“What?” She wheeled around on Gavin. “Is this
the kind of thing you were talking about?”
Gavin dropped his head and nodded. He stepped
up next to her and shook hands with Sam. “I’m Gavin McLeod. I’m a
friend of Sunny and Robby. Can you tell us what the complaint
was?”
Sam shuffled his feet while his eyes bobbled
all around. “Someone complained that the liquor bottles were being
used for… uh… personal use.”
Sunny gasped, and Gavin let out a curse
unlike any she’d ever heard. Apparently, the same could be said for
Sam, because his eyes popped wide and he took a step back.
After a second of stunned silence, Sunny
swiveled her head around to Gavin. She narrowed her eyes and forced
her breathing to be calm and her voice even. “How did he know that?
There were only two of us in the bar.”
“Callie was on the beach, remember?” He gave
his head a hard shake and turned away. “I can’t believe she’d do
this. If she did, that means…” He cursed again, unclipped his
cellphone, and headed for the bedroom.
Sunny turned back to Sam. “I did drink out of
one of the bottles.” Her admission made Sam even more
uncomfortable, which meant whoever reported Sunny had given him all
the sordid details. She shivered, despite the heat. She didn’t want
to think about someone watching her go down on Gavin. And, oh God…
had they watched them on the beach, too?
“Excuse me?” Sam asked.
Realizing she’d spoken out loud, she snapped
her mouth shut. “I have the used bottle here.” She pushed the
kitchen door all the way open, so he could see into the kitchen.
“Robby, grab that bottle of schnapps out of the cabinet.”
Robby handed the bottle to Sunny, then busied
himself on the laptop. If she was lucky, she’d never hear another
word about this. Luck, however, seemed to be in short supply these
days, and she knew this was the kind of thing her brother would
never let her live down.
She handed Sam the bottle. “I put a new
bottle on the shelf. C’mon, I’ll show you.” She grabbed her keys
off the hook by the door and led him downstairs.
“Given the nature of the call and the friend
in your apartment, I get the impression this report might have come
from a crazy ex-girlfriend.”
Sunny laughed. “You’re right. She is crazy,
but she wasn’t even a girlfriend. Can you imagine how psycho she’d
be if she had been?”
She unlocked the door and led him across the
bar to the liquor shelf. “See,” she said, taking the replacement
bottle off the shelf. “The label isn’t even broken.”
Sam inspected the label, then nodded and
handed the bottle back to her. “Technically, I should make you
replace all the bottles.”
Sunny felt her face fall and her blood
pressure drop.
She opened her mouth to speak, but Sam held
up a hand to ward off her protest. “I know you, and I trust you
told me the truth. Considering the source, I’m not going to take
this any further.”
Relief flooded her, and she threw her arms
around his neck in a hug. “Thank you. I swear to you, I would never
do anything to create problems for myself.” She fought the urge to
roll her eyes. She should have said she’d never
intentionally
do anything to create problems for herself,
because getting involved with Gavin had created a shitpot full.
Sam glanced down at his clipboard. “Did you
get that leak fixed in the kitchen?”
Sunny grimaced. “Robby’s worked on it twice,
but it still leaks.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together.
“Just a tad. It’s not even noticeable… Hardly.”
Sam shoved his pen back into his pocket.
“I’ll be back in two months. If it’s not fixed by then—”
“It will be. I promise.” Sunny followed Sam
to the door, then locked up behind them. “Sam?” She waited until
he’d turned to face her. “Have you heard anything about a new
resort being built here in Anticue?”
He frowned. “That’s not possible.”
“What if the commissioners decided to change
the ordinance?”
“Well, then I guess it could happen.” He
narrowed his eyes. “You planning something?”
“Hell, no.” She shook her head. “I heard a
rumor, and I wondered if anyone else had.”
“Nope, but I’ll keep my ears open.” He yelled
over his shoulder as he walked away, “Fix that leak.”
***
Gavin was sitting on the stoop, waiting for
Callie to call him back, when Sunny returned from the bar.
“Everything okay?”
She sat next to him and nodded. “Yeah, only
because he knows me. He said, technically, he should make me
replace all the bottles on the shelf.”
Gavin’s heart lurched. Holy shit, there must
be a hundred bottles on those shelves. He must have looked as
frantic as he felt, because she smiled and rubbed his leg, as if
trying to calm a wild animal. “Since I confessed and showed him the
old one as well as the unopened new one, he let it go.”
He blew out his breath and wrapped his arm
around her shoulder. Dropping a kiss on top of her head, he said,
“I’m sorry for all this.”
He was so pissed off at Callie and Max and
the entire situation, he felt as if his skin would roll off his
body. He didn’t do helpless well, but until he heard back from
Marty, he didn’t know what the next move should be. Sitting here
doing nothing was driving him crazy.
Sunny leaned against his shoulder. “It’s not
your fault. If you hadn’t been the one Max sent, it would have been
someone else, right? And that person might not be as understanding
or as willing to help as you are.”
Maybe, but he kept wondering how different
things would be if he hadn’t kept his head buried in the sand all
these years. He also wondered how many other families had been put
through a similar hell.
She scooted away and studied him. “Why go to
all this trouble for us?”
He picked at a piece of peeling paint and
threw it over the edge of the step. As soon as this mess was
straightened out, he would paint these steps for them. “I can’t say
it doesn’t have anything to do with you, because it does. But it’s
more than that.”
He pushed his hands through his hair and
looked out at the street. “I’ve been pretty unhappy for a while. I
thought it was because I was bored, sitting in an office, pushing
papers around all day. I’ve grown tired of waiting for Max to
retire.
“Every year he says, ‘One more year, and I’m
finished.’ It’s not that I was anxious to be at the helm, but I
haven’t always agreed with the things Max did. Or where the resorts
were located. Like here. I also don’t believe bigger is better.
Sometimes a small, well-placed resort would be best. If Max
retired, I could do things differently. Make the company a little
friendlier—”
The vibration of his cellphone stopped him
short.
About fucking time.
“Callie, how could you do that? I
thought everything was cool between us.”
The silence stretched on for so long, he
thought she’d hung up. Just as he was about to hit the callback
button, she said, “What are you talking about?”
“Calling the health inspector was a page
straight out of Max’s book. He’ll be proud of you. Or did you cook
the idea up together?”
“What? I haven’t called a health inspector.”
She laughed a little. “I don’t even know how to find a health
inspector.”
As ridiculous as that sounded, he had to
admit she was probably right about that. “Did you tell Max about
seeing Sunny and me together?”
“I told him I’d been to Anticue and that you
were with her. But I didn’t go into any details. God, I couldn’t
have possibly discussed that with my father.” She gasped.
“Jen.”
“What about her?”
“She kept telling me I needed to call the
health inspector and report the bartender for using a bottle. I
told her I didn’t want to cause any problems, that I just wanted to
forget the whole thing. She must have done it to get vengeance for
me.”
Holy fucking hell in a hand basket. Now he
had Callie’s friends to contend with too? He rested his head
against the spindle of the railing and pressed his lips shut. He
wanted to howl, just walk out on the beach and yell at the top of
his lungs.
“Have you found out anything about that
number?” Callie’s soft and hopeful voice sent an ache through his
already fractured chest. At some point, every child realizes their
parents aren’t perfect. Callie had somehow managed to make it to
adulthood without the thought even occurring to her.
Gavin felt the weight of Max’s betrayal like
a tank on his chest and figured Callie must be near to buckling
under its weight. “Not yet. A friend is looking into it for
me.”
“Will you let me know what you find out?”
“Of course. You’re not at home, are you?”
“No. I stayed at Jen’s last night, and I
haven’t had the heart to go back there yet.”
Gavin couldn’t blame her; he didn’t want to
go back to Max’s house either. But he also wished she’d been around
this morning to eavesdrop on Max’s conversations. “Do you know what
time his afternoon golf game is?”
“He’s scheduled to have lunch at the club at
noon, and he’s playing golf afterwards.”
Gavin figured the most incriminating files
were in Max’s office, where they were safe from prying eyes. He
could also make sure they were well protected and couldn’t fall
into the wrong hands.
Gavin had asked Callie to search Max’s office
for folders labeled “Anticue,” but he was regretting involving her.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think her capable of finding the info, but
he didn’t want her hurt any more.
And then there was the mysterious red truck.
It had him concerned, and he didn’t want to leave Sunny alone. But
he also couldn’t sit here any longer, doing nothing. He tilted the
phone away from his mouth and whispered to Sunny, “Is Robby going
to be here all day?”
When she nodded, he said, “Callie, I’ll be
back there shortly after twelve. I’ll go through Max’s office files
and see what I can find. I don’t want you involved any further than
you already are. Okay?”
Silence was the response.
“Callie, tell me you won’t go snooping before
I get there.”
“I won’t go snooping.”
He pressed his lips together, then gave up
the fight and let the burning frustration in his lungs out in a
harsh burst of air. “I’m serious.” He pinched the bridge of his
nose. “Shit. You’ve never listened to me. Why do I think you’d
start now?”
“Okay, fine.” The petulant Callie made a
return visit. “It was okay for me to go digging in his office for
the phone number last night, but I won’t go snooping through his
files until you get here.”
“Thanks, Cal.” He reclipped the phone to his
belt and turned to face Sunny. “She didn’t call the health
inspector.”
“And you believe her?” The skeptical
expression on Sunny’s face told him her thoughts on the matter.
“Yeah. As she pointed out, she wouldn’t know
where to find one.”
She blinked a few times, as if trying to
digest that logic. “What?”
He laughed and wrapped his arm around her
shoulder, pulling her to him for a hug. “Her friend made the call,
seeking revenge on Callie’s behalf.”
She scrunched up her face, and ducked her
head. “How many people saw us?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“That is so embarrassing.”
“If it makes you feel any better, they
weren’t on the beach with us.” He laughed at her expression and
shrugged. “It made me feel better.”
He checked his watch, then stood. “Max has a
lunch appointment at noon. If I leave now, I can get there shortly
after he leaves. It’ll give me plenty of time to go through
everything in his office.”
“What are you looking for?”
He held out his hand and helped her stand.
“Anything I can find. I’m still looking for deals where the
landowners were reluctant to sell. I’m trying to find anything that
explains why they suddenly became agreeable. It might give us an
idea of what to expect. And I want to see if I can find the plans
for this resort.”
“Do we need to keep the boxes you
brought?”
He followed her into the kitchen, where Robby
was typing on his laptop. “Not if you think you’ve found
everyone.”
“I’m pretty sure we have. We found five, and
there are nine commissioners. That gives him the majority he needs
to get things changed.” Her face twisted with the same raw
determination he’d seen when he first approached her about selling.
“Ed doesn’t know what he’s in for when he comes into the bar
tonight.”
Gavin stopped shoving files into the box.
“You can’t say anything yet.”
Matching silver glares from Robby and Sunny
hit him. “Why not?”
“Because we can’t risk him warning Max that
we’re on to him. At least not yet.”
Sunny propped her hands on her hips. “Fine.
Then Ed won’t
know
anything.” She rummaged through the
sucker jar while muttering, “Good thing I can take the top off a
bottle and replace it without anyone realizing it was
disturbed.”
“There you are,” Robby said, rounding the
front of the building. “I was beginning to think you’d been
kidnapped.” He smiled, trying to pretend he was teasing, as he
climbed the stairs leading to the bar’s front deck, but the tense
set of his shoulders gave him away.
“I’m sorry you were worried,” Sunny said,
patting the chair next to her. “I should've let you know I was
going for a walk. I feel like I should be out there doing
something. But I don’t know what that is… or where to go do
it.”
At this point, she didn’t have any choice but
to sit and wait and trust Gavin to take care of things. To deal
with her frustration, she took a long walk on the beach, then ended
up back at the bar, sitting on the front balcony, watching the
surf.