Casanova(3)

As if he could read my mind, he winked discreetly at me as his wife, Ida Walker, joined the conversation.

“Here you go, darling.” She handed her husband a glass with two fingers of scotch and turned her attention to us. “My dears!” Ida pulled me into her as if I had seen her every day for the past eight years. After one gentle squeeze, she pulled back and held me at arm’s length. “Lani, darling. You look wonderful. California is treating you well.”

I gave her a wide smile. “Me? Never mind me—look at you! Have you aged at all?”

She laughed her little twinkly laugh and placed an aged hand over her heart.

She could laugh all she liked. The woman didn’t look a day over fifty, and she was a damn good seventy.

Ida rubbed my upper arm. “You always were the sweet-talker in your family.”

“It’s how I got to raid the greenhouse for Grandpa’s tomatoes every summer.” I grinned.

“It’s true,” Connie agreed. “No matter how I tried, I could never convince him to let me go in there first. And she always took the biggest ones.”

“Of course I did.” I nudged her elbow. “I wasn’t going to save them for you, was I?”

Henrick chuckled.

I blanked out when Ida swapped places with her husband and asked my sister about the baby.

Henrick sipped from his scotch before cradling it against his body. “I’m assuming you haven’t seen him since you returned home.”

“If by him you mean your grandson, then you’re assuming correctly.” I shuffled my feet and awkwardly folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t particularly want to see him, either.”

“I’m not going to pretend to know what happened with your friendship—”

“It’s old news. With all due respect, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about him anymore.”

I was lying, and the glint in his eyes told me he knew it.

“You should be aware that he’s determined to speak with you while you’re here in the Key,” he continued on in a low voice. “He wanted to come today, but I told him it was highly inappropriate given the occasion.”

It was highly inappropriate for him to want to speak to me at all, but whatever.

“Then he should be aware that I’m determined not to speak with him.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I have nothing to say to him.”

“Lani.” Henrick stepped toward me, his eyes kind.

I exhaled. “He wasn’t who I thought he was. It’s really that simple.”

The old man held my gaze for a long moment before releasing it and nodding. “I understand. I think you’ll find that not many people do know who my grandson is—least of all him.”

I tilted my head to the side, but just as I opened my mouth to respond and ask what he meant, Ida interrupted.

“Henrick, we really must be getting back. You know how agitated Starla gets when she’s left alone with the dang housekeeper for so long.” Ida touched both mine and Connie’s arms. “Anything you need, girls. Anything at all, you call me, and I’ll see to it.”

“You really don’t have to—” Connie began.

She squeezed our arms. “I miss your grandmother something fierce. It’s all I can do to look after you.”

I swallowed hard, another emotional lump forming in my throat. “Thank you.”

The Walkers bid us goodbye.

Connie turned to me. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I spun away from her and went to the table with the alcohol. I needed a drink. Henrick’s words were spinning out of control in my mind.

“Yes, you do.” She grabbed my hand before I could grab a wine bottle out of the ice bucket. “What did he say to you?”

“Drop it.”

“It was about Brett, wasn’t it?”

. My sister’s meddling had me reaching for the wine, then downing it to relieve the dryness in my mouth at the mention of Brett’s name. The more I drank, the more temptation I felt to drink straight from the bottle. If I didn’t have to share it with anyone else...

“It was Brett.” Connie sighed. Once again, she grabbed my hand. This time, she tugged, making me turn toward her, and met my gaze with her own. “You’re going to have to see him at some point or another. His family runs this town. Do you really think you’ll be able to avoid it?”

“Drop it, Connie.”

She did.





I didn’t miss much about Whiskey Key. If I were being cynical, I’d say there wasn’t much to miss, but actually, there was. I just didn’t care for the majority of it.

But I did miss the golden sand stretched out for several miles, and unlike the beaches I rarely frequented in Cali, it was almost always empty. Especially early in the morning when I liked to run.

Actually, I missed running on the beach. The streets of Los Angeles were nowhere near as pretty or as fresh as the air that was currently filling my lungs.

Grandma’s house, my temporary home, wasn’t too far from one end of the beaches. She always joked that if she wanted to, when her black lab was alive, she could simply stand at the edge of the yard and let the dog take herself for a walk along the shore. She was completely right—I’d jogged from the front door to the beach in less than five minutes. And I could still see the house.