by S. J. Bishop
“No, the bank.”
“Oh.” This wasn’t personal; it was business. About a month ago, Karen and I had started looking into expanding The Mangroves into a chain. We’d come up with a project proposal and done all of our ground research. Karen was a property lawyer who did all the property research in the cities we were looking to expand in. We had a good lump sum to start but needed a sizeable bank loan.
“Apparently, they think the venture is riskier than we do. They’re willing to put in a good deal of the money, and are even willing to give us loans for more than one restaurant, but they say we need more investors.”
I inhaled through my nose. “We’ve talked about this, Karen. I’m not interested in bringing in investors…”
“You might have to reconsider that position,” my sister cut in. “Most restaurants have backers. You know this. If we want to open in Miami, we need ties to the Miami community, and we need more money if we want to be to be on South Beach…”
Ryan walked into the kitchen dressed in last night’s suit pants and white shirt. His tie and jacket were folded over his arm. His hair was finger-combed out of his face. He wasn’t smiling.
“…let’s discuss it this weekend,” my sister was saying. “I have a few ideas and some plan Bs and Cs…”
“Okay,” I said. “You want to stay for a few days?”
“I’ll play it by ear,” Karen was saying. “Give Lea a squeeze for me. I’ll see you soon. We’ll make it work.”
“I know,” I said. “We’ll make it work.”
12
Ryan
I’ve bounced back from being tackled by three-hundred-pound linemen quicker than I regained equilibrium after finding out Courtney’s daughter wasn’t mine. If she was nine, she couldn’t be mine.
In the hours leading up to Courtney’s arrival in her living room, I’d scoured those photo albums. They depicted an early life away from Serenity. It looked as if Courtney hadn’t gone to FSU after all but had gone to Texas. The little girl had been born there.
I’d done my best to calm down while I’d gotten dressed. Courtney was clearly dismissing me, and to be honest, I was happy to get out of there. I was still feeling…odd. Not at all like myself.
As I walked into the kitchen, though, I couldn’t help but overhear her conversation.
“… talked about this, Karen. I’m not interested in bringing in investors.”
I walked in to the kitchen, watching her hold the phone between her ear and her shoulder and finish her yogurt with her hands. There was something so…peaceful about the whole scene. Courtney: barefoot and braless in her small, functional kitchen. There were a few dark smudges beneath her eyes where her mascara had rubbed off.
Most girls begged me to stay for breakfast. Strolled around my place, or their places, in their underwear. Not Courtney.
“I know,” she said into the phone. “We’ll make it work.” She hung up and then glanced up at me.
“Investors?” I asked.
Courtney’s smile was small and forced. “It’s business stuff.”
“But why do you need investors for The Mangroves? Are you expanding?”
“Sort of,” said Courtney. “My sister and I are working together to turn it into a chain. I think we could open one in Miami, Cape Coral, Daytona...” Her eyes brightened. “Serenity isn’t a real tourist destination, but do you know that most of our best clients are the snowbirds? They love the ‘Old Florida’ vibe. Imagine what we could do in tourist cities.”
Shit. That was actually a great idea. There were tons of restaurants in Serenity Beach, but most people made The Mangroves a regular stop. The indoors had the dark furniture, paddle fans, fishing and gator vibe, and, among the usual bar-type food, served traditional south Florida fare. Putting one in tourist destinations was a great idea.
“So, you know that I’ve been looking for investment opportunities…” Courtney’s face shut down immediately.
“Not interested. Thanks,” she said. “In fact, I have to pick up Lea and go open the restaurant. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m sure you’ve got to get back to Boston.” She walked out of kitchen, toward the door, and I could do nothing but follow her.
Opening the door, she reached up and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “This was fun, Ryan. It was nice seeing you again. Good luck with your season!”
She all but crowded me out of the house, and the next thing I knew, I was staring at her front door as it latched close.
Well, fuck!
I took a deep breath. Courtney was right about one thing: I did have a plane to catch – but I wasn’t so sure I was going back to Boston.
Heading back to the rental, I pulled up a phone number and hit send.
“This is Henry,” came a deep voice on the end of the phone.
“Law, it’s Mac,” I said.
“Hey, Mac, what’s good?”
“Coming into Miami this afternoon. Put a brother up?”
“Short notice. How long you staying for?”
“Just a day or two.”
“Then no problem.”
“I’m going to need to pick your brain. You got a few hours to spare me?”
“I can clear my schedule.”
“Great. See you in a few.”
13
Courtney
Dark brown eyes, sculpted lips curved in a smug smile, and a hand sliding over the curve of my hip. I look up, toward his heart, where my name used to be. There was a compass-rose there now and a map of the Indian River, dotted with islands and stretched across an impressive pectoral muscle…
“Come on, babe! Lea’s up!” Adriana shook my arm, snapping me out of my poorly timed reverie. I blinked. Goddamn it! I knew that sleeping with Ryan was going to be a terrible idea. Time heals a lot of wounds, but apparently, ten years had not been enough to distance me from Ryan Mcloughlin. One night with him (one hot, steamy night…), and I was falling right back into that old obsession.
I let Adriana lead me to the edge of the water and watched my little girl step up onto the swimming blocks. The water had barely settled from the last race, and I watched Lea stare at it nervously. “I swear,” I murmured. “She’s bold as you please everywhere else in life, but races make her almost too nervous to function.”
“She looks a bit more nervous than usual,” Adriana admitted, watching from a distance as Lea gnawed her lip and stared at her other competitors.
“It’s the fifty yard butterfly,” I said. “She’s actually pretty good at this event, but I think it’s the hardest, and so it’s the scariest.”
When the buzzer went off, Lea hesitated briefly before launching into the water.
Lea was a natural athlete and swam hard, but she hung onto the wall too long on her turn and ended up coming in second.
“She would have gotten first if she’d made the turns quicker,” muttered Addie.
“She gets too much in her head. Gets in her own way a lot,” I said. But I’d let the coach tell her that. He was talking to her now. Based on the motions he was making, he was going over the start and the turn. Lea was nodding.
“Like her mother?” murmured Addie as she strolled back to where we’d left our chairs.
“When do I ever get in my own way?” I said. “If you’re talking about Ryan, I don’t want to hear it. It was your dumb idea to sleep with him.”
Adriana shrugged. I couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses.
“Momma!” Lea called, running over. With her long legs, her goggles still on, and a maroon cap covering her dark hair, she looked like a little alien.
“Hi, baby,” I said, opening my arms and giving her a squeeze, getting water all down the front of my t-shirt. “Good race!”
“I came in second.”
“I saw the whole thing,” I said, biting my tongue.
“Coach said I need to be quicker on the turns.”
“I just think you need to not be so nervous.”
Lea nodded. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Fishing it out, I blinked, “Hang on a second, baby. It’s Doug.” I picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“HI, DOUG!” Lea hollered before the man on the other end of the phone could answer.
“Is that the water bug?” Doug’s warm, friendly voice filled my ear. “Put me on speaker!”
I hit speaker. “Hi, water bug!” Doug called.
“HI, DOUG!”
“What are you and that beautiful mother of yours doing for the next few days?”
“School and work and school and work,” Lea said. “And swim! I came in second!”
“Second? What happened to first?”
“She beat me.”
“Well, I guess that is what generally happens,” said Doug, wryly. Doug and I had dated during my last two years of college and my first year of business school. He had been around a lot during Lea’s early years, and he’d been really great with her. Ultimately, we hadn’t worked out. We’d both been young, he hadn’t been interested in settling down and starting a family, and while I was sad about the breakup, I hadn’t been as devastated as I’d been with Ryan. I had gotten over it quickly, and Doug and I were still friends. He sent Lea presents on her birthday and, though he was still based out of Houston, whenever he was in Orlando on business, he’d come up and visit with us for a day or two. I didn’t have any brothers, and hadn’t had a long-term boyfriend since, so Doug’s presence in Lea’s life was something I’d encouraged.
“Hey, Court, can I take you and Bug out, maybe on Wednesday night?”
“We’re around,” I said. Doug was exactly what I needed to take my mind off of Ryan. Ryan was a playboy, and I would probably never hear from him again. Doug was a responsible adult and a staple in mine and my daughter’s life. “I’m excited to see you,” I said.
“Me, too,” said Doug, and he sounded excited. “I’ve got some news.”
“What is it?”
“Tell you Wednesday,” he said. “Go enjoy the meet. I’ll call you maybe on Tuesday with the particulars.”
“All right,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Yay! I like Doug!” crowed Lea. “Hi, Addie.” She gave Adriana a wet hug and then ran off to join her team.
Addie pursed her lips. “What a sweetie,” she said after Lea. Then, to me. “So. Doug again?”
“You like Doug,” I reminded her. Why was she all of a sudden so ‘Team Ryan’? She didn’t even know him.
“I do like Doug. But I always thought it was shitty that he broke up with you because he was ‘too young to start a family’ but then stayed in such close touch. He gets all the benefits of your company without any of the commitment.”
I shrugged. “He doesn’t get ‘all the benefits of my company,’” I said. “We’re friends, the same way you and I are friends.”
“Maybe,” muttered Addie. “Have you heard from Ryan at all?”
“No. And I don’t expect to.”
“Courtney…”
“Drop it with Ryan,” I warned. “Seriously, Addie. I had fun. And now he’s gone.”
Adriana pressed her lips together, making it clear that she wanted to argue but wasn’t going to. Good. I sat down, picking up my magazine. It might take a few days to forget the hot sex, to stop checking my phone every few minutes, and to stop thinking about all of the things I might have said but didn’t, but I would. Ryan Mcloughlin was not a part of my life.
14
Ryan
“So, what’s the deal, man? You still think it’s your kid?” Law Henry sat across from me in the study of his Miami penthouse. Law and I had played together in college, and he’d signed with the Dolphins in the second round of the draft that year (I went fourth round). Dude’s about six foot two, ripped with muscle, and serious as an axe. He never smiles, never jokes, and I’ve only ever seen him drunk once, the night after the draft.
“She says it’s not, but look.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and thumbed through the photos I’d taken at Courtney’s house. “I mean, it’s hard to take a picture of a picture, but look at that chin.”
Law took my phone and stared at it, his lips pursed. “I mean, she could be nine. She could be twelve. I can’t guess a kid’s age.”
“Look at her chin, bro.”
“Yah, okay. That’s your chin, and she has your coloring. But no offence, Mac, all you white guys look alike.” He didn’t smile, but I knew he was joking, trying to lighten the mood. Nobody was certain what Law’s ethnicity was. He had never known his father. His mother was half-Italian and half-Cuban. Law had warm brown skin, startling turquoise eyes, and a face that looked like it had come straight off of an Egyptian death mask.
“So,” said Law, when I let the silence drag. “Let’s talk business. Number one: Why do you want to open a restaurant in Miami? Number two: What did you think about the scene?”
“One: I can’t be a football player forever. I want to invest my money in a business venture. Restaurants are tricky, but if they’re run correctly, you can make a boatload on returns. Two: You know some sketchy-ass people.”
Law would never admit to it, but with a series of Italian and Cuban uncles – and all the ‘connections’ he seemed to have around town with men who wore gold chains – I’d say he was friendly with (if not outright involved in) the Mafia. We’d met with restauranteurs, property owners, and wholesale distributers. Law had been as useful as I’d anticipated, and everyone he had introduced me to – while suspect – had seemed friendly enough.
“But real talk,” I said, “I think Miami is ripe for a place like The Mangroves. What do you think about North Beach?”
“From all you’ve told me about her restaurant, it sounds like a ‘family’ kind of place, and South Beach doesn’t have too many of those. If you can get the capital to open in South Beach, that’s where the tourists stay. That’s where she’ll make the most money.”
“Capital might be an issue,” I said. “I’ve been working on some of my teammates – they’re not too keen to go into business with me…”
“Wonder why that is,” said Law dryly. I shot him a look, and his lips twitched. Almost a smile.
“Listen, Mac,” said Law. “I get the whole asshole thing. I had you figured out ages ago, man. Be a dick; see if anyone can see through it. If they can, they’re worth your time. If not? Don’t bother. Right?”
What was he, a fucking psychologist? I rolled my eyes.
“Here’s what I recommend. Get your lady to draw up the proposals. Get your boys down to Serenity, and I’ll come too. If the offer is enticing enough, I might be interested.”
Fuck. That would be huge. Law’s connections in Miami were priceless.
“I have a guy you might want to meet tomorrow,” Law continued. “He’s not shady. He’s a developer, and he’s built all up and down Biscayne Bay.”
“All right, yah. Hook me up.”
“When do you fly back to Boston?”
“We’ve got the week off, so I’m staying in Serenity until we have to go back for pre-season.”
Law nodded and was silent a moment, watching me intently so that I knew he had something else to say. When he spoke, he spoke slowly. “Do you really think that kid is yours, or do you just want her to be yours?”
I blinked. “Bro. Are you kidding? Who wants their lives complicated by a secret love-child?”
Law shook his head. “You. The Mama says she isn’t your kid, but you keep pushing it. If I had to guess, I’d say you want the kid to be yours. And you want the mother, too.”
“Everyone’s a fucking psychiatrist,” I muttered darkly, rising. I needed to get out of there before I gave into the urge to hit something. As I strode out of Law’s penthouse and onto the streets of Miami’s wealthy Bay Shore district, I couldn’t help but turn over what he said. Did I want Courtney? Badly. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Did I want Lea?
My gut churned over at the thought. I needed to get back to Serenity and talk to Courtney. I needed to figure this out
.
15
Courtney
Doug strolled into The Mangroves punctually at 12:00.
The lunch crowd was light, and I was chatting with Brandon as he tended bar, so I saw Doug the moment he stepped foot on the premise. Doug was tall, though not as tall as Ryan. He competed in triathlons and worked for Ernst and Young, so he was lean, fit, and dressed like a businessman in navy blue slacks, a white shirt, and expensive brown leather shoes with a matching belt.
“This guy again,” murmured Brandon as Doug smiled and waved. I ignored Brandon and went to greet my ex. I don’t know why Brandon and Adriana didn’t like Doug. Most people (my parents included) really liked Doug. He was honest, friendly, and warm, and he could be incredibly generous. He’d called Tuesday and told me he was getting into Serenity around noon. Since Lea was in school until two, I suggested we have lunch, catch up, and then we’d go pick her up together.
“Hey, Beautiful!” Doug hailed. From Dallas originally, Doug had a light Texan accent. We embraced warmly, Doug kissing my cheek and allowing me to draw him toward a table near the kitchens, where I could still keep my eye on things.
“It’s great to see you,” I said as we sat. “But I’ve been on the edge of my seat since Sunday. What’s your news?”
“The news? The company is sending me to Orlando for six months to contract long-term with a few of our clients.”
That was his big news? I blinked. I had been certain he was going to tell me that he was engaged to that girl he’d been dating (Krissy? Christine?).
I knew I had to say something, so I said, “Hey, that’s great!” And it was. I loved seeing Doug, and Doug being in Orlando meant that Lea and I just might get to see him a bit more often.
But apparently, I wasn’t enthusiastic enough. Doug frowned at me and then looked sheepish. “I thought you’d be excited.”
Why? “Hey, it means we’ll get to see you more,” I said. “But – ah – what about your girlfriend…” Shit, what was her name? “Kristen?”