Beach House No. 9 Part 11

Oh, Jesus. "Tell me your family was out searching for you."

"No." She shook her head. "The boys were attending NASA summer camp. I guess my dad thought I was staying with a friend, and he went off on his own research trip. The house was all locked up."

He stared at her. "Is this the funny part?"

She actually laughed. "Yes. I had to run away, but when I went back home, I had to break into my own house. The irony!"

"I don't think that word means what you think it means."

Her eyebrows came together in a frown. "Of course it does. What I just described is situational irony-when the outcome is contrary to expectation. It's all about the reversal, see. I ran away, but when I went back, it was as if, instead, my father ran-"

Shaking his head, he took her face in the palms of his hands. Her words sputtered out. Her silver eyes lifted to his. It was the storeroom at Captain Crow's all over again. The laundry room, when he'd first been compelled to kiss her. There was just something about this woman.

He was smoldering at her. Without even trying. Without even wanting to.

His mouth descended toward hers. She stayed where she was, pliant as before, caught in the heat between them. Before he could touch down, she broke free.

Her feet actually scrabbled on the hardwood floor in the hallway. Sighing, he watched her go. d.a.m.n woman. d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n woman.

His tactic had been proved to work. He supposed he could feel some satisfaction in that. Going s.e.xy on her had sent her on the run. He'd gotten her out of the room.

But...she'd still made her way under his skin.

The irony!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SHOVING ASIDE a deep reluctance, David Quincy marched down the path that would lead him to the place where his wife had run on her escape from their home. On her escape from him.

After five days without her, he'd come to the conclusion that it only made sense to initiate a calm, reasonable discussion about their situation. He blew out a long breath of air and allowed himself a moment's pause. Tess might ask him to give up her and the kids. Considering the possibility stabbed his gut like a dull knife, but he was a by-the-numbers realist. It's what her absence was leading to, wasn't it? And if that was indeed what she asked of him, he'd find a way to grant her request.

After all, not long ago he'd come to the realization that he didn't deserve any of them.

They'd manage without him, of course. The bigger kids were consumed with their own pursuits. Baby Russ was fine too. Though David hadn't held his smallest son since the day of his fortieth birthday, he appeared to be thriving.

His black dress shoes sank into soft sand. Immediately, grains made their way between his socks and the leather insole. He accepted the petty discomfort with his usual stoicism. Sure, he should have worn something more casual than his business clothes, but he'd been sitting at his desk, staring at spreadsheets without seeing a single column when he'd made the sudden decision to visit.

Looking toward the surf, David caught sight of his daughter. Stretched belly-down on a beach blanket, she wore bug-big sungla.s.ses and was up on her elbows, her nimble thumbs tapping, engrossed in the modern teenager's version of talking drums. It seemed just yesterday she'd been wearing princess tiaras and dipping her digits in finger paints. In a skimpy bikini and with her mother's long legs, she appeared almost full-grown.

Past the need for him.

Her head turned his way, and a smile stretched her mouth, her straight white teeth beautiful. Still, nostalgia squeezed his heart as he remembered those long months when she'd come home from every orthodontist appointment with different colored bands on her braces: orange and black at Halloween, red and green at Christmas, two different shades of blue that time he'd taken her himself.

She'd asked for her father's favorite color.

Now she jumped to her feet. "Dad!" she cried, waving.

He crossed the beach, the soft sand slowing his steps and helping him maintain his newly developed detachment. "How are you, honey?" he asked her. "How was school this morning?"

"I don't know why I'm wasting any of my summer vacation in a cla.s.sroom."

"The honors history seminar will look good on your college apps."

Rebecca made a face. "Now you sound like Mom. I thought you were on my side. You told her I should get to enjoy my time off."

He hesitated. When they were living in the same house and before his fateful fortieth, it seemed as if the mom-versus-dad debate was perfectly acceptable. But when he and Tess were living in separate places, he figured they should show a united front in things like this. The dull ache in his belly sharpened as he thought about custody again.

It wouldn't surprise him if Tess asked to have the kids 24/7-and he'd grant her wish, of course.

"Dad?"

He cleared his throat. "Mom wants you to maximize your chances and your choices. I can't argue with that."

Especially because he wondered whether Tess's insistence on it was a reflection of her dissatisfaction with what she herself had done post high school. Instead of college or career, she'd married David and devoted herself to him and their children. Was she regretting that now?

She'd left their home. Clearly she was regretting him.

The sound of shrieking kids drew his attention up the beach. High-stepping through the surf, all k.n.o.bby knees and elbows, their skin a golden tan, his oldest sons were racing toward him. Their exuberant expressions were testament to the pleasure they were finding at Crescent Cove.

They probably didn't miss home-or him-at all.

"Dad!" Duncan skidded to a stop in front of him, while Oliver's momentum had him slamming into David. He scaled his father's body like a monkey.

David's arm automatically curved around his boy to steady him. "Hey, kids. What have you been doing?"

Duncan had a new sprinkle of freckles across his nose. "Dad, can I climb up that cliff?" He pointed to the high ragged bluff at the end of the cove. "I want to go up there and jump off like Uncle Griff."

Fear clutched at David's throat. "No!" Jesus. He couldn't bear the thought of something happening to one of his children. That's what had started all this. "It's too dangerous."

"Aah." His older son kicked at the sand. "That's what Mom says."

Relief loosened the stranglehold on his neck. "You listen to her."

"Jane says Uncle Griff's turning into a beach b.u.m," Oliver announced, sliding free of his hold. "So I've decided that's what I'm going to be when I grow up."

"Jane?" David glanced at his daughter.

Rebecca tipped her head, her gaze s.h.i.+fting behind him. David turned to see a quietly pretty young woman walking their way, Russ on her hip, the little guy's head on her shoulder.

The dread he'd been carrying around since his wife and kids had left home redoubled. "Has Mom hired a nanny?" Was Tess already moving on with her life? He understood it was his own actions that had driven her to it, but the idea of actually losing her was still difficult to bear.

"She's not a nanny," Rebecca said. "She's working with Uncle Griff."

"Though childcare experience comes in handy in that capacity too," the woman said as she approached, giving him a wry smile. "I'm Jane Pearson."

He held out his hand. "David Quincy."

At the sound of his voice, baby Russ's head shot up and his body twisted in Jane's hold. "Dah!" he yelled, reaching toward David with chubby arms.

David moved back. "Where's Mom?" he asked Rebecca, ignoring another bellowing "Dah!"

His daughter took her smallest brother onto her own hip, distracting him by swinging side to side. "She's having lunch with some man."

"Oh?" He tried to wipe any expression from his face, though that dull knife was carving at his entrails again.

"It's a business thing, she said," Jane added quickly.

David figured that meant he looked more pained than he had the right to be. "I'm sure."

"Really." She pointed in the direction of the restaurant up the beach. "At Captain Crow's."

Duncan and Oliver were already starting some little-boy game involving sand being scooped into the back of each other's swim trunks. Rebecca was dangling Russ's toes in the wet sand, causing him to squeal.

Jane was the only one still paying David any attention.

"I guess I'll go see if I can have a word with her," he said, already moving away from his kids. Every step felt like a mile, but he didn't falter. The distance from them was what he'd been working on for months. It was also what had p.i.s.sed off Tess, but he figured it was the only way he could survive.

Love hurt so d.a.m.n much.

He approached the restaurant from the side entrance. For a moment he was startled by his reflection in the plate gla.s.s windows. Less soft now, he looked more like his own father, Lawrence Quincy, a spare and stiff man who had seemed to regard his children like necessary but not-much-wanted accoutrements of modern life. David had not always admired that about him. Now he strove to emulate the emotional aloofness.

He caught sight of his wife, seated at a small table on the deck. Her back was to him, and across from her was a man in beach casual lightweight pants and a short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt-the kind of thing David had in his closet but rarely wore now that he was splitting all of his time between the office and the gym. Tess had her hair in one of those messy knots that appeared to have been put together in a moment and with one pin, but that he knew for a fact could take her up to thirty minutes to perfect.

It was a s.e.xy look he'd always loved on her.

Apparently her companion felt the same, because he leaned forward and reached for the hand she had resting on the table. He covered it, a gesture so proprietary that David had to suppress the vicious urge to rip off the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's arm.

But he wouldn't, he promised himself, breathing deeply. The slick dude was the kind of man Tess should have married from the beginning. With a charming manner and affable smile, he would be able to schmooze a room instead of setting everyone to snoring with talk of commissions and expense sheets.

He and Tess had been a mismatch from the very beginning. She should have married another of the talent agency's famous clients instead of the guy who sat behind a desk perusing financial statements. Despite what was said in the press, not everyone in the entertainment business lacked morals.

And boring men who played with numbers all day could be the biggest f.u.c.k ups of them all.

As if she heard that thought, Tess turned, her gaze landing on him. Even from a deck away, her blue eyes stood out, and he was transported to that day fourteen years before. They'd collided in the entryway at work. With a sick feeling he'd watched her fly back, then fall to the floor.

He'd rushed to her side, horrified he'd hurt her and, worse, that he'd hurt her, the OM girl, who had some strange hold over the nation. He'd heard through the grapevine she'd just been booked on Leno, and here he might have broken her tailbone.

But she'd been laughing when he'd helped her up. Next thing he knew, his normally reserved self had insisted he buy her a cup of coffee. They'd walked down the street to the small sidewalk cafe where there were often sightings of celebrities that made it into Star magazine or episodes of Entertainment Tonight. He hadn't seen anyone but Tess.

She still captured his attention.

Her hand gestured him near. He threaded his way through the restaurant tables to stand beside her. "I was hoping you had a few minutes to talk," he said.

Her glance took in the empty plates on the table and then swept up to the man across from her. "Uh... Do you remember Reed Markov? He was the head photographer on the OM stuff, and-"

"-I call Tess about every two months, trying to convince her to get back in the business. I have the perfect project for her."

David narrowed his eyes. Sure. He knew exactly what kind of "perfect project" the other man had in mind. He recognized Reed now, remembered him from the early days of dating Tess.

"I wasn't sure the two of you were still together," Reed was saying.

David crossed his arms over his chest. "I recall you having trouble with that," he said. Another time, after they'd been married, Tess had invited the photographer to a c.o.c.ktail party at their place. Reed had mentioned a perfect project then too, one that involved coaxing Tess to leave the house where she lived with her husband for a big bash in the Hollywood Hills that very night.

Cla.s.sy guy.

The tension in the air, he figured, was what got Tess out of her chair. "Well, thank you, Reed. I'll be in touch."

Reed stood too. "I'd like to help you in any way I can, Tess." Then Mr. Perfect Project leaned over to kiss David's wife. On the mouth.

Maybe it was an air kiss gone awry. Maybe it was a casual kind of Hollywood farewell. Maybe a man who hadn't touched his wife's lips in months shouldn't object when they encountered those of someone else.

That man wasn't David.

His fingers curled into fists, and as the three of them walked across the deck together, a whirlpool of angry heat swirled in his belly. At the exit, Tess turned toward the beach while Reed started for the parking lot. David paused, looking between the two, his heart pumping the caustic burn through his system.

"Are you coming?" Tess asked.

"You go ahead. I just remembered something else I have to do." Then he quickened his stride and found Reed unlocking the door of his cla.s.sic convertible. "Markov."

The other man leaned against the side of his vanilla-cream Mercedes. His expression no longer held any faux friendliness. "What?"

David got close enough to smell the garlic on his breath. "You have legitimate work for my wife, and if she's interested, fine. But if you pursue her in any other way, I'll tear your head off your body and roll it down the closest alley like a bowling ball."

He didn't wait for a response. Instead he stalked off, heading for his car and not his wife. There was no reasonable discussion to be had. No granting of requests. To h.e.l.l with all that!

To h.e.l.l with giving her a divorce.

He was a lousy husband and father, and just to prove it, he wasn't going to let his family go. He'd find a way to keep his distance, to keep himself safe from his crus.h.i.+ng love for them, but seeing her with another man made it perfectly clear what David wasn't going to do.

He wasn't going to let Tess and Rebecca and the boys get away.

THAT EVENING, fog came to Crescent Cove about the same time that Griffin returned to Beach House No. 9 with Private at his heels. Jane heard the door open and shut and called out to him from her place on the love seat in the room that was the designated office.

The office that had been empty of its writer all day long-even though she'd rededicated herself to being all-business.

With that thought, she shot a guilty glance at the trash can beside the desk. At the bottom of it lay the bottle of skinny margarita she'd polished off. When the clock had read five, though she couldn't hear the blow of the conch sh.e.l.l up the beach, she'd decided a drink might smooth over her frustration. Some bikini must have left the partially full "diet" adult beverage behind, and she'd sipped at the lime-and-tequila concoction for the past three hours.

She might be a tiny bit tipsy.