Love Finds You in Carmel by-the-Sea, California

by Sandra D. Bricker

  “Casa de Me.”

  “Does this mean you’re cooking for me?”

  “If you think you can handle it.”

  Never one to back down from a challenge, Annie rolled up the window and got out of the car. Nick gave her a satisfied nod and led the way up the brick walk.

  Beyond the arch, a beautiful fountain built from blue-and-yellow porcelain tiles and graced by cascading green plants ushered them toward the house. The simple front door, made of weathered planks of wood, displayed an iron knob and ornate brackets.

  “How long have you lived here?” she asked him as they stepped inside. “It’s really beautiful.”

  “About two years now,” he told her. “It’s a work in progress.”

  He tossed his keys to a Moroccan mosaic console table in the foyer leading into a warm living room with light cinnamon walls. A dark hunter green leather sofa and chairs with copper studs provided inviting contrast. The broken ceramic tiles across the top of the coffee table seemed a perfect match to the flawless, shiny ones bordering the fireplace. Framed photographs congregated in natural groupings along the mantel and on tabletops.

  “Nick, this is really nice. Did you do it yourself?”

  “Everything from the fireplace to the windows to the hardwood floors,” he stated matter-of-factly, leaning against the doorjamb leading to the dining room. “It went from a weekend hobby to my life’s work in no time at all.”

  “The efforts have paid off.”

  “Come on into the kitchen. I’ll pour you a drink and you can keep me company while I cook.”

  He paused in the dining room to flick a switch on the massive stereo system, and soft strains of Spanish guitar seemed to whisper from every corner. Three chairs arranged in a neat row cordoned off a section of broken wall and a large plastic curtain.

  “Like I said,” he told her with a wave of his hand in the direction of the curtain, “a work in progress.”

  Nick produced a glass pitcher from the refrigerator and poured a fruity-looking concoction into large glasses.

  “Nonalcoholic sangria,” he told her as he sliced an orange and tossed the pieces into the glasses. “You’ll love it.”

  Annie took a sip and acknowledged with a nod that he was right.

  “Too sweet?”

  “No. Perfect.”

  “And caffeine-free.”

  Annie poked her tongue out at him playfully.

  The front door opened and voices carried through the house, one of them oddly familiar, striking a chord in Annie.

  “Hey, Annie!”

  Looking up, only mildly aware that she must have looked like she’d just seen something resurrected, she said, “Evan. What are you doing here?”

  “He’s with me,” Jenny said as she stepped up to the island and took a drink from Nick’s glass. “Are you cooking tonight, big brother?”

  “I thought I might. Want to join us?”

  Jenny turned toward Evan, and he shrugged in agreement. “If it’s all right with Annie.”

  “Of course,” she managed, just coming to the realization that the shocked expression on her faced needed to be tamed.

  “I’m gonna show Evan how the pool is coming along,” Jenny declared, and the two of them left the kitchen, hand in hand.

  “I take it from the deer-in-headlights look on your face,” Nick remarked, “that you had no idea your boyfriend was dating my sister?”

  “Uh, no. No idea at all.” Annie chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “I mean, Evan’s not my boyfriend. He—he can date whomever he chooses. I was just a little…surprised…to see them together. That’s all. I didn’t know they…I mean, I’m just a little taken back because…well, how long has this been going on?”

  “They’ve been pretty much inseparable since that night we all met up at the movies last week,” he told her, using tongs to flip the steaks now sizzling atop the gas grill top in the center of the island.

  She watched mindlessly as he placed long, thin slices of yellow squash, zucchini, red peppers, and onions into tight foil packets and placed them around the outer edge.

  “Do you like corn on the cob?”

  “Hmm? Yes.”

  The rest of the preparation process became a blur as Annie went over that night at the movies in arduous detail inside her mind. She recalled the way Evan had looked at Jenny, especially once it was revealed that she was not in fact Nick’s date at all, but his sister. And then the way she had sized him up in response.

  The twosome had discussed movies and music, books and art. They’d even touched lightly on politics, as Annie recalled. And while Nick drank his coffee and she had her hot chocolate, Evan and Jenny had shared identical cups of cappuccino lightly dusted with cinnamon—and two refills.

  The oddest feeling pinched her ribs as the memories bounced around in her aching head.

  This feels a little like— Am I…jealous?

  Jealous over Evan? She couldn’t be.

  Am I?

  Evan and Annie had been over for a very long time. Oh sure, there had been a season long, long ago when she’d entertained visions of a future for them. But so much raging river had passed beneath the bridge since then—so many disappointments and stumbles and obstacles—that the water had gone all the way out to the bay, emptied deep into the ocean, and been obliterated from sight.

  So why is my stomach churning at the thought of Evan with another woman?

  And what about that throbbing in her temple? The sweat on her palms? She felt like—

  Oh good grief. A woman scorned.

  Annie knew she shouldn’t be feeling like she’d just caught her boyfriend in the act of cheating. In fact, “Evan” and “boyfriend” had no place in the same sentence! The time he spent with Jenny had absolutely nothing to do with Annie.

  And yet—

  Annie squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. When she realized Nick had been speaking to her for she didn’t know how long, she opened her eyes and squinted them again.

  “How do you like your steak? Medium rare okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Nick and Annie sat side by side at the table with Evan and Jenny facing them, Annie flinching inwardly as the new couple recounted their versions of Adventures in Dating. Watching the two of them together made Annie want to brush her teeth, and she wondered if sweet little Jenny could honestly be this sweet. Or if anyone could, really.

  “Evan packed us a lunch and we went over to Monastery Beach for a picnic. You know that spot where the shore curves and that bluff of rocks juts out into the water?” Nick nodded before she continued. “We watched the children playing and walked barefoot in the sand, and he put flowers in my hair. We just had the best time!”

  Oh. Come. On. Flowers in her hair? Really, Evan?

  Annie didn’t like the version of herself that arose just then, the bitter and mean version, jealous of something making one of her best friends deliriously happy, possibly for the first time in his life. How could she actually be thinking, Evan never put flowers in my hair while his eyes blazed with adoration for the auburn beauty seated next to him?

  Annie plunked a bite of steak into her mouth and set the fork down on her plate. As Jenny and Evan’s eyes met one more time, they reminded her of a pair of carefully folded cashmere gloves, completely bound up in one another. And despite her best reasoning against it, her ridiculous heart felt as if it might just break right in two.

  Annie couldn’t sleep that night.

  Sherman, however, did not have that problem, and his snoring irritated her. She pulled on a pair of socks, padded downstairs to the kitchen, and flipped on the light over the sink. She knew that caffeine would be a huge mistake at this juncture, and she congratulated herself for thinking clearly enough to realize it.

  She poured herself a glass of cold water and hiked herself up onto the counter to drink it while she mulled over the dinner at Nick’s. Absurdly, she found herself wishing she had one of those raspberry juices from the fridge
at work.

  Annie’s mom had given her the clock that hung on her kitchen wall, a beagle puppy whose little paws swung as time ticked by. Her mother had said it reminded her of Sherman when, of course, the dog-clock looked nothing like him at all except for the coloring. But for some reason, Gram liked the friendly way the strange little beagle showed her the time. She’d suggested hanging him on the kitchen wall over the back door, just where he used to hang in Annie’s Monterey apartment.

  Dog-clock told her it was nearly 11:00 p.m., but she dialed the phone anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Is it too late to call?”

  “Annie, what’s wrong?”

  “I need to talk.”

  “But you’re okay.”

  “Yes. I’m okay.”

  “Let me go out to the other room and call you back.”

  Mateo would be getting up in a few hours to go to the warehouse, and Zoey didn’t want to wake him. Annie wished she’d thought of that.

  “I’m sorry,” she told her, after answering in the middle of the first ring.

  “It’s fine. He didn’t even budge. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “Okay.”

  Annie started at the beginning, how Evan had told her that Nick’s date was so beautiful and that he was really taken with her, and then how they’d run into them at the theater and discovered she wasn’t his date at all, just Nick’s sister. She recounted the way they’d gravitated to one another, how they didn’t seem to run short on things to talk about, how Evan had looked at Jenny in a way that Annie had never seen him look at anyone before, including her. She moved on, filling Zoey in on dinner, from picnics to flowers in the hair to the perfect fit they seemed to make, leaving nothing out.

  “That is so great for Evan,” Zoey said, when Annie wound down to silence.

  “I know.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And why is it bothering you so much?”

  “I was hoping you could help me get a handle on that very question.”

  “Ah.”

  “Evan deserves a little happiness, Zo. He’s great, and so is Jenny. So why am I feeling like the angry, rejected girlfriend?”

  “For the same reason you found it so difficult to be happy for Linda and Ted, Annie. You feel challenged by it. Evan’s always been your sure thing. If you needed a date, he was there. If you wanted to watch a movie, Evan was your guy. You each provided something very secure for the other, but now he’s not going to be your beck-and-call boy any more. Someone else has his attention.”

  She mulled that over for nearly a minute, hating the realization that landed on her.

  “I am a really terrible person.”

  Zoey chuckled. “You are not a terrible person. You are a human person.”

  “I’m not terrible?”

  “No,” she reassured her. “What would make you a terrible person is if you didn’t come to terms with those feelings and see them for what they are so that you can overcome them.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can,” Zoey replied with confidence.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know you. And I know that you are not the type of person to try to hang on to someone like Evan simply because you don’t have someone of your own. And I also know that you are too kindhearted and too good of a friend not to encourage the joy that Evan and Jenny have found in each other. A joy, by the way, that has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”

  I hate when she does that.

  “I do have one question, though,” she added. “What was Nick doing while you were reacting to Evan’s newfound relationship?”

  “I don’t know. Cooking, I guess. Why?”

  “And you don’t think it was the least bit rude to ignore him while indulging in your jealous side?”

  “I…hadn’t really given that much thought.”

  “Maybe you owe him an apology?”

  Annie bit her lip. “Maybe I do.”

  Nick grew irritated. He couldn’t rein in the focus necessary for the speed bag. Pulling the boxing glove from his right hand, he smoothed down the wrap before replacing the glove and moving on to the heavy bag behind him.

  Jab—jab—cross.

  This is more like it.

  Nick lit into that bag with a vengeance. It wasn’t Evan’s face on the front of the bag; he couldn’t exactly blame Evan for what he felt. And it wouldn’t be right to place Annie’s cute little wrinkled nose and sweet, fragile jaw in the path of an uppercut; he only entertained the notion for about a millisecond. But Nick needed a target for all his misplaced anger, and for the moment, the worn-out punching bag hanging in the station’s workout room wore the bull’s eye.

  He threw the power of his entire body into several right crosses until the bag began to shimmy and Nick’s knuckles ached, even beneath the padding protecting his hands.

  “Yo, Bench,” Thorton called out as he plunked down on the rowing machine across the room. “A little less rage, a little more focus, bud. Or are you trying to put yourself out of commission?”

  Nick ignored him.

  Linking his punches with combinations, he moved around the bag, throwing fast jabs and following with powerful crosses. One final thrust, accompanied by a booming groan, sent the heavy bag flying.

  Nick had been out of the office all morning, and that afternoon he seemed unusually somber. It took over an hour for Annie to screw up her courage to do it, but she finally stepped into the doorway of Deke’s office and waited for Nick to notice her there. It felt like another hour before he did.

  “What’s up?” he asked, before returning his attention to the computer screen before him.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure.”

  He busied himself at the keyboard as Annie sat down and began to fidget.

  “So talk.”

  “Well,” she managed, staring at the floor around her feet, “I feel like maybe we need to talk about what happened the other night.”

  “What happened? What night?”

  “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

  “Not in the least.” He only looked up at her for a second or two, but those seconds were heavy with meaning.

  Well, he’s honest anyway.

  “I think I was a bit…rude when you invited me to your house for dinner.”

  “Do you?”

  He didn’t look up this time.

  “Yes. I do.”

  Nick closed the laptop before him and leaned back into the leather chair, crossing his arms over his chest and regarding her with such intensity that she suddenly wished he’d go back to ignoring her.

  “The thing is—I was a little stunned when Evan came in with Jenny. I had no idea they were seeing each other, and it just took me completely by surprise.”

  “And this inspired your behavior how again?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, if you want to know the truth,” she admitted with a weak smile. “Evan and I had a rocky time of it when we were dating, if what we were doing could even be called that. Anyway, we’ve struggled a little in moving forward, and our relationship just isn’t quite…defined.”

  “Let’s cut away the fat, Annie. You were jealous.”

  She paused, biting her lip. “I was jealous,” she said with a nod. “Even though it makes no sense at all.”

  “You were holding out hope for something more to come of your friendship with Evan?”

  “No. At least I didn’t think I was.”

  “And now that you’ve had time to mull it over,” he stated, “what do you think now?”

  “I think Evan and I were never meant to be anything more than friends. I think I spent a long time hoping for something more because we seemed so well-suited to one another,” she told him. Swallowing hard, she added, “And when he couldn’t seem to take that leap forward with me, I blamed it on his inabi
lity to commit.”

  Nick’s face seemed to soften slightly. Or at least Annie imagined that it did.

  “The truth is,” she added with reluctance, “he just wasn’t able to commit to me.”

  Nick fumbled with a pen for a moment or two before he lifted his eyes toward her. “I don’t think the two of you are really so well-suited to each other, Annie.”

  “No?”

  “No. There’s no spark. And whatever there is that’s going to ultimately follow, doesn’t it have to start with a spark?”

  Annie thought that over for a moment as Nick got up and rounded the desk. Sitting on the edge of it right in front of her, he leaned forward and looked down into her eyes so deeply that she felt his gaze practically gouge her in the pit of her stomach.

  “You and I, Annie Gray—now, we’ve got sparks.”

  Truer words were never uttered. But do we have anything to reach for beyond that?

  When she looked up and met his gaze again, for just one moment, Annie thought how wonderful it would be to just lean into it, to just let Nick kiss her.

  “You’re entitled to your feelings, whatever they are, about Evan and my sister,” Nick said, rising from the edge of the desk. “No apology is needed for reacting in whatever way your heart led you.”

  Nick returned to his chair and opened the laptop. “Was there anything else?” he asked her.

  “N–no. That was it.”

  “Okay, then. Do you want to work on completing this week’s updates so we can report to Deke? I spent an hour with him over at the house this morning, and I don’t think we have much more time before he starts poking his nose in to see what we’ve been doing.”

  “Sure. I’ll get my notes.”

  “Bring the Riley case file too, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I’ll get you, my pretty.

  And your little dog, too.”

  Margaret Hamilton, The Wizard of Oz, 1939

  After a solid hour of updating the week’s activity file, Annie looked on as Nick popped to his feet and slipped into the jacket he’d left hanging on the back of the door.