She screwed up her face like he was clueless. “Jocelyn’s in trouble,” she said, the words sending a weird punch in his chest. “The four of us are really tight. When someone has a problem, like Lacey did last year or Jocelyn does now, we rally.”
“That’s… nice.” So she’d found another safety net when he was out of the picture. He wasn’t sure how that made him feel, but the next hammer swing was even harder.
“How close were you two?” she asked.
“Maybe you should ask her.”
She snorted softly. “You don’t know her very well, do you?”
“Funny, I was just thinking that. I don’t really know her much at all anymore.”
“Well, she’s not the most, uh, forthcoming person. She’s very private.”
She’d always played things close to the vest, but not with him. She had been open with him. But that was so long ago. He slid the nailer along the wood plank and nestled it into place, then raised the dead-blow hammer again.
“You don’t think she had an affair with that Thayer guy, do you?” she asked just as he swung.
God damn it, he missed again.
“Sorry, Will.”
He closed his eyes, silently accepting the apology and delaying his response.
“Do you?” she asked again.
“I haven’t thought much about it.” Which was pretty much an out-and-out lie. He’d thought plenty about it when he heard it on TV and still had the damn tabloid in his truck.
“Well, she didn’t,” she said. “It’s all lies.”
“Then why doesn’t she say something to shut up all these yapping reporters?”
She took a sip of water. “In true Jocelyn fashion, she won’t say. But I know her and I can assure you, she’s caught in the middle of something that is unfair and untrue.”
“That’s a shame.” And he meant it. She’d had enough crap in her life. “Good that she can ride it out here in Barefoot Bay.”
“Well, she does have her dad here, but…” Her voice trailed off. “Do you know him?”
That one came in like a curveball, low and slow and totally unexpected. Good thing he caught curveballs for a living once.
He hammered a few times, thinking. How much had Jocelyn told her friends? Any other woman, he’d guess everything. Jocelyn wasn’t any other woman, though. And how much did she want known? Probably nothing.
“I live in my parents’ old house, right next door to him, so, yeah, I know Guy Bloom.”
Tessa inched forward, interest sparking in her eyes. “What’s he like?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “I’m not prying or anything, it’s just that she doesn’t talk about him much. At all, really.”
He slammed the last nail and leaned back on his haunches to survey the board before pulling out his level.
“He’s old,” he said, doubting that he was giving away any state secrets. “Not real healthy. I, you know, keep an eye on him now and then.” Like every morning, afternoon, and night.
“Nice of you.”
He shot her a look. “Decent and humane. I’d do it for anyone, any old man living next door.”
“Whoa.” She held up a hand and smiled. “I just said it’s nice, Will.”
Puffing out a breath, he let his backside fall onto the underlayment, shaking his head, words bubbling that he just had to fight.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Look, she’s private, you just said so. I don’t want to speak out of school.”
“Will, we all want to help her,” she said, leaning forward. “We love her. But last time she was here and probably this time, too, she won’t go anywhere near that part of Mimosa Key. She refuses to go south of Center.”
“Well, she’s south of Center right this minute.”
“What’s she doing there? I thought she was shopping.”
He cracked his knuckles and looked at his fresh-laid floor. This woman was one of Jocelyn’s best friends, a replacement for him all those years ago. Maybe they could help her—and help Guy.
He wouldn’t reveal old secrets, just new ones. “He has dementia,” he said softly. “I think she’s down there trying to figure out what to do with him.”
With a soft gasp, she lifted her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. “I had no idea.”
“Neither did she.”
“Oh my God, poor Joss. What’s she going to do?”
It was a rhetorical question, he knew, but he answered anyway. “Let’s see, she’s going to organize his life, catalog his stuff, research facilities, pack him up, sell his house, move him out and anything else she can put on some kind of to-do list.”
“Oh.” She almost smiled. “That’s our girl. So she was always a control freak?”
“Not as much as she seems to be now.” He dragged his hands through sweaty hair, committed to the truth now. “I don’t think it’s the absolute right way to go. I’d just like her to think it through. He’s not…” He blew out a breath. “He’s changed from when she last saw him.”
She thought about that for a moment, maybe struggling with how much she should reveal. “I don’t know… details, but my guess is a change in her father’s personality can only be an improvement. That’s just conjecture on my part, but I did spend four years in college with her and I picked up a little here and there.”
He just nodded, carefully choosing his words. “He wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. But now, well, I’d just like to see him comfortable.”
“Well, one thing about Jocelyn,” Tessa said. “She’s fair. And she’s a really good life coach with a track record for helping people find balance and joy.”
Then maybe she needed to work on her own life and not Guy’s. And, hell, Will could use a little balance and joy, too. “Then maybe she just needs time to figure out the best way to help him. I’m just not sure how to convince her of that.”
Tessa smiled. “My advice? Whatever you want, let her think it’s her idea and she’s in charge. Otherwise, wham, she’ll—”
“Be gone.” He heard the hurt in his voice and, from her look, so did Tessa.
“She has mastered the disappearing act.”
You can say that again.
Tessa pushed up, gnawing on her lower lip with worry. “I wonder if she needs help down there.”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Honestly, Tess, don’t. She’s fine and I’m going back really soon. I don’t think she’d want—”
She waved her hand. “Don’t worry, Will. I’ve been her friend for a long time. I figured out how to deal with her secretive nature ages ago, and I won’t tell her you shared this. I’ll wait to see how much she tells us.”
“Thanks.” He grabbed his bottle to take a gulp of water, wiping his mouth, realizing how glad he was to have someone to talk to about this. “You know, I’m just still getting used to the idea that she’s here.”
She gave him a slow smile. “Like her, do you?”
Jeez, was it that obvious? “I’ve always liked her.” Understatement alert. “I’ve always… really liked her.”
She cocked her head, thinking. “So you must be the one.”
“The one?”
She let out a little sigh, like puzzle pieces just snapped into place as she nodded at him. “Wow, I’d never have put you two together.”
“We weren’t, not really. Why?”
“She got drunk once.” She laughed softly. “Exactly once, as this is Jocelyn we’re talking about. Zoe took her to a frat party one night and brought her home totally toasted.” She was looking at him, but remembering something else.
“And?”
“Zoe was with her when she was, uh, you know, puking her guts out. Then Zoe left—probably went back to the party if I know her—and I had the privilege of getting Jocelyn in bed.”
He tried to imagine her drunk, sick, helpless like that. Tried and failed. “What happened?” he asked.
“She told me…” She caught herself, shaking her head. “Never mind. File it under to
o much information for an ex.”
“I’m not an ex; we were just friends.”
“But she said she—” She cut herself off, firing total frustration through him.
“C’mon, Tess. I just told you more than I should have. Can’t we have a little quid pro quo here?”
She considered that, no doubt balancing her fairly new friendship with him and her much longer, deeper friendship with Jocelyn.
“She said she was in love with someone back home but…”
In love. “But what?”
“But it didn’t work out.”
Because he’d been a coward and an idiot. “We had some… obstacles.”
“You didn’t hear that from me,” she said, stepping back over the wood to get to the door. “I gotta go talk to Lacey.”
He stood, brushing sawdust off his pants, his brain whirring like his mitre saw, howling just as loud, telling him what he had to do. “When you see Lacey, tell her I had to take off early. And I might not be here tomorrow. Personal day.”
She just smiled. “Very personal, I’d say.”
Chapter Eight
The front door popped open, startling Jocelyn. She and Guy turned to find Will in the entry, a red bandanna wrapped around his head, a smudge of dirt on his white T-shirt, a look of horror on his face as he stared at Guy.
“Why are you crying?” he asked. He shifted his gaze to Jocelyn and she could read the question: Did you tell him where you’re sending him?
“Of course I’m crying, son!” Guy stood and ambled to William, arms outstretched. “You’ve seen the show! They don’t get the ratings if they can’t get the old farts to cry.”
Will looked at her. “So the whole Clean House thing is still going well?”
“It’s… going,” Jocelyn said.
“She’s gifting me with memories,” Guy said.
“She is?”
“And you know what she deserves, William?”
A whisper of a smile pulled at Will’s mouth, an old smile she recognized, one that always took her heart for a ride. He held up a bag. “Enchiladas from South of the Border. There’s beer in my fridge, too. Can you stay, Joss?”
A strange pressure squeezed Jocelyn’s chest. A longing to say yes, so real and strong and natural it nearly took her breath away. She really, really wanted to curl up and eat enchiladas with Will and Guy.
How insane and wrong was that? Wrong, on every level. “I promised Lacey I’d go over to her house tonight,” she said quickly, standing up. “But thank you.”
“Will you be back tomorrow?” Guy asked anxiously.
“I have some, uh, calls to make in the morning.” To assisted-living facilities. “Maybe later or the day after. Don’t make any messes while I’m gone, Guy.”
“I promise, Missy.” He broke away from Will and held out both arms. “Let me give you a hug.”
She froze. “That’s okay.”
“Come here.” He threw both arms around her and squeezed, moving his face to one side to give her a clear shot of Will, who just drank in the scene, clearly unsure what to make of it.
“Thank you,” Guy whispered in her ear, still loud enough for Will to hear and react with a raised eyebrow of surprise.
“Okay,” she said stiffly, backing away without returning the hug. She had her limits. “Bye, now.”
She headed for the door, snagging her bag from the planter where she’d set it out of years of habit.
“Let me walk you out,” Will said quickly.
“That’s okay.”
But he had one hand on the front door and one hand on the knob, enclosing her in the space between. He felt warm from sunshine and work, a smell that reminded her so much of when he’d come home from practice to find her holed up in his room, seeking shelter.
Softening, she looked up at him, fighting the urge to brush aside the lock of hair that had fallen over his eye.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, in barely more than a whisper and far too close to her ear.
She started to shake her head, but he was so close, so strong, so familiar. She nodded instead. “Let’s talk outside.”
They headed down the narrow front walk in silence as Jocelyn dug for the keys in her purse.
“Lacey’s probably wondering where I’ve been all this time,” she said. “Or did you tell her?”
Behind her, she heard him blow out a breath, making her turn as they reached the driver’s door of Jocelyn’s borrowed car.
“You did, didn’t you?”
“I told Tessa—”
“Oh, great.”
“Very little, Joss. Nothing about… history. I told her you were here and that your dad is sick and that you’re figuring out what to do.”
She nodded. “I’d have to tell her that much, anyway,” she said.
“You keep a lot of secrets, don’t you?”
“Yep, you’ve been talking to Tessa. She who hates secrets.”
“Well, she said she’s your best friend.”
“One of them, but even best friends don’t need to know everything.”
He took a step closer, heat rolling off his big body and the car right behind her, the Florida sun baking everything under it, even in November.
“You’re lucky,” he said after a minute.
“How’s that?”
“To have so many best friends.”
She smiled. “I know. I have three great ones.”
“Four.”
She frowned, not following. “Are you counting Clay as the husband of a best friend?”
“I’m counting me.”
The statement stole her breath for a second, leaving her without a quick reply.
“I was your best friend once.”
Was. Once. So much more.
“What happened, Jossie?”
Again, her breath got trapped, squeezing her chest. “You know what happened. I just had to…” Let you be free of me. “Move on.”
“What happened… after you left that night?”
“What happened?” He sure as hell really didn’t want to know, did he? This man who’d made every decision in his life based on loyalty and love, including the decision to help and care for a man who had once threatened to kill him?
No, he surely didn’t mean that. He meant why did she cut him out of her life. “College happened, Will.”
He put a hand on the roof of the car behind her, trapping her completely. “We have to talk.”
This close, she could see every detail, in living, sunwashed color. The navy rim around the lighter blue of his eyes, the reddish tips of his thick black lashes, even the thread-thin crow’s feet from all those years of squinting at a pitcher sixty feet away.
Without thinking, she reached up and brushed a few grains of sand and dirt from his cheeks, his skin warm and taut to the touch. “You get dirty at your job.”
“Always liked a job like that.”
She could actually feel herself falling into the blue of his eyes, like the Gulf, swirling around her, warm and inviting and gentle. “Do you like being a carpenter, Will?”
“When are we going to talk?” His voice was low, direct, as unwavering as his gaze.
“I’ll be back in the next few days,” she said, purposefully vague even though it was obvious he wanted to be anything but.
“Cancel tonight. Have dinner with me.”
She tried to back away, but the car was right behind her. “I can’t. I promised—”
“Lacey, I know. But you’ve known me longer.”
She swallowed, surprised by his determination and so fundamentally drawn to it. He still made her feel like her skin was on fire and her head was a little too light. Still.
But surely he didn’t still feel that way, not after all these years. Because if he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t be taking care of the person who had torn them apart. So his loyalty—the steadfast, unwavering loyalty that thrummed through his veins—must be directed at Guy now.
And then she kne
w what he wanted from her: to change her mind. “You want to talk me out of this, don’t you?”
“No.”
She absolutely didn’t believe him. “Are you sure? Because five hours ago you were pretty dead set against putting him in a home.”
He closed his eyes. “I still am, but I want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
His eyes flashed. “After fifteen years? There’s a lot to say. A lot to catch up on.” He leaned closer, his face inches away. Too close. Too warm. Too attractive. “Please, Jocelyn. We go too far back, we shared too much to just act like casual acquaintances with a”—he gestured toward the house—“issue. We have to discuss… everything.”
“Like what?”
“Like your life and mine, like where you’ve been, who you’ve.…” His voice trailed off, uncomfortable. “If you’ve ever thought about me.”
She almost laughed. Almost told him the truth.
Just every damn night and most days, Will.
“Of course I’ve thought of you. I—”
“So have I.” He got closer, too close. The magnetic force field between them sparked and arced and drew her to him. Instead of giving in, she put her hand on his chest, ready to push, stunned to feel his heart slam like a jackhammer. His chest was damp, hard, and so, so warm under the thin cotton T-shirt.
Before she could take her hand away from the heat, he pressed his on top of hers. “Don’t shut me out.” Again. He didn’t say the final word, but she could hear it, unspoken but deafening.
“I… I…” It was like the earth was shifting under her, a terrifying tilt that made her feel like she was losing control. She tried to snap her hand away, but he pressed harder. “I won’t shut you out. I’m sure I’ll see you a lot while I’m here getting Guy’s things in order.” She slid her gaze toward the house. “We’ll catch up.”
Very slowly, he closed his fist over hers, slipping his hand around hers so that their fingers entwined. “I just want to know who you’ve become.”
“Why?”
His eyes flickered in surprise. “Why? Because I cared about you. I… wondered about you.”
Not enough to hunt her down, though. She swallowed the thought; leaving Will without saying good-bye and never calling him had been her decision. He just went along with it.
Meet Me in Barefoot Bay Page 39