Unintended Target (Unintended Series Book 1) (8 page)

THIRTEEN

The moment Chloe stepped out Ruby’s back door, Ruby locked it behind her. After what had happened to Chloe, she wasn’t taking any chances. A life-long resident of Chicago, Ruby was no stranger to the dangers of unlocked doors. At least a dozen friends in her old neighborhood had been the victims of burglary at one time or another. Her husband, Mort, God rest his soul, had even had an alarm system installed when the Dooley’s house three doors down had been broken into.

Ruby puttered back to the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee.
What a nice girl, making a detour for this old lady.
You just don’t see that in young people these days.
Ruby decided that to show her appreciation she would bring Chloe some of the fancy French coffee her daughter had given her for Christmas. It would be the perfect complement to the banana bread.

Ruby spent the morning working a puzzle her daughter had sent and watching a broadcast of
Wheel of Fortune
. Right in the middle of Pete from Detroit choosing “A” for his vowel, her doorbell rang. Suspicious in light of recent events, Ruby went to her bedroom down the hall and clandestinely peeked out from behind the curtains to see who was calling. A clean-cut young man, dressed in a white golf shirt and khaki pants, stood waiting on the front porch. He wore dark sunglasses and carried a clipboard in his right hand.
He doesn’t look like a thief
, Ruby thought.
More like a salesman, or maybe
, she thought, suddenly intrigued,
a plainclothes detective investigating Chloe’s break-in
. Her interest piqued, she quickly made her way to the front room.

“Yes?” she asked, opening the door just a crack.

“Hello, ma’am. How are you today?”

“Fine, thank you. Are you from the police department?”

Looking slightly amused, the man cocked his head. “No, I’m not. May I ask if you’re the lady of the house?”

“Well, yes, I am. And you are?”

The man smiled large and purposefully, clearly attempting to disarm her. “I’m sorry. Didn’t I say who I was?” Ruby shook her head, no. He held the clipboard out so that she could see it and pointed to the logo on top. “Sea and Shell Realty, ma’am.” He thrust out his free hand and Ruby shook it. “I understand you’re the owner?”

“Why do you need to know that?”

“I’m sorry. Let me explain myself. We’re speaking with the owners of properties in the area to determine if they have any interest in selling. We have a buyer interested in acquiring numerous properties to rent out. Based on real estate records it appears you own this house?”

“That’s right.”

“If you have a moment, I’d like to tell you about my client’s proposition.” He leaned toward the open door and sniffed the air. “Is that . . . banana bread I smell?” As Ruby nodded, he smiled warmly. “My mother used to bake that for me. Haven’t had it in years.”

Ruby wasn’t keen on salesmen in general and normally her reaction would have been to politely dismiss him, but he seemed like a nice man, and, after all, he appreciated a good banana bread. She had not been looking forward to spending the morning alone anyway, and chatting with him for a little while seemed a good alternative. Truth was, for weeks she had been considering finally heading back to the States to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Without Mort, St. Gideon hadn’t been the retirement paradise she’d dreamed of. And with the cottage being worth what it was, she might even get enough to move into her daughter’s fancy golf course neighborhood.
It’s at least worth talking about,
she convinced herself.

“Come on in,” she said, stepping aside to let him enter. He did, and she closed and locked the door behind him. “Would you care for some banana bread and coffee while we talk?”

He stood by the coffee table and grinned. “You read my mind.”

Ruby grinned back at him. “Well, you sit,” she told him, gesturing towards the couch. “I’ll be just a minute.” 

Ruby hurried off to the kitchen, excited about the prospect of companionship and conversation. “You know,” she called out, “I always thought it was crazy to buy this place instead of rent. But on a wild hair, Mort bought it to surprise me on the day he retired. Couldn’t exactly fuss at him for that, could I?” She carefully arranged a plate of banana bread slices and two cups of coffee on a tray and scurried back to the front room.

She was disappointed to find him still standing. “Well, here we are,” she said, moving past him to set the tray down on the coffee table. As she turned around to face him, her eyes scrolled down to his hands, which were no longer holding the clipboard. Puzzled, she looked up at him. “Isn’t it a little hot outside to be wearing gloves?” she asked.

“Yes,” Korrigan replied evenly. “It is.”

FOURTEEN

Chloe found Jack nursing a beer by the largest of the club’s three kidney-shaped pools, all overlooking the beach. He looked very relaxed, kicked back in khaki pants and a lightweight grey button-down, rolled up to the elbows.

“You made it,” he said, rising to pull a striped canvas chair out for her.

“Just following orders,” she quipped good-naturedly, scooting up to the white metal table. A waiter appeared nearly instantaneously and set a Perrier with a lemon wedge in front of her.

“Figured I couldn’t go wrong with water,” Jack explained.

Chloe smiled. “Thanks. So what’s good?”

On Jack’s recommendation, they ordered a light lunch of shrimp and cold salads. As soon as the waiter left, Chloe eyed a padded area around Jack’s bicep that looked to be a bandage hidden beneath his sleeve. She raised her eyebrows. “Not hurt bad, huh? Let’s see it then.”

Rolling his eyes, Jack proceeded to show her his trophies from the attack, consisting of nearly half a dozen stitched lacerations and twice as many lesser cuts. But like he had said, none seemed very serious, although when she gently prodded the stitchwork on his collarbone he winced noticeably. While they ate, Chloe brought Jack up to speed on her diagnosis and her visit to the police station, but not wanting to worry him, didn’t mention Detective Sampson’s gun.

“Just a regular break-in, then. That’s their take on it?”

Chloe’s brow furrowed. “You sound skeptical.”

“No, no. It’s . . . well, what else would it be, right?”

“Jack.” Her tone demanded elaboration.

“Well, it’s just that the guy seemed to know what he was doing. He was really tough to put down.”

“Well, that makes sense doesn’t it? He doesn’t want to go jail, maybe he’s even high, too. It’s amazing you weren’t the one who ended up knocked out on the floor.” Her brow rippled with curiosity. “Come to think of it, how did you manage that?”

Jack’s eyes flicked up to hers. “Just lucky I guess. He was pretty busy with you when I came in the door. And, as I recall, laid out on the floor was exactly where I
did
end up by the time you came in with that club.”

“Not bad for a girl who always got picked last for softball.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Sports were never my strong suit,” she said.

“Well, how about
water
sports?” Jack asked. “See that catamaran over there?” Chloe’s eyes followed his pointed fingers to a large, red-sailed catamaran parked on the shoreline.

“Yours?”

Jack shook his head, no. “Resort’s. I don’t know if you remember me asking you after dinner the other night—”

“I remember,” Chloe interrupted.

“So then, I thought maybe now would be a good time for you and I to go for that spin. Get you some fresh air.”

Chloe raised her hand to her forehead to block the sun from her view. “I don’t know. You think an afternoon in the sun is the healthiest way for a recently comatose individual to spend the day?”

“Yeah I do. The sunshine won’t hurt you, and the fresh air would probably do you good.”

She paused momentarily to consider it. “Well, how can I argue with a medical opinion from a beach concierge?”

He shook his head. “You can’t.”

After lingering over lunch, Chloe picked up a swimsuit at the club shop, which Jack insisted on springing for. By two-thirty they were headed out with Jack capably steering the craft beyond the breaking waves into the smooth water beyond. He let her try her hand at sailing the catamaran, and, surprisingly, she wasn’t half bad. A little jerky perhaps, but Jack assured her that would change with a few more lessons. After a couple of hours, they headed back to the club. By the time they were changed and ready to go, it was nearly five o’clock.

“You hungry?” Chloe asked as they made their way to the parking lot.

“I guess I could eat. What’d you have in mind?”

“Well seeing as how I owe you dinner, I was thinking we could hit this little Italian place on the east shore.”

“You’re not tired of me yet?”

“To death. But I can’t stand knowing I owe you.”

The two hopped in Jack’s Jeep and started around the coast. By the time they reached the little trattoria Chloe had discovered during her first week on the island, both were starving. As they filled up on lasagna, spaghetti Bolognese, and cannoli, Chloe marveled at how comfortable and easy it was just sitting there with Jack. So different from the others somehow.
It’s probably not smart,
she thought, watching him lasso noodles with his fork.
Probably setting myself up. But,
she argued with herself,
we’re just friends, so there’s no risk. I’m just having dinner with a friend. Just friends.

The dinner and conversation stretched smoothly until nearly seven-thirty, when Chloe proudly claimed the check. After she paid, they stepped out of the lobby to an exquisite display of radiant color on the horizon.

“Jack, if you’re not tired of
me
yet, I have an idea.”

He leaned on the hood of his Jeep. “Shoot.”

She laughed.

“What?” he asked, bemused.

She chuckled and dug a camera out of her enormous bag and held it up. “It’s just . . . that was kind of the idea. If you’re game, we could get some terrific photos of that sunset. If we hurry.”

“I thought sunsets were too pedestrian,” he reminded her.

“So maybe I’m reconsidering.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. “I know a place,” he told her, already sliding in behind the wheel. “Hop in.” She apparently wasn’t moving fast enough because he chided, “Seriously, come on or we’ll miss it.”

Chloe stepped lively around the front of the Jeep and swung her legs inside. She had barely closed the door when Jack zipped backwards out of the parking space. “Buckle up,” he warned before peeling brazenly out of the lot and rocketing down the highway.

* * * * *

A few parking spaces over a driver fumbled in his seat, reacting to the quickly departing Jeep by cranking his engine and stepping on the gas. His sedan shot forward, nearly taking out an older couple just leaving the restaurant. The driver jammed his foot on the brake, stopping just inches from the would-be victims who remained frozen in place. Swearing, he backed up, pulled around them, and gunned it to the bottom of the road, where the Jeep had disappeared from sight. Swearing again, he pulled onto the main road, headed in the direction of the resort.

* * * * *

After a ten-minute drive, Jack turned off the main road onto a sharply inclined driveway that ended half a mile later at a circular gravel lot near the top of a hill.

“This is absolutely gorgeous,” Chloe said, admiring the thousands of tiny red and pink flowers covering the thick foliage at the lot’s edges. She hopped out, retrieving her camera before tossing her bag into the Jeep’s large, rear security compartment for safekeeping.

“If you think this is good, wait till you get to the top,” Jack told her as he pointed her toward a set of narrow stone steps.

“How high does it go?” she asked.

“All the way,” he answered, stepping over a tangle of leafy vines that had grown across the path.

After what seemed like three stories worth of climbing, Chloe pushed through bushes that served as a natural gate onto a towering stone cliff rising straight out of the water’s edge. It was nothing more than a deep ledge really, room for four or five people at most. She toed out to the edge and took in the panoramic view of the southern coastline. The fiery sun bronzed the sky, its pink and red streaked clouds mirroring the flowers on the bushes behind her as frothy waves broke on the rocks below.

“Wow.”

“God certainly knows how to put on a show, doesn’t he?”

“Hmmm,” she said as she adjusted the dials on her camera.

“Makes it hard to believe all this just popped here.”

“What?” she asked, peering through the viewfinder.

Jack shrugged. “You know, order out of chaos? The Big Bang?” He kicked a lone pebble over the edge of the cliff. “I’ve seen a lot of chaos. Never saw it turn into order. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, staring out at the sea. “I’ve never really thought much about it. I’m not exactly from a—what did you say the other night—a ‘good little Methodist’ upbringing.” She changed positions and clicked off a few more shots. “My mom wasn’t religious, and my dad’s only god was himself.”
Click. Click. “
I’ve always been more of a do-it-yourself kind of girl. I don’t like the thought of not being in control of what happens to me.”

“Control’s a slippery snake. Hard to hold onto.”

“Don’t I know it.” She turned to smile at him. “You this deep on all your second dates?”

He squinted at her. “Hey, this is no date. Just two friends hanging,” he corrected.

“Right,” Chloe said, her insides blushing as she turned back to the view and raised the camera. “So, are you this deep with all your
friends
?”

“This isn’t deep. This is just making conversation.”

She chuckled as the shutter clicked. “By asking my theory on the beginnings of the universe?”

“Well,” he surrendered, “when you put it that way.”

“My theory is that all you’ve got is now. Enjoy it while you can.” She stopped and pulled the camera down thoughtfully. “It’s like photos. You capture the moment when it’s good. Doesn’t matter what was there before or what’s coming after. You better get the shot when it’s there, or you never will.”

“Okay, so now who’s being deep?”

“Shut up and stand behind me,” she said with an exasperated grin. “You’re throwing shadows across my frame.”

“Oh, so sorry,” he drawled and moved to stand behind her as she stared out into the grand expanse. He leaned in. “You’d better hurry,” he urged, his breath warm on her neck as he nodded toward the horizon. “It’ll set soon.” 

Ignoring the dizzy heat spreading from the spot where his words had touched her, Chloe refocused and continued shooting.

* * * * *

“Sorry I kept you so late,” Jack apologized as he pulled into the parking lot of the club.

“Don’t be. This was great. And I’ve still got time to see Ruby.” She lifted her camera from her neck as she twisted to open the door. “Oh, my bag,” she said, turning back to him.

He nodded and slipped out, moving around to the rear of the Jeep. “Call if you need anything,” he said as he unlocked the security compartment.

“I will,” Chloe replied, glancing at her watch to confirm the time as she grabbed her bag from where it had slid amongst the pile of diving equipment, tools, magazines and other random junk strewn inside.

“You want me to follow you home?” he asked.

“No, I’ll be fine. Ruby’s got my back.” She smiled wryly and so did he.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I’ll check in with you later. Okay?”

“Okay.” She paused. “And thanks again for today.”

“Anytime,” he replied and nodded toward the road. “Now go keep your hot date.”

Jack watched until her taillights disappeared in the distance, then rolled towards the exit, intending to turn in for the night. But as he waited for an opening in traffic, he changed his mind and swung the car around.
Maybe just one drink,
he promised himself
, while I figure out how to handle that girl
.