On the Market (The Ballard Brothers of Darling Bay Book 1)

by Rachael Herron

  “I’m coming down.” She stretched out her legs and considered not sending Natasha pictures of the aerie. Don’t be ridiculous. She snapped three and sent them before she could change her mind.

  Back down the ladder, inside the main room that made up the second floor, Felicia stood at the window that faced due west, staring at the water far below. “This is insane,” she murmured. “Completely insane.” She took another photo of the way the trunk of the tree went right up through the roof and hit send.

  “Amazing, right? When Mrs. Maupin still lived here, she had her bed up here, instead of the bedrooms downstairs. It’s a problem that the one and only bathroom is downstairs, but with a big remodel, there might be enough room to partition this and build one up here.”

  He sounded like a realtor, but there was something more in his voice. Felicia turned to look at him. His hand rested on the tree trunk and his gaze was soft. He saw it, too. The enchantment of it.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “For the show?”

  God.

  The unsaid words rang in her head: For me. This is perfect for me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  An hour later, Felicia was back at the Cat’s Meow, the only bed and breakfast in Darling Bay. It was Felicia’s worst nightmare when it came to lodging—the entire place was filled with stuffed cats and a surprising number of stuffed sheep, most of which made noises (terrible, mechanical wails and baaaas) if she happened to brush against one, which seemed completely inevitable. The lobby smelled like strawberry jelly, and the scent continued, like bad theme music, into her small room. She wouldn’t have stayed if there had been a single other place in town, but apparently the one and only hotel was under construction. The crew, if they did the show, would have to stay a few miles down the coast.

  There wasn’t even a television, and while in the past that had been a deal-breaker for her, it did have Wi-Fi, which meant she could still watch her shows on her iPad.

  Felicia was good at making television shows because she loved watching them. All of them. Escaping into fantasy had been her favorite part of growing up (watching alone while her mother was at work, lying on her stomach on the orange shag rug), and escaping into fantasy was her favorite part of the job now. Sure, when she wasn’t on the road for work, she had friends and a social life, but her favorite thing was still television. The world had gotten easier to navigate when it became possible to watch TV wherever she had an internet connection.

  When Felicia had checked in, the strawberry-scented innkeeper had insisted the Wi-Fi was fast. “Yes, dear, I play lots of solitaire games on the AOL Google thing, and it just zips along. The password is password but please don’t share that with anyone.”

  The balcony of the room made the bed and breakfast almost bearable. It didn’t have a great view—only her white rental car and the low-slung blue house across the street were visible—but it was close enough to the water that she could hear the gulls’ cries and the boats’ low horns. The fog that had been threatening to roll in earlier now cloaked her in damp and drifted down the darkening street like something out of a crime novel. The air was chilly, but pleasantly un-strawberry scented. An old man walking a dog the approximate size of a small horse waved up at her, and she waved back.

  That was what they did in this town. They waved at each other.

  In LA, you only got waved at with a middle finger.

  The Maupin house.

  There were one million reasons she couldn’t have it, first and foremost being she wasn’t in the market for a house. She’d been saving for one, yes. She had a condo, which was a fine place to sleep in. It was well appointed with bland furnishings that she’d always meant to personalize and close enough to work that the commute wasn’t usually longer than an hour.

  But she lived there. Ten hours south. Her job was in LA. Her friends were there. Her whole life.

  Tension knotted in her stomach and she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the cold iron railing.

  She couldn’t buy a house in Northern California, no matter how much it matched the house of her dreams. And she especially couldn’t buy a house that her network would probably want to purchase for the show. Before Liam had driven her back to her car, she’d taken more photos of the treehouse and responsibly sent them to Natasha. She’d asked sensible questions about the plumbing and insulation.

  Felicia lived in LA.

  For the last three shows she’d done for the network, she’d seen more of Natasha than anyone else. Natasha was great. Domineering, loud, and whip-smart, Natasha was a good boss. But she wasn’t really what Felicia would call a friend.

  When was the last time Felicia had gone to book group with the girls? Since Orphan Train? Could it be that long? When was the last time she’d gone dancing with Ruby? Or out to any dinner that wasn’t work related? When was the last time she’d been on a date that was even the slightest bit interesting?

  The image of Liam’s face—so open and serious—as she told him about her and her mother’s treehouse game flashed into her mind. He’d said he was single but did that mean just not-married? Plenty of people were in serious long-term relationships without being married.

  Soon, if this show got the green light, Felicia would be going through applications of women wanting to be the one to buy the house Liam was selling, the one who dated him or one of his brothers as her house was remodeled.

  What if the unknown beautiful woman—of course she’d be beautiful, no point to the show otherwise—what if she scored both Liam and Felicia’s house of dreams?

  What about that idea made her feel so uneasy, exactly?

  Felicia had to get her head on straight. She’d go through some work email. Maybe that would help.

  Damn it. She’d left her computer bag on the backseat of the car. Felicia blinked in surprise—she really was far from home. In LA, she didn’t leave her computer unattended in the car for even a moment. But this was Darling Bay, where boys like the one she was staring at right now—a huge hulk of a kid wearing a red sweatshirt and riding a black bicycle with knobby tires—didn’t commit crime, if Liam was right about that. Two more boys followed him, whooping as they caught air on a speed bump. She’d go get the bag now, as soon as they rode away.

  As Felicia watched, though, the bigger kid slowed down at her rental car. He peered in the driver’s window. He looked up and down the street in all directions but up at her. He tugged at his red baseball cap, pulling it lower, and he straightened the glasses on his face.

  Then, at the encouragement of his bike-riding hoodlum friends, he took a carton of eggs out of his backpack and threw an egg at her car. The other boys cheered. The kid threw two more eggs at her windshield, and then he took careful aim at the stop sign she was parked in front of. The egg smacked the metal with a loud ping. He tossed four or five more eggs at a mailbox and two at his friends who ducked and laughed.

  Liam knew nothing about teens.

  Whatever. It was just eggs, and the car was a rental. She’d pull it through a drive through car wash, if this town had one.

  But then the kid pulled out what looked like a big Sharpie, and started drawing a fat black line on the passenger door.

  Felicia jumped to standing and yelled as loudly as she could, “Hey! Jackass!”

  The boy looked up, then he jammed his glasses further up his face. He added one more line and a couple of quickly sketched curves and then threw his bag over his shoulder. All three boys rode furiously up the street as the fog thickened. Their laughter filtered thinly back to her.

  Felicia’s feet thumped on the rose-covered carpets as she ran downstairs. Pearl Hawthorne, the overeager innkeeper, gave a nervous squeak as she raced past.

  It was too late. By the time she got out onto the street, the boys were gone.

  Idiots.

  “Is everything okay?” Pearl held a stuffed white lamb at her midsection, as if she could use it to protect herself.

  Felicia pointed at the penis—
quite a good penis, truth be told—on the side of the rental. “Vandalism. I’ll have to make a report.”

  “Oh, dear.” Pearl tucked the lamb under her arm and tilted her head to look at the drawing. “Is that supposed to be…a…”

  Felicia sighed. “Yeah. A big one. Wishful thinking starts early, I guess.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  From his car, Liam texted Aidan. Meet at Jake’s boat.

  I have a date tonight.

  The TV deal is real and more $ than we thought. We have to decide. Take your booty call later.

  Aidan pulled up at almost the same time Liam did.

  “It’s not a booty call,” Aidan said.

  “Yeah?” Liam checked the time on his phone. “You’re not on a date, and it’s already seven. What time does this date start?”

  “At midnight, when she gets off work.”

  “That’s a booty call.”

  “The best kind of date.” Aidan punched Liam on the shoulder.

  “Ow. Dumbass.” He rubbed his arm.

  “Just ’cause you’re a freaking baby—hey, I need to come by to borrow Bill’s truck.” Aidan winked. “You know how the stars look from that old truck bed…”

  “Bill would be horrified by the number of times you get away with that.”

  “Well, yeah. But then he would laugh.”

  “Jake! We’re coming on board.” Liam yelled at the direction of the door that went below deck. Jake was friendly enough, but he owned a gun and didn’t mind showing it off when he thought someone might be breaking and entering his sovereign domain. “We have beer!”

  The boat was old, but Jake had loved her into the right shape a long time ago. The top deck was a makeshift patio, decorated with old glass fishing floats and strings of red lights in the shape of Chinese lanterns. Liam had spent too many nights to count on this deck, looking up at the stars of Darling Bay with his brothers.

  Jake came up on deck, fast. “I was just imagining a beer. Do you have pizza, too?”

  Liam shook his head. “You wish.”

  “Damn it.”

  Aidan peered through the open door. “Whatcha got to eat down there?”

  “Bag of stale pretzels.”

  Aidan nodded. “It’ll do.”

  They sat where they always did: Liam in one of the wooden Adirondack chairs Jake had made from driftwood, Jake in the camping chair with his legs kicked up on a coil of heavy rope, and Aidan on top of the old fish cooler. They clinked bottles and crunched pretzels in quiet for a couple of easy moments.

  Finally, Aidan inclined his head. “Okay, tell us already what’s up so I can get to manscaping for my date.”

  Jake snorted.

  Liam scowled. “I don’t manscape. Just because I trimmed my eyebrows that once. You both should do the same, by the way. You both look feral.” And they did. Aidan was in a worn-out blue T-shirt with more holes than fabric, and he had sawdust coating his hair. Jake was in a red flannel shirt that was ripped at both elbows.

  “Come on, man. What’s with the TV show?”

  “They’re for real, I think.”

  Aidan leaned forward. “They want to pay us to find, sell, and fix up houses. I don’t see how that’s different from what we already do. Except for the cameras. What’s the point?”

  “The point is money.” Liam shot a finger gun at him. “A lot of money. More than we make all year. The gal who’s here to talk us into it said we should ask for double.”

  Jake shook his head. “There’s a catch. There’s always a catch.”

  “There is.”

  His brothers stared at him.

  “We would have to date the buyers. While we’re doing the work.”

  Jake’s ungroomed eyebrows drew together. “That’s a thing? That people would want to watch?”

  “How should I know?” Liam didn’t own a television—his last had broken seven years before and he’d never gotten around to replacing it. “Apparently their network owns a third of the reality shows on TV right now. They know what they’re doing, supposedly.”

  Aidan brightened. “Sex on camera?”

  “Like I said, totally feral.”

  “Because I would do that.”

  Liam took a deep breath. “No sex on camera.”

  “Damn.”

  “They pay for the dates. It sounds like we could get them to pay a lot for these dates. So if you’ve been wanting to go to New York for dinner, this would be your chance.”

  Jake stuck his legs out long and seemed to be inspecting his beat up boat shoes. “How does the girl pick which one of us to date? Because honestly, if she meets all of us, neither of you will have a chance.”

  Aidan snorted.

  Liam said, “I have no idea. They seem to think this could be the new, hot thing. And if we manage to rake in the cash I think we can, we could finally open Ballard Youth. This would be our ticket.”

  Aidan and Jake both considered their beer bottles in silence. Liam understood their sudden quietness. Ballard Youth was a pipe dream, something they discussed over late-night shots and cigars on the back patio of the Golden Spike. It wasn’t something they thought would ever really happen. When they won the lottery or their ship came in, they’d finally be able to open the after-school program for at-risk kids to honor the man who raised them. But buying the property, the house, getting the zoning and the state’s blessing, hiring the staff that would be necessary—the sheer amount of cash that would be required to do all those things had left it nothing more than a pipe dream. Once, they’d gone far enough to open a joint checking account into which they all chipped in extra dollars as they had them. Liam was pretty sure there was almost a thousand dollars in the kitty. Enough for exactly nothing.

  But too good to be true was usually just that. “It doesn’t sound safe.”

  “I always wear a condom,” said Aidan cheerfully.

  Liam shook his head. “It’s too easy. Do our job, and date, and get serious money? I don’t trust it.”

  Aidan’s face became serious. “It sounds outrageous. But dude, this is literally our dream.” Liam nodded. “We’d have the money to keep the place funded for the first five years.”

  “Holy shit.” Aidan rocked so far back he almost tipped over. “Where do we sign?”

  Jake finally said, “You really think we could? Make it work?”

  Liam said, “You’re both actually okay with this? Including the dating?”

  Aidan laughed. “This is TV. The women they choose will be pretty, if not drop-dead gorgeous. None of us are in relationships. Personally, I’m pretty sure I could get a girl to kiss me on camera without the promise of a rebuilt house to lure her into doing it.”

  Jake said, “Bill would do it.”

  Liam started. His brother was right. Bill, irreverent old Bill, would find it hilarious. “Oh, man. Are we really doing this?”

  Aidan held up his beer. “To pretty ladies, and money that can do some good.”

  The brothers clinked bottles. Thom Grandy’s boat chugged past on the way in for the night, raising a gentle wake. Overhead, the fog thinned enough that the full moon was a yellow glow.

  But right now, just sitting in the clammy fog on the deck of his brother’s boat was enough. Thinking about the fact that he’d have to have a meeting very soon with Felicia who was pretty enough to make his tongue feel tied each time he saw her filled him with a strange helium-like hope.

  And Liam had always been very fond of hope, especially the kind that came out of nowhere.

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Felicia called the police department, she didn’t expect the sheriff himself to show up. But Sheriff McMurtry said he was short-staffed and he’d take her report before going over to the city council meeting.

  “This kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often ’round here. Sorry that this is the way you were greeted.”

  “It’s not a big deal. The rental agency wanted a report number.” Felicia poked a black stuffed sheep with her foref
inger and then, as she caught Pearl’s sad gaze, regretted it. She gave the toy a one-fingered stroke and then felt ridiculous.

  “Better to have this kind of thing on the record. Pearl, you do make the best cup of coffee in town, I always say.”

  The innkeeper brightened, and Felicia respected the man’s tact. The coffee tasted like old tea.

  “Felicia, can you describe the kid again for me?”

  The sheriff looked like a sheriff should, Felicia decided, dark and handsome and clean-cut. Maybe he’d gotten the job because of his looks. No, this isn’t Hollywood. People didn’t earn their jobs by the way they looked.

  “He was big. Maybe my height.”

  “Which is…” Sheriff McMurtry held a silver pen above a yellow flip notebook.

  “Six foot in heels, so I’d guess he was about that tall.”

  “Wow,” he said admiringly. “Did you play basketball in high school?”

  She shook her head. If she had a nickel for every time she’d been asked that. “But he was a lot heavier. Thicker.” She put her hands at her neck. “Wide here. Oh, a red baseball cap.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Any writing on the cap?”

  “White logo of some sort? Kind of round. It was too far away for me to see it clearly, though.”

  He looked up from his notepad. “Um. Did he…well, I don’t want to lead you. But did he have anything else on his head?”

  “Oh!” She’d almost left that out. “Glasses. Thick black-framed ones.”

  “Well, dang it.”

  “You know who it was?” She sat forward eagerly, and a stuffed sheep baaaaed so loudly they both jumped.

  “Maybe.”

  “Can we go to where he is?”

  “Yeah. We can. But look, Ms. Turbinado, it’s complicated.”

  “Oh, my god, is he your son?”

  The sheriff’s eyes widened and he touched his badge. “Me? Oh, no. But if it’s the kid I think it was, he’s had a rough go till the last year or so. He doesn’t need more drama.”