He looked something like a large, toned beach bum.
“What the fu—hell!” she stuttered.
“Yeah, what the hell?” he repeated, brushing at his chest, where her coffee had spattered. “I’m looking for Nick.”
“At this time of the morning?”
“Excuse me, but he told me to come at ‘this time of the morning.’”
The man was definitely aggravated. A friend of Nick’s, huh? She took another step back, frowning as she eyed him. Could be. She’d seen him before. Not all that often. He wasn’t one of the guys who sat around the bar, sharing their lives as they played armchair football during the Sunday games. Quieter. Actually, he had seemed like the brooding, silent type, the few times she had seen him. Dress him up differently and he could be Heathcliff, out walking the moors. When she had noticed him before, he had been sitting. Now she saw that he was tall, six-two or three. He had dark hair, dark eyes, strong features, and he was somewhere in his late twenties to mid-thirties. He had a rough, outdoor-type look to him, but then, most of the people around the marina had that look. Deeply tanned and well muscled—easy to see, since he was wearing cutoffs and his shirt was open, probably just thrown on as a concession to the fact that he was arriving at the private entrance to an eating establishment where shirts and shoes were required by Florida law.
“You should have knocked,” she said, then was aggravated at herself, because she sounded defensive. She lived here, damn it.
“Well, you know, I was about to do just that—before being attacked by flying coffee.”
He was suggesting, of course, that she should be apologizing. No way. She had been, frankly, scared, and that had made her angry. This was her home, and there was no reason in hell why she should have expected a man to be standing there. Not to mention that she was wearing coffee, as well. So no way was she about to apologize.
“Damn!” she said, realizing that half the cookies were a total loss, already attracting sea birds. She stared at him again. “You’ve broken my cookies.”
“I broke your cookies?” he said. She didn’t like his tone at all. Or the way his facial features tightened, more with slough-it-off contempt than with any anger. He was incredulous, as if her cookies couldn’t matter in the least.
Well, they did matter. They were a present. Sharon had left the containers on the counter with a big bow on them, suggesting she have a wonderful weekend.
“My cookies are all over the ground. Good cookies. Home-baked cookies. Cookies that were a present.” She tried to stop herself. She was sounding ridiculous—over cookies. “My keys are somewhere, I’m late, and now I have to change. We don’t open here until eleven—for your future reference. Nick is awake, however. I’ll tell him that you’re here.”
“You forgot something in your assessment of the damage.”
“What?”
“Your coffee just burned my chest. I could sue.”
“I would say your attempt to barge into my home caused me to ruin my own shirt.”
“And your cookies, of course.”
“And my cookies. So go ahead. Sue. You just do that.”
She turned back into the house, intentionally closing the door in his face. “Nick!” she called to her uncle. “Someone to see you.” Beneath her breath, she added, “Major-league, overgrown ass here to see you.”
She didn’t wait to see if Nick responded. In a hurry, she raced through the private quarters that abutted the restaurant to her bedroom, changed quickly and started back out again. Apparently Nick had heard her, because the man was standing in the kitchen now. Nick did seem to know the guy, because they were discussing something over coffee. As she breezed through, they both stopped talking. The dark-haired man watched her, coolly appraising, judging her, she was certain, but as to what his judgment might be, she had no idea, nor did she care. Nick had certainly never required that she—or any of his employees—be nice to people simply because they were customers.
“Ashley…” Nick began.
“Where’s Sharon? Is she up yet? I need to thank her for the cookies,” she said, staring back at the newcomer. She got a better look at him now. Tough guy, strong body, good-looking face, easy, powerful, controlled manner. Probably thought he was God’s gift to the women of the world.
She purposely looked away from him and at her uncle.
“Sharon didn’t stay last night. She was getting ready for some campaign work this morning,” Nick said. “Ashley, if you’ll take a second—”
“Can’t. I’ll hit all the traffic if I wait. Love you.”
Rude, perhaps, but she was in no mood for an introduction and pleasantries.
“Drive carefully,” Nick admonished.
“Absolutely. You know me.” She kissed his cheek. “’Bye. Love you.”
Outside, she retrieved everything that she had dropped, except, of course, the cookies that had spilled and fed a half dozen gulls.
She could hear Nick apologizing to the man on her behalf. “I don’t know what’s with her this morning. Ash is usually the most courteous young woman you’d ever want to meet.”
Sorry, Nick, she thought. She hoped the guy wasn’t a really good friend of his.
She was about fifteen minutes late picking up Karen, which made her about twenty-five minutes late picking up Jan. Yet once they were all in the car, it didn’t seem to matter so much, and the tension and anger she had been feeling ebbed quickly. They were still a good fifteen to twenty minutes ahead of the real start of rush hour. Both Karen and Jan were in terrific moods, delighted that they were heading off on their few days’ vacation together. There had been one container of cookies left, and Jan had happily dived right into them.
“Hey, pass the cookies up here,” Karen said to Jan.
“Excuse me, you got shotgun, I got the cookies,” Jan responded, grinning, then passed the tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies up to Karen in the front seat. Karen offered them first to Ashley, who was driving.
Ashley shook her head. “No, thanks.” Her eyes were on the road. So far they were clipping nicely along I-95. It didn’t seem to matter that they had started out later than intended. Not that much later, she told herself.
“That’s how Ashley stays thin,” Jan noted. “She has the ‘just say no’ thing down pat.”
“It’s because she’s going to be a cop,” Karen said.
Ashley laughed. “It’s because she gorged on them before leaving the house,” she told the two of them. That was true. Before the one container had gone to the birds, she’d eaten a number of them.
“Think they might be dietetic cookies?” Karen asked hopefully.
“No way. Nothing that tastes this good is dietetic,” Jan said with a sigh. “We’ll make it up, though. We’ll check into the hotel, go to the pool, swim like the dickens and walk it all off at the parks.”
“We’ll just eat more junk at the parks,” Jan said woefully. “Boy, Ashley, you just had to bring these cookies, huh?”
“If I hadn’t brought the cookies, we just would have stopped and ordered something really greasy at one of the rest stops,” Ashley assured her. “There should have been more cookies, actually. Enough to last the trip.”
“What happened?”
“I dropped them. Actually, I banged into some guy looking for Nick and they went flying. His fault, not mine.”
“We’re going to have to stop anyway—coffee to go with the cookies,” Karen reminded her. “In fact, I’m stopping here and now. Not one more bite until we get the coffee to go with the cookies.”
“Milk would be good,” Jan said.
“Milk goes with Oreos,” Karen said. “Coffee goes with chocolate chips.”
“I actually had coffee, but then…oh, well,” Ashley murmured.
“You dropped it, too?”
“Yeah, I dropped it.” She grinned at Jan via the mirror. “Actually, I spilled it all over him. And myself. I had to change. That’s why I was so late.”
“Was it a go
od friend of Nick’s?” Jan asked. “Was he ticked?”
“Hey, was he cute, or one of the old salts?” Karen asked.
“I don’t think he’s a good friend, but I’ve seen him around before. I guess he was ticked. But it was his fault.”
“That you spilled coffee on him?” Jan said.
“Well, he was just there—practically in the doorway. Who expects to open their door to a hulking stranger before six in the morning?”
“Well, actually, you should,” Karen pointed out. “All those aging old tars living in the houseboats at the marina know Nick is up early, and they’d rather have your coffee than make their own.”
“So, Ash, you started the morning off by burning an old geezer?” Jan said. “That isn’t like you. Most of the people who frequent that place think you’re the most wonderful little darling in the entire world and that Nick is lucky to have you.”
“I hope you didn’t cause an old guy’s pacemaker to stop,” Karen told her.
“I don’t think this guy has a pacemaker.”
“He wasn’t an old geezer?” Jan said, perking up.
“He was a young asshole,” Ashley told her.
“Hey, you never answered me, if he was cute or not,” Karen said.
Ashley hesitated, frowning slightly. She didn’t pay a ton of attention to everyone who came into Nick’s—she didn’t help out now anywhere near as much as she had done in years past. But she was usually observant. She noticed faces, because she loved to draw. And she usually remembered features very clearly. It seemed strange to her now that she had seen the man before and really not taken that much notice of him.
“I would never describe him as ‘cute,’” she assured Karen.
“Too bad. I was thinking there might be someone hot and new at Nick’s to observe,” Jan said sadly.
Ashley was silent for a minute.
“Hey, she didn’t say that he wasn’t hot,” Karen observed.
“I don’t think he’s the type I’d want to take an interest in,” Ashley said.
“Because he was rude?” Jan asked. “It didn’t sound to me as if you were in the mood to be Miss Manners yourself.”
Ashley shook her head. “I wasn’t rude. All right, yes, I was rude. Maybe I should even have apologized. But I was just in a hurry, and he startled me—even scared me there for a few seconds. He’s just…dark.”
“Dark? Hispanic, Latin, Afro-American?” Karen said, confused.
“No, dark, as in…intense.”
“Ah, intense,” Karen said.
“Well, I mean, he’s dark, too. Dark-haired, dark-eyed. Tanned. Apparently likes boats, or water, or the sun.”
“Um. Sounds sexy. The dark type.”
“Did he have a bod?” Karen demanded.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Maybe I’ll start hanging around Nick’s more,” Karen said.
“Oh, right, like you need to go looking for men,” Jan said.
“Yeah, I do. Who do I meet at a grade school? You’ve got it made, because you stand up in front of hordes of people in great outfits and sing. You’re the one who doesn’t need to go looking for men.”
“Looking is easy. They’re all over. Finding good ones is tough,” Jan said.
“Well, forget Nick’s, then. Don’t all the psychologists say never to look for a date in a bar? You’re supposed to meet them by bowling or something,” Ashley said.
“I hate bowling,” Karen commented.
“Then bowling probably wouldn’t be a great way for you to meet a guy,” Jan observed. “There you have it, how not to date in a nutshell. Put the three of us together, and we can really solve the major problems in the world,” she said ruefully.
“Hey, I solve the problems of six-to ten-year-olds on a daily basis,” Karen reminded her. “I’m responsible for molding the minds and morals of the future voters of a country in need of the best next generation in history. Ashley spends her days learning how to shoot and deal with the scum of the earth. This weekend, I think we should leave the serious stuff behind and worry about the next best serious stuff—our tans and the size of our butts.”
“We won’t set our goals too high,” Jan said. “If we can just find a few strangers who have bathed and are halfway articulate and don’t mind a few minutes on a dance floor, we’ll call it social triumph. I need a cookie.”
“Works for me,” Karen agreed. “But…butt size, huh? I think I have to have one more cookie, too, before the coffee, since it’s going to be at least twenty minutes before we reach the rest stop.”
Ashley noted, with a quick glance at her friend, that Karen delicately bit off a tiny piece of cookie and chewed slowly, savoring every nuance. That, she decided, was how Karen stayed the nearest thing to perfect. She ate everything, but had the art of nibbling down pat. One cookie could last Karen an hour. She was petite, a perfect size two, with huge sky-blue eyes and a sweep of natural, near-platinum hair, testimony to a distant Norse heritage, along with her family name, Ericson. Jan, on the other hand, was dark-haired, dark-eyed, five-nine and as fiery as her Latin surname, Hevia, suggested she might be. Ashley referred to them often by the fairy-tale names they had gained as children: Rose White and Rose Red. She was a green-eyed redhead herself, the coloration courtesy of her mother’s family, the McMartins, since her last name was Montague. Her father’s family had been mainly French, with a little Cherokee or Seminole thrown in, which meant that she had only a small spattering of freckles on her nose and the ability to acquire a fairly decent tan without burning like a beet first. She was the medium between Jan and Karen at five feet six. The two had playfully labeled her the thorn in the roses. The three had been friends since grade school, and had shared dreams, victories and heartaches ever since. This weekend was something they had been looking forward to for a long time, since their adult lives had taken them in very different directions. Karen was teaching and going to school for her master’s degree. Jan was a singer, and though she doubted she was ever going to achieve mega-star status, she didn’t care. She loved singing and songwriting, and her career was beginning to take off nicely, if modestly. She and her accompanist were being booked as an opening act for shows across the country. Ashley was in her third month at the metro police academy, and she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into every class, every subtlety of the law, rights and self-defense that could be learned.
“Think Sharon and your uncle Nick are going to get married?” Jan asked, leaning forward.
Sharon Dupre, the baker of the divine cookies, had been seeing Nick for almost a year now. They were definitely a hot item.
“Maybe. Who knows,” Ashley replied, watching the clock and the road. “Nick is such a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor. He loves his fishing and his restaurant, and I guess, as long as Sharon tolerates his habits, it could happen.”
“Well, Nick is going to have to tolerate Sharon’s weird real estate hours,” Karen said.
“True,” Ashley agreed. “He seems to deal with it all okay. Nick is a live-and-let-live guy.” She knew that well, having grown up with her uncle. She was often sad to realize that she barely remembered her parents. They had been killed in an automobile accident when she had been three. She adored Nick; he had filled the roles of both parents with love and tenderness, and there was nothing she wanted more for him than the laid-back happiness with which he had always lived. Whether that included marriage to Sharon or not was a decision he was going to have to make himself.
“Hey, there’s a great pair of pants in this ad,” Jan said, sitting forward to show the magazine she was reading to Karen. “Think they’d look good on someone with fat thighs?”
“They are great pants,” Karen said.
Jan tapped her on the arm with the magazine in mock anger. “You’re supposed to tell me that I don’t have fat thighs,” she informed her friend.
“Sorry. You don’t have fat thighs. And I think they’d be great on me, too—a little person with a bubble butt.”
“Great pants all around,” Jan said.
“You’re supposed to tell me I don’t have a bubble butt.”
“I’m jealous, considering I’m all thighs and no butt,” Jan said, then switched subjects abruptly. “You should have joined the Coral Gables force, or even South Miami, rather than metro, Ashley. What were you thinking? Coral Gables has some really cute guys. And they’re nice.”
“Yeah, the metro guys can be assholes,” Karen agreed.
Ashley arched a brow, meeting Karen’s gaze. “You just think they’re assholes because you got a mega-ticket from one,” she said. “I wanted to be on the metro force.” Miami-Dade County, also known as the Greater Miami area, was made up of more than two dozen small cities, villages and municipalities. Some had their own large forces, with departments dealing with everything from jaywalking to murder, while others depended on the metropolitan force, which covered the entire county, for their homicide and forensic divisions. She had always wanted to work where she could cover the full scope of the area where she had lived all her life. “There are good officers—and even cute ones on all the forces.”
“And you were whizzing down the highway when you got that ticket,” Jan said. “Oh, look, Ashley is bristling. When she’s in her patrol car after graduation and needs to give out tickets, you’ll have to watch out. All she’ll need to do is park near your house and wait for you to leave the driveway at ninety.”
“I do not speed that badly,” Karen protested. “And look—Ashley is speeding now!”
“She’s going two miles over the limit,” Jan said. “And watch it, or we’ll wind up crawling the whole way to Orlando.”
Even as Jan spoke, Ashley began to press on the brake.
“See,” Jan said.
“No, no, there’s something going on up there,” Ashley said, frowning.
The cars ahead of her were suddenly squealing and braking. Behind her, two cars, in attempting to stop, nearly plowed into the median.
They were almost at the turnpike. The highway was five lanes each way here, with turnpike access just ahead, and the ramp for the east-west expressway also branching off. The early morning traffic, which had been so smooth, was suddenly a mess.