“I’m not putting my sobriety in her hands. We’re taking this easy.”
“You kept her dog and were on edge the entire time she was in the hospital. People see how y’all are together. We’re on the periphery, though, because you and Sofia have tunnel vision. All she sees is you. All you see is her. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s a whole hell of a lot wrong with pretending it’s not true. It insults my goddamn intelligence and I don’t appreciate it.”
All she sees is you. All you see is her.
“I’m saying this because I’m your friend.” His expression grave, McGuinty appeared decades beyond his age. “I’d expect the same courtesy from anyone who wants to call himself my friend.”
“Yeah? Then I need to tell you to take a step back from Caro Jayne. She’s got more problems than you and a bunch of flowers can fix.”
Self-destructive people could always recognize parts of themselves in one another, and he figured the woman who poured his drinks with a pretty smile on her face and bracelets stacked up her wrists suspected the worst of his damage the same as he suspected hers.
“It’s just advice from a friend,” he said to McGuinty, turning to leave the house and return to the job he’d come here to do. “It’s up to you to take it or piss on it. That works both ways.”
*
“Anyone who’s anyone in this town is supposed to be out at Bellini Beach. Isn’t today a holiday?” With his multimillionaire swagger, Aeneas Strayer—Rooster, among the Dead Men—advanced on the visitor’s chair in Bautista’s law office.
Nessa, who’d just finished compiling disclosures for an ongoing case, gave the man a flat smile and made an escape to her own office. When Aeneas visited Bautista here, it rarely had anything to do with follow-the-proper-protocol legal matters.
“Mmm, she’s a hot one. Feisty.” Aeneas swiveled toward the door to attempt another look at Nessa. “A lot of woman, but I can handle her.”
“No, you can’t.” Under different circumstances, Bautista would’ve laughed out loud at the notion of down-to-earth Nessa giving top-to-bottom-polished Aeneas the time of day.
“All right, we’ll agree to disagree.”
Bautista nodded and went to the door to shut it. “Something else we’re going to agree to disagree on—you’re not getting your hands on Society Street.”
“Hey, easy now. No need to be hostile.”
“Shut up.” Aeneas was his friend, his club brother—but when it came to fork-tongued deception, there was no friendship or brotherhood. “When Luz died, I didn’t close my eyes and ears. So I know you approached Sofia Mercer when she was hospitalized, that you tried to lure her to the negotiation table.”
“A client was interested in the property. On that client’s directive, I presented an offer. That’s business. That’s craft. That’s food on my goddamn table.”
After Sofia had shown him a business card, Bautista had scheduled a meeting, without his brother Rooster, at Bottoms Up. It would be the last time he’d host a talk inside the bar. The familiar atmosphere, the advantage of being on his territory, had aided him to put the puzzle together, piece by treacherous piece.
“What about working an angle when Luz was in my ear about putting my bar on the market? What about pulling her strings so you could broker deals to sell the strip to Omni and collect double commission? What’s that?”
“Temper, Judge. The person you should be angry with is the woman who was sucking on your cock by night and making plans to get into our club by day.”
“I know you preyed on Luz. You dangled the promise of club membership in front of her. Admit it and I won’t retaliate.”
Aeneas gave the room a cursory scan. No witnesses. No weapons. “She said you shut her down when she told you she wanted in.”
True, but beside the point. He never wanted the two halves of his world—the club and Luz—to collide. It’d pissed him off that she’d asked to join the fold after he’d already decided to retire to protect her. “Don’t tell me her sins. We’re talking about yours.”
“I told her I could get her in.”
“No way in fucking hell would the club have allowed it.” Bautista had been transparent—Luz was his, and it was understood that she was completely untouchable to the club. He would’ve killed the membership nomination quickly, before it could bleed out on the voting table.
“Luz didn’t know the hierarchy,” Aeneas said. “I told her I could do something for her that you wouldn’t. All it took was proof that she’d sacrifice for the brotherhood.”
Bautista watched him, unblinking. He could stop Aeneas’s heart in ten seconds—and he might, depending on the answer to his next question. “Did you touch her?”
“You asking if I fucked your fiancée?” Panic leeched the blood from the man’s face. Yes, Bautista could end him here in the luxury of the East Millennium Tower while the town celebrated the birth of a free nation. Or, if Aeneas chose to lie, Bautista could put him down slowly, let him suffer—as any iron-hearted executioner would.
“Did you?” Bautista asked simply.
“No. I didn’t touch her.”
He believed Aeneas, but there was strategy and advantage in not indicating that he did. “Keep talking.”
Testimony of overheard conversations and sales invoices obtained through creative means had offered a clear picture, but Bautista demanded the truth from Aeneas. Brother to brother, the man confessed to ordering a custom-made jacket and putting a bike on loan for Luz. The agreement was she’d sacrifice property in exchange for the Dead Men privilege. Not just her shop—the entire three-building strip.
Except Burke Wolf was a stubborn son of a bitch who’d turned every offer down, and then Luz died…her ring absent from her finger because, according to Aeneas who’d asked her about it when he noticed her bare hand one day, she’d claimed she hadn’t deserved it.
Bautista doubted the ring and the love it symbolized were enough for her anyway. She’d wanted inclusion, family that wouldn’t leave her.
“Luz is dead. What does it matter now?” Aeneas said. “I need this goddamn deal. I made some bad investments. They turned my accounts upside down. My wife’s blowing through money and doesn’t know we’re living on credit.”
Bautista sat at his desk. “So you’d screw over Luz and me to avoid pissing off your wife?”
Swearing viciously, Aeneas slammed out of the chair and let it capsize onto the floor. “You don’t want that bar. Jayne can go snap her pictures anyplace else. Wolf would be out of his fucking mind to turn down two million dollars for that store. And the other place—are you shitting me? Sofia Mercer’s only here because she followed the money.”
“She’s not going to sell.”
“It’s too late for her to start giving a damn, don’t you think? Luz wanted in the club because she had no one here to call family. She thought I was the man who could give her what she wanted, who could satisfy her…and I think you envy me that.”
Bautista laid his hands flat on the desk instead of letting them curl in violence, because Aeneas Strayer was as wrong as he was right. “You’ve got three properties on Society Street that aren’t for sale. No deal, Aeneas.”
“It’s Rooster to you.”
“Nah, it’s Aeneas.” He watched the man sputter, unraveling as he stood in an expensive tailored suit. “I’m riding with the Dead Men in some weeks, to retire. I don’t want you on that ride.”
Unspoken but nevertheless true, the club’s loyalty lay with the member carrying higher seniority and influence, meaning Javier Bautista over Aeneas Strayer.
“Get the fuck out of here, Aeneas. Don’t disturb Nessa.”
When Bautista eventually left the East Millennium Tower, he drove to Society and went to Bottoms Up. Even after he relinquished part of the ownership, it’d still feel like his bar. He could leave Cape Cod, lose himself in the crowds of a metropolitan city somewhere, and this small underground character would still belong to him. The only way to ble
ed this place out of his system would be to cut himself deep.
Caro, sharp-eyed and ruled by intuition, had known that when she’d refused to buy it cheap. He’d never let it go completely.
The crowd was thin today with so many descended on Bellini Beach for food and fireworks. No words to spare, no patience for pleasantries, he hunted down the solitude of his office but stopped cold inside the door. “Who let you in here?”
“Don’t be upset with Tariq,” Joss said, standing in front of his desk. “I told him I had Blush business and was leaving you a note. In a way that’s true.”
Bautista had fucked up, letting his weakness and hers meet at a tragic moment. The sex had been fierce, angry, the kind that pushed his limits, but he wouldn’t make the mistake again.
Joss wanted to come back to him, wanted to find something in him that didn’t exist. She was meant for someone who could heal and love her the way she deserved.
“What about Blush?”
“Sofia and Caro are game to join you in ownership of Bottoms Up. I am, too. We have plans for this side of the block. It involves cooperation from Burke, but Sofia and I didn’t get anywhere by lying down for defeat. Caro’s a fighter, too.”
“Caroline told me you want to take down walls, make this into a nightclub.”
“Did she tell you we named it? We’d want to call it Guilty Pleasures. Bautista, the three of us went to Hot Dish, where men galore were flirting and the food was delicious, but we sat there for hours dreaming and planning and making decisions. We’re serious. We’re in this together.”
“I’m not the man you need to convince. Talk to Wolf.”
“Then you’re okay with partnering up with me, even though we slept together?”
“My name on the paperwork doesn’t mean I’ll be down here with you every night. It doesn’t mean I won’t leave altogether and check in from wherever I end up.”
“You’d disappear? Would that be easier than avoiding me the way you do now?”
“Eventually you’ll thank me for the distance, when you move on with a man who can give you the love you’ve been looking for your whole life.”
Joss rubbed her temples and came forward. “I don’t want to wait. I’m so damn tired of waiting.”
“Don’t touch me, Joss.” He couldn’t let infatuation or rebound turn into attachment. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
She ignored him, reaching to clasp his hand in both of hers. One day a man would cherish her soft skin and soulful blue eyes and vivacious spirit. She was a phoenix—she’d rise again. Getting mixed up with him would only hold her down.
“Bautista.” She closed her eyes. “Javier. Hold my hand, okay? Hold me. Please.”
He laid his free hand on top of hers and she sobbed so quietly. God. Damn. She thought he was hurting her, but he was sparing her. “Joss.”
“Wait. Please…” Sniffling, she moved closer and tipped up her face. “Please.”
Bautista kissed her, and she gasped in his air and tightened her hold on his hands. Finally he pulled away from her mouth and she whispered, “No, not yet. Not yet.”
“Let me go,” he said gently. “You have to.”
She unwrapped her fingers and held her hands to her mouth.
“I can’t be what you need, Joss. Somebody is going to lead you to everything you’re searching for. He’s going to love you on every level there is, but it won’t be me.” He held her shoulders when she pleaded with him with tear-filled eyes. “I wish you the best. Happiness. Safety. Luck. I want that for you. Okay?”
Tears escaped as she nodded, and her voice came out in a croak. “Okay.”
She left and he collapsed into his chair before he allowed the first tear to fall. Alone now, he could give himself time to grieve.
CHAPTER 19
The American flag wasn’t meant to cover a woman’s crotch, or so Anne Oakley informed Sofia when she and Tish joined the celebration on Bellini Beach.
Patriotic inspired, with a starred top and striped bottom, the bikini was the first Sofia had worn in public without the modesty of a cover-up.
Eyes flocked to the scar gleaming under the spotlight of a cerulean July afternoon. Children wrinkled their noses or stared with perturbed fascination—Caro’s son, Evan, asked with precocious curiosity, “Does it hurt?” and then offered her the rest of his dripping watermelon wedge before giving Tish a sticky-fingered hug and hurrying off with Caro to set up a blanket near the water.
In an effort to be tactful, some adults looked away after giving her the briefest of hellos and “Happy Fourth!” greetings. Others inspected the scar with curious glances and flung their attention elsewhere to avoid lingering too long.
And then there were some who noticed that there was a human being attached to the nasty, jagged bolt.
The mixed reaction was expected, but she couldn’t pretend she cared much. It was Independence Day and she was breaking free of restraints that’d held her too long.
Maintaining distance between Tish and the barbecue buffet required more muscle and creativity than Sofia had anticipated. Fortunately Caro waved to them from a paisley-print blanket and offered to keep Tish while Sofia hit the buffet. Nearby, Evan was constructing a sand castle…
That looked a great deal like a military tank.
“That’s one freakishly accurate tank,” Sofia said to Caro over the live bluegrass band when she returned to the blanket with a plate made heavy with barbecue chicken and potato salad.
Caro knocked away an errant curl and her many bracelets jangled. “Evan’s a very precise child. If he sets out to do something, he insists on doing it well.”
Nice way to sidestep Sofia’s emphasis on the subject of the boy’s sand castle art. When she’d babysat him on a night when Caro had a late photo session, she’d put him to bed in a room filled with G.I. Joe action figures on the floor, military books on the shelves, and a camouflage comforter on the bed.
“Caro, is Evan’s father in the military?”
They had become fast friends and she hoped Caro trusted her with an honest conversation.
The woman worried her lip and stole a square of potato from Sofia’s plate. Lying on the blanket, Tish eyed her hopefully but seemed to huff when Caro popped the potato bit in her own mouth. “He’s a navy SEAL. He’s not a part of Evan’s life, or mine. But the military interest is something Evan has in common with him. I didn’t encourage it at first, but then a friend suggested that I strengthen my bond with Evan by allowing him to understand his father’s life instead of steering him away from anything linked to him.”
He and him. Caro chose her words carefully, avoiding letting the man’s name pass her lips. She smoothed down the hem of her summer dress. “He told me that being a SEAL was in his blood and he couldn’t abandon that. I thought it was a load of bollocks, but it seems to be in Evan’s blood, too, and how can I fight that?”
“Did you ask him to leave the navy because of the danger?” Sofia asked as they both observed the dark-haired child crouch in the damp sand and mold the tank with a frown set in his eyebrows.
“I never asked. I knew he’d say no anyway. So I let him go.”
“But for a man to leave his kid?”
“He left before Evan was born.” Pointedly, Caro looked at Sofia as the question sprang up. Does Evan’s father know he’s a father? “I’m not sorry for my choices when it comes to my son. Whether he continues this obsession with the military or moves on to, I don’t know, building blocks or something, I’m his mum and that’s fine enough.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s choose a new subject, shall we?” Caro scanned the clusters of people gathered at the buffet, surrounding the picnic tables, and walking the shoreline. “No Joss?”
“She’s not coming. She said she was tired and might find someplace to watch the fireworks tonight.” Sofia let her have her space, though it wasn’t like her friend to pass up a social event, particularly one with catered barbecue.
Tish rol
led over, offering her belly for a scratch while her nose wiggled at the aromas wafting from Sofia’s plate. Caro obliged, tickling the dog’s tummy. “Massive turnout today. People are dancing in the sand. Oh, I dream nightly of the moment customers come to our street for dancing.”
“It’s a lovely dream, but Caro, that’s it. We’ll have a say in the bar. That’s our reality.”
“Luz would wash your mouth out for that, and I’d hand her the soap.” The wind combed her fluttering curls as she leaned forward. “She told me that Blush was a dream. It was one she and your mother dreamed together.”
“I have a hard time believing that.” Sofia licked honeyed barbecue sauce from a knuckle. “Ellen couldn’t wait to pop me out of her womb and hit the road.”
“As I remember Luz telling it, Ellen stopped believing in their dream when she was pregnant. The boutique wasn’t practical and neither were you. Motherhood was a dream for her, too, and I guess sometimes when people end up with what they want, they don’t know what to do with it and can’t cope with happiness.”
Sofia’s appetite abandoned her as she stared at her plate. Ellen couldn’t cope with having what she wanted? She’d wanted Blush and a family of her own? “I was nobody’s dream. A burden, yeah. Not a dream.”
“I didn’t say that to hurt you, love.”
She might have nodded, but she felt numb.
Was failure to cope with happiness a blood bond between Sofia and Ellen, as the military was for Evan and his father? Or was she more like Luz, single-mindedly driven to chase what she wanted?
“I dream about Guilty Pleasures, too,” she confided. “But it won’t come true for very real reasons. Burke won’t budge.” Even if Burke gift-wrapped the Cape Foods building, Sofia and her friends would have plenty of hurdles to surmount. But she tingled with a craving to have the opportunity.
“Speak of the ridiculously sexy devil,” Caro murmured, her eyes widening. “Stage left. Wipe the sauce off your chin.”
Sofia snatched the napkin she held on her lap and swiped until her friend gave a thumbs-up and gestured for Sofia to smooth her windblown hair.
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