“If Fawn wants to come back,” Betty said, mouth full of chips. “She should pack her bags just in case. Shows him she’s serious and gives her an escape hatch.” She picked up the spa phone and dialed.
Sighing, Lucy glanced at the clock. What a mess. They never should have taken Huntley’s limo up here. She hated being dependent upon other people.
“Hey, babe, it’s the Green Hornet,” Betty said into the phone in a throaty growl. “I’ve got a favor to ask. Groom’s an asshole and the bride needs a ride. One-way to Mendo. Your offer still good?”
Lucy turned away and walked to the door to tune out the low-voiced sex talk that followed. After a minute, Betty dropped the towel and the phone and jogged around the bed to a pile of clothes on the floor. “Your cabin, ten minutes,” Betty said, bending over.
“Nice love bites,” Lucy said, staring at the red marks on Betty’s bare thighs.
“No shit,” Betty said, pulling a T-shirt over her head. “You’d think I’d been snakebit and she was sucking out the venom.”
“Glad somebody’s having a nice time,” Lucy muttered, adding her thanks, then ran back to her cabin to tell Fawn about their plans.
A mountain of suitcases at her feet, Fawn sat on the edge of the bed with an open bottle of champagne braced between her thighs and a fierce scowl on her face.
“I’m not coming back,” she declared, lifting the bottle to her lips.
“One step at a time,” Lucy said. “Let’s get out of here, talk, clear our heads.” She plucked the bottle out of Fawn’s two-handed grip. Surprised it was half empty, Lucy took a closer look at her friend’s face. “I was gone five minutes.”
“I’m in mourning.” She reached out for the bottle.
Lucy marched into the bathroom and poured it down the sink. “You need to stay clear-headed. Figure this out rationally.”
Fawn burst in behind her and grabbed her arm. “That was two hundred dollars’ worth!”
“Just saving it the trip through your kidneys,” Lucy said. “Come on, Betty’s new girlfriend is giving us a ride to the coast. Mendocino’s not far.”
“I want to go home.”
“We’ll talk about it.”
They dragged Fawn’s luggage outside just as Betty and the yoga instructor were driving up in a golf cart.
Jaynette was much younger than Lucy expected, a pretty, wide-eyed blonde with a delicate steel nose ring. For all her cynical remarks, Betty looked dopey and pleased to be back with her new squeeze. She jumped out to help load up Fawn’s luggage.
There was too much. “We’re going to need a bigger boat,” Betty said, eyeing the pile of suitcases.
Jaynette pulled out a walkie-talkie. “I’ll call Shawn. He owes me a favor.”
Sure enough, in two minutes the staffer purred up in another cart. When he saw who needed the ride, and all the suitcases at her feet, he hesitated.
“Not for us to meddle, Shawn,” Jaynette said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
With a nod, he jumped out and loaded up the rest of Fawn’s luggage. The women got into the cart with Jaynette, and they puttered off to the Greeting Lot in silence.
Except for Fawn. She was coping with her grief by indulging in drunken revelry. “It’s just like Thelma and Louise,” she yelled, grinning.
“Good thing she’s not driving,” Jaynette said to Betty.
Jaynette’s car was an early ’90’s Subaru wagon, mostly red except for a silver hood. The rear bumper was missing. She scurried over and ran around the car to unlock the doors and open the trunk.
“Nice key action,” Betty said to Jaynette. “Very retro.”
“It gets me where I want to go,” Jaynette replied, wiggling the keys at her, giving her a suggestive look.
Betty grinned. “Smart woman. Excellent priorities.”
While Shawn loaded up the bags, Lucy noticed Fawn was frozen in place, biting her lip, staring behind them into the darkness.
“We’re just going to Mendocino,” Lucy said. “You can come back tonight if you want to. Or tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t be able to come back. Not after this.” She wiped away a tear. “I am such an idiot.”
“Don’t talk that way.” Lucy got her into the old car. Put her seatbelt on for her, pulled her head down to her shoulder. “Though if you throw up on me I’ll never forgive you.”
Fawn sighed, sagging against Lucy, and they drove off through the trees. Hopefully half of Jaynette’s attention would be enough to master the sharp curves of the road, because Betty couldn’t keep her hands off of her. While Fawn cried silently at her shoulder, Betty and Jaynette giggled and stroked one another, obliviously happy with their own moment.
Maybe marriage does ruin everything, Lucy thought. She and Dan had been happy together for years. Unexciting, maybe, but peaceful. It wasn’t until Lucy pressured him to make it official that they began working more, going to bed at different times, eating meals alone.
The car swerved and barely regained the road before an oncoming pickup sped past them. Jaynette squealed, slapping Betty’s hand away, and they continued on their way.
“I’m going to puke now,” Fawn said quietly.
Lucy clutched Jaynette’s shoulder. “Pull over.”
With a squeal of tires in the gravel, the car slid off the road. Lucy fumbled with the door and pulled Fawn out with her, grabbing her before she tried to spill her guts into the oncoming traffic instead of the bushes.
Three miserable minutes later, Fawn crawled back into the car.
“Any water?” Lucy asked the others.
“Cold coffee from this morning?” Jaynette held up her travel mug, but Fawn shook her head.
“We’ll get something in town. But thanks.”
A half hour later, they drove into the picturesque coastal village of Mendocino, a wealthy enclave of B&Bs, jewelry stores, art galleries, restaurants, and boutiques. The sun was sinking down to the Pacific horizon, hazy behind the bank of fog.
Lucy had been texting Krista, and finally a reply came through. “Not good. They’ve gone back to the resort already.” She squeezed Fawn’s knee. “I’m sorry. Her phone was off. Did you want her to get your mom on the line?”
Fawn moaned and put her face in her hands. “I can’t talk to her right now. I’m not sure what I’m doing.”
Lucy addressed the cheerful women in the front seat. “Can we just keep driving for a while?”
“I was headed up to Fort Bragg,” Jaynette said, “but with all the twists and turns on Highway 1, I don’t think your friend is up to it.”
“I’m fine,” Fawn said. “I need a minute to figure out a plan. Please.”
In ten minutes Lucy and Fawn were sliding back and forth along the back seat with each bend in the road. The Pacific, cold and vast and wild, crashed into the rough coast to their left.
“I take it back. I need to get out,” Fawn said.
“There’s a B and B in Pajaro. Nice bar. Popular with the locals,” Jaynette said. “Right up ahead.”
“There’s a vacancy sign,” Betty said as they drove into the lot, fondling Jaynette’s thigh.
“This will do,” Lucy said. “Thanks for the ride.”
The lovebirds didn’t hesitate to dump them at the front door. Within two minutes Fawn and Lucy stood alone with the bags at their feet, eyeing the old Victorian on the cliff, while Jaynette’s Subaru zoomed away. Loud music from a bar on the ocean side drifted across the broken asphalt of the parking lot.
Luckily, Fawn threw up before they got inside.
* * *
Miles sipped his potato soup in the Snowy Egret and thought about white bras and cotton panties, bracing himself to see Alex come in with Lucy on his arm for dinner. On their “date.” Pretending to “like” each other.
Shit.
He’d been waiting for two hours, chewing slowly, eating a series of pale appetizers, plotting his moves. How he would seduce her with his bedroom eyes from afar while Alex bored he
r to death. He wore the shirt his ex had said made him look handsome, and he kept looking down to make sure he hadn’t spilled anything on it.
I’m pathetic.
Just as he was signaling the waitress for a coconut water refill, Huntley burst into the restaurant, his eyes wild. He saw Miles and rushed over. “Have you seen her?”
Miles almost said, I can’t get her out of my mind, then realized he must mean Fawn. “Nope.”
Huntley grabbed a chair and sank into it. “She’s hiding. Can you believe that? Three days before the wedding and she’s hiding.”
“Can’t blame her. She met your parents.”
“Shit.” Huntley buried his face in his hands. “I’m so screwed.”
“Mm-hmmm,” Miles said, mouth full.
“She was kind of upset with me after lunch. We were with my parents at the restaurant, and it wasn’t great but nothing bad really happened, I thought. It was quiet. You know how my mother gets when she’s trying to punish me, kind of cold—”
“Calling your mother ‘kind of cold’ is like calling Fawn ‘kind of pretty.’ She makes a living at it.”
“Yeah, well, so she was kind of extra chilly. But I thought I cheered Fawn up afterward. You know, the hot tub and the wet bar, girl stuff—”
Miles nodded grimly, remembering Lucy’s girl stuff.
“But then she starts crying, right after the good parts, and I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ I figure it’s just stress and… you know, it was a long day and I’d just gotten off. I must have dozed a little.”
“So, she was upset and crying, naked in bed with you, and you fell asleep.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Huntley cried. “Okay, but I didn’t mean to. And she took it personally, like I meant to hurt her intentionally, because when she woke me up later she was totally pissed. I was in the middle of this nice dream—about her!—and I realize she’s talking to me about leaving or something, and before I’m totally awake, she’s gone.”
“You couldn’t find her at her cabin?”
“I wasn’t going to just run after her. I was practically asleep! And kind of pissed, too, that she would just start a fight while I was sleeping. It wasn’t really fair.”
Miles pinched the bridge of his nose, headache at war with laughter. “Dude, you’re fucked. When did you go and look for her?”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now.”
“Gone?”
“Gone. Cabin’s empty.”
“I thought you said she was hiding, like in the sauna or something.”
“You think I’d be this freaked out if she was still here at the resort?” Huntley helped himself to Miles’s glass, took a mouthful. “She packed up. Clothes, bags, everything—cabin’s empty.”
“Empty?” Miles felt his stomach drop. “How about Lucy?”
“Oh, her clothes are still there.” Huntley rolled his baby blue eyes. “But she’s not. I assume she’s with Fawn. Probably was jealous of her all along, getting married and being the pretty one and everything.”
“Excuse me?”
Huntley drew back, apparently surprised by his tone. A sheepish look came over his face. “Fawn told me she got dumped by her own fiancé. Maybe she’s bitter.” He caught Miles’s eye. “You know all about that.”
“Lucy’s been a hell of a lot more loyal than you have.” Miles shoved a crusty piece of sourdough baguette in his mouth. “And she’s prettier, too.”
Huntley stared. “Interesting.”
“You want to blame somebody, blame yourself. Even your parents are just trying to look out for you.” Miles looked at his watch. Lucy didn’t have a car and it was too late to rent one, even in Fort Bragg. And since it was unlikely anyone would drive her all the way back to the Bay Area, she couldn’t have gotten far unless— “Are her other friends still here? Krista and the one with green hair?”
“Krista took Fawn’s mother to Mendocino for shopping and chow hours ago.”
“So Fawn might have tried to meet up with them?”
Face lighting up, Huntley popped back up to his feet. “Of course!” He pulled out his cell. “I have to give some story to my parents before they suspect anything. I’ll meet you—”
“Find her yourself. Show her you’re serious.” Frowning at the glass Huntley had stolen, Miles dumped his napkin on the table.
“Serious? Would I be going through all of this with my parents if I weren’t? I’m going to marry her!”
“If she’ll have you. Your parents showed her how they felt about her, which wasn’t good. You didn’t say anything.”
“They just don’t know her yet. And this isn’t going to help.” Huntley shook his head. “I’ll book them for a mud treatment in the morning, just in case. That’ll buy me a few more hours.”
Miles got up from the table and nodded his thanks to the waiter. Grateful for the two hours of service and the free food, he left a twenty for a tip before following his pathetic friend out of the restaurant. “You worry too much about what they think and not enough about what Fawn thinks,” Miles said. “And she noticed.”
But Huntley, already sucking up to his parents on the other line, wasn’t listening.
Miles walked back to his cabin with the annoying realization that he was going to help him out because he didn’t want to risk letting Lucy get away just yet.
* * *
In the end, they decided to search for them separately—Miles on his bike and Huntley in a car, splitting up at the coast to search a wider area. B&Bs and restaurants littered the rocky coastline along Highway 1, and Miles was pessimistic that they would be able to find them without more information.
Miles went to Fort Bragg, a real city with more services, not just a gourmet ghetto for tourists, but he didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to be looking for. Krista drove an old Subaru, they’d learned. That would stick out about as well as a Ford pickup. Or a blue Prius.
Miles wondered what Lucy drove. Something black, he bet. Small and black—a VW or a Japanese hatchback, nothing expensive, something practical. Something he wouldn’t fit in.
He wanted her. He wanted to find her, wanted to hold her.
Damn it.
Why didn’t Huntley ask Alex to go look for them? They could have turned it into a nice little four-way.
Alex. Miles didn’t blame her for holding out for her dream guy, the one sticking out his ankle for the ball and chain with a smile, but Alex was not the one. She knew that. She had to know that.
Huntley reached him on his cell when he was getting gas. “Score!” Huntley cried into his ear. “Pajaro!”
“You found them?”
“I found their ride. A yoga instructor at the spa called in with the manager. With Fawn’s friend with the green hair,” Miles said. “They’re in Pajaro!”
“Where the fuck is that?”
As it happened, it was just a few miles south from where Miles was getting gas, a tiny town with a B&B and a view and not much else. Miles followed Huntley’s directions and parked in front of the run-down Victorian hugging the cliff, wondering if he should wait for Huntley.
Nah.
Chapter 15
HE WOULDN’T TOUCH HER AGAIN. She’d have to come to him this time. If he backed off, she’d face the reality of Alex’s utter unattractiveness just in time to find Miles there ready to console her.
He heard a happy crowd—big for a Wednesday—coming from the large bar on the ocean side of the building and wondered what game was on. He’d been in other bars like it up here, local hot spots, usually filled with fishermen and service workers on their nights off, and it did sound busy. Shouting and laughter, loud music, women squealing. Not the kind of place he’d expect to appeal to two unlucky-in-love city girls on their own.
There was a game on the big screen over the bar but nobody was watching it. Instead, two dozen burly men and a matching set of burly women stared at a short, bright-eyed, very loud redhead perched on top of the bar belting out a song and slapping
something metal against her knee. Spoons, Miles realized. Sitting next to her on the bar, a very tall, lanky blonde was refilling a pint glass from the tap herself while the bartender grinned and clapped his hands to the beat. The beat of the spoons, which Lucy slapped like a horse’s gallop along her thigh.
Nobody spared Miles a glance. He froze, too surprised to move, and tried to absorb what he was seeing. And hearing.
“Come on, Lucy,” a woman’s voice yelled out. “Sing that Irish one again. The one that made Jake cry!”
Lucy shook her head, making her bright curls bounce, and sang something folksy about “ain’t a gonna be feelin’ that way no more.” Fawn held out the refilled pint glass to her, and Lucy bent over to give the spoons one last, frenzied flourish before tossing them aside and grabbing the beer. The crowd broke out into applause. Lucy laughed, stood up on the bar, and bowed, beer foam on her upper lip.
A brown-haired guy in an orange Giants sweatshirt tugged on her leg, no doubt annoyed to have her feet near his plate of fries, but when she climbed down, he hooked an arm around her waist and hauled her into his lap.
Whoa there, buddy. Lucy was obviously too drunk to fight him off. Maybe she didn’t even realize why her bar stool had gotten so well-padded.
The thought that the stool might not be so soft made Miles push away from the doorway and stride over through the crowd to the bar. “Lucy,” he said loudly. “I’ve been looking for you.”
The guy frowned at him and looked down at Lucy. “You know this dude?”
Lucy gave Miles a slow, sultry once-over. “Coulda shoulda didn’t,” she said, then threw her head back and laughed.
Miles put a hand on the chair-guy’s shoulder and nodded darkly at Lucy. “She’s drunk.”
He gave Miles a look that said no shit and put a second arm around her, grinning. Then he dipped his nose into the mop of curls on top of her head and visibly inhaled, an intimate act that made Miles want to reach over and stab one spoon up each hairy, trespassing nostril.
“Hi, Miles!” Fawn waved and jumped down from the bar onto the floor, her eyes darting over his shoulder to the door.
He should have waited for Huntley, let him make the big heroic gesture, but he wasn’t thinking about other people’s happy endings right then. He leaned closer to the Giants guy, tightened his grip on his shoulder. “Get your hands off of her.”
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