Love at High Tide (3 page)

She blinked at him a couple of times. Coop held his breath, hoping she’d agree to his unorthodox invitation. He couldn’t decide if her eyes were brown with green flecks, or green with golden brown flecks. Either way, it wouldn’t be any kind of a hardship to spend an hour or so trying to nail down the difference.

Candace let out a cheer far more appropriate to a football stadium. “If you’ve got a date, then I just let go of about two tons of worry. We’ll leave you alone. Ooh, take her to Fager’s Island for drinks first. Text me if it goes well. I mean, it will. Of course. You’re still the hottest guy I know.”

“Thanks. A little disturbing to hear that from my sister, but thanks all the same.” He hung up. Darcy still hadn’t given him any hint of yes or no. But she also hadn’t removed his hand from her arm, which he took as a good sign. “Look, I know I put you on the spot.”

“You did, indeed.” She cocked her head to the side and studied him coolly. Made Coop feel like one of those tribe members back in Africa at the center of her dissertation. “Leads me to wonder if you really want a date with me, or just a built-in excuse to ease your sister’s mind.”

Fair enough. And Coop never minded a little hard work toward a worthwhile goal. “Here’s the truth. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met. Talking to you’s as much fun as looking at you. I can’t think of a better way to spend my night than doing both. Right when the phone rang—”

“Which time?” she teased.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I was easing in to asking you out. Scout’s honor.” Coop held up three fingers.

Hazel eyes narrowed. “It only counts if you were really a Boy Scout.”

“You’re in the presence of a certified Eagle Scout.”

Eyebrows arching high, her mouth puckered into an exaggerated circle of awe. “Oh, well, in that case, how could I refuse? I’ve never dated an Eagle Scout. My friend Trina will be very impressed.”

He’d never flashed his Eagle Scout credentials to pick up a woman before. Especially twelve years after the fact. Coop hadn’t realized it mattered, or he would’ve led with that info his entire senior year of high school. Better late than never to score some action off of it. “I really would like to watch the sunset with you.”

“Sounds lovely.”

Sunlight glinted off his waterproof, crushproof, supposedly bulletproof watch into his eyes. He’d bought it as prep for the first day of training. Now it was just an ever-present reminder of a dead dream. Hopefully, Darcy would prove the perfect distraction. And he’d toss the damn watch into a drawer until he could pawn it off on one of his nephews. “Of course, this close to the solstice the sun doesn’t set until till after eight o’clock. Is that too late for you?”

“Summer vacation, remember? I can stay up as late as I want.”

“You’re living on the edge, Darcy. How about 7:30 at Fager’s Island?”

“I’ll meet you there. Despite your sweet sister and adorable niece, you could be some sort of crazed serial killer. Can’t risk telling you where I live until I know more. Safety first.”

“Funny. I kind of live by that mantra, too.” Or at least he had, for the last seventeen weeks. Guess he needed a new mantra, on top of a new life.

“I’ll see you tonight, then.” Now that he’d closed the deal, Coop decided to leave before his phone rang again and she changed her mind.

After loading back up with his sandwich and mini-cooler, Coop hot-footed it to the spot right at the high-tide line he’d claimed at dawn. The upside to his recent string of sleepless nights was that they gave him first crack at prime beach real estate to stake out his towel and chair.

With a sigh, he settled into the low-slung chair, digging his feet into the sand. Getting the date with Darcy was merely the first hurdle. He knew damn well the question he’d so cleverly evaded of what he did for a living would come up again. Probably before their drinks were even served. That was one of the two things Coop took for granted about first dates. The other was that he’d better leave his gun at home. It freaked women out.

Chapter Three

“When you were eighteen, did you fantasize about bald, fat men in their fifties?” Trina asked. Bags of snacks flew onto the towel as she rummaged through the striped beach bag.

“That’s a weird question.” Darcy closed her book. She’d already read the same page three times, distracted by the constant thump of a paddle ball being passed back and forth between three small boys. “Wouldn’t you rather want to know who I fantasize about now?”

The buttery, coconut scent of sunscreen filled the air as Trina sprayed herself from head to toe. “I already do know. It’s pretty obvious you’ve got googly-eyes for the tall blond hunk who saved you this morning.”

Obvious? Darcy didn’t recall writing his name in the sand and surrounding it with a giant heart. She’d also worked quite hard resisting the temptation to snatch up Trina’s binoculars and ogle Coop’s awesome abs. Even though, if she stood up, he was close enough just down past the lifeguard stand that she could see his feet stick out from beneath his umbrella.

Deliberately, she swung her gaze to a pair of pre-teens strutting down the beach. Darcy could tell they were overly proud of their mosquito-bite-sized breasts, as they pulled at their string ties with every step, butts outthrust. Their attempt to act like grown-ups vanished with a whoop when the shorter girl launched into a series of cartwheels to the water’s edge.

“Obvious how?” she asked with a nonchalant head tilt. At least, Darcy was going for nonchalant. Probably just looked like she had a crick in her neck, though.

“When he first left, you rehashed your conversation three times to me. I think I could perform it as a monologue by this point.” Trina flopped back down on her towel, propped up on one elbow. “After he visited at lunch, you didn’t open your book. In Darcy-land, not reading means you’ve either got a sky-high fever, or you’ve got boy fever.”

No point disagreeing when her best friend was so on the money. “You saw Coop. Why wouldn’t I get excited about having dinner with the sexiest man on the beach?”

“You absolutely should. And you should wear my peach, off-the-shoulder sundress. Make his eyes pop all the way out like a cartoon character.”

“The sex appeal sort of vanishes when you describe it like that.”

Trina rubbed her hands together. “Now we’re back on track. Sex appeal. Back in the days when you had no cellulite—”

“Hey, watch it with the cellulite cracks. We’re both twenty-seven, remember?”

“Don’t be so sensitive. I’m making a point. And maybe you should’ve worried a little more about cellulite while you were in Africa.” Trina poked Darcy’s ass at the edge of her bikini. “Would it have killed you to do a little running?”

Right after eating a Thanksgiving dinner, Trina still barely nudged the scale into triple digits. Worse, she seemed oblivious that Darcy stood at least half a foot taller. On the other hand, Darcy loved her friend’s zingy bluntness. She just loved it a little less aimed at her. “From what—a hungry lion? The Tuareg tribal villages don’t have running water. You really think they’ve got a treadmill stashed in a hut?”

Trina waved her hand to dismiss the subject and rolled onto her stomach. “When we were eighteen, a guy’s hotness level depended on three factors: his looks, which teams he lettered in, and if he had a car.”

“Why the walk down the shallows of memory lane?”

“See that guy in the white trunks? The one who looks like he swallowed a toddler whole for lunch?”

Darcy followed the line of Trina’s pointing finger down the beach about two umbrellas, and left three. The first thing she noticed were the thick gold chains around his neck. Then the white paintbrush of a moustache. Combined with the unflattering trunks anchored beneath a belly mound, he looked like a time traveler from the disco era. “It’s safe to say I would not find him attractive at any age. Not just because he’s bald. More a comment on the entire, eye-curdling package.”

“Yeah. He kind of gives me the creeps. Notice anything weird about him?”

“Besides the gold chains and the porn-star moustache?”

Trina poked her in the hip again. That finger was quicker on the draw than Butch Cassidy. “First rule of investigating: you can’t be distracted by the obvious.”

“That’s the first rule? I’d think watch your back, or know self-defense would be up there at the top of the list.” As a visual palate cleanser, Darcy switched her focus to watch a tireless dad on his umpteenth trip from the water’s edge. He’d spent all afternoon lugging buckets of wet sand for his kids to create lopsided castles. That was castles, plural, because as soon as one was built, his all-legs son gleefully tromped it flat.

“It’s the first rule for today.”

“Want to tell me why you’re waving the investigation rule book at him?”

“He’s got a skinny, big-breasted, barely legal towel buddy.” Trina handed over her binoculars.

Now Darcy felt creepy. Voyeuristic. But she took a peek anyway. The girl/woman next to him didn’t look old enough to drink. Long, blond hair hung to just below an impossibly skinny waist in loose braid. Breasts big enough to notice without binoculars spilled out of two miniscule yellow triangles. Her age—or lack of it—made it uncomfortable to watch him pat her on the butt, and then linger for another squeeze. “It’s definitely a May-December relationship. Icky, but not illegal.”

“I think he’s Russian. When I took a dip, I walked by and heard him speaking something that sounded like the bad guys in an action flick.”

“Also not illegal.”

“I think she’s a prostitute.”

This conversation was turning out to be way more fun than her book. Darcy stuffed it back into her beach bag, and gave herself over to enjoying the unknowable twists of Trina’s mind. “Okay. Definitely illegal, but don’t you think you’re leaping to conclusions?”

“I’ve been watching him all day. Every hour, a different very hot, very young woman appears. They hang out for a few minutes, he wipes his paws all over her, and she leaves. This is the fifth one today.”

“Wow. Five is a high number for someone who barely rates a five in looks.” Darcy lifted the binoculars for another look. “Do you think he’s famous? A movie star? Or just really, really rich?”

“No. I think he’s running a prostitution ring.” Trina spoke extra slowly, as if to make sure Darcy didn’t miss her preposterous comment a second time.

“Trina, you can’t go around making accusations like that.”

“I’m not accusing him. Yet.” She crossed her ankles and pumped her legs in the air. “Look, I need practice if I’m going to be a private investigator.”

Aha—the perfect opening. Darcy couldn’t come right out and
tell
Trina she was nuts to try her hand at this potentially dangerous career. She didn’t want to come off as a dream crusher. That would be a violation of the friendship code. But Darcy had to at least ask what possessed Trina to choose this new career, so out of the blue.

Eyes still glued to the binoculars, in a studiously casual tone, she said, “And why is that, exactly?”

A long pause. Long enough that Darcy lowered the binoculars to stare at her friend. Apparently this wouldn’t be one of Trina’s smart-ass, tossed-off answers. No, from the way she studied her fisted hands, this one came straight from the heart.

“I had a sinus infection last month. Laid in bed for three days straight watching old shows. OD’d on
Scarecrow and Mrs.
King.
The one about the housewife who accidentally becomes a spy?”

Darcy had a vague recollection. Safer to nod knowingly, or else Trina might start recounting the plots of every episode she’d watched. “Yeah?”

“This woman without any fancy degree used her common sense to figure out crimes. No years of memorizing boring dates—which you know I suck at—like what you do for a living.”

Studying for tests had always been Trina’s weakness. One that Darcy knew embarrassed her friend deeply. She was great at concepts, but not rote memorization. Her mediocre test scores in math and language and history in no way reflected her sharp, albeit somewhat twisty, mind.

“She did something different every episode. And it hit me, that’s what I’ve been missing. Variety. One day I could be tracing down a deadbeat dad, and the next I could be tailing a cheating wife.”

Not to pop Trina’s excitement balloon, but... “Isn’t there lots of slogging through computer files, and boring stakeouts?”

That slap of reality earned her a stuck-out tongue and a look on Trina’s face as if Darcy had just thrown a pie at her. “No job’s perfect, right? But this one feels kind of offbeat, just like me. Enough to be a good fit, anyway.”

Offbeat was the perfect description of her zany friend. And while she didn’t think a decades-old show on spies was a good enough reason to leap into a career, at least it proved that Trina had put some measure of thought into it. For a change. “Even if it fits you, that doesn’t mean running a prostitution ring fits him.” Darcy hooked her thumb back toward the man who’d kicked off this whole conversation.

“I’ve got to start somewhere. Ooh, let’s start by naming him. Takes too long to call him creepy fat Russian guy. How about Ivan?”

Darcy wanted to call him
the thing Trina fixated on that prevented Darcy from napping
. But that was an even longer name. “Fine.”

“Could Ivan be a Russian pimp? Absolutely. Or he might not be. Either way, we can go through the process of figuring him out.”

Trina had better be on a princess kick and using the royal “we,” because Darcy had no intention of hounding the guy. “We? No, I don’t think so.”

“Safety in numbers. Since I can’t get a gun for seven days.” Trina had been very disappointed with their field trip to the gun store upon learning of its mandatory wait period.

Darcy had been disappointed to spend an hour in the car getting to the gun store. “For which I’m very grateful. The thought of you running around with a loaded pistol is enough to send me right back to Africa on the next plane. And I don’t want the fear of being accidentally shot by my klutzy best friend to decide my entire future.”

“If we do it right, he won’t know he’s being investigated.”

“He won’t know at all. He’s leaving.”

Trina grabbed her bag and slid on her sandals. “Then so are we.”

“What? Why?”

“We’re going to follow him. That’s the second rule in investigation. When you don’t know where to start, follow the suspect. He could lead us to a clue.”

It sounded logical. Of course, it also sounded like Trina quoting from every cop show she’d ever seen. Neither seemed like a good enough reason for Darcy to leave her towel. “You’re making these up as you go along.”

“I’m not. I downloaded a course. Memorizing all the rules was the first step. Now come on.”

“Huh uh.”

“It’ll look less suspicious if there are two of us.”

True. Darcy didn’t believe for a second the guy was dangerous, let alone running a prostitution ring. He would, however, probably be cranky if he noticed Trina dogging his every step. Plus, Trina was her real family, not the blood kind, but the kind of deep sisterhood that was earned. Once her parents decided they’d make more of a splash globetrotting than writing papers from behind a desk, they took off. Darcy dug in her heels at the tender age of thirteen, and refused to go. Probably thrilled not to have to waste time home-schooling her, they relented. Darcy lived with Trina and her family till they graduated from high school. How do you pay someone back for being your best friend
and
a stable home life? Evidently, by traipsing around after a stranger on the beach.

“If you buy me an ice cream.” Darcy slipped into her navy, white and turquoise striped flip-flops.

“Fine. I didn’t think our friendship depended upon bribery.”

“I didn’t think it involved shopping for firearms and trailing suspects. You promised me a relaxing week at the beach. Instead, I feel like I’m training for the police academy. The least you can do is buy me an ice cream.”

Trina dashed across the sand. “Fine,” she yelled over her shoulder. Ivan and the girl had walked right past them and were headed for the dune break. With a sigh, Darcy tugged on her hat and ran to catch up with Trina. Once they were only about fifty yards behind him, they slowed to a walk.

“So, did you ever have a crush on an old guy?” Trina asked.

“No. Well, yes. In the sixth grade I had a huge crush on our teacher, Mr. Duncan, remember? He had thick, dark hair and was really tall. I think he was fresh out of grad school, but back then, he seemed super old.” She made a mental note to do an Internet search for him later.

Trina shook her head. “You’re missing the point. No normal hot girl would look twice at a guy like Ivan. She’d look once at him and run away. Old, fat, bald and creepy does not equal lust at first sight.”

“True.” It also didn’t equal a foreign pimp. But Darcy didn’t want to burst her bubble. Trina’s shoulder had sopped up Darcy’s tears about her distant yet demanding parents innumerable times over the years. She emailed funny local news stories every day Darcy was in Africa, so she wouldn’t be too homesick. So Darcy would let her run with this crazy idea until it fizzled out of its own accord.

“So the parade of bikini babes visiting this guy is suspicious. Highly suspicious. Hard to explain.”

Crossing the dune, Darcy veered left to avoid a tween running at full steam carrying a boogie board like a jousting lance. “That does not automatically make them all prostitutes.”

“Okay, give me another reason. A working hypothesis—there’s a ten-dollar word for my friend with the freshly minted PhD—as to why he’s feeling up girls young enough to be his granddaughters.”

“I don’t have one.” And frankly, didn’t want to bother thinking about it. Hopefully this chase across the sand would shake this hare-brained idea out of Trina’s head. Then they could go back to gorging on chips and relaxing. “But I have no doubt there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

“Or, he could be leading us to his brothel right now. From the outside, it might look like an ordinary beach condo, but on the inside, it’s eight rooms of rubber mattress-covered kinkiness.”