Upon a Mystic Tide Page 7

  “Only in regattas, Angel. I prefer eager women.”

  “Ah, the redhead escapes. What happened this time?”

  “A true friend wouldn’t ask such indelicate questions, Angel.” He cleared his throat. “Tell me, what must I do to make this woman . . . eager?”

  “I’m standing in the middle of a crowded cafe at the moment.” And receiving far too many interested looks for her liking. “Could I put on my shrink hat and see what’s gotten your synapses misfiring later?”

  He laughed. “You’re supposed to console me. I’m nursing a broken heart.”

  “Sorry. Condolences, of course.” With a broken heart once a week, sympathy waned.

  “A true friend would stop this unnecessary exodus, come home, and sail the world with me on Daybreak until I’d recovered.”

  She twisted the phone cord. “Friends don’t sail around the world together when one of those friends has a job to get back to in a few weeks—namely me.” Provided Sal fast-talked Millicent into not dropping the ax. “And if I left here now, I’m wagering that before I could get home, you’d have a new redhead in tow.”

  He laughed, then turned serious. “It’d make me feel better if you’d be reasonable and let me buy the station. Then you’d be free to do exactly as you pleased.”

  “No.” Bess wiped at a nag of an ache in her forehead. This, she did not need. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your offer, it’s that—”

  “You don’t want the support of a friend,” he finished for her.

  “I don’t want your money.” How many times had they been through this?

  “But—”

  “Don’t push on this, okay, Miguel? Please.” She paused to bury the tremor in her voice. “I’m a little shaky right now.”

  “I don’t wish to make you shakier but, when I tell you the news, you might change your mind.”

  That the news wasn’t good came as no surprise. Was good news possible anymore?

  “I saw Millicent Fairgate at a charity ball at the Clarion last night. She’d only just heard about you divorcing your John. Need I say she was less than pleased?”

  “No.” Bess’s stomach coiled into a nest of knots. “I can imagine well enough, I think.” Raging, most likely.

  “Hmmm, I suggest you double your worst expectations. Then you’ll be close.”

  Bess grimaced. At least the wait for the ax to rise before it fell on her head was over. Millicent would fire her; it wasn’t a question of if but of when. “I’m expecting her to can me. She can’t do any worse.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that”

  “What do you mean?” What else could she do to Bess? Nothing came to mind.

  “You’re forgetting the woman is a powerful influence in New Orleans. Nearly as strong as Elise Dupree. She can close a lot of doors that until now have been open to you.”

  Elise Dupree. The older woman who had hired John to investigate the kidnaping/elopement of her only daughter, Dixie. The case that had obsessed John. The other woman—the one who had come first with him. “Not much I can do about it.”

  “You can let me buy the station.”

  “No.” That, Bess couldn’t do. She’d look like a laughingstock. Worse, she’d feel like one—and she’d feel bought and paid for by Miguel Santos.

  Miss Hattie touched Bess’s arm. “Just a minute, Miguel.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, dear, but I have to get to Millie’s Antique Shoppe. She’s gotten in a curio she’s anxious for me to see.”

  Bess smiled. “Thanks for joining me for lunch. I enjoyed your company.”

  “Me, too.” Miss Hattie squeezed Bess’s forearm, then snapped closed her rain slicker. “I’ll see you at home later on.”

  Bess nodded and Miss Hattie moved on down the bar to speak briefly with Vic and Horace Johnson, who immediately removed his cap as a show of respect to Miss Hattie. A light rain still tapped at the cafe windows, speckling the glass and running down the pane in rivulets. Soon, it would stop. “I’m back,” Bess said to Miguel.

  “As your friend, I’m asking you to reconsider. I’ve spoken with Sal and he would stay on. It’s not a solely altruistic thing I’d be doing. I’d make a great deal of money.”

  “No. Please, no.” Even she would view Miguel buying the station as him having to buy it to keep her employed. Everyone in town already thought they were lovers.

  A buzz sounded in the background. “I’ve got another call,” he said. “Maybe my redhead apologizing, eh? Hug that rag of a dog and think kindly of me.”

  “Silk is hardly a rag, Miguel, and she takes serious exception to being called one. As does her owner.”

  “Ah, I’ve gone too far, haven’t I?”

  “Indeed.” He hadn’t. “We’ll expect a box of treats delivered by two P.M. tomorrow.”

  He laughed. “Very well. A box of biscuits—”

  “We call them cookies.”

  “Cookies, then, for your Silk, and a surprise for you.”

  “Only the cookies, if you please. I’m not ready to be bribed.”

  “Okay, Angel.”

  Bess hung up the phone. Back at her table, she again started shaking. Three days at Seascape Inn, and she’d been calm and content. But one phone call from New Orleans and here she sat again rattling worse than the old Chevy she had driven—and John had sworn was held together with spit, rubber bands, and baling wire—on their first date.

  Understandable, but pitiful. She and Miguel were just friends. What difference did it make if he thought she couldn’t carry herself without him buying the station and taking care of her? A friend should show more support and faith in a friend’s abilities, true, but that notion likely hadn’t occurred to Miguel. Anyway, she’d refused his bailout offer. And Millicent learning of the divorce had been inevitable—and a worry hanging over Bess’s head. At least now it was done and Bess knew to expect the you’re-fired call anytime.

  She sipped from her glass of lemon-tart tea. There was a silver lining here, though she had to stretch to find it. Positively, absolutely nothing else in her world could go wrong.

  “Hello, Bess.” A man’s voice sounded from right behind her.

  Recognizing it as John Mystic’s proved her mistaken.

  Rain dripping off his tan trench coat, John watched Bess’s slim shoulders go starch stiff. She didn’t turn to look back at him. She’d recognized his voice, all right, and she was not happy.

  People in the crowded cafe hovered at the bar, whispering dollar amounts and dates to a man wearing a gold nugget ring on his pinkie finger, who wrote furiously on a bulletin board. What was that all about?

  A minute passed. Then another. And still Bess didn’t turn around.

  Out of patience, and figuring she’d surely recovered from the shock of him being there by now, John circled to the other side of her table. “May I sit down?”

  She stared up at him, as beautiful as ever. Her hair was still the color of light beer—a comparison that once had surprised her into laughing—but she wore it longer now. How long exactly, he couldn’t tell, though it kissed her shoulder. She had it pulled back from her face and caught at her nape in an aqua and white dotted bow that matched her white blouse and sandals and aqua slacks. That color combination did wonderful things to her blue eyes. Right now, they were stretched huge and clouded, evidencing her upset and giving her a vulnerable look that jerked hard at protective cords he’d thought he’d severed. If she knew he saw either emotion, she’d die, so he kept his expression bland. The last thing either of them needed was more emotion packed into this tense moment.

  Her still perfect complexion and high cheekbones brought back too many memories of how tender and soft her skin had felt against his roughened palms, and those memories kicked his heart straight into overdrive just like the night he’d first seen her at T. J.’s art showing and had fallen in love with her. John had vowed to himself on the spot she’d one day be his wife. She had. And, remembering that now, proved time hadn’t mu
ch changed him, either. At least not inside. But it was too late for them, and that he had no choice but to remember.

  Promise me, John. You swear? On your mother’s grave? Elise’s deathbed plea that he make things right with Bess replayed in his mind. Every muscle in his body clenched.

  “Hello, John.” Bess gazed up at him.

  John not Jonathan. Passive. Totally in control. The same old story. Vintage Bess. A little bolt of disappointment set off an ache inside him that nagged as persistently as a gnat, a vengeance-seeking desire to see her lose control—just once. Just . . . once. “May I sit down?” he repeated.

  “I was just leaving.” She stood up. The napkin that had been in her lap tumbled to the floor. “But you’re certainly welcome to my table.”

  As greetings went, he’d stupidly hoped for better, and expected worse. At least she hadn’t walked off without acknowledging him. He lifted the napkin and set it onto the table. “We have some unfinished business to attend to, and since you don’t seem to be answering your attorney’s calls . . .”

  “Francine phoned you?”

  “No, she called Bryce.”

  Bess looked less than pleased, but kept her opinion to herself. That hadn’t changed, either. “Is there some place a little more private we can go to and talk?”

  “Sorry, I’m on my way back to Seascape Inn.”

  “We can—”

  “No, we can’t,” she interrupted, her chin quivering. “I don’t want you there.” She walked over to the cash register at the bar.

  He followed, stopping beside her, near a burn on the floor. Why was everyone so interested in them talking? “I’m a guest at the inn, too, Bess. Sorry if that offends you, but it’s the only place in the village that accepts guests and, like it or not, we do have to settle some things.”

  She frowned at him. “Very well, then. Let’s settle these things on the way. Then, as soon as we get back to the inn, you can leave.”

  John shifted aside. She wasn’t making this easy on him. He didn’t like it, but could he blame her? “Fine. The sooner, the better.”

  That rattled her—her lip twitched—but, Bess being Bess, she recovered quickly and masked her expression. Few would have noticed the telling sign. But she was his wife, and John wasn’t one of the many. Would Santos have noticed?

  She dropped her bill and money onto the bar. A pretty redhead stood behind the register, looking pleased about something. She let her gaze rove over John—not in a man-to-woman kind of way, but in an assessing one that had him shifting on his feet and Bess snickering behind a faked cough at him being on the hot seat.

  “Your change,” the redhead told Bess, then swung her gaze to John. “So you’re new in the village, Mr.—”

  “John Mystic,” he said. “I’m Bess’s husband.”

  The woman’s grin grew to a beaming smile. “Ah, I see.”

  “We’re divorcing, Lucy,” Bess chimed in, sliding him a did-you-have-to-say-that look. “July tenth.”

  Lucy hiked a speculative brow and nodded. “Sorry to hear that, but I hope you’ll both be very happy.”

  “We will.”

  “Definitely.”

  That Bess answered at the same time as he had raised John’s hackles. But Lucy’s smugness didn’t strike him as unfriendly. Actually, it seemed more endearing in a way that reminded him of Elise when she had the inside scoop on something he didn’t and, before passing the information over to him, was teasing him with it.

  His heart suffered a deep, lonely pang. Elise. It seemed impossible, but she really was gone. God, how long would it take for the raw pain to ease to an ache?

  “Hope you enjoy your visit to Sea Haven.” Lucy wiped at the bar with her red cloth. “Pretty up here in the summer, and lots cooler than New Orleans.”

  It was. And less humid. He glanced at the window and noted the rain had finally stopped. “Thank you.”

  Bess mumbled an “I’ll see you next visit” then headed toward the door. John nodded to Lucy, then followed Bess.

  Just outside, she stepped past a large, rusty anchor leaning up against the building, and then off of the porch.

  “Watch out for the—”

  She promptly stumbled.

  Just before her knees kissed the wet dirt, John grabbed her arm. “Cat.”

  The cockeyed critter let out a screech loud enough to wake the dead in the cemetery across the street. Bess groaned.

  “It’s not hurt,” John assured her, his voice as gravelly as a rock pit. She stood so close. Smelled so good. She’d always worn Ritz cologne. And it never had smelled quite so alluring on any other woman’s skin. God, after all this time, was he really standing in an overcast, rain-soaked parking lot in Maine holding Bess in his arms?

  Her eyes darkened to deep, ocean blue. “Thank you. I’m fine.” She pointedly looked down to where his hands clasped her arms.

  One of them—he couldn’t tell for certain which one—shook. When he loosened his grip, she backed away.

  “If you have something to discuss with me, you should have just phoned. You shouldn’t have come here.” Looking almost stricken, she turned on her heel and took off down Main Street, toward the inn. “I don’t want you here.”

  The sun shifted behind a dark cloud and the wind picked up, tugging at his coat. Watching her storm down the slick asphalt, he seriously considered sitting back and watching her go to jail. But her stricken look preyed on his mind. He was angry at her for blatantly not wanting him here, but he understood it. Bess was worried and rattled. Not that she’d care, but she made him as uncomfortable as hell, too. And he was in enough hell without this. Until he found Dixie, he’d know nothing but hell, and he had no choice but to accept it.

  First things first.

  He caught up to Bess near a little bench overlooking the jagged cliffs, then fell into step beside her. She didn’t acknowledge him. Inwardly sighing in tandem with the sounds of the sea, he figured if ever they were to make any progress, he’d again have to make the first move. “Look, Bess, neither of us like it, and we don’t have to like it, but we do have to get this property settlement dispute hashed out.” Amazing. He’d gotten that out sounding calm, despite his deathbed promise to Elise weighing heavily on his conscience.

  “It’s already settled.” Bess hastened her steps. “I don’t want anything.”

  He stepped around a mud puddle that Bess tromped right through: yet another sign of her upset that didn’t show on her face or sound in her voice. “Obviously,” he drolled in a tone he forced dry, “you haven’t yet talked with Francine.”

  Her blush proved him right. “Before I left, I told her to just handle it.”

  Bess couldn’t even be bothered with something as important as ending their marriage? He could shake her. And he would—if he weren’t opposed to physical violence, and if he didn’t feel so damn guilty because he’d made her feel as she did. He inhaled the tangy smell of sea spray and listened to the waves crashing against the granite cliffs. She’d splashed up her slacks from the knees down. On a scale of one to ten, the mud puddle stomp rated a firm seven. “Francine can’t handle it.”

  Fisherman’s Co-op was ahead on the right. Just off the edge of its slate slab porch, two little boys were playing in a mud puddle, having the time of their lives. The youngest sat down and splashed muddy water all over his cocoa-colored skin. His laughter warmed John’s heart. God, to be that carefree and in love with life again.

  At a mailbox across the road, Bess turned left onto the fir-lined gravel drive that led up the slope to the inn. Though the rain had stopped and the sun, for the moment anyway, had broken through the heavy clouds moving away, the huge Victorian was still wet: a deep slate gray that perfectly matched John’s mood. A turret stretched up above the roof toward the sleet-colored clouds and, on looking at it, the oddest feeling swam through John. An eerie feeling. Not bad, just eerie. A harbinger of some kind. Strange . . .

  He glanced at Bess. The wind whipped at her hair and tiny te
ndrils pulled free from the bow, kissed her cheeks, and clung. He envied them, which only made his mood darker. “Did you hear me, Bess?”

  “Yes.” She squinted up at him, against the sun. “Why can’t Francine handle it? I left explicit instructions. No settlement. That should make things easy.” Stepping past a small limb that had fallen during the storm, she continued on up the sun-dappled drive, gravel crunching under her sandals. “I know you don’t like complications that keep you from your work.”

  The case. Dixie’s case. Bess might as well have said it specifically. So, her resentment against Elise and his job as a private investigator still needled Bess. A gust of wind sent rain collected on the leaves pattering to the ground. And even after all their time apart, her resentment still stung. Especially now that Elise was . . . gone. The tight fist of loss gripped his chest. “True, I don’t like complications,” he told Bess. “So why are you causing me trouble?”

  Bent over, inhaling the faint, sweet scent of a blossoming delphinium, she looked back at him as if genuinely surprised. “Me?” She straightened, letting her fingertips linger on the soft-looking petals. “How much easier can I make this for you?”

  Good question. He wished he had a good answer, but he didn’t. If anything existed that would make their divorce easy for him to swallow, he sure hadn’t found it. “A lot. You can be reasonable and accept your half of our assets.”

  Without a word, she turned and walked up the steps onto the columned front porch that stretched end to end across the front of the house.

  Littered with hanging baskets of alyssum and pink geraniums, and a special planter of blossoming zinnias; with white wicker furniture and a comfortable-looking swing; the porch invited tranquility—definitely at odds with Bess’s mannerisms and his feelings. She was still in control, though, by God. Vintage Bess. Always in control, no matter what. “Well, are you going to be reasonable?”

  A crooked sign hung to the left of the front door. “Seascape. Established 1918.” Bess straightened it. “Look, I don’t want anything, okay?”