Chapter 4 #3
Regan had stood behind her with her arms crossed, looking pissed on Destiny’s behalf and just relieved enough to irritate me.
Like seeing me leave with a bunch of pretty college girls settled something in her chest. Like maybe I was proving I could be the kind of man who moved on before anything dangerous had time to take root.
Except I knew better.
Nate knew better.
And I had a feeling Regan knew better too.
By the time dinner ended, the girls were making plans to meet up later at another beach club.
Nate promised nothing and implied everything, which was his gift and his curse.
We walked with them for a while along the public beach, staying loose, staying loud, staying in character.
At the bend where the resort lights faded and the private residences began, Nate peeled off first, muttering something about checking in with “our boring cousin.”
That meant he was heading back toward the villa.
That meant he was on duty tonight.
I stayed behind.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I had no reason to be near Destiny.
No reason to pass the private gate. No reason to check the upstairs hallway. No reason to see if she had gone to bed angry or hurt or pretending not to be either.
Tomorrow made three days.
Three days until her birthday.
Like some sick countdown ticking in my skull no matter how hard I tried to shut it up.
I took a seat at the far end of a beach bar built out of dark wood, rope lights, and rich-tourist fantasy.
The kind of place with swings for barstools, surfboards bolted to the ceiling, and tequila locked behind glass like holy relics.
The ocean was black beyond the open-air deck, the waves silver where moonlight caught their backs.
Music drifted through the warm air, soft bass, lazy guitar, distant laughter, the world carrying on like it had no idea how many lives were cracking open behind white walls and bougainvillea down the beach.
I had a cigarette burning between my fingers and top-shelf tequila in a heavy glass by my other hand.
“What the hell am I doing?” I muttered to myself.
The cigarette glowed orange when I took a drag.
I didn’t smoke much.
Tonight, I wanted something to do with my hands that wasn’t reaching for trouble.
Tomorrow was three days.
Then two.
Then one.
Then eighteen.
Like what? Like I was waiting for a number to flip and make this clean? Like I was going to show up at midnight with a bow on my bad intentions and pretend patience had made me honorable?
The thought turned my stomach.
“That’s so messed up,” I said under my breath. “I’m messed up.”
I tipped back the tequila.
It burned hot and clean, the expensive kind of pain.
Good.
I deserved it.
I set the glass down harder than necessary and looked down the dark curve of beach, toward where the villa sat hidden beyond palms and security lights I couldn’t see from here.
“Should’ve never taken this assignment.”
But that was a lie.
If I hadn’t taken it, maybe I wouldn’t have found her in time. Maybe someone else would have gone through that desert and missed the fire. Maybe Destiny would have been alone when the whole world started burning around her.
No.
I would take the assignment again.
That was the problem.
I would take it again knowing exactly where it led.
I turned back toward the bar. “I’ll just drink the night away.”
The seat beside me was no longer unoccupied.
I smelled her before I looked.
Not Destiny.
Regan.
Expensive perfume, warm vanilla, something floral and sharp underneath. The kind of scent a woman wore when she wanted people to remember she was soft only if she chose to be.
I felt what she was about to say before the words left her mouth.
I picked up the tequila and gave her the greeting first.
“Buenas noches, Generala.”
Regan slid onto the barstool beside me, one brow lifting. “Generala?”
“Feminine form,” I said. “Figured if the men are calling you the general, I should show respect in the local language.”
“Your Spanish is terrible.”
“My respect is genuine.”
She took the cold drink the bartender set in front of her, something clear with lime and ice. “Is it a good night?”
I looked toward the ocean.
“No.”
“Honest. That’s refreshing.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
She smiled faintly and stirred her drink with the straw. “I sent Destiny to bed with pain medicine and hot cocoa with whipped cream.”
“She’s not a child anymore.”
The words came out faster than they should have.
Regan looked at me.
I looked at the tequila.
Smooth, Dylan.
Real smooth.
“No,” she said after a moment. “She’s not. Not in her heart. Her heart’s transforming from girl to woman, and you’ve had a big part in that.”
I bowed my head.
The cigarette burned between my fingers, forgotten.
“I never meant to write myself into this story,” I said.
Regan didn’t answer.
“I was just on a run through the desert and saw the fire.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I know.”
“That’s it.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I looked at her.
Regan’s gaze stayed on the ocean. “That’s the thing about life, huh? Fate and Destiny decide to intervene.”
I let out a humorless breath and took another swallow of tequila because there was no safe answer to that.
Regan sipped her drink.
For a while, we sat in the kind of silence adults used when they both knew the conversation was about to hurt and neither one wanted to be the first to cut.
“She can’t go back,” Regan said.
“No.”
My voice was flat.
Too flat.
She noticed.
“She can’t,” I repeated. “Not now.”
“She needs to start over.”
“Yes, she does.”
Regan nodded once, like I had passed a test she hated giving. “I got her into a nursing program.”
I turned my head.
“For fall,” she said.
“Nursing.”
“She’s good at it.”
“I know.”
That made Regan look at me again.
I shrugged, uncomfortable under her attention. “She patched me up after the first night. Not like a girl playing nurse. Like she knew what she was doing.”
“She apprenticed under the healer on the res,” Regan said. “Woman was nearly ninety and still going strong. Taught Destiny herbs, poultices, teas, old remedies, prayers, old spells, all of it. Destiny would tell you it was better than medical school.”
“Probably was.”
Regan smiled sadly. “Probably. But the old ways don’t fly in the world she has to enter now.”
“Don’t I know it.”
The words came out before I thought better of them.
Regan caught them. Filed them away. The woman missed nothing.
“Where?” I asked.
“Malibu.”
My brows drew together. “Malibu?”
“Pepperdine.”
I stared at her.
She lifted her drink. “For the purposes of this story and her life, they have exactly what she needs.”
“Pepperdine,” I repeated.
“Beautiful campus. Ocean. Distance. New people. No one from Santa Fe breathing down her neck every time she gets coffee.”
“That’s close to the Malibu charter.”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the black water beyond the beach bar. “Rick and Eddie.”
“They’re good friends,” she said. “And one of them is loosely related to Destiny through Mandy’s side. It gets complicated.”
“Everything does.”
“Unbeknownst to all of us, Eddie’s been building a trust for her for years. He never had kids. He was Mandy’s godfather, or as close as Mandy ever had to one. He’s leaving everything to Destiny.”
My hand stilled on the tequila glass.
Everything.
That word carried weight.
Land. Money. Property. Power. Freedom, if handled right. A target, if handled wrong.
I looked at Regan. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“What are you asking?”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“That you’ll go after her money?” Regan’s expression didn’t change. “No.”
The certainty in her voice hit harder than suspicion would have.
I looked away first.
“Dylan,” she said quietly, “you were far gone when she had prickers in her hair and scratches on her skin. Money isn’t what’s going to make you fall in love.”
My shoulders tightened.
“Whoa.”
“Don’t.”
“She’s seventeen,” I said. “I’m only?—”
“I know exactly how old she is.”
“Then don’t say things like that.”
“I’m saying them because someone has to.”
I dragged a hand over my face and remembered again there was no beard to hide behind. “I’m not in love with her.”
Regan took a slow sip of her drink.
I hated that sip.
That sip knew too much.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” she said. “The way you look at her has to stop.”
“I’m not stopping her from starting over.”
“Not intentionally.”
“I’m not.”
“No.” Regan’s voice softened. “But Destiny has never had many people make her feel chosen. Right now, you do. That’s powerful. Maybe too powerful.”
The words landed deep because they were true.
I picked up the cigarette, saw it had burned nearly to the filter, and crushed it out in the ashtray.
“I never told her my story,” I said.
Regan waited.
“Callum knows pieces. He’d never tell. He patched me.
Took me in.” I looked at the ink on my hands, the old scars across my knuckles.
“I’ve done things, Regan. To earn this patch.
To keep it on my back. Things that don’t wash out just because I stand in the ocean and pretend to be some vacation idiot. ”
“We’ve all done things.”
“Not like me.”
“You don’t know that.”
I laughed once, bitter. “You think I’m not good enough for her.”
Regan didn’t answer right away.
That was answer enough.
She took another sip, set her glass down, and folded both hands around it.
“I don’t know if there’s a man alive good enough for her,” she said. “She’s my baby girl. How am I supposed to answer that?”
My throat tightened.
Baby girl.
Not by blood, maybe. Not in the ways the world wrote down on certificates.
But in every way that mattered.
Regan loved Destiny like she had chosen her with both hands.
“Some rich, snotty, loafer-wearing, khaki, pink-polo, Mercedes-driving guy in Malibu?” Regan continued, wrinkling her nose. “No. That’s not for her either. But she has to figure that out herself.”
I stared at her.