Barefoot in the Rain

by Roxanne St Claire

  All empty.

  Okay, maybe it was too hot for old folks to come outside. Or maybe no one took them. Or maybe they were short-staffed.

  The door opened behind him, and he turned, expecting Jocelyn, but another woman came out, fifty-ish, mouth drawn in sadness, eyes damp.

  “ ’Scuse me,” she mumbled, passing him.

  “Can I ask you a question?” The request was out before he gave himself time to think about it and change his mind. But wasn’t part of the “tour” talking to the customers?

  The woman hesitated, inching back a bit. “Yes?”

  “Do you have a…” He almost said “loved one,” but corrected himself. “A relative living here?”

  She nodded, absently dabbing an eye and biting her lip.

  “How is it?” he asked. “We’re considering this for my… we’re looking at the facility.”

  She didn’t answer right away, clearly choosing her words and wrestling with her emotions. “It’s expensive, but one of the better facilities.”

  “How’s the care?”

  She shrugged. “You know.”

  No, he didn’t. “Doctors?”

  After a second, she let out a breath. “Some are better than others.”

  “Staff?”

  “Good, but no place is perfect.” She tried to sound upbeat, but he could read between the lines, especially the two drawn deep in her forehead.

  “Would you make the same decision again?” he asked her, knowing he’d way overstepped the boundaries of two strangers sharing a casual conversation.

  “I really had no choice,” she said. “My mother’s not able to be at home.”

  He nodded, understanding.

  “If she was or if I could be with her twenty-four-seven, of course that’s what I’d do. But you have to be realistic. You have to compromise.” She tilted her head and gave a smile. “Your parent?”

  “No, my friend.” He wasn’t exactly sure when Guy Bloom had become his friend, but he had. And the word felt right on his lips.

  Just then, the door opened and Jocelyn stepped into the sunshine, looking cool and crisp and not nearly as defeated as the sallow-skinned woman he’d been talking to.

  “We’re all set,” she said quietly.

  “You enrolled him?” He couldn’t think of a better word, not when a flash of white hot anger burst behind his eyes.

  “Not yet. Of course I have to see another place or two, but, overall, I’m quite satisfied.”

  With what? The chilly cafeteria? The dreary halls? The single room for a man who was used to living in an entire house?

  Jocelyn glanced at the other woman and gave her a quick smile, not warm enough to invite conversation.

  “Listen,” the lady said, turning to Will, keeping that tenuous connection they’d somehow found in a moment’s time. “I don’t know your situation, but if you have any option at all for home care, any possible way to keep from taking this step, do it.”

  Jocelyn stepped forward, her back ramrod straight. “You’re right.”

  Hope danced in him.

  “You don’t know our situation,” Jocelyn said. “But thank you for the advice. Let’s go, Will.”

  He stood stone still as she walked by and headed toward the parking lot.

  “Thank you,” he said softly to the woman. “Good luck.”

  Jocelyn was almost to his truck by the time he caught up with her.

  “Don’t reprimand me for being a bitch to her,” she said as he reached for her door. “This isn’t your decision to make.”

  “You weren’t a bitch,” he replied. “It’s a tense situation.” And, damn it, she was right, it wasn’t his decision. But that didn’t stop him from caring about the outcome.

  She climbed into the truck and yanked her seat belt. “Yes, it is tense. Were you talking to her?”

  “Briefly.” He closed the door and started around the back of the truck.

  “Wait, sir. Wait!” The woman from the porch was jogging toward him, a hand outstretched. “I just want to tell you one thing.”

  Jocelyn stayed in the car, but he knew she was watching in her side-view mirror, possibly hearing the conversation even though her door was closed.

  “What’s that?”

  The woman put a hand on his arm, her fingers covered with veins and age spots, making him revise his age estimate. “They’re fine with the new ones. The ones that haven’t gone too far… away. But the really bad ones?” She shook her head, eyes welling. “They are lost and forgotten.”

  Forgotten. Exactly as he suspected. He patted her hand. “Your mother’s not forgotten. She has you.”

  She smiled and stepped away.

  He waited for a minute, then climbed behind the wheel of the truck. He shot Jocelyn a glance, his mind whirring through his options. Her father was her responsibility, that was true. He couldn’t demand that she change her mind about this, but maybe he could get her to think a little more about it.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Not in the least.”

  Damn. “ ’Cause we’re not that far from Kaplan’s.”

  Her eyes widened and she smiled. “Oh my God, those Reubens.”

  It wouldn’t be their first trip down to Marco Island; they’d gone often after baseball games when he’d be plagued with late-night teenage boy starvation and she just wanted to get out. Especially that last summer, they’d probably driven down to the deli near the marina a dozen times.

  “With extra Thousand Island and no ketchup on the fries,” he said, smiling. “The lady does not like wet fries.”

  “Aww, you remember that.”

  He remembered so much more than that it wasn’t funny. “So, yes?”

  She considered it for a minute, then nodded. “But I have to wear this hat.” She reached into her bag for the baseball cap she’d brought. “I don’t want anyone to recognize me.”

  “They won’t recognize you.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” she said, tugging the cap on.

  He pulled the brim a little. “I hardly recognize you, Joss.”

  She paused, looking up at him, her eyes so brown and soulful it damn near cut him in half. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ve changed, is all.”

  “So have you,” she shot back.

  “True.” He shrugged. “I’ve been through a lot.”

  “Why don’t you tell me everything over Reubens?”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  That wasn’t why he wanted to go to Kaplan’s. He wanted to talk her out of rash decisions, but instead he made one himself. “ ’Kay.”

  Chapter 12

  The closer they got to Kaplan’s, the more Jocelyn felt her mood improve. Maybe she was hungry, after all. Or maybe she felt relaxed for the first time since they’d left Mimosa Key, on a familiar road that reminded her of late nights and long talks and a wonderful boy she once loved.

  She slid a sideways glance at him, her gaze lingering on his shoulders, which were even broader than they’d been back then. In fact, everything about Will was stronger now. His profile, his muscles, his personality. He still had a heart as big as his hands, but he moved like a man in complete control.

  And, damn, she liked watching him. He took her breath away when he smiled, something he’d done more and more on the short ride to Kaplan’s down the beach road.

  “Place has changed a lot, don’t you think?” he asked, indicating the behemoth skyscraper condos that now entirely blocked the view of the water.

  “Exactly what they’re trying to avoid on Mimosa Key.”

  “We are avoiding it,” he said. “Clay’s architecture is the polar opposite of this heinous-looking stuff. Casa Blanca is going to be one in a million.”

  She heard the pride in his voice. “You love working there.” It was a statement, not a question, and filled with a little wonder when she realized how true it was.

  “I like it,” he admitted. “Way mo
re than I thought I would. It’s amazing to be part of something like that from the ground up.” He angled his head toward her. “You know, you’re an investor.”

  “I am, which is why I’m surprised Lacey never mentioned you were working there.”

  “Did you ask?”

  Honestly, no. “I had no idea you were a permanent resident of Mimosa Key. When I saw you last year at that town meeting, I figured you were there on behalf of your parents or something.”

  He sighed. “Or something.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I never planned to stay this long,” he admitted, pulling into the strip center. They were long enough past the lunch crowd to get a space close to the deli. “Let’s go in. I’ll tell you about it inside.”

  She kept her hat pulled low and sunglasses on, but she shouldn’t have worried. The waitress who greeted them and walked them to a booth by the front window never even noticed her. She only had eyes for Will.

  He put a hand on Jocelyn’s back to guide her, staying close until she slid into the booth, and then he sat across from her, taking the menus and ordering iced tea for both of them.

  After a minute, feeling more ridiculous than disguised, she took off the sunglasses and glanced around to see what had changed in fifteen years. Not much, but Will leveled his eyes directly at her. The power of his stare warmed every corner of her body.

  “Does it look different?” he asked.

  She met his gaze, grabbed for a moment by the deep blue of his eyes. She’d never gotten used to how unexpectedly blue they were against his sun-burnished skin. “The kid across from me does.”

  His lips curved in that slow, sweet, soul-melting smile that used to take her from heartache to happy in ten seconds. “He’s not a kid anymore.”

  “I noticed.”

  He lifted a brow, silently asking for more.

  “You have a couple of crow’s-feet.”

  He squinted, exaggerating the crinkles at the sides of his eyes. “What else?”

  She didn’t answer right away, loving the excuse to examine every inch of his face, and the little roller-coaster ride her insides took as she and Will focused on nothing but each other.

  “You let your hair grow out longer.”

  “No annoying coach insisting on a trim.”

  “And that’s what’s most different of all,” she said, leaning back as the waitress delivered two iced teas. When she left, Jocelyn finished the thought. “You don’t play baseball.”

  He touched his stomach and feigned hurt. “You think I’m getting soft?”

  Hardly. “I’ve never known you not to be on your way to a game, coming from a game, talking about the game, pissed off ’cause you lost a game, or whistling ‘We Are the Champions’ because you kicked the holy hell out of the Collier High Blue Devils.”

  She thought he’d grin because she’d remembered the rival high mascot, but he just looked down at the tea, turning the glass and revolving the paper napkin with it.

  “My career is… on hold.” He snorted softly and added, “He said optimistically.”

  She just waited, knowing Will well enough to expect more. But he picked up his tea and took a long drink. She watched his eyes shutter closed and his throat rise and fall with each gulp.

  Then he thunked the glass on the table and exhaled softly. “Speaking of baseball, we should get you a Marlins hat instead of that designer thing.”

  “Speaking of putting walls and shells around yourself, you should tell me what the heck is going on with your career.”

  A smile teased. “Good comeback, Jossie. Lose the hat and I will.”

  “Why?”

  He reached over and tapped at the brim, pulling it off and making her hair fall around her shoulders when the strands slipped through the hole in the back. “Because I like your hair and I can’t see your pretty face when you have that thing on.”

  “That’s the idea,” she said, cutting a glance toward the empty booth across from them.

  He lifted the hat and looked inside at the stitching. “Dolce and Gabbana? What the hell is that?”

  “Expensive. Why are you being optimistic when you say your career is on hold?”

  “Because, my friend who buys expensive hats…” He twirled the red-and-blue cap on his finger, a cocky move that belied the thick emotion in his voice. “Will Palmer, number thirty-one, holder of a few obscure and meaningless winning stats in the annals of minor league baseball, is finished playing.”

  He tried the hat on and, of course, it barely covered the top of his head.

  “Finished forever?” she asked.

  Setting the cap on the table, he avoided her eyes. “Unless I can score a coaching job and, man, they are hard to come by in the majors or minors. My agent’s looking, and I’m trying to remain hopeful.”

  “You don’t think you’ll get a coaching job?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Every day the hope thread gets a little more frayed.”

  “What about carpentry? Do you like what you’re doing? I mean you’re so good at it.”

  “You know, I do like it, but it’s so…” He shook his head as if what he was about to say amazed him. “Meaningless?”

  The use of a question surprised her. “Building resorts and jaw-droppingly beautiful villas that will bring hours of pleasure to the guests and mountains of money to the owners? What’s meaningless about that?”

  He laughed softly. “Touché, life coach.”

  “You always loved to work with your dad. I remember when he built the shrine—er, the addition.”

  He grinned. “It remains a shrine since I’ve moved into the master.”

  She tried not to think about the room and all the memories wrapped up in that loft. “So you don’t… use it?”

  “Just to work out.”

  “Is it weird, sleeping in your parents’ old room?”

  “I redid the whole thing, knocked down a wall, built out the closet, remodeled the bath. The whole house is practically new. The place is way more ready to sell this way.”

  “But you haven’t put it on the market yet.”

  He shrugged. “I’m… waiting.”

  “For what?”

  Before he answered, the waitress stepped up to the booth, blinded him with a smile, and asked for their order.

  “Two Reubens with fries.” He closed his menu and handed them both to her but winked at Jocelyn. “Hold the ketchup on the the lady’s order.”

  She smiled, the memory of the time he’d accidentally put ketchup on her fries during the midnight meal they’d shared still vividly clear. They’d fought and laughed and felt so damn comfortable.

  That was just a month or so before—

  She snapped her napkin on her lap and straightened the silverware until they were alone again.

  “So why haven’t you sold their house? What are you waiting for?” she asked, grabbing at the conversation before he could read her expression. He’d been so good at that.

  “Well, a coaching job, obviously. That’s the next natural step in my career.”

  “And if that doesn’t materialize?”

  He leaned all the way back, hooking his arms behind his head, a move that emphasized the biceps she was trying so hard not to stare at. “Guess I’ll have to figure out what I want to do with my life.”

  “Better get on that, Will. You’re thirty-four.”

  “Yep. Know any good life coaches who can help me?”

  She grinned. “I sure do, but she’s expensive.”

  “Of course she is.” Relaxing, he picked up the hat and popped it up, landing it perfectly on the sugar carousel. “Not cheap to buy Something-and-Cabana hats.”

  She automatically righted the hat and neatly piled the Splenda packets back in order. “She has been known to work for a discount if she really likes you.”

  “Do you really like me, Joss?”

  She tapped the sugar into place, then restraightened the whole pile. Her heart
slipped around in her chest a little, the feeling so intense and sweet it almost took her breath away.

  “I’ve always liked you, Will,” she said carefully, searching for a way to keep this light. “And that means you may have the special-friend discount.”

  “Which is?”

  “My services for only a Reuben and fries. Buy lunch and we’ll fix up your life.”

  “If only it were that easy.” His voice had a surprising sadness to it that pulled at her.

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Let’s see, I’m not on the run from the National Enquirer, wrongly accused of adultery, and being forced to play Clean House, so I guess it could be worse.”

  She had to laugh. “All right, let’s start coaching.”

  “Right now?”

  “I loathe procrastination. You want life coaching, let’s go. What are you prepared to die for?”

  He just stared at her. Blinked, then frowned. “What did you say?”

  “What are you prepared to die for? That’s the first question I ask in the initial interview,” she explained. “I have to know what’s the most important thing to a client, and then we take it from there in bite-size pieces.”

  “Do you know what you’re prepared to die for?” he asked.

  “This is not my interview.”

  He took another sip of tea, definitely a delay tactic. “It’s a stupid trick question,” he finally said after he swallowed. “The answer’s the same for everyone. Love, family, friendship, truth, honor, justice, and a grand slam in the World Series.” He paused, then grinned. “Okay, that might not be on your list.”

  “None of those things are on my list, Will.” Not a single one.

  He looked stunned, enough that she was a little embarrassed.

  “Well, I might die for one of my friends, if I had to, but I don’t really have a family, and I can’t honestly say I’d die for honor or justice, though I value it, and I doubt I’ll ever go to a World Series.”

  “You skipped the first one.”

  Love. She’d skipped it on purpose. Still she frowned, as if she couldn’t remember the first thing on his list of things to die for.