Barefoot in the Sand (Barefoot Bay)

  Shit. Was Ashley there?

  “You certain about that, Charity?” Slade asked, his voice deeper and more authoritative than when he’d been hitting on Gloria.

  Charity put a hand on her hip, snorting softly. “I’m sure. Those kids are hanging around the same place kids have been gettin’ high since I was a freshman at that school.” She gave him a slow, easy grin, turning her face into a web of creases. “No jokes about what year that was. Get down there now and you’ll find ’em. Got all their stupid flyers up and now they’re doing what kids do.”

  Clay grabbed the plastic bag with soda and chips, nodded to the others, and headed toward the door, mentally flipping through his options. Call Lacey and tell her? But could she get up to the football field in time to get Ashley out of there?

  He slid behind the wheel of his truck, catching Slade and Gloria walking out in his rearview mirror. They talked for a minute, and Slade put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  Take your sweet time getting the phone number, Sheriff Garrison. Clay needed to get Ashley out of there.

  He pulled out of the lot slowly, not wanting to draw Slade’s attention, headed down to the first intersection, and then gunned it to the high school. When he reached the side street that ran along the football field, he parked the truck close enough to make a fast getaway and jogged toward the stands.

  An impromptu party was well underway, about twenty kids messing around, laughing and standing in small groups. The bittersweet aroma of weed, the sound of teenage trouble, the thrum of a small-town summer night all hung under the bleachers that probably shook on Fridays in the fall.

  “Have you seen Ashley Armstrong?” he asked a couple leaning against a post, arms around each other.

  The guy shook his head, but the girl pointed to the other side of the field. “She’s with Tiffany and Matt.”

  He had to hand it to Lacey: Her instincts were right on. He rounded the crowd, ignored the looks, and spotted Ashley standing apart from a few kids.

  “C’mon, you guys,” she said. “I want to hang the rest of these.”

  A skinny boy with a mop of hair threw a lit cigarette on the ground and stepped closer to Ashley, draping a way-too-familiar arm around her. “Chillax, AshPain. We got your stupid flyers up. Now it’s time to party.”

  Ashley shook him off. “I’m serious. We didn’t do half of town.”

  The boy slipped around behind her, sliding his grimy paws around her waist. “Ashley needs a toke, guys.”

  She jerked harder. “No, I don’t, Matt. I need—get off me.”

  Instantly Clay launched forward, his fists already balled. “Hey!” he barked. “Let her go.”

  They all stared at him, and Mop Head let go.

  “What are you doing here?” Ashley asked, color draining from her cheeks.

  When Clay reached her, he resisted the urge to grab her elbow and muscle her away. The smell of pot was strong, but not on her, and she looked clear eyed and straight. Still, they had minutes until the sheriff showed.

  “I’m taking you home. Now.” She opened her mouth to protest, but instead slid an embarrassed look at the boy.

  A girl next to Ashley wobbled a little on too-high platform shoes, long hair in her face, eyes red enough for him to take a guess that this was Tiffany the Troublemaker.

  “You’re dating Ashley’s mom, aren’t you?” she asked. “My mom and her friends were talking about you two.”

  “Want me to call the cops, Ash?” the boy asked. “ ’Cause this guy looks like trouble.”

  “No need to call them,” Clay said quietly, leaning closer to Ashley. “They’re on their way.”

  “Seriously?” The question came from Mop Head.

  “Slade Garrison will be here in one minute.”

  “Is he really?” Ashley asked, her eyes wide with concern.

  “Yes, he is. And you can leave now and I can take you home, or you can call your mom from the police station. Your choice, Ashley.”

  “He’s full of shit, Ash.”

  But she ignored the boy, looking hard at Clay. “ ’Kay. I’ll go.”

  She went with Clay, not even saying good-bye to her friends. At his truck, just as he reached for the passenger-door handle, blue and white flashing lights cut through the darkness, sending the pack of kids scattering.

  “Get in,” Clay ordered, giving her a shove into the passenger seat before jogging around to climb in the driver’s side.

  He turned on the ignition and Ashley stared straight ahead until a loud bang on the truck bed made her jump. “Ashley! Help me get out of here.”

  “It’s Matt,” she said, turning to the back. “My… friend.”

  “Didn’t act like a friend.”

  She gave Clay a pleading look. “Can you take him home?”

  Clay nodded and Ashley opened her door to yell, “Climb in the back, Matt. Hurry!”

  The boy yanked open the back door and slid into the crew cab behind Clay. In the rearview mirror Clay saw fear on the kid’s face, and the first hint of whiskers like a dirty mark over his lip.

  “Thanks, man,” the boy said. “Some prick must have busted us.”

  “You want to ride in the truck, son? Tell me where you live and shut up until we’re there.”

  Nobody spoke while Clay pulled out of the back of the school lot, easily missed by Slade Garrison. Except for giving directions to Matt’s house, Ashley stayed silent until they arrived at a small house in south Mimosa Key, not too far from Lacey’s parents’.

  When Clay pulled into driveway, Matt threw open the back door. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Wait a second.” Clay was out as fast as the kid, blocking him. “I need to tell you something.”

  The boy looked up at him, a whole different kind of scared in his eyes. “What?” He tried for tough, but his voice cracked.

  Clay leaned an inch closer, keeping his fists clenched but careful not to touch the boy. “You ever put a hand on Ashley Armstrong again and you’ll be sorry.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “Seriously sorry.”

  The kid’s protruding Adam’s apple lifted and fell. “I don’t even like her that much.”

  The little bastard. Clay moved one inch closer. “Then leave her alone.”

  “ ’Kay.”

  Clay didn’t move, but Matt finally stepped to the side, giving a final worried look over his shoulder as he bolted into his house. When Clay heard the side door slam, he got back in the truck, braced for a teenage onslaught of fury.

  But Ashley just gnawed on her bottom lip, reminding him very much of Lacey when something troubled her. “What a tool,” she finally murmured.

  “Yep.” He threw the truck into Reverse but kept his foot on the brake, looking at her. “You deserve a whole lot better.”

  “I thought those kids were cool, but they’re not.” She turned to him, her eyes moist. “Are you going to tell my mom?”

  “I have to.”

  “Please, please don’t. She’ll be so disappointed in me.” Her voice cracked and she turned to hide her tears.

  “Did you smoke pot?”

  “No! Honest to God, Clay, I never have. I don’t even want to. I was scared of what they were doing, and I was really kind of glad to see you.”

  The words squeezed his chest, tugging on a heartstring he didn’t even know he had. “And you are never going to hang out with that idiot again, right?”

  She laughed softly. “Right.”

  He picked up the flyers she’d left on the console. “Did you make these?”

  She nodded.

  “How ’bout we hang a few on the way back to your house?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled at him. “Good idea.”

  He parked near the Super Min, and Ashley produced a roll of tape she’d tucked into her pocket. They started on the west end of Center Street, slapping up flyers on every light post and storefront, and even the corner mailbox.

  “Now that’ll get you arrested,” he said
, ripping it off government property.

  She laughed and taped one to the front post on the Fourway Motel sign. “And that’ll get Grace Hartgrave’s panties in a bunch.”

  “Damn straight. How about we put them on every car window?”

  “Love it!” She grabbed more flyers while he lifted windshield wipers.

  “I have to ask you a question, Clay.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You want kids?”

  His hand stilled in the act of lifting the wiper blade on a Honda Civic. “Not really sure yet,” he said slowly, searching her face to determine where she was going with that.

  “ ’Cause, you know, my mom… she should have another baby before she’s too old.”

  Going there. “Maybe she should,” he said. “She’s a darn good mother.”

  She smiled and pushed a hair out of her face, another gesture so like Lacey it kind of caught his heart. “Yeah, I know.”

  They tagged a few more cars. “My dad wants another kid,” she said.

  Of course he did, because he’d been so wonderful with the one he had. Clay just nodded.

  “And, now don’t take this the wrong way, but if you weren’t around making my mom act like, well, all crazy and stuff, then she and my dad would get back together.”

  He came around the front of the last car in the row. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I know it.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, she’s all happy and sings and spends hours getting dressed when she’s going to see you.”

  He almost smiled thinking about that. “What’s wrong with her being happy, Ashley?”

  “Nothing. What’s wrong with her being married to my dad?”

  Everything. “Hey, we’re out of flyers,” he said. “I’ll take you home now.”

  “See?” she said as they walked toward his truck. “You don’t even have an answer for that. ’Cause you know I’m right. You gave me that lecture about Matt. Well, how about taking one of your own? My mom thinks you’re like, in love with her or something.”

  Or something.

  “But all she ever tells me is how my dad is going to leave her, and that’s exactly what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”

  Eventually. Wasn’t he?

  “Isn’t it?” she demanded.

  He took a slow breath and exhaled it through clenched teeth. “We have to build this resort before—”

  “I think she really wants another baby.”

  Did she? They’d never talked about it, but why would they? They’d known each other a few weeks and right now, it was all about sex. But Lacey was a nurturing woman, and young enough to have more kids. “And my dad wants one, too. I really like the idea of a little brother or sister. A bigger, you know, family.”

  He knew.

  “And my dad, I know he hasn’t been the world’s best father, but he had an epi… efipan… a moment of knowing exactly what he should be doing.”

  An epiphany. “I had one of those once.”

  “Yeah? What did you decide to do?”

  To stop trusting in the concept of family. “I, um, struck out on my own in business.”

  “Well, good for you.” She put her hand on the truck’s door handle. “I’m sorry for being such a, you know, opinionated kid. I just want you to know exactly what you’re doing.”

  The problem was, he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Except feeling things for a woman who probably wanted more than he was equipped to give her.

  “Let’s get you home, Ash.”

  “That’s not my home,” she corrected. “But, thanks to you, I might have one soon. A home and a family.”

  Yeah. Well, he could help with only one of those.

  Lacey, Zoe, and Tessa leaned over the coffee table, oohing and awing over the house plans.

  “I just can’t believe he did this for you, Lace,” Tessa said. “Talk about thoughtful.”

  “I know.” Lacey sighed, stroking her hand over the edge of the blueprint. “I was so touched. I just love…” Him. “That he did this.”

  “Finish the sentence the real way,” Zoe said. “You love him.”

  She looked up, feeling warm blood rush to her cheeks. “Is it possible?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Tessa said, putting a hand over Lacey’s. “Only you know in your heart how you feel.”

  “I feel insanely happy when I’m with him. Completely capable and beautiful and sexy and—”

  “Who needs a refill?” David marched in from the kitchen holding a wine bottle but killing the buzz.

  The girls shared a look that said the conversation wasn’t over but would have to wait.

  Misinterpreting the look, David glanced at the bottle. “Unless you want to switch to red because the steak will be ready in a few minutes.”

  Tessa pushed up. “I’ll set the table, then.”

  “I’ll do it,” Lacey said quickly.

  “No, no. You keep decorating your palace. Fox and I have this covered.”

  “Thanks, and I’m fine on wine, David. Zoe?”

  She shook her head, pointing to the master bathroom. “I’d go for a bigger tub, because I’m starting to think you’re going to use it. A lot.”

  David and Tessa disappeared into the kitchen and Lacey dropped her chin on her folded arms. “Yeah,” she said in a dreamy voice. “A tub for two.”

  “Shhh. Listen.” Zoe leaned toward the kitchen, a hand to her ear. “Hear them laughing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you noticed how those two laugh all the time?”

  Lacey scowled. “Tessa and David? She can’t stand him.”

  Zoe lifted a very meaningful brow. “You know the definition of irony?” she asked in a soft whisper.

  “Probably not the way you’re about to describe it.”

  She grinned. “David gets this baby he says he wants from the person who openly longs for one. Tessa.”

  Lacey’s jaw dropped so fast and far she actually knocked her elbows off the edge of the table. “Now that would be…”

  “Ironic.”

  “Impossible. She can barely stand to be in the same room with him and she’s infertile.”

  The ring of Tessa’s laughter floated out from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, that definitely sounds like it’s killing her to be in there with him.” Zoe rocked back on her heels, crossing her arms. “Did you see how she launched into table setting that puts her in the very same tiny kitchen with him and, by the way, for your information, infertility is often a two-way street.”

  “Billy’s girlfriend is pregnant. He’s obviously able to make a baby.”

  Zoe shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the chemistry of two people. They can get pregnant with others, but there’s something wrong with PH balance or whatever.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  “Because I talked to my Aunt Pasha last night and she was reading her beer bubbles.”

  Lacey snorted a soft laugh. “Like tea leaves?”

  “Exactly, only with hops.”

  “Okay, and what did the Budweiser say to the old aunt who thinks she’s psychic?”

  Zoe gave a put upon look. “First of all, she doesn’t think she’s psychic, she’s full-blooded gypsy.” She dragged out the word as if that explained everything. “And second, she’s not that old, somewhere between seventy and eighty; she won’t say. And third, she prefers Blue Moon to Budweiser.”

  Lacey cracked up. “All right, and what did she predict?”

  “She doesn’t predict, she reads the clues.”

  “Zoe.” Lacey was losing patience. “What?”

  Zoe leaned very close to whisper. “She said Tessa’s seed will grow in Barefoot Bay.”

  “And was this before or after you told her Tessa’s moving here to run the gardens for the resort?”

  Zoe just shook her head. “She wasn’t talking about an organic mustard seed, honey.”

  “Okay, and David? Pasha’s never even met David.”

&
nbsp; “Precisely.” Zoe crossed her arms and smirked. “But the Blue Moon bubbles showed the face of a fox.”

  Lacey’s eyes widened. “Are you sure it wasn’t a wolf? Bubble art can be deceptive.”

  “Go ahead, make fun of her.”

  “Nah, it’s too easy. Did you tell her about David?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you tell Tessa?”

  She shook her head. “I’m filing it under one of those things we think is better kept secret.”

  Lacey took a drink from her almost-empty wineglass. “There’s been a lot of those these past few—”

  Headlights swept the driveway and a loud car-door slam pulled her attention and got her to her feet. “Oh, thank God, I bet that’s Ashley. She went to hang her flyers in town with some friends and told me Meagan’s mother would bring her home, but I was starting to—” She stopped cold at the front door, peering through the glass. “That’s Clay’s truck.”

  Why oh why did that send entire lightning bolts of happiness through her body? Because she was falling in love with him. She threw open the door, her smile faltering when Ashley climbed out of the passenger side.

  “Hey, Mom,” she called as Lacey stepped out on the patio to greet them.

  “Hi. How did you two hook up?”

  Clay threw a quick look at Ashley and ambled forward, his hands tucked in his jeans pockets. “I ran into Ashley in town, hanging some flyers, so I gave her a lift.”

  “Oh, good.” She got a better look at Ashley’s face, which was pale, and her expression was kind of worried. “Where’s Meagan?”

  “She, um, didn’t go.”

  Clay reached her and Lacey waited for a quick hug or kiss; she’d gotten used to them over the past few weeks. But he seemed as uptight as Ashley.

  “What’s going on?”Lacey asked.

  “Ashey was…” He gave her daughter another look, obviously opening the conversation for Ashley.

  “Mom, I was with those kids you don’t like and they got in trouble, but Clay knew about it and he got me home. I’m sorry.”

  Lacey didn’t react, having trained for fourteen years not to be her own accusing mother but longing to know the whole story. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Did you get hurt?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. And we did hang the rest of the flyers, so it wasn’t a complete waste of a night.”