Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “I would go get her, but I’m allergic.”

  “And full of shit. You are a terrible liar and that’s a wonderful thing, Koti.”

  Ian put his empty cup on the counter and moved to free Disco from her box of shackles. He paused at my back door. “How about tonight? I’ll set up one of our bonfires for old times’ sake?”

  “I was beginning to think you forgot.”

  His grin took my breath. “Quite the opposite.”

  My chest filled with warmth. “Okay, but how about you use regular wood this time?”

  He gave me a guilty smile. “Agreed.” He glanced around the room and then back to me. “There are no crystals in here.”

  “Made you look though,” I retorted playfully.

  “Koti?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for asking me.” Penetrating silver eyes stared me down and I had to force myself to speak.

  “You really do get it, don’t you, Ian?”

  “I really do. I’ll see you tonight?”

  “See you, professor.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Koti

  I spent the day running around like a mad woman with Jasmine by my side. Her car had been vandalized at the grocery store where she had left it the night before to meet her date.

  “Okay, I’m going to tell you about last night,” she said with a sigh.

  “You banged a bag boy?” I asked, glancing toward the grocery store.

  She turned to me, her dark hair tied up in a bun on top of her head, clad in an electric blue dress. She was rummaging through her thirty-gallon purse. “Me and the captain’s love affair is officially over.”

  “So soon?”

  “You’re judging me,” she snapped as she searched through the massive purse in her lap.

  “Do you check for dead mice in there from time to time?” Jasmine thumped my shoulder and I gripped it with a shriek. “Oww, that shit hurt.”

  “So did last night,” she said, wincing.

  “Oh Lord. The freak came out of him?”

  She nodded, managing to pry three pairs of shades out of her bright red bag. She picked through them as I started the Jeep. “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “Jasmine, it’s nine in the morning. Can’t I be spared until at least noon?”

  “I promise not to show you my ass.”

  “That’s your idea of mercy?” I glanced at her as I turned out of the parking lot and she pushed out her bottom lip. “Okay, tell me.”

  “The captain decided he wanted to role play.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, and you know me, I’m down with that.”

  “Right up your backhoe,” I said with a grin.

  “Are you ever going to let me live that down?”

  “Not likely, please continue.”

  “So, I’m expecting like dirty French maid and millionaire boss or something juicy like that.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I was right.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Except what the captain really meant was a role reversal.”

  My eyes widened. “Oh?”

  Her lips were trembling as she fessed up. “He came out in heels and a frilly frock.”

  “Oh, my God!” We both burst into hysterical laughter as Jasmine shook her head with her hands covering her face. “I had no idea what to do. I just stood there while his crooked penis poked out of the apron. I’m telling you as blunt as I am, I lost it. I completely lost the ability to speak.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran. I picked up my purse and RAN!”

  I pulled over at a gas station and face planted into my steering wheel. “You have got to be kidding me!”

  “Nope. I walked it off until I could think to call a cab and went straight to the wine bar. There I met Mark and only let him get to first base before I passed out in his hot tub.”

  I couldn’t contain myself, tears were pouring from my eyes as she wiped her own away.

  I sighed, my laughter subsiding slightly. “Poor baby,” I said, leaning over to hug her to me. “You are something else, lady. And you should have called me. I would have come to get you.”

  “I’ll never be the same,” she said mournfully.

  “It’s probably for the best.”

  * * *

  “This is weird,” Jasmine said, noticing the missing key from the lockbox at the Harper rental. “They should have left it at checkout.”

  She knocked on the front door and when she got no answer, she looked at me with a shrug.

  “You don’t have the master?”

  “I haven’t been home,” she said sheepishly. “Or to the office, remember?”

  “That’s right, you were up late watching the Discovery Channel.”

  “Shut up, or you’re fired,” she snapped. “Crap. Let me see if I can hop the deck. This is my bad.” We walked the side of the cliff house and I stood in the driveway as she made her way toward the upper deck. There was only a narrow margin for her to get her footing on the ledge.

  “Don’t! Not smart, lady!”

  “I’ve got this.” She tucked her cotton dress between her legs and scaled the deck like a pro.

  “I give it a six at best. Sloppy landing,” I piped as I saw her head pop up behind it.

  She shot me the bird.

  “Hurry up, it’s hot out here!” I ordered. The sun was beating down on the top of my head and I moved to step into the shade when I heard Jasmine’s blood-curdling scream.

  “What’s wrong?!” I yelled loud enough for the street to hear.

  “Koti, oh, my GOD! KOTI!”

  “What’s wrong? What is it?!” I scrambled to the deck and tried to peek over.

  “KOTI!”

  “Open the front door, JASMINE! Please!”

  “OH, MY GOD! Koti! Don’t come in!”

  Fearing for her life, I risked my own and leaped to the ledge of the deck holding on for dear life. My execution was far less graceful, I went over like an old maid clinging to the top of the railing before I landed on my ass. Jasmine was still screaming as I jumped to my feet, ran around the side of the house and came to a screeching halt at her back. “OH, MY GOD!”

  Eighty-three-year-old John Harper lay in a deck chair spread eagle and naked as the day he was born, his dick standing at attention for all the world to see. I covered Jasmine’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, sir. I apologize. We must have had our schedules mixed up.” I turned Jasmine back the way we came as she ripped my arms away.

  “What are you doing?” I bulged my eyes. “He’s naked, come on.”

  With her next words, her voice got eerily calm. “I’ll meet you out front, okay?”

  “Ugh, the man obviously needs some privacy.”

  “Koti,” she took my shoulders in her hands. “Honey, he’s dead.”

  “Dead?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw his mouth was wide open.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Jasmine was nodding slowly, weighing my reaction as my scrambled brain tried to process the sight before us.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, honey, he’s gone. I’ll call an ambulance and meet you out front, okay?”

  A towel lay a few feet from where he expired, and I picked it up quickly and covered his saluting soldier. My heart ripped at the sight of him. “Oh no, poor Mr. Harper. I’m so sorry.”

  Jasmine bowed her head. “I have to live with that image for the rest of my life.”

  “Jasmine!” I scolded as she pulled out her phone from her boobs and frantically dialed emergency services.

  As she explained our situation, I took a seat next to Mr. Harper and took in the view he was blankly staring at. If that wasn’t the way to go, I didn’t know what was. He’d probably just taken a swim and sat down to dry off. In the distant water, a whale breached just as Jasmine came back into view, her shoulders slumped.

  “You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were being attacked.”

/>   “All I saw was an old man’s penis. It was horrific.”

  I glowered at her. “Can you please have a little respect here? This poor man just died.”

  “He was what, early eighties? And he died rich,” she shrugged. “He definitely didn’t read the warning on the Viagra box.”

  “Jasmine?!”

  “What?!”

  “I really can’t handle this today.” She made her way inside the house and raided the cabinets until she found a bottle of vodka. She poured herself a healthy cup as the emergency sirens sounded down the street.

  She drank a half glass and then downed the orange juice in the fridge.

  Crossing my arms at the sliding glass door that separated the patio and large kitchen, I watched her fill another glass of juice. “Hope it wasn’t the OJ that did it.”

  She sprayed the juice all over the counter before she gave me the stink eye. “Now you’ve got jokes.” She scrutinized me. “Wait, why are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. Just go with it.”

  She nodded.

  I moved to again sit next to Mr. Harper. The silent blue water seemed appropriate for the cloudless sky.

  Another whale breached in the distance. I saw the large fin as it flipped on its side before disappearing below the deep blue surface.

  Without glancing his way, I spoke to him. “I hope you got to see them before you went.”

  The whole situation was completely depressing. John Harper might have been wealthy, but he was alone when he died. Alone with his fortune and his twenty-million-dollar view. Suddenly nothing about the water calmed me and my whole body broke out into a sweat.

  Did he die knowing he was loved? Did he sit on that chair and mentally list his regrets? Did he call for help? I sat up as my throat began to burn. What if we could have helped him if we’d shown up a few minutes before. I looked over at his gaping mouth and sprang from the seat, my heart pounding.

  “Koti?”

  “I…” I held my chest as Jasmine crossed the deck to get to me. I stood mute as a wave of nausea hit. My chest tightened unbearably, and I looked to her in a full-fledged panic. “He was alone! That’s not right. It’s not right!”

  “Koti,” Jasmine said with a small shake in her voice. “Baby, you can’t take this into yourself.”

  “What if we could have helped him?”

  “It happens. This stuff happens,” she said in a soothing voice as the sirens grew closer. “Try and calm down.”

  “You know I hate that! Don’t tell me to calm down!”

  “Okay babe, you’re having a freak-out. It’s cool. I’m here. Deep breaths.” She got to me just before my legs gave out and gripped me tightly to her.

  “No.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, gripping my hand. “Let’s just breathe.”

  “Get away from me, please. I can’t breathe.”

  “Koti, you are breathing. Come on, baby, just breathe. You can do this.”

  “He was alone!”

  “I know. I’m sorry I made a joke. In… out. You can do this.”

  “I don’t have my pills.”

  “You don’t need them, you’ve gone all this time without them. It’s just life. Let’s make it through this. Come on buddy, breathe.”

  “Get away from me!” I shrieked, trying to pull away, but she held on tighter. The sirens blared outside the house as I began to melt down.

  “Okay, Koti, listen,” Jasmine said softly “everything is okay.”

  My body shook uncontrollably as I continued to try to yank my hand away. She stood undeterred. “Breathe, one, two, three…”

  Pound. Pound. Pound.

  “The door is open!” Jasmine yelled while she kept me captive in her stare and instruction.

  “Please let me go.”

  “Can you walk over to the couch?”

  I pulled away from her as the medic emerged from the patio door and eyed us.

  Jasmine, still engaging me fully, nodded toward the chair that held Mr. Harper. The man rushed to his side as his partner looked at me. I averted my eyes as I breathed in again trying to calm myself.

  “Panic attack,” she mouthed to the second medic.

  Instantly furious but unable to control my breathing or the shaking, I took steady breaths and let Jasmine walk me to the couch. “Sit tight, okay. I’ll take care of this.”

  “It’s my worse fear,” I said, hot tears trailing down my face.

  “I know.”

  She picked up my hand and kissed it before she gently pushed me back into the cushions.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Jasmine,” I pleaded knowing I was making a fool of myself.

  “I’ll be right back, Koti.”

  I drew my knees up as my body quaked and took breaths until the fatigue set in.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Koti

  “I’m sorry,” I said, staring at the mismatched houses that flew by us as Jasmine drove us to the office a short time later.

  “Stop.”

  “I’m so embarrassed,” I admitted.

  “Stop it,” Jasmine said firmly.

  “Why can’t I just make jokes like you or throw up like normal people?”

  She let out a loud laugh. “You think I’m normal? Babe, please. My mother was a nurse. Her calm reaction would have made us both look crazy.”

  “I feel crazy.”

  “You are a little bit. That’s how you deal with things. I make jokes. Who knows what other people would have done in that situation.”

  “Stop trying to make me feel better.” My limbs ached. I could barely keep my eyes open. “Why do you even deal with me?”

  “Trade-off, you save me right back. I’m pretty selfish. That’s how this works.”

  I let out a long breath and turned down the radio she’d just turned on.

  “Where did he go, when he died, where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s the worst part,” I swallowed as the fear began to resurface, “we don’t know for sure. We don’t know, and even the truest of most faithful believers aren’t certain there’s a heaven or hell or just darkness. And if it’s just darkness, are we aware of it? We get to know nothing except that death is every single living creature’s fate. The thing I’m most afraid of in the world is the one thing that is inevitably going to happen to me and everyone I love. I get to know nothing else.”

  “We all have that disadvantage, no one knows for sure.”

  “But you aren’t afraid to die. You’ve just accepted it. And you live every day of your life not worried about it.”

  “Give yourself credit, kid. You’ve done a damn good job curbing your fears this past year.”

  “I know, but then today this happens and I’m more terrified than ever.”

  She grabbed my hand and held it. “I wish I could say something that would change this for you, Koti, but I can’t.”

  “I know,” I said tearfully. “Some days I feel like our creator is the cruelest with the rules and some days I can’t believe how amazing this world is. Ya know? It’s like here, enjoy this life while I give it to you but be careful because at any moment I can take it away and you don’t get to know what’s next. And then there’s religion and what if it’s wrong, or if it’s right and all the people who don’t believe have this horrible fate because they are realists and need proof?”

  “Deep breaths, Koti.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”

  “Stop it. Don’t be sorry. These are all valid questions. You aren’t crazy.”

  “I feel crazy.”

  “You’re human. You have thanatophobia. It wouldn’t be a phobia if you were the only one. There are millions of people with the same fear.”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “And your anxiety makes it worse.”

  I nodded as thoughts of the rest of our schedule raced around my head. “We have to open the Brewer house in five minutes.”

  “We�
�ll make it.”

  She gripped my hand before I pulled it away.

  “Stop, honey, stop beating yourself up.”

  “God, I’m so sick of this. So sick of myself. One step forward, a hundred back. This is bullshit.”

  Jasmine’s next order was a plea. “Stop.”

  I turned in my seat to face her. “I’m so full of shit. You know I spewed off some crap last night to Ian about being proactive and taking care of other people. I’m such a spaz. Who the hell am I kidding?”

  She eyed me for a long minute at a stop light. “That’s who you are for me. You take care of me.”

  “I have all these ideas of the new and improved Koti Vaughn and then crap like this happens. I feel so out of control. My mother says it’s all in my head.”

  “We all feel out of control most days. Especially on days like this, I really hate your mother for making you feel like that. It’s anxiety and we all have it in different degrees. My sister won’t leave her house. Trust me, yours could be a lot worse.”

  “Is that how you knew how to deal with me?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I’m not dealing with you, I’m being your friend.”

  I nodded as a hot tear slipped down my face. “Who’s going to want me like this?”

  “A very intelligent fucking man.”

  This time when she gripped my hand, I squeezed hers back. Jasmine was overly affectionate, at least that was my opinion when we first met. She was quick to hug and offer her sympathy. But over time, I learned to love it about her. In fact, it was what I loved most.

  Even as I managed to get through our day, I still felt the dread course through my veins. I was thankful when I pulled up to my house and hit the pillow.

  * * *

  A knock at my back door had me scrambling from my bed. My chest and throat raw, I raced to the bathroom and cupped water in my mouth before I answered the door still half asleep.

  Ian stood on the other side, his easy smile wiped the minute he saw me.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. What’s up?”