The phone rang.
“Okay, not what I had in mind,” she muttered, pushing back from the counter. Still, it’s better than reliving my stellar stupidity.
Well, depending on who was calling.
Unearthing her cell phone from her purse, which she had to first locate beneath the jumble of last night’s discarded clothing, she gave the screen an apprehensive glance.
And exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when she saw it was the inn’s head of maintenance. She opened the connection. “Hi, Dan, what can I do for you?”
“Hey, Jenny,” he boomed and, pulling the phone away from her ear an inch, she easily envisioned him in her mind’s eye: a short, stocky, perpetually sun-and-wind-burned man who, five would get you ten, had a faded brown John Deere baseball cap pushed to the back of his head, its bent bill pointed north.
“I’m out at the storage sheds,” he said, “and the damn salt air has eaten clean through two-thirds of the hinges. I swear they go along just fine—then corrode overnight. Anyhow, I’m gonna go ahead and replace all of them to save me from having to turn around and do the rest next week.”
“O-kay.” It wasn’t like Dan to ask permission to do his job. Generally, he simply fixed things before they became a problem.
He laughed. “I know, I’m babbling. The problem is I don’t have enough in my existing supply. And I wasn’t sure if you want me to put them on the inn tab at the General, or if you’d rather pick some up for me yourself.”
“You do it. And figure how many you can handle in your supply closet so you can get those at the same time. Caleb’s good about the volume discount.”
“You got it.”
They discussed which cabins Dan’s paint crew planned to spiff up for a couple more minutes, then disconnected. Jenny tossed her purse on top of the clothing pile and raised her eyes to meet her gaze in the mirror.
“Okay,” she told it firmly. Time to stop obsessing over her idiocy and get to work. She needed to call in additional staff for both housekeeping and the restaurant for the coming weekend. Needed to touch base with the head gardener to ask about his staffing needs as well, since it was that time of year, and discuss his budget. She also needed to check with Maria to see how Abby was working out at the front desk, as it was important the younger woman be at full speed when things began accelerating in the coming weeks. What she didn’t need was to waste any more time thinking about Jake Bradshaw.
It didn’t pain her to admit, however, that she wouldn’t bitch if they managed not to run into each other for a while.
A nice long while.
* * *
STANDING IN THE KITCHEN in his boxers, lazily scratching his stomach above the low-slung band, Jake wondered if he’d run into Jenny today. Maybe he oughta drop by her place ’round about three-thirty and see how Austin’s pinball tournament had gone. She usually made it a point to be at her cottage for at least part of the afternoon when the kid came home from school.
“Damn, Bradshaw.” His hand stilled, then dropped to his side. He shook his head in disgust. “That’s pathetic.” Scowling at the coffeepot, he willed it to get a move on and produce the damn joe. Obviously he needed to clear his head.
Except...
If he thought that was pathetic, what was he supposed to make of the fact that he’d had a lush, desirable woman throw herself at him last night and he’d played the goddamn hero? Where had that come from? Wasn’t he the guy who had walked out on his kid? The man who cold-bloodedly chose women who were a slightly upscale, sophisticated version of a good-time girl expressly because they wouldn’t expect a damn relationship from him?
So why choose now to be honorable? He grabbed the coffeemaker’s glass carafe, ignoring the splatter and hiss on the hot plate as the last drops of water dripped through the grounds and hit it. Gratefully, he poured himself a soup-bowl-size mug.
Gut in an unaccustomed uproar, he took a big gulp and burned his tongue. Jerked in reaction to the scald and splashed some coffee from the cup onto the back of his hand.
“Ouch! Shit!” He fumbled the mug onto the counter, gave his hand a fierce shake, then slapped the faucet on, producing a voluminous gush of water.
“Christ.” He thrust his hand beneath the cold flood.
And wouldn’t have been the least bit comforted if he’d known he was mimicking Jenny—who was in his head too damn deep as it was—when he said, “Somebody just shoot me now.”
* * *
“I’M SORRY YOU CAN’T see Nolan right away,” Jenny said that afternoon as they climbed in the car.
Austin shrugged and focused his attention on his hands as they slowly fit the male end of his seat belt into the female and clicked it home.
Anything not to have to look at her. Jenny already seemed to possess this spooky ability to see into his head and read his thoughts.
They’d just walked out of Dr. Janus’s office, where he’d gotten his shot to replace the messed-up vaccination Dr. Howser had given him and Nolan and a bunch of other kids back when they were little.
It turned out he was gonna need a second one as well in about a month. Plus, Dr. J had said Austin’s body needed time to generate its own antibodies, so he had to keep on keeping his distance from Nolan.
It really sucked that he was sort of happy about that. What kind of shitty friend was he?
“It won’t be for long,” Jenny continued reassuringly, and he really wished she would quit talking.
Oblivious, she reached across the console to pat his knee. “Rebecca tells me Nolan’s eruptions are starting to crust. He won’t be infectious very much longer.”
“Yeah,” he agreed glumly.
“Hey, I know!” She took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot him a glance. “Why don’t we swing by and pick up Bailey? She’d probably appreciate the opportunity to get out of the house, too.”
“I’ve got to get to practice. But Bailey talked about being there.”
“Oh. I totally forgot about that. Still, I’m glad she’s going. You two are good together. And I think she can probably use all the friends she can get right now. Rebecca said she’s having a tough time in school.”
“It’s those damn snobby girls!” Okay, maybe that came out sounding a little too angry, because Jenny shot him an odd look. But it pissed him off that none of the girls at school would give Bailey a break.
And Jenny merely said, “It’s not easy coming in at the end of the year—especially in a school where everybody knows everyone else. Trust me, I’ve been there. You want to give her a call to see if she needs a ride?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, pulling his Droid from his pocket.
“Hey,” he said when Bailey answered. “Me and Jenny are on our way to practice. Want us to swing by to pick you up? You can tell Mrs. D if you want that I’ll walk you home when it’s over, so she doesn’t have to come pick you up.”
“That would be great,” Bailey said, and the pleasure in her voice sent an embarrassing heat through him.
“Sweet. See you in a few.”
“That works for her, I take it,” Jenny said and detoured to the Damoths’ house at the next turn.
“Yeah.” He kept his gaze firmly on the scenery outside. Because he was pumped knowing he’d have Bailey all to himself after practice. And he really wouldn’t mind if Nolan’s contagion took a bit longer to go away.
Which, as he’d already established, made him the shittiest of shitty friends.
* * *
JAKE WAS RESTLESS. He’d turned in the last of his National Explorer assignment a few days ago and had been enjoying a little R and R. But today being unproductive chafed him. Pacing the rental house ate up a little time, but not nearly enough. He was bored.
The thought stopped him in his tracks. “What are you, eig
ht?” His kid acted more mature than this. Exasperated with himself, he grabbed his camera, threw a couple of extra lenses in the bag and slammed out of the house. It had been a nice day, weather-wise, and was gearing up to be a decent evening, as well. Getting out and enjoying the weather beat the hell out of rambling around the cottage.
He killed some time stretched out on his stomach on the edge of the inn’s lawn to get shots of the sun-dappled water through the sea grasses. But landscapes weren’t exactly the creative outlet he was looking for. He liked photographing people best, yet did he take the boardwalk into town where he was likely to find a subject or two? No, ma’am. He found himself stalking down the beach away from it. Because as much as he’d enjoy shooting some portrait studies, he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
Until he spotted his brother—half brother—through the sparse screen of trees and waterfront properties that separated this section of the beach from the shore road. Max was cruising tortoise slow in his department SUV and—his frame of mind inexplicably lightening—Jake found himself cutting across the lot of one of the summer people’s buttoned-up cabin and heading toward the road to see where Deputy Dawg was going.
The action was about as dumb as everything else he’d done today, but what the hell. For the first time since he’d awakened this morning with little Ms. Salazar burrowed firmly in his head, his mind was engaged in something other than her.
The million-dollar question, of course, was what made him think he had a snowball’s chance of keeping pace with a man in a car. But, hey, it was something to do and it wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty of time on his hands. If—or, more realistically, when—he lost the trail, he’d at least have burned some time in this interminable day.
But—whataya know—he caught a break. As he rounded the slight bend in the road, he saw the back end of Max’s cruiser disappearing down the public boat launch where they’d watched the nuclear submarine. Red taillights blinked, then disappeared into the trees that bordered either side of the drive and parking area.
Cutting back toward the sun-dappled water, he lengthened his strides down the high, intermittently sandy sections of the pebble-and-rock beach.
The tide was in, and the shoreline mimicked the curve to the east that the road had taken, so the boat ramp was out of sight until Jake navigated the bend. The first thing he saw when he cleared it was Max sitting in a patch of sand with his back propped against a log, staring out over the canal. Jake stopped in his tracks and groped for his camera.
His brother looked so...lonely. Or, hell, maybe just alone. All Jake knew for sure was that the guy was all big, brooding angles, from his austere mouth and sharp cheekbones to the rawboned massiveness of his shoulders and wrists and his big-knuckled hands. His long legs were drawn up, his muscular arms crossed over his knees, and he’d planted his angular chin on one wrist.
Max’s dark hair, dark brows and thick fan of lashes, not to mention the black, almost military-style uniform sweater he wore with his jeans, were a study in contrasts against the bleached-out log he leaned against and the pale sand he’d dug his bare feet into.
Sand that had to be cold as hell this time of year. High-end running shoes with a sock stuffed in each were planted neatly on the log at his back.
Jake snapped off several shots.
The quiet click-whir, click-whir sent Max’s head whipping in Jake’s direction, and the deputy’s right hand had his pistol almost clear of its holster before Jake’s identity apparently registered.
“Christ.” Jake’s own hands snapped to shoulder height in an instinctive see, no weapon, no threat here demonstration, sending his camera swinging from its strap around his neck. Embarrassed by his reaction, he snapped, “What the fuck? They issue guns to guys with PTSD?”
“We prefer to call it razor-honed instincts,” Max said coolly, reseating his weapon. “Something I don’t expect a guy who takes pretty pictures for a living to understand.” But the dig was nowhere up to his usual standards, and something in his dark eyes suggested that maybe Jake’s crack had some basis in fact—if not currently, then in the not too distant past.
Something clenched low in Jake’s gut, because he didn’t like to think about what his half brother must have seen overseas to cause such a thing.
If it even were a fact and not just a figment of his imagination. He didn’t think his imagination was that good, though, and knowing instinctively that Max would hate anything he’d construe as pity, Jake sank into the sand next to the bigger man and lounged back against the same log. Turning his head to look at him, he said lightly, “So, you ever actually work? I mean, every time I see you, you’re either here or drinking beer at the tavern.”
The corner of Max’s mouth ticked up. “I just finished a nine-hour shift. I like to come here sometimes to watch the water and the mountains and maybe catch the show on the access.”
“What show?”
His half brother turned to pin him in his head-on gaze for the first time since Jake had sat down next to him. “You’re kidding, right? Didn’t you ever come down here in high school to watch people put their boats in and take ’em out of the water?”
“Can’t say that I did. I rode in friends’ boats sometimes, but they usually had private docks. I guess I never considered how they got them in and out of the canal.”
“That’s right. You ran with the rich crowd.”
He shrugged. “I started going out with Kari around my sixteenth birthday. Most of her friends came from the wealthier families in the area.”
“My friends were more the beer-blast and burger type. Sometimes a parent would have a nice little runabout or a beater boat that you could fish or crab from, but mostly we just came down here to party and watch the yahoos launch their boats. Probably eighty-five percent know what they’re doing, but that still leaves a shitload who don’t have a clue.”
An old Wahoo, running on fuel that emitted a smoky stench suggesting it was too rich in oil, pulled into shore. A passenger jumped onto the beach, then turned to push the boat back out before striding toward the parking lot. The boat took off, but circled around to idle twenty feet offshore.
Max grinned. “Speaking of which—”
Jake looked at him. “You know these guys?”
“Nah. But I’ve seen them before. Watch and marvel.”
Except for the soft slap of the small waves generated by the boat’s wake unfurling against the beach, it was quiet for a moment. Then a panel van backed a boat trailer down the ramp. As they watched, the trailer was maneuvered deeper and deeper into the water, until it covered first the trailer’s wheels, then its fenders. Even then the van continued to back up.
Jake jackknifed upright. “Are you kidding me?” He turned to stare at his brother. “He’s got the whole back end in there. Doesn’t the idiot know what salt water does to metal?” He turned back to watch the van on the access and snorted an incredulous laugh. “Seriously, man? The fucking tailpipe’s blowing bubbles!”
“Gotta love it, right?” Max demanded drily and cracked a rare smile.
“You see this kind of thing often?”
“All the time. Here’s a tip for you, little Bradshaw. Never buy a vehicle with Kitsap plates and a trailer hitch.”
“Ya think?” He laughed and settled back against the log.
Max was right—he watched and marveled. But it wasn’t so much the yahoo on the Wahoo’s lack of technique that held him in awe as the fact that this—this being with his brother and actually laughing over the idiocy of people together—had done what nothing else had managed to do: drained the edgy restlessness that had plagued him all day right out of him. Who would have predicted that?
With an odd little twist in his stomach, he realized that sometime in the past few weeks, Max had ceased being the bully from his past and become a...friend.
But he wasn’t stupid enough to say so out loud. “I can’t believe, with all the years I lived here, that I missed out on this. Look, here comes someone else.” He glanced at Max and grinned. “Give me a heads-up next time, yeah? I’ll bring the beer and popcorn.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“NO TEAM PICTURES!” AUSTIN groused for the umpteenth time as he took the plate Jenny had just rinsed and extended to him. “We’re going to be the first team in Bulldogs history not to have our pictures taken! And forget about the special annual or the write-up about you and the inn.”
She wouldn’t particularly miss the big ad she always bought to accompany the write-up, as it was more to support the team than bring in customers. Although to be fair, they had gotten occasional bookings from it.
But that wasn’t the point. She looked at the misery etched on Austin’s face and felt helpless. It didn’t stop her from trying to soothe him. “Honey, I’m sure—”
The teen banged both fists down on the kitchen counter, making her bobble the pan, in which he’d made their boxed mac-and-cheese dinner, back into the soapy water.
Unclenching his fingers, he braced his palms against the tiles and stiff-armed himself away, his head drooping disconsolately between hunched-up shoulders. “Sorry,” he said to the countertop. “You can’t help this time, though, Jenny. Nobody can—”
Then his head abruptly snapped up and he thrust a finger at the Sand Dollar across the small parking area. “That’s not true. He can!”
And before she could say a word, he’d ripped open the door to the mudroom and banged through the outer one. “Austin, wait!”
He didn’t, and jamming her feet back into the heels she’d kicked off for the aborted cleanup, she hobbled as fast as she could behind him. She finally stopped at the bottom of Jake’s porch and stood on one foot while hooking a finger under the leather she’d bent trying to jam her foot too quickly into the back of her other shoe. Damn cheap designer knockoffs.
That Thing Called Love Page 18