PAR FOR CINDERELLA

by MCCARTY, PETIE

“Eighteen-hole match, stroke play for a total score,” Casey continued calmly. “If you win, you get to come back and pay to play golf on our course.”

  “What if he wins?” PJ jerked his head at Aidan with a glare.

  Casey raised her voice so everyone close by could hear. “You pay the Cypress Key Golf Club five thousand dollars.”

  “That’s bullcrap!” he shouted. “I only get to play the course for my win, and he gets five grand?”

  “No, the course gets five grand. The cost of rebuilding the engine on the greens mower since someone put sugar in the gas tank.”

  A few gasps erupted close by, and PJ’s eyes flickered for one nervous second before he shuttered his expression and went quiet, apparently to think her deal over. A swift glance at Aidan told her his glare had softened though he still didn’t look happy.

  PJ turned to confer with his idiot friends.

  “They’re not part of this deal and are still banned from the course and the match,” she informed him before they could form any nefarious plans.

  “Hey!” Darryl and Jimmy complained in unison. “No fair.”

  “Plenty fair. Neither of you get to come back until the match is over, and then only if PJ wins.”

  PJ exchanged glances with his reprobates. He looked ready to waffle.

  “How bad do you want back in?” she asked, raising her voice a hair. “You’re lucky I don’t press charges.”

  A few more gasps echoed close by, and PJ’s cheeks flushed bright red again.

  “I’ll do it,” he proclaimed, then sneered at Aidan, “and I’ll look forward to kicking your ass on the golf course.” He turned back to Casey. “When?”

  She had to think fast. The Seafood Festival was the following weekend exactly one week away. They needed the greens mower before then for all the tourist traffic the festival brought to town. Plus, Frank would need the next couple days to get the course in shape for the match.

  “Tuesday,” she said. “At high noon.”

  She was pleased to see dozens of customers pull out cell phones to mark their calendars.

  “But I’ll need Jimmy here for my caddy,” PJ insisted.

  “Fine,” Casey said over Aidan’s glared objection.

  PJ and his friends moved past Aidan toward the door. PJ bumped him on the way past, smug that he’d won one concession in the deal, but Louie held Aidan back.

  “I’ll see you Tuesday,” PJ sneered at Aidan and then grinned nastily at Casey. “And you again on Wednesday when me and my buds come back to play golf.”

  “Don’t count your chickens just yet,” Casey snapped.

  The three hooligans hustled out through the front door, customers shifting out of the way to give them a wide berth.

  Louis slapped Aidan on the back. “Beat him real bad, Aidan. You’re playing for all of us in Cypress Key. Those boys got it coming.”

  “Tell everyone in town it’s ten dollars a ticket to watch,” Casey told him, when the inspiration struck.

  The big shrimper grinned a wide smile and sauntered back to join his buddies at the bar. Casey sat back down and beamed at a clearly unhappy Aidan.

  “Have you lost your mind?” he hissed, careful to keep his voice low enough only she could hear. “Or had one too many glasses of wine?”

  “No.” Though she could feel a buzz starting. “I kept you from getting in a fight.”

  Aidan rolled his eyes. “Oh for Pete’s sake! I wasn’t going to get in a fight inside or outside of the biggest restaurant in Cypress Key.”

  “I didn’t know that.” She tried and failed to keep the smugness from her tone.

  His eyes narrowed. “Have you considered what will happen if I lose?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I might.”

  She didn’t feel like smiling any more. “Then the course’s best paying customer will be back.”

  Two bright flags of color on his cheeks warned her of the approaching storm. “Maybe you don’t worry about your safety, but I do.”

  She swallowed hard. PJ really had crossed the line the last time he had grabbed her. The course needed his greens fees, but she wasn’t sure the money was worth it now.

  She gave Aidan a hard-eyed stare. “Just don’t lose.”

  “Dammit, Casey!”

  Heads turned, and he lowered his voice. “How good is he?”

  She swallowed again and tried hard to rid her throat of the lump of nerves that had suddenly lodged there. “Very.”

  Pitting the two in a golf match had seemed like such a good idea when a fight loomed. Uncle Frank had told her anyone who could fix Ernest Delby’s game had to be great.

  “If you win, the mower is fixed and paid for. Frank won’t need a Bartow loan. You have extra incentive.”

  “As if I didn’t have enough to worry about,” he muttered.

  She reached for his hand. “I trust you, Aidan. You’ll win. I know it.”

  “Glad you have so much faith in me. Where’d you get it?”

  “Uncle Frank watched you on the driving range. Before you run the ball collector, you always hit all the close balls and whatever’s left over from the baskets on the tee. You hit the balls out toward the far pin. He said he hasn’t seen anyone hit like that since his days on the tour.”

  Aidan sighed heavily. “No secrets in this town.”

  She grinned at him. “If Uncle Frank says you’re really good, then you are. Stop frowning.”

  “He hasn’t seen me putt. I haven’t been practicing putting, and you know the saying. Drive for show. Putt for dough.”

  “Like I said, I trust you and you don’t want PJ back on the course.”

  He shook his head, obviously knowing when he’d been beaten.

  She remembered his comment from moments earlier. “What did you mean, ‘As if I didn’t have enough to worry about?’”

  He locked gazes with her, and she swore she could see the wheels turning as he debated what to tell her.

  Trust him, Casey.

  She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “Only the truth.”

  Chapter 17

  The pleading look in Casey’s eyes sank deep claws into Aidan. This beautiful girl led with her heart. In everything. She had charged into the fray just now and volunteered him for a golf match to keep him out of a fight. Though with Big Louie standing alongside, the odds of a fight actually occurring had been dramatically reduced. When Casey made the suggestion, she had counted on him to win. To save the day and Frank’s mower, knowing the alternative would cost her any peace of mind, with PJ back hanging around the golf club.

  Casey deserved the truth. But how much? Aiden wondered. Too much about him—without his laying the proper groundwork, whatever that turned out to be—and he risked losing her before he had a chance to figure out if they had a future long-term. No, he wouldn’t lie to her. Anymore than he already had with his Cross with an e.

  Her big green eyes tried to read his. God help him if she ever mastered the ability.

  Give her the truth. Some, anyway. Just no more lies.

  “Rory Jameson and I had a long talk today. I promised I would help him.”

  “Help him what? Cover for being late at the cart barn?”

  Here comes the sticky part, and the fine line of how much truth is too much. I have to keep her safe.

  “Bartow coerced Rory’s father into a loan slash partnership at the restaurant.”

  Casey groaned and smacked a palm to her head. “Not another one.”

  “Right, and I suspect there are more.”

  “Tell me about Rory,” she said, smart enough to keep her voice low.

  He did, as quickly and succinctly as possible. As he watched, her face registered a series of emotio
ns: shock, disbelief, anger, fear, resignation, and then something he couldn’t read so easily. Something that resembled wary. He didn’t like that look in her eyes especially when it was directed at him for a long moment, but he didn’t expect what she said next.

  “Why are you really here, Aidan?”

  Caught him off-guard she did, and he gaped at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you here?” she repeated.

  His mind thrummed, sifting through answers. “I, uh, got arrested, so I’m stuck.”

  “So you say.”

  He didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. “Yeah. I say. Go ahead. Spit it out,” he growled. “Whatever is eating at you.”

  “All the trouble in Cypress Key started when you showed up,” she blurted.

  Aidan clenched his teeth, wanting to howl his outrage. Not at the accusation. Because Casey was right. Bartow was in the tank to some drug cartel because Aidan had bought the airport property and it wasn’t available for Bartow to build his cheap overpriced condos and launder his money during their construction and sale.

  He took two deep breaths to keep a lid on his temper. Why couldn’t she ever trust him?

  Maybe because I haven’t given her a reason to.

  “Are we back to that?” he asked softly.

  She never broke eye contact, waiting for him to blink. “Yes, we are.”

  “You think I’m the one causing the trouble in this town and not Bartow?”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Oh, for the—”

  She suddenly looked unsure. Casey didn’t know about the airport property, so she had to mean the vandalism and bad loans. That trouble he could fight back on. Aidan may be the root, but he wasn’t that trouble.

  “Might I remind you,” he said indignantly, “that Rory doesn’t think I’m trouble. He came to me—” Aidan smacked his chest. “—with the trouble with his father’s books. You think I’d share that with you if I was in cahoots with Bartow? I told Rory I’d help him, not hurt him.”

  Casey’s eyes went wide. She pointed to a spot over his shoulder. “Then who is the thug?”

  “Thug?” He followed her gaze and groaned aloud.

  Liam Shaunessy sat at the bar nursing a beer. When the two of them stared, Shaun gave a sheepish little wave.

  “He is the help for Rory I just mentioned.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her wary look resurfaced.

  No help for it. Aidan exhaled hard and waved Shaun over. The big man collected his beer and meandered through the crowded bar to their table.

  Aidan rose to his feet. “Casey Stuart, this is Liam Shaunessy, my good friend—” He lowered his voice so only she could hear. “—and a private investigator.”

  She curbed her surprise well.

  “I thought I was keeping a low profile,” Shaun murmured under his breath.

  “You were until you showed up in here,” Aidan complained. He nodded toward Casey. “She thinks you’re a thug.”

  Casey gasped in outrage.

  Shaun laughed uproariously. “A thug, is it?” he said to Casey. “I may well be, but pleased I am to finally meet you, miss.” He put out a hand. “Call me Shaun. All my friends do, even those that suspect I’m up to no good.”

  Casey eyed the hand warily.

  “Sure and I’m only a thug to those that ask for it or those that threaten my friends.” He glanced sideways at Aidan.

  She shook his hand and glared at Aidan. “He shouldn’t have told you I said that.”

  The big Irishman let loose another raucous belly laugh. “I like a woman who says what she thinks.” He gave her a wink.

  “Won’t you join us?” she asked politely.

  “He was just leaving,” Aidan said pointedly and leaned in to Shaun. “Some low profile.”

  “Sure, and I was, but as I walked out of the restaurant, your three troublemakers were on their way in, mouthing off about taking care of Aidan Cross. I decided to stick around and even up the odds, but it looked as though you were well protected.”

  “I didn’t need protecting,” Aidan groused.

  “Yes, he did,” Casey piped up. “I didn’t like the odds either.”

  Shaun grinned at her. “My boyo thinks he’s Superman. I have to remind him from time to time that he’s human like the rest of us.”

  “That’s not funny,” Aidan told him.

  Casey grinned. “I thought it was. Nice meeting you, Shaun. I hope to see you again.”

  With a last chuckle at Aidan’s glower, Shaunessy headed for the exit.

  Aidan took his seat under Casey’s watchful stare. “He’s an old friend. He owes me. Or thinks he does.”

  “Owes you for what?”

  “I saved him from a mugging.”

  Her eyes flew wide.

  Aidan put up a hand. “Drop it. I’m not going to tell you about it.”

  She studied him. He kept his gaze on the door, the bar, anywhere but at her.

  “So you have a low-interest-loan friend and a private-investigator friend. Or are they the same friend?”

  “No.”

  “Where does a guy meet and make such helpful friends?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I crew on a billionaire’s yacht, remember?” he grumbled, already annoyed with this conversation. “I meet all kinds of helpful people.”

  “How many others?”

  “A few.”

  “And they just happen to owe you?”

  He leaned into her personal space to throw her off balance and off track. “That’s right. I wouldn’t mind you owing me a favor or two.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. Before she came up with any more nosey questions, he tossed her a bit of truth.

  “I asked Shaun to give me a hand here in Cypress Key. That’s the errand I had to run tonight. I met him here before dinner to ask him to check into Jameson’s situation and also Traynor’s.”

  Her eyes lit up. “He’ll do that?”

  “Of course, he will. He—”

  “Owes you. I know.” Her brows wrinkled in a frown. “But if Rory only talked to you today, how did Shaun get here so quick?”

  He had to stay on his toes with her. This woman was too sharp by half.

  “He was already here to check up on the Bartows.”

  “Bartows as in plural?”

  “That’s right. All of them.” He had her attention now. “Shaun will find out who Bartow’s silent partner is, even if Deedee doesn’t come up with a name.”

  No way did he want to worry Casey about a drug cartel until he and Shaunessy had a better handle on the Irishman’s investigation.

  Casey was frowning, and he realized his faux pas. He grabbed her hand. “Deedee is information only,” he said sternly. “A spy on the inside is even more important with Rory’s family in jeopardy too.”

  He glanced up. “And speak of the devil.”

  Rory Jameson made his way between tables in the bar to reach them and sat down without waiting to be asked.

  “Have a seat,” Aidan said.

  Rory ignored his sarcasm. “I called Frank. He said you guys were here.” He leaned toward Aidan and whispered, “Can I talk to you in private for a minute?”

  Aidan whispered back, “She knows.”

  The kid gaped at him. “But you told me to keep quiet for a few days.”

  “I know, but things have changed. What have you got?”

  “Mr. Bartow was over today before Dad opened the restaurant at five for dinner.” Rory glanced warily at Casey, and she gave him her best trustworthy smile.

  Aidan rolled his eyes. “And?”

  “Mr. Bartow was giving him two free leased-booth spaces at the Seafood Festi
val to sell his popular shrimp-and-crab flatbread and pizzas, and the split would be fifty-fifty. I could tell Dad didn’t want to do it. Not much profit in it for him at that split, paying all the costs and only getting half the profit.”

  “But?” Aidan asked to keep him going.

  “Dad tried to argue, but Mr. Bartow got a real scary look on his face and said, ‘Be a shame to lose any vendors over this, Jameson.’ After that Dad agreed to run the mayor’s booths at the festival.”

  Casey looked outraged, and before she said too much in front of the kid, Aidan clapped Rory on the back and said, “I’ll be in touch when I hear from my friend.”

  “You meant Shaun, whom I met just now, right?” Casey asked after Rory left.

  Aidan nodded. “We need a plan. I need to get together as many of the town’s residents under Bartow’s thumb as I can and meet with them. We need them to testify for the state attorney.”

  “Safety in numbers and sticking together, right?”

  “Exactly. What do you think?” he asked her.

  This was all new to him. Discussing a plan. Asking someone else’s opinion. He always just barreled ahead with his ideas and did what his instincts told him to do. Somehow, asking Casey felt right.

  She beamed at him. “I think it’s time we go see Aunt Belle.”

  “What can she do?”

  “Like you, everyone in town owes her or her husband a favor for one thing or another. She can get the residents to attend that meeting you want.”

  “You seem pretty confident your aunt-who’s-not-really-an-aunt will help us.”

  “Of course, I am.”

  “And why is that?”

  Casey grinned. “Because she’s my godmother.”

  “What?”

  Why hadn’t Belle told him? Good Lord! He’d stepped into his own fairy tale just like Garrett.

  “A godmother and a wicked stepmother and stepsister all in this one tiny town. What are you? Cinderella?”

  “If I am, you better start acting like Prince Charming,” she teased.

  Me? Prince Charming?