by Nina Strych
“Sounds good to me,” she said, plucking up another lobster roll.
He picked up a bowl of cucumber salad and then grinned to himself. She’d found her solution and he’d found her. Who cared if they were poor, they could be poor together. Pizza and beer for a while instead of whatever delicious weirdness they were eating tonight. Still, he wished he could give the money back to her.
They walked their dinner off on the beach, both of them evaluating each pair they saw coming their way in the dark to be sure it wasn’t that woman. Mike hated to admit it, but he was almost afraid of people like that. They did things that made it clear they didn’t view others as human, as equal, or separate from them.
He’d had a client like that once and made sure he told Missy he would not, under any circumstances, see anyone like that again. He’d had to battle all evening just not to get the heebie jeebies around her.
This woman reminded him of that one. Scary.
“You digesting yet?” he asked, nudging her with his elbow as they walked hand in hand.
“I’ve eaten more than I would in a week over the last three days. It’s really ridiculous,” she answered, patting her stomach.
“It’s vacation. We can worry about others judging us later. Besides, you’re freaking hot,” he said.
And it was true. She had curves, but they were just that, curves. She was probably in a lot better shape than she thought she was. Then again, most of the women who hired him didn’t see themselves at all the way they appeared in reality. It really was insane how often that was true. He didn’t want Amy to feel that way ever again.
As they crossed the beach to go to his hotel room, he leaned down and nuzzled her neck, giving her a play-growl that really wasn’t all play. She pinched his butt—a move so unexpected it made him eep, which was not at all manly—and then laughed as they took the few steps from the sand to the resort proper.
Packing him up was easy, and she tsked as he wadded his clothes into the suitcase. He shrugged and said, “We’ll unpack them in a few minutes, right?”
Apparently, he had a point because she stuffed his sandals in after banging the sand off of them. She looked around the room and said, “That’s it?”
He shrugged and said, “I’m a guy.”
Shaking her head, she took his backpack while he took the suitcase and they made their way to the lobby. He looked around to make sure that woman wasn’t around and didn’t see her, but the lobby was wide and opened at four spots, including free passage from the beach side and the long drive.
“You want to wait here while I go work some magic? If I fail, I’ll call you in as a pinch hitter,” Amy said, also looking around.
Mike sat down on a beautiful bench seat that gave him a good view of anyone entering the lobby. “Got it. Go do your thing. Just give me the high sign if you need me.”
“I’ll whistle twice and start a small signal fire,” she quipped and walked away. It was a great view of her too. Her legs looked very long and perfect for wrapping around his waist with that short beach dress on. When she leaned onto the desk, her bathing suit peeked out from beneath it and he had to look away or embarrass himself.
He heard the whistle no more than a couple of minutes later, and turned his head to see her sauntering his way. She flashed him a thumb’s up and winked, so he got up and joined her.
“That fast?” he asked, taking a peek at the desk worker to see if it was a man. He wasn’t exactly jealous…okay, who was he kidding, he was jealous…but it was a woman.
She took the backpack again and wrapped her arm around his free one, snuggling in close as they took the wide walkway back to the beach. “I think she was glad. There are, apparently, a lot of people like me who try to book at the last moment.”
The night had long since fallen and the space was quiet, a few couples sitting around the big patio. Laughter drifted over from a rather lively pre-wedding party that was going on further down the beach, but overall it was peaceful.
Then from behind them, he heard, “Well, isn’t that interesting.”
It was her. They both froze and he heard her laugh, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh by any means. He looked down and then over at Amy. Her face was set and her eyes narrowed. He saw her jaw move side to side. Mike thought he might be about to see what Amy was like in a fight.
“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered.
Her face snapped up and there was fire in her eyes when she said, “Oh, it matters. I will not have that.”
Mike was about to trap her arm in his and get them moving again, but Amy yanked her arm free like a spring breaker with a fake ID when the cops showed up. He turned to stop her and saw the woman standing just outside the door to the restaurant, her husband whispering urgently in her ear while she ignored him. The man looked up at him like he was absolutely miserable and mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”
Amy marched up with her fists clenched at her sides and said, “Exactly what problem do you have with my boyfriend?” To the husband, she said, “Do you know your wife is harassing him? She apparently thinks he’s for hire and I’m not talking about handyman work.”
The man’s face was a study in embarrassment. He stepped between Amy and his wife, who was none too steady on her feet, and said, “She’s been drinking. She’s just…it doesn’t matter, I’m sorry.”
The woman stepped around her husband, her hand clenched on the fabric of his shirt for balance, and said, “He’s a whore. I know. I hired him!”
“Then he’s clearly not doing his job, because he’s with me,” Amy said, not missing a beat.
The man pushed his wife back, but very gently, and said, “We’re leaving. I promise you we’re leaving first thing in the morning.” He glanced over at Mike, then lowered his voice further. “The staff here is discreet, but she can be persistent. I know she made some calls. I can only say that I’m very sorry and that we’re leaving. She won’t bother you again. And I’ll do my best to make sure she doesn’t talk. That’s the last thing you need right now, I think.”
The man seemed defeated and Mike actually felt for the guy. He had no idea what dynamic was going on between them, but it wasn’t healthy. What was going on between those two people was what he most feared. Alcohol and deception were a bad mix in a marriage.
Mike would never do that to Amy. He would never give her cause to become that way either.
He stopped, frozen. Had he really just thought that? That was way too soon, but the way she stood there, her bright pink flip flops like combat boots as she planted herself in front of the couple, made his heart almost stop. She was not one to let anyone bully her or anyone she cared for. And he knew with absolute certainty that she cared for him. It should be him doing that, but the truth was that he couldn’t defend himself on this. It was true. Or it had been.
Setting down the suitcase, he walked up and put his hand on Amy’s arm. “It’s all over, Amy. There’s nothing more to do.”
It took her a few seconds to process that, her face set and her eyes like daggers on the woman halfway behind her husband and more than halfway in the bag. Then she waved a hand and made a sound of disgust.
“I’m done,” she said, turning away like they weren’t worth her time anymore.
Mike grabbed up the suitcase on the fly because Amy was stomping out like the floor deserved to be punished. When they hit the sand, she slowed and took in a huge breath, pushing the air out and then pulling it back in like she was trying to push all the hostility out of her body. She flung her arms out to the side and then looked up at the moon, taking deep breaths.
“Are you alright?” he asked gently, putting a hand to her back so she would know he was there.
She turned and wrapped her arms around him, her head tucked into this chest. The backpack smacked into the back of his legs so that his knees jerked forward and she laughed. “Sorry. I’m not trying to beat you up.”
“That’s okay. You make my knees weak without the brute force though, you know.�
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She laughed again, but the sound was wet. She was crying. He hugged her back with his free arm, then dropped the suitcase again and held her tightly. “It’s okay,” he whispered, not really clear why she was crying. Well, maybe she really hated confrontations or something. She’d won, but then again, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
She wiped her face on his shirt, then laughed and said, “I just wiped snot on you.”
“It goes well with sand.”
Amy leaned back and looked at him, her eyes soft with affection. It was enough to make him want to sweep her up in his arms and never let her go.
“I’m sorry. I just…it’s weird…but I had this horrible feeling of what it must be like for people to treat you like that. Like property or a trading card or something.”
It was for him. She wasn’t crying because she got into a public…though thankfully not too public…quarrel, or because someone found out she had hired him, but because of how she thought it made him feel. He squeezed her tighter, then leaned down to kiss her nose, her forehead, her hair. He wanted to shout out how he felt, to tell her that he was sure this was meant to be. It might not be an agricultural fair, but this was it. He knew it.
It might take her time to figure that out, but he already knew it.
“You think we should go to the cottage?” he asked.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Twenty-Six
It was nice to put away Mike’s things in her room…or at least fold them before he crammed them into drawers. It felt sort of official, like they were going somewhere good and doing it together. That display in the back foyer of the resort had made her blood boil, but at least it would be over in the morning.
Amy figured if they lazed in bed and maybe had room service again, or even went into town to sample the local food delights, then they wouldn’t have to worry about meeting up with those people again. And the funny thing was, she still had no clue who they were.
That they were rich was obvious, that they weren’t newly rich was equally obvious. That meant she would never have mixed in their circles. She’d spoken to plenty of investors, but old money always had others do that sort of listening for them.
After Mike shoved his suitcase into the closet next to hers, he came to the deck and moved the other chair close to hers with a loud squeak, then plopped down like he was exhausted. He probably was. Between all the activity last night—and again this morning—quitting his job and entirely changing his life plan, he was probably tapped out in the energy department.
He looked out at the sea for a minute, then rolled his head to face her and asked, “What did that man mean when he said you didn’t need people talking at the moment?”
Whoops. There was the big question. Her picture had been on every business website she’d surfed before she got on the plane. Pharma sales were big news, even when it was a little company like hers. There was no question that man had known who she was, which seemed weird. Nevertheless, she’d never even considered the possibility of someone outing her and now that he’d brought it up, she hoped he could keep his word.
Not because it would be bad for her, but because it would be terribly hard for Mike. New relationships were hard enough without adding that into the mix.
Rolling over onto her side, she propped her head up on her hand and said, “I just sold my pharmaceutical company for enough money to sink a boat.”
There, it was over. She’d told the truth. Maybe she should have hedged, but she knew he wasn’t with her for the money. Deep down, she knew. If she had been breaking up with guys for years because she got tired of faking satisfaction with sex and simply couldn’t admit it, then what would it be like to have to admit something like this? How would she explain something like that later? Oh, hey honey, I kept this from you so you wouldn’t want me for a sugar mama, but guess what…we’re rich!
No, that would not fly.
He didn’t say anything at all. He just looked at her like he was entirely confused. He snapped out of whatever held him and said, “But you stay at the Holiday Inn Express.”
She laughed and said, “I did. Until I sold my company, I’ve been scraping by on nothing since grad school. Seriously. I live in an apartment surrounded by college students because it’s cheap. Every penny I could raise went into the company. The only product we actually sold were laboratory services that needed the kind of equipment we used. That helped, but we ran on what I could raise.”
“Then how…”
“It’s complicated, but the basics are that I was a junior researcher working for another start-up. The team I worked with was led by someone who actually owned the rights to his research, which is something of a rarity nowadays. There were three teams in total and all of us were developing something related to the problems presented by certain kinds of chemo, specifically the effects on non-target, fast growing cells in the body.”
Mike looked like she’d lost him and he shrugged, then said, “Tree guy here. I understand biology, but plants are my thing.”
“Okay. All that matters is that the start-up failed, mostly due to mismanagement by a total novice in the world of biotech and pharma. The other two teams were swallowed up by another company, but it turned out that I was a much better saleswoman and manager than I was a researcher. And here we are.”
“Wow,” he said. “I think I’m intimidated.”
She laughed, then reached over to squeeze his arm. “Lightning struck in a good way. I couldn’t replicate that if I tried. We got lucky, but in a totally random way.”
He raised his eyebrows, as if asking her to elaborate.
“You know, I always wanted long nails. Turns out, our drug doesn’t stop hair from falling out, but during initial trials, it made nail type tissue grow like gangbusters.”
“Fingernails?”
She nodded. “Fingernails.”
He laughed and said, “Okay, lightning. Gotcha.” The moon slipped behind a cloud and the silver light dimmed, leaving them cocooned in darkness. After a while, he said, “I thought you were like me. I felt really bad that you might have spent your life savings on this or something.”
“Does it matter if I’m not poor anymore?”
He didn’t answer right away and Amy felt her stomach flutter, fearful he might say it did matter. Finally, he said, “No, but I’m not sure how I fit into this.”
While she wanted to climb on top of him and show him exactly how well he fit into all her equations, she knew that would be the wrong thing to do. It would simply reinforce the notion that he was good for sex. It would do nothing to answer him in a way that would make him feel good about himself. Mike was more than sex and hotness and he deserved to know that. Amy knew it with certainty.
“We’ll figure it out. I have no idea what I’m doing next and I don’t intend to suddenly take up fast cars and an even faster nightlife. I’m adrift, but I’m still me. Plus, it’s not that much. Enough, but not if I burn through it like wildfire by being stupid.”
He yawned suddenly and Amy realized it must be past midnight already. She stood and held out her hand for him to take, then led him inside their cottage. “I’m glad you’re sleeping next to me tonight,” she said. She meant it too. Sex or no sex, she wanted him near her.
As they got into bed, it turned out he wasn’t so tired after all.
Twenty-Seven
Days were passing too quickly for Mike. When he went home he was going to have to tell his roommate that not only had he quit the job he’d gotten him so Mike could dig himself out of debt, but also that once he put aside the last few payments on the land and the next tax bill, he wouldn’t even be able to pay the rent.
It was certainly an inopportune time to meet the woman of his dreams. Then again, he’d had a couple of offers—lowball ones—from one of the bigger growers looking to expand their holdings. He’d actually considered it, seriously considered it, the last time.
He’d been hammering the internet and had bookmark
folders filled with information about places for a fresh start, a place where drought wouldn’t be looming over his head every year. There were a lot of places, but they were expensive.
It’s cheaper to hold land you already have than buy new. That’s what his dad had always said. Of course, life was more complicated than a saying and Mike wasn’t at all sure that was true anymore. Water would continue to be a problem and that part of California seemed destined to return to the plains land it had been before it became the vegetable bowl of America. At least his part of it would.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Amy said, rolling over in bed and running a palm over his cheek. It was rough since it was morning and he hadn’t shaved yet. She scratched at his stubbly cheek in a way that felt absolutely delightful. He was starting to think it was true that men were dogs, just not in the way people meant. That felt good.
He covered her hand with his own and said, “Just thinking about water and California.”
Her brows drew together and she rolled all the way over to face him. “What?”
“I’m going to sell my place in California, I think.”
Her eyebrows shot up and she asked, “You have a place in California? Like sunshine and surf and beautiful people, California?”
He laughed and said, “Not like that. It’s all farmland where I’m at. People in boots that drive dusty trucks.”
“You’re a farmer?”
“Not quite. Orchards. Groves. I told you I was a tree guy. Almonds and apricots.”
“Ooo, I love apricots!”
He smiled like she’d just said something funny. “Me too. Don’t tell people that or they’ll think you’re weird. Anyway, it’s not in production right now. New trees take time.”
She sensed there was more. Of course she did. She didn’t push, merely waited, her hair a wild mess on the pillow and her lips perfect for kissing.
At some point, he would have to spill the beans, but his was not the happy story of lightning striking and raining money. His was more lightning striking and starting a fire that burned a whole swath of productive land that happened to include his orchards. And his parents.
