It's a Love Thing (44 page)

“
So, Drake,” she said,
using his name as casually as if they were old friends. “I heard
you ride up. What do you ride?”

“
A motorcycle.”

Megan rolled her eyes and
laughed. “Well,
duh
. Thanks for that, Mr. Obvious. I mean, what kind of
bike?”

Not sure how it could possibly mean
anything to her, he said, “A Fatboy.”

“
Nice,” she said, nodding
as if she knew what he was talking about. “I’d like to ride a
Harley someday.”

“
Uh-huh,” he said
skeptically. There was something wrong with her, he
decided.

“
But, no mon, no fun,” she
said, grinning. Drake wondered if she knew how incredibly appealing
she looked, sitting across from him with her legs tucked up like
that, twirling her hair. He found himself imagining what the length
would be if she let it down. “I’m stuck riding a Nighthawk—and an
old one at that. But it’s better than nothing, right?”

Drake forcefully pulled his attention
away from her hair. “What? You ride?”

Megan laughed again. “Yes, I ride.
Don’t sound so shocked. Lots of girls ride nowadays. When we can
get the apron off and get out of the kitchen, that is.”

Drake realized she was making fun of
him. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. He’d known plenty of women
riders. He just hadn’t seen one that looked like a fragile little
girl.

“
Whatever,” she said
cheerfully, snatching a cookie from the tray. “You should have
one,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re missing. They’re my
specialty. One of these cookies and you’ll be ruined for every
other cookie for the rest of your life.”

“
I doubt that,” he said,
but he picked one up anyway and bit into it. It was warm and soft
in the middle and just a little crispy on the outside. The tang of
the cookie was a perfect counterbalance to the sugar and cinnamon
that coated it. He groaned with pleasure before he could stop
himself.

Megan laughed again. “See. What did I
tell you?”

“
I’m here, I’m here,” a
man’s voice called from outside.

Megan waggled her brows at
him—
waggled
them!—and said, “He’s here, he’s here.”

Drake turned toward the
kitchen door to see a man entering, dripping water from his
sand-covered wetsuit. He was late because he’d been
surfing
? His sun-bleached
hair hung in waves to just above his ears. His blue eyes were the
same as his daughters. His skin was tan and lined from the sun,
unlike the clear, alabaster skin Megan had. He scuttled across the
kitchen and thrust a hand at Drake.

“
Tom Martin,” he said by
way of introduction. “I know who you are.” He glanced toward Megan
as if to indicate that Drake shouldn’t reveal his name in front of
his daughter. Megan rolled her eyes again.

“
He already told me his
name, Dad.” Tom looked surprised by this development. “Well,” Megan
said, heading toward the kitchens entrance. “I’ll leave you two
boys to it.”

Drake stared at the empty space she
had occupied, feeling like he was living in some kind of alternate
reality where nothing made sense. Nothing was as it should be. He
looked at Officer Martin. Least of all his new parole
officer.

“
Let’s go into my office,”
Officer Martin said.

Drake stood and followed him through a
door into a small room which had a tiny desk with one chair behind
the desk, and one in front. Officer Martin waved him into the chair
in front. He moved behind the desk and turned his computer on,
typing.

“
Okay, here we go. Drake
Barnes. Charged with armed robbery, reduced to first-degree
robbery. Sentenced to five years, released after three for good
behavior, two years of parole.”

Drake almost opened his mouth and
sarcastically thanked the man for a rundown of the details that he
knew all too well. Instead, he clenched his teeth to keep the words
in and waited.

“
Do you have somewhere to
live?” Officer Martin asked, looking away from the screen and right
at Drake.

“
No, sir,” he
answered.

“
Part of the condition of
your parole is that you find both a place to live and meaningful
employment.”

“
Yes, sir, I’m aware,”
Drake said.

“
Planning to live
here?”

“
Yes, sir. I can’t afford
to drive back and forth. So I’ll stay here until my parole is
up.”

Officer Martin nodded. “Do you have
any money?”

“
No, sir. Only what they
gave me as I left juvie.”

“
You don’t have to keep
calling me sir,” Officer Martin said. “You are also required to
remain drug and alcohol free, submitting to periodical urine tests
to prove you’re doing so, and to stay out of trouble. Think you can
do all that?”

Yes, si—” Drake cut himself
off.

“
There’s a bungalow a few
doors down that’s available for rent. It’s reasonable and since I
know the landlord, I can get you in without a deposit.”

Drake was startled at the offer. Why
would his PO want to help him like that? That wasn’t his job . . .
was it?

“
Thank you, but I don’t
think I can afford a place on the beach.”

“
You’re in Seaside, son,
there aren’t many places that aren’t either on the beach, or awful
close to it. Besides, I can guarantee you can afford this one. Come
on,” he said, standing. “I’ll show it to you. Then you can
decide.”

Drake stood and followed the man in
his half-peeled down, sand covered wet suit and bare feet from the
house. They began walking down the beach in the sand, the granules
sucking at Drakes boots, making it difficult to walk. He’d been
mocking Officer Martin’s lack of footwear; now he envied
it.

“
Excuse me, Officer Martin.
I was wondering why you have your office at your house?” Drake
asked.

“
Call me Tom, please. We’re
going to spend a lot of time together, so might as well be
informal. To answer your question: where else would I have my
office?” Officer Martin—Tom—laughed. “Even the Sheriff doesn’t have
an office. We have one jail cell, with a desk in front of it and
barely enough room for that. Seaside isn’t exactly a hotbed of
criminal activity. On the rare occasion the cell is used, it’s
usually a drunken tourist who just needs to sleep it
off.”

“
Oh.” Drake didn’t know how
to respond to that. He wasn’t happy about being stuck in Seaside,
but because it was in the same county he’d committed his crime, he
was required to see whatever PO they assigned him to. And since he
had no home, no job, and no family, he guessed it was as good a
place as any to stay for the duration. He winced at the sanding his
feet were getting inside the boots. He’d have to find a cheap pair
of flip flops somewhere.

“
Here it is,” Tom said. He
reached up and snatched the key from top of the door frame. Drake
rolled his eyes again. Didn’t the landlord know that was the first
place someone would look if they wanted to break in? Tom unlocked
the door and led the way in.

Drake followed and saw that, though
similar to the Martin’s, this one was more sparsely decorated, with
only a few bland landscapes hanging on the walls that couldn’t
compare to the view out the back window. Nothing personal, neutral
furnishings, and a decided lack of seashells, for which Drake was
grateful.

Tom led him through the kitchen, into
the living area, and single bedroom. There was a small bathroom
that had only a shower, tub, and sink. He did notice it lacked the
office of the Martin’s home, and decided it must be smaller as
theirs surely had two bedrooms.

“
Do you know how much the
landlord would want for rent?” Drake asked after the brief
tour.

“
I do happen to know,” Tom
said, smiling. Drake wondered why that was something to smile
about.

“
And?” he prompted when the
other man didn’t answer.

“
You can stay free—as long
as you get a job, stay clean, stay out of trouble, and keep the
place clean and in good repair. You mess up on any of that and
you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay.”

Drake stared at him. There had to be
some kind of catch—there always was. If he’d learned nothing else
in his life, that lesson had been pounded into him. “So who is this
landlord who wants to let me, a convicted criminal, stay rent free
in his—or her—home without having even met me.”

“
I have met you,” Tom said.
“I own the place. I know how hard it’s going to be for you to get
back on your feet. If you’re willing to do the work, I’m willing to
help.”

“
Why?” Drake was suspicious
of this surfer dude/parole officer who shows up late for interviews
because he’s been playing in the water, and then conducts them in a
wetsuit.

Tom spread his arms wide, and matched
it with a smile spread across his face. “Life has been good to me,
and so I choose to share my good fortune.”

Drake decided the man was a lunatic.
That’s probably why he was allowed to be a PO in this spec of a
town. The man had clearly spent too much time in the sun. He
shrugged. If the fool wanted to let him stay here free, who was he
to refuse?

“
Alright!” Tom cheered, as
if Drake had consented aloud. He walked to the back door and turned
back toward Drake. His face was deadly serious, and for the first
time Drake could see the officer in him. “Don’t screw this up,
Drake. You’ve been given a second chance here. I wasn’t kidding
when I said I’d throw you out for doing anything as simple as
jaywalking.” Drake gave a terse nod, and Tom’s face brightened
again. “And get yourself some decent shoes.”

Tom watched the man walk back toward
the ocean. Apparently Drake’s appointment was nothing more than a
slight interruption in his play. He shook his head and turned back
toward his new home—for the next two years, anyway.

*****

“
Drake!”

Drake turned at the female voice
calling his name. He saw the PO’s daughter, Megan, waving at him.
She jogged over, her blond ponytail swaying behind her. She stopped
in front of him, smiling as if he were the very thing she’d been
searching for and just found. The smile disconcerted
him.

“
Whatcha doing?” she
asked.

He glanced down at the curb he stood
by in the center of town. He debated telling her the truth: he’d
been seriously considering jaywalking, just to see if he could get
away with it, but found himself unable to take the risk.

“
Thought I better find me a
pair of shorts if I’m going to survive the heat,” he
said.

She nodded thoughtfully. “That will
look hot.”

He raised his brows in surprise at her
comment. Then she looked at his boots.

“
And flip-flops,” he
added.

“
Good call,” she laughed.
“But if you’re going to get those things, you don’t want to go to
Benny’s.” She indicated the store across the street, which is
exactly where he was headed. “Benny’s is for the tourists, which
means you’ll pay tourist prices. C’mon, I’ll take you to Wally’s
World.” She turned and started down the sidewalk. When he didn’t
follow, she turned back, a questioning look on her face.

“
Do you think this . . .”
he swung his hand back and forth between the two of them, “is
appropriate? I mean, isn’t it a conflict of interest?”

Megan laughed. “My father’s business
has nothing to do with me. Besides, in a town this size, it would
take a lot of work to actually avoid one another. It’s no biggie,
Drake. C’mon.”

Drake wasn’t comfortable with the
situation, but didn’t want to argue it in the middle of the street.
He wasn’t sure who might know his situation already, but he didn’t
want to bring attention to himself if he could avoid it. So he
followed her.

He thought she’d show him the way to
the store and then leave, but she made it her personal mission to
help him choose just the right shorts—two pairs of what he called
surfer-shorts—and the right flip-flops. Megan laughed and joked
with the salesgirl, and Drake was grateful for her presence so he
didn’t have to try to be sociable. That had never been one of his
strong points.

Somehow, after half an hour in
Wally’s, Drake found himself clad in the blue shorts, wearing the
flip-flops, and sitting across from her at the ice cream parlor.
The bell above the door rang, and another resident entered,
bee-lining for Drake and Megan.

“
Hi, Sandy,” Megan said to
the pixie-haired brunette. “This is Drake. Drake, Sandy. She works
at the resort as a lifeguard.”

Sandy stuck her hand out, and Drake
resignedly placed his hand in hers. He thought he’d probably met
over half the population by now—along with a few of the early
tourists who were in town. Megan seemed to feel it her personal
responsibility to talk to every person she saw. And they expected
it too. If she didn’t go out of her way to speak to them, they came
to her. She introduced him to everyone, with their
occupation.