Lavender Beach (31 page)

“I noticed.” He took her hand, kissed the tips of her fingers.

Outside the light waned. The half moon hung in the southern sky. Crickets sang their evening song. They made their way toward Ocean Street in silence until Cooper asked, “Is there a reason you left so early this morning?”

She wondered if there was ever a good reason to lie and then slid into that role. “I had to meet Silas and Ben at the lighthouse.” It wasn’t quite the truth. Brent had wanted to go over the plan a second time so she’d had to sneak out without telling Coop the real reason.

By the time they reached Sandcastle Cottage, the wind had changed direction. It felt as if a storm brewed somewhere off the coast.

They saw festive lights hung around the porch and heard the swell of guitar riffs and piano chords coming from inside.

Cooper took Eastlyn’s hand and led her through a jammed living room where the musicians, Malachi and Ross, had set up to play.

Bumping into neighbors along the way to the kitchen where the bar was, they learned that since Memorial Day the two men had taken to jamming together to form a band of sorts.

“When did Malachi and Ross decide to make a run at Simon and Garfunkel?” Cooper asked.

Jill Campbell, her tawny face breaking into a grin, gave her husband a loving look. “Since the two found out they love to play the same kind of music. Besides, Malachi believes he needs to stay closer to home on the weekends. Better to keep an eye on his teenage girls. My Ross just needs to be able to play music now and again. Not many people know this but that man put himself through school playing the blues at a dive in downtown Chicago. There are probably still YouTube videos out there somewhere of his band.”

“What would that be under?” Eastlyn asked, taking out her cell phone and using it to search the website.  

Jill grinned. “Hand that thing over here. I’ll find it faster than you ever will.”

Eastlyn handed Jill the phone all the while tapping her right foot to a rendition of
Layla
. “They’re good.”

“What are they calling themselves?” Cooper asked.

Jill handed the phone back to Eastlyn with the display sending out Ross’s sound waves of cool jazz. “No name yet. They’re working on it though, sat up last night until midnight trying to think up one that works for both of them.”

Bree and Troy came in, hands linked, all smiles.

“Do you know what this party’s about?” Eastlyn wanted to know.

Kinsey stood to the side eating a canapé. “Rumor has it Julianne’s pregnant.”

Troy smiled knowingly as if he already knew. “I guess we’ll all have to wait for the surprise announcement.”

Good music, good food, good friends put Eastlyn in mind of another time when she’d enjoyed the companionship of others in like social settings. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed that kind of fun until coming to Pelican Pointe.

When Brent and River came through the door her good mood headed south, a reminder of what she still had to do later that night.

Brent sent her a polite but distant look.

Eastlyn ignored the cop, focusing instead on Cooper’s face—glad someone was enjoying the party as much as she was.

Determined not to spoil the celebration, whatever it turned out to be, she elbowed Cooper in the ribs and nodded her head toward Abby Anderson who was flirting with Caleb. “It looks like you’ve lost the competition
and
the affections of a fan.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cooper claimed. “I don’t think is was me she was interested in at all but Caleb. She’s followed him around the room tonight—twice. I don’t think Abby was ever taken with me.”

“Aww,” Eastlyn said, ruffling his hair like a kid. “Is that an ego buster? Obviously Abby came into your shop all those times to gain valuable intel on your brother through you.”

“You think?”

“Abby’s a Ph.D, a smart cookie. She knows how to scope out the goods to get to her intended target.”

Wasn’t that what she meant to do at the compound tonight, scope out the goods? How did she intend to take care of that without Cooper finding out? Would she have to lie to prevent him from knowing where she planned to go?

“Troy and I would like your undivided attention for a minute,” Ryder began.

Ryder’s voice brought Eastlyn back to a cold reality. After all the conning she’d done to get Vicodin, deception didn’t come easy. At least, not when you were lying to someone you truly cared about.

“Gather ’round, grab your champagne or drink of choice and prepare to be blown away,” Troy said, his voice rising in excitement.

Eastlyn watched as Ryder gathered Julianne close and raised a glass of bubbly in the air. Those two had something special together. Eastlyn doubted Julianne would ever lie to Ryder.

While her thoughts drifted toward dishonesty, Ryder went on, “We invited you here tonight because we have good news. We thought it was the best way to tell you all at one time. Plus, it gives Julianne a good reason to throw a party.”

“Get to it, Ryder,” Julianne prompted with a smile. “Our guests are about to burst with curiosity. I’ve already dodged a dozen questions tonight that the party is about me being pregnant. I’m not, by the way.”

Ryder grinned. “Okay, okay, I was trying to build up the suspense and draw it out as long as I could. As everyone probably knows by now, we’re a man short down at Tradewinds Boatyard. Zach’s having a rough time of it lately and Doc says it’s better if the guy takes some much-needed time off. While he’s getting better, Troy and I plan to carry on in his absence. In fact, just this past week, Tradewinds Boatyard landed a big endorsement from one of the yacht racing associations for outstanding craftsmanship.”

The room broke into whoops of cheer.

“But that’s not why we’re here. Troy and I want to announce Tradewinds Boatyard will be featured in
Docks
magazine’s August issue, a feat we think is pretty cool considering we’ve only been in business such a short time.”

Everyone in the room toasted the good news as Troy stepped forward, beer held high. “And in the boatbuilding trade that’s practically unheard of. To get that kind of notice means Tradewinds Boatyard might be considered the new kid on the block but the company’s made an impression on our constituents.”

“That’s right,” Ryder said. “From now on, Tradewinds Boatyard is on its way to bigger and better things.”

Bree leaned in, whispered to Cooper, “I so wish I could’ve gotten Zach to show up tonight. But he refused to come.”

Empathy ran through Cooper. “You’re keeping an eye on him, right? It’ll be a while before he feels like his old self again.”

“I’m trying. It’s a struggle every day. I have a new business to run just like Troy and Ryder. It’s the tourist season out at the bed and breakfast. Because of that I may have to get someone to stop in at Zach’s house every other day to make sure he’s taking his meds. The thing is Zach’s so temperamental, so easy to rile these days, he doesn’t trust strangers.”

“Just be careful that he doesn’t slide further into mistrusting everyone around him,” Cooper cautioned. “But above all, make sure he doesn’t miss a dose of those meds.”

Eastlyn and Cooper stayed another hour before calling it a night and heading home.

As soon as they got outside, they noticed the change in the weather. The smell of rain was evident and a wall of fog drifted in from the north.

On the walk down Ocean Street, Cooper took her hand. “What’s bothering you?”

“Not a thing. It was a great evening. It’s good to help friends celebrate something important in their lives.”

Her denial struck a chord with him. He’d seen the way she’d reacted when Brent had come into the room back at the party. Not only that, but she hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. “Whose place do we crash at tonight, yours or mine?”

A wedge of panic lodged in her belly. If they spent the night at her place, what excuse would she use to sneak out of her own bed? If they went to his, he’d surely wake up at some point and wonder why she wasn’t there. If she intended to follow through with the plan, she had to change out of her dress and back into jeans. How could she do that without making the stop at her place? Maybe she should just pick a fight with him to get out of making the decision.

“I’m a little tired,” she blurted out and came to a painful conclusion. “Besides, I saw how you went out of your way to flirt with Bree tonight. In fact, you did the same thing with Jill Campbell and Julianne.”

Cooper sent her a dubious look. “What are you talking about? I didn’t flirt with anyone. Bree and I talked about Zach. You were standing two feet away when Jill and I had a conversation. Julianne hosted the party so I took a few minutes to tell her what a great job she’d done. Not only that, but all of them are happily married women. I don’t mess around with another guy’s woman. And if you think that, you don’t know me very well. What’s gotten into you tonight?”

“I know what I saw,” Eastlyn insisted, knowing she sounded like a shrew. But she’d already dealt herself this hand and now would have to play it out. She’d just have to make it up to him later.

“Accusations like that are nothing but cheap shots and beneath you,” Cooper fired back. “I think I’ll leave you to your attitude.” With that, he started off down the street without her.

“Yeah? Well…who needs a man who’s a player? The kind who flirts with other women right in front of them is…a cad.”

Cooper didn’t say another word and never looked back as he kept on walking.

The next time she looked up, he’d already disappeared around the corner.

“That was a little too easy,” Eastlyn muttered, a bad taste settling in her mouth over what she’d done. As she headed home to change her clothes, disappointment still lingered. “He didn’t even try to get on my good side.”

Still mumbling to herself about Cooper’s unwillingness to put up much of a fight, she unlocked the door to her house. Once inside, she wiggled out of her dress, sat down on the bed to adjust the height of her prosthetic foot for boots. After changing into jeans and shirt, she glanced down at her watch and realized it was go-time.

On Sandy Pointe
Drive, Cooper settled back into his easy chair with the lights off, a cold beer nearby, to watch SportsCenter. But after trying to watch a few highlights, he found he had trouble focusing on baseball scores.

Instead, he replayed the scene with Eastlyn on the street. She’d showed him a nasty side to her, one he was glad to learn about now, rather than later.

But it wasn’t the lonely darkness engulfing his living room that made him feel like a stranger in his own house. No, it was Eastlyn’s abrupt change that bothered him.

Just like Nick had predicted that day at the bank, Cooper had sensed for a few days beforehand that Eastlyn had been pulling away from him on purpose. She’d acted weird that morning when she’d left the house before breakfast. And now, without a word of warning, she’d turned into someone he didn’t even know.

“You’re kidding, right?” Scott said from his seat on the couch. “You actually fell for that? Even though it was the worst acting I’ve ever seen, you bought that crap about flirting? Sometimes I wonder about you, Cooper.”

Cooper eyed him with open disdain. “What are you talking about?”

“Eastlyn obviously needed to ditch you and picking a fight was the best option she had.”

Cooper shot up out of the recliner. “I knew something was off.”

“Off? You mean other than her pitiful performance?”

“Why did she need to ditch me?” He’d no sooner got the words out of his mouth than it suddenly dawned on him. “She’s headed out to that damn compound, isn’t she?”

“Wow, there’s no getting anything past you,” Scott noted, every word underscored with sarcasm.

“She knew how I felt and deliberately deceived me.”

“There are times mystery in a relationship might be considered a turn-on. But deliberate deception like she showed tonight needs to be addressed. I don’t think you should let her get away with it,” Scott prompted.

Cooper sent him a go-to-hell look. “I have no intentions of letting her get away with it. What kind of head start does she have?”

“About ten minutes,” Scott said with a grin. “The woman moves faster than you think.”