “Otherwise, you can be funny.”
“Oh.” Had she been so oversensitive to the results of five years of scripted laughs that she’d misinterpreted her own sister? Delilah had always been tough, even as a little kid, and fought back with everything she had, both words and fists. “I thought Crowe was kind of a stalker but he really seems to like me.”
“I’d like to be stalked by something that yummy. Not really, of course. It’s a horrible thing to say. But he seems pretty normal, by Southern California standards, at least.”
“Yeah, too pretty for just about any other place. Honestly, I messed it up bad with him, Delilah, and if he’s willing to give me a second chance, that says a lot about him.”
“So you’re going to?”
“I thought I could bring a pizza over to Justin’s house tonight. At this time of day, he’s at the caves, I’m sure. I think he liked it when I brought the pizza over before, even though I didn’t think he did at the time. I’m terrible at reading him.”
“Just believe he likes you. He said so, right?”
Jenny nodded.
“There you go. Believe, and be yourself. It will all turn out fine.”
Jenny saw the front door of her restaurant open. Taylor dashed out, her blond braids flying around her shoulders. She tilted her body toward the picture window, trying to judge the girl’s expression. “That can’t be good. Why is Taylor leaving? I left her in charge.”
Taylor waited for a Tesla to pass by her, then ran across the street. She slammed open the front door of the café and looked around, wild-eyed.
Jenny pushed off her stool. “Taylor, what’s going on?”
“They found it,” Taylor said, a huge smile spreading across her face. “One of our usual customers came in after his afternoon at Thousand Steps Beach. He said people are saying that Crowe found gold.”
Jenny’s stomach lurched. “It’s too late.” She put her hand to her throat and turned to stare at her sister.
“What do you mean?” Delilah asked.
“He'll be rich. He’ll go off to get his doctorate. Now if I tell him I want him he’ll think it’s about the money.”
“Relax, Jenny.” Delilah rubbed her sister’s back. “He probably found one gold coin or something like that.”
Jenny forced herself to take a deep breath. Exhale. “I get what you’re saying. I mean, treasure hunting is supposed to be hard, not ridiculously easy.”
“Yeah, right?” Delilah said out of the side of her mouth.
Jenny’s brows drew together. “But why would anyone know about it down at the beach if one gold coin was all they found?”
Gamely, Delilah argued on. “It’s not his land. He won’t get all the money even if he found an entire chest of gold. Besides, if he wanted you before, he’ll want you now. He’ll want to share the excitement. You’re getting laid tonight, baby!”
“I’m more worried about security,” Jenny said. She grabbed her sister’s sleeve. “Those three are down there alone with tens of thousands of dollars of equipment and now, maybe some gold. It isn’t safe.”
“I’ll call Uncle Al.”
“Good idea,” Jenny said. “The police should know what might be going on. I’m going to load up a pack of water and go down there and see if I can help.”
“Bring your pepper spray just in case,” Delilah advised. “I’ll make the call and come with you. Do you have an extra pack? We should bring food too, in case they can’t leave. I’ll buy a bunch of muffins and sandwiches.”
“I have the pizza carriers,” Jenny said. “Call Uncle Al right now.”
“What should I do?” Taylor asked, wringing her hands.
“I was going to hire an assistant manager next week,” Jenny said. “Want a promotion?”
Taylor’s big brown eyes widened. She grabbed the hem of her Laguna Gold Pizza T-shirt with her fingertips and pulled it down. “Yes! I would love more responsibility. I have so many ideas!”
Jenny had a momentary sense of panic at that level of enthusiasm, but Taylor was good people. She took a deep breath. “Great. You’re in charge for the rest of the day. Go through the waitress applications and find someone to replace you.” She turned to her sister. “See you in a minute.”
She dashed across the street to load water bottles into her crossbody bag, grateful for Delilah’s food idea. She didn’t want to haul hot pizzas down over two hundred steps and across the sand. Taylor followed her, offering her own backpack so Jenny could take more.
“Is Crowe your boyfriend?” Taylor asked as they worked.
“I don’t know what the future holds.” Jenny flashed a smile.
“It’s nice to see you crushing on someone. You can be kind of—”
“What?”
“Intense.” Taylor waved her hands. “No offense.”
“None taken. I get it.” She’d been a thirty-something woman with no romance in her life. She’d been sleepwalking for three years. “Can you help me with these?”
Taylor and Jenny hurried to her SUV and she drove the short distance to the beach, wishing she had the McHugheses’ security codes so she could walk down their private staircase that ended right by the cave instead of going to the public access point and walking across the beach. She didn’t, so she went down the stairs, balancing her two loads carefully, then started off toward the cave, more grateful than ever for taking the time for her yoga practice and the stamina it gave her.
In front of the fence blocking the McHugheses’ portion of the beach, she saw a small cluster of people. Thor stood behind the fence door, meaty arms across his massive chest. He looked as stern and forbidding as any too-handsome-to-be-real Viking warrior-type could look, but his face melted into relief when he saw her.
“Jenny!” he bellowed, coming to unbar the door.
She pushed through the sunburned and chattering crowd, and fumbled with the clasp of her bag to pull out a water bottle.
“I almost want to pour it over my head,” Thor said as she passed through. He locked the door behind her and snatched the water.
“This is a beach. There’s water right over there. Maybe you should take a swim.” She pointed to the glistening, diamond-studded blue water.
“I can’t leave. It’s been crazy around here.” Thor unscrewed the cap and drank half the bottle down in one long glug. “One kid tried to scale the chain-link fence with me standing right here.”
Jenny glanced at the crowd of about a dozen people watching them from the other side of the fence. “How did anyone find out what happened? There are people reporting the news around town. I was worried.”
“We were idiots. We walked out of the cave and may have, well—” Thor winced. “Done a little dance in view of the main part of the beach.”
“Morons,” Jenny said. “My sister is calling our uncle. He’s a police detective.”
“Great.” Thor wiped his eyes with a Jolly Roger bandanna then shoved it back into his jeans. “Crowe tried to call Richard McHughes and get the name of his security company, but our phones weren’t working in the cave and outside there are so many people listening in, we didn’t dare.”
Jenny stood on her tiptoes to speak into Thor’s ear. “I’m curious to know what you actually found. I’m guessing it wasn’t just another penny.”
“Ha,” Thor said. “There was another trembler. Did you feel it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel most of them, not inside. There’s so much going on in the restaurant that the floor is always wobbling anyway.”
Thor gestured her closer to the cave. They walked to the mouth, hidden behind unkempt green bushes. Shade descended, dropping the temperature a good ten degrees. Usually June was temperate, but the week had been unusually warm. “When we came back down this morning, we found that a small sinkhole had opened overnight, right where you saw the marking and fell in. There was another small earthquake early in the morning.”
“The cave floor didn’t seem very stable.”
“Right. Justin’s got that new metal detector. It works in up to two hundred feet of water. He was too curious to keep following the grid. He stuck it right in the sinkhole. Then the machine went nuts.”
“What did you find?”
“Coins,” Thor said. “California gold coins. And, the decayed remnants of the sack they were in. Doesn’t take much cleaning to see gold. We used up too much of our water supply pouring it over them, but yeah. We struck gold.”
“Is it the bandit cache Crowe was looking for?”
Thor opened his mouth just as shouting ensued from the gate. A young man in his early twenties was pounding and calling out to them. Jenny recognized him, remembered he was related somehow to the McHughes family.
“Do you know him?” Thor asked.
“Just barely. He’s a McHughes relative.”
Thor swore. “We can’t let him in here. If he doesn’t have the keys, he’s not allowed. Mr. McHughes was clear on that.”
“I’ll try to reason with him,” Jenny said. She pulled off Taylor’s backpack and emptied her own bag of most of the water bottles. How had she not noticed the heavy weight around her torso all this time? Her shirt was slick with sweat underneath.
“Jenny Craft,” the young man said, his lips twisting into a sneer as she returned to the fence. “Get off my family’s property.”
“I’m part of the team working here,” she said calmly. “We have permission. It’s Brandon, right?”
Brandon pulled off his ball cap. His thick brush of brown hair glistened with sweat. “Yeah, and I’m a family member. Let me in. I want to make sure the treasure is secure. It belongs to us.”
“That’s ridiculous. You know who I am.”
“It doesn’t matter. No one fights Richard McHughes on anything. Certainly not me.”
Brandon pounded on the gate. “Open up, Jenny, or I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Crowe said, coming out of nowhere to stand beside her. His jaw was taut and he had circles under his eyes. Thor had his camera turned on again and walked up to them, filming.
Brandon threw up his hand. “I do not give permission for this!”
“Yeah, like you don’t want to be on camera,” Crowe said sarcastically. “No one gets through the gate who doesn’t give a release and we don’t have any on us.”
“This is Brandon McHughes,” Jenny told him. “I think he’s Richard’s nephew.”
“That’s right,” Brandon said. “And you’d better not tamper with anything you’ve recorded. If my uncle thinks one solitary piece of gold has gone missing, he’ll sue your thieving ass.”
“Is there really gold?” asked a woman, obviously a tourist with her amusement park T-shirt and fanny pack. “Will you bring some out to show us?”
“No, ma’am,” Crowe said. “It’s not possible.”
Behind the crowd, Jenny saw her sister coming over the sand, followed by their uncle Al and his partner. Off-duty homicide detectives weren’t exactly what they needed, but they’d be able to deliver resources. Both were dressed in long shorts and short-sleeved shirts, yet exuded the authority of their positions in their body language and stern expressions. “We’ll want to unlock the gate about now.”
Brandon smiled a feral grin.
“Not for you,” Jenny added. “For the police.”
Crowe waited until Delilah had reached them before unlocking the gate. “Great, you called in the experts, too. Jenny, you are a great team member.”