Chapter Twenty-One
Trey
Once he was sure Callie was out of earshot, Trey turned to his former wife with fresh eyes.
It wasn’t hard to see what it was that had drawn him to her all those years ago.
She was beautiful. And in the early days, there had been a sweetness to her that had been rare in the last year of their time together.
Was Alex’s assessment of them correct, then?
Had there been something missing between them all along?
It was true enough he’d felt something eerily comfortable between him and Callie that had never been there with Monica.
“I’m sorry for all that,” Monica said with a sigh as she stepped into the kitchen and scanned the room, almost as if she was reluctant to look him in the eye.
And why wouldn’t she be after that display of ill temper?
“I wasn’t expecting to find someone here with you, is all.
Much less a leggy brunette in short shorts. ”
That she was still capable of jealousy was surprising, but it didn’t make a difference to the way Trey felt about either Monica’s betrayal of him, or how he viewed Callie.
“We’re not gonna talk about Callie and me.
And since you didn’t know she was here, then that’s not why you came here either. What’s up?”
With a sigh, Monica pulled out one of the chairs around the dinette set and sank into it. “Do you have some water or something?”
He watched her fidget with her car keys for a minute and realized to his surprise that she was …
nervous? He wouldn’t go so far as to say Monica didn’t get nervous, but he couldn’t count on more than a few fingers the number of times he recalled her revealing that kind of vulnerability to him.
Which said more about the lack of emotional intimacy between them than anything else, he realized.
And maybe that was what set Callie apart.
They’d been honest with each other from the moment they met.
Wordlessly, he retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and handed it to her, then drew out the chair opposite hers and waited for her to reveal the reason for her unexpected visit.
After taking a few tentative sips, Monica put the cap back on the bottle and fiddled with the label for a minute before she spoke. “I came to tell you it’s over. Between Hollins and me.”
And suddenly, the way she’d gone after Callie made all the sense in the world.
He wasn’t such an egoist that he expected to have women fight over him, but he also knew that Monica was the kind of person who would always need to be in a relationship.
He hadn’t realized it when he was younger, but he knew now that she wasn’t comfortable in her own skin.
As beautiful as she was—and he was able to recognize her exquisite looks despite how she’d hurt him with her affair—somewhere in her history, she’d learned that unless she wanted to be the one abandoned, she’d have to do the leaving first. That insight didn’t give him the kind of triumph it once would have.
Instead, he just felt sad for this woman he’d once thought he’d love until the end of his days.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said aloud, and was surprised to realize he meant it. He didn’t wish her ill. He didn’t really feel much of anything for her anymore. “But that’s kind of the definition of a meeting that could have been an email.”
She stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, looking stunned at his flippant words. “I don’t know what I was expecting you to say, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering I found you shacked up with another woman.”
He huffed out an exasperated laugh. “First of all, her name is Callie Jameson, and secondly, we aren’t shacked up. Aunt Khaki left this place to her in her will.”
For the first time since he’d seen her today, Monica seemed to feel some genuine concern for someone besides herself. “Oh, Trey, I’m so sorry. I know how much you love this place. And it’s clear how much work you’ve put into it. How could Khaki do that to you?”
It wasn’t until he felt her sympathy that he realized to his surprise that he didn’t need it. Whatever anger or disappointment he’d felt on Callie’s arrival had been replaced with something else. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it because Monica was already leaping to the wrong conclusion.
“But if you’re not staying here, then—”
He raised his hands in a way that told her to stop. “I didn’t say I’m not staying on the island,” he said with a shake of his head. “In fact, I’m hoping to remain here for as long as Callie will let me.”
“But I don’t understand.” Her frown revealed genuine puzzlement. “You just said Khaki left the library to Callie. How could you possibly stay here when she owns the place you’ve spent the past year putting your heart and soul into?”
He just looked at her, letting his sympathy for her disappointment show.
It didn’t take long. Monica had always been quick to read people. “Ohhh.” Tears shone in her eyes, but she quickly brushed them away. “So, I was right the first time. I’m such an idiot. What made me think you’d ever take me back after what I did to you?”
Maybe because he no longer felt the same sense of betrayal that had weighed him down since he’d found her and Hollins together, the misery in her expression made him feel sorry for her. “Mon, you know it was never gonna work out between us. Even before Hollins came along.”
Maybe it was the pet name he used to call her, or maybe it was just the culmination of the high emotion she’d brought with her from the mainland, but whatever the case, his words caused a dam to burst in her and suddenly, his ex-wife was crying in earnest. Unable to let her sit and cry alone, he got up and gathered her in his arms. Since it was likely the last time he’d ever do so, he let her cry on his shoulder.
It was as satisfying a way to say goodbye to his old life as anything else he could think of.
By the time Trey had seen Monica out and hunted down Stella to make sure she hadn’t gotten into mischief while Callie was away, it was nearing noon. And a glance out the window told him that the rain that had threatened all morning had finally begun.
Remembering that Callie was on her bike, he winced at the thought of her getting stranded in town. Though he knew Tricia would give her a ride if she asked, he had a feeling Callie might be one of those people who had a hard time accepting help.
Giving in to impulse, he decided to call the public library and see if she was still there. That way, if she was, he could run over and pick her up himself.
“Sorry, Trey, she’s been gone for forty-five minutes at least,” Ruby said in answer to his question. “She’s not back yet? I guess she could have gone to city hall to check the city council minutes.”
Quickly, she explained what she and Callie had been discussing about the St. Ignatius Library and the reality show producer.
This was the first time Trey had heard anything about a reality show in relation to Khaki’s library. “And why was she going to look at city council meeting minutes?”
“To see which business owners were pushing for Khaki to allow the show,” Ruby explained. “I couldn’t remember who all had been trying to get your great-aunt to change her mind. Just that there were several who really needed the revenue the show would bring.”
Trey thanked the librarian and hung up. He would have known about all of this reality show stuff if he hadn’t dropped off the map after he and Monica split up.
But he’d spent those years avoiding his family and trying to bury his wounded pride as far down into the bottom of a bottle as he could reach.
He’d had no idea Khaki had faced pressure from business owners on the island.
And it had certainly never occurred to him that his ghost and Callie’s pranksters could be part of some bigger conspiracy.
But right now, he had something more important to do and that was find Callie.
A glance out the window showed him the rain was coming down harder than ever.
And if she’d left on her bike when Ruby said she had, then she could have wrecked or gone into a ditch or—and he really didn’t want to think about this—been clipped by a car unable to see her in the low visibility of the storm.
He was on his way out when his phone rang. “Hey, man,” he told Bobby when he answered. “I was about to call you.”
Quickly, he gave his friend a rundown of what Callie had been investigating at the public library earlier that morning. Then he asked if Bobby, as a local business owner, had an idea of who the others might have been who wanted Khaki to change her mind about the reality show.
“Oh, dude,” Bobby said in that stoner Cajun accent of his.
“I thought you knew about all that. But I guess that was around the time you went dark. Tricia and I weren’t too crazy about the idea of the show or the plan to turn PCI into Little Nola.
Charlie and Brigitte were still fairly young and you know the kind of shit those people get up to on those shows.
We moved out of New Orleans so the kids could be away from all that. ”
Trey hadn’t thought growing up in the Garden District was a hardship. Of course, by the time he’d been in high school, he and his buddies were very familiar with the Quarter and all the ways they could get up to no good there. Maybe his friends had a point.
“The ones pushing for Khaki to give that producer lady access were the folks whose businesses had really been hurting for a long time. Like the country club and the hotels. The ones who’ve been hurt by all these short-term rentals that have cropped up.
I know the city council keeps trying to outlaw those jokers on the island, but Mickey Hebert is making a killing on his family’s properties and he keeps blocking it.
Asshole. He doesn’t give a damn about keeping his neighbors in business as long as he gets his. ”