Best Beach Ever

by Wendy Wax

  Avery sketched and made notes as they talked square footage and window height and room for the great-grandchildren to come out and spend the night. Their conversation was punctuated by a refill of tea, the offering of a sweater, as Martha Wyatt’s family demonstrated their concern and love in a hundred tiny ways that made Avery long for the father who had raised her and the mother who’d come back twenty years after she’d abandoned them only to die soon after they’d reconciled. And then there was Chase and his father and sons, whom she loved but was afraid to let all the way back into her life.

  She had vowed to focus on rebuilding her architectural career post–Do Over by designing and building tiny homes for others, but now as Martha Wyatt’s home began to take shape in her mind, her own life suddenly felt unbearably small.

  Avery hugged her new client good-bye, but her smile felt false and her heart rang hollow. As she drove the Mini Cooper back over the Vina del Mar Bridge, she was relieved that they wouldn’t be toasting the sunset that night. She, who had been feeling so positive all week, would have been hard-pressed to come up with even the tiniest good thing.

  Six

  “I’ve started going through the boxes of financial records.” Bitsy sat across from attorney June Steding, former social worker and sole remaining partner in the Tampa law firm still known as Steding & Steding. Unlike the lawyers that had stopped returning Bitsy’s phone calls when her fortune disappeared, June Steding had not attended an Ivy League law school and preferred costume jewelry to bespoke suits. She was not the cool, unemotional shark that Bitsy had originally thought she needed. But she took what happened to her clients personally and could be relentless in her pursuit of cads and deadbeat dads. Bitsy worked at Steding & Steding three afternoons a week in exchange for legal help and advice.

  “So they finally coughed up the records,” June observed. “You could take them to court over the ridiculous delay.”

  “Um, yeah.” It was Bitsy who coughed and shifted uneasily in her seat. There was no way she could bring herself to admit that it was not her money managers dragging their feet that had kept her from mining the paperwork for clues, but her own inability to face reality. She’d found the boxes exactly where she’d left them, buried under a mound of suitcases in the back of one of the unfinished Sunshine cottages. With a strength born of shame and embarrassment, she’d dragged them back to her cottage one at a time then begun the painful and laborious process of getting them in order. Land sold. Houses and apartment buildings purchased. Steel in India. Reams and reams of purchases and sales and transactions. Bertie had claimed that he was diversifying her portfolio and increasing her liquidity to protect her just as he’d protected her from downturns in the market and Malcolm Dyer’s Ponzi scheme. She had questioned nothing.

  She’d left the papers strewn across the dinette for the last ten days as a stark reminder of her folly. Her naïveté. Her stupidity. Her loss. She who had been given everything including an education that should have helped her protect the fortune that had been left to her, had ceased all critical thinking simply because she’d fallen in love and believed that love would never be betrayed.

  “I can’t believe your financial advisors didn’t warn you about making him a trustee.” June Steding shook her head, sending her long turquoise earrings swinging. “And sole trustee?”

  Bitsy winced. “They did warn me. Repeatedly. I . . . I just refused to listen.” She had committed the financial equivalent of putting her hands over her ears and shouting gibberish in order not to hear.

  Then after Bertie had disappeared and the truth became apparent, what had she done? Hidden the proof away where she wouldn’t have to see it and wallowed in self-pity. She’d given him an entire year to hide the money and cover his tracks. “I didn’t even let him sign a prenup when he offered.”

  “Well, very few prenups would have still been in effect fifteen years later,” June said. “They’re typically designed for shorter-term defections. So I wouldn’t beat myself up about that.”

  “Right. Not when there are so many other things to beat myself up over.” Bitsy grimaced again as she remembered how disinterested she’d been in the details. It was time to fully face up to what she’d tried so hard not to see. Her losses were the result of her believing that Bertie had ever been in love with anything but her money.

  June leaned forward and folded her hands on the desk, turquoise and silver rings encasing her plump fingers. “Now that you have the records, it’s time to bring in an expert. As a trustee he’s clearly guilty of not upholding his fiduciary responsibility to his client, but having a forensic accountant find and document the fraud in detail will give us a much firmer legal leg to stand on.” She smiled. “He can also follow the money trail.”

  “Is that even possible at this point?” Bitsy asked. “I want him found and punished more than anything—and I definitely need to divorce him—but is there any chance at all that we’ll ever find the money? That final transfer to the Cayman bank took place a year ago.”

  “Offshore banks aren’t as secretive as people think, especially in today’s world of terrorism and digital access.” Her face was kind, her tone firm. “If anyone can figure this out and trace your money, it’s Gary Kaufman.” She handed Bitsy a business card with a New York address and phone number. “He’s licensed in New York and Florida and I have complete faith in him. I told him you’d be sending him a copy of all the records.”

  “But . . . I can’t afford to . . .”

  June Steding placed a hand on Bitsy’s. “He’s a very old friend. We go way back. He’s prepared to work on a contingency basis and he’ll get started right away.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Kyra spent the next morning praying for rain. At noon, when those prayers had not been answered, she and Dustin walked down to the beach, where they waited at the water’s edge under a beautiful blue sky filled with white puffy clouds.

  “Lookit Broy’s boat!” Dustin dropped her hand and pointed at the brightly painted speedboat making its way toward them. “It’s got blue stripes!”

  Troy waved jauntily, and cut the engine and tilted the motor so that the boat glided silently into shore.

  Dustin jumped up and down with excitement as the bow gently nudged onto the sand and Troy vaulted out of the boat, a child-size neon orange life vest in his free hand.

  “Broy!” Dustin held still just long enough for Troy to slip the vest on him. As soon as it was buckled he leapt happily into Troy’s arms.

  Kyra did not. Begrudgingly she noticed how low his swim trunks hung on his hips, how surprisingly ripped his tanned torso was, how many shades of blond his hair appeared in the sun. His eyes remained hidden behind a pair of reflective sunglasses, but she could feel them trained on her.

  “Glad you could join us,” he said, easily settling Dustin on one hip.

  “I don’t really remember being given much of a choice,” she said, still waiting for his trademark smirk, but he was smiling with what appeared to be complete sincerity.

  He turned to place Dustin in the boat then took a step toward her. “May I?”

  Before she could respond, he leaned over, placed his hands around her waist, and lifted her onto the bow as if she weighed no more than Dustin. Biting back a gasp of surprise, she swung her legs into the boat and watched him from beneath her lashes. He might possess more money and better manners than he’d ever let on, but he was still Troy Matthews. Wasn’t he?

  He pushed the boat off the sand and into deeper water then vaulted into the boat with animal grace. “I thought we might ride up to John’s Pass and have lunch at Gators.” He smiled politely. “If that’s all right with you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. In the years she’d known him, the cameraman had taken great pleasure in catching her at her worst, wrestled with her for control of Do Over, and made no effort to hide his disdain for her relationship with Daniel Der
anian. Even his occasional acts of kindness had been carried out with a certain level of snarkiness. This mask of smiling civility was no doubt meant to hide some self-serving ulterior motive.

  “Are we really gonna eat alligators?” Dustin asked.

  “You never know.” With one hand on the steering wheel Troy turned the key in the ignition. The engine growled to life. “We might.”

  “Can I help park the boat when we get there?” Dustin asked.

  “I might have to handle the docking until you get a little taller,” Troy said, taking his seat. “But you can definitely help steer us there.”

  “Oh, boy!” Dustin clambered into Troy’s lap and fit his hands on the wheel between Troy’s. “I’m a good driver! My Dandiel tole me so!”

  Kyra smiled grimly to herself. Troy was not a Daniel Deranian fan and was no doubt already formulating a snide comment or jab. But once again he remained silent, only nudging the boat into gear. Another nudge and the bow rose. Kyra plopped into the passenger seat and braced her bare feet against the dash as the boat planed and picked up speed.

  Dustin laughed happily. His dark curls tossed in the wind just beneath Troy’s chin. Troy smiled while Dustin chattered about everything from what he’d had for breakfast to the dolphin he spotted off a nearby buoy. She’d come prepared to defend herself from Troy’s cutting comments and observations, but he didn’t seem to feel the need to comment on anything. In fact, he said almost nothing at all as he helped Dustin steer the boat. When a full five minutes went by without a comment, snide or otherwise, her jaw loosened.

  She breathed in the salt air, tilted up her chin. The sun and wind buffeted her cheeks. The hum of the engine and its gentle vibration beneath her soothed and calmed. Kyra’s eyelids grew heavy. Her shoulders began to relax. A splash, a caw, a low male murmur. Sounds mingled and became distant. Dustin’s giggle was the last thing she heard.

  She roused when the boat stopped moving and the engine went quiet. She heard conversation, the slap of water against wood.

  “Kyra?”

  “Hmmm?”

  Her eyes blinked open. Troy’s face hovered just above hers. She’d never really noticed how expressive his eyes were. Normally she would have been focused on whatever annoying thing he was saying or doing. Irritation might turn into attraction in certain kinds of movies and books, but in reality it was just irritating. A silent, noncombative Troy was not.

  “We’re here. At Gators.” It was as if some alien life-form had shown up and sucked all the antagonism and swagger out of him and left this surprisingly attractive shell. She dropped her feet and sat up.

  “What?” A smile hovered on his lips.

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Like what?” He straightened.

  “Like a normal, friendly person.” Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t figure out what you’re up to, but whatever it is I’m not falling for it.”

  A series of emotions and reactions flitted across Troy’s face. She had the sense he was trying to decide which one to go with. Finally, he shrugged. “It’s just a boat ride and lunch. I wouldn’t go trying to turn it into some Machiavellian plot.”

  She stared at his face. It was possible that her jaw dropped. “Did you just say ‘Machiavellian’?” Who was this man and what had he done with the real Troy Matthews?

  “Even lowly cameramen are entitled to a vocabulary,” he said coolly. “But if it’s confusing for you, I’ll try to stick to single syllables during lunch.” For a brief moment she glimpsed her former nemesis and all-around smartass.

  “Come on, Mommy.” Dustin took her hand and tugged. “I wanna have bites of gators.”

  “Me, too.” She let Dustin pull her to her feet. “As long as we don’t have to wrestle them into submission.”

  “Wrestle them like this?” Troy scooped Dustin up, tossed him over his shoulder, and made a show of hauling him off the boat. Kyra followed, trying to make sense of the kinder, gentler Troy Matthews and wondering how long he planned to play the genial Dr. Jekyll before he turned back into his more familiar Mr. Hyde.

  * * *

  • • •

  “You go first.” Nikki motioned Joe toward the door of the cottage. “I’ll hang back and distract them.” It was their last night together before Joe left town, and he’d insisted they go out for a nice dinner and alone time. The only problem was that the twins did not like to be left behind. Leaving them without causing a double meltdown required the strategic planning of a clandestine operation.

  “You’re a brave woman. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.” Joe kissed her on the forehead, moved quietly to the cottage door, and slipped outside just as only someone trained at Quantico could. The twins didn’t even glance up from the tower of blocks Luvie was helping them build.

  Nikki cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. They’d discovered the hard way that an official good-bye was necessary. But once it was given, there could be no hesitation or dillydallying on the way out the door.

  “You all have fun!” she called out gaily even as she hunched her shoulders, covered her ears with her hands, and took a first step.

  But there was no crying. No screaming for her not to leave. No sounds of frantic crawling as they rushed to grab onto her. She turned.

  “That’s it, dear.” Luvie reached out a hand to guide Sofia’s. “How high do you think it can go before it ‘all falls down’?” Her accent and hand gestures made both girls squeal with laughter.

  “Brish!” Gemma directed.

  “Fah don!” Sofia added. They both clapped their hands. Nikki prepared to sprint if necessary, but their eyes were locked on Luvie. The nanny had stayed with the twins twice, and already they could follow her every word and would stop whatever they were doing for a chance to play peekaboo or hear her sing “London Bridge.”

  Luvie looked up. Her brilliant green eyes were merry. “It’s quite all right, Mrs. Giraldi,” she said. “I’m going to sing ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’ as many times as they like. And then we are going to have a lovely bath, put on our pajamas, and read all about Sleeping Beauty.”

  Gemma and Sofia smiled happily. Their eyes remained pinned to Luvie’s face. In this moment their mother was, in fact, chopped liver.

  “Brish,” Gemma cooed.

  “Booty,” Sofia added in perfect accord. When they were older a high five would no doubt follow.

  Nikki knew she should be grateful. Knew that Joe would be absolutely thrilled, and not at all threatened, that the girls were so infatuated with their Mary Poppins. He could leave town knowing that she had backup and enough free time to run errands and shop and maybe even take a nap without two extra appendages.

  “Wave bye-bye to your mummy,” Luvie said. “And tell her ‘cheerio’!”

  The girls did as they were instructed. Then they turned their backs on Nikki. She was only halfway out the door when Luvie began to sing “London Bridge Is Falling Down.” At nine and a half months, her daughters only echoed the occasional word. But unless she was mistaken they already seemed to be developing British accents of their own.

  Seven

  Kyra zipped up her suitcase and set it next to the one she’d packed for Dustin. Then she scanned the tiny bedroom they shared, looking for forgotten items. Dustin’s bag of carefully chosen toys and Max’s paraphernalia were already loaded in the rental car she’d picked up that morning.

  She pushed some hair off her forehead and plopped down on a chair. Her mother had taken Dustin out for a day filled with all his favorite things including breakfast at Paradise Grille, a sandcastle build on the beach, a swim in the pool, and a shopping trip to the Dollar Store.

  Tomorrow they would head not for Orlando as she’d originally been told, but to an address in a place called Winter Haven about forty-five minutes south of it.

  Maddie stuck her head in the open doorway. “Are you
ready for sunset toasts?”

  “Almost.” Kyra reached for the sweatshirt she’d left on the bed and began to slip it over her head. “Has Dad picked up Dustin?”

  “Yes, and they took Max.” She hesitated. “They’re going to cook out with Troy.”

  Kyra stopped and turned. “At Bella Flora?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he’s going to be entertaining my son in his own house.” Kyra felt her blood begin to heat.

  “I promise you Dustin isn’t seeing it that way. He’s just excited to be grilling with the guys.”

  “Grilling with the guys? I thought he was going to have dinner with Dad while we did our sunset toasts.”

  “He is having dinner with his grandfather.”

  “And Troy. Troy is not one of the guys. Troy is a schemer. A squatter . . . a . . .”

  “. . . godsend. Whatever you think of Troy he paid a boatload of money to rent Bella Flora. Money that allowed you to hold on to the house for Dustin and gave you the freedom to choose whether to let Dustin do the movie or not.”

  Kyra snorted. “Troy as a tenant is not a godsend. In baseball terms, Troy is a sac bunt when you were swinging for the fences.”

  “Kyra, things were set in motion that can’t be taken back. The only thing you can do now is make the best of the situation.”

  Kyra jammed her feet into her sneakers. She might not be able to argue with her mother’s logic, but she didn’t have to like it. “Fine. Let’s go.” She stomped out of the cottage and huffed onto the concrete walk.

  “Someone has her panties in a twist.” Nikki was waiting for them outside her cottage.

  “Who’s with the girls?” Maddie asked.

  “Luvie. Who else?” Nikki said. “According to my parenting books, they’re supposed to have a problem separating from their mother at this age. But they didn’t even notice I left. Again.”