by Cecy Robson
Long brown and gold waves fall along her bare shoulders, natural curls from what I can tell, unlike the crazy amount of hairspray that must be holding her friend’s spirals in place. And where her friend’s skin is so fair it glows, hers is olive.
If she’s wearing make-up, I don’t really notice it, at least not from here. What I do notice is her angelic face.
She glances around, unsure she should be here, unlike her friend who’s already making herself at home.
I lift the beer the bartender passes me and take a hard pull. I can’t remember the last time a woman caught my interest. It was nice while it lasted. Maybe in another year, I’ll be willing to say hi to one.
“Landon!”
“Landon!”
I scrunch my eyes closed when I hear not only Becca, but Trin, too.
They rush me, all enthusiastic-like. Lord, help me.
Trin gets to me first, throwing her arms around me. She’s in a simple blue dress, and the only jewelry she’s wearing are small stud earrings and her wedding band, but that’s just Trin. “There you are. Becca and me have been looking everywhere for you.”
“I’ll bet,” I say.
“I couldn’t get him to trim the beard,” Becca interjects, like I’m not right here.
“Mmm-hmm,” Trin says, nodding.
“Or the hair,” Becca adds.
Trin pats her arm. “The important thing is you tried, girl.” She clears her throat, veering on me. “Becca has a few friends she wants you to meet. Isn’t that right, Becca?”
“Sure is,” she says. She claps her hands. “Ladies, can y’all come over here a moment? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
At once, what seems like the entire Carolina Cheerleading team appears. One of them leans in close to Becca. “He’s cute,” she says, loud enough for me to hear.
And cue the introductions. Becca shimmies forward. “Darlins, this here is Landon Summers, engineer extraordinaire. Landon, these are my girls, Britney, Teenie, Mindy, Sandy, Chrissy, Lizzie, Brandi, Clarey, and Blythe.”
“Hi,” they all say, offering a well-rehearsed wave. All, but one.
The cute brunette who walked in with the redhead is off to the side, checking her phone. I almost ask Becca what her name is, but change my mind.
“Nice to meet, y’all,” I say. I nod for like the hundredth time since I’ve walked through that door and turn back to my beer.
My mind starts to wander to next week, when my self-appointed mental-health break wraps up and the time to get back to work begins. Becca introduced me as an engineer, which I was and probably always will be at heart. I don’t remind her I’m an attorney now. After attending law school and passing the bar two years ago, it still feels new to me, probably since this last year numbed the last few years away.
“Landon?” Trin presses her hand on my shoulder. She looks sad, I suppose I should try to smile and reassure her, but I don’t manage that much.
“I only promised you I’d show and that I’d have a drink. Here I am.” I tilt my bottle of beer. “And there it is.”
She glances toward the great room where the cheer team has begun to work the room. “Didn’t one of those ladies pique your interest?” she asks.
I almost turn to see if the little brunette is gone. Almost. Instead I answer the best way I can to explain what I’m feeling. “Trin, I need time and space. I don’t want to force something that’s not there. I spent three years doing that when I was married, and never want to go there again.”
She smiles softly like she understands a lot more than I’m admitting to her and myself. Wasted time, that’s all those years with Bernadette were. I knew something was missing. I beat myself up trying to make her happy—trying to make up for her troubled childhood and convincing myself that her past was what held us back from the life we needed and deserved. I was convinced that if she could just be happy, I would be, too.
It took finding her in that kitchen with her manager to see what was actually missing was love. She never loved me enough to want my happiness, no matter how hard I worked to make sure she had hers.
As I think about it, and what I told Trin, I’m not sure I’m right. Time and space may not be enough. Christ, it’s like the day I found Bernadette and that idiot, I lost everything, including my trust in women and belief in forever. It eats me alive even now, even as all these sexy women strut past me. They think they have a shot. They don’t. Hell, how can they when I don’t bother to bring a gun and load the damn bullets?
“Hey, Landon.” I look up to find Callahan, tension tightening his brow. He doesn’t clap my shoulder in that brotherly way we’ve been doing for years. His long, bulky arms immediately find Trin’s waist.
That’s my first clue that something’s wrong. Trin senses it, too, angling around to get a better look at him. “Is it too loud for you in here, love?” she asks.
“Some,” he says, the strain building along his shoulders telling us otherwise.
“Then we’ll go,” she says.
He doesn’t reply, something in his expression keeps widening her eyes. She lifts her hand, stroking his beard. “Baby,” she says. “Can you hear me?”
The little brunette in the pale pink dress appears behind Callahan as he slowly nods. She makes her way to the other side of the raised counter, unaware of what’s happening. “Hello,” she says, her voice as soft as her appearance. “May I please have some water?”
The bass from the music intensifies, and from the foyer, the crowd screams, energized.
Callahan’s lids fall closed and he seems to be working to breathe. “I saw Becca near the stairs . . . told her I’m taking off,” he says, struggling to speak. “She told me to take a bottle of champagne.”
“Okay. Let me check on the crab cakes. I just put them in the oven.” She cuts herself off when she realizes Callahan may not last that much longer.
“Excuse me, do you need help?”
We turn in the direction of a small voice. The little brunette, raises her hand in a way of an apology. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean to be intrusive. But if you need to leave, I’m happy to check on the food for you.”
“That would be wonderful, thank you,” Trin says. She glances at Callahan who is leaning against the granite counter, rubbing his eyes, the muscles along his broad back straining against the collared blue shirt he’s wearing. “Wait for me outside, love. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
He doesn’t argue, making me think he’s a lot worse off. “All right.”
Trin snags my arm when I start to follow. “Give him a moment, won’t you?”
She knows him better than I do, so I watch him cross the great room and open the sliding glass doors leading onto the terrace. The ocean is loud in her song tonight, I can hear her over the roar of the music and the growing throng of people. He and Trin will likely walk home, in the opposite direction from my house. The walk will do him good, the ocean waves crashing along the shore a better remedy to restore the soul than any medicine I know.
“What’s wrong with him?” the bartender asks.
She’s not being rude, she seems concerned. “He’s a war hero,” I reply. It’s the best way to sum it up, and the best way to honor what he’s been through.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I am, too. I’m thankful for soldiers like Callahan. I just wish there was a way to ease their suffering and erase the damage of war.
The bartender gives me her back, allowing me to focus on Trin where she’s whipping an orange sauce in a bowl. “It’s okay, you go,” the tiny brunette tells her. “I’ll make sure they get done.”
“Thank you. They’re Becca’s favorite,” Trin explains. She doesn’t tell her Becca’s grandmother would make them every New Year’s Eve, and how Trin took over the tradition when her beloved grandmother died. Knowing Trin, she wouldn’t share something so personal about her friend, even if she wasn’t in a rush.
Becca appears behind her with a bottle of champagne, along with Hale who’s carrying a couple of coats. They talk low and fast, and move even quicker, Becca’s hand tight in Hale’s as she follows him out.
They pause by the doors to the terrace, waiting for Trin. Trin throws her arms around me, everything she’s feeling for her husband seeping through in that tight hug. “Love you, Trin.”
“Love you, too, Landon,” she pauses to look at me with those same sad eyes. “Happy New Year.”
She takes off, shrugging into the coat Hale handed her, Sean and Mason at her heels. Like Hale and Becca, they seem to know what’s happening. These are Trin’s real friends. Through thick and thin, they’ve always stood by her.
Banging from the kitchen has me turning in the direction of the wall oven. The brunette shoves the tin of crab cakes into the center, shiny with the sauce she basted them with.
No sooner than she sets the timer and takes off her oven mitt than Kirk Watson arrives. “Hey, sweet thing. How about you fix me a plate of food?”
How about I punch you in the head, Kirk?
I glare in his direction. She’s the only non-Caucasian woman in the immediate vicinity. I’m not trying to be a dick and assume he’s racist, I’ve just known him long enough to know that’s what he is. Not to mention, she’s in a cocktail dress or whatever the fuck, not dressed in a black shirt and pants like the caterers Becca hired.
Her small chin juts slightly forward. “I’m sorry, sir,” she says. “I don’t work here, I was just helping someone out.”
Kirk is already drunk and way past horny. He leans his arm against the overhead counter and gives her the kind of once-over that should send her to the nearest shower to wash his filth clean. “Then how about I buy you a drink?”
“It’s my understanding the drinks are free,” she tells him.
He sidesteps in front of her when she tries to walk away, blocking her. “Come on, sweetie. I’m just trying to be nice.”
I don’t think things through. I storm in from the opposite side and from one blink to the next, I’m suddenly there.
The brunette takes a step back and into me, my presence startling her and making her jump. “Back off, Kirk. She’s with me.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said what I did, but Kirk’s the type who doesn’t know when to quit unless there’s a bigger man there to make him.
Tonight, that bigger man is me. He swipes his shaved head, offering me a slick smile that turns challenging real quick. “Is that right?”
“Damn straight.” I think the brunette looks up at me, but I’m too busy looking at Kirk. Yeah, he’s drunk, and ready to take a swing. The protective side of me kicks in. I grasp my supposed damsel in distress by the elbow and gently guide her behind me.
His gaze trails to her briefly before returning to me. “I thought you were hard up.”
“Nah,” I say, not wanting to give this idiot any amount of satisfaction. “Onto bigger and better as you can see.”
“Or tinier and cuter?” he offers.
“Watch your mouth,” I fire back, knowing he’s not complimenting her, but rather trying to rile me. “Like I said, she’s with me.”
I clench my fists, causing my knuckles to crack. I don’t think he hears the crunch, not over the music and escalating clamor of voices. He does see me, though. Whatever he catches in my hardening features is enough to make him back down. Smart man, at least when it comes to a fight. He knows I can take a hit, and give one a hell of a lot harder.
He grunts and slinks away, like he did me a favor by letting me off and not the other way around. I keep him in my sights. By the time he reaches the door leading out to the foyer, he perks up, likely having spotted the next woman he’ll approach.
I wait until he disappears into the next room before turning back to the brunette. “Ma’am,” I say, tilting my chin.
I mean to step away and back in the direction of my beer. One drink and out, right? Sounded good in theory except the moment I shift my weight to walk away, her smile holds me in place.
It’s not the kind of smile that promises anything close to what the bartender offered, nor is it teasing and daring, like the half-dozen cheerleaders Becca introduced me to flashed. It simply is, fragile like the first snowflakes that fall in winter, and shy like a young woman at her first dance, hoping no one notices she’s not dressed like the rest.
I like what she’s wearing. She looks nice just to look nice, not to impress or show off. And someone as pretty as her, well, she doesn’t need to be so shy.
Her lips are glazed in a soft pink like her dress, not overly done, just enough to give them a shine and glisten her light eyes. “Thank you,” she says, quietly. “For helping me out.”
“You’re welcome.”
I take a step in the direction of the bar, eyeing my beer like it’s waiting for me to return. But the step feels unusually heavy and I think, my friend the beer, can wait.
I turn slowly and offer this little thing with the pretty eyes and soft smile my hand. It shouldn’t seem like such a big deal or much of an effort, but it’s a little of each. Maybe for both of us. “I’m Landon.”
She takes my hand. I watch it as it disappears within my grasp.
“Hi, Landon,” she replies quietly. “I’m Luci.”
Chapter Four
Luci
I was cold from the moment we rushed out of the car. “We don’t need coats,” Blythe had insisted. “The party’s indoors.”
The moment the brisk air smacked our faces, I started shaking, and couldn’t seem to stop.
But I’m not cold anymore, not with all the warmth radiating from Landon’s palm.
His hand swallows mine whole. But neither my hand nor I will complain. Landon is . . . wow.
My fingers slide along his skin as he releases me slowly. I thought he was headed out and away from me, perhaps to meet some elegant socialite he was expecting. It could explain his disinterest in Blythe and all the stunning women on the cheer team. But here he is with no other woman in sight.
Except me.
Blythe told me Kiawah had a lot of wealth. I imagined pretty and classic southern homes with worn wooden siding overlooking the ocean, similar to those in coastal New England. I wasn’t picturing this modern masterpiece, nor was I expecting so much flash. No wonder Blythe dressed like she did. Like the other women flouncing around, she’s in a designer gown that appears spray-painted rather than zipped on, unlike the leftover bridesmaid dress I retrieved from the back of my closest.
She could have warned me. I thought she chose her dress simply to impress “the guy” the Cougar’s publicist wanted her to meet.
“The guy” who is evidently Landon.
“Luci?” he asks. “As in, You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Lucille?”
I laugh a little. “No, Lucianna.”
The corners of his mouth curve slightly. It’s not much of a smile, but enough to add to his allure and more than enough to show me smiles don’t come easy for him.
“I like that better,” he says, his Southern accent outrageously thick and all-too sexy.
My shy smile widens, becoming more of a real one that maybe I’m not used to showing either.
I glance down. “Thank you.”
“For liking your name?”
“For that, but mostly for talking to me.” I motion around. “I don’t really know anyone. I came with a friend.”
“It’s all right. Most of these people aren’t worth noticing.” He shrugs. “But maybe some are.”
I think he might mean me until he averts his gaze. Perhaps he doesn’t see me like I see him.
I, conversely, noticed Landon right away. He’s the only man in jeans, but it’s his looks and beard that caught my attention.
It’s not one of those trendy beards men grow, the long ones carefully groomed to lay over clothes designed to appear earthy and casual. This is the type of beard men grow when they
could care less about shaving, and even less about impressing anyone.
With dark brown hair and brown eyes, there shouldn’t be anything especially gripping about him. Yet everything is, from his classically handsome features to the hint of strength and muscle lingering beneath his plain black sweater.
“Would you like to join me at the bar, Luci?”
I glance from where the bartender is smiling at a man speaking low into her ear, to the great room. Blythe is cozying up to one of the football players. If it’s who I think it is, he’s married and she should be stepping away instead of stepping closer.
“You don’t have to,” he adds.
His tone gives me pause and lures my attention back to his face. He’s not angry that my attention skittered briefly. The casual way in which he spoke made it clear that life will go on regardless of whether I join him.
“It’s not that.” I glimpse at Blythe. “My friend that I came with . . .” I crinkle my nose when I realize how much I’m telling him. “She, um, was looking forward to meeting you.”
His playful smile warms my cheeks. “Doesn’t look that way to me.” He leans in, pretending to whisper. “Between you and me, I think she’s doing her best to meet Number Sixty-Nine.”
My mouth pops open. “She’s not really like that.” It’s what I claim, even though Blythe very much is.
Landon raises his brows. “You do know that’s the number on his jersey.” My beet red face answers for me. He smirks. “Guess not.”
I cover my mouth. “Oh, God.”
He bows his head, chuckling. “You don’t follow football do you?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Now, how can you live in the Carolinas and not watch America’s favorite pastime?”
“I’m from New Jersey,” I offer, in a way of an apology.
Oh, and there’s that smirk again. “Well then I suppose you have more problems than not watching football.”
“It’s not as bad as people think,” I counter, unable to suppress my smile.
We walk as one toward the bar. “Oh good, because I think it’s pretty damn bad.”