Letters and Lace (The Ronan's Harbor Series) (3 page)

Luckily for her, she’d sat right beside Virginia Allen, the proprietor of the town’s flower shop. Gigi had handed her a plastic cup and had leaned close. “Have some,” she had whispered. “I spiked the hell out of it.”

Sarah had taken a tentative sip, immediately tasting the distinct tang of wine—a lot of wine—and it was good.

The woman with the strange hairdo and crazy, dangling feathered earrings had given her a toothy grin. “I’m Gigi,” she’d said. “You’re not one of these prima donnas. I can tell.”

That had been over a decade ago, and since then the two had faced a lot of things; Gigi’s scare with a phantom lump in her breast, as well as her painful breakups with on-again-off-again boyfriend, Mickey Nolan. There’d been Sarah’s divorce, followed by the anguish of her going solo at the inn.

Gigi pulled her car into one of the lot’s parking spaces and the two scurried toward the entrance against the chilly ocean breeze. Music wafted through the flimsily tented patio that jutted from the main building. They hurried through the door and snaked a path to the bar.

“I’d say sixty-forty,” Gigi said perusing the people milling about. “Not bad.”

Gigi had the habit of assessing the ratio of women versus men at Ladies Nights. Typically, the scales at these Pier House events tipped toward an abundance of middle-aged women, men were a meager showing.

Sarah didn’t care. She was out and dressed up, and doing her best to forget about the letter that sat folded in her purse.

Gigi ordered her a cosmopolitan, a pink martini that Sarah didn’t normally drink. They hit her too quickly and she didn’t like the fuzzy-brained effect. She took a tiny sip, vowing to herself to let the beverage last her the evening.

Gigi eyed the crowd over the rim of her cone-shaped glass. “I see one.”

“For God’s sake, Gigi, we’re not at a pet store. Stop acting like you’re shopping for a puppy.”

“Oh, what I see is no puppy. I spotted me a Rottweiler.”

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh. She followed her friend’s gaze to the other side of the room, near Pete Bailey’s combo busily crucifying a ballad.

The man was dark. His navy blue oxford was tucked into faded jeans. His dark hair brushed straight back over his head had a few uncooperative strands falling forward. He brought a partially-filled pilsner glass to his mouth and took a sip of dark beer.

In the subdued light Sarah detected the chisel of his facial planes, the angles coming together in a rugged kind of broodiness that looked both appealing and dangerous. She turned to look fully at her friend. Gigi’s face was that of a child after finding a package with her name on it on Christmas morning.

“Down girl,” Sarah warned, knowing such a comment was about as effective as an eyedropper of water on an inferno.

“Come with me.” She walked in the man’s direction not even hesitating a beat to be sure Sarah would follow.

They wove through the throng of women dolled up in their evening-out attire. They passed clusters huddled together in giggly conversations, reminding Sarah of a school dance. It was pathetic really, but who was she to say? She was at the dance, too. And she’d come with the Prom Queen.

They hovered near the man, but not too close. Sarah knew the drill. Get in his direct line of vision, let him know you’re there, wait for him to approach.

Gigi broke out her usual moves, touching a delicate hand to her hair, laughing with her head back, running a hand over a thigh to brush away non-existent lint. Sarah didn’t understand why her friend bothered. Gigi always got noticed. She exuded pheromones the same way fresh basil filled a room with its aroma. Truly, if pheromones looked like snowflakes, Gigi would be a walking blizzard.

The band took a break, the three local men abandoning their instruments for a stint at the bar. People gathered around them offering compliments on the guys’ performances.

The people in Ronan’s Harbor were nothing if not supportive of each other. Sarah scrutinized the faces of the people she knew,
wondering,
So, which one of them is trying to ruin my life?
The feeling was ugly. These were her people. The idea of one of them filing a complaint against her felt like a personal slap. It stung.

Gigi’s target approached, sauntering toward them like a gun-slinger traversing a dirt road in an old western. Sarah hated to admit it, but the guy
was
hot. Smoldering with a subtlety that gave Sarah a little foreign-feeling pang. This kind of twinge had been dormant so long that at first she thought the cosmo had done a job on her already. She looked down at her glass, still three-quarters full.

He stopped when he reached their table, offering a small half-smile. He had a nice mouth and his lopsided grin only served to make it more appealing. Gigi had picked a good one this time, that was for sure.

“I’m Gigi,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. She offered a hand, which he took into his own.

“Benny,” he said. He turned toward Sarah. “And?”

“Oh,” she startled. Usually with Gigi around, men tended to regard her as a lamppost. “I’m Sarah.”

“Nice to meet you both,” he said, but his gaze was on Sarah. She tried to pull her eyes from him, but they refused to cooperate.

He held up his empty pilsner. “I’m heading for another one of these. Can I get you ladies a drink?”

Sarah looked down at her glass, then over to Gigi’s which was nearly drained.

“I’m good for now, thanks,” Sarah said.

“Oh, come on, Sar, drink up, honey.” Gigi poked an elbow at her.

The move caused Sarah’s hand to jerk spilling the cosmopolitan onto her sweater. A big wet patch appeared, like glaze on a muffin, on one breast of the cotton-synthetic blend.

“Oh my God,” Gigi said. “I’m sorry.”

Sarah stole a glance at Benny whose eyes had found the wet mound on her chest. A rush of heat flooded her face.

“I, uh…excuse me,” she said.

She headed toward the bar with the mission of grabbing some paper towels. She hoped the garment wasn’t ruined, but she was more upset by her reaction to Gigi’s Rottweiler. Why was she looking at him? Why was
he
looking at her? He made her nervous and the feeling was new, scary.

She reminded herself that Gigi was excited over this newcomer. Truthfully it wasn’t every day a guy like this one showed up in Ronan’s Harbor.

This Benny person was probably a business man, just passing through. There’d been plenty of those during their visits to Ladies Nights. Guys with wives and kiddies tucked away at home while they perused the local scene, did some flirting, and gave away drinks and empty promises as if they were both free.

Somehow she sensed this Benny didn’t fit that mold. His was a far cry from the typical appearance of a transient businessman. This was a cowboy who’d taken a wrong turn at the corral and had landed on the Pier House’s doorstep.

So, even if her sweater did reek of cosmo, she’d stick around for Gigi’s sake. She vowed to keep her eyes off the wayward cowpoke.

It was Benny that managed to get his hands on a stack of paper towels and extended them to Sarah. She broke her vow in record time.

There was a shiny message of sympathy in his dark eyes. They seized Sarah’s gaze, zapping her ability to avert from the lock they had on her. Air was suddenly trapped inside her lungs. He volunteered an easy smile, exposing a crooked eyetooth that for some reason just added to his appeal.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d reacted to a man’s physicality. Right now she could actually feel her nipples pressing hard against the scratchy fabric of that ridiculous demi-cupped bra she’d bought on a whim one Saturday at the mall.

It was as though her body had taken on a persona all its own, betraying her practiced aloofness—peeking out from behind the well-placed coating of armor she’d brushed onto her view of men, that shield she’d stayed safely behind for years.

She reminded herself that this was Gigi’s Rottweiler. She’d never really entertain making a move toward Benny anyway. Hell, she was just happy knowing she wasn’t dead.

Sarah accepted the paper towels and muttered a hushed, “Thank you.” Their fingers brushed against each other with a flash of electricity—
two sticks producing enough friction to ignite a flame.
Her own brazen thought jolted her.

She unfolded a towel and pressed it to her sweater. Suddenly the move felt intimate and she didn’t need to lift her gaze to feel his stare.

“I’m going to, uh, head to the ladies’ room to work on this,” she said to Gigi. She motioned to the front of her sweater and instantly hated herself for bringing attention to the area where her body advertised its reaction to Benny like a set of high beams. She dashed off.

In the bright, stark light of the ladies room, Sarah stood in front of the sink and looked into the oval mirror above it.
Look at yourself,
she criticized inwardly. She was a sight. The dark patch over one boob looked like she’d missed a baby’s feeding. The nipple stared through the wet fabric that covered it, gawking at her image in the glass. It was good, she decided, that nipples couldn’t laugh because this one would be roaring.

She knew trying to rewet the sweater to rinse it of the spilled drink would only make her nipples happier. She opted to stand under the hand dryer—no easy feat considering it had been affixed to the wall at the ideal height for a Smurf. She folded her five-foot-six self as best she could under the force of air. Sadly, nipples liked that too. The sorry truth was now that her armor had been cracked open, her physical reactions seeped out like lava, too hot to stop. She needed to get her ass home and, what? Take another bath? One in ice cubes, maybe?

She rejoined Gigi standing at the bar with Benny, laughing in that flirty way she’d mastered.

“How’d you do?” Gigi asked letting her eyes cast to Sarah’s sweater.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she said with a little laugh that sounded to her own ears like she’d swallowed a feather. “No harm done.”

“Here you go, ma’am,” Benny said. He reached to the bar’s surface and retrieved a new cosmopolitan and handed it to Sarah. Their fingers touched and again a bolt of something new shot through her. He was turning her into a power plant.

“Thank you,” she said, focusing her gaze onto the glass and away from his dark eyes.

“Benny was just telling me he’s a retired police officer from up north.”

“Oh, wow.” Her comment was lame, but, all things considered, the fact that the two syllables were coherent was a success.

“Glendale,” he said. “You familiar with Essex County?”

“Some.” Sarah said. “I grew up in Morris.”

“Ah, a Morris girl.”

His eyes called her. She ignored them. “Yes.”

An awkward silence fell over all of them, Gigi, Benny, Sarah, and her rotten two-timing body—which at the moment was screaming at the ex-cop from Essex County, New Jersey.

“Honey, it’s my turn to visit the powder room,” Gigi said, pinching the arm of Sarah’s sweater into her fingers. “Come with me.”

Sarah knew the tone and the message in the pinch. Gigi wanted a powwow. Following, she didn’t miss the implication of her friend’s two-handed push of the ladies room door.

Sarah couldn’t help but think Gigi was on to her uncontrollable response to Benny. Her face burned with shame. The small, tiled spaced might as well have been a church confessional. She opened her mouth to begin her apology.

“Wait,” Gigi said, holding up a hand like a crossing guard.

Sarah clamped her mouth closed and did what she was told. She waited.

“A, you can’t fool me,” Gigi said.

“I…”

“And B, there’s no denying this specimen’s so into you it’s like he’s blasting it on a highway billboard.”

“Wait. What?”

“Sarah.” Gigi laughed and placed her hands on Sarah’s upper arms. She gave them a squeeze. “I’ll kill you if you don’t seize this moment.”

“But, he’s your Rottweiler.”

“No, I spotted him. But, he’s all yours, honey.”

“Gigi, I don’t have this in me. I’m out tonight to come off the panic attack I’m having over that filed complaint. Really, that’s all I can think about.”

“Hold up. Tell me what the letter said.”

Sarah unzipped her purse, withdrew the folded envelope, and thrust it at Gigi.

Gigi unfolded the letter and scanned it silently. As she did, her mouth dropped more and more open.

Finally, Gigi lifted her gaze from the page and gave Sarah a penetrating stare. “Well, this is bullshit.”

“I’ve established that, yes. Now I need a plan.”

Gigi grazed her palm over the points of her coiffure. “Let’s take one step at a time.”

She lifted the document and waved it in the air like a flag. “I’m coming with you on Monday night to town hall. I want to see with my own eyes which neighbor complained about what you, as the
owner,
plan for
your
inn. Basically, A, I’m aghast that anyone would be so rotten. And, B, I might bring a pea shooter.”

“I just want to make my sunroom look nicer, and host my child’s wedding.”

“
No such inn may hold parties of any kind without petitioning for town permission.”
Gigi looked up from the text and gave the page a slap. “You know this is only happening because some ass made a case out of it. Who’d do this?”