Hot, Wet, and Wild

by Berengaria Brown

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to stand up, far less swim.” Gwyn smiled.

  “Of course, you can. Let’s go,” said Zac, lifting her off him.

  ****

  Gwyn stared at the letters in her hand. Three of them, all from J&J Legal Inc. One said she had noxious weeds growing on her property and needed to have them removed within seven days or face a large fine.

  The second letter said there’d been complaints about the state of the clapboards on the house and she was to present a statutory declaration within fourteen days saying there was no insect infestation and the damaged woodwork had been repaired or replaced.

  The third letter stated that it was understood she had no employment and was under investigation for living off immoral earnings and/or the proceeds of crime.

  She sank down onto the couch in the living room, her head spinning and her heart pounding. She’d been a part of this community all her life. She’d actually been living here full-time for about a year now. It’s true she tended not to talk about her job but people did know she was a graphic artist and worked from home. Some of them had even seen the artwork she’d done for various company brochures and prospectuses. Of course, part of her work was designing erotic romance book covers, and she didn’t talk about that so much, but still, the community knew she was employed and not indigent.

  It could only be someone not liking the fact she was sleeping with Zac and Parker. But again, that wasn’t new. Likely it was because they all lived here permanently now. Was the community happy about ménage relationships for summer visitors but not locals? That didn’t make sense!

  And her garden. She’d spent months getting it under control and she was damn sure there were no noxious weeds. Unless someone had put them there. Would a person do that? Could anyone hate her that much?

  Gwyn jumped up, grabbed her camera and gardening gloves, her little digging fork and a sheet of plain white paper, then hurried outside. She started at the front gate and checked every inch of her garden. Down the back, half-hidden behind a flowering shrub, she found a blackberry shoot. Carefully she photographed it, dug it up making sure she got all the roots, then photographed it lying on the white paper, taking a close-up shot of the roots. Then she photographed the cleared piece of soil.

  “I’ll get Zac to look around too. If someone is out to get me, I need to be sure everything is good.”

  Then she checked her clapboards, climbing a ladder to look at the upper levels, and even getting up on the roof to check the shingles. She was still on the roof when Zac came looking for her.

  “What’s the problem? Got a leak you need help fixing?” he asked.

  She stood up and shaded her eyes, looking to the water. “Go get Parker off the beach and then I’ll meet you both inside,” she replied.

  Zac nodded and a few minutes later both men came loping over the dune and into her front yard.

  She got the letters off her couch and handed them to her friends without comment.

  When Zac finished reading, he went outside and crawled around her yard, lifting low-lying foliage, even peering under the house. He came inside with another blackberry shoot.

  “Where was that?” she asked.

  “Under your deck.”

  “I reckon someone doesn’t like you,” added Parker.

  “No kidding! But fixing it isn’t a solution, as they can just keep adding more weeds or insects or whatever as soon as I leave the house or go to sleep.”

  “What we need is a video camera that automatically adds the date and time,” said Gwyn.

  “Even that’s not a guarantee of safety, but it’s a start. I’ll go down to Ed’s Electronics and get one,” said Zac, and left.

  “What we really need to know is who you’ve pissed off. You must have really annoyed someone big-time. But who?” said Parker.

  “I don’t know. I always thought I got on with everyone. All I can think of is there’s a woman—or man—who wanted either you or Zac and plans to get me out of the way.”

  “Well, it’s not me. No one has tried to chat me up in, like, forever. What are you going to do about the money thing?”

  “That’s the easiest problem to solve. I’ll get my accountant to send them a statutory declaration about my financial status. I don’t make a huge wage but it’s enough to take care of one person. Living here isn’t expensive and the cottage belongs to me.”

  “Why don’t you get onto that while I go check your clapboards. Give me that camera. Or have you taken photographs already?”

  “No, I was still looking for insects or damage when Zac arrived.”

  Zac came back with a video camera, the day’s newspaper, and three pizzas. He started the camera rolling at the front gate, with Gwyn holding the newspaper so the date was clearly visible, then video-taped every inch of the garden, front and back, including both sides of the fence line.

  Next they did the clapboards, with Zac doing the lower level then passing the camera to Parker, on a ladder, to show the higher boards. Finally they filmed the roof. There were no insects, no holes and no damage.

  “I really don’t know what the drama is all about. Sure it’d look prettier with a fresh coat of paint. That’s on my to-do list for this summer. But hell—”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it. We need to figure out who you’ve pissed off and why.”

  “You said that before, Parker, but I don’t know. I didn’t realize I’d annoyed anyone.” Gwyn took a deep breath. She was starting to sound like a drama queen but she was upset. The happiest day of her life had been when she’d moved back into the cottage to live. Well, maybe the second happiest. The happiest would be when Parker said he’d moved here too, so they could all be together again. But now, her life was falling apart big-time.

  Parker stepped up behind her and began rubbing her back. “It’s all right Gwyn, honey, we’ll get it sorted.”

  Zac headed into the kitchen. “Let me nuke these pizzas for us. We’re all too hungry to think clearly. Do you want coffee or beer with them?”

  Before Gwyn could decide, her phone rang so she went into her bedroom to get it off the nightstand.

  “Howdy Gwyn, I got your message, but I don’t understand why you need these forms sent to J&J Legal Inc.”

  “Oh hi, Jase. I got three letters in today’s mail.” Gwyn explained to her accountant about the letters and what she needed.

  “That sounds really weird. Let me get Cara, our legal whiz kid, on speakerphone, then I want you to read them to me.”

  “They’re in the living room. I’ll have to get them. It’ll only take me a moment,” she said keeping the cell phone at her ear as she hurried down the short hallway to the living room.

  Zac and Parker came from the kitchen to join her in the living room, so she hit speaker on her phone too, so they could all hear both sides of the conversation.

  When she’d read the letters, Cara said, “I’m on J&J’s website now and Rodney Rowbury, the person you said signed them, isn’t one of their partners or even a department head. It’s most unusual for an underling to send out such requests. What, exactly, are the deed restrictions on your property?”

  “Huh? Deed restrictions?”

  “Yup. For there to be a dispute about your garden or insects or clapboards there have to be deed restrictions on your property by the Home Association in that area.”

  “I’ve never heard anything like that before,” said Gwyn raising an eyebrow at Zac.

  “I’ve lived here all my life and never heard about a Home Association or deed restrictions either,” said Zac.

  “Okay, it sounds like something fishy is going on. Do nothing. Jase and I will get back to you tomorrow or maybe the day after.”

  Gwyn clicked off her phone and they all went and sat around the kitchen table. They ate pizza, drank coffee and Gwyn thought hard. “There was a realtor wanting to buy the property. He came around twice. The first time I said ‘no’, and the second time I said, ‘don’t come back’,
but that’s months ago. I don’t think that’d have anything to do with this.”

  “Unless someone wants to buy up two or three of the little cottages along the beachfront and build something really nice,” suggested Zac. “It’s an awesome view, and if they build a house two or three stories high I bet it’d sell for a huge amount.”

  “I think it’s time to pay a visit to your neighbors, Gwyn. I haven’t spoken to the Stevens since I moved down here, so I think we’ll start with them,” said Parker.

  The Stevens owned the house where Parker had stayed on summer vacations as a child, so they followed him up the pathway, and sat on the Stevens’ deck sipping ice-cold lemonade and reminiscing. Finally Parker said, “Some guy wanted to buy Gwyn’s house. Did he come here too?”

  “Smarmy little snake. Offered us only half of what the place is worth. I sent him off with a flea in his ear I can tell you,” said Mr. Stevens.

  “We wouldn’t sell for a million dollars,” added Mrs. Stevens. “Why would we? Heaven is right on our doorstep.”

  Next they visited the end house, but it appeared the realtor hadn’t gotten past Julia’s giant golden retriever.

  Gwyn’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Yeung, said she’d given the man’s details to her son. “For I’m not getting any younger you know, and I expect he’d be happy to sell if he got a good price.” Zac got her son’s cell number from the old lady and they headed back to Gwyn’s where she phoned Jase with the details from the realtor’s card and the son’s cell number.

  Then they climbed into bed, and Parker and Zac made delicious, gentle, sweet, love to her until all her tension unwound, and she came and came and came.

  ****

  “It seems Mr. Rodney Rowbury of J&J Legal Inc. overstepped the framework of his instructions in his desire to please a favored client,” said Jase the accountant.

  “Would you care to translate that into a sentence I can actually understand, Jase?” asked Gwyn.

  “He fucked up. He can’t make you do any of that stuff, no one’s investigating your finances, and someone who wanted to buy your property paid him to give you the idea that it might be time to sell.”

  “Right. Okay. And I guess I’d never prove anyone put blackberry plants in my garden and tried to besmirch my character, so I just shut up and pay your bill.”

  “Exactly. But since you took all those video tapes, I’d upload them to the net somewhere nice and safe, just in case you ever need them. If someone wanted to buy your place they may try again another time. But likely they’ll move on elsewhere.”

  “Yeah, Mrs. Yeung’s son will sell. Thank you, Jase. And thanks to Cara, too. I’m glad it’s all over.”

  “No problem. Any time.”

  “In that case I think we should celebrate,” said Parker, as soon as Gwyn clicked off her phone.

  “Good plan. Let’s go out to dinner,” said Gwyn.

  “As long as we both get you for dessert,” added Zac.

  Gwyn’s cunt clenched with need, and cream dripped onto her panties. Suddenly she was hot all over. “I have an even better plan. Let’s have dessert first.”

  Book Two: WET

  Zac’s story

  Chapter One

  Zac was surprised to be called into the boss’s office in the middle of a workday. As a groundsman at the Beachside Golf Course, he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d spoken to the boss, Simon Cottleslow. There was the day he interviewed for the job, the time he won the company hole-in-one competition, and at each of the annual company Christmas parties. So, why today?

  Carefully he scraped grass and sand off his boots, rubbed his palms on the seat of his jeans, then went into the clubhouse. When he entered the boss’s office he was not invited to sit. Uh-oh. Bad sign.

  Mr. Cottleslow stared hard at him over his wire-rim glasses. “Zachary Breen. You’ve been with us over three years now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have keys to all the maintenance and equipment store sheds.”

  “Yes, sir. The grass has to be watered early in the mornings so I need the keys to get in and collect the trailers, hoses and reels to do that when required.”

  “Some very expensive equipment has gone missing. Since you and Sam are the only people who have keys to those buildings we’re standing you down while investigations are underway. I’ll take your keys now, thank you.”

  Zac pulled out his key ring and took the golf club keys off it, then handed them to the boss. “What things have disappeared? Everything looked normal when I arrived this morning.”

  “Both the ride-on lawnmowers. Both the trailer attachments. Several other things. Consider yourself on indefinite leave. You’ll be contacted when the problem is solved. Good day.”

  Zac nodded and left the office, then walked out to the parking lot and sat in his truck. It didn’t make sense. Any sixteen-year-old with a piece of wire and some patience could get into the storage sheds. Hell, a brick through the window would work. At night no one would hear the sound of breaking glass, and the doors unlocked from inside. This was the beach for fuck’s sake, not the big city. And sure the lawnmowers and trailers were worth a couple thousand dollars, but the golf course itself was worth millions. In the grand scheme of things, a couple of thousand was nothing. Why stand him down? Why not send him out looking off-course to see if some kids had taken the lawnmowers and trailers for a joyride and dumped them? The property was huge and the back acres totally undeveloped. Kids could easily have ridden them out there and gotten bogged in sand or overturned them or something.

  Well, he had no job at the moment. He could go looking for them.

  Then Zac thought. Yeah but if I find the equipment no one will know I didn’t dump it there myself first. After what happened to Gwynnyth, with people threatening her house, likely I should be smarter about this.

  Could this be connected to what happened to Gwyn? Nah, you’re just getting paranoid. It’s just a couple kids having some fun. Still…

  Zac went back to his tiny garage flat, showered and changed, then got out the video camera he’d bought from Ed’s Electronics when Gwyn needed one. He scrabbled around in his junk drawer until he found a map of the golf course, then sat at his tiny table with a highlighter pen and marked the areas where a joyrider might go, also circling obvious places where the trailers may have been dumped. Thoughtfully he put an X over the lake. That was the best hiding place of all since it was quite deep enough to hide a few lawn mowers and trailers. And golfers almost never bothered to try to retrieve their balls from it, whereas they did wade into some of the smaller water obstacles.

  He checked the time, then phoned Parker and Gwyn. “Lunch is on me, at my place, one o’clock.” Next he phoned the Chinese take-out and ordered everyone’s favorite food, to go, at a quarter before one.

  His planning done, he lay back on his couch and wondered whether this could be someone out to get him, or if he was just being stupid. Reaching no conclusion, he jumped up and went to collect the food.

  ****

  “Yum, delicious,” said Gwyn, digging into the special fried rice.

  “My favorite,” crowed Parker, grabbing the container of sweet and sour pork.

  Zac just stared at the prawn crackers. Usually he’d fight the others off to get them himself, but today he couldn’t be bothered. The moment he was old enough, he’d had a casual, part-time job with Brian’s Better Home Maintenance. He’d always loved being outdoors, and by the time he was eighteen he’d been their main gardening sub-contractor. With so many vacation cottages here at the beach, yard-work was always available, no matter what the economic climate. Getting the groundsman job at the golf course had been a real career move as far as he was concerned. No more rushing from job to job. No more too much work today and none tomorrow. And best of all paid vacations.

  Now… now he had a problem.

  He looked up to see both Parker and Gwyn staring at him. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it, Zac? There’s m
ore to this than just a wish for our company over your lunch break,” said Parker.

  Gwyn jumped up from her chair, and came to stand behind him, rubbing his back and massaging his shoulders. “You’re all stiff and your muscles are knotted up,” she said. “Spill the news. What’s going on?”

  He told them what had happened then said, “I don’t know if I’m developing a persecution complex or what, but it just seems—weird.”

  “Weird is right. Why you and not Sam? Or was Sam stood down too?” asked Parker.

  Zac felt a flash of guilt. All he’d thought about was himself. He hadn’t even phoned Sam. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask Sam. I’m not a very good colleague, am I?”

  “I don’t know. Contacting him might not be seen as an appropriate thing,” said Gwyn thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, you aren’t allowed to talk to witnesses about court cases. Not that that this is a court case or anything. But— yeah. It’s hard to know what to do,” said Parker.

  They talked round and round in circles for a while until Gwyn said, “What were the ‘other things’ that have gone missing?”

  “Huh?”

  “Say what?” asked Parker.

  “You said, the boss, Simon Cottleslow, said, ‘other things’ had gone missing too.”

  “Oh, yeah, well that’s something else I didn’t ask,” said Zac. “I guess I was in a state of shock, or stunned, or possibly just stupid.” And for the first time since this had happened he felt a little lighter, as if sharing his trouble with Parker and Gwyn really had made things better. Of course nothing had changed, except his attitude. They trusted and supported him, so life was suddenly not so gloomy.

  “Hell! Look at the time. I’ve got to get back to work. Zac, spend the afternoon on the beach. Swim, surf, clear your head. I’ll meet you at Gwyn’s at six and we can plan what to do then.”