by Rose Wulf
Light tapping at his driver’s side window startled him out of his reflection and he turned to see who’d disturbed him. He was only minutely relieved to see Blake cocking a brow at him from the other side.
“Daydreaming?” Blake joked as Dean stepped out of the car.
Dean pulled in a breath and rolled his eyes, knowing full well Blake wasn’t serious. “You stalking me?” Dean returned. Best to keep the banter light, since he didn’t quite know how to label the twisting knot in his gut. Concern? Confliction? Apprehension?
Gesturing toward the sporadically occupied parking lot, Blake replied, “I work here, remember? And since I’m sure it’s not me you’d be stalking if you were stalking someone, I assume it’s not me you’re here to see?”
“Hilarious,” Dean grumbled. Of course he wasn’t stalking anyone and of course he wasn’t there to see his brother. He was there to see the woman he was coming to suspect might be more than a passing interest. The woman he’d inadvertently gotten nearly burned to death. The woman whose taste he couldn’t get off his tongue.
Surrendering, Blake jerked a thumb toward the beach and said, “Well, if you’re looking for Arianna, she’s in tower two.” He paused, holding Dean’s gaze for a second, and asked, “Is everything all right?”
Dean took another deep breath and inclined his head. “Yeah,” he replied. I think. “I just … wanted to check in.” He certainly wanted something, but he wasn’t actually convinced a few minutes’ conversation or a brief glimpse would satisfy the craving.
Blake slowly inclined his head, but Dean recognized the tightness in his jaw that meant he had something he wanted to say. Something he was trying particularly hard to find the right words for.
Sighing, Dean let himself slump against the side of his car and crossed his arms. “Just spit it out, already.” The sooner Blake said whatever it was the sooner Dean could see Arianna.
“Angela mentioned … walking in on you yesterday,” Blake finally stated. The exasperated incredulity must have shown on Dean’s face, because Blake quickly held up his hands and added, “Whatever’s going on between you really isn’t my business.” He paused, dropped his arms, and carefully continued, “It’s just … I guess I’m confused. Arianna’s not really your usual type. If anything, she’s—.” He cut himself off, clenched his jaw long enough to swallow the words Dean suspected had been about to roll off his tongue, and finally offered, “I’m just worried about you.”
Dean kept his jaw locked until he knew he wasn’t about to say anything unnecessary. Only then did he straighten and, voice tight, reply, “I appreciate it, Blake, but I don’t care whether or not she’s my usual type. I care about her. End of discussion.” And he did care about her. More than he should, considering how long they hadn’t known each other. More importantly, though, he knew exactly where Blake had been going with that, and he even understood why. Ever since Lila, Dean had only dated more soft-spoken women. Lila had been so much the opposite: outspoken, straightforward, goal-oriented, and so confident it had verged on arrogant. The two real girlfriends he’d had since had been shy, quietly confident at best, and largely unaware of what they could, or wanted to, do. Arianna wasn’t like them. Arianna was—in some ways—rather similar to Lila.
And apparently Blake was afraid those similarities would carry over down the road, too.
“I know you care about her,” Blake was saying. “I like Arianna. She’s a good person. That doesn’t mean I can’t worry about my brother.”
“I don’t need you to baby me, Blake,” Dean snapped. “If I wanna put myself on the line, that’s my fucking prerogative. Or am I not allowed to take that risk?” Was he taking that risk? He wasn’t even sure what he was saying anymore. He just knew he didn’t like the idea of other people trying to keep him and Arianna apart. Of anything trying to keep them apart.
Blake stared at Dean for a second, slightly widened eyes shining with surprise, and finally said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you.”
Dean pulled in a breath, flexed his fists, and finally grunted, “Yeah, me, too. I’ll catch you later.” He turned and started toward the beach, knowing the longer their conversation went on the more he was likely to say something stupid. He understood the difference between concern and interference, but it seemed he wasn’t in the mood to be rational right then. Which probably wasn’t a good thing, since he was going toward a popular beach in the middle of August.
But then his eyes locked onto Arianna, standing almost exactly between the two lifeguard towers, talking with Jay Judd, and he forgot to care about his waning rationality. She looked way too damned good in that ridiculous red swim suit—a fact Jay had obviously long since recognized. She had a plain blue beach towel slung over one shoulder, one hand on her hip, and was leaning subtly away from Jay’s personal space. It was obvious to Dean she wanted to be free of Jay’s company, but to Jay it clearly wasn’t.
For an irrational instant Dean wondered how Jay would react if the sand beneath his bare feet suddenly caught fire.
He’d managed to mostly dismiss the idea by the time he was close enough to call out to them without drawing anyone else’s attention. He didn’t try particularly hard to wipe the grin from his face when he called, “Am I interrupting?”
Two pairs of eyes snapped over to him, and Arianna’s small, tight smile immediately relaxed. Funnily enough, Jay’s went tight and false when Dean glanced back at him.
“Hey,” Arianna greeted. “What brings you by?”
Meeting her smiling, grateful gaze once again, Dean replied, “I was actually hoping to steal you for a minute.”
“We were kind of having a conversation,” Jay said pointedly.
“Which we can continue later,” Arianna supplied. “One of us should really get back to our stations, anyway.” She turned back to Dean without even waiting for Jay’s response and added, “Walk with me.”
Dean inclined his head, barely remembered to half-wave at Jay in the name of common courtesy, and allowed Arianna to lead him away from her colleague. They didn’t actually exchange a word for nearly a minute, but he didn’t have a problem with that. He already felt better just seeing that she seemed to be handling everything okay.
“So, what’s up?” Arianna asked when her tower was between them and Jay. They were mostly facing the shoreline—and a group of laughing teenagers playing in the water—but their bodies were angled in, toward each other.
“I, uh,” Dean began before he could stop himself. He cleared his throat and said, “I wanted to see how things were going.”
She shrugged, absently adjusted the towel on her shoulder, and replied, “They’re going all right, I suppose. You know, considering that my house is unlivable right now.”
Dean inclined his head. If there was one piece of her situation that he understood perfectly well, it was the condition of her house. It wouldn’t need complete reconstruction, but it was in need of some serious restoration. “Where are you staying for now?”
“We’ve got a hotel through the end of the week,” Arianna replied, “but if we choose to stay longer we have to pay for it ourselves.”
“It’s already Thursday,” Dean pointed out with a frown.
Arianna’s grin was tight. “Yep. We have to check out on Saturday.”
Dean exhaled harshly. “What about your car? And your phone? You can’t go without your phone.”
Chuckling faintly, Arianna teased, “Worried about me?”
“Yes.”
Her smile softened and she bumped her elbow into his as she said, “My car’s already at Denny’s—who assures me I won’t have to strangle him for defacing her when he’s done—and my new phone is up in the tower. I picked it up yesterday, after I was done at the police station.”
Dean balked, simultaneously feeling like an idiot for not considering that she’d have already replaced it and worrying that she’d settled for a cheap temporary phone. “You didn’t settle, did you? You need a good phone.”
“It took three checks?” Dean asked before he could process how not his business the answer was.
Laughing, Arianna explained, “The highest one was only three hundred dollars. It’s an expensive phone, you know.”
“How are you paying for your car?” Dean asked, this time deliberately disregarding his nosiness. If she hadn’t wanted to talk to him about these things, she’d have stopped him by now.
“Insurance,” Arianna declared.
“I guess that works,” Dean said. His stare landed on the teenagers and he watched as one of them tackled another in the water. The pair popped up seconds later, laughing and already splashing each other. They were clearly having a good time, and as much as Dean envied them the lightness of their spirits in that moment, he had no desire to be a teenager again. Despite the danger, his life was infinitely better now than it had been back then.
“Can I ask you something?” Arianna hedged a second later, her gaze sliding back toward him. When he nodded, she looked forward again and asked, “Do you actually like the ocean?”
Dean blinked at her for a second before reflexively looking at the ocean in question. He paused, trying to figure out how best to articulate his answer, and finally replied, “It’s beautiful. But really only from a distance.” Even this distance was too close. The moisture in the air was so thick it was practically oppressive. That was why he’d generally always avoided the beach.
“So I take it you don’t like to swim?” Arianna asked, tone now purely curious.
“Hell, no,” Dean replied automatically. He hated the feeling of being even partially submerged in the water. It always felt as if the water was trying to smother him. His mother had tried to get him to take swimming lessons when he was young—insisting it would be good for him—but the moment he’d put his head beneath the surface he’d panicked. Fortunately, it was hard to generate a flame from beneath a large body of water, so he hadn’t been able to blow their secret quite literally out of the water in front of the entire swimming class. “I’m barely comfortable on boats.”
“That sort of makes sense,” Arianna commented. “But, then … why do you stay here? Why live in a cold, wet, coastal town?”
Dean looked at her, bewildered. He’d never been asked that question. For an instant, he wasn’t sure he had an answer—beyond that it had just never occurred to him to leave—but then the answer presented itself. “My family,” he replied honestly. Glancing for a second back toward the oppressive, ominous ocean, he added, “I stay here to stay close to my family. They’re all I have.”
Arianna’s smile was slow and soft, and something he couldn’t quite place shone in her eyes. Just as it became clear she approved of his answer, it occurred to him that his answer might be more bitter than sweet for her. But he couldn’t dwell on it, because then she’d stepped into him, laid her head on his shoulder, and murmured, “Not necessarily.” She shifted, pressed a kiss to his jaw, and added, “I should get back to work, but … for the record, I think there’s no better reason.”
All Dean could do was stare as she turned and crossed the short distance back to her tower.
Not necessarily? What did that mean?
He swallowed, dragged in a breath, and forced himself to retreat up the beach. He didn’t want to think it meant what it sounded like, but he couldn’t deny that it sounded promising.
****
Arianna had only left her tower long enough to run to the bathroom, but apparently Jay had noticed. Judging from his quickly advancing form, angled to intercept her return to her post, he was eager to finish their earlier conversation. Which was more than she could say for herself. Something told her Dean wouldn’t be interrupting twice in the same day.
“So,” Jay began as he jogged up to her side, “you and Dean are … getting kind of serious, or something?”
I wish. For a dozen reasons, she was discovering, but chief among them at the moment was that she would have a very solid, defendable reason to tell Jay to buzz off. She didn’t, though, but she was getting tired enough of Jay’s advances that she was willing to let some of the attitude through, anyway. At this point, keeping a decent camaraderie at work was going to destroy her sanity otherwise.
“Well?” Jay pushed, as if he were on a mission to test her limits. “Are you?”
Pulling in a deep breath, Arianna kept her eyes forward and replied, “I think Dean and I aren’t any of your business.”
“You—what?” Jay asked, incredulity coloring his tone. He reached out and dropped a hand on her shoulder, halting her forward momentum barely arms’ length from the ladder, and urged her to turn around to face him. “Ari, seriously? Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Arianna caught his wrist as it retreated, held it up to emphasize her point, and said firmly, “Personal space, Jay. Grabbing me when I’ve said something to upset you is not how you respect it.” She released his wrist, took a half step backwards, and added, “Also, I’m not telling you because it’s none of your business.”
She had turned, already hoping she wouldn’t come to regret her words—or at least the way she’d said them—when Jay called out to her again. His tone assured her he’d taken offense at what she’d said.
“Well,” Jay said, “I was just asking so I could give you a warning.”
She knew he was lashing out. Knew he’d probably always intended to say something along those lines, with the deliberate intent of driving a wedge between her and Dean. She knew she should ignore him and climb back up to her post. But reflex had her asking, “A warning?” before she could stop herself.
Jay inclined his head when their eyes met again. “Dean might say all the right things, but he’s only using you to scratch an itch. Everyone knows he’s just waiting for Lila to come back to town. So don’t go getting your heart broken by some guy who’ll never respect you.” The words were barely past his lips when Jay turned on his heel and strode back toward his tower on the other side of the beach.
Arianna stared after him for a beat, thrown off by what he’d said. Most of it she thought was horrendously hypocritical, considering that she knew exactly what Jay wanted from her—and it wasn’t happily ever after. But she had to admit the way he’d so easily dropped another woman’s name into his so-called warning was a little off-putting. She didn’t imagine Dean was just using her for sex. If that were the case, he’d have probably put a little more effort into it by now, and she wasn’t entirely sure she’d have tried to stop him. What concerned her was Lila.
Who’s Lila?
The question nagged at her for the rest of the day. By the time the beach closed and they were clocking off she’d even been tempted to go up to Jay and ask, but the moment she’d really processed that temptation she dismissed it. He hadn’t said another word to her since, and whether or not that boded well for them as colleagues, she didn’t honestly care. The bigger problem was that, for the first time, she found herself horribly tempted to take advantage of her gossipy roommate. She was sure all she’d have to do would be voice the question—she probably wouldn’t even need to provide context.
But she couldn’t. She still couldn’t bring herself to deliberately acquire information about someone through someone else. Enough stupid, vile rumors had been spread about her on movie sets that she understood how quickly that could go very, very wrong. She would just have to find another way to figure out who Lila was. If Lila really was anyone relevant at all. And she didn’t imagine asking Dean would be the best way to go. Especially not if Lila had been someone important to him.
That was the thought that was sticking in her. What if Lila had been important to Dean? What if something tragic had forced them apart, and h
e wasn’t properly healed from it? Or worse, what if she was still important to him?
“Hey, roomie,” Georgia greeted as Arianna let the heavy hotel door swing itself shut. Georgia was sitting cross-legged on the center of her bed, three bottles of nail polish and an assortment of other nail-related products spread around her. She waved one hand, fingers splayed and nails still glistening, toward the cluttered work desk by the covered window. “You’ve got mail.”
Arianna followed Georgia’s gesture until her eyes landed on the small manila envelope. That’s odd… She wasn’t expecting any kind of package, and for the life of her she found herself struggling to decide which would be worse—another threatening note or another letter from Italy. It certainly wouldn’t make sense to be receiving any mail from her estranged family, but would Eric or his family really have mailed her anything?
The envelope was in her hands before she could think on it further, and a quick glance at the front assured her it wasn’t from a relative. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, and there wasn’t nearly enough postage for international mail. In fact, she realized, there wasn’t any postage. So it wasn’t mailed. That pretty much guaranteed it came from a Matthews, and she almost decided not to open it at all.
“Who’s it from?” Georgia asked curiously. “I noticed there wasn’t any return address.”
“Did you notice there’s no stamp?” Arianna asked as she shrugged her purse to the table without setting the envelope down.
Georgia lifted her gaze from the nails she was currently detailing, blinking up at Arianna slowly. “No stamp? No way. It was in the mailbox.”
Right, their mailbox. The unsecured generic box of metal attached to a wooden post at the end of their driveway. It would have been incredibly easy for someone to walk up and slip another folder into that mailbox after the mail was delivered. But that was neither here nor there at this point, so Arianna sighed and flipped it over, easily lifting the cheap prongs at the back. The envelope wasn’t otherwise sealed, nor was it particularly thick.
