by Nancy Warren
Kate watched out of the front window as Nick strode down her front stairs and headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of his temporary home. She watched his long-legged stride and with every extra step she felt more and more bereft and confused.
She wasn’t the only one watching his progress. In the recent emotional drama she’d forgotten the PI, but there he was, across the street, sitting in a parked car. A beige, non-descript sedan.
She watched Nick until he turned the corner. She hesitated, thinking about everything he’d said. Nick loved her?
How could he have fallen in love so fast? People didn’t fall in love in a matter of days. That was crazy. Love built slowly, over time, as you learned to appreciate a person’s good qualities and to become part of their life and interests, share your own life and interests with them.
She stood at the window, looking out at the endless ocean, the moonlight shivering on its surface. She’d known Ted for three years. And yet, if Nick was correct, he’d been seeing another woman the entire time. Ted had let her into his interests and definitely into her family, which she’d taken as a sign of intimacy, now she realized she’d basically been his beard. He was seeking their approval of his wife while probably hiding another woman.
How much interest had Ted really taken in her life and interests? She’d let herself fall into the pleasing trap.
And then Nick had come along.
She didn’t try to please Nick. Probably because he’d insisted she be authentic at their first meeting, and she’d felt that he was the first man who’d ever really seen her for who she was rather than the version of herself she’d become adept at presenting to the world.
After she’d realized that he was paid to try to seduce her, she’d felt only hostility when he’d arrived in Carlsbad. And, again, she hadn’t bothered being anyone but her real self.
He’d seen her at her worst. Broken hearted, angry, wearing no make-up and with her hair spiky with salt water. He hadn’t cared. He said he’d fallen in love with her.
And what about her?
This feeling she’d experienced in the past few days of complete freedom had been intoxicating. She’d assumed she felt that way because she was taking a break from her real life. Nick was a player. A completely fun-loving, exciting, sexy man who had given her more pleasure in a week than she’d known in her lifetime. But that wasn’t love.
Was it?
Nick had turned the corner, he’d disappeared from view.
His final questions still echoed in her head. What were her plans?
What was she going to do?
In all the playing and surfing and celebrating her freedom the one thing she hadn’t done yet was to actively do anything to cancel her wedding. She hadn’t put a message on Facebook, she hadn’t called her friends. Apart from Lissa, no one knew. She’d left it to Ted’s family and her mother to take care of informing their guests that the wedding wouldn’t be going again but as far as she knew, no one had done that yet.
Now there was a private investigator sitting outside her apartment, a PI who was going to report back to the Carnarvons, which pretty much guaranteed she wouldn’t be enjoying freedom in this corner of paradise for much longer.
What was she going to do?
Pack up and run again? Sneak out the back way and hit the road?
No. Nick was right. She had already run away.
Now she was hiding like a coward.
Maybe it was time to stop doing both.
The PI was still sitting out there, no doubt waiting for Nick to return. “You’ll have a long wait, buddy,” she said, as though he could hear her.
Then, she grabbed her beach shoes and pushed her feet into them. She left her apartment and walked down the stairs. The guy in the car grabbed his cell phone as though he were pulled over making a call or checking directions or something.
Pathetic.
Nick should really give the guy some pointers.
She walked across the street. He cut his gaze to her and she watched his eyes widen slightly as she walked right up to his car and knocked on the window.
There was a tiny pause before he tried to roll down the window. But they were electric windows and nothing happened. He looked foolish for a second, then turned the key so the electronic system came on. This time when he pushed the button the driver’s window rolled down.
He looked at her as though he wasn’t sure if she was friend, foe or crazy person. “Help you?”
“I think I can help you,” she said.
A beat passed. “How?”
“This gig is about to wrap up. You’ve found me, reported back to the Carnarvons. By the way, you can tell them not to bother coming down here. I’m heading back in the morning.”
He didn’t say anything, simply stared at her. There were a couple of empty takeout coffee cups on the seat beside him, binoculars and a camera.
“But the good news is I want to hire you.”
He blinked at her. “You want to hire me to do what?”
“Follow Ted Carnarvon. I want to know everything you can find out about a woman he’s seeing named Marlene.”
“If I work for the Carnarvons, and I’m not saying I do, then I couldn’t take your case. It would be a conflict of interest.”
“First, they don’t have you on retainer and I can guarantee they are never going to give you any more work. They employ a big firm for that. You were strictly off the books. Trust me, I know these things. I almost married into that family. I’m offering you a couple of days’ work with a bonus if you get me the report in forty-eight hours.”
“Forty-eight hours?”
“Yep. You’d better get going.”
“I don’t—“
She understood his dilemma. For all he knew, she was playing him.
“Call them. Call them right now. Tell them you overheard me saying I’m heading back to LA tomorrow and what do they want you to do?”
He contemplated her words as though there might be an angle, then, obviously realizing his current job had been compromised the minute she knocked on his window, he agreed.
However, he shut the window first. Like it was a big secret whom he was calling.
The conversation wasn’t a long one.
He ended the call and still didn’t open the window right away. She gave him time. She didn’t particularly care if he turned her down. She could always find another investigator
She knew that the first part of the plan for the rest of her life had to be seeing Ted again. She’d ended her engagement with all the class of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Not that she hadn’t been justified in her rage, but still, she wanted to end her engagement once and for all with some kind of dignity.
And she wanted closure.
Within a minute the window rolled back down. “Here are my rates,” he said. “Half up front, half when I finish the job.”
“You’re hired.”
He still seemed leery. “You really leaving tomorrow?”
“I really am. Why don’t you follow me back to LA so you don’t get lost?”