by Isabel Jolie
As my feet sank in the thick sand leading up to the dunes, away from the crowd, my brother’s words haunted me. For god’s sake, Cali, don’t get close to anyone out there. The less anyone knows about you, the better.
Chapter 2
Logan
* * *
I watched her pass through the crowd. She kept her head down and avoided eye contact, her arms folded across her front, shoulders hunched. Fear?
I scanned the surroundings. Kids played in groups, some running along and splashing the surf. One plump toddler fell, and her father scooped to pick her up, and she subsequently laid her head on his shoulder and sucked on her thumb. Chords of laughter punctuated the low hum of conversation. No one looked out of place.
She arrived by the public boardwalk entrance with Poppy, but she chose to go home along the beach, close to the dunes. No one followed her.
“Hey, you want another beer?” Gabe offered a cold, dark brown glass bottle with water droplets running down the side. He glanced down the beach, following my gaze, then smirked. “See something you like?”
“What’s her story?” I took the beer from him and murmured a thanks.
“She’s Poppy’s friend. Prefers to be a loner, but Poppy won’t have it. She’s always dropping by, trying to spend time with her.” My friend didn’t look pleased.
I swallowed the cold ale, welcome on the warm summer night, while considering the now-empty stretch of beach toward her home. She cut off our conversation as if something had bothered her. I scratched my jaw, a new habit as I adjusted to the recent growth on my face.
“She’s divorced. That’s about all I know.” Everyone knew that. People theorized that was how she could afford her beachfront home on a tutor’s salary. Maybe. I didn’t particularly care about her finances. But a divorce could explain her reclusive tendencies. After mine, I hadn’t been in a communal mood.
“Where’s her ex live?”
“No idea.” Gabe turned his attention to watch his fiancée. She stood in the center of a circle of the crew that worked at the shops and restaurants. A young surfing instructor stood by her, gripping his side, laughing at something she’d said.
“How long ago did she get divorced?”
“I’m not sure. She’s been a tutor for Tate and Luna for over a year, so at least that long. You thinking about asking her out?”
His question unsettled me. I hadn’t considered asking her for a date. I hadn’t considered dating anyone since arriving on the island two years ago, wounds fresh. If she arrived here in the same condition, then I understood her reclusive tendencies.
“If you want, Poppy and I could invite you both over for dinner. No guarantee she’d come. She’s turned us down far more than accepted.”
“What reasons does she give when she turns you down?”
“Oh, let’s see…” He ran a hand through his hair as he considered the answer. I suspected he hadn’t cared enough to listen to or remember the reasons Poppy provided. “Migraine. Busy with work.”
“Tutoring?”
“Nah, she does more than that. She’s a linguist. She speaks five languages. Even Arabic. According to Tate. Luna isn’t really close to her. They’ve kind of remained distant. But Tate has a lot of respect for her. And Jasmine… those two are close.”
I knew all about Jasmine. Heard about the adoption a few times when sitting at the bar at Jules. Unbeknownst to Tate and Luna, I’d even pulled Jasmine over one time for driving a golf cart underage. I didn’t write her up. The other kids on the cart were laughing hysterically, and I would’ve written them all up. But Jasmine’s silent tears were too much for me. She’d clearly been coerced into driving. And it wasn’t like driving a golf cart at fourteen was a path to drug addiction or other felonies.
I searched the crowd for Tate.
“I doubt she’ll be coming back,” Gabe commented.
“Do you know where Tate is?”
“Nah, but knowing those guys, they probably headed back to the conservation center. I heard Luna say they were fully booked for the turtle watch. Tate usually goes with her.”
“Hmm.” I took another swallow of my beer, and Gabe pivoted to better watch Poppy. “How is she for a neighbor?” Yes, my questions bordered on interrogation, but the dark-haired, timid woman piqued my curiosity.
“She’s fine. The garbage guy seems to like her more than me.”
“Say that again?”
“The garbage guy. Have I not told you about him?”
“No.”
“The guy refuses to put my garbage can back in that little garbage shed we have. It’s crazy. I’ve written notes. I paid the guy. Twenty dollars with one note. Thanking him for putting it back in the shed. Do you know what he did?”
I shook my head, mildly amused, pretty sure I’d heard the story before.
“Took my twenty. Left the can out in the driveway. No one else. Every other person on our entire street, he does it for them. Puts it back in the little house. Drives me fucking nuts. One day I was in my office, on the phone, and he looked up into the window and waved. He fucking waved. If I hadn’t been on a call, I would have run off after him. That guy is my nemesis.”
“So, he handles Cali’s garbage can correctly?” I asked, steering us back to the topic of interest.
“Yeah. Everyone else on our street.” He took a swallow of his beer, then angled the long glass neck toward Poppy. “You think that guy realizes she’s taken, right?”
Having had a wife who cheated, I took his question seriously and observed. The guy who hovered near her was one of the surfers who sometimes lined up with us in the surf. He was a bit of an ass, often ignored right of way. Young, though, twenty-one. I’d checked his ID once when I found him and some friends out on the beach with a cooler of beer. He might be the kind of guy who would actually go after someone else’s girl—for fun. But Poppy barely acknowledged him. Her attention was mostly directed at the waitstaff. She wiggled her fingers and directed a flirty smile at Gabe during a break in conversation. We might have been twenty feet away, but she was as aware of Gabe as he was of her.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” I patted him on the back. His gaze remained glued on Poppy. “But as for Cali. Do you know what her schedule’s like?”
“You do want to ask her out.” His smirk annoyed me.
“I’m curious.” Depended on where she was, post-divorce, but if she was still digging herself out of an emotional abyss, then dating wouldn’t appeal to her. “I’ve seen her running before. Does she have a typical schedule? Early morning riser?”
“You planning on casually bumping into her?” Friendships had sparked under more unusual circumstances. Knocking on her door and asking her out on a date felt awkward.
“She looks like she does yoga. Does she go to the spa for their yoga classes?” I’d seen some of those classes on the beach before, too.
He gave an exaggerated sigh, signaling I’d met my Cali question quota. “I wouldn’t know. Neither Poppy nor I take those classes. But I rarely see her out when I meet up with Tate for early morning surfing. It’s not like I pay close attention. When we’re out on the deck at night, though, her lights are usually off. Poppy’s asked me before if I thought she might be out of town.”
Interesting. I sat outside sharing beers in the evening in the two more popular areas on the island, and I never saw her. This town defined small. Technically, it was a village. Too small to qualify as a town. Admittedly, in my job, I needed to be more observant than anyone else here, but she stood out simply by being absent. She’d piqued my curiosity for a while.
“Hey, you want to go parachuting this Thursday? I booked a plane.”
“Let me check my schedule. If I can work it out, sure.” Gabe stayed busy, and he liked to push himself with high adrenaline activities. The guy spoke to my adrenaline-junkie soul. If it weren’t for my knee injury, I’d still be Special Forces, with a very different life.
Poppy walked up and sli
d her arm around Gabe’s waist. He kissed her forehead. A beat of jealousy tore through me. Once upon a time, I’d had that. I chugged back the rest of my beer, ready to call it a night.
“Logan here is interested in our neighbor.” It took all of three seconds before Poppy connected the dots.
“Cali? Oh, my god. That would be awesome. I really like her. She’s quiet. I think…” She paused long enough to convey hesitation, but in a split second she transitioned back to eagerness. “She’s great. Do you want us to invite you both over to dinner?”
“Your man already offered. Thanks, but I think I’d rather go about it a little more independently. Any tips you got for me?”
“You know… I don’t know her well. I try.”
Gabe added, “She does.”
“She’s an introvert. She has a dated laptop she carries around.”
“Since when do you know anything about computers?” Gabe asked.
“It’s just thick. Like, the new ones are thin, you know? Her dog is beautiful.”
I agreed. A gorgeous specimen of a German shepherd.
“My gut says she had a nasty divorce.” I raised an eyebrow. “She doesn’t talk about it. And I’ve tried. She changes the subject. It’s sad. I mean, I could be reading into it, but I just wonder if maybe she really wanted kids and there’s something there, you know. Maybe her marriage wasn’t what she hoped, and now she’s in her early thirties, and he feels like she won’t be able to have kids. Or who knows, maybe she can’t have kids, and that’s why they got divorced, and she’s completely heartbroken, and that’s why she won’t talk about it. When it comes to divorce, there are just so many options, you know? But I’m pretty sure whatever the case is, she’s heartbroken.”
Gabe and I both stared at her.
“But I don’t know anything. That’s all just me speculating. I was a bartender for years. I’ve heard all the worst divorce stories.”
You haven’t heard mine.
Gabe chuckled and affectionately pressed her up against his side. “She’s got an imagination.”
At the conclusion of the event, as the full moon lit the sky and the crowd applauded and howled, I went home the long way. All the lights were off in Cali’s cottage as I drove past. Potted plants lined the edge of the stairs to her front door. A motion sensitive light came on as I crossed the edge of the pavers on her driveway, and I pressed the pedal forward.
Poppy had some amusing theories. Made me wonder what she’d assumed about me when I first arrived here. I hadn’t been too social my first year or so, either.
Regardless, divorce was something she and I shared. And we also happened to be single in a ridiculously small town. A date didn’t have to mean anything. In a worst-case scenario, both of us could benefit from gaining a friend. The trick would be dusting off my dating skill set. I’d been told it was like riding a bicycle. Something that came back naturally.
A date might be good for both of us. Sometimes a date was just a date, time spent between two people with a potential connection, and in this case, potentially similar history.
Chapter 3
Logan
* * *
“Jim Stenson called me yesterday.” Chad, our village mayor, crowded my tiny office, towering over the single guest chair. His unusually stern demeanor set me on edge, as if a military superior had entered the room.
“Who?” I asked. The name was familiar…
“The governor.”
“Is everything okay?” Chad had never mentioned the governor’s name to me before.
“No. Not really.” Chad stared at the wall, his lips a flat line, jaw flexed.
“Sit down and tell me about it.” As Public Safety Director, it wasn’t that unusual for me to hear about squabbles between landowners. I failed to see what the governor could possibly have to do with me. Maybe he’d require heightened security on an upcoming visit? Maybe he asked for a favor Chad didn’t like? A Sunday phone call would likely be a favor. I wheeled my desk chair away from my laptop to the center of my desk so I could give Chad direct attention.
An older man, probably in his seventies, Chad had once been a business titan. I’d always suspected he ran for mayor because he didn’t really know how to retire. He’d once told me it was essentially a volunteer position, and his only power lay in the ability to declare a pothole should be fixed, but I knew he took the job seriously.
He sat down, put his elbow on the thin armrest, and chewed on a thumbnail. His eyes narrowed, and I had the distinct impression he debated how to broach a topic with me.
“Just spit it out.”
“We have to justify our existence.”
“What?”
A look of disbelief crossed his facial features. “Have you heard of The Responsible Expenditure group?”
“No.” It sounded like a committee, but we didn’t really have many of those out here.
“Me neither. But Jim says they’ve got a lot of clout. Or they’re getting attention. Even on a national level. Lots of Facebook shares. It’s like a government watchdog kind of group. Anyway, they’re sharing reports with claims that more is spent on safety in wealthy areas than poor areas, and I guess Haven was picked as an example. He said it’s getting a lot of steam. He wants us to provide a full report of the kinds of things we do, justify our staff.”
“Wouldn’t that be in the yearly report we do for the community?”
“No. We’re coming up on an election year. Jim needs more. It’s bogus. Most of our budget is funded by the county. But if the state pulled everything…” He rested his thumb and index finger on the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “It feels like we’re preparing for a hostile board meeting.” He opened his eyes. “How much experience do you have in hostile meetings?”
“Hostile how?” I’d faced heat in Chicago, but this time my actions weren’t on the line. And he couldn’t be talking about the same thing.
“As in they want your entire department removed.”
“They want to get rid of Public Safety?”
“Crazy, right? I don’t know. I’m never on the Facebook. Hardly watch the news these days. The Journal is about all I skim, and that’s out of habit. I don’t know if Jim is… I don’t know, but I’m going to help you with the report he needs, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to put together a bullet list of the kinds of information I want. You send it to me, and we’ll work through it. I think it’s best if we get this to go away. I don’t want Haven highlighted as some resort area for the white elite.”
Years of military experience prevented me from rolling my eyes at that. This island had a lot of strengths, and the year-rounders were good people, but diversity hardly ranked as a strength. Still, the village had a streamlined team. As far as town budgets went, we weren’t excessive. I didn’t know how we ranked in the state.
I stood when he did and reassured him, “I’ll be on the lookout for your email. Will get the data to you as quickly as possible.”
I followed him out into the narrow hall. “You know, I thought you were coming in to tell me about some teenagers doing something dangerous, like speeding on golf carts.” Given the speed limit on the island maxed out at eighteen miles an hour, and most golf carts didn’t possess a speedometer, much of what qualified as speeding remained subjective.
“Why would you think that?”
“Because those are the complaints I usually receive.”
He grimaced. “Pull out your emergency preparedness deck. Also, see if you can get in with Julie and get her IT expense. Cybersecurity. That’s a part of everybody’s budget these days, important given some of the high-net-worth people who spend time out here. Think about justification of VIP protection. But also theft prevention. You get where I’m going? Think along those lines. I’ll send that email in a bit.”
He pulled out his phone and tapped away on it as he shuffled out the door. The sunlight coming through the window shone brightly on his scalp and the surr
ounding brown age spots.
As I watched him exit the building, I couldn’t help but wonder how serious of a threat this was. Most likely, this so-called heat posed the most danger to his golfing pal’s reelection than to anything here on the island.
I returned to my office and placed a call.
“Matt. It’s Logan. Do you have a minute?” Matt worked for the NSA and had been in my class at West Point. We’d gone into the army together. Our career paths diverged, but we’d always stayed in touch. We hadn’t lived in the same state in over a decade, but he was like a brother to me. And given his role in D.C., and his role in finding me this position when I needed time to decompress—his words, not mine—I owed him the update.
“A brief one. About to enter a meeting.”
“The governor called our mayor this past weekend. There’s apparently public pressure to control town budgets. Lower them. I suppose also to ensure an even allocation of tax dollars across all communities.”
“Groups always fight over money.”
“I’ve been tasked with defending Public Safety’s existence on the island.”
“That’s illogical. Each county has their own budget based on tax revenue.”
“But the state, I guess the focus is on distribution of state funds?” I hated politics.
“It’s probably election-year bullshit. The need for you on that island has never been greater.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say more on an insecure line. I’ve gotta run.”
As I checked the phone to confirm he disconnected the call, a text came through.
Risk of rip tides elevated.
I sent out a quick notice to the team.
Raise red flags. Rip tide risk. Shift to heavy beach patrol.
