Between Us Girls (19 page)

“Jasmyn, dear.” Liv put down her fork. “I think true coincidences occur rarely. Very rarely. I won't say never, but I sometimes wonder.”

Across the small kitchen table, Jasmyn gazed with wide eyes at Liv as if she were some ancient oracle. “Really?”

“Yes. I don't believe in flukes. Things happen for a reason, which by definition means that those things can't be coincidences.”

“Even silly little things?”

“Those can be the best because they're easy to notice. They convey the simple fact that God's attention is on us.”

Sam spooned a glob of casserole onto her plate and clunked the spoon back into the serving dish.
Good grief.
They were talking about God and Jasmyn's newly found luggage that happened to be the same shade of purple as her cottage door. A silly little thing. Was there a point to the conversation?

Sam wound her way through wall-to-wall people seated on the living room floor and made her way to Chad on the window seat in front of the bay window.

He smiled, his mouth full, and pointed at his plate, nodding vigorously in approval.

She sat. “Is it Noah's?”

“Mmm.”

She took a bite. “Mmm. Mm-hmm.” It was Noah's special mix of chicken, black beans, cheese, and his own version of fairy dust that made it scrumptious.

Chad swallowed. “Two thumbs-up for our little Liv clone. She has the hang of this impromptu potluck thing.”

“Jasmyn is a natural.” Sam glanced around at the crowd and saw evidence at how perfectly suited Jasmyn was to her role as assistant manager.

“We really should talk her into staying longer,” Chad said. “As in permanently longer.”

“Good luck with that. I don't see her changing her mind about leaving.”

“Always the positive one.”

Sam ignored his comment.

The group was a noisy bunch, talking, laughing, and eating. It was the first time they had gathered as a group since that awful day at the hospital.

Everyone had come, even Keagan. Even three of Inez and Louis's great-grandkids. Even Beau the handyman.

Jasmyn's cottage still had
temporary
written all over it, but the mishmash of furniture had grown in the past week. Inez had bought a new couch and so her old, good-as-new plaid one had been moved into the living room. Chad never found his card table, but he raided his parents' garage, where they stored unwanted items. Jasmyn now had a kitchen table with four chairs, an end table, and two floor lamps.

Chad said, “I hope this event will boost Liv's spirits. She seems a bit down in the dumps, don't you think?”

Actually, Liv had been a
lot
down in the dumps. “It's the effects of the detox. She hasn't had a latte or glazed donut in weeks.”

“Nah. That would just make her cranky. This is something more. She's not herself. I've never seen her not herself. She hasn't had one cheery word for me since the heart attack.”

They ate in silence for a few moments. Then Sam mentioned the weather. Chad mentioned the surf. Obviously neither of one them wanted to mention how they themselves might be devastated by an Olivia McAlister who did not regularly spout cheery words to them.

Sam and Chad were undoubtedly the two most self-absorbed Casa Detainees.

“Ooh,” Chad whispered. “Empty seat alert.” Without an
excuse me
, he shot across the crowded room and slid onto the floor next to Piper.

Sam rolled her eyes. He was such a puppy dog and so clueless. Piper had once been engaged to a Marine. She was not into clueless puppy dogs.

“Miss Samantha, mind if I sit here?”

Sam looked up to see Beau beside her. “Help yourself.” She scooted sideways. The big guy would need a little more space than what Chad had vacated.

He sat, carefully balancing a plate that held an alpine ridge of food.

Gentle giant
fit Beau Jenner to a tee. His extreme size suggested the opposite of his affable demeanor and soft voice.

Liv had hired him a few months ago when her handyman retired and recommended him. Sam guessed Beau was a little older than herself. She heard that he had played college football, turned down a pro offer, and ran his own business, which—she noted—consisted of him, his truck, his tools, his cell phone, and his hours.

He scooped a peak from his casserole mountain into his mouth and chewed slowly. “Mmm. This is amazing.”

“Noah made it.”

“That makes sense. He's a chef, right?”

“Oh, now and then.” She winced. Beau's civility always made her snarkiness fall flat on her own ears. “I mean, he is a chef, but he's not actually working as a chef. You know, officially. As in a restaurant.”

“Lucky for us.” He winked and forked up some salad foothills. “Else we might not have this tasty dish here.”

She ate, making careful, deliberate movements, yet squirming on the inside. She'd never met anyone like this guy.

First of all, he was the largest man she knew, at least six foot five and two-hundred-and-then-some pounds without an ounce of flab on him. His shoulders were so broad that the first time she saw him standing in a doorway she wondered why he was wearing shoulder pads.

He was smart, no doubt about that. He could fix anything and even teach her about apps on her tablet.

That little iPad session had been a fluke. She'd been in the laundry room, waiting for the dryer to stop, working with her new device, fussing quietly at it. Evidently not quietly enough. He overheard her from
the courtyard, popped inside, and explained the problem like nobody's business.

Definitely a fluke.

Then there was his limited wardrobe. Not that she was into fashion, but he wore one outfit: blue jeans and a distressed-green denim work shirt. Above its left pocket was a small embroidered logo: a hammer in a deeper green shade, and, in red letters,
Fix-It Jenner
. Typically, he wore a matching cap that he would tuck inside his back pocket when, like now, he was indoors. The logo green matched his eyes, the red hinted at the reddish-blond shade of his short wavy hair.

It was, however, his Southern genteel mannerisms that got to her. It was like being tickled by a feather under her nose. Whenever he was near, she itched and twitched and behaved like an absolute oaf.

Naturally, she avoided him whenever possible.

“So.” She took a stab at conversation, speaking to her plate. “I hear you'll be spending more time at the Casa.”

He swallowed. “That's partially true. Between you and me and the fly on the wall, those chores Miss Olivia used to do by herself won't take me near the amount of time they took her.”

Sam bristled. How dare he make light of Liv's needs. “She's very thorough. Details matter to her. It's why the Casa is always in tip-top shape. Everything works and the courtyard looks impeccable. All the time.” She felt his eyes on her and turned to meet his gaze. “I'm just saying…”

“That if I cheat Miss Olivia, you'll nail my hide to a tree.” He smiled and his eyes twinkled.

They actually
twinkled
. Like when sunlight hit a raindrop shimmying on a wide leaf of the tropical tree outside her front door.

“Well, yes. Generally speaking, that's what I'd do.”

He chuckled. “Don't you worry your pretty little head, Miss Samantha. Doing business with Miss Olivia is exactly the same thing as sitting with my Granny Mibs on her front porch, drinking lemonade. It's sheer delight. Even if it weren't, I would never disrespect either one of those ladies.”

“Please don't call me that.”

“Whoops.” He grimaced in an exaggerated way. “I apologize. Sometimes I forget it's the twenty-first century and women don't care for that sort of old-fashioned talk. I don't mean anything by it. Not that I'm saying
your head isn't pretty. Because it is. And it's just the right size, not too small.”

Good grief. Pretty little head? That line had sailed right past her. “I was talking about the ‘Miss' part.”

“The ‘Miss' part?” He smiled crookedly. “Well, I can't promise anything about that. Granny Mibs practically yanked my ear off every time I addressed a lady incorrectly. She made one of those—what do you call it?—indelible impressions. I'll do my best, though, to not give offense. Would ‘ma'am' suit you better?”

Sam blinked a few times and focused on twirling her fork in the casserole. “ ‘Sam' suits me better.”

“All right, then! ‘Miss Sam' it is. You know, Miss Olivia always refers to you as Samantha. That's where I picked it up. I appreciate your clarifying things. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to Miss Jasmyn.” He looked at her, as if waiting for her permission to leave.

“Uh, sure.”

“Enjoy the rest of your evening.” He made his way slowly across the room, slapping high fives with one of the Templeton grandkids, raising a thumb toward Noah, and complimenting Piper on her latest hairdo, which resembled spikes on a light brown porcupine.

Was Beau Jenner for real?

Who knew? Who cared?

Sam sat alone. Again. Or still. Whatever. She doubted anyone else would pick up on any empty seat alert.

Of course not. It was next to Sam, the snob.

She watched Beau sit down in the empty seat beside Jasmyn. She watched their easy exchange, words flowing freely back and forth, punctuated by grins and laughter.

Oh, well. She had work to do.

Thirty-One

“Keagan, I am not getting out of this vehicle.” Liv, seated in the passenger seat of her minivan, crossed her arms. The movement made her chest hurt. The doctor had said it was her imagination. Still, it was there. She felt it. She uncrossed her arms. “I'm not budging.”

Keagan chuckled from the driver's seat. “You know I can outwait you.” He turned off the engine and with that went the heater.

She wanted to protest, but she couldn't summon the energy to do so. Besides, he was right. He could outwait her. Although she wore socks with her slip-on Birkenstock sandals and a jacket, the van was already chilly.

They were parked down at the beach, in a lot nearly empty at this late hour, and faced the night ocean. The inky water mirrored the sky, both full of shimmering pinpricks as if stars had been tossed high and low on two canvases. Far to the right, gentle waves swelled beneath the pier, their whitecaps briefly aglow in light cast from the vapor lamps high above them.

“Liv, you're not old and you're not dying.”

“I am old and, for your information, we're all dying.”

“You get my drift. You always say age is a state of mind. And yours has been focused on that one foot you've stuck inside the grave.”

“What do you expect? I had a heart attack.”

Keagan chuckled again. “
I had a heart attack.
You might want to reconsider that mantra. It's getting redundant.”

The man went for days speaking no more than a dozen words. What was up with the Mr. Magpie routine? “If I get out of the car, will you stop talking?”

“Only one way to find out.” He hopped from the car, hurried around to her door, and opened it.

She let him help her down. The sand-covered pavement crunched under her sandals. She inhaled damp, cool autumn air that carried smoky scents from campfires burning in a handful of rings on the beach.

She sighed. “Look at those stars.”

“Hmm. Let's walk.” He drew her arm through his and led her to the lane marked for pedestrians on the Strand. Its curb paralleled the beach. They turned south, away from the pier.

She suspected he chose the direction on purpose. He knew her first choice was always to walk the pier. Tonight, though, the thought of going up and down its ramp felt beyond her ability. Evidently he did not plan to push her physical limitations.

Just her mental ones.

They walked in silence—blessed silence—at a snail's pace. It wasn't their first nighttime stroll. Years before, soon after his arrival at the Casa, Keagan had spotted her around ten p.m., halfway out on the nineteen-hundred-foot-long pier.

She never again walked the pier late at night by herself. With that peculiar sense of his, he intuited whenever she was ready to go and he showed up, quiet and watchful, either keeping his distance or joining her.

She thought it totally unnecessary. Seaside Village was a safe community, and she could take pretty good care of herself. Her height and listen-up voice commanded attention when she wanted them to.

One time years ago she was in the alley performing her macho routine for three teenage boys who were up to no good. She did not have proof they were up to no good, but one carried a can of spray paint in his back pocket. When she asked them about it, they sassed her. Never one to be afraid to stand her ground or call the police, she was prepared to do both, but the need evaporated.