Barefoot in the Sand (5 page)

Jocelyn settled on the edge of the picnic table. “You want money, you gotta pamper the clients.”

“Clients? I can’t even get the architect I want to agree to come down.”

“You need a spa,” Jocelyn said, ignoring her comment. “I can send half of L.A. here if you offer a lava shell massage.”

“How about gardens?” Tessa rounded the table. “You have to grow your own food.”

“That would be awesome, Tess, but as you can see, we’re a long way from a crop of gourmet greens.”

Tessa waved a little flower she still held. “But you’ve got a live
Ixora
‘Nora Grant,’ which, I guarantee you, is edible when properly cooked, and quite healthy.” She grinned when the other women rolled their eyes. “You’ll be back in bloom before long. I was in Borneo after a rough storm and we had an organic farm up and running by the next growing season.”

“Oh, definitely go homegrown organic,” Jocelyn agreed. “You can totally overcharge for that.”

“I love that you guys are planning the spa treatments and menu items and I don’t even have building plans yet.”

“Lacey.” Tessa squeezed her, pulling her to a stand. “Quit finding a reason to say no to everything.”

Just then Zoe and Ashley came tearing up from the beach, sand flying in the wake of their happy feet. “Ashley hasn’t laughed like that since before the storm.”

“Why do you think we put up with Zoe? She’s comic relief.”

“And she’s managed to stay planted in Flagstaff for, what, three years?” Lacey asked. “That’s some kind of record for our tumbleweed.”

“Her great-aunt Pasha keeps here there, I’ve discovered,” Tessa said. “Or she’d be gone with the next phase of the moon.”

“Are you talking about me?” Zoe accused, breathless from the run. “Because I know when that little coven of yours gathers the topic is, What are we going to do with Zoe?”

“Not this time,” Tessa said smoothly. “The topic is, What are we going to do with Lacey?”

Zoe fanned herself and cupped her hand over her eyes. “Can we discuss it somewhere shady? Preferably with cocktails? It’s hotter here than Arizona and you’ve got a flippin’ beach.”

“It’s Florida in August, Zoe,” Jocelyn said. “That’s why they invented air-conditioning.”

“Which we didn’t have at Nana’s house for almost three weeks,” Ashley told them. “But we do now.”

“Thank God,” Zoe said. “Or I would be at the Ritz with Jocelyn, because I don’t sweat.” She nudged Ashley. “I glisten and glow.”

The banter continued as they walked to the cars, but Lacey held back, her arm still around Tessa. “I didn’t know how much I needed you,” she whispered, her throat suddenly thick with emotion. “Thank you so much for coming, Tess. I know this has been a positively horrific year for you, waiting for the divorce to be final.”

“Not horrific for Billy. He’s got a girlfriend.”

“The bastard.”

“She’s pregnant.”

Lacey froze like ice water had been poured on them. “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

“Would I kid about something like that? Five years
I’ve traipsed around foreign countries to build that organic-farms business with him, growing every seed but the one I wanted.”

“Oh, honey.” Lacey took both of Tessa’s hands.

“He’s all smug, too, like he’s a real man now that he’s finally made a baby.” Her voice cracked a little, like it always did on this subject. “He just texted the other day, and she’s only like three weeks pregnant.”

“I’m so glad you’re here now,” Lacey said.

“It really was Zoe’s idea. But I was on it in a heartbeat.”

“And, miracle of miracles, you got Jocelyn to set foot on Mimosa Key again.”

“Yeah, sort of.” Tessa eyed Jocelyn and shook her head. “Of course you can’t get anything out of her she doesn’t want to give, but one thing is clear: She won’t go south of that road that cuts across the middle of the island.”

Where her dad still lived, Lacey thought. “Hey, she’s here, Tessa. We’ll work around her issues.”

“Like that control freak would give us a chance to do otherwise. And, speaking of issues, have you heard from David lately?”

“Oh, Lord, please. Last I heard he was on an icing expedition in Antarctica or maybe he was trekking in Tibet. I lose track.”

Tessa rolled her eyes as they reached the Jeep. “So he’s still Peter Pan.”

“He sends money and Christmas cards,” Lacey said, the odd urge to defend Ashley’s father and her former boyfriend rising up.

“Hardly enough.”

“Enough for me.”

“Anybody at all in the romance picture?” Tessa asked.

Lacey just snorted. “What picture? I’ve dated the few single men on Mimosa Key and I don’t feel like bar hopping in Fort Myers with a teenage daughter at home.”

“Maybe we can join an online dating service together.”

“Get real, Tess.” Although Lacey had certainly considered it when she’d looked at the calendar and faced facts. She was going to be thirty-seven, and if she were ever to have another baby… No way she’d bring that up with Tessa now.

Thankfully, Jocelyn ended the conversation by waving her phone. “I need to check into the hotel,” she announced. “Client emergency. Why don’t you guys put your bags in Lacey’s car and ride with her? I’ll take the rental.”

Next to her, Lacey could feel Tessa tense for an argument, so Lacey jumped in, unwilling to ruin this perfect reunion. “Do what you need to, Joss. I’m just glad you’ll be close by.”

“Oh my God, Lacey, I was supposed to give you these.” Hanging over the driver’s seat of the Jeep, Zoe held up a few long cylinders. “They better have Hot Surfer Dude’s phone number on them.”

Lacey’s heart hitched as she took the tubes of paper. “What hot surfer dude?”

“Somebody named Clay Walker.”

She almost dropped the rolls. “You saw him?”

“Zoe practically ate him,” Tessa said.

“Like you wouldn’t have taken a bite,” Zoe shot back.

“He was the guy Mom totally dissed on the beach,” Ashley said.

“I didn’t dis him.” Lacey swallowed, the paper sticking to her damp palms. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Zoe said. “He just gave us those to deliver to you and told us to tell you they were from Clay Walker.”

“No,” Jocelyn corrected her. “He said
the
Clay Walker, the sign of a massive ego.”

“He should have an ego, ’cause that dude was smokin’ hot.” Zoe elbowed Ashley. “And kinda nekkid, too. I’d like to take a ride on those shoulders.”

Tessa covered Ashley’s ears. “Nice in front of the kid.”

“I’m fourteen, Aunt Tessa.”

“I don’t give a damn about his shoulders.” Lacey snapped the band holding the papers together so hard it broke. “He came here under false pretenses, probably some kind of impostor who hacks e-mail to get work.”

Zoe choked. “Yeah, there’s a lot of that on the Internet. Like he couldn’t get work as a male pros—model.”

Lacey spread open one of the rolls on the hood of her car. “We’re going to get a lot of con men down here after the storm… so…”
Good God in heaven
. “We should be…”

“We should be what, Mom?”

A slow, prickly chill climbed up her arms, raising the hair on her neck.

“We should be careful,” she whispered, staring at the simple ink sketch that took everything she couldn’t imagine but felt in her heart and brought it to black-and-white life.

“Careful of what, Mom?”

“Jumping to the wrong conclusion.” She stepped back, her hand to her mouth, her breath captured in her lungs, her legs a little wobbly. “Like I just did.”

“Wow.” Jocelyn leaned over her shoulder. “What do you need to do to get him to build that? ’Cause I’m pretty sure Zoe will do it for you.”

“I need…”
An architect with vision
. “A second chance.”

H
ey.” Lacey tapped and pushed open the door to her childhood bedroom to find Ashley curled on the bed over her brand-new laptop. The one that had been deemed a “necessity replacement” days after the storm.

Ashley instantly lowered the screen, looking up with surprisingly bright eyes.

“You okay?” Lacey had to fight the urge to launch forward, arms out, maternal instinct at the ready.

“Fine.” With one finger she gingerly snapped the computer closed, shutting down whatever she’d been doing.

Lacey ran through a list of possibilities. Nine times out of ten, it was teen-girl drama that brought color to Ashley’s cheeks and fire to her eyes.

“You still want to go over to Meagan’s tonight?” Lacey asked, walking that fine line between privacy and parenting. Most of the time privacy won, because if anyone
knew firsthand what a meddlesome mother could do to a teenage girl, it was Lacey.

“Oh, yeah.”

“What’s going on, then?” And sometimes parenting won.

“Nothing, Mom. I’m just Facebooking.” Evidently, that was a verb now.

“Anyone special?”

“No.” She scooted off the bed. “They’re waiting for me at Meagan’s. Can we go now?”

“Absolutely.” Lacey jangled her keys. “Zoe and Tessa and I are going to drop you off and go out to dinner.”

“Not Jocelyn?”

“She wanted to stay at the hotel.”

As Ashley scooped up a turquoise Hollister tote bag—another post-storm necessity—and grabbed a pillow from the bed, she threw a dubious look at Lacey. “Why does she come all the way across the country to see you and hole up at some hotel?”

Good question. “You’ve seen the Ritz in Naples. Hardly ‘some’ hotel.”

“But, Mom, I don’t get it.”

Neither do we, Lacey thought. “You know she grew up here and her mom died a while ago, so she has sad memories of this island.” Before a more elaborate explanation was required, Ashley’s cell phone vibrated and took her attention.

She read, and shrieked. “Oh my freaking Gawd!” Her fingers flew over the screen.

“Ashley, don’t talk like that.”

“Tiffany says Matt’s breaking up with Cami Stanford! It’s totally over!” She clicked more, the text winning over an explanation.

“Tiffany? Tiffany Osborne?” The one who was caught with pot in her locker in eighth grade? “Is she going to be at Meagan’s tonight? I didn’t think they were friends.”

“Maybe I have a chance with Matt now.”

Lacey tensed. “Have I met Matt?

Ashley put away her phone and gave Lacey a look that said it all.
Back off, Mom
. And because her own mother never had, Lacey let the conversation go as they piled into Lacey’s car and headed toward Meagan’s house.

“Would you look at that?” Zoe mused as they cruised through town.

“Look at what?” Lacey asked.

“Interesting,” Zoe said, sliding a look to Tessa that Lacey didn’t quite get.

“What’s interesting?” Lacey pressed.

“Just that little place with the drunk-looking bird on the front. It’s cute. Let’s have dinner there.”

“The Toasted Pelican?” Lacey shook her head. “No way we’re going there. They have sucky bar food. I think we should either go to South of the Border for Mexican or see—”

“I want to go to the Toasted Pelican,” Zoe said. “It looks like fun.”

“It is, if you want to get drunk and meet locals who live, breathe, and sleep fishing.”

“Maybe you’ll meet a nice guy, so I want to go there.”

“Mom doesn’t date, Aunt Zoe,” Ashley told her. “But if you go to South of the Border will you please get me a doggie bag of enchiladas? They rock.”

“Why doesn’t Mom date?” Zoe asked pointedly, turning around in the passenger seat to look at Ashley.

“Because she—”

“Because she isn’t interested in any of the men on this island,” Lacey interjected, watching the yellow light at Center Street, ready to roll through it. “And my nonexistent dating life is not of any interest to my daughter.”

“Mom doesn’t date because she’ll never find a man like my dad.”

Lacey’s foot jammed on the brake in shock, jerking them all forward into their seat belts. “Sorry, the light was…” Her gaze shifted to Ashley in the rearview mirror. “Honey, where on earth did that come from?”