Wild Thing (The Magic Jukebox Book 3) (5 page)

Rose
Cottage had a problem. A water stain had mysteriously appeared on the wall of
the first-floor parlor.

Monica
should have been upset, stressed, just this side of frantic. The cottages—four
small, self-contained buildings nestled into the woods on the western side of
the pool patio—were among the inn’s most popular accommodations. They were
often booked in their entirety by reuning families, wedding parties, corporate
executives on a retreat, or any other group that wanted access to the amenities
of the resort but also a private enclave for its own intimate circle. The
cottages weren’t in high demand during the winter months, but as soon as the
summer season started, they got reserved very quickly.

Rose
Cottage was no exception. It was booked for every weekend from the Memorial Day
weekend through Labor Day, and more than a few of those bookings were for an
entire week. A couple whose wedding would be held at the inn over the Memorial
Day weekend had reserved the cottage for their bridal party and out-of-town
friends.

But
if there was a water stain on the parlor wall, there was a leak somewhere
behind that wall. When Frank from the maintenance crew phoned Monica’s office,
he warned her that locating the leak might require the plumber to cut through
the wall.

“We’ve
got the Kolenko party arriving in a week and a half,” she reminded Frank.

“Then
I guess we’ll have to find the leak, fix it, and repair the wall quickly,” he
shot back.

“I’ll
contact Parnelli’s,” she said, naming the plumbing service the inn used. “I’ll
tell them it’s an emergency.” It might not be the sort of emergency that
required every available staff member to grab a bucket and bail out a flooded
cottage, but with the Memorial Day weekend only ten days away, Monica
considered it critical to find and fix this leak ASAP.

Yet
she was smiling when she called the friendly dispatcher at Parnelli’s and
explained the situation. She was still smiling after she left her office and
strolled around the pool to Rose Cottage to view the water stain. Still smiling
as she studied the oval darkening the parlor’s cream-colored wall.

Tomorrow,
or the next day, or Memorial Day, or some time in an undefined future, she
might start crying again. But today she was a woman who had spent a night
having splendiferous sex with a hunky guy with whom she was going to have
dinner in just a few hours. She was going to sit across a table from him and
feast her eyes on his gorgeous face while her mouth feasted on whatever food
filled her plate. Maybe he’d shave and she’d have an unobstructed view of his
chin. Maybe she’d reach across the table and trace his cheeks with her
fingertips.

Maybe
she would learn more about him. Maybe not too much more. That he was a mystery
to her added to his sex appeal. If she found out that he bickered with his
parents and complained about the barking of his neighbor’s dog, that he was a
slob and that salad dressing made him flatulent, his sex appeal would plummet.
The impetuousness of last night had heightened the experience for her. The
understanding that modest, well-behaved Monica could behave wildly with a man
she didn’t know was the main reason she couldn’t stop smiling, even as she
touched the water stain and discovered that the wall was wet enough to feel
almost pasty.

“What
do you think is causing the leak?” she asked Frank.

“We’ll
find out once we open the wall,” he told her. “There’s a pipe running behind
this wall from a second-floor bathroom. “I’m guessing there’s a leak somewhere
in that pipe.”

His
use of the word
somewhere
should have tempered her smile, at least a
little bit. What would the plumber have to do if the source of the leak wasn’t
immediately evident?

Two
hours and a gaping hole in the wall later, Monica’s mood had down-shifted
significantly. Despite cutting the hole as neatly as possible, in an even
rectangle of drywall that, ideally, could be fitted back into place like a
piece of a puzzle, Frank and the plumber had left the parlor looking as if it
had been blizzarded with nuclear ash. White dust and slivers of pasteboard
spread across the hardwood floor and Turkish rug in the parlor. Fortunately,
the furniture had been moved to the other side of the room first.

The
second-floor bathroom above the parlor was in equally bad shape. The plumber
had dislodged the sink’s vanity, which now sat in the adjacent bedroom, looking
alarmingly out of place. The burgundy bath mat looked as if it had been left
outside during a snow storm.

And
they still hadn’t pinpointed the source of the leak.

Monica
wound up spending the entire afternoon at Rose Cottage, overseeing the mess
Frank and the plumber were creating as if there was a damned thing she could do
to minimize it. Every clank and clang and thump made her cringe. The flickering
beam of the plumber’s flashlight as he ducked his head through the hole and
surveyed the pipes made her flinch.

But
the leak had to be found and stopped. The walls had to be reconstructed and
painted. Vacuuming up the white plaster dust was the least of it.

Her
cell phone rang frequently. She did her best to manage other maintenance issues
from Rose Cottage. She supposed she could return to her office in the main
building—hovering over Frank and the plumber and wincing at each new indignity
they inflicted on the walls of the cottage didn’t help the situation. But she
couldn’t leave. She felt like a triage doctor assessing the damage so she’d
know just what rehabilitation the patient would require.

A
lot of rehabilitation, she thought as the plumber punched his way through the
fluffy pink insulation inside the wall, enlarging the space so he could fit his
head through and get a better look at the pipe.

“I
can see it dripping,” he shouted from inside the wall. “Can’t see where it’s
dripping from, though.”

Monica
sighed. Just because her day had begun magnificently didn’t mean it had to end
magnificently. Yet it
would
end magnificently. She would have dinner
with Ty. They’d talk. They’d touch. They’d do wild things. They’d
be
wild things.

Her
cell phone rang again. She stepped away from the plumber’s butt and legs,
protruding from the hole in the wall, and pressed the button to connect the
call. It was nothing major, just an inventory check from the head of
housekeeping, listing all the supplies she would be ordering tomorrow. Monica
okayed the list, clicked to end the call, and noticed the time on her phone’s
screen. Five-fifty.

Damn.
Had she been in Rose Cottage that long?

“I’ve
got to go,” she told Frank. Leak or no leak, she was not going to blow Ty off,
or even show up late for their date. After the frustrating day she’d had, she
was ready to get back to magnificent.

Not
bothering to return to her office, she bolted from Rose Cottage, jogged across
the pool patio and headed down the driveway. The Faulk Street Tavern was only a
few blocks down Atlantic Street from the inn. Searching for a parking space
near the pub’s entrance if she drove would take longer than walking there.

She
did not want to take longer. She wanted to be wild with Ty
now.

She
entered the tavern exactly at six. It occurred to her that she might have taken
a moment to brush her hair and freshen her lipstick. It also occurred to her
that had she done so, she would have arrived a few minutes late and not looked
quite so eager to see him. Yet she didn’t want to play games with him,
deliberately arriving late so he would have to wait for her. She’d played games
with Jimmy for ten years, and what had that gotten her? Ten years with a guy
who’d rather watch a game on TV with his buddies than celebrate an anniversary
with her.

She
stepped inside the bar, circled the room with her gaze, and realized that she
would be the one doing the waiting. Ty wasn’t there.

Not
because he was playing a game with her. She knew in her heart that he wouldn’t
bide his time somewhere for ten minutes, forcing her to cool her heels and
crank up her humility level. She had no basis for that belief, but she
knew
.
He would be leaving her in a matter of days to return to Florida, or wherever
his next stop was. They didn’t have time for silly courtship rituals. If Ty was
running late, he had a good reason for it.

She
crossed to the bar, smiled at Gus, and settled on a stool. Gus had been slicing
limes, but as soon as she saw Monica, she lowered her knife, dried her hands,
and moseyed over. “You look frazzled,” she said, placing a cocktail napkin in
front of Monica on the bar’s polished mahogany surface. “Rough day?”

“There’s
a leak in Rose Cottage,” Monica told her. “They’ve torn down a wall searching
for it. Do I have plaster dust in my hair?”

“No.”
Gus gave her a reassuring smile.

Monica
shrugged. The leak had occupied her for too many hours. Now it was time to
delete that mess from her thoughts and focus only on the pleasures that lay
ahead. “It’ll get fixed,” she said, wishing she felt as certain as she sounded.
“It’s just that with the holiday weekend coming up, the cottage is booked. We need
everything back to normal there before the summer surge begins.”

“As
you said, it’ll get fixed.” Gus plucked a wine glass from the rack above her
head. “Chardonnay?”

“I’m
meeting someone,” Monica told her, then grinned. “But I guess I can have a
glass of wine while I’m waiting.”

Gus
filled the glass with pale, fragrant wine and set it on the napkin. She said
nothing, but Monica sensed a question trapped inside her, one she was too
discreet to ask.

Monica
answered it anyway. “I’m not waiting for Jimmy. We broke up.”

Gus
nodded. Only because Monica knew the woman her whole life did she detect the
corners of Gus’s mouth twitching upward into a faint grin.

“So
I’m on the market,” Monica continued. “Meeting new people. Exercising new
muscles.” She allowed herself a private smile as she contemplated all the
muscles she’d exercised with Ty last night.

“Andy’s
still single,” Gus said, naming her younger son. “Just saying.”

“I’ll
keep it in mind.” Gus’s sons were a couple of years older than Monica, but
Brogan’s Point was a small town. She’d always thought the Naukonen boys were
cute. But they lived in Boston, and she was a hometown girl.

She
sipped her wine, spinning on her stool to gaze out at the room while Gus wandered
down the bar to fill an order for a waitress. On the far side of the dance
floor, the jukebox sat in silence, regal and elegant, holding its secrets
close. Why had it played that clamorous old rock-and-roll song yesterday? Why
had it played that song just for Monica and Ty?

Where
was Ty, anyway?

She
sipped her wine, letting it slide cool and dry down her throat. Closing her
eyes, she pictured the chaotic scene she’d left at Rose Cottage, the wall cut
away like a skin, exposing the skeleton of insulation, pipes, and wiring it
usually hid. What a disaster.

But
soon Ty would enter the bar and sweep her away. He’d make her forget all about
the leak, at least for tonight.

Any
minute, she told herself. Any second now, he’d step inside, tall and buff and radiating
sex appeal, and Rose Cottage would no longer exist. Her entire world would
consist of her and Ty.

Any
minute.

***

Some
men just didn’t deserve to live.

Gus
liked men. She’d married one and raised two. She was currently involved with a
fine man—Ed Nolan, a public servant, a cop, someone who kept the peace while
simultaneously keeping his sense of humor.

But
Monica’s luck with men wasn’t so good. She’d been with that schmuck Jimmy for
so long, maybe she just thought that being disregarded and disrespected was
acceptable.

Not
to Gus, it wasn’t.

Whoever
Monica’s new schmuck was, he hadn’t shown up by the time she’d emptied her wine
glass. She’d waltzed into the tavern a half hour ago, as bright as a full moon on
a clear night, and now that glow was gone, muted like the night sky when a
dense ocean fog rolled in. With a sigh, she’d paid Gus for the wine, slid off
her stool, and strode resolutely out of the pub.

In
her line of work, Gus witnessed a lot of heartbreak. It came with the
territory. You poured a drink, and in return, patrons poured out their hearts.
The best bartenders were good listeners, and Gus was the best bartender in
Brogan’s Point, if not all of the North Shore.

What
Monica had experienced tonight wasn’t heartbreak. Just disappointment. Just
pissy, nasty annoyance. Just the recognition—as if she’d needed to learn this
lesson again—that some men were jerks.

***

Monica
hadn’t expected Ty to be the love of her life, although last night he’d
certainly proven himself to be the lover of her life, at least so far. She’d
liked him. She’d been drawn to him like iron to a magnet. She’d wanted to spend
more time with him. She’d wanted to make love with him again, and again. She’d
wanted to go wild with him.