A SEAL's Surrender

by Tawny Weber

  “Junior high, even,” Janie interrupted.

  “Maybe,” Eden acknowledged, wrinkling her nose. “That’s awfully young, though. Not for Cade, of course, but for the girls? But nobody knows for sure, do they?”

  “Knows what?” Bev prompted before Janie could launch into one of her typical attempts to prove that she did, indeed, know everything.

  “Knows when it all started, what the rules are or even who’s in the club,” Eden said. “The story goes that Cade, while being quite the ladies’ man even in his teens, knew he wanted out of Mendocino County and wasn’t about to let anything—not even a girlfriend—keep him here. So while he played the field, he kept things simple, uncomplicated.”

  “In other words, he was really careful about sleeping around because he didn’t want to be trapped. Not just because he’s super cute, but because the Sullivans are filthy rich,” Janie explained, eyeing the cake with an envious look before nibbling on another grape.

  “But after a while, girls started bragging. I think the allure of having done Cade Sullivan was better than a pair of diamond studs, and they just couldn’t keep from showing off.” Eden remembered the almost mythical shot to fame the girls would get, being fawned over, buddied up to, romanced by other guys. “Pretty soon, the Cade-ettes had an even more exclusive membership than the country club.”

  “Exclusive, and elusive,” Janie interrupted. “There weren’t many who could make that claim to fame. Maybe a dozen at the most.”

  “How do you know they were telling the truth?” Bev wondered. “I mean, if he was determined not to get trapped, would he really sleep around, even with a dozen girls in four years?”

  “Sixteen years,” Janie corrected. “That dozen counts the girls he was with before—and after—he left for the navy.”

  “You mean the club still has openings?” Bev joked.

  I wish, Eden almost said aloud. Horrified, she focused on shoveling cake into her mouth to keep it busy. She had a bad habit of looking before she leapt, and speaking before she thought. Usually, she didn’t worry about the results. But this was Cade they were talking about. And she cared about everything that had to do with Cade Sullivan.

  Which was why she’d never shared, not even with her best friend, how often she’d seen Cade at the lake behind their properties. Skinny dipping sometimes, practicing martial arts others. But usually with a girl. Eden had rarely seen the girl’s face, but could see through the bushes clearly enough to know they both usually ended up naked.

  He’d been gorgeous, even as a teen, with the body of one of the Greek Gods Eden had been fascinated with. Tan, sculpted and, well, huge, he’d been worth the many bouts of poison oak she’d gotten spying through the trees.

  She dropped her fork onto the empty plate and reached for her iced tea, needing to cool off.

  “So this rumor, you believe it?” Bev prompted.

  “Sure.” Eden shrugged. “I mean, the few who did try to claim they’d done Cade Sullivan were outed as liars pretty fast. Nobody but the Cade-ettes themselves know what the secret is that proves the truth. I guess they think it’s a pretty good secret, too. Like I said, it’s been twelve years since he left and they still aren’t talking.”

  And while she’d only watched him a couple of times before embarrassment and a heart-crushing envy had made her avoid the lake altogether just in case he was there, she’d never seen any distinguishing marks or heard him use any special phrases that might stand out as tells.

  “Everyone wanted to be a Cade-ette,” Janie said with a sigh, either forgetting her constant diet as she scooped up a fingerful of chocolate from the cake in front of her, or envy making her so morose that she didn’t care.

  “Everyone?” Bev asked, her eyes questioning Eden.

  Eden just shrugged again. She wasn’t going to lie to her best friend, but neither did she see any point in admitting that she would have given anything to join the well-sexed crowd. But not for the title. Nope, she just wanted Cade.

  “Ladies, time to get to work,” Gloria Bell, the Garden Club president called, clapping her hands for attention. “The Spring Fling is just around the corner. Our biggest society ball needs the best flower arrangements, don’t you think? Come on now, chop chop.”

  Most of the older women got up and gathered around the three head tables, discussing what kind of flowers screamed fancy party. That left Eden and a dozen women her own age seated next to the dessert buffet. A fact that seemed to pain half of them, since they studiously kept their gazes averted. Eden, who while carrying a plethora of issues and challenges, could happily eat anything and everything without gaining an ounce, just grinned.

  This was the only way she stood out, a wren among peacocks. They were grace, she was clumsy. They were as beautiful as money could buy, she was as average as broke could maintain.

  “I can’t believe nobody has shared the secret yet. Are you sure there is one?” Bev asked, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, it sounds like more of an urban legend than fact, you know?”

  “Oh, it’s real.” Crystal Parker leaned forward, her eyes shifting to the matriarchs to see that her mother was occupied before she shared in a low tone, “My sister, Chloe, was almost one of the Cade-ettes.”

  “Almost?” gaped Bev. “How is one almost in the club?”

  “She went on a few dates with Cade the winter before he graduated. The two of them were getting really friendly, if you know what I mean, during the high school Winter Bash and Chloe got a little loud. Then the principal, Mrs. Pince, walked in on them. Chloe said Cade charmed his way out of a lecture, but never did ask her out again.”

  She gave a good-humored roll of her eyes, as if her sister’s getting busted making out still amused her.

  “Of course, that couldn’t have been as embarrassing as what happened to poor Eden here,” Janie said with a giggle before patting Eden’s hand. As if that friendly gesture made the joke any easier to take. “You never have told us the real story about what you and Kenny Phillips were really doing when he broke his foot and ended up covered in a nasty rash.”

  Eden pressed her lips together in a grimacey sort of smile, hoping someone, anyone, would change the subject. She didn’t need anyone speculating about what particular sexual position Kenny had been in when he’d fallen.

  Cade had rescued her then, too. Turning the tables nicely, he’d shown up at the lake to find her with his best buddy from high school. The poor guy had been rolling around naked in a patch of poison oak while clutching his broken ankle.

  “Girls,” Gloria called, gliding over like an elegant steamship. “Chitchat is over. Now it’s time for work.”

  “I can help,” Eden offered, gratefully getting to her feet. But in her desire to escape further sexual comparisons, her hip bumped the table, sending the unlit candles toppling, forks bouncing off plates and the grapes rolling over white damask to the floor.

  “Oh, well...” Mrs. Bell grimaced, then shook her head. “Thank you, dear. But we need someone with a little better eye for color. Janie, why don’t you and the girls come along now and see what you think of the plans.”

  En masse, all of the women except Bev and Eden migrated to the front of the room. To the popular section.

  Eden sighed, pushing aside the last plate of dessert, this one a double-chocolate brownie.

  “What’s wrong? It’s not like you to stop rubbing your super-fast metabolism in the princesses’ faces before you’ve tried every dessert,” Bev said quietly.

  Although Eden noticed a few envious glances at three empty plates in front of her, all she could focus on was the giggling group of women all bundled together around the flower displays. All fitting in, all contributing meaningfully. All perfect, even if they couldn’t eat more than two hundred calories at a time.

  “Nothing. I’m just tired,” she excused, not completely lying. She was tired.

  Tired of being so easily dismissed.

  Tired of feeling like a failure.

  Tired of
wallowing in mediocrity.

  Just once, she wanted to be admired. To stand out—in a good way. To feel like someone special. To be part of the in-crowd.

  And maybe she should wish for a time machine, too, and blast back to high school when she should have gotten over these silly issues.

  “Oh, Eden,” Lilly-Ann Winters, who sat at the next table, called, offering a charming smile. “I’m so glad you made it to the meeting this month. You so rarely do.”

  “I usually work Thursday afternoons,” Eden said with a cautioning look toward Bev. Lilly-Ann had a trio of Parti Yorkies and a pedigree Persian at home.

  “Oh, you still have that, um, job?” Lilly-Ann asked, a rapid flutter of her lashes probably supposed to be a distraction from her having no clue what Eden did.

  “I opened my veterinary clinic six months ago, and yes, it’s still in business,” Eden said with a nod, amping up her smile and getting ready to pitch her real reason for subjugating herself to this torture. “You should bring Snowball in for a checkup. I have a wonderful new program for cats, an all-natural diet and supplements that are guaranteed to add luster to her coat.”

  “Oh, no. Snowball only sees Dr. Turner,” Lilly-Ann said, her eyes wide with horror at the idea of taking her precious Persian anywhere but the most expensive vet in three counties.

  “I understand,” Eden said, pulling out the diplomacy she’d been practicing since she’d called in her RSVP. “Dr. Turner has a wonderful reputation. And he’s so popular. Just last week someone was saying she had to wait a month to get her puppies in for a routine exam.”

  Lilly-Ann’s smile tightened at the corners. Bingo. Eden knew the only thing the other woman hated more than designer knockoffs was having to wait for anything.

  “Don’t you worry about emergencies, though?” Eden continued, leaning forward and speaking in a hushed, let’s-share-a-secret tone. “You can’t take risks with a feline as delicate as Snowball. If you wanted to just bring her by for a checkup, I’d have her information on file in case, God forbid, there was ever a crisis.”

  For one brief, gratifying second, Lilly-Ann looked tempted. Then she gave Eden a once-over, as if to remind herself who she was dealing with, and shook her head. “No, no. Thanks, though. Dr. Turner has a pet ambulance. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  With that and a giggling little finger wave, she got to her feet. Bev stood, too, an argument obviously on her lips.

  Eden shook her head, gesturing to her friend to sit. What was the point? She needed clients desperately. She’d hoped a few of the women would, if only for faux-friendship’s sake, give her a chance. But to them, and to most of Ocean Point, she’d always be the klutzy girl who’d broken Kenny’s foot while having sex. A joke. An average, broke joke who was about to lose her home. Because she’d tried everything she could think of, even calling her mother—who hadn’t answered—to find a way out of this financial mess. If she didn’t come up with the money—or at least enough to negotiate a deal—within three weeks, her home, her heritage, would be gone.

  “Brownie?” Bev offered again with a sympathetic frown.

  Eden shook her head.

  Some things, even chocolate couldn’t help.

  * * *

  SHE WAS STILL ASKING herself what the point of it all was two hours later as she drove home.

  “Well that was a total waste of a Saturday,” Bev declared from the passenger seat, nibbling on the piece of cake she hadn’t let herself eat in front of the other women. “I can’t believe that in a roomful of thirty women, twenty-six of them have pets.”

  “And of that twenty-six, I couldn’t get a single client,” Eden mumbled, wishing she hadn’t wasted Bev’s time. “Still, it wasn’t all bad.”

  She didn’t have to take her eyes off the road to know Bev had shot her an incredulous look. Probably a sneer, too, if Eden knew her friend.

  “Hey, I made contacts. That counts. They might not have signed on board today, but all it takes is one good word, one rich matron with a colicky dog, and I’m set.” She slanted a sideways glance toward the passenger seat. “And, hey, at least dessert was good.”

  “Well, I’ll give you the desserts point. But do you really think a matron or two using you as their vet is going to stop the bank from calling in the loan?” Bev didn’t even bother with the skeptical look this time. Her tone, even wrapped around chocolate icing, spoke volumes.

  “Until I come up with something better, this is the best shot I’ve got,” Eden said morosely.

  Damn her mother. Damn herself for not forcing Eleanor to sign herself off the property when Eden had bought her out. She should have known better. According to her personal bio, Eleanor Gillespie was a free spirit. A wild wind that couldn’t be tamed. Eden sighed, her fingers clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel. A loving flake who specialized in making life difficult for her only child.

  From preschool when she’d used all of Eden’s classmates to test her politically incorrect, factually accurate and visually scarring nursery rhymes to high school when she’d volunteered as a parental chaperone at the senior all-nighter, then lectured everyone on birth control, sexual satisfaction and the benefits of a vegan lifestyle, she’d been a challenge. But she was also fun and bubbly, creative and clever, and loved Eden in her own self-absorbed, offbeat way.

  Eden rounded the corner of narrow country road, tall trees looming on either side of the asphalt. But just as she passed the pretty stone gates that led to the Sullivan Estate, something white flashed. She lifted her foot off the gas, peering through the window. She saw it again.

  White fur and gray spots.

  She slammed on the breaks.

  Bev’s hand shot forward, bracing against the dash.

  “What the hell...?”

  Half on and half off the road, Eden killed the car engine and threw her door open.

  “It’s Paisley,” she called as she hurried around the car toward the stately bank of large maple trees Laura Sullivan had planted when she was a young bride. “Mrs. Carmichael has been frantic since the cat ran away last week. We need to rescue her.”

  “That cat is evil,” Bev muttered, following her. “Besides, do you really think ran away is the right term? That sounds so innocent. I heard it was more like a prison break, complete with injuries and property damage.”

  Eden waved that away. So Paisley was a little difficult. She was a rare snow Savannah. Being standoffish was a characteristic of the breed, as was the need for play and fun. Since Mrs. Carmichael wasn’t much good at either, the poor cat had probably run off out of boredom.

  Before she could explain the psychological makeup of Savannahs, there was a loud screech, then a crash boomed out from behind the women.

  Except for a teeth-clenching wince, Eden froze.

  Bev screamed.

  Cringing, they both pivoted toward the car.

  Eden had forgotten to set the parking brake.

  She and Bev stared at the tree-hugging vehicle in silence.

  Damn.

  “This is a bad week for cars around you,” Bev observed with a resigned sort of huff.

  Eden groaned. It was like she was a walking, talking accident waiting to happen.

  The car wasn’t new, or even in very good condition, but it’d been big enough for her to transport anything smaller than a horse, was paid for and had looked decent enough not to irritate wealthy potential clients.

  Now the passenger fender had formed an intimate relationship with a redwood.

  After staring at the car for a solid minute, Eden sighed and deliberately turned her back on it to walk the rest of the way across the street.

  “Aren’t you going to do something? Where are you going?” Bev hurried after her. When Eden stopped under a tree and peered through the leaves, then reached up to test the strength of one branch, the cheery blonde gaped. “You can’t be serious? You’re still going to try to rescue the cat?”

  “Why not? The car is already a mess—I might as well ha
ve something to show for it.” A safe, secured pet was a reasonable price to exchange for a molested fender. And maybe, if she was lucky, this could be her chance to bond with Paisley and get in Mrs. Carmichael’s good graces.

  “Paisley,” Eden called in a cajoling tone. The cat, perched high on a maple branch, stopped its upward bounce to toss Eden a disdainful look. “C’mere, pretty kitty.”

  “Why don’t we just call Mrs. Carmichael and tell her we saw her cat. She can come get it herself,” Bev suggested when her stilettos slid on the dirt bank. “And give us a ride while she’s at it.”

  “Sure, a sixty-year-old woman needs to be climbing a tree after her cat,” Eden dismissed, her own stubby-heeled Mary Janes not slipping at all—girls who tended to trip over their own feet wore stilettos at great risk—as she made her way around the base of the maple.

  After a few more calls, a few snarky remarks from Bev and another dismissive look from the cat, Eden sighed. She looked up the road, then down, to make sure no cars were coming. She only climbed trees once in a blue moon, but somehow she always managed to get busted.

  “You’re lookout,” she told Bev. She glanced down at her pretty blue cotton dress, then tugged the back of the pleated skirt forward between her thighs, tucking it into the wide black belt. “There, modesty intact.”

  “There, fashion destroyed,” Bev said, shaking her head in dismay. “If anyone asks, I tried to talk you out of this. I pointed out the likelihood of you falling, of you breaking yet another bone or something horrible happening to your hair.”

  Eden’s fingers combed through the thick swath of heavy brown hair at her shoulders and gave Bev a confused look. “My hair?”

  “I think it’s the only thing you haven’t messed up so far. It’s due.”

  Eden grimaced, then shrugged. Bev was probably right. Some people might lament their fate, others would spend hours in therapy. She figured that by simply accepting that she was a little accident prone, she was not only ahead of the game in terms of dealing with emergencies—because after all, she created at least one a month—but she was saving a fortune on psychiatric fees.