Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3) (5 page)

“So, what does your name mean?” he asked. “Elusive jaguar? Midnight sky?” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Doe-eyed man-eater?”

“Little mermaid.”

He looked skeptical. “Native Americans believe in mermaids?”

“My parents watched
The Little Mermaid
with my older siblings one night, and when it was over, they told them there would be another baby in the family.” She fought a smile. “My sister announced I would be named Arielle, and it stuck, with a slightly fancier spelling.”

His jaw loosened. “So nothing mysterious or ancient?”

“Only the ancient and mysterious Walt Disney.”

“But what about your parents and the universe?”

“My
grandmother
and the universe,” she corrected. “My mother did not share that connection. Quite the opposite, in fact.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Payment, please.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet, sliding out a one-dollar bill without taking his eyes from hers. “I’ll add that to the list,” he said softly, placing the bill in her hand.

“What list?”

“The list of things I know about you.” He started counting on his fingers. “Disney princess, interior designer, sorceress, candy snob…” He reached forward to touch the sunflower. “Twisted.”

“Twisted?” She angled the champagne flute, enjoying the playful exchange far more than the drink. “What I said and what you heard were two different things.”

“That’s how it is for us superior-character judges. Let’s bet again because I hate to lose.” He swept a hand toward the wedding guests. “Ask me about anyone you know here, and I’ll tell you something just by looking at them. If I’m right, I win. If I’m wrong, you win.”

She waved the dollar bill. “Double or nothing?”

“You keep that.” He put his lips right over her ear, ruffling the perfectly placed curl that Gussie had styled earlier. “This time I wager a kiss. That way, there is no real loser.”

About six billion goose bumps exploded on her neck, and Ari actually had to tense up to not give in to a full-body shiver. “Losing is losing, and I hate it, too.”

“Then we make quite a pair.”

Oh, God, she thought, sanity slipping with each passing minute. They
did
make quite a pair.

“Game on, Little Mermaid.” And back he went on the two legs of the chair.

“All right.” With her chin propped on the back of her hand, she searched the crowd with a pointed-finger periscope that stopped at Mandy Nicholas. “The blonde right over there. Tell me her story.”

Would he guess that the woman who ran the housekeeping company was once a maid at the resort and recently married one of the über-rich men who’d moved here to start a minor league baseball team? Unlikely.

“Ahh, let me think.” He peered at her, pursing his lips, nodding as he thought it through. “Definitely on the bride’s side. Maybe a sister or cousin. And she’s a neat freak.”

True enough, Mandy was scooping up a plate that had held hors d’oeuvres and looking around for someone to hand it to. Someone who worked for her, but would he know that?

“And she’s pregnant.”

Ari sat up straight. “Really?”

“Look how she’s sort of absently rubbing her stomach.”

Mandy was indeed giving herself the telltale pregnancy rub with her free hand. “Huh. Who knew?”

“Me.” He leaned closer. “I’ll settle for a peck on the cheek. Ready whenever you are.”

“No way.” She shook her head, backing away. “She is not a cousin or sister of the bride,” she said, glancing at Mandy as her husband, Zeke, walked toward the table, talking to the groom. “She’s in charge of our housekeeping service and married to a billionaire.”

“But she
is
pregnant.”

“That remains to be seen. Would you have known that her husband is a billionaire?”

“No, but that guy behind him is.”

She leaned to the side to see who he meant. “Well, yes, Nate Ivory is a billionaire, but that so doesn’t count since his whole family is tabloid fodder, and we weren’t betting on him.”

He laughed softly. “How many things do I have to get right to qualify for a win?”

If he kissed her, even on the cheek, she’d probably melt right into his arms. Still leaning away, Ari spied Lacey Walker across the dance floor in the center of the reception area. “You win if you can guess who
she
is.”

“Easy. She owns the place. Built it, in fact. Husband’s the architect.”

Ari’s jaw dropped. “How do you—”

He put his finger on her chin, closed her mouth, and guided her face to his. “Forget the cheek. I want the lips.”

As if she could say no. Ari inched closer, already anticipating the touch.

“Hi there, Luke. Nice to see you again.”

Lacey’s voice pulled them apart. So he
knew
Lacey Walker.

“Cheaters never win,” Ari mumbled, making Luke laugh, low and sly. They both stood to greet the woman who did, indeed, own Casa Blanca with her architect husband, Clay, backed financially and emotionally by her three best friends from college.

“Hello, Lacey.” Ari reached out to give the other woman a hug. “You’ve obviously already met Gussie’s brother, Luke.”

“Just before the wedding.” They greeted each other with an easy hug. “Say, Clay wanted me to give you a heads up that the mason will be at the job site tomorrow morning at eight. He’s apparently anxious to meet you.”

“Absolutely,” Luke replied. “I’ll be there bright and early.”

Ari knew a little about building from her interior design classes. A mason would be the contractor who’d prepare the foundation…and level any uneven ground. Her heart tripped, the pearl necklace and its possible significance still tugging at her.

“What are you thinking about building?” Ari asked.

“No one’s
thinking
about it anymore,” Lacey said on a laugh. “Clay’s architectural firm handled the design for the house Luke’s building up on Barefoot Mountain.”

“Barefoot Mountain?” Ari and Luke actually asked the question in perfect unison, but Ari sounded strangled, while Luke laughed at the name. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” he added.

Lacey waved her hand. “Oh, you have to remember I’m a Mimosa Key local, born and raised. We used to ride dirt bikes on that hill when I was a kid, and it seemed like a mountain to us.”

Dirt bikes? On a burial ground? Ari tamped down her reaction. She didn’t
know
it was a burial ground yet. But she had to find out.

“And you really want to
destroy
a…local landmark?” Ari asked him.

“Well, Cutter Valentine does,” he said. “And it’s his ten-thousand-square-foot estate home I’ve been hired to build.”

“That’s what’s going there?” Ari almost choked. “A McMansion for a has-been ballplayer?”

They both looked at her, instantly making Ari regret the exclamation.

“He’s not exactly a
has-been
,” Luke said with a wry smile. “Cutter’s retiring from a stellar career and is going to be managing the Barefoot Bay Bucks minor league team.”

“And, frankly, it’s a godsend that someone is finally building up there,” Lacey added. “That land’s been in probate and court messes, and no one wanted to touch it after Hurricane Damien hit. But it turns out Cutter’s great-uncle willed it to him, and he let it sit because he didn’t want it.”

“Then the opportunity for him to manage the Bucks came up,” Luke said. “It was serendipity.”

Which Ari didn’t believe in. “Why didn’t anyone want to touch it before now?” she asked, her sixth sense sparking. Maybe someone knew what
Barefoot Mountain
really was.

“Balzac Valentine died during the storm, in the house,” Lacey said. “One of the windows blew in and killed him.”

“Oh, how tragic,” Ari said. “Why didn’t he evacuate?”

“Lots of us didn’t,” Lacey told her. “That hurricane was headed straight north for the Panhandle, when
bam
!” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the left. “It turned and crashed straight into Barefoot Bay with cat-five winds. It happened so fast, most of us had no choice but to hunker down and ride it out.”

“Did you?” Luke asked.

She nodded, a frown pulling at her lightly freckled brow. “My daughter and I lived right over there where the main hotel is now, in a house my grandfather built. We spent that night in a bathtub with a mattress on our heads.” She closed her eyes on a sigh. “It was a miracle we survived, because nothing else did.”

Ari had heard bits and pieces of the story, folklore around Casa Blanca now, but seeing the memory darkening Lacey’s amber eyes made it real. Yet her mind went back to the land in North Barefoot Bay. “Did you know the man who died?”

“I’d met him as a child, but he was a recluse after his wife passed away.” She nodded, narrowing her eyes to pull up a memory. “My grandfather knew him, though. They were both Mimosa Key founders who claimed land in the forties.”

“And left it to Cutter Valentine?” Ari asked, wondering about the pro baseball player and how much he might—or might not—care about sacred ground and making a mental note to sit down and talk to Lacey about her grandfather, and that hill.

“Nobody was more stunned than Cutter when he found out he had a great-uncle who left him part of an island,” Luke said. “But, then, that’s how Cutter Valentine’s life goes. Perfectly.”

“Who lived there before Cutter’s great-uncle?” Ari asked. Maybe someone,
somewhere
kept a record of that land or its history.

“No one,” Lacey said. “Before my grandfather and his cronies built a wooden causeway from the mainland, this island was purely overgrown scrub and mangroves, totally uninhabited but for gators and birds, like lots of the keys and small islands along this part of the coast and the Everglades.”

“And these settlers just claimed the land?” What if it belonged to someone else? “Is that even legal?”

Lacey gave a dismissive laugh. “Back then? Land acquisition was a free-for-all, according to my grandfather. No one cared about this island off the coast of Florida, so the founders built the bridge and took the land they wanted.” She swept her hand toward the spectacular view of white sands that curved in a half moon at least a mile long. “Which is how I ended up with such prime property for Casa Blanca.”

But
someone
might have lived here before, Ari thought. Seminole, maybe. Or Calusa. Grandma would have known. An old, dull pain, more like the memory of the ache than the actual thing, pressed around the edges of her heart, but Ari pushed it away. Ari’s grandmother would have known and she would have
cared
. She’d have done something about the very idea of leveling a burial ground.

“Anyway, you know Clay is really happy you took the job for Mr. Valentine, since your sister works here at Casa Blanca. It’s incredible good fortune that it worked out that way.”

Fortune. Serendipity. Coincidence.
All the words scraped over Ari’s heart. He was here for a reason, all right. But was it because he was The One for her…or the one she was supposed to stop from destroying sacred land?

Right that minute, Ari had never missed her grandmother more.

Luke’s reply was drowned out by a cheer that rose from across the dance floor, where a group of guests surrounded Mandy Nicholas and her husband, Zeke. “And it seems we have even more to celebrate today.” Lacey beamed at the couple. “Did you hear Mandy’s going to have a baby?”

“I heard,” Ari said dryly, sliding a look at a very smug Luke.

“Love is in the air, as always!” Lacey blew them a playful kiss, moving on to greet guests at the next table.

“Pregnant, huh?” Luke turned to her and tipped her chin up. “About my winnings…”

She inched out of his touch, thinking hard. She had to make him understand why he couldn’t destroy that hill. “One more bet, Luke.”

He gave a pretend grunt. “You really want me to work for it, don’t you? All right. Name it.”

“I bet you”—she put her hands on her hips and looked up, purposely coy—“don’t have the nerve”—he lifted one brow at the words—“to take me to Barefoot Mountain after the reception is over.”

He frowned, not following. “Kind of dark and scary at night, especially in a place where a guy died.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark or the dead, Luke. I respect both too much.” She layered on plenty of emphasis, which she hoped he’d understand later.

“All right, I’ll take you,” he said. “Which means I won that bet.” He lowered his face, then moved his mouth to cover her ear. “I’ll collect my winnings up on the mountain, Arielle.”

If she didn’t chase him away with what she planned to tell him up there. Until then, maybe she should dial back the banter and remember he might end up disliking her very much by the end of the night.

Chapter Four

The clouds were heavy by midnight, blocking any moonlight and threatening rain, but the headlights of Luke’s old-but-new-to-him Ford F-150 lit up the dilapidated house like it was a set on a Broadway stage. Broken windows, missing shingles, fallen fascia, and torn porch planks made the sinister little structure look every bit the part of a place where a man named Balzac Valentine had been hit by debris and killed.