Flash Drive

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  God, why was she always writing love scenes, creating sinful dialogue between a man and a woman? Why did it never stop, this constant playing out of lurid love scenes? Was she a pervert or what? Over three years she had written many wicked sex scenes, and experienced vicariously more sensual escapades than most women experienced in a lifetime.

  And now she had lost them, every single one. They were out there . . . every romantic scene she had ever written. Her missing flash drive became the catalyst to her next thoughts, those of shame—her shame.

  Zoltar was right, she had done what was contrary to right, and now she was ashamed because of it. Tears fell from her eyes as she stared unseeingly at the sailboats drifting under the new bridge. After a few minutes of the salty freefall she sniffed and realized that she had actually let a machine dictate her emotions. She laughed out loud at herself. Zoltar had made her ashamed of herself.

  She came to with a start as it occurred to her that there was no one in the whole world that would be embarrassed or humiliated by her when this became known, that there was no one left who would be tainted by her immoral thoughts, her depraved writing.

  She started to cry again. This time her tears were joined by a light drizzle followed within seconds by the sky opening up. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. The temperature dropped ten degrees. Perfect.

  Laurel turned and looked across the street at her Firebird in Maverick’s parking lot. The top was down. “Perfect” was the last word on her lips as she made a mad dash up the hill and across the street. Fucking perfect.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Garrett made it up the steps and in the door just as lightning flashed and the first boom shattered the silence. Clouds clustered above and the heavens darkened in a matter of minutes. The world below was shadowed in sepia tones broken only by the bright jagged lights that moved like giants stalking the edge of the ocean as he leaned back against the door and pulled off his sweat-soaked tank and running shorts.

  Toeing off his running shoes he bent to tug off his damp socks. He’d made it just in time. The next boom vibrated the door against his back and he jumped away from it. He walked naked to the large picture window to watch Mother Nature’s show. There was absolutely no chance there was anyone on the beach, not in this downpour.

  He stood there, hands on trim hips, in his impressive glory, staring out as thunder crashed all around him. Lights flashed on the horizon in an uncanny sequence. Knowing the timing of the performance was mathematically predestined made it even more magnificent. He felt like a god. He didn’t worry about being seen from the beach; anyone down there in this storm deserved what they got. But he had to admit, it was erotic as hell envisioning a certain writer turned voyeur as he raised his arms and stood before a grand orchestra and played at being maestro for this dark, impromptu summer symphony. He remembered the eyes of a stunning blonde staring at him over the hood of an old yellow Firebird. It didn’t surprise him when he finally turned and made his way to the shower that he was as hard as a steel pike.

  Damn that woman, where the hell was she! She consumed his thoughts. Even running he hadn’t been able to wipe her sex scenes from his mind. And it wasn’t just the sex he had realized about halfway through his run—it was the interaction of her characters. She made them real; she made them flawed, and human in every way when it came to their desires. He felt like he knew them—as if he could look Rand, Clint, and Callie up in the Fayetteville phone book and go knock on their door. They were people he wanted to know. He supposed that’s why he wanted to know their creator so badly. If she was anything like Callie, she could wring him dry anytime.

  He stepped out of the shower and toweled off, more determined than ever to find her. He had purposefully kept his hands away from that part of his anatomy, knowing from experience that if he kept that erotic edge, it would hone him into the hunter mode. Predator to prey . . . he was going to find this lady. And then he was going to fuck the living daylights out of her.

  Still naked, he slid onto the seat at the table in front of his laptop and began opening her files in a random pattern, mostly bottom to top, right to left—figuring they’d be the latest saved. Choosing the smaller files, he found documents that were compiled notes, plot outlines, to-do lists, random thoughts, first chapters that apparently hadn’t worked out, and recipes . . . tons of recipes. The lady had to be a freakish cook—there was everything from breakfast couscous to Delmarva crepes.

  He read a few and after awhile he noticed that there was no meat in any of them. Some had seafood, mostly shrimp, lobster and crab. He scanned another group of recipes, but there was definitely no meat—no steak, no chicken, no bacon, sausage, or pork. Ye gods, the woman of his dreams was a vegetarian!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Soaking wet, Laurel climbed into her car and put the top up. Then she sat in the darkened interior sobbing so hard her shoulders bounced. So did her boobs, she noticed, when she looked down at the piece of Spanish moss she held in her lap.

  Pull yourself together Laurel Ashleigh Leighton, they’ve been gone a long time, being alone is par for the course after all this time. Others have had it worse. A lot of people didn’t even have parents they could stand nonetheless adored as you did yours.

  She resolved right then that she would give this depressing mood fifteen more minutes then she’d be done with it. Fini. She’d shake off the doldrums and get things back to their proper perspective. Meanwhile . . . she needed groceries. And since she was already soaked, she might as well run into the Food Lion, grab some Chobani yogurt, some salad fixin’s, and a bottle of Ménage à Trois to wash away her sorrows and ensure a decent night’s sleep.

  Maybe it was even time to make mother’s Ultimate Mac and Cheese and let the comfort of warm pasta and cheese fill the hollows of her soul. Yeah, tonight was a night for excess. She put the car in reverse, pulled out to the right, made a U-turn and headed to the Village at Sunset.

  At the grocery store, she grabbed what she needed and, as a tribute to her mother, purposely displaced an item to ensure someone’s job. She laughed as she remembered her mom doing this on every single shopping excursion they’d ever been on.

  Anything picked up and then later deemed unnecessary was never taken back to the appropriate shelf; instead it was purposefully left, glaringly out of place for the “gleaners” to find and reshelf in the proper location.

  Her mom had a cousin named Ellen who was once a “gleaner” at an A & P in a Baltimore suburb, and she had drilled it into everyone in her family that if people always put things they decided they didn’t want back on the proper shelf, she’d soon be out of a job. Ellen was learning disabled and the job was perfect for her. She loved returning items to the shelves and learning about new foods. Finding the right place for each thing was like solving a puzzle. And she was the only person who could direct someone to kumquats, yum yum sauce, or capers. She couldn’t wait to get up each day and go to work to find misplaced cans of tuna among the charcoal bags.

  Just to make sure Ellen never lost her job, Laurel’s mom did her part whenever they shopped in Ellen’s store, laughingly leaving Tampons in the cereal aisle, mustard next to the eggs, and an assortment of spices invariably ended up tucked here and there. She had wanted to do her part to help Ellen keep her job.

  Laurel laughed out loud at the memory as she grabbed two of the biggest boxes of ribbed macaroni she could find. She left one next to the popcorn in the snack aisle. It made her feel good to celebrate the tiny little traditions her mother had shared with her. Stupid though they were.

  Pulling out of the parking lot, she had to wait for a pretty blue Corvette to drive past. She couldn’t help but notice the man behind the wheel as his window was down and his hand was tapping out a rhythm on the outside of his door. At first, she was only able to see his profile but she sensed immediately that there was something familiar about hi
m. Then he turned and their eyes met for a fraction of a second and she knew that if she’d ever met him she wouldn’t have any trouble placing him. She knew without a doubt that she’d remember every single detail of their meeting; he would have his own memory card imbedded in her frontal lobe, much like her digital camera card held her photo files. She would have taken notice of everything about him, and she would not have to go hunting for the memory—it would scream at her. He was her bridge guy. Oh well . . . he was probably taken, she thought. All the remarkable ones were.

  She swung her car into the intersection and followed the sleek sexy car until it turned onto Georgetown Road. Watching the car in her rear view mirror as she continued through the intersection, she saw it speed up and head toward Calabash.

  Damn! She thought with a chuckle. If she’d only thought to rear end him, she might have been able to fill that memory card with enough sensory material to write another story.

  That thought led her back to the saga of her missing flash drive. Ugh! Would the dread of that be with her forever?

  Forcing her mind back to her mom’s Ultimate Mac and Cheese, she mentally went through the ingredients to make sure she hadn’t missed getting something that she’d need. This batch would have to be identical to her Mom’s in order to squelch this funk.

  Chapter Twenty

  Garrett got back from having an early dinner at Beck’s, and after finishing up the work he had to do, clicked on the icon that had his mystery woman’s files. He sat as if in a trance and stared at all the files listed.

  Clues. He needed a really good clue if he was going to find her. He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket and rubbed it as if trying to divine something by holding it in his hand. It had unknowingly become his talisman, and he often found himself rubbing it between his fingers. After all, it was his only link to the woman he had a desperate and heady desire to meet.

  If he could just go through the files, concentrating on the ones that weren’t stories, the ones that gave a glimmer of her day-to-day life instead of the ones that let him into her psyche by way of her bedroom, maybe he’d find something.

  Determined to find the clue he needed, he opened one file after another, scanning her copious recipes, checking out her music files, reading articles that appeared to have been written for women’s magazines. Most of the articles were short, only one or two pages, related to gardening, eating healthy, game playing, antique shopping, or using the web to help with specialized collections. They had titles like: The Art of Scrabble Playing, The Benefits of Wii Exercising for the Busy Woman, Find that Elusive Boyd’s Bear, Improving your mind with Kakuro—whatever the hell that was—and a humorous piece that had him laughing out loud about jigsaw puzzles and ghosts who visited to steal pieces.

  He had to admit she was a good non-fiction writer as well as a superb novelist. She wrote with clarity of purpose. Choosing words carefully, so she could be concise, but giving the true flavor of the moment and putting the reader in the story.

  But damned if she left much to go on to track her down. He’d been at this for days now and was no closer to his goal.

  Nibbling on a ham and cheese sandwich with one hand while maneuvering the scroll button on the mouse with other, he suddenly sat bolt upright. Leaning forward as if his eyes were peering inside the screen, he blinked twice and sat back with a triumphant, “Aha!”

  Tucked into an article on coastal gardening, was a personal reference to her backyard, more specifically her back deck.

  “I have a flower box herb garden, several in fact, that are attached to the rails on the back of my deck. It’s just a few wooden boxes that I painted a light sage green to match the trim on my house. And every year, I let the chives go to flower because the tiny balls of white petals are so pretty against the pastel green of the boxes. It’s a waste of time to try to harvest chives because you can always buy the giant economy-sized container of freeze-dried chives at Costo for four bucks and they actually taste like something—I have never tasted a fresh chive that tasted like anything other than grass. So don’t let anyone guilt you out for not cutting them back. Chive flowers are one of the best deals going, they come back year after year.

  The golfers looking for their out-of-bounds golf balls often comment on the wonderful fragrances wafting over to them from my herb boxes. It’s often because they’ve actually brushed up against the rosemary bushes that mark my property line, but sometimes, it’s the peppermint or the lemon balm. For added color during the summer I add lavender because it goes so well with the paper white chive flowers and the green boxes, and of course, I sprinkle some marigolds seeds around to help keep the bugs at bay.”

  The article continued, explaining how to select the proper wood to make the boxes; how to use color, texture, height and form to enhance the impact; pointers to choose bushy, upright and trailing vines for variety, adding to the haphazard appeal of having the thrown together look; installing a lining; drilling drainage holes or using screening, and advising a balanced plant mix with equal parts compost, topsoil, sand, and vermiculite, followed by a layer of sphagnum moss. Feeding and watering were detailed as well as mulching and deadheading, but Garrett was focused solely on the part about the green boxes, the green house trim, and the rosemary border bushes. And the fact that her house was on a golf course, so close to the course that golfers had to traipse through her yard to get their balls. He scratched his own balls. Soon. He’d have her in his sights.

  With that snippet of information he felt certain he could find her house. All he needed to do was play a little golf, and pay a lot of attention to the backsides of the houses along the course. He hadn’t played for a while, but he had his Pings downstairs in the storage area, and a pair of binoculars on his bookshelf.

  Which course should he start with? The word lavender drew his attention and made him think British, which made his mind go to The Thistle Golf Course. Off of Georgetown Road, it was one of the premier golf course developments in the area. And if he wasn’t mistaken, last time he’d played it, there had been about ten houses scattered around 27 holes. Which meant he might have to play 18 first, then ask for a replay for the other nine. Unless he was lucky and spotted those window boxes right away. Adrenaline pumped through him and he had to stand and pace as he thought all this through. Yes, this could work.

  After Googling to get the phone number of the pro shop, he picked up his cell and was connected to Ed who arranged a tee time for the next morning. After giving him his credit card information, he hung up and rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer for the key to the storage unit under the beach house. Within minutes he was lugging his big club bag upstairs so he could polish up his clubs and wipe off the custom-made bag. Discovering his shoes were a bit grungy looking and that he only had four good balls, he grabbed his keys and headed out to Martin’s to get some new golf gear. On the way, he decided a new visor, glove, and a few new shirts and sweaters were in order. He was excited in a way he hadn’t been in months.

  Not for the game, as he could take it or leave it on his best days, but because he was going to find her. He just knew it. Her files had given him the clue he needed, he just had to be diligent and check each course until he found the house with the flower box herb gardens in the pastel shade of light sage green.

  It occurred to him that he should stop at a paint store, just to make sure he had the right idea of the color. And he’d stop by a nursery, check out the chives, sniff some lavender and peppermint—see what rosemary bushes looked like.

  Now that he had something to go on, he decided to reward himself. Tonight, after he got everything ready for his golf outing in the morning, he’d allow himself the supreme pleasure of reading another one of her erotic stories. The titles of quite a few had appealed to him, but there was one file he’d been particularly anxious to open since reading the title, The Rake and the Young Innocent. Not that he was
all that hepped up on virgins, but this one had shown great promise when he’d briefly scanned the first chapter a few days ago. The storyline had been playing out in his mind ever since. It was a historical romance, which would be a major departure for him as he usually only read contemporary thrillers.

  He could not wait to get his chores done so he could grab a glass of wine and settle into bed with his laptop. With any luck, maybe soon he’d be able to settle into bed with a soft, sexy, spirited young writer. Coming off the entrance ramp of Route 9, he shoved the shifter into 6th gear and sped south on 31, enjoying the smooth throaty sound of the ‘Vette as the car purred with unleashed power. Looking at the empty seat beside him he gauged the floorboard area, wondering if he had enough room to get his golf bag in. Hell . . . he’d better consider getting a smaller carry bag, ‘cause he certainly wasn’t getting rid of this car.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  After having had a double helping of Mac and Cheese, Laurel was surprised that just an hour later she had the knoshies, so she fixed a plate of Trader Joe’s Bite-sized Everything Crackers with some thinly sliced Dubliner cheese and took it to the room that doubled as her den and office. She had determined that tonight was the night she was going to get back to the business of writing. She was going to forget that damned flash drive and get back “in the saddle.”