Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3) (25 page)

“Trash?”

“Interesting trash.” He angled the can so she could see it was a Red Bull, and the newspaper was the
Mimosa Gazette
.

“The guy who was in Charity’s store,” she said.

He nodded. “Look.” A giant red circle had been drawn on the newspaper, highlighting a tiny ad in the classifieds under the label Lost and Found.

Missing: pearl necklace, lost in Barefoot Bay, high sentimental value. $$$ Reward

Chapter Nineteen

Ari heard laughter from the Barefoot Brides offices and nearly broke into a joyous run when she realized that infectious sound of happiness belonged to Willow Ambrose. Well, Willow Hershey, now.

“You’re back!” Ari exclaimed when she burst through the open door, arms outstretched. “I thought you had one more day on the yacht.”

“Don’t worry.” Willow returned the hug and added a good squeeze. “The honeymoon will last a long, long time. But Nate and his partners are having some kind of important meeting on board. And that yacht, you guys!” She smacked her chest with a flat hand, dropping her head back with a grunt. “I cannot even describe the opulence of the
N’Vidrio
. I still can’t believe a billionaire gave it to us for the week.”

“He didn’t exactly give it to you,” Gussie reminded her. “We’re doing his wedding to Liza, remember?”

“Like that was a fair exchange,” Ari teased.

“Really, a week on the yacht way outweighs whatever we can do for that wedding, which will have to be a-
may
-zing,” Willow said. “Think of what kind of clientele it will bring to us!”

“Lacey is already salivating about the high-end guest list,” Ari added. “But why cut short the trip? Shouldn’t you be lounging naked with Nick on the upper deck having him feed you peeled grapes? Yet you’re in the office on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Trust me, there’s been plenty of naked lounging. Nick ran out to stock the house with some food now that we’ll have to actually cook instead of having a personal chef, and he dropped me off here so I could dig through the mail and see what I’ve missed. I found Gussie in here.”

“I was looking for you,” Gussie explained. “Where have you been, anyway?”

“Up…in North Barefoot Bay.”

“What were you doing up there?” Willow asked, pulling Ari toward the round table where they always gathered to chat.

“With my
brother
,” Gussie added, slathering on all kinds of meaning to the last word as she joined them.

Willow leaned back, surprised. “Oh? Have I missed something while on my honeymoon?”

“Have you ever, Willow.” Gussie pressed both hands on the table, leaning in for dramatic effect. “Luke’s The One.”

“Gussie.” Ari ground out her friend’s name and narrowed her eyes.

“What?” Willow practically jumped out of her chair. Maybe her skin. Her blue eyes grew wide as she looked at Ari in shock. “The One? Your The One that you’re always talking about? Luke McBain?”

Why had she ever confided her beliefs to her best friends? Because they were her best friends, that’s why. Ari shook her head, laughing and sighing at the same time. “You want to know the truth?”

They both gave her their versions of a
get real
look. As if they wanted anything but the truth.

“I don’t know,” she said on a slow exhale. “I honestly do not know. Sometimes I think he’s just a really sweet, funny, wonderful guy, and sometimes I think…” She paused, looking from one to the other. “He’s
the
really sweet, funny, wonderful guy. The one and only.”

“Oooooh.” Willow and Gussie let out the musical exclamation and shared a knowing look and that smug smile that women in love had when they thought their circle was about to get bigger.

“Guys, we’re not…nothing’s been…anything could…” Ari closed her eyes and sighed.

“Words fail her,” Gussie said.

“She’s speechless,” Willow agreed.

“It’s love,” they sang in perfect harmony.

Ari opened her mouth, then shut it. Then bit her lip. “Maybe it could be at some point,” she whispered, wanting them to be right. “But I really don’t know, and that’s the hardest part. I thought it would be more obvious, but I’m worried that I’m talking myself into something because…” She looked at their permanent smiles of contentment, their big ol’ left-hand jewelry. “Maybe I’m envious of you two, and I want something so much, I wished it into existence.”

“You didn’t wish Luke into existence!” Gussie said. “And you don’t have a jealous bone in your body.”

“Does he feel the same way about you?” Willow asked, putting her hand over Ari’s.

“He doesn’t want to feel anything,” she admitted glumly, then looked at Gussie. “He had his heart broken pretty bad. Did you know that?”

She shook her head. “No, he avoids the subject of women when I bring it up. Can I ask him about it, or would that be breaking a confidence?”

Ari gave her a grateful smile for asking. “I’d let it go unless he brings it up.”

“Has he talked to you about Ari?” Willow asked Gussie.

“Only enough that I get the impression he’s crazy about you, Ari. Which a blind man could see.”

“So he feels it, but doesn’t say it,” Willow surmised. “Which makes him a guy, through and through.”

“He’s not like most guys, though,” Ari said. Most guys wouldn’t go four years without sex. “Which is the problem. He’s not like any guy I’ve ever met, so…” She slipped into a loopy grin. “We’re back to is he or isn’t he The One?”

“Are you seeing him tonight?” Gussie asked.

“No, he’s having dinner with Cutter Valentine, and I have a ton of work to do, since we have a couple of major weddings on the docket. Which reminds me, I need to send an e-mail.”

She pushed up and went to her own desk, tapping the computer mouse to bring it to life, the address listed with the classified ad still fresh in her brain. She’d promised Luke she’d contact the person looking for the necklace. It was critical to learn where those pearls had come from.

Because if the necklace hadn’t been unearthed from the hill, then maybe her whole theory about a burial ground there was all wrong and he really should get on with the building. As Ari slipped into her desk chair, Willow’s hand landed on her shoulder.

“What does it feel like?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

She turned in her chair to meet Willow’s gaze, and Gussie came right up to join them.

“Yeah,” Gussie added. “What does it feel like?”

“I’m pretty sure you two already know,” she said.

“Well, if you think Nick and I were meant for each other, and Gussie and Tom, then you know it isn’t always super easy in the beginning. Sometimes you have to fight a little for love. And make concessions and compromises.”

Gussie stepped closer, her hands on her hips. “And you don’t ruin his plans, cost him his job, and send him packing across the Atlantic.”

“What?” Willow demanded, spinning around. “He’s leaving?”

Gussie lifted her brows in question to Ari. “Can I tell her?”

“Of course.”

“She’s trying to stop him from building Cutter Valentine’s house because she thinks it’s on sacred Native American ground or that there’s a treasure trove of three-thousand-year-old tools under the hill. Or dead bodies.”

“Maybe,” Ari corrected. “I’m not sure. Something came up today that might set us straight on that. Still, I believe there’s something in that land because I can feel it.” And someone
was
digging for something, that much was clear. Maybe that was just the missing pearls or even that overpriced baseball card, but she wasn’t imagining there was something of value on that land, and it wasn’t just the million-dollar view.

“Whatever happens, I don’t want my brother to go back to France because he made it clear to me that’s the only place he is certain of a steady income.”

“Couldn’t he do something else?” Willow asked.

“I don’t know his financial situation,” Gussie said. “But he definitely feels a burn to make money and, really, who can fault him for that? We all have to work.”

Ari’s cell dinged, and she seized it from the desktop without a second’s hesitation.

“The grab of hope,” Gussie teased.

“Oh, yeah,” Willow agreed. “She thinks it’s him.”

She flattened them both with a look, even though, damn it, they were absolutely right.

But it wasn’t Luke’s name on the text screen. The message was from Dr. David Marksman from Mound House.

Can you come out here tomorrow? Must talk. Very important.

She tapped a response into her phone, then turned to focus on sending an e-mail to the address in the classified ad in the local paper. But that was another dead end, she discovered, seconds after sending it. The e-mail of the person looking for the pearl necklace was no longer active.

A strange zing traveled up her back, like a telegram from the universe. Something wasn’t right.

* * *

Luke let his head fall back on the leather headrest of the limo, grateful that Cutter Valentine had the foresight to have a car and driver at the ready after their dinner. Had Cutter been that huge a drinker in high school?

After more than ten years in the Legion, Luke could hold his liquor. Hell, getting stupid drunk was actually considered part of active duty in the Legion, and Luke had done his part in many hellhole bars around the world.

Maybe Cutter just had better whiskey. Whatever, Luke was definitely well past mellow and into toasted as he sat alone in the limo, headed south to Gussie’s apartment.

Where Arielle would be sleeping one short flight of stairs above him.

Just the thought of her in bed fired his body with a gallon of blood, making him shift uncomfortably against the luxurious leather.

He was not going to show up at her door half-drunk and hard up. No way. Fighting the idea for the rest of the ride, he thanked the driver and made his way to the back stairs that led up to Gussie’s apartment, the buzz in his head still pleasant enough to slow his step and let him take a minute to appreciate the nearly full moon spilling light and shadows over Mimosa Key. Along the walkway, he sniffed some honeysuckle, a smell he usually found cloying, but tonight it seemed…intoxicating.

Or
he
was intoxicated.

He plucked a few white flowers and stuck them under his nose as he headed up the stairs, unable to stop himself from looking up to the third floor to see if there were any lights on. Because they could talk…

Like hell they’d talk. He’d have his hands up her shirt and down her pants in ten minutes, and she’d hate that.

Except she didn’t hate it on the hill this afternoon. And they’d been interrupted, so maybe…

He closed his eyes and almost swayed, more from the memory of her bare breasts in the gleaming sun than the top-shelf whiskey Cutter had been sharing.

At Gussie’s door, he was about to knock or reach under the mat for the key, like she’d been leaving it since he arrived. But then he spied a little sticky note on the door handle. He ripped it off and turned toward the moonlight to read it.

Gone to Tom’s. Left my key at hardware store to get one made for you. Ari has a spare.

With a damn winky face. Evil little thing—as if she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. As if you had to leave a key overnight to get a duplicate. He knew Gussie.

All those questions she’d asked him before he left for dinner, all the insinuations that he might be “the one” for her best friend.

Huffing out a breath, he started up the stairs, trying to decide if he loved his sister for this or might have to kill her. Either way, this was not a booty call. Not a booty call. Not a booty call.

Not. A. Boo—

The door whipped opened before he knocked, sending him back a shaky step. “It’s about time.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, because her eyes were hooded, her hair messy, and she wore nothing but a longish T-shirt, her legs bare.

Oh, shit. Maybe it was a booty call.

“I’ve been asleep for two hours, Luke.”

“Sorry, I…” He had to touch her hair. Had to. Lifting his hand, he grazed a few strands before she jerked back.

“Here.” She held a key out. “This is what you want, right?”

No, he wanted to push her up against the wall, rip that shirt off, and make love until they both howled and cried and couldn’t see straight anymore. “Yep, key.”

She searched his face again, as if trying to gauge how drunk he was. Pretty drunk, but he’d faced worse scrutiny from a CO after a bender. He met her gaze and didn’t flinch.

“Gussie could have put it under the doormat,” she said. “But I think she thought she was being oh-so-sly getting you up here.”

Arielle could have put it under the doormat, too. But she hadn’t.

“That’s my Auggie. Sly.” His hands hurt, like always, dying to get into her hair. And his chest ached, and every cell in his body—even the ones that had been numbed by Jameson’s—started to do the whole tingle thing they always did when she was around. “Booze didn’t kill it,” he murmured, almost shaking his head in disgust.