by CP Smith
“We’d better stock up on the green stuff, then,” Sienna chuckled.
“Buy stock in it,” I ordered. “We could use the money for our shop.”
Movement caught my attention while I calculated the profit and loss from our investment. Midnight with the Gods would cut into our bottom line. Maybe we should switch up green magic fairy potion with margaritas every other night, so we had working capital?
A squeal of laughter drew my attention to the family that rented the cottage next door. I watched them for a moment. Three girls ranging in age from ‘she is so cute,’ ‘Lord help me when the hormones kick in,’ to ‘bar the windows the boys are coming’ were walking next to their, wait for it, mother and father. How colloquial. A full set of parents. And to top it all off, they were holding hands.
“Quick,” I whispered to Cali, “hand me your phone.”
She looked at me like I was stupid or something. “For what?”
“I wanna snap a picture of the aliens.”
“That’ll be hard since you threw my phone out the window.”
Gah, foiled again by my own actions. Note to self: buy a disposable camera in the a.m. so we can prove the existence of extraterrestrial life.
She turned her head and glanced at the loving, but alien family. “What makes them alien?”
It was my turn to look at her like she was stupid or something. “There’s two of them,” I explained.
“I see three kids.”
“Not the kids, the aliens.”
Sienna leaned over me like I was a beanbag this time and parked her body in my lap, asking, “Who’s an alien?”
Maybe they needed more green magic to see them?
“The two large ones.”
“The parents?”
She was quick, that one. She must have gotten her quickness from our father. I leaned down to whisper in her ear. “They’re aliens, not parents.”
“They are?” she questioned in awe, then looked harder. I could tell from her expression, she didn’t see what I saw. Poor thing, she really was Knoxy’s daughter.
Headlights flashed next to the cottage, but I disregarded them. I had a sci-fi cover coming up and I needed inspiration, so I continued to watch the aliens. Maybe they’d show their true selves in the daylight?
I ignored the sound of footsteps coming up to the porch, turning only when I felt a presence standing next to me. Looking up, I caught the concerned eyes of Bernice Armstrong analyzing me. Then I glimpsed her cell phone and snatched it from her hand, swiping it ON, hoping it wasn’t password protected.
“Yes! No password,” I said happily as I opened the camera app. “We are so much alike. I hate those things too.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Bernice asked, but I held up my finger. I had to capture the aliens before they got away. I pressed and held the shutter down on her Android phone until it rapid fired. “Take that, you alien scum. You’re not gettin’ away from me now.”
“Butterbean, what’s she doin’?”
“Alien huntin’, it looks like.”
The family turned back to see where the flashes were coming from, so I ducked my head behind Cali’s rocker. “If they come for me, don’t let them suck out my brains.”
I don’t think she took me seriously because she patted my head like I was a child, instead of say, drawing a sword, prepared to do battle.
“What are you doin’ here?” Cali asked, turning in her rocker, ignoring my need for asylum from the aliens. “It’s after midnight.”
“Normally, I’d be knee-deep in a mojito or ten by now, but as I was headin’ to the kitchen to start the first batch, three pissed-off men pounded on my door.”
Bernice Armstrong, one of the super-duper cool aunts who had raised Cali after her parents and brother died in a freak accident, was stunning. She was also batshite crazy on most days. Both Bernice and Eunice were older versions of Cali. Blonde, buxom, sultry lips, and legs that went on forever. They dressed like they were stuck in the 80’s—which wasn’t a good look on most people—but they rocked it like pros. And they loved Madonna, which cemented their coolness.
“Pissed-off men?” Sienna perked up from leaning across my thighs like a lapdog and looked over the back of the rocker concerned.
“Don’t worry,” Bernice waved off Sienna’s response, “I told them I didn’t know where you were, then waited an hour before sneakin’ down through the store and out the front door.”
Cali threw her a questioning look. “Why?”
Bernice scoffed. “I may not have been born yesterday, my dear sweet girl, but I still have eyes that work.”
“And?”
She shrugged. “They were casin’ the joint. Hidin’ in the shadows—”
“—Spyin’?” Cali laughed, interrupting.
“That too.”
The family had gone inside their rental, so I pulled myself up and looked at Bernice. “Did they follow you?” I peeked around the shadows, expecting them to step out of the gloom like a band of warriors. Dark warriors. Hot warriors. I sucked in a breath. I wanted to see Nate step out of the darkness like an avenging angel. He was that beautiful and intimidatingly sexy.
My lungs deflated as quickly as they filled when I remembered I couldn’t have him.
“Did they follow me?” Bernice drawled, her Southern pouring out of her like a mimosa, sweet but tart. “Darlin’, you wound me. Like I can’t sneak out of a buildin’ like I’m A Sinner.”
Cali snorted. “That’s the best you’ve got? Incredible.”
I looked at Sienna and grinned. Bernice and her sister, Eunice, raised Cali playing a game with song titles. They idolized Madonna and used her songs when arguing with the other.
“I’ll Remember that the next time you need my help hidin’ from your men.”
“We aren’t hidin’ from them as much as takin’ a break from life, so Poppy and Sienna can deal with their father’s betrayal. To keep Poppy from Free Fallin’. Bein’ Frozen by the hurt. She’s lookin’ for a Ray of Light, so she can heal.” Cali crossed her arms and smiled smugly. She’d totally rocked the game like Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Bernice looked at me, then back a Cali clearly impressed. “Deeper and Deeper the mystery becomes,” she mumbled, grabbing the last rocking chair on the porch and hauling it to our group. Then she saw the bottle of green magic fairy potion and snapped her fingers. “It’s not mojitos, but it’ll do in a pinch.”
“What did they say when you answered?” Sienna asked.
Bernice raised a finger then tipped the bottle back and took a drink. I watched closely as the green magic softened her eyes. When she looked down at the bottle in astonishment, I snatched it back. “You already have Midnight Mojitos, you’re not gettin’ your hands on our elixir of the gods.”
Her eyes lit up at my outburst, then she looked between Sienna and Cali. “Nate seemed to be the leader of the pack, this time around,” Bernice said, looking back at me. “I’m assumin’ since he was, he finally pulled his head out of his manly backside and is now in pursuit like any good Southern gentleman worth his weight.”
“His manly backside?”
Bernice’s lip twitched. “Sugar, do I look dead?
“Well, no.”
“Gay?”
I thought about it and shook my head.
“Exactly.”
“So, what did they say?” Sienna asked again.
“That Poppy here was runnin’ scared and you two had helped her escape from Nate. That he needed to find her, so he could, and I quote, ‘Set her straight before she built an even bigger wall around her heart.’”
I pffted then scoffed at his arrogance. “Just like a man to think this is all about him.”
Bernice leaned forward and looked me in the eyes. I started to squirm under her assessment, looking around for something else to talk about. “Sugar,” she began, sitting back in the rocker, “your wall’s so thick it would take a sledgehammer to break through it.”
“Is not.” Ad
mittedly, it’s not my best comeback, but it got my point across.
“Is so.”
Dagnabit, Bernice knew how to play this game like a pro.
“My wall’s just fine,” I defended. “More than fine. It has pink flowers growin’ all over it and a beautiful garden on the other side. I’m happy behind my wall. More than happy. Who needs a gross boy scalin’ it? It might topple over.”
“A gross boy with a fine backside.” My eyes lost focus for a moment. She wasn’t wrong. Nate’s manly man buns were a work of art. “One who wants to scale that wall and protect you from any dragons hoverin’ overhead.”
My head shot up and I sobered instantly. “Who told you about my dragons?”
Her eyes shifted briefly to Cali.
I spun on my friend and glared. “You told her? How? You don’t have a cell.”
Cali at least had the decency to look sheepish. “I called her from the gas station and gave her a heads-up. I didn’t want her to worry when I didn’t come home and asked her to keep quiet about where we were.”
“You failed to mention that Nate was in hot pursuit, and Poppy was runnin’ in the opposite direction,” Bernice accused.
Cali rolled her eyes.
“How am I supposed to live vicariously through you if I don’t have all the details?”
“I’m not runnin’ from him,” I lied. “I’m here to clear my head of all things father, and tryin’ to process that my mother isn’t my mother and she’s dead.”
Just saying the words out loud turned my stomach sour. My mother was dead, and I didn’t even know her name. So I buried that along with all the other stuff freaking me out and took another deep drink of green potion.
Bernice sighed. “Fathers will let you down if they live long enough, they can’t help it, they’re men. All you need to know about gettin’ over what your father did is to live the best life possible in revenge. Show him that even though he took his best shot at destroyin’ your self-esteem, he missed by a mile.”
I scowled at her insinuation that my father had purposely set out to destroy me. “I don’t think he meant to hurt me,” I defended.
I caught a slight smile on her lips. “No?”
“He just chose revenge over me.”
She raised a brow. “He chose to find your mother’s killer over raisin’ you? Why?”
The green magic was making it hard to think. “’Cause he loved her?”
“I suppose if a man spent the last twenty-four years huntin’ a killer, he must have loved her fiercely, like a soul mate from one of your romance novels.”
That made me frown. Were they soul mates? The need to know more about the woman who gave birth to me rattled through my head. “Yeah, he must have.” I was suddenly very tired, and my head hurt.
Bernice regarded me for a moment like an amoeba cell under a microscope. I’d watched her do this to Cali when she was being stubborn and thought it was funny. Being on the receiving end was a little unsettling. It was like she could see inside your head and pick through all your secrets.
After a moment of reflection, and probable brain probing, she said without any segue, “I think for now the bigger issue is why in tarnation you’re runnin from a man like Nate Jacobs.”
I scanned the faces on the porch. Each one waited for my response. An answer I couldn’t put into words sufficiently. “We don’t mesh.”
“Come again?” Bernice muttered.
“We don’t mesh. We aren’t compatible.”
“You don’t mesh?”
“Nope.”
“You’re not compatible?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t think you mesh with six and a half feet of prime Southern male. One who takes care of his momma, runs his own business, is loyal to a fault and, I’ll point out, is gorgeous as sin. You’re not compatible with him?”
“Well . . . I should say he’s not compatible with me. I have issues with him, and I don’t think I can resolve them.”
“What issues?”
I had to think fast. Nate, as far as I could see, had no flaws except he was pursuing me like a hound after a fox. “He’s too tall.”
“Wear heels.”
Boy, she had a good comeback for everything.
“His hair is too long.” It wasn’t too long, it was lush and thick, and I wanted to run my hands through it. Maybe braid it like a Native American warrior and put feathers in it, but I didn’t think he’d let me.
She looked a Cali. “Is she high?”
Cali snorted and Sienna giggled.
“I’m not high, I’m realistic. A man like Nate needs a woman who isn’t like me.”
She leveled me with a look that would scare the pants off a saint. “You mean a woman who is bright, loyal,” she scanned me from head to toe, “has killer looks and a body most men fantasize about?” she imparted but kept going. “And let’s not forget you’re a Wallflower, which makes you doubly worth his time. I can totally see why he’d think you weren’t the woman for him.”
I shook my head and looked out at the ocean, refusing to say another word. They’d just try to convince me I was being irrational. That Nate wouldn’t care I was broken. But they didn’t know how badly, and I wasn’t about to enlighten them.
“There’s that wall,” Bernice whispered, then stood and leaned down to kiss my head before heading inside the cottage. “I’ll take the pullout since you’re all my guests. Drink up and get yourselves sorted, I’ll set the coffee maker to go off at nine.”
Sienna wound an arm around me and drew me into her side, offering support without words. Then Cali leaned over and wrapped her arms around my middle. We sat there staring at the water, three Wallflowers clinging to each other like a vine on a wall. It was poetic and comforting after the day I had.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I mumbled low enough for them to hear me. “I love you both, but I’m not Netflixin’ and chillin’ with you.”
There was a pregnant pause before Sienna giggled, “That’s good to know, since I’m not into incestuous relationships.”
Lordy, I’d forgotten she was my sister again, dagnabit. I jerked up and grabbed the green bottle to erase the faux pas from my memory banks. “I really gotta see a guy about pills. I have ADD. Probably the worst case in the history of the world. It’s so bad they’ll probably change the acronyms from A.D.D to P.O.P.P.Y ‘cause I’m just that awesomely challenged!”
_______________
Nate sat with Bo and Devin, watching the Wallflowers rocking gently on the porch. He’d wanted to storm the castle the minute they arrived, but Devin had stayed him with his hand, shoving binoculars at him so he could see the green bottle the girls were drinking from. “They’ll be hammered soon, so you’ll be wastin’ your breath. We can keep watch until mornin’, then you can do what you need to do.”
He’d grudgingly agreed, only because the girls looked to be handling her with care. Poppy seemed relaxed and happy for the moment, and that had settled his driving need to find her. He figured giving them a few hours on their own, so the Wallflowers could do what they did best—support each other unconditionally—would help Poppy heal quicker in the long run. And that’s all Nate cared about. Making sure Poppy got what she needed.
“We can take shifts watchin’ over them,” Devin grumbled, hitting rewind on the news clip that had given away their location, just before Bernice had slipped silently out of Frock You like a thief in the night.
“How many times you gonna watch that?” Bo sighed, putting the binoculars to his eyes.
“As many times as it takes, until it sinks in she didn’t fall to her death from that fuckin’ float.”
Nate looked down at Devin’s iPad and flinched when Cali’s head peered out from beneath tissue paper and streamers. “How the hell did she and Sienna get underneath the float while it was movin’?”
Bo sucked in a breath and looked down at the screen. His face paled slightly in the moonlight. “Swear to Christ she’s a pain in my fucki
n’ ass.”
“A headache,” Devin mumbled.
“Out of control,” Bo agreed.
“Wallflowers,” Nate reminded them unfazed. His woman had been up top, thank Christ, instead of in danger down below. She’d been holding a SCAD flag, shouting a rebel yell about fucking bees when the cameras had caught them.
Both men looked at Nate with varying degrees of malice.
He grinned slowly, raising their ire.
“Just wait,” Bo replied smugly. “Your turn will come.”
Nate raised an incredulous brow. “My turn? She jumped in front of a fuckin’ bullet to save your woman.” He was still pissed they’d withheld that information during their stay at Bullwinkle Ranch. Knowing Poppy had jumped in front of a loaded gun, to protect Sienna, made his blood run cold.
Bo looked at Devin and grinned. “Fuckin’ solace.”
Devin looked at Nate and nodded. “About fuckin’ time.”
Four
THE TERRIFYING TRIO
GARBLED VOICES ECHOED DOWN THE HALL, so I drew the covers over my head. Maybe if I closed my eyes real tight the dragon would go away. I held my breath and listened. A deep voice bit accusingly at the air, his words lost in the darkness. Scared the monster would turn his attention toward my door, I crawled silently out of bed and made sure it was locked. I tried to turn the handle, but it held true, so I sank down on my bottom and pulled my knees to my chest. The dragon couldn’t enter when the door was locked. I’d figured that out when I was eight.
A thud sounded on the wall and I jerked, my heart racing. Momma was fighting with the dragon again, who’d no doubt leave her battered and bruised. That meant she’d need taking care of for a few days. Jumping from the floor in panic, afraid he’d punch through the wall and attack me as well, I ran to my bed and climbed under the covers. Then I prayed really hard that God would send my daddy home to slay the monster in the dark.
I awoke with a start, the memory of a darker time clouding my judgment. Without thinking, I climbed out of bed and ran to the bedroom door to make sure it was locked. Then I flipped on the light to cast away the shadows and took in my surroundings. White wicker furniture graced the small room. Pictures of sailboats and lighthouses hung on the pale blue walls, painting a picture of coastal Georgia in the summertime, as lace curtains billowed in the breeze through the open window. I breathed in slowly, taking in the salt air, allowing reality to center itself in my head, then let it out and turned off the light. I was in Bernice and Eunice’s cottage on Tybee Island. I wasn’t eight anymore, hiding beneath my covers. I was almost twenty-five, and my father had just blown into my life on a Harley and a smile.