Wild Thing (The Magic Jukebox Book 3) (17 page)

“Mary
what?”

“Mary
Smith.”

He
hooted a laugh, one sharp syllable that quickly melted into the air. He didn’t
seem amused, though. His eyes were dark and hard. “Don’t tell me we’re
related.”

“I
don’t think so.” She fidgeted with the tie string of her hood. “So Danny gave
me your number, but he also told me some other guy was bringing the stuff here
on your boat?”

“Danny
told you that?”

Was
she implying that Danny Watson—with whom she had never exchanged a single
word—had told her things he wasn’t supposed to reveal, or couldn’t have known?
Would MacArthur stop believing her because he knew Danny would never have said
such a thing? She plunged ahead, ignoring her tap-dancing pulse. “Like, I
didn’t want to have to bother you. And this guy brought your boat up a week
ago, so I thought, like, maybe he could help. I’m trying to remember his name.
It wasn’t Smith, I know that.”

“Tyler
Cronin,” MacArthur said. “Did you talk to him?”

Had
she—Mary Smith, the ditzy druggie—spoken to Ty? Would it be better if she had
or if she hadn’t? She didn’t know. Saying the wrong thing would ruin
everything. “Well, like, I
tried,
” she said, then trailed off.

“So
you didn’t talk to him?”

Taking
a chance, she shook her head.

“Good,”
MacArthur said.

Her
heart raced just a little less. She’d guessed right.

“He
couldn’t have helped you,” MacArthur said. “He’s just some kid I hired to sail
my boat so I wouldn’t have to kill a week bringing it north myself. He doesn’t
know anything about this.” He lifted the bag slightly.

Was
that good enough to clear Ty? She wasn’t sure. “This? You mean the smack? He
didn’t know it was on your boat?”

“How
did
you
know it was on my boat?”

Shit.
She’d said the wrong thing. Just because MacArthur had told her to meet him at
the marina didn’t mean he’d taken the heroin off his boat. She
knew he
had, thanks to the police—or at least, she knew he’d taken something that
looked like the heroin from his boat, assuming they’d replaced the real stuff
with something innocuous. But if she was just a junkie named Mary Smith, she
couldn’t know for sure that he’d just stepped off his sailboat with his illegal
merchandise in his bag.

She
had to extricate herself from this possible misstep. “I thought that was what
Danny said? That you bring the stuff up on your boat?”

“Danny’s
an idiot,” MacArthur said. “But yes, this is how I start the season. Fill my
boat with precious cargo and bring it north.”

“And
that dude who sailed it up here for you—Tyler Whatever, not Smith? He couldn’t
have sold me some, huh?”

“He
knows boats, but he has nothing to do with this. How much do you want? I’m not
used to small transactions.”

“Small
transactions are all I can afford,” she said, laboring not to smile. Surely
Detective Nolan and the man from the DEA got what they needed.
He has
nothing to do with this.
“Two dime bags,” she said meekly, prying the
twenty dollar bill the police had given her out of the hip pocket of her
too-tight jeans. “That’s all I got.”

MacArthur
made a face. “Jesus. I’m dealing with kindergarten here.” He poked around in
his bag, pulled out a block of something wrapped in plastic and a zip-lock bag.
He settled these items on the hood of her car, eased open a corner of the
plastic wrap and poured some powder into the bag. Was that the right amount?
Monica had no idea how much heroin twenty dollars would buy.

“Here,”
he said, taking her money and handing her the bag. He regarded her for a
moment, his expression softening. “How would you like to get your stuff for
free?”

She
widened her eyes, hoping she was doing a credible enactment of delight.
“Really?”

“With
Danny indisposed, I need someone to help with distribution. I’d give you a list
of a few customers, you’d deal with this dime-bag shit, and I’d pay you with
free dope.”

He
was asking her to deal for him. She hadn’t counted on that. The script she’d
used to prepare for her performance didn’t include this scene. “I don’t know,”
she hedged. “I mean, like, it’s against the law.”

“Your
standing right here with me now, handing me that twenty dollar bill in exchange
for two dime bags, is against the law, sweetheart. This would just be a
temporary thing, anyway, until Danny clears up his problems. And you look so
sweet and innocent. No one would suspect you of anything.”

“I
don’t think so, Mr. Smith. I just—”

“You
needed me and I came through for you. Now I need you.”

“I’m
sorry.” She shook her head. “I just don’t think I could do that.” Like hell she
couldn’t. Right now, she felt as if she could do anything. Buy heroin. Perform
on Broadway. Rule the world. Save Ty.

Abruptly,
MacArthur clamped a hand around her arm. He was a lot stronger than she’d
expected, his grip iron-tight despite his polished, gentlemanly appearance.
“Listen, Mary—I can’t be standing in parking lots dealing out dime bags. That
is just not going to happen. If you want to get stuff from me again, you’re
going to have to help me out. This is not a negotiation, honey. This is me
telling you.”

Her
arm hurt. He was bruising her. He was too close. Too threatening. She blurted
out, “What are you, crazy? Let go of me!”

She
hadn’t even thought about the word. She’d just said it.
Crazy
. He gave
her a fierce shake and her head jerked. “Listen to me. You’ll be perfect. You
won’t get caught.”

“No.”

He
snatched the bag of heroin from her hand. “Bitch. I’m doing you a favor,
meeting you like this. I ought to kill Danny just for sending you my way.
Pain-in-the-ass—” And then he fell back, wide-eyed, as glaring blue lights
flashed across his face. Monica sprang free from him and turned in time to see the
dark van and two police cars tear across the parking lot, screeching to a halt
just a few feet from Monica and MacArthur.

“You
bitch!” he screamed, reaching for her again.

She
sprinted away, colliding with Detective Nolan as he and several uniformed cops
swarmed around MacArthur. She tripped over his foot and went down, sprawling on
the asphalt. Loose pebbles tore at her palms.

Detective
Nolan halted and bent over to help her.

“I’m
fine,” she said, pushing off the ground and swiveling to sit. Detective Nolan
looked so worried—but he shouldn’t be. She
was
fine. She’d nailed the
bastard. She’d engaged in an undercover drug deal, she’d said the word
crazy
,
she’d done things she had never, in her wildest dreams, imagined doing.

She’d
slept with a stranger. She’d fallen in love with him. She’d saved him.

The
air blinked bright blue and dark, bright blue and dark with flashing lights.
MacArthur raged and ranted. Uniformed officers shouted at him and wrestled him
into handcuffs. And all Monica heard were the bold, wailing opening chords of a
song: Wild Thing.

She’d
made everything groovy, as the song said. She knew for sure. She was a wild
thing.

Ty
couldn’t stay. The reasons multiplied and blurred in his mind, but the bottom
line was, he had to leave.

All
his stuff was in Florida. He had an apartment there. His Honda Rebel. Clients.
Contacts. A flourishing career.

Brogan’s
Point had become a holding cell in a police station. It had been a place where
he’d been suspected of crimes. A place he didn’t belong.

Mostly,
he couldn’t stay because of Monica. Because she’d risked her life for him, and
scraped her hands, and he felt guilty. He’d caused her pain.

She
didn’t seem to mind that she’d gotten injured that night in the marina parking
lot. When he’d seen the scabs on her palms, she’d laughed and told him they
didn’t hurt. She’d laughed when he was released from the holding cell, too.
She’d laughed and flung her arms around him and said, “Wow! It was so exciting,
Ty! You should have seen me. I was amazing!”

He
had no doubt about that. As far as he could tell, she was always amazing. She
was smart and gorgeous and successful, and in her spare time she could
extricate a guy from a tricky legal situation more effectively than his
high-priced lawyer could—a lawyer she’d found for him.

He
owed her too much, and she didn’t seem interested in collecting on that debt.
She was too thrilled about her excellent adventure.

He
didn’t want to be an adventure for her. He wasn’t sure what he did want, but it
wasn’t this—to hang around her quiet little town, doing odd jobs for her at her
family’s resort and being beholden to her.

Besides,
he never stayed anywhere for long. Now seemed as good a time as any to leave.

Caleb
had told Ty he would mail a bill, and Ty could do whatever he had to do with
his trust fund for the payment. Ty turned in his rental bike, and through some
convoluted wrangling, Monica found a ride for him to Logan: the fiancée of her
best friend’s boss at the community center shuttled back and forth to Boston on
a regular basis because her family and the antiques dealership she worked for
were located there. Diana was an amiable, bubbly young woman who insisted that
driving Ty to Logan Airport was no hardship. “This is what I love about small
towns,” she said. “Everyone helps everyone else out.”

Maybe
that was why Monica had done what she’d done—small-town helpfulness.

It
didn’t matter. He couldn’t stay. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to stay.

***

Florida
was unbearably hot. Even with the air conditioner blasting in his apartment, he
felt as if he might melt. The building’s open staircase and pastel stucco walls
seemed alien to him. The palm trees dotting his street seemed as if they’d been
dropped into place from another planet. Even the Atlantic Ocean smelled
different here. It smelled warm and soupy.

It
took him three days to decide he couldn’t stay here, either. This wasn’t home.
He hadn’t really had a home since the day his parents died. He’d had places
where he’d lived for a while, but no home. He wasn’t even sure what home was,
but when he spoke the word, shaped his mouth around it, his mind conjured
images of a quiet, private beach, a cool breeze, a cool rain. Clam chowder in a
rough-hewn dockside restaurant. Parents who wanted to meet their daughter’s
friend and make sure he measured up, even when the friend knew damned well he
didn’t.

He
thought of Monica. Her dark, silky hair. Her sleek, slender body. The heat of
her surrounding him, holding him deep inside her. Her courage. Her sensibility.
Her knowledge of who she was and where she was headed. And those blinding
sparks of wildness that flashed through her, captivating him. Making him ache
with wanting her.

Fortunately,
he rented his furnished apartment month-to-month, so he didn’t have to break a
lease. He packed up the belongings he considered worth saving, borrowed a
neighbor’s pickup and drove the boxes down to the marina where he repaired
boats and where, for better or worse, he’d met Wayne MacArthur. For worse,
because he’d gotten pathetically snagged in a web of legal problems. For
better, because he’d met Monica.

At
the marina, he asked the manager to store the boxes for him until he called
with an address to ship them. Ty insisted on giving Jeff money to cover the
shipping costs and compensate him for his trouble. Then he strapped what he
could—some clothing, his lap-top, a couple of good books—to the back of his
Rebel and hit the road, heading north.

***

Sun
streamed through the window in Monica’s tiny office down the hall from the
inn’s lobby. She was glad the room was small, just as she was glad her
apartment was minuscule. Too much space made her keenly aware of how alone she
felt.

The
hotel was packed. Rose Cottage looked beautiful—a few guys on the maintenance
staff had finished what Ty had begun, repainting the parlor and touching up the
second-floor bathroom—and the cottage was now filled with the Kolenko wedding
party. Every room in the main building was filled, too, although now that the
Monday of the three-day Memorial Day weekend had arrived, people were starting
to check out. During the week, the place wouldn’t be packed, but next weekend
promised to be as busy and profitable as this past weekend. Weddings were
booked for every weekend through the end of August. Romance floated through the
air like a sweet perfume.

She
ought to be thrilled. Her parents were. The accountants were. The guests were,
too.

But
she was wistful. Melancholy. Feeling like an idiot.

She
had known Ty would leave. He’d told her he would. She’d accepted that. Loving
him despite the knowledge that he wasn’t the sort of man who stuck around and
committed to a place, a life, a woman… It had been risky, but Ty—and the moment
they’d found each other while the magic jukebox cast its spell over them—had
compelled her to take that risk.

She
didn’t regret it. She just wished that the end of the song didn’t make her want
to weep.

Her
phone rang—a direct call, not through the front desk. She answered. “Hello?”

“Hey,
baby!”

Jimmy.
She wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone right now, but on the list of people
she wasn’t in the mood to speak to, Jimmy surely ranked in the top three.
“Hello,” she said grimly, hoping her tone would deter him.

“Listen,
I got a great deal for you. A brand-new Focus, no money down. Great mileage.
Automatic everything.”

“I’m
happy with the car I have, thank you.”

His
voice lost its salesman edge. “I heard that guy you were fooling around with
has left town. No hard feelings, babe. Let’s move on.”

She
wondered how he’d heard she was fooling around with a guy—which hardly
described what she’d been doing with Ty, but the point wasn’t worth debating.
In a small town, no one had secrets, she supposed. He could have picked up
gossip about her from anyone.

“I’ve
moved on,” she assured him.

“I’m
sorry about the anniversary thing, okay? Let me make it up to you. How about
dinner tonight? I hear the Ocean Bluff Inn serves great food.”

“No.”

“Come
on, honey. We’re past that bump in the road, right? I let you take your walk on
the wild side.”

“Wrong
song,” she told him.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,”
she said. “You said no hard feelings, and I agree. You said let’s move on, and
I agree with that, too. Let’s move on, Jimmy.”

“How
about, let’s move
in
,” he improvised.

“No.”
No song connected her to Jimmy. No magic. She wasn’t the person she’d been when
they were a couple. That all seemed like another lifetime, another world. A
world so safe it had nearly smothered her.

She
was a different person now. The scabs on her palms had healed, and her heart…
It would heal, too. Like any muscle, it would wind up stronger because of what
it had endured. Scar tissue was tough.

“All
right, well, just think about it,” Jimmy said. He was a car salesman, after
all. Car salesmen never took no for an answer. Even after you walked out of the
showroom and drove away, they still believed they could sell you that shiny new
Ford Focus.

“There’s
nothing to think about,” she insisted. “I’m going to say good-bye now. Take
care.” She lowered the receiver gently into the cradle, not wanting the last
thing he heard from her to be the bang of a phone slamming. She and Jimmy had a
history, and they would always have that history. Some good times. Some
not-so-good times. But it
was
history. Not the present. Not the future.

She
didn’t want to think about her future, because Ty wasn’t going to be a part of
it. Right now, the present was making enough demands on her, anyway. She
swiveled in her chair, turning her back to the window and studying the schedule
on her computer screen. Had she hired enough college kids for the summer? Their
school calendars meshed well with the inn’s, at least at the beginning of the
summer. The hotel had hired a dozen girls to supplement the regular
housekeeping staff, and half a dozen boys to supplement the grounds crew. That
struck her as terribly sexist; why couldn’t boys vacuum floors and scrub
toilets? Why couldn’t girls push lawn mowers and clean the pool? They could, of
course, but the girls always applied for housekeeping jobs and the boys always
applied for grounds-crew jobs. Gender politics notwithstanding, Monica couldn’t
force people to apply for jobs they didn’t want.

Her
phone rang again. Sighing, she lifted the receiver and said, “No. I’m not going
to think about it.”

“Monica?”
The voice belonged to Kim Seaver, the front desk clerk.

“Oh—sorry,”
Monica said. “I thought it was someone else calling me. What’s up?”

“There’s
somebody here who wants to see you.”

“An
irate guest?”
Please, no. I’m not in the mood.

“He’s
not a guest. He says he wants a job.”

“It’s
not Jimmy, is it?”

Kim
laughed. “No. Can I send him back?”

 Monica
glanced again at the staff schedule on her monitor. Maybe it was a liberated
young man who wanted to clean rooms this summer. She should encourage him.
“Sure.”

Less
than five seconds after she hung up the phone, he swung into her office.
Windblown. Sunburned. Covered in road dust.

Sexier
than any man had a right to be.

“Ty?”

He
was wearing faded jeans, thick-soled boots, and a dark blue T-shirt that had
seen better days. A leather jacket was hooked around his index finger and slung
over one shoulder. He filled her doorway, looking relieved and worried and… She
sighed again. Unbearably sexy.

He
gazed at her, silent. She saw a motion in his neck as he swallowed.

“You
want a job?” she asked.

“Yeah.
Maintenance. Repairs. You know I can do that. I won’t leave any jobs
unfinished, either.”

“I
thought you went back to Florida.”

“I
couldn’t stay there anymore. It’s not my home.”

“It’s
not?”

He
swallowed again. His eyes took her in, so blue, so intense. “No, it’s not.
You’re not there.”

Now
it was her turn to fall silent. He ventured into her cramped office, one step
at a time until he was an inch from her desk. She’d never thought of her desk
as particularly large, but now that expanse of furniture between them seemed
enormous. She wanted it gone. She wanted nothing between them, nothing but
love.

She
rose and circled the desk to him. He opened his arms and she stepped into them.
For a long moment, they just held each other. Then he leaned back. “I’m
serious. Hire me. I’ll be the best maintenance guy you’ve ever had.”

“I
don’t doubt it,” she said, “but I can’t hire you. I don’t have an opening for
someone with your expertise. I could use you on a contract basis for special
projects—”

“That’ll
be fine.”

“You
could advertise your services as a freelance contractor. You’d make a lot more
money than I could pay you, and I’m sure people around here would be happy to
hire you.” She paused, then added, “We’ve got a lot of boats in Brogan’s
Point.”

“Right.”

He
still hadn’t smiled. He looked so wired, so focused. “When did you get into
town?” she asked.

“Five
minutes ago.”

She
could smell the road and the wind on him. “Did you—ride your motorcycle?”

“Yeah.”

“All
the way from Florida?”

“I
wanted it here with me. This…” He took a deep breath. “This is where I want to
be. This is home, Monica. This town. This place. This part of the ocean.” He
bowed his head and touched his forehead to hers. “This woman. You. My wild
thing.”

“If
you stay here, you might get tamed.”

Finally,
he allowed himself a small, hesitant laugh. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Oh.”
She smiled. “Good.”

“So.
I’m here. To stay,” he emphasized. “To have a home.”