Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3)

  “These were in that creepy old house?” She blinked as what Ari said hit her. “Wait. You were in that house? With my brother? When?” With each question, her voice rose with disbelief and interest.

  “Last night, after the wedding.”

  Green eyes grew wide with surprise. “Spill the beans, baby, and I don’t mean coffee.”

  As Ari made two cups of Nantucket Blend in her Keurig, she told Gussie what had happened the night before. Mostly. She didn’t mention meeting Luke on the hill earlier in the day, or that Luke was the man she’d meant yesterday when she’d told Gussie she’d met The One.

  Because Gussie would be all over that.

  Gussie curled into an oversized chair, holding her mug, rapt, while Ari finished the story and pointed out a few of the most amazing tools, such as the tapered bone-colored shell so sharp that it had to have been used as a needle.

  “Isn’t it amazing?” she asked, holding the instrument up gingerly.

  But Gussie was looking at Ari, not the needle. “So you basically want to stop his whole entire project because of these…things?”

  Ari closed her eyes. “Surely you can understand the historical significance of these things. Whole museums are built to house these things.”

  “Cool. So give your shells to the Smithsonian, let them name the exhibit after you, and then let Luke do his job.”

  “The hill could be a burial mound, Gussie. Weren’t you listening?”

  “Yeah, but there has to be a way around that. Maybe Cutter Valentine will agree to leave the hill as is and put the house somewhere else so his view isn’t blocked. There has to be another solution rather than Luke losing this job.” Her voice was tight in defense of her brother, and Ari understood that, but this was bigger than one guy’s building assignment.

  “The whole place should be sacred and untouched,” she said. “It’s hugely significant in the history of the Calusa tribe.”

  “You’re not a Calusa.”

  “No, but there is Native American blood in my veins, Gussie. I appreciate that you don’t understand the meaning of that, but you have to trust me, it matters. My grandmother…” She shook her head to fight the emotion. “This…things like this”—she gestured toward the table of tools—“were her whole reason for living. Her own children stopped caring about their heritage, but I can’t do that. I know it mattered to her, so it matters to me. I have to do everything I can to preserve and protect this land.”

  Gussie put the cup down on the table with a resounding knock, leaning forward. “Ari, listen. Obviously, the land should be checked before plowing it, but if Luke says that’s been done and whoever is supposed to sign off has signed off, then you shouldn’t get in the way of his project. If none of that stuff has happened, then you have to trust Luke to do the right thing, along with whatever government agency is involved.”

  Ari puffed a breath, pushing up to walk around her array of treasures. “The United States government hasn’t always been a friend to Native Americans.”

  “Yes, but Luke can be trusted. Look, I know that your history and bloodline were a huge cause for your grandma, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t do the right thing, but if the building project gets put on hold, or worse, canned, Luke will most likely move away. There’s no work for him in Mimosa Key.” Gussie’s voice lost all lightness, fading into dead serious. “Then I’d lose him again.”

  “You wouldn’t lose him, Gussie, not now that you’ve found him again. And why couldn’t he just find another job here if he wants to stay?”

  “His contracting license is temporary, and once it’s lost, it’ll be really hard to get another Florida license. That’s just how it works in this state. Believe me, he’s looked into it. Then he’d have to move, and I don’t know where he’d go, but it could very well be back to France where he has a license and a guaranteed income.”

  “What? Why not just get a license here and stay?”

  “It isn’t that easy. You can ask him about it, but it has to do with mountains of rules and regulations in this state, because of the hurricanes and bad contractors who swoop in to make a fast buck.”

  “Luke would never do that.”

  “Of course not, but his license is temporary and for this one job only. If the job stops and he loses the work, I don’t know what he’ll do, but it won’t be in Florida.” Gussie looked stricken, pulling back her honey hair to show the concern on her pixie-like features. “Ari, he’s my brother. I haven’t lived on the same continent with him for fifteen years. I want him in Barefoot Bay. I want him close.”

  “I totally understand that,” Ari agreed. “But couldn’t he do something else?”

  “He was a builder in France, and he says it’s all he knows, though I never expected it would be his career. When we were kids, he wanted to be a cop or an FBI agent, but that…” She sighed. “Didn’t happen.”

  Ari knew the story well enough, and having talked to Luke about what happened after, she understood even more. “If he wants to be in law enforcement, he could go to school to do that now and stay here in Florida.”

  Gussie shook her head. “I suggested that once, and he totally shut me down. I guess he thinks having been in a mercenary army like the Foreign Legion isn’t the kind of thing that impresses the FBI.”

  And he was probably right, since he left the country and “hid” in the Foreign Legion after not having the guts to kill someone for money. The FBI wouldn’t want someone with a questionable background, and Luke had made it sound like that’s what Foreign Legion soldiers all had.

  “But there are lots of other jobs,” Ari said, knowing it sounded weak.

  Gussie narrowed her eyes as she rose. “He has a job, Ari. One he needs and worked hard to get and keeps him right here in Mimosa Key, which is like we won the brother-sister lottery. Do you really want to screw that up for us?”

  She didn’t answer, considering it all. Luke shouldn’t have to jump the career track because of Ari’s crazy ideas. She could see that, but…

  She glanced at the tools on her table.

  There had to be an answer to this. She had to figure it out.

  Gussie reached out and put a hand on Ari’s shoulder. “If he loses this job, I know he’ll have to go back to France. But he won’t be happy. And he won’t be near me.”

  Ari looked at her, seeing the plea and worry in Gussie’s eyes.

  “I didn’t have my brother for fifteen years.” Gussie’s voice was barely a whisper away from cracking. “Please don’t do anything that would take him away from me now.”

  Ari opened her mouth to reply, but shut it again, backing out of her friend’s touch and her imploring gaze.

  Oh, this was complicated.

  Ari went back into the kitchen, ostensibly to get another cup of coffee, but really to get a moment to think this through.

  “Do you like him?” Gussie’s question threw her a little.

  “What? Well, I mean, yeah. He’s…” Meant for me. “Nice.”

  Gussie grunted. “I definitely sensed a spark of something between you two.”

  “Did you?” She tried to sound as casual as possible.

  Gussie didn’t answer, and Ari waited, choosing her coffee flavor. While a cup brewed, she looked over her shoulder to see Gussie standing by the window, admiring her brand new shiny engagement ring. She wasn’t worried about Ari’s—

  “There might be something to that mated-by-destiny thing you talk about,” Gussie said. “I kind of think I fell in love with Tom the moment I saw him in the Super Min.”

  Ari swallowed. “Belief that there is one person meant for you, and that you’ll know them when you find them, is absolutely not love at first sight, Gussie. I don’t think there is such a thing. You were attracted to Tom and went to France and discovered great things about each other. Were you destined for each other? I hope so, since you’re marrying him.”

  Gussie turned from the window. “What does it feel like?”

  Amazing. Terri
fying. Thrilling. Perfect. Treacherous. Wonderful. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  “Didn’t your grandmother tell you how it’s supposed to feel?”

  “Yes, but…I got the impression it’s one of those ‘you’ll know it when you feel it’ things. What does it feel like to love Tom?”

  Gussie smiled and ran a hand through her hair, long, natural, and uncovered. Before Tom, Gussie had worn wigs and slathered on makeup. But as she got to know him, she’d grown more confident and even more beautiful.

  “It feels incredible,” Gussie said. “Like I can’t believe I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him. Like I couldn’t stay this happy because my chest would probably burst open at some point.”

  “Like your heart’s…expanding? To make room for more love?”

  “Yes!” Gussie made a little shriek. “Exactly!”

  “And your hands kind of hurt because you want to—”

  “Touch him so bad.” She laughed again. “Yes.”

  “Numbness, tingling, and slight dizziness?” Ari asked.

  “Like vertigo for days.” Gussie sighed and came a little closer. “Is that what your grandmother said?”

  “More or less.”

  “Did you feel like that when you met my brother?”

  Yes. “I definitely felt something,” she admitted.

  “Enough to”—Gussie tipped her head toward the shells on the counter—“let him do what he has to do to stay?”

  Ari felt her whole body sink a little. “What should I do?”

  Gussie passed her, rinsing her cup in the sink for a long time before she answered. “I think your Grandma Good Bear would tell you to follow your heart.”

  That was the problem. Her heart was torn in two.

  Chapter Eight

  Duane Dissick was late. After all his years in the military, Luke had very little patience for delays of any kind, but the fact that the mason slept in or stopped for coffee gave Luke even more time to walk through the old house in the broad daylight, reliving the events of the night before.

  He’d come out here with Arielle hoping to get to know her better, maybe make out with a pretty girl in the moonlight, and have some fun. Instead, he ended up with hardly a kiss, a mess he didn’t need or want, and a problem that spelled nothing but trouble and delays.

  Unless he ignored her insistence that this was some kind of hallowed ground, accepted the reports that had been done, and embraced the obvious: Her box of rocks was not full of valuable treasures.

  Couldn’t she see that?

  No, not a woman who seemed to see things that weren’t there.

  In the kitchen, he examined the hole they’d left in the pantry again, stepping back to see that his original assessment had been correct: This closet had been added on to the house. He wandered through the other rooms, looking closely at what was clearly a dump that had to be demolished down to the foundation, noting there were no other additions made to the original bungalow.

  So, surely there were no more “secrets” in the walls.

  And what about the hill out there?

  What would he be legally and morally bound to do? Tell Cutter, obviously. Then, according to the research he’d done last night, contact the Division of Historical Resources. Which would wrap them all in miles and months of red tape, and implode Luke’s plans to get a permanent license and start contracting in Florida. If the project ended, or was mercilessly delayed, he’d have to pay back the advance Cutter gave him, and that advance was all he had.

  Luke cared very little about living lean and would, in fact, not give a flying shit about money for the rest of his life, except…he’d promised some. He’d promised a lot. And there was no way he’d renege on that promise. Lives, one particularly precious, depended on him. So, if this project blew up, Luke would have to go back to France, where he had a guaranteed income.

  It wasn’t only him, and he couldn’t forget that.

  He kicked a crushed beer can across the living room floor, the tin sound clanging in the empty hovel. Then he heard the rumbling engine of a big work truck, and walking to the opening that once was a front window, he spied a mud-splattered Toyota Tundra slowly making its way around the property and stopping a few hundred feet from the house, next to Luke’s equally dirty truck.

  After a few seconds, a middle-aged barrel-chested man climbed out of the cab, a thick file folder under one arm, and looked around, obviously searching for Luke.

  “Mr. Dissick?” Luke called as he stepped out to the wood-framed front porch.

  The other man turned, tugged on a faded Florida State baseball cap, and strode toward Luke, mud slushing under his boots.

  “Sorry I’m late, Mr. McBain,” he said, extending his free hand as they met. “I stopped by the county zoning office soon as they opened to get the latest surveys for you.”

  Instantly, Luke adjusted his opinion of the man’s tardiness, shaking his hand. “Great. I thought I had the latest.”

  “I don’t think so.” His broad face, creased from years in the sun, broke into an easy smile. “Hate to say it, but your predecessor wasn’t the world’s greatest on filing paperwork on time.”

  “Paperwork’s the bane of this job,” Luke said, going for humor but probably sounding bitter. He loathed the mountains of paperwork involved in building, but it came with the territory.

  “Still, he sucked at filing anything.”

  “So I don’t have all the surveys and inspections in the files I received?” Damn, that would be a problem.

  “You do now.” He held out a brown Pendaflex folder nearly bursting at the seams. “I figured if you don’t see this now, we’ll never get my crew out here to put up the silt fence and start the grading. And time is money, Mr. McBain, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Call me Luke.” He opened the file folder, immediately looking for the survey that would matter to Arielle. “Core sampling done?” That might be enough to appease her. Maybe.

  “Shells.”

  “Excuse me?” He looked up from the paper he’d just pulled out.

  “The engineer broke two pipes and finally quit because that right there”—he pointed to the hill—“is one big mountain of seashells.”

  Seashells, but not…bodies and bones. A wisp of hope curled through him. He’d done enough Internet research in the wee hours to know shell mounds were common here, and not protected. “A shell mound would be…” The answer to a prayer.

  “A sonuvabitch to level,” Duane said with a humorless laugh. “Probably cost an extra two grand, which is what I told your predecessor and he told me to fu…forget it.” He grinned and lifted his cap bill a little to peer at Luke, as if waiting for the same response. “Mr. Purty had a way with words.”

  “I’ll pay it,” Luke said quickly. “If you can prove to me that entire hill is ground-up seashells and nothing else, I’ll gladly pay you two grand.” Because his troubles would be over.

  “I can’t prove much until we start moving dirt, but the core sampling is what’s been filed as an approved inspection. No need to dig any deeper or look for trouble where there isn’t any.” He tugged a thin blue paper from the file with the name of a geological engineering firm at the top. “That says that starting at about six feet from the top of the grade, it’s solid shell. Not as hard as rock, obviously, but still tough on equipment.”

  “And nothing else? No…bones?”

  Duane looked hard at him for a second, then suddenly burst into a belly laugh. “Scared of the dead Indians, are you?”

  So it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. “I don’t want to start the project only to find out the land is protected and can’t be built on.”

  “Damn, you are a better contractor than Jim Purty was, but, well…” He took off the hat and revealed thinning brown hair and a sweat-dampened brow. “That’s the thing that got his ass fired, just so you know.”

  “He suspected the land is a burial ground?”

  “He let all kin
ds of shit delay the project, and if you want to bring the government in here and a bunch of tomb-raider types who turn this into some kind of ‘dig,’ then knock yourself out, sir, but you’ll be the next general contractor to be fired.”

  “Not if it’s the right thing to do under the law.”

  Duane scowled at him. “Just who is it feeding you this burial-ground crap? You secretly working for the government or something?”

  He considered how much to tell him. “There’s a local woman with ties to the Native American culture, and she seems to think it’s a possibility. All I want to do is make sure it isn’t. Have you run into that around here before?”

  Duane snorted out a breath, clearly taking some time to choose his words correctly. “I don’t know this as a point of fact, since I’ve never met the owner, though I’ve sure watched him play baseball enough, but it’s my understanding your boss or client or whatever you want to call him wants this house built, finished, and ready to move into by February one. Am I right?”

  “Very right.” Luke knew it had been a risk to commit to the tight deadline, but it’s what got him the job.

  “And this is your project, sir,” Duane continued. “If you don’t like what I say, you can easily replace the subs Purty hired with guys who’ll do whatever you like, whenever you like. You’re the GC.”

  Luke nodded, waiting for what he would say next, already knowing he probably wouldn’t like it.

  “But, I’ve been doing grading and masonry in southwest Florida for twenty-some years and a decade up in Maryland before that. There is always someone who wants you to stop for some farfetched reason. Look, I appreciate you wanting to do this right, and you’re correct, but…”

  “But?” Luke asked.

  Duane paused, turning to look at the hill, narrowing his eyes. “There are big environmental protection issues on these islands, no way around some of ’em. Can’t build within fifty feet of the shore, can’t tear down certain kinds of mangroves, and God forbid you accidentally kill a damn gator even though the place is crawling with ’em.” He gave a low laugh. “And the Indians? Well, shit, brother, I know it’s not politically correct, but I can’t imagine you’ll find much land anywhere in this country where Indians haven’t been first. What are we supposed to do? Not build anything at all?”