by JoAnn Ross
“I’d have to check.” If she was only going to have this brief stolen time with Gabe, Charity didn’t want to waste a minute.
“Of course Gabe’s invited, too.”
“Word travels fast.” They’d been back only a few hours, yet somehow Kelli had managed to hear that she and Gabe were a couple.
Charity knew her thoughts were written on her face when Kelli laughed. “Mary Chapman just happened to mention you when I was checking out with my groceries this morning. Then Amber at the Grateful Bread filled me in when I stopped to pick up some sourdough rolls and those scrumptious blueberry coffee beans they sell every summer. I have to admit I was surprised to hear Gabe was still in town, since he seemed as if he couldn’t wait to leave after the wedding.”
“He got sidetracked by a dog.”
“Not just a dog, to hear both Mary and Amber tell it. And I have to say, I couldn’t be happier. Gabe really needs someone in his life. And heavens, everyone’s been waiting for you to give up that silly moratorium.”
Everyone?
“You’ll have to forgive my bride,” Cole said. “Now that she’s experienced the true bliss of matrimony with the perfect husband, she wants everyone else to get hitched.”
Kelli didn’t deny the accusation. “You can’t blame me for wanting all my friends to be as happy as I am.” She went up on her toes and kissed that allegedly perfect husband. It was only a quick peck, but Charity could feel the genuine affection between the couple.
Just as she experienced a little prick of something that felt too much like envy for comfort.
After putting off the dinner invitation for now, Charity set up a morning appointment to bring the Lab over to their house one morning later that week.
That settled, she was preparing to leave when Amanda came downstairs dressed in her belted khaki shorts and a forest green twin set, the cardigan tied over her shoulders. Instead of the sandals she’d worn the day of the makeover, she was wearing an obviously new pair of snowy white sneakers.
“I’ve made a decision,” she announced.
“Oh?” Charity asked carefully.
“You were right. About me always losing myself in my husbands.”
“I don’t remember saying that.” Though she had admittedly thought it.
“I know. But I could hear it in your tone when you asked if I really wanted to sail around the world with Benton. Which I did. And still do,” she admitted. “But since he seems to have sailed off without me, I’ve decided to make lemons out of lemonade—”
“I think it’s the other way around,” Charity murmured.
“Whatever.” The diamond on her left hand flashed and caught the sunlight, splitting it into rainbows. “My point is that I might as well use this time wisely to start living my own life. Just in case I don’t manage to salvage this marriage.”
“That’s very adult of you.” And so not at all like her mother.
“Isn’t it?” Amanda sighed. Then squared her shoulders, as if going into battle, and flashed a Cheshire cat smile as she put on a pair of oversized, rhinestone-studded, black-framed Chanel sunglasses that made her look a bit like a glitzy Jackie O. “Better late than never.”
48
Las Vegas
Las Vegas’ Fremont Street had, for many years, been most people’s picture-postcard image of the city. It had also appeared in many movies, including a chase scene in the James Bond flick Diamonds Are Forever. Once known as Glitter Gulch, due to all the neon lights luring tourists into the casinos, the street fell onto hard times due to competition from the brighter, bigger, flashier Strip.
Just when it looked as if the giant neon cowboy towering over the street might be waving a final good-bye, Fremont Street was transformed into a pedestrian mall covered with the world’s largest LED-screen canopy that flashed light shows over tourists’ heads. Unfortunately, thanks to heaters and air conditioners keeping the street at a constant seventy degrees, it had also become a popular place for hookers to hang out.
Streets in Las Vegas had never grown old gracefully. Just a block off Glitter Gulch, the neighborhood turned dicey again. This area was not one Jack Craig had ever visited before. Nor did he ever intend to visit again. If he could help it.
A monsoon storm was threatening on the horizon. Jack could feel the electricity in the air. Taste it, along with the metallic sting of dread, on his tongue. The dark clouds boiling in from the western desert echoed the turmoil churning in his gut.
The detective agency was located on the second floor of a narrow building squeezed between a seedy souvenir store and a bail bondsman. The peeling walls, which could use a coat of paint, were lined with black metal files, the tops of which were piled high with dog-eared manila folders, lined yellow pads, and newspapers.
A portable TV attached to one wall with a metal bracket was tuned to a Chicago Cubs game. Apparently the curse of the goat was going strong, because the Cubs were losing to Washington fifteen to three.
Jack did not want to be here today. But if he wanted to have sex ever again in this lifetime, and he definitely did, he had no choice.
“Mr. O’Keefe?” he asked the man seated behind the desk, who was eating from a white take-out container of Chinese food. Which explained the spicy aroma of kung pao shrimp pervading the office. Or maybe it was drifting up through the vents from the restaurant on the street level.
The guy looked up. “That’s me. And you would be Jack Craig.”
Jack inwardly cringed. With three car dealerships and commercials running around the clock on all the local television and radio stations, both his name and face were familiar.
He stood in the doorway, wondering, not for the first time, what he was doing even looking for Crystal Harper. The woman was nothing but trouble. She’d been, for six roller-coaster weeks, his own personal curse. A curse that once he’d managed to escape, he’d put entirely out of his mind.
Until he’d gotten the cockamamy idea to share his life story with his new wife.
“I am. But I’d like to keep this confidential.” Which was why he hadn’t asked his attorney for the name of a respectable detective.
“No problem. I get that a lot.” The man’s voice had a Midwestern flatness, which along with the framed aerial photo of Wrigley Field on his wall suggested that he, like nearly everyone else in the city, had come from somewhere else. Many seeking a fresh start and the anonymity Jack would’ve given anything for today.
“So, what brings you all the way downtown?” O’Keefe asked, appearing unimpressed by Jack’s local celebrity status. “Using my amazing detective powers of deduction, I’m guessing you’re not here to sell me a car.”
Jack glanced over at the single wooden chair on the visitors’ side of the desk. “Would you mind if I sat down?”
“Oh, sure.” The detective, such as he was, waved a chopstick at the chair. “Just put those papers anywhere.”
This could well be, next to getting involved with the whacked-out woman in the first place, probably the worst decision Jack had ever made.
“It’s a little complicated,” he said as he carefully moved the jumbled stack of papers from the chair seat to the cluttered top of a low, horizontal filing cabinet.
“Most of my cases are. If they were easy, people wouldn’t need me.” O’Keefe stabbed another bite and gave Jack a long look as he chewed. “You want some lunch?” he asked around a mouthful of shrimp and vegetables. “The place downstairs delivers.”
“No, thank you.” Jack’s stomach was already roiling from nerves. “There was this woman.”
“My cases usually involve a woman.” The detective looked up at the television again. Shook his head and sighed. “Damn goat.”
Pointing a black remote at the screen, he turned off the game, put aside the carton of food, and gave Jack his full attention. Although the office might not inspire confidence, Jack viewed intelligence in the detective’s dark eyes.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Daniel O’Keefe, owner and see
mingly sole employee of O’Keefe and Associates Detective Agency, suggested. “Then we’ll see what we can do to solve your problem.”
Jack took a deep breath and thought back on the tears, threats, and recriminations he’d been treated to this morning instead of a proper breakfast. Then began the long, painful story from the beginning.
49
“Your Marine has an amazing amount of patience,” Sedona said as she and Charity stood at the kitchen window of the lodge, watching the kids splashing in the lake.
“He’s not my Marine.”
“Tell that to someone who didn’t see you driving home at dawn,” said Kara, who’d ducked into the kitchen in search of a piece of the blackberry pie Sedona had shown up with for lunch.
Charity glanced around to make sure they were alone. “That’s the trouble with a small town. You can’t get away with anything.”
“Tell me about it.” Kara took a bite of pie. “Oh, yum. Okay, if I drop dead this minute, I’ll die a happy woman. If more cops knew about this, the bottom would drop out of the doughnut business overnight.”
“It’s the cream cheese that puts it over the top,” Sedona said. “Most people just use cornstarch or tapioca.”
“It’s definitely delicious,” Charity said, eager for the change of topic. “The best pie I’ve ever eaten, and if your other recipes are anything like this, adding pies to your menu is definitely going to be a hit.”
“Thank you,” Sedona said. “And there’s no point in trying to sidetrack the conversation, because it isn’t going to work. Getting back to your Marine, I have to admit that perhaps it’s because I grew up on a commune with parents who still keep copies of their police mug shots for war protesting in the family scrapbook, but I wouldn’t have expected a warrior type to be so good with kids.”
“Sax is great with Trey,” Kara said, referring to her son. “And he was a SEAL, which is about as much of a warrior type as they come.”
“Got me there,” Sedona said easily.
“The kids do seem to love him,” Charity said, watching as a pair of tweens strolled by in their two-piece swimming suits, trying out their flirting skills.
The girls especially had responded to Gabe, which was totally understandable. After all, he epitomized tall, dark, and dangerous. Yet the man inside that ripped body was definitely turning out to be more complex.
“How about you?” Kara asked as Peanut, wanting to join the fun, leaped into the water, causing a tidal wave of a splash.
“I’m attracted.” She knew better than to try to lie to a woman who’d learned interrogation tactics at the FBI Academy.
“Who wouldn’t be? He’s nearly as luscious as this pie.” Kara took another bite and sighed happily.
“You’re engaged.”
“True. And I adore Sax. But I’m not dead. And your Marine’s the type of raw, dangerously compelling male a woman notices.”
“It’s just sex.” She decided against pointing out yet again that he was not her Marine, since she suspected neither woman would believe her.
“And your point is?” Sedona asked.
Gabe’s Shih Tzu, not to be outdone by his oversized BFF, followed Peanut into the lake. Then dog-paddled over to the little girl—Angel, Charity remembered—who’d been carrying him around like a stuffed toy since Gabe had first shown up at the camp with him.
“It can’t go anywhere.” She’d gone into this affair with her eyes wide open. No strings. No entanglements. No regrets.
“That’s what I said in the beginning about Sax,” Kara said.
“And look how that turned out,” Sedona pointed out.
“This is different,” Charity argued. “Mine’s a summer affair. That’s all.”
“Like A Summer Place,” Sedona said.
“Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee,” Kara said approvingly. And Kim Novak and William Holden slow dancing beneath those Japanese lanterns in Picnic, which is the best movie dance ever. Much hotter than Dirty Dancing, which was admittedly cool but, except for Patrick Swayze pulling Baby out of the corner, not all that romantic.
“Oh, and don’t forget Long Hot Summer.” She looked out the window at Gabe, who was standing on the bank of the lake talking to Angel’s brother. “Actually, now that I think about it, except for the difference in coloring, your Marine reminds me a bit of Newman’s Ben Quick. More the charisma than the looks.”
People who first saw the badge and gun belt would probably be surprised to learn that Kara was a romantic who had a weakness for fifties and sixties romances. Which was why, when it was her turn to choose the DVDs for their monthly girls’ spa night at home, they usually ended up watching movies about star-crossed lovers who, after surviving myriad soap opera–type melodramatic challenges, ended up walking into the sunset to live happily ever after.
Except for last month’s pick, Splendor in the Grass, where Warren Beatty’s rejection gave poor teenage Natalie Wood a nervous breakdown.
“Real life isn’t like the movies,” she felt obliged to point out.
“Unfortunately,” Kara and Sedona both said.
Charity couldn’t argue.
50
Johnny was standing on the bank of the lake, snapping away with his new camera as Angel splashed her way through the beginners’ swim test. Considering she hadn’t even known how to float at the beginning of camp, and had been afraid of the water last year, this summer she’d leaped right in and seemed to be having a great time.
He’d been worried that his mother might come back, but so far, it had been five days since he’d seen her in the woods and she seemed to be staying away. Which he’d decided was a good thing because as much of a magpie as Angel was, if she knew Crystal was back, she would never have been able to keep the secret.
“Your sister’s looking good out there,” a familiar deep voice behind him offered. It was the Marine. Gabe, he’d said to call him, although since that seemed too weird, Johnny didn’t take him up on it.
“Yeah. I think she’s going to pass.”
“With flying colors. She’s taken to swimming like all those ducks she’s been photographing.”
“That was nice of you to say that about her pictures. She can’t stop talking about how she’s going to go to Africa and photograph lions when she grows up.”
“Everyone needs a goal. And I wasn’t being nice. It was the truth. The kid’s got a good eye—she just may make it.” He looked down at the camera Johnny was holding in his hand. “You’re not so bad yourself. You capture moods more than a lot of pros I’ve worked with.”
“Right.” It was one thing to toss compliments to a little kid. But Johnny hadn’t just fallen off the crab boat.
“Seriously. That one of your sister putting the necklace on my dog is close to professional quality.”
Angel had made the necklace by stringing together wildflowers she’d picked from the butterfly garden Fred and Ethel had planted. The bright red and yellow flowers had shown up really well against the dog’s black fur. Johnny had been pleased with the way he’d managed to capture the shot as the dog gazed up at his sister with what appeared to be adoration in those round brown eyes.
The compliment, which seemed genuine enough, shouldn’t give him so much pleasure. But it did.
He shrugged, trying for nonchalance, as Angel dived off the board, disappeared beneath the water, then, just when Johnny started to worry, bobbed up like a cork. “Thanks.”
“I was about your age the first time I picked up a camera.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It changed my life.”
Johnny wasn’t comfortable talking with anyone about Angel or his life. But he also wasn’t used to people talking to him like they actually cared about him and what he had to say. And he was curious.
“How?”
“It’s a kinda long story. I didn’t exactly come from a stable home. My parents were both drunks.”
Johnny knew something about having a parent who drank. “That’s tough.�
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“Yeah. It was. I wasted a lot of years being angry.”
And couldn’t Johnny identify with that?
“I used to run, too. Like you do. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it didn’t.”
Johnny was surprised the guy had been watching him. Then wondered why.
“How about you?” Gabe asked. “Does it help?”
“Maybe I just run because I like it.”
It was Gabe’s turn to shrug. Damned if the kid’s wall wasn’t thick and high. Which made sense since he’d undoubtedly spent a lifetime building it. It wouldn’t be easy to break through any time soon. Probably not even in the length of time left. But although Gabe was sure all the campers came with their own compelling stories, there was something about this particular teenager that tugged at him. Enough that he’d never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t try.
“Whatever works,” he said with studied nonchalance. “Anyway, I used to get in trouble a lot. Mostly for fighting. I was one of those tough kids who was perfectly balanced.” He paused, waiting until the kid finally caved and looked up at him. “I had a chip on both shoulders.”
Okay. So much for that try. The teen didn’t even crack a smile.
Undaunted, Gabe forged on. “I got in trouble with the police once.”
That drew another sideways glance.
“I was out with some older kids, which, I want to point out, is no excuse. Because I knew what we were doing was wrong. We got drunk, hot-wired a golf cart, and drove it all around the greens at the country club.”
He didn’t add that while he’d been down on his knees, puking his guts out into the toilet of the small-town two-cell Lowcountry jail, he’d wondered what the hell his parents liked about liquor and vowed never to follow his parents down that dead-end alcoholic path.
“Fortunately, since one of the kids’ dad was a lawyer, he pulled some strings and we got off with paying restitution and community service. Even better for me, the sheriff’s brother-in-law was the newspaper editor, who needed someone to photograph that night’s high school football game after his sports reporter moved on to a job in Charleston. The guy stuck this old thirty-five-millimeter camera in my hand and told me to go out, and if I got anything decent, he’d pay me for each shot he used.”