Carats and Coconuts (21 page)

“
I hope you don’t mind
Beefcakes’ friends joining us,” she said, not seeming quite as
pulled together as she usually was.

“
Not at all, do we Zoey?”
Roman asked, still seeming rather mesmerized by the plethora of
bling glistening on the queens themselves, as well as their
apparel.

I don’t know which shone
brighter…their faux feather and glitter-dusted headdresses or the
metal studded braziers covering their pecs.

“
We’ve got a little problem
that I hope you can all help us with,” Bunny began.

With that introduction, R sprung to
his feet and began to pace around the circle in which we sat. I was
sure he wasn’t playing duck-duck-goose, which had been my favorite
preschool game.

“
What kind of problem, dear
sis?” He asked, stopping next to her then looking at her with a
deep-felt concern taking over his once jovial mood.

I certainly didn’t miss the hesitation
flickering through Bunny’s eyes. Her entire posture indicated she’d
rather be doing anything else other than having this conversation
with her brother.

She took a very deep breath, and I
doubted it stemmed from Beefcakes’ training. She wasn’t at the gym.
She was in the jungle surrounded by her family and
friends.

“
Vesuvius is missing,” she
said, her shoulders at first rigid then dropping, deflated by
despair.

And Bunny Winston never ever had poor
posture.

Add to that, for the first time since
I’d met R, he actually seemed rattled. And he wasn’t just slightly
off kilter, but rather about to blow as if he himself were
Vesuvius.

“
You’re sure?” He
asked.

“
Now you see it. Now you
don’t,” Bunny offered, attempting to find humor in what she and R
obviously didn’t find funny at all.

“
Since when?”

“
I got a phone call last
night from one of Dad’s associates.”

“
You’re Dad’s associates are
still living?” Roman asked R, a deeply confused and concerned look
coming across his flawless Mediterranean-bronzed face.

“
Not that I knew of,” R
said, once more taking up his favorite pastime and pacing our
circle of trust.

“
Where was this associate
calling from?” R asked.

“
Key West,” Bunny
answered.

She looked at Beefcakes next as if
there was more they wanted to say but weren’t sure that they
should.

“
We’ll need to go at once,”
R said, taking a seat next to Bunny and pulling her close to
him.

From the looks of them huddled
together around the fire, I wasn’t sure who was comforting
who.

“
We’ve got a villa in Key
West, so we’ll make that our command post,” Roman said.

His voice was thick with concern but
was still tinged with the disciplined sense of calm I was getting
used to hearing when things weren’t as kosher as he’d like you to
believe they were.

“
I don’t expect you to get
involved in this,” R said, still holding Bunny. “This is our
family’s problem.”

“
You are my family. So that
does make it my problem,” Roman said without missing a single
beat.

“
And mine too,” I added, and
I meant it with all my heart.

R was speechless, but words weren’t
necessary to know what he was saying with every other part of
him.

“
Did somebody mention Key
West?” Grams said, walking out of the medicine man’s tent looking
as if she’d had one helluva rough night.

“
What the hell? Damn! Did I
ever wake up with frozen pipes this morning…yeah, I should probably
get a little more fiber in my diet,” she said, waddling to our
circle.

Remembering that particular Maxine
comic was the next one on the tear-off daily calendar she kept on
her at all times, I remained silent and rolled my eyes.

Knowing she was nowhere near short on
fiber after all the medicinal leaves she’d huffed smoke from, I
laughed all to myself.

“
I know that I actually saw
some flying reindeer this year at your parent’s house, Zoey, but
I’d swear I’m under the influence of homemade moonshine in my
eggnog again. Wow, do I have a monster headache,” she said, fanning
herself.

And I didn’t think hot flashes were an
issue for her at that time.

Yep. I recognized that little Maxine
moonshine-ism too.

“
So, getting back to Key
West…did y’all decide I could be onto something and that our next
adventure should be in Mel Fisher Country? I’ve even ordered myself
a high-powered metal detector.”

“
Grams, Mel’s work was done
on the ocean floor of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Key
West,” I said, still unable to figure out how she’d connected the
dots of being in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil to Mel Fisher’s
Atocha treasure hunting.

“
Duh. Yeah. Right. I don’t
know what I was thinking with the whole metal detector thing.
Although, maybe they make a submergible version. Yeah. I’ll have to
check on that.”

She rubbed her hair-stubbled
chin.

“
So where’d you pick-up the
trannies?” She whispered in my ear.

Thank the powers that be she’d
whispered the question.

“
They’re friends of Bunny
and Beefcakes,” I said.

“
Another big ol’ duh. With a
name like Beefcakes, there’s bound to be a bunch of trannies not
far behind. Fabulous! I love gay cross-dressing divas.”

And no. That time she didn’t
whisper.

“
So where you fellas from?
Oh wait. Should we call you fellas or dolls?”

All I knew was that whatever she’d
been smokin’ in the medicine man’s tent, I hoped there was plenty
left for the rest of us.

B
ecause we’d successfully stopped Stanley and Fosito’s gem
smuggling operation for good, the Sol Largas were safe. Now that
the stones that provided for their well-being were once again free
from wildcat miners, their future was secure.

As Roman and I drove back to the
Witherspoon Lodge to pack for our flight to Key West, I couldn’t
help but worry about what was next for us.

However, for the first time, I wasn’t
worried about us, as in “us” as a couple. We finally had that part
figured out.

What worried me was that I had the
distinct feeling that although Roman and I no longer kept secrets
from each other, there were bigger secrets being kept from us about
R’s world. And those secrets could be more dangerous
yet.

Neither of us spoke on the two hour
drive through the rainforest path to the lodge.

We didn’t have to.

By now, we were too in sync to not
know what the other was thinking, feeling and stewing
about.

As Grams had told me, Mel Fisher liked
to say, “Today’s the day”.

But what if that was true, but your
days were still numbered?

And just what the hell was
Vesuvius?

THE END

D. D. Scott is an Amazon and
Barnes & Noble Top 100 Bestselling Romantic Comedy and Humorous
Mystery Author. She’s a Writer’s Go-To-Gal for Muse Therapy, plus
the #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of Muse Therapy: Unleashing Your
Inner Sybil and the co-founder of The WG2E – The Writer’s Guide to
E-Publishing - your destination site for Everything E-Publishing,
and founder of The RG2E – The Reader’s Guide to Epublishing – the
destination site for all-things Ereading. You can get all the scoop
on her, her books, her Muse Therapy Online Classes and Live
Workshops, plus juicy tidbits too from D. D. Scott-ville
http://ddscottville.blogspot.com
.

Full Bio:

D. D. Scott’s bestselling romantic
comedies are all about sexy, sassy, smart, career-driven women and
the men who complete them. They’re a bit chick lit with a
gone-country twist…and now a humorous mystery, comedic caper twist
too. Her Bootscootin’ Books - think Sex and The City meets Urban
Cowboy – debuted August 2010, on Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes &
Noble’s Nook and at Smashwords, with BOOTSCOOTIN’ BLAHNIKS,
followed by STOMPIN’ ON STETSONS and BUCKLES ME BABY. Now, The
Bootscootin’ Characters are gettin’ “cozy”…as in Comedic Caper
cozy, with the release of THUG GUARD and LIP GLOCK, Books One and
Two of her new, Cozy Cash Mysteries, featuring all of your fave
Bootscootin’ characters plus tons of quirky new characters
too.

She’s a two-time Amazon
Movers & Shakers List Author (making it all the way to #2 on
that prestigious list) and has been both a featured author and her
books have been top picks – including one of the Top 10 Books for
Mother’s Day 2010 - for such superfab Ereader-centric Blogs as
Ereader News Today (ENT), Kindle Nation Daily, Cheap e-Reads, Pixel
of Ink, The Frugal eReader, Indie Books List, Only Romance, and
Bargain eBooks. Her blog posts on the Indie Epub World have been
picked-up by fantabulous blogs like Bufo Calvin’s I Love My Kindle.
She can be spotted all-week long on her one-million-hits-per-month
grog
The
WG2E
, a writer’s destination
site for all-things-Epublishing. She often can also be found
hangin’ on both the Kindle and Nook Boards, her new site
The RG2E
, a reader’s
destination site for all-things Ereading, and has an active blog of
her own on her website at
http://ddscottville.blogspot.com
.

Also a Writer’s Go-to-Gal
for Muse Therapy and now
the Amazon #1
Bestselling Author of MUSE THERAPY: UNLEASHING YOUR INNER SYBIL, D.
D. debuted her Muse Therapy Online Classes in 2009 and her Live
Workshops in 2010. Thanks to the fabulous endorsement of Stephen
Windwalker’s Kindle Nation Daily, there’s a ton more fun and
fascinating MUSE THERAPY adventures in development.

D. D.’s first two short stories - The
Mom Squad Mini-Mayhem Mysteries – FLUID FULFILLMENT and LICENSED
FOR LOVE – released in October 2011, and a D. D. Scott Special
Edition Ebook Boxed Set followed in December 2011, which included
all three Bootscootin’ Books plus the first two Cozy Cash
Mysteries. Her brand new series THE STUCK WITH A SERIES will
release in March 2012, with STUCK WITH A SCHMUCK and STUCK WITH A
STIFF, along with a total of 14 additional releases throughout
2012.

Declaring 2011 to be “The
Year of the E-Book & Cross-Pollination”, D. D. co-founded and
launched
The Writer’s Guide to
E-Publishing
(
http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com
),
your destination site for Everything E-Publishing. Whatever you
want to know and/or cuss and discuss about E-publishing, it’s right
there at The WG2E waiting for you!

And declaring 2012 “The Year
of the Reader”, she founded
The RG2E
– The Reader’s
Guide to Epublishing – a sister site to The WG2E, which will launch
February 1, 2012 and be “the” new destination site for the Best in
Ereading.

When she’s not writing, she’s busy
luuuvin’ on her real-life hero “Sweet Man” and their beloved
shelter-rescued dog Buckley and his new playmate Siggy the
Affenpinscher.

For updates on her books,
her sexy, sassy, smart neurotic writer’s life blog, and for a
schedule of her appearances and Muse Therapy Sessions, visit her
website
http://ddscottville.blogspot.com
.

STUCK WITH A SCHMUCK

(The Prequel to STUCK WITH A STIFF,
Book One of the Stuck with a Series)

“T
he right shoe can change your life…just ask
Cinderella.”

That’s what the Bitchy Sign in the
airport’s gift shop had said. And no, I didn’t buy the damn
thing.