PAR FOR CINDERELLA

by MCCARTY, PETIE

  His neck flushed hot with guilt. Had he voiced more of his thoughts aloud? Lord help him, he hoped not.

  “Uh, sure. She’s gone,” Aidan fumbled out and ducked behind the sofa to hide his roller-coaster angst.

  Frank trooped down the remaining stairs and straight over to the small refrigerator. “I ‘spose you’re about ready for a beer.”

  “You got that right.” Aidan checked his lower situation and was relieved the sight of Casey’s uncle had sufficiently cooled his libido.

  Frank grabbed two longnecks, handed one to Aidan, and took a seat on the sofa. Aidan made one last check and with a sigh of relief, took a seat at the other end.

  Frank was first to break the companionable silence. “Why don’t you just give up and let her catch you instead of teasing her and driving her crazy?”

  Aidan stared, incredulous. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “Looks like it to me. Casey is usually even-tempered, but lately she’s like a firecracker with a short fuse, ready to blow at any second.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Frank, but you’ve got things backwards. Casey can’t decide if she wants an us or not. This afternoon she wanted to be just friends, and then she waited down here tonight to tell me she’d changed her mind.”

  And why was he explaining things to Frank? His relationship with Casey was nobody’s business. He stilled. Had he just said relationship? Or rather, thought the word. That was a girly word. Guys didn’t worry about relationships. If they were smart, anyway.

  Aidan squirmed. He must be losing it. Casey Stuart definitely made him nuts.

  “Huh,” was Frank’s erudite reply.

  “And why aren’t you worried about your precious niece taking up with a drifter? Or rather, a yacht crewman?” Aidan asked irritably.

  “Because I trust you.”

  “At least someone in your family does,” he muttered.

  “I trust you to be a gentleman.”

  Would Frank trust him if he knew the ungentlemanly thoughts he’d had about Casey this very night?

  What Aidan needed was to sneak back to Palm Beach for a night or two—easy enough to get a driver to collect him on the outskirts of Cypress Key and run him to the Gainesville airport to meet his plane. An evening with Julie or Lisa was just what he needed. Or both. He weighed the possibility for all of a minute or two before he realized that concocted scenario held no appeal for him. When had that happened? What was wrong with him?

  “Backwards or not, what’s your story?” Frank was saying.

  Aidan glanced over and noticed Frank studying him. “What?”

  “I came down here to lecture you on hurting my niece,” Frank grumbled, looking like that was the last thing he wanted to do. “And the quickest way for you to do that is by taking up with Deedee Bartow.”

  “I’m not taking up—”

  Frank’s palm shot up. “Save it. I don’t want to hear it. If you were in the Sand Dollar, half the town saw you with Deedee, and that’s enough to hurt Casey.”

  Aidan nodded. He did understand and the selfish arrogant part of him had wanted Casey to hear about his tangle with Bartow’s daughter, after Casey had brushed him off with a, “just want to be friends.” Trouble was the kinder part of him, the part that had fallen hard for Casey felt the weight of his guilt, knowing his public tangle with Deedee would hurt her. Better if he explained his reasons to Frank and get him to understand Aidan was only trying to help both Frank and Casey by flirting with Deedee. Bartow’s daughter had information they needed. He glanced down saw his beer was empty and wondered just when he drank it.

  Focus, Cross.

  “Mind if I help myself to another beer?” he asked.

  Frank waved a hand at the refrigerator. “Help yourself, though I’m thinking we should switch to somethings stronger.”

  Aidan grinned. “Gonna ply me with liquor to get me to talk?”

  “Something like that.” Frank pointed at a cabinet under the microwave. “In the very back behind those couple of pots is my private stash.”

  Aidan raised his brows.

  “Scotch.”

  “Good choice.”

  “I like mine on the rocks.”

  Aidan pulled two glasses from the cabinet over the sink. “How many beers have you had? You don’t want to go to work hung over tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Frank snapped. “Only had a few beers so far. You?”

  “One at the Sand Dollar and this one.” He held up his empty beer bottle and wished he hadn’t mentioned the Sand Dollar, but Frank’s dark scowl didn’t last long.

  “Then get out the scotch.”

  Aidan wondered if Frank meant a few three or a few five beers, but something was eating at the man, and Aidan needed to find out what it was if he was going to live here for a couple more weeks. Best to get it out in the open—like ripping a scab off an old wound—so Aidan poured a generous shot of scotch over the ice he’d placed in each glass.

  Frank chugged the last bit of beer in his bottle and set it on the scarred coffee table. “Bring the bottle with you,” he ordered.

  Aidan delivered the glasses, set the scotch bottle on the table, and sat down on the sofa to take a sip of his drink. No need to hurry and catch up. Judging by the grim look on his employer’s face, they’d be down here a while.

  He decided to go first. “I’m not taking up with Deedee.”

  “Glad to hear it. So why tangle with her at the bar in front of God and everybody?”

  “Information,” Aidan said simply.

  “About?”

  “Her father.” He took another mouthful of scotch, remembered the kiss Deedee had laid on him, and surrendered to the sudden urge to gargle the liquor.

  “That’s good scotch!” Frank pointed an accusatory finger.

  Aidan swallowed. “You’re right.”

  “So why do you look like you want to spit it out?”

  “Thinking of my so-called tangle with Deedee.”

  Frank suddenly roared with laughter. “Okay, that face you just made convinced me more than any excuse you could pony up.” He drained his glass and held it out. “Fill her up.”

  Aidan finished the last of his own scotch, did as Frank asked and hoped he at least wouldn’t be hung over in the morning.

  “Casey has had her heart broken enough in her lifetime, losing both her mother and father and getting stuck with me to raise her. I’ll do anything I can—anything—to prevent more heartbreak.” He punctuated his threat with another slug of scotch.

  “I’d rather cut off my right hand than break Casey’s heart,” Aidan said evenly and found he meant every word.

  Frank locked gazes with him for a long moment, searching his eyes for the truth. “Okay then.” he said finally. Evidently, what he saw satisfied him. “I just have to protect her is all.”

  “You can’t keep the world away from her door, Frank. She’s a big girl, and part of life is sustaining the ups and downs. It’s how we learn from our mistakes.”

  “What are you, some kind of psychologist in hiding?” Frank took another swig of his drink. At this rate, the guy was definitely headed for a hangover. “What do you know about downs?”

  “A lot. I had some dreams of my own, and that’s what they stayed . . . dreams.”

  Frank stared at the golden liquor in his glass. “I know how that feels.”

  “You mean giving up the tour to raise Casey?”

  “That was my own fault.” Another gulp of scotch slid down his throat. “What was your dream?”

  No harm in telling him, Aidan guessed. If he kept drinking scotch, Frank probably wouldn’t remember any of it tomorrow.

  “Same as yours I guess.”

  Frank’s eyes went wi
de. “The tour? The PGA?”

  Aidan now wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

  “You were that good?”

  “I thought so. My college coach did too.”

  “Wait a minute.” Frank’s palm went up again, though not quite as steady as before. “You went to college?”

  That hit Aidan wrong. “Yeah, I did. Why is that so hard for you and your niece to believe?”

  “Because crewing on some rich guy’s yacht isn’t exactly a showstopper as far as careers go. Plus, you gave that up in a blink to stay here.”

  “I had to.” Aidan glared. “I got arrested. Remember?”

  “True, so what do you do when the boss isn’t sailing around in his yacht?”

  Think fast, Aidan.

  “I, uh, take care of the ship. Keep it ready.”

  “My point exactly.” Frank sent him a smug look. “Back to golf. Why didn’t you try for your tour card or PGA school?”

  “My family—my dad, specifically—did not share my vision for the future,” he retorted.

  “You didn’t need their permission,” Frank argued. “You could have struck out on your own.”

  “Guilt, family guilt, has a way of hooking a very tight leash,” he shot back.

  Frank’s face paled and his expression twisted to a grimace. Was he going to be sick? And why the hell had Aidan shared his real family history with him? Frank had pushed his buttons. That’s why.

  “Are you all right?” Aidan waited for a response, but the suffering on Frank’s face said his mind had drifted somewhere else.

  “Frank?” he said a little louder. “Are you all right?”

  “Huh? Oh . . . yeah.”

  “You at least made it to the tour,” Aidan said, anxious to change the subject off his own background and to get the bleak look off Frank’s face. “Casey’s older now and can take care of herself. You could go back.”

  “Too late for me. The only dream that’s important now is Casey’s. She wants to be a golf course designer.”

  So that was it. The secret Casey wouldn’t share with him. Aidan should have guessed.

  “Is she any good?”

  Frank slowly nodded and took a sip of scotch. “She redesigned most of my greens and traps over the years to make the course more tricky. Not difficult, mind you. More tricky. That’s better.”

  Aidan understood perfectly. He’d had dozens of greens and traps resculpted on older courses he’d purchased and renovated. “So any golfer has the opportunity for a good score on any given day as long as he remains focused.”

  Frank grinned. “Exactly.” He held up his glass. “Fill ‘er up.”

  Aidan hesitated and then figured, Why not? He might find out more about the enigmatic Ms. Stuart. Frank was a grown man and could decide for himself how much to drink. He wasn’t driving.

  “You’ve given Casey part of her dream by letting her design your greens,” Aidan reasoned. “You could get part of yours too. Go back to the Florida tour and not the PGA tour.”

  “No!” Frank barked. “If I left Cypress Key, Bartow would eat her alive. He’d force one of his loans on her somehow, and I’d die before I let that happen.” He slugged down half the scotch in his glass.

  “You might want to slow down there, Frank.” Aidan briefly considered taking the scotch away but wasn’t sure he could take Frank, big as he was and in great shape. And now inebriated.

  “I haven’t tied one on in a long time.”

  “But now you want to?” Aidan asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Because?”

  “I’m having trouble making ends meet. I need a loan to get my second boat out of hock and the boat tours out of the red. Plus, there’s repairs that have to be made soon at the course—irrigation and equipment—and we need some new carts. That’s enough to make any man drink.”

  “And Bartow fixed it so his loan is the only one available.”

  Frank slowly nodded.

  “And you won’t take Bartow’s loan because he’s dishonest and a corrupt mayor?”

  “Because he stole my brother’s wife. He ruined everyone’s dreams, and I helped.”

  What the—

  Frank got that bleak far-off look on his face again, the pain in his eyes clearly visible. Something weighed heavily on Frank’s soul, and it wasn’t Bartow’s loans.

  “This is about your brother Dave, right? Casey’s father?” Aidan had to find out what persecuted Frank. He could make it better. He always made things better.

  “Yeah,” Frank whispered, and Aidan feared the guy would keel over and pass out before Aidan could figure out how to help him.

  “How did he ever get mixed up with Evelyn? No offense, but I’ve met her and—”

  Frank held out his glass.

  Oh Lord, no.

  Aidan made no move to pick up the scotch bottle, not that Frank couldn’t do it himself, but he seemed to prefer Aidan rationing his liquor.

  Frank rattled the remaining cubes hard. “If you want to hear this story, it’ll take some more scotch for me to get it out. I haven’t told anyone before.”

  Oh hell yes, I want to know.

  Aidan got up, took their glasses and went for more ice. At least less booze fit in Frank’s glass that way. When Frank retrieved his drink and settled back on the sofa, he started in.

  “My brother was the best man I ever knew. A great guy, a wonderful father. He was lost when Sally died from cancer.”

  “His first wife, Casey’s mother?” Aidan wanted to keep his facts straight.

  Frank nodded. “I was away on tour, and when I came back for Sally’s funeral, I hardly recognized him he was so pale and thin. If he hadn’t had little five-year-old Casey to care for, I know he’d’ve just given up. I came home whenever I could after that, and things got a little better. About three years after Sally passed, Dave went off to some bank convention, and I came home to stay with Casey for a few days.”

  Frank stopped to drink his scotch, and Aidan was relieved to see it was a sip and not another gulp.

  “Dave came back at the end of the week, only he wasn’t alone. He had a woman in tow—Evelyn—and he introduced her as his wife.”

  “I’ll bet that was a kick in the ass.”

  “You have no idea. And to top it off, Dave looked as shocked as we all felt. He’d gone off on a business trip and come home married.”

  “Where was this conference?”

  Frank grimaced. “Las Vegas.”

  “Ah.”

  “Took a while to get the story out of Dave. At first, he claimed they had a few drinks and fell in love.”

  Aidan frowned.

  “Right. She got Dave drunk—which would only take a couple beers—then hopped him into bed and kept him there until he agreed to marry her.”

  “What?”

  “You gotta understand. Dave was really lonely. I don’t imagine he saw much of that conference. The poor guy was a sitting duck for a woman like her.”

  Aidan nodded, if for no other reason than to keep Frank talking. His words came slower and were less intelligible as he sipped his scotch along the way, but instead of the story flowing easier, the pieces came in fits and bursts as though forced out against Frank’s will.

  “Worst part,” he continued, “was Evelyn hated Casey on sight. She was only eight.”

  Aidan bristled. “How could—”

  Frank held up the dreaded palm. “Evelyn didn’t know a stepdaughter came as part of the package. Dave probably figured that would scare Evelyn off, though I don’t think anything would have. She had set out to marry Dave, and she did. Dave got a beautiful woman, and that was about all.”

  He let go a deep, sorrowful sigh.

  “So what happene
d?” No way would Aidan let him stop here.

  “Not long after Evelyn arrived, her catty remarks started. ‘I thought Cypress Key would be a tropical paradise, not this little podunk town.’ And then came the money whining. ‘What do you mean we can’t afford that, Dave?’”

  “Your brother had cash flow problems?”

  “Dave made plenty of money until Evelyn spent it all. But the real kicker was she never liked Casey. Not so much a matter of like as jealousy. Probably because Dave always put Casey’s needs first, and Evelyn knew it. By then, Dave didn’t care, and Evelyn never forgave Casey.”

  “Evelyn doesn’t seem to mind having PJ and Deedee for stepchildren.”

  Frank shrugged. “She’s number one with Archer. He puts her above the kids, buys her whatever she wants. Archer does what Dave never did.”

  “So what did Dave do about Evelyn?”

  Frank got a faraway look in his eyes, as though he hadn’t heard the question.

  “Frank? What happened?”

  “She cheated on him,” he said softly.

  “Damn.” Had Casey known? Aidan would have done anything to protect her from a scandal like that.

  “Yeah. Started with Evelyn ogling men around the end of her first year here, then she moved up to making passes.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  Frank turned sorrowful eyes on Aidan. “I was the first man she made a pass at.”

  “What?”

  A novelist couldn’t come up with this crap.

  Frank looked devastated by the admission, and Aidan realized this was what was eating at his employer’s soul. Now he wished Frank hadn’t shared this with him. He considered refilling Frank’s scotch glass to make sure the guy didn’t remember in the morning what he’d confessed tonight.

  Frank started up again. “Said she really wanted a golfer not a banker. Can you believe she said that?”

  He stared, waiting for an answer, so Aidan complied. “Having met Evelyn, yes, I believe that. Did your brother know?”