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“Well, I did make sure I had all my shots up to date before the tour—you know, rabies, distemper, smallpox and the like—but no, tempted as I was by scrawny men wearing leather pants and hair extensions.”
She made him smile. Not only was she funny with her dry way of delivery, but for some reason it pleased him to know some ancient lecher with a groupie list a mile long hadn’t touched the baby skin, kissed the tender mouth.
That mouth that was part silent star, part very bad girl.
“But we’ve gotten off the subject,” Jane continued.
Damn it, she made him do that too, Griffin realized. He was supposed to be sending her on her way, not smiling at her.
The governess gestured at the tear sheets again. “We were talking about Erica.”
In his mind’s eye he saw the women who had populated their remote outpost. It wasn’t the single real one he pictured, however. Instead he saw their other female companions—the naked centerfolds taped to the plywood walls, their humongous breasts and big white smiles fly-speckled, their expressions creepily come-hither as their paper selves watched over the boys ever ready to risk their lives. One young man had a morning ritual of kissing the paper nipples for luck.
“Erica…” Jane prompted again.
He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “A patrol was going out to search the valley for weapon hoards and ratlines—foot trails that are enemy supply routes. The night before I’d been on the same kind of mission myself.”
“But this time was different?” Jane asked.
“There’d been radio chatter.” He looked down at his feet, aware of his own blank tone. Glad that he felt just that way inside. “That day, she shouldn’t have gone with them.”
“Did someone try to talk her out of it?”
“Sure.” He’d thought he’d convinced her not to go, too tired to recognize the set expression on her face and the determined light in her eyes. When she’d left, he’d been sleeping, dosed up on the pills they all swallowed down to find a few hours of relief from the high temperatures and the tension. Until he woke up and found her note tucked between his fingers, he hadn’t known what she’d been planning. “She didn’t listen.”
Erica had only heard what she wanted to hear. About the wisdom of going out that day. About what was going on between her and Griffin.
Jane picked up a cookie from the glass plate in front of her, then put it back down. “What happened?”
“Ambush. Particulars are a little sketchy, as everyone was busy trying to stay alive. They took fire and jumped off the trail. But when they realized she wasn’t with them, they headed back, at their own considerable risk. They found her sitting down, holding her arm. She’d been hit in an artery. Bled out in a matter of minutes.”
Jane pushed the platter of cookies farther from the table edge. “Oh.” Her voice was tight, as if there was a hand around her throat. “That’s terrible.”
Griffin gazed off into the distance. “This one kid, Randolph, he put her body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Her blood stained his vest from his shoulders to his waist. It was the first thing I noticed when he returned. That, and the way tears had turned the dirt on his face to mud.”
Griffin had been sitting against a wall of sandbags, idly watching another guy squeeze cheese onto a granola bar, razzing the man about how the combo made him sick to his stomach. They’d been laughing.
Then Randolph had been standing there. Without a word, Griffin had known. He’d gotten to his feet, then stumbled toward the spot where they’d placed Erica. “I saw her,” he told Jane now. “The dirt in her hair, the stiffening wetness of her sleeve where the blood was already drying, the dusty laces of her boots. One had come undone, and as I stood there, Randolph knelt down and retied it for her.”
His brain had clicked away, cataloging each of those items and more, as if storing them for some later test. The details had seemed to fill a yawning black chasm opening up inside him—leaving no room for anything beyond those cold, bare facts. Leaving no room for any feelings. He’d gone icy inside then, and three days later become completely—perhaps permanently—frozen.
At the time, he’d thanked God.
He was still grateful.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jane said.
Puzzled, he looked at her. His loss? It was Erica who had lost everything. But he nodded, knowing it was expected of him, knowing a man who hadn’t been rendered entirely numb would be expected to acknowledge Jane’s expression of sympathy.
“That’s the kind of story you signed up for,” he said. The librarian in her would surely back away from it, right?
“No,” she answered, calm. “That’s the story you signed up for.”
The reminder tapped at the ice inside him. Why couldn’t she leave this alone? His jaw clenched. “Jane—”
“I worked with an author who is a famed outdoor adventurer,” she said. “In his book, he related a tragedy that happened to one of his teams on a mountain climb. They’d stopped for lunch. As they finished, she stood up to reach for something—but had forgotten she’d unclipped from the safety line. Just like that, she went off the side of K2. Gone.”
Griffin pressed against the wall, his shoulders digging into the plaster. “And?” he said, wary.
“And he wrote it just like that. He put it on the page with as much emotion as if he was describing the wind catching his sandwich wrapper. I had to help him include the emotion. You’ll have to do that too.”
He didn’t have the emotion! He didn’t want the emotion!
Shaking his head, Griffin pushed away from the wall. “I don’t need your help, lady.”
“Aw.” She no longer appeared the least bit sympathetic. “And I was just getting used to honey-pie.”
Advice, mockery, he didn’t need any of it. He set his sights on the door. He only had to pass her and her flapping mouth and nosy manner and governess tone and be gone—his composure, his chilly control, still intact.
As he went by, she caught his arm. “You know I’m right,” she said, her voice steady. “And you won’t have to do it alone. I told you. I’ll do whatever you need.”
“And I told you—”
“Griffin, Erica deserves this.”
Erica. Despite his best intentions, his gaze dropped to her photo. It was not how he’d seen her last: lifeless, dirtied, bloodied. It was Erica, vitally attractive. Full of expectations.
Deserving.
As if from a distance, he saw himself wrench his arm from Jane’s hold. Then he scooped up the ruby-colored plate. In a gesture that betrayed a rage and frustration he could swear he didn’t feel, he flung the platter against the wall. Cookies flew. The plate broke, and glass shards rained like drops of blood.
He hurried out of the house, telling himself the mess he’d made was no reflection of his inner self.
* * *
AT THE OPPOSITE END of the cove from Beach House No. 9, Jane sat railside at Captain Crow’s, a restaurant/bar that was one of only two commercial establishments on the beach—the other being an adjacent gallery that sold plein air paintings and beautiful handmade boxes, frames and jewelry crafted from items of the sea. She’d poked her nose inside, taking in sun-drenched landscapes and rainbow-hued earbobs of abalone and beach glass, but her urge to admire couldn’t overshadow her certainty that the open floor plan made it a lousy place to hide.
Now Captain Crow’s, that was another matter.
It was as if Party Central had moved north by a couple miles. Pleasure-seekers peopled the open-air tables and sat elbow-to-elbow on stools pulled up to a narrow, westward-facing counter. Dressed in her usual conservative wear—cropped khakis, a thin, bottle-green button-down shirt and a straw hat settled low on her brow—Jane went unnoticed among the rhinestoned tees and short shorts, the boho skirts and macraméd halter tops. The typical California confluence of Hollywood high culture and laid-back hippie fashion. Nearly overpowering the scent of salt air were the mixed aromas of SPF 30 sunscreen, Rodeo Drive perfumes and top-shelf tequila.
She’d collected a glass of white wine from the bar and slipped onto a free stool, unsure of her next move in her goal of getting Griffin to work. The only short-term certainty was her need to steer clear of him for the moment, giving him a chance to cool off following the plate-throwing incident. Seeing her again too soon might antagonize him further, causing him to do something rash, like ordering her from the cove altogether.
As she took a sip of her straw-colored beverage, she caught a glimpse of Skye Alexander strolling through the restaurant, her roaming gaze suggesting she was looking for someone. Jane pulled her hat lower on her brow and fixed her attention on the orange orb in the blue sky, tracking its descent. She figured it was better to avoid Skye too. Jane wouldn’t put it past Griffin to send the other woman to scout her out…and then toss her from the beach colony, despite the fact that it was his own agent who had hired her. Slumping in her seat, she tried lifting her shoulders to her ears, going Quasimodo as camouflage.
But the world hadn’t gone her way in ages, so she felt the tap on her back with no surprise. Turning, she consoled herself with the knowledge that there wasn’t a free space on either side of her. That thought came too soon as well, though, because someone shouted, and the crowd around her scattered, people rushing down the steps to the sand.
Befuddled, Jane watched them gather near a flagpole at the base of the stairs to the beach. Skye perched on the freed seat next to Jane, her gaze also on the excited throng. A man wearing ragged, low-slung shorts and the ubiquitous tan lifted a conch shell to his lips. The blast of sound set the crowd cheering again, and then a blue flag slowly rose on the pole. When it reached the peak, the bystanders saluted the fluttering fabric. Jane saw it was printed with the universal symbol for martini.
“Cocktail time,” Skye explained. “Five o’clock.”
Jane’s brows lifted, taking in the beverages already in hands, including her own half-full wineglass.
“Official cocktail time at Crescent Cove. This ritual goes back to the fifties.”
“That’s when this beach was discovered?” If Jane kept the other woman talking about their surroundings, maybe she could avoid other subjects. Like Griffin. Like how he was likely in No. 8 right this moment, packing her duffel for her imminent departure. “During the wonder years of tiki parties and limbo games?”
Skye shook her head. “Before then. During Prohibition, rumrunners made it a secret drop-off point for contraband liquor. And before that, during the silent film era, my great-great-grandfather used it as a stand-in for a South Seas atoll. He had a movie company, Sunrise Studios, and trucked in all the tropical vegetation that flourishes here.”
At the mention of silent films, Jane covered her mouth, then glanced down the beach at the colorful residences spilling from the hillside to the edge of the sand. The ocean breeze shivered through the graceful fronds of the date palms shading their roofs and set the long leaves of the banana plants wagging. The creamy faces of plumeria flowers mingled with brighter splashes of hibiscus in yellow, red and pink. The bougainvillea grew everywhere something else didn’t.
She could imagine this place as an exotic backdrop to long-ago movies or as an idyllic vacation getaway. “It really does appear out of another time.”
For no more reason than that, a person would be reluctant to leave. It wasn’t hard for Jane to picture woody station wagons pulled up behind the cottages. She could see the children of the past playing in the surf, riding inflatable rubber rafts instead of the foam boogie boards the contemporary kids were dragging into the water by leashes attached at their ankles. At five o’clock some sunburned man with a crew cut would blow the conch shell, heralding another idyllic summer evening. “Magic,” she murmured.
A foolish notion that she’d always wanted to believe in. Just like love. Her father had detected the weakness in her early on, as clear to him, apparently, as her lack of aptitude in the sciences. “So silly and emotional, Jane,” he would say, shaking his head at her. “Just like your mother.”
Pushing the memory aside, she tuned back in to Skye’s conversation. The crowd had returned to their places, and Jane was forced to lean close to hear over their rowdy chatter. “The earliest houses go back to the 1920s and ’30s,” the other woman was saying. “My great-great-granddad built some of them, my great-grandfather more, but it wasn’t until my mom was pregnant with me that my parents moved here. They live in Provence now, and though I live at the cove full-time, most habitants are seasonal.” She paused. “Like the Lowells.”
Griffin. Their last moments together replayed in Jane’s head, his flattened voice describing what had happened to his colleague Erica in Afghanistan. The neutral tone to his words had been belied by the stiffness of his posture. Even now, Jane could feel the tense muscle of his forearm under her hand and the way he’d wrenched from her hold in order to heave the cookie platter against the wall. It reminded her that she owed Skye a plate…and her client an apology?
Jane didn’t think an “I’m sorry” would change his mind about her. By insisting he’d have to touch on that tragedy, she’d become the object of his wrath. She had the very bad feeling he would absolutely refuse to work with her now. On a sigh, she met Skye’s gaze. “Did Griffin send you to find me?”
“What? No.”
“Oh.” The denial eased Jane’s worry better than another swallow of wine. “Good.”
“But I was looking for you.” She hesitated. “Your name rang a bell…and then when I put it together with what you said about helping Griffin with his memoir…”
Jane’s belly tightened. How widespread was the smear on her reputation?
“I have all of Ian Stone’s novels,” Skye said.
Jane nodded, tensing further. “I’m not surprised.”
The other woman gave a little smile. “I know, I know, me and everyone else. Number one New York Times bestseller several times over. Many of them were made into movies.”
“The last five.”
“I’m one of those people who likes to reread books, poring over them from the dedication page up front to the author’s note at the back.” Skye hesitated, then the question she’d obviously been dying to ask burst out. “What was it like to work with him? Because that’s you, isn’t it? I figured it had to be when you told me you work with writers. He dedicated Sal’s Redemption, The Butterfly Place and Crossroads Corner to you, right?”
“Yes.” For three years, she’d worked almost exclusively with him. He’d been the focus of her career.
Then he’d become the focus of her life.
“So,” Skye prodded. “Will you dish? Is he as handsome as he appears on book jackets and in TV interviews?”
“Handsomer.” She sighed inwardly. Ian’s good looks didn’t reflect his inner character, but she couldn’t blame Skye for not recognizing that. Look how long it had taken Jane to figure it out. She’d wanted too much to believe.
So silly and emotional, Jane.
When it came to Ian Stone, that’s exactly what she’d been. A lesson had been learned, though. She’d been a fool for love in the past, but she would never again make the mistake of caring for a man who couldn’t love her back.
“Gorgeous, huh?” Skye leaned closer. “But then is he like so many really attractive guys? Tell me he’s the size of a pickle.”
The demand surprised a laugh out of Jane. “You want me to talk about his—” She gestured toward her lap.
“No!” Skye flushed red. “I wouldn’t talk about that. I don’t like to think about that. I meant his height. The height of his body. His whole self.”
Skye’s deep fluster struck Jane as odd, but she got another laugh out of imagining Ian’s horrified reaction to even a moment’s consideration of that particular body part in gherkin terms. Then another picture of him blossomed in her brain, her own version of Pin the Pickle on the Donkey.
Perfect, she thought, because the man was such an ass.
She couldn’t hold back a fresh burst of laughter.
“You’re in a good mood,” a voice said from behind her.
The chuckles drained away as Jane tensed again. Busted.
With a slow pivot, she turned to face Griffin. Ian Stone was handsome in a spoiled, well-tended sort of way. By contrast, Griffin looked as if he’d buzzed his hair himself and he’d nicked his chin while shaving—a couple of days before, if she was any judge of stubble. But his was a wholly masculine face, all the edges hard and those incredible turquoise eyes sharp. Her breath quickened, even though she tried pretending she was all cool control. There was no denying that something about the man had found a previously hidden chink in her, an opening that allowed his male energy to worm its way under her armor, heating her up, loosening her muscles, almost…preparing her.
The thought made her blush, and his gaze narrowed, skewering her now. She wiggled on her stool. “Um…hey.”
He nodded absently at Skye, then returned his ominous gaze to Jane. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh?” Her belly fluttered, and she barely registered the finger wave Skye sent her before leaving. From the hard expression on Griffin’s face, Jane didn’t expect he’d sought her out to deliver good news. What would she do once he declined her services for good? Word would surely get back that yet another author found her unsatisfactory. She sighed, bowing to the inevitable. “What is it?”
He opened his mouth, and then his gaze shifted over her shoulder. The incredible eyes flared for a moment, narrowed again. “Shit.”
She glanced around. In the distance a woman was trudging through the sand, a baby balanced on one hip. Three other kids trailed behind her, but she didn’t look the least bit matronly, with her long legs bared by a white cotton skirt and a scarlet tank top clinging to her curves. Expensive sunglasses covered her eyes, and her dark hair was glossy and cut in a trendy fashion that had delicate pieces curving around her cheeks and jaw.
Jane turned back to Griffin and could swear he’d gone pale. “Old flame?”
“More like the devil,” he muttered, then cursed again. “You’ve got to do something for me, Jane.”
She didn’t think this was going to be about his memoir. “Like what?”
He hunkered down, so that he was semishielded by her body. “Hide me.”
Wasn’t hiding what she’d been after herself?
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” she said after a moment, her attention still on the beach. Was it bad of her to take pleasure in noting that the dark-haired beauty had homed in on the man half concealed behind her? She was waving her arm, her focus clearly settled on his face. Two of the little kids were jumping up and down as well, pointing and waving.
“The children seem to know you. Who are they?”
“The devil’s minions.” As they continued waving, he rose to his full height on a loud sigh. “There’s only one thing for it, then.”
“What’s that?”
