Feel Me: An O'Brien Family Novel (The O'Brien Family)

by Cecy Robson

  Good . . . God.

  I don’t realize I’m staring until she stops directly in front of us and juts out her chin. “Problem?” she asks Oscar.

  Oscar straightens to his full height. “No. I was just showing Mr. . . .” He motions to me. “My apologies, what’s your name, sir?”

  “Jonah,” I say, returning my attention to the stunning young woman. I offer her my hand. “Evan Jonah.”

  Full pink lips lift into a dazzling smile that resonates in her deep blue eyes and lights her creamy white skin.

  “I’m Erin O’Brien, but I go by Wren,” she says. She shakes my hand with a firm grip, releasing me to guide the smaller woman forward. “How can Penny and I help you today, sir?”

  “I’m afraid my vehicle isn’t equipped for this weather and I am seeking a better alternative, possibly a truck or SUV,” I reply, doing all in my power to keep my focus on her face.

  “Then you’ve come to the right place. Penny, will you show Mr. Jonah―”

  “Evan,” I interrupt, mentally kicking myself for morphing into a fourteen year old boy the moment my eyes locked on this woman.

  “Okay, Evan,” she says. “Penny, please show Evan the latest members of the Ford family.”

  “Of course, this way, sir,” Penny answers with a grin.

  I reluctantly follow behind Penny. But as we reach a black Explorer my gaze trails back to Wren. She and Oscar have moved away from the showroom and closer to the rear offices. Yet it does little to muffle their exchange.

  “What the fuck was that?” Oscar snaps.

  My spine stiffens. I storm forward, ready to demand he apologize for using such foul language in the presence of a lady.

  “You being a raging asshole,” Wren replies.

  I’ll admit, her response gives me pause. And she doesn’t stop there. “Look, I know you have to compensate for your less than average-sized dick. But that doesn’t give you the right to mistreat Penny or pounce on every client she approaches. That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “Um, perhaps a truck will be more to your needs,” Penny says, motioning to the opposite side of the dealership and away from the heated conversation.

  I don’t typically involve myself in affairs that don’t concern me, nor do I interact with women who speak in such a manner. But it’s not simply Wren’s colorful vocabulary that captivates me, it’s her strength and desire to defend her small friend.

  “Where the fuck did you hear that?” Oscar responds. “I don’t have a small dick.”

  Of all his possible retorts, this is the one he chooses?

  “Suze,” Wren calls over her shoulder in the direction of the finance counter. “What was it you said about that night you went out with Oscar?”

  The woman behind the counter scowls and holds up her pinky. Wren smirks. “Looks to me like you should have called her back.” She pats his shoulder. “My condolences to your man parts.”

  She starts to walk away, stopping when she realizes I witnessed their encounter. Instead of making a quick escape or pretending I didn’t hear them, she walks toward me with her head raised. “Sorry about that, Mr. Jonah―”

  “Evan,” I clarify as she reaches me.

  Her smile stirs one of my own. “Evan,” she repeats, lifting a hand toward her friend. “I see Penny is taking good care of you.”

  “Um, maybe you can take over,” Penny says. She edges away, aware how taken I am with Wren.

  Wren tilts her head. “I don’t want to step all over your pitch,” she says.

  “You’re not,” she responds. “I’ll take the next one. Honest.”

  Wren waits for Penny to leave before turning to face me. She considers me a moment, but then motions back to the Explorer. “This is the latest model in Ford luxury,” she begins. “Comfortable, secure, capable of meeting all your commuting needs, and packed with plenty of toys.”

  I follow her as she leads me around the vehicle. The ease of her speech and relaxed posture demonstrate a confident woman who knows her job well. I question her about the vehicle’s basics first: mileage, warranty, and safety features, before testing her intelligence further. She doesn’t disappoint, explaining everything in detail down to the engine’s construction, adding to my growing attraction.

  “Would you like to take her for a ride?” she asks. She punches my arm affectionately, the motion only briefly luring my attention away from her delicate features. “This way you can see how smoothly she handles the road and ask, ‘Wren, how did I ever survive without a Ford?’”

  “I’d like that,” I answer, my deep voice quieting. This woman who appears more elite model than sales representative knows exactly what she’s doing. “Very much.”

  “Good,” she says, pointing at me. “You’ll wonder how you ever got along without her.”

  As I watch her walk away, I start to wonder that myself.

  READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM

  Inseverable

  A Carolina Beach Novel

  by Cecy Robson

  Prologue

  Callahan

  Three days.

  That’s all I have left until this shit ends.

  Three days shouldn’t feel like forever, not compared to the eight years I’ve bled to the Army. Thing is, good men have been killed in less time. In as quick as a blink, a squeeze of a trigger, or a small breath right before a grenade blows is all the time it takes to shove someone right out of life and well into death.

  That’s what makes three days as long as it is. Three days is plenty of time to die.

  My eyes tear when the wind picks up and shoots grime through the small hole of my lookout point. This blown out piece of cinderblock is only big enough to allow me a view of the street below, but not so small I don’t get smacked in the face with more filth. The tarp flaps above me as I spit out another layer of the dirt-sand mix spackling my teeth. Christ Almighty, I need a swig of the water resting near my elbow. But my thirst, like everything else has to wait.

  I have a job to do.

  I adjust my hips against the cracked cement of my bed, bathroom, and home all rolled into one, thankful that the agonizing ache stretching over the lower half of my body has settled into a now familiar numbness.

  Out of all the points I’d scouted, and all the accumulated years spent in this position, I should be used to it. And in a strange way, it should almost be home. Yet nothing ever has been home.

  But in three days, maybe something finally will be . . .

  I shove my thoughts away and breathe as my fellow Rangers stalk along the street. It’s then I see them, a mother and daughter walking straight toward my team. Less than one city block separates them from the men counting on me to keep them alive.

  The hell? How did they get past the other sniper unreported? Rogers is new on watch. But the quick paces these two are taking should have clued him in that something’s up. I train my scope on their faces; their expressions are blank, unreadable. ‘Cept that’s not what keeps my attention.

  The little girl can’t be more than five. So why the fuck isn’t her mother holding her hand? I lift my radio and bark a warning, dropping it beside me as I lock my scope dead center on the woman’s head.

  The radio crackles and Modreski chimes in, yelling at his team to hold their positions. He asks me what my plan is, knowing if something’s caused the short-hairs on my neck to rise, he and the boys damn well need to listen. But I don’t hear him, with a breath and a squeeze of the trigger, I leave a kid without a mother.

  Just beneath the sleeve of her abayah―the dress completely covering her body―I see it, a detonator that would trigger the explosives likely strapped to her chest. A few Rangers I know―Simons and Boreman, rush forward. I start to mutter a curse, pissed at her for making me shoot her in front of her kid. But the curse lodges in my throat when I see the kid isn’t looking at her mother lying next to her dead.

  She’s watching my advancing team as she lifts the detonator clasped tight in her hand.

&n
bsp; Chapter One

  Trinity

  “Trin! You coming?” Hale calls.

  Even over the steady hum of the ocean, his deep voice cuts through the small opening of our lifeguard station.

  “I need five more seconds,” I yell back, my thick southern accent drawing out each of my words.

  “That’s what you said nine minutes ago,” he complains.

  “But I didn’t mean it last time,” I holler back.

  I grin because even though I can’t see or hear him, I know he’s chuckling, no matter how much he’s trying to hold it in. I hurry and finish writing the schedule on the white board and cap the dry erase marker, before tossing it in the small cup holder to join the rest.

  No sooner do I reach for my beach bag and throw the sandy thing over my shoulder than the office phone rings.

  Most people would run away, ignoring it, after all by now it’s seven thirty and way after closing. But I’ve always been one of those goody-goody responsible types—you know the ones the teachers assign as classroom monitor and who always turned in her library books a day early? What can I say, I’m all about a good time.

  I lift the receiver before it finishes ringing. “Magenta Groves Beach Resort, lifeguard station seven, this is Trinity speaking. How may I help you?”

  “Trin. Screw the whiteboard and get in the damn car!” Hale yells through the receiver. I whip around as his voice echoes behind me, as well as through the phone. He hops up the steps as he disconnects, laughing like that was the best prank ever.

  “Why did you do that?” I ask.

  “Because I knew you’d stop to answer the phone, even though the rest of us have been waiting on you.”

  I pretend to scowl, but don’t quite manage. Me and scowling don’t go hand and hand. Life’s too short to wrap your mind around everything that’s wrong with it. So I grin, because that’s something I can do and do well.

  “You think you’re so smart. Don’t you?” I ask, placing the phone back on the charger.

  “You forgot good-looking,” he says. “But I’ll let it slide on account of I’m modest, too.”

  I laugh, but don’t argue—at least about the good-looking part. We’ve only been back at Kiawah for a week, but already Hale’s wavy blond hair has bleached significantly and his skin tone deepened to a light bronze. His steps are slow and purposeful as he crosses the small space separating us and stops in front of me.

  “Let’s go, Trin,” he says, hauling me along. “You’ve done enough for the day.”

  I readjust my bag over my shoulder, and follow him out of the office, the usual bounce to my walk kicking in despite my heavy bag.

  “Here. I’ll take that,” Hale offers, reaching for my bag.

  I step just out of reach, knowing he has his own stuff to carry. “I’ve got it, big guy,” I tell him.

  “You sure?” he slams the door behind us. I stare out to the beach where a young couple is chasing after their little toddler as Hale fumbles with the lock.

  “I’m sure,” I reply, my attention staying on the young family. “Hey, Hale, you know how I always mind my own business.”

  “Nope,” he says, leading me forward.

  “Well, this time I can’t,” I continue, ignoring his comment. “For your own good, I have to tell you that this maybe your last chance to do something about Becca. The summer hasn’t quite started, but it won’t be long before it’s gone.”

  “Yeah. I know,” he mumbles.

  “And?” I ask, turning back to him.

  He tugs on my long ponytail. Unlike Becca, my best friend in the world, I’m neither tall, blonde nor leggy. My hair is as black as midnight in winter, and I’m just barely five feet three. And where her eyes are light and striking mine are a dull brown. But I do have something my bae doesn’t have. Freckles. Y’all feel free to envy me at any time.

  “Well?” I press. “You going to do something about that girl or aren’t you?”

  He shoves his key into the pocket of his long red lifeguard shorts and glides the sunglasses perched on top of his head back onto his face. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” he tells me.

  His smirk widens into that grin of his—the one capable of sizzling panties like coals over a fire. I shake my head. “Boy, between that smile of yours and that face it’s a wonder Becca’s not running to you rather than away.”

  He flings his arm around my shoulders as our feet dig through the sand. “Now, sugar, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he says, keeping his grin in a way that tells me he’s lying.

  “Come on. You can have anyone you want. And if it’s Becca, you need to act fast before those girls slapping each other just to lie their beach blankets near your post lead you astray and down a long dark path of sin, sex, and STDs.”

  “Is that so?” he asks.

  “I’m just watching out for you,” I say, stepping with him onto the gray weathered steps leading to the lot. “It’s the kind of friend I am. You know, the kind who likes to pretend you’re still a virgin and not the man whore you’ve become.”

  He laughs hard enough to shake us both as we reach the edge of the pier. Ahead of us in the sandy lot, Sean, Mason, and Becca look up from where they’ve been waiting for us.

  Mason’s dark skin glistens with sweat, likely from having dragged all the heavy equipment we weren’t using back into the shed. But he’s got the muscle and the stocky build for it. Poor Sean has the endurance to swim a few miles and back, but his long-limbed body is better suited for reaching things the rest of us can’t, and his personality is best for those who don’t mind the occasional dip in the gutter and can appreciate his not-always brilliant remarks.

  But of course it’s Becca Hale hones in on.

  I can’t blame him. Becca is leaning against the Jeep, poised like Miss America and as alluring as Miss Universe.

  “What the fuck’s taking y’all so long?” she yells.

  But that mouth of hers makes her all Becca, so does that smile that pulls Hale closer.

  “You know how she gets,” Hale hollers, hooking his thumb my way. “Had to get the floors waxed, the office dusted, and mend that sea gull’s broken wing before setting it free.”

  “You did all that shit?” Sean asks, moving forward. “Man, and here I was thinking you were just working on the schedule.”

  Mason who tends to be the most serious among us just shakes his head and laughs, because that’s what we all do around Sean.

  Becca backs away toward the driver’s side, keeping her grin as she points to our boys. “Alex Pettyfer, Nathan Owens, Channing Tatum, y’all got the back,” she tells them. She grabs my bag and tosses it onto the floor of the passenger side. “You, get to ride with me, cutie.”

  I almost ask to switch with Alex Pettyfer, aka Hale. But I’ve known Becca long enough to know something’s up. So I hop in the front, barely snapping my seatbelt in place before she shifts in gear and tears out of the lot.

  We catch the road leading out of the resort. Mason tugs on my hair just like Hale had, just to say “hi”. Like most men I meet, he thinks I’m cute. As in a kid sister or a BFF cute. Not cute as in, “hey how about you let me rip off your thong with my teeth?” You know what I mean? The kind of “cute” that really matters.

  I’ve pretty much resolved myself to BFF status, even though I wish I could be more.

  Hale, whether because of what I said, or because he realizes time is running out for him to make a move, leans in between the seats, his attention fixed on Becca. Unlike me, that’s not sand filling out the cups in her swimsuit.

  “Hey, Becks, how about we catch dinner Tuesday after work? Maybe even a movie?”

  Becca’s wild hair—highlighted in alternating shades of blonde and blonder—slaps around her gorgeous features as she grins. “I don’t know. The boss may not like me dating a co-worker.” She looks at me then. “Isn’t that right, Boss?”

  I crack up. All my lifeguards can do whatever they want during their time off. But
these four in particular? These four that have been my friends since before any of us learned to read, swim, or cuss. I know they’re a good bunch. I know they have my back. For all we joke, the minute their toes dig into that smooth white sand, it’s on.

  I perch my legs up and over the dash and cross my arms behind my head. “As your fearless leader, I hereby let that be your call, ma’am.”

  Okay. Maybe I’m not so fearless. And “leader” is a pretty loose title considering all I do is run a few drills each day and make sure everyone has a shift.

  “I’ll think about it,” is all Becca tells him.

  Hale is a good guy. Good enough to slink back and give her space. Like all my male besties, he’s had a crush on Becca since he hit puberty and his male parts saluted her in celebration. Capable of stirring erections with a single glance was Becca’s super power. Mine is the ability to make people snort drinks through their noses at my jokes. I adjust my head beneath my hand after another glance at my beautiful friend. We all have our gifts, and if mine includes making others smile, I can’t complain.

  Her grin widens as she takes the road that leads to Your Mother’s Coconuts, better known to the locals as “Your Mother’s”. Once off the resort we’re no longer lifeguards expected to abide by the rules. We’re just fresh college grads ready to run amuck, do some skinny-dipping, and partake in all the fun our young selves demand.

  In less than a minute, Becca is screeching to a halt at the far end of the half-filled lot. It is a quarter to eight on a Friday and our work week is done. With a hoot and a few hollers, our buddies jump out the back, rousing the other lifeguards who beat us here to do the same.

  “Where the hell have y’all been?” the new girl calls out. “I’m thirsty.”