Chapter 5 #2
The woman kept on screaming, the sounds ripping a hole in Joe’s chest. He flashed his beam of light on the carefully placed childproof lock on the inside wall of the cabinet, which would have kept her kids out.
He took in everything else beneath the sink, all child-safe products such as a bottle of bubbles and kiddie soap.
Not another chemical, not so much as a cleaning agent, nothing.
No, he would not buy that she’d have hoisted a heavy can to remove her fingernail polish.
And he didn’t buy she’d have kept it under the sink either.
Joe thought of the missing father and his gut twisted with memories of his own cruel father.
He met Kenny’s gaze with his grim one. “We’ve got some good evidence here. ”
Which, with the mother’s heartbreaking sobs in the distance, brought no satisfaction at all.
The building for the new Creative Interiors II sat on a square of other shops and galleries in the center of Ocean Beach.
It was a Tudor-style cottage, two story, with wide-open rooms, and windows with views of the Pacific Ocean only a street away.
Perfect party house, and Summer knew tonight there’d be quite a gathering.
It was the opening bash, and if there was one thing her mom and Tina could do and do well, that was throw a party.
Just the idea of it, with tons of people sequestered in close quarters, gave her a tight feeling in her chest.
She tried not to think about it as she worked with Stella and Gregg to hang streamers and fill balloons with helium.
Stella was a soft-spoken, petite blonde, adorable and sweet, and completely unassuming.
Gregg was even quieter, if that was possible.
Summer often wondered if the two of them ever got boisterous or wild.
Her mom had said she’d seem them at parties and after hours socializing, and that they did, but Summer couldn’t picture it.
She stopped decorating to look out the windows at the sunset. But off in the distance, in the purple sky, rose a long plume of dark smoke.
A fire.
Everything within her gripped in sympathy, in horror, and she wondered who the flames were affecting. Wondered, too, if Joe was there, with his intense eyes, trying to find the cause.
“Miss being outside?”
She turned and looked at Bill. He and Tina had gotten married after her first marriage had failed, and they’d been together for fourteen years.
He wasn’t crazy about the furnishings business, always grumbling about how much time it took Tina away from him, but he’d never failed to be there when his support was required.
Like tonight. He hated crowds, and here he was in his suit and tie.
A wrinkled, ill-fitting suit and tie, but he’d tried.
He wasn’t quite as tall as Tina and was used to being towered over by the women in his life.
He had a mop of wild gray hair that always made Summer think of Albert Einstein, a poet’s sorrow-filled blue eyes, and the stained, callused hands of a ceramic artist.
And a big glass of what was undoubtedly spiked punch in his hand.
“Yes, I’m missing being outside,” she said with a smile for the first person in O.B. who hadn’t looked at her with wariness, frustration, or open hostility. “I miss it a lot.”
“How’s your mom?”
“Unnerved by the fire.”
He sighed, sending his hair into movement like wild cotton in the wind.
Gray cotton. “An unfortunate coincidence, that was.” He looked around at the interior of the new shop, at the fresh, bright paint he’d put on the walls himself, and all the beachy stock within them.
One entire wall was devoted to his handmade lighthouses. “Nice, huh?” he asked.
“It’s great.”
“Yeah. Great.”
But they both sighed unhappily. “With all the free food and drink around on every surface, no one’ll ever want to leave,” he grumbled. “This thing’ll go all night.”
“Who’s fault is that?” Tina yelled at him from the other room. “You’re the one wo had the idea to make that big sign on the front window for cash discounts.”
Summer looked at Bill. “Haven’t they always offered a 10% discount when people pay in cash?”
“With the banks charging businesses such a huge percentage of the credit card sales, they changed it to 25%, which will make the day all the more chaotic.”
“The trick is to get out of here before the crowd shows up,” she said.
Just the thought made her feel better, until she remembered her mom had asked her to stay.
Bill looked at his watch. “If you’re going to escape, you’d better hurry. People are going to arrive.”
Too late. A couple walked in, followed by a handful of others. Then Diana and Madeline called her over to help finish the balloons and put out the boat-shaped party favors.
Around them, the place began to hum with conversation and laughter. Summer concentrated on breathing and hanging balloons. It wasn’t too crowded yet, she assured herself. Not crowded at all. Just because her toes had been stepped on twice already and she couldn’t see the front door…
“Here. Pour.” Diana handed her the champagne and a tray of glasses. “And look alive,” she said, then turned to grab Madeline.
“Oh, no,” Summer said when they headed toward the closest exit. “You two are supposed to do this. I’m the one leaving—”
Madeline pointed to the door.
“Yeah, I see. Alley cat at ten o’clock,” Diana noted.
A tall, dark-haired woman dressed in a beaded vintage dress entered and took a long gaze around her.
“The suspense was probably killing her,” Diana said.
Madeline nodded grimly.
“Look at her scoping out the stock,” Diana said. “So rude.”
Summer watched the tall brunette sniff at the hors d’oeuvres with a curling lip.
“Freak,” Diana muttered.
Madeline nodded again, popping her gum in her jaw.
“Yeah, well.” Summer didn’t care about Ally. She cared about being able to breathe, which she suddenly couldn’t do in here. She looked at the door. “I’ve got to run.”
Diana smiled as she took over pouring the champagne. “Of course you do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you always run. That’s what I heard your mom say to my mom once. She was crying when she said it.”
Summer’s chest caved in as if she’d been sucker punched. “Maybe no one ever told you it’s not nice to repeat things people say.”
Diana lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not.”
Summer stared at her, then let out a careful breath.
“You know what? The hell with this.” She moved away from her and Madeline and toward the front door.
People were swarming now, pressing close.
Her breathing quickened again. Damn it. She pushed her way through and was nearly there when her wrist was snagged.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Aunt Tina.
Summer stared at her aunt’s stubborn face, her chest cinching down. The bell over the door tinkled noisily. Two more people entered, laughing and talking. Summer swallowed hard as the room, so large only moments ago, began to close in on her. “I’ve really got to—”
“Stay. Eat. Talk. Be merry.” Tina thrust a flute of champagne into her hand and smiled. “Just look at your mom, darling. She looks so happy tonight, doesn’t she?”
Somehow Summer forced herself to turn and look. Indeed her mother was smiling as she greeted some of their guests. She wore a beautiful flowing gown in a pale silver that seemed to make her skin glow. She caught Summer’s eye and waved.
Waved. Summer’s throat tightened a little as she waved back. Impossibly, the crowd grew again, pouring in now, pressing against her to get by. With the front door open, she caught a whiff of the smoke from the fire she’d seen earlier. Spots appeared in her vision.
Too close. Too tight.
“Well, would you look at that,” Tina murmured.
Kenny was handing her mother a flute of champagne. He wore khaki trousers and a crisp, white button-down. If he was armed, the gun was hidden. The tall, handsome fire marshal pushed up his glasses and smiled at her mom, who smiled back. An open, sweet smile.
Summer hadn’t seen many of those. Probably because she hadn’t been around to see them.
You always run.
Summer closed her eyes. “I really have to go.”
“He’s awfully handsome,” Tina said. “I think he’s attracted to her.”
Summer opened her eyes. Her mom had put her hand on Kenny’s arm, leaning in to listen to him.
“She does seem happy,” Summer allowed.
“Yes.” Tina hugged Summer. “And darling, you being here is part of the reason.”
“Then why does she keep trying to get me to leave?”
“It’s what she expects from you.” Tina tugged lightly on a strand of Summer’s hair. “So prove her wrong. Now go on, go join the fray.” She nudged Summer forward to mingle. “And for God’s sake, smile!”
There had to be a hundred people here already. Surely that was against the code. In fact, Kenny should be kicking people out. Summer craned her neck to find him but he just kept talking to her mother…
Damn it. She tossed back her champagne and waited for the kick.
Nothing but her chest tightening further.
All around her was talking and laughter, and yet suddenly there wasn’t enough air for her lungs.
Each new person sucked even more oxygen from the room.
She knew that it was just in her head but that didn’t make it any less real.
The walls continued to close in, until she couldn’t draw a full breath at all, but she was good at pretending nothing was wrong.
She even managed to keep a smile on her face despite the line of sweat trickling down her spine as she pressed her back to a wall and wished for another drink.
Braden walked past her without a word, then stopped and turned back. “You okay?”
“I need a drink.”
He shot her an odd look but grabbed a flute of champagne from a tray and handed it over.
She gulped it down, but her throat remained parched. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” He wore his usual black, though his standard cynical smile was gone. “You might want to wait a few before your next one.”
“I already need another one.”
“Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and looked longingly at a tray of champagne. “I hear that.”
Madeline, and what looked like an entire gaggle of her friends, passed by giggling and teetering and smelling like cigarettes as they eyed the champagne. When she caught Summer watching her, she stuck out her tongue and moved on.
“So, is it being home again?” Braden asked. “Or the crowds?”
When Summer’s gaze whipped to his, he lifted a brow. “A shot in the dark.”
“A good one.” She set down the empty flute. “And for the record, it’s both.” She took a deeper look and saw the stress in his eyes even though he’d done a damn good job at keeping it to himself. He was just as unhappy at this party as she was. “How about you?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
He was lying, but who was she to press? Besides, at that moment, she caught Chloe’s baleful stare from across the room. Oops. She was talking to Chloe’s property, wasn’t she? Summer lifted her hands and wriggled her fingers, showing her territorial cousin she was still hands off.
But when she turned back to Braden, he was gone.
Without him standing in front of her, buffering her view of everyone milling around her, her breathing hitched again.
It seemed as if the number of people had doubled in the past few minutes.
Tripled. Her chest hurt, the spots were back, and she again staggered for the door.
Fairy lights decorated the entire front facade, and the helium balloons she’d tied to the canopy floated in the light breeze.
She saw all this in her peripheral vision as she finally burst out.
And crashed directly into a hard chest.
Joe’s hands came up to grip her shoulders, probably because she’d just about knocked him flat on his ass.
He stood there holding her upright, a faint five o’clock shadow shading his jaw, hair weeks past needing a haircut, smelling like soap and man.
An involuntary pained sound escaped her and she slapped a hand to her mouth to keep the next one in.
Hands still on her shoulders, he bent and peered into her face. “What’s the matter, Red?”
Oh, God. His eyes. The haunting sadness was back in the swirling whiskey depths tonight, and it reached her. He’d always been able to reach her with a look. “N-n-nothing.”
He lifted her chin with a finger. “Don’t add lying to your sins. You okay?”
His voice was low, and somehow devastatingly sexy.
And the way he asked her what was wrong, as if he really cared, as if maybe, at least for a moment, he’d forgotten to hold back with her.
Her throat simply closed up, and all she could do was shake her head.
No. No, she wasn’t okay. She might never be again.
His hand, big and warm, came up, tracing her hairline with a long finger, pushing her hair behind her ear.
The gesture was an old one, and she nearly lost it right then.
She was holding on by a thread here, and if anyone could break her, he could.
But she knew that while she needed a connection tonight, any connection, he did not. At least not from her.
Pushing free, she ran across the street, heading for the beach. She needed the cool night air, the clarity the pounding surf would give her, the wide-open space.
“Red?”
She kept going. It wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done, racing away from one of the very people she wanted to prove herself to, but the minute her feet hit the sand, she kicked off her sandals and kept running, hard and fast, not looking back, trying desperately not to look back.