Dangerous: A Seaside Cove Romance (13 page)

"Dad!" Eli yelled, stepping over parts of Mrs. McKenzie's engine that were scattered through the garage. "Dad!"

Eli promised his father he would be in early that morning, but hit snooze well into the afternoon. Nursing a throbbing headache, he thumbed his split lip. Going to Squatters was only asking for trouble, but he went there with the intention of blowing off steam after another fight with his father.

In hindsight, it was stupid to shove Cole over some scrawny blonde chick he had never seen before. She had looked at Eli's appearance with contempt when he asked her to dance. He was already back to the pool table when he saw Cole make an obscene gesture behind her back. Eli doubted she was old enough to be in a bar. That, coupled with his already foul mood, he had unhinged with ease.

He stood outside his dad's closed office door. Usually open unless Ben Tomlin stopped by to talk to his dad. His father always claimed to discuss legal stuff with the young lawyer, and Eli did not care enough to question him. That was, until last month when Eli opened an unlabeled box, thinking it was the air intake manifold he had been waiting for.

Instead, he found bags of white crystals. He had seen enough drug use at Squatters to recognize the material as meth. When he confronted his father, he told Eli they were just pawns in Ben's bigger plan. Eli had a hard time imagining his father as anyone's pawn.

It still unsettled him when he thought about it; his dad and Ben moved drugs through the garage. Eli's hands fisted at his side. No wonder his mother left them behind. His dad was a loser and she guessed he would grow up to be just like him. He was getting out of Seaside Cove as soon as possible.

Eli made it obvious to his father he did not approve and would not take part in any of it. He started blowing off the books. He showed up late - if he came in at all. He became careless and messy at work, no longer treating other people's property as though it was worth anything. Hence, the pieces of Mrs. McKenzie's engine all around the garage.

He grasped the office door handle, just as a loud boom rang through the building. First instinct had Eli glancing around for a backfiring engine. But a rotten pit sitting in his stomach told him it was not backfire.

A gunshot?

He backed away from the door, stepping on a creeper; the board slid in the opposite direction, taking Eli's foot with it. He fell hard onto the cracked concrete.

The office door flew open.

"Eli?" His dad stood in the doorway, gun raised and pointing at Eli. He lowered it as he seemed to focus.

"Dad? What the fuck?" Eli pulled himself off the ground, his body shaking, his eyes on the gun. "Dad, are you okay?"

"He's fine," Ben said, appearing next to his father. Only five years older than Eli, Ben always spoke to him as though he was old enough to be Eli's father. He held a dirty rag, cleaning between his fingers.

Eli's father tucked the gun into his belt.

"Dad? What happened?" Eli willed his body to stop shaking as he looked around Ben and into the office. Red splatter on the back wall dripped. 

"If he's inheriting the
family
business," Ben said, "you might as well tell him what he's in for."

"He tells me he's leaving town," Eli's father said. Ben laughed.

"Is that blood?" Eli asked. He wanted his father to deny it.

"The family business is more than a garage; you know that, Eli." His dad turned and walked into the office. Eli stood frozen, wanting to run away before he saw anything else.

"There's blood on your hands, Eli," his father said. Eli looked at his hands. That was not what his father meant. "That's right. You aren't some innocent little princess. You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself as far as the police would be concerned."

Eli dated a girl when he first moved to Seaside Cove who showed him how to focus on his breathing when stress threatened to take over his body. Keeping his mind in control. Molly taught him to treat breathing as though he had to control it, or it would get away from him. Concentrate on the air moving in, the air moving out.

Eli was still counting his breaths when he stepped into his father's office. Two women sat in the chairs across from his father's desk.
Focus on breathing. One in. Two out. One in. Two out.

Ben and his father stood, waiting for Eli to say something. Eli looked at the women. The larger woman wore a burgundy suit. He refused to acknowledge anything more than the slacks, the button up jacket, before he looked at the younger woman.

The young girl seemed closer to Eli's age. Shadows of beauty hiding in her face, but now was skeletal with bruised skin and frizzy bleached hair, beauty was all but a memory she kept for herself. The women were as different as glass and metal, except for one thing.

They were both dead.

"An overdose?" Eli asked, forcing his eyes to stay on the thinner woman. The red on the back wall slid, hitting the ground with the sound of a wet sponge. The missing chunk of the burgundy woman's head. Eli closed his eyes and turned away from them. He did not want to see anymore.

"Yes. Ms. Pope here claimed our new stock might be a little potent, but she overdosed the poor girl," his father said. His voice was calm. So calm in fact, that it frightened Eli more than if his father had been panicking.

"Who's Ms. Pope?" Eli asked. Bile raised in his throat, and he pushed it down.

"A public defender," his dad said, "and our employee."

Our employee. His suspicions were confirmed; his father was more than a pawn.

"Eli." His father stood behind him, a hand grasping his shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"Ms. Pope threatened to turn us in. The three of us would go away for the rest of our lives."

"Do you know what they do with someone as pretty as me in prison?" Ben asked, straightening his tie. "What they'd do to someone like you?"

"I didn't do anything," Eli said, turning on Ben, feeling like a cornered animal. "I just found out-"

"It doesn't matter when, kiddo." Ben smiled, mocking Eli with his gaze. "The moment you found out and didn't turn us in, was the moment you became us. You're a part of this."

"I didn't do anything," Eli said.

"It would be our word against yours, Eli," his dad said.

Eli's heart sank. "You'd regret it."

"I have many regrets," his father said, "staying out of prison would not be one of them."

Eli watched Claire's face while he spoke. She betrayed nothing. She did not interrupt. He told her about the car accident he had been in as a kid when his father decided to drive drunk. His mother left them behind after that. He told her how his dad would not let him play sports growing up or hangout with friends after school. Instead, he spent all of his free-time in the garage. As soon as he turned 16, his father forced him to drop out of high school and work in the garage full-time.

The hardest thing to tell her though was about Ms. Pope. He told her about how he had helped them bury the bodies. About the years that followed, how he clamored to leave the business, but like a body struggling against an ocean wave, he was pulled in further and further.

Tears rolled down Eli's face when he spoke about his father's death, and how he had run the garage into the ground. How Ken had buried any brewery paperwork with Eli's name on it, without question. He told her how he had been in contact with Ken that morning, building a case against Ben.

He spoke until his throat was dry and his lips were chapped.

Claire pushed her glass of water into his hands, and the lights in the hallway dimmed. She whispered, "It's getting late."

Eli nodded. Shame rose to the surface. He was a terrible person, and now Claire knew it.

Eli stood, taking his keys off her bedside table. He walked towards the door.

"Eli."

He stopped, not wanting to look at her. Not wanting to see the disgust on her face. But, she deserved to tell him how she felt. He had tricked her by keeping the truth from her. He took a deep breath and turned to her.

Claire had scooted to one side of the bed, the sheets in her raised hand. "Don't leave."

He stared at the spot she cleared for him. "You still want me?"

"Sleep here. Hold me."

Eli walked to her, kicking his boots off and sliding them under the bed. He climbed onto the mattress, and she laid her head on his chest. Careful not to touch her bruised back, he wrapped his arm around her hip. 

"Did you ever kill anyone, Eli?" she asked.

"I'm responsible for any deaths-"

"Stop it. Did you ever pull the trigger?"

"No." He knew what she was doing; her attempt was useless.

"Your father and Ben, they manipulated you. Those things were not your fault. You were young, and your father had manipulated you for many years. Eli, you were a victim."

"I knew the difference between right and wrong. I should have gone to the police. I'm just as much to blame." The words had been living in Eli's head for years, it was the first time he said them aloud.

"I don't believe that, not for a second," she said. "Why come forward after all this time? Go to a lawyer? What if you go to jail?"

"If I do, it's because I deserve to go."

They were silent for a minute; the only sound the ticking of the clock above them.

"Does Ben still... do all that?" Claire asked.

"I don't know. Until a few months ago, I haven't seen him in three years."

"Not since your dad died?"

"He was at the funeral," Eli said. Not many people at his father's funeral, and Eli had been surprised Ben even showed. "He didn't come to pay his respects; he came to remind me he was still invested in the garage."

"I'm so sorry," Claire said, her arm pulling him closer.

"I don't know what he means for us, Claire," Eli said. "That's why I called Ken, that's why I'm going to fix everything I've fucked up."

She took a deep breath. "Do you think he's a threat?"

"I don't know."

As Claire nestled her head into his chest, his shirt grew damp from the tears on her face. "I can't put my kids in danger, Eli. No matter how I feel about us."

"I would never ask you to."

They lay there in silence until Claire drifted off to sleep. Eli slid out of the bed without waking her, and drove home, the loneliest he had been since before he met Claire.

Claire could not sleep in Rachel's bed another night with her kids. Robby talked in his sleep and Ella was a bed hog, occasionally elbowing Claire in her back. More often than not, she woke with a sore neck and Ella's foot in her face. It had been two long weeks since the three of them had moved into Rachel's apartment, and as she predicted, it was a tight fit.

Dishes clanged together in the kitchen; Rachel was so loud in the morning. Claire glanced at her watch; time to get up. She walked out of the bedroom and smiled at Rachel.

"Hey, sis." Rachel took a bite of a brightly colored cereal.

"You're home early," Claire said, pouring a cup of coffee to join Rachel at the table.

Rachel swallowed. "Doug had to leave today for a hunting expo."

Claire snorted. "I still can't believe you guys are dating."

Only the sound of Rachel's crunching interrupted the comfortable silence. Claire was happy for her; Doug was a good guy and treated Rachel like she was a queen. Not that she needed more ways to inflate her huge ego.

It was not fair. Eli was a good guy too. But with Ben in town and the election coming up, Ben was a risk. Eli's upbringing was not his fault; yet, they were both punished for it.

Their study group had met in a coffee shop downtown in the weeks since Claire wrecked her house. Eli left as soon as group work finished, never giving them a chance to talk about how things were progressing with the case.

"Why do you look like that?" Rachel asked, snapping her fingers in front of Claire's face. "Are you sick? Tired?"

"Worse." Claire sighed.

"Are you in pain? Do you still have pain meds?" Rachel hopped up from the table and dug through the basket of paperwork and random things Claire had brought from home. 

"The bottle is in the bathroom, but it's not pain," Claire said. "At least not the kind meds can fix."

Rachel turned around to face Claire. "Oh, hell no."

"What?"

"You're daydreaming. You're moony." Rachel threw her upper body dramatically across the counter.

"What are you talking about?" Claire asked. 

Rachel looked up. "It's a small town, Claire. And even if it wasn't… hello? Molly?"

"Molly what?"

"She told me you and Eli broke up, and I was like, what? My sister knows better than to get involved with that jerk."

"He's not a jerk," Claire said, frowning. "And we weren't really together."

"He broke your heart, didn't he? I told you, he's an asshole."

"You don't know him like I do, Rach," Claire said. "Don't say things you can't take back."

"Claire, don't give me that crap. I've known him a hell of a lot longer than you. Molly broke up with him for a good reason; she said he had no ambition and-"

"No ambition? Have you seen the brewery?" Claire asked, shaking her head. "I can't talk to you about this. I need to get the kids ready for school, and then I have to meet the home inspector." Claire set her empty mug in the sink.

"Oh, it's like the start of a romantic movie," Rachel said, seeming to forget their argument. "You're dealing with a breakup, and you meet a handsome insurance adjuster. You guys will be like Meg Ryan and Wilson."

"Tom Hanks?"

"Same thing."

"Whatever," Claire said. "It's not a romantic movie, it's an insurance claim so I can fix my house."

"Sure, just wait."

Claire punched her sister in the arm on the way to the bedroom.

"Hi," Claire said, shaking the insurance adjuster's hand. She wished Rachel was there. The balding man with bottle-cap glasses was at least twenty years older than Claire.
Romantic movie.

"Hi, Miss Bennet? I'm Edgar Scott." He smiled kindly, and Claire felt bad for noticing he was going bald. "If you're ready, we can look around. I don't have too many questions. It's obvious the home is a bit on the older side. We should be quick."

Claire unlocked the door, and they walked inside. She ambled over to the hole in the ceiling, studying all the scraps of wood on the floor. She wanted to clean it shortly after her accident, but was advised to leave the entire mess for the inspector to see.

"And you were underneath this?" Edgar asked, appearing at her side, clipboard in hand. He made a tsk sound.

"Yeah."

"Lucky, lady," Edgar said, looking between the ceiling and the scrap pile.

"I've been hearing that a lot lately," Claire said, forcing a smile. "In my opinion, good luck would've been if the ceiling had stayed up there." She pointed at the hole.

"That water damage might have saved your rear, excuse my language, when they decide what to do with your claim," Edgar said, laughing. "Replace quite a bit in the house."

"Oh." Maybe she was lucky after all.

Edgar handed her his clipboard, pointing to a few places for her to sign. "So, what's the plan?"

"I'm sorry?" Claire asked, flipping over a sheet of paper.

"Personally, I'd start from the bottom up," Edgar said. Claire looked at him in surprise. "I can't tell you what to do, but if it was me, I'd put a little trailer out here while I rebuilt. Tear it down to the foundation."

"That sounds like a lot of money," Claire said.

"You could sell the land, I'm sure it would fetch a pretty penny. Buy something in town, you'd have a nice down-payment from this place." Edgar took the clipboard, thumbing through pages, and nodded. "Looks like we've got it all in order. It takes around a week for the office to get back to you. Good luck, Miss Bennet."

Edgar placed a ball cap on his head as he walked out the door.

"Oh hi there, Mr. Tomlin," Edgar said once on the porch. Claire took a sharp intake of breath.

"Lovely to see you Edgar," Ben's voice drifted through the open window. Ben was there? At her house? "Is Claire inside?"

"She is," Edgar said. "Have a good day, Mr. Tomlin."

Dizziness overtook Claire as she thought of everything Eli had told her about Ben. What was he doing there? She reached for her knife-block on the counter, when she remembered the counters were all outside, waiting to be burned. She looked around for something else to protect herself with, but it was too late.

Ben stood in her living room, watching her. His hands hidden in his pants pockets, she prayed he was not holding a gun. She glanced out the front window, just in time to see Edgar pull out of her driveway. She was alone with Ben.

"Claire, what's wrong?" Ben asked, peering up at the ceiling hole.

"What are you doing here?" Claire's voice shook.

"I heard you were on the schedule this morning. Edgar has a reputation for being a stickler with the rules and I wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Why do you care?"

He stepped closer to her and the pile of scraps. She edged one way, further from him. "We're friends, Claire. I like to make sure my friends are taken care of."

"We're not friends."

"That makes me sad," Ben said. "I thought we were friends. And now that you and Eli have gone your separate ways, I thought we could be more."

"What?" Claire laughed, a short, angry sound. "You're kidding right?"

"Hear me out, Claire. Do you know how many more votes I would get if I married a veteran? Or, simply dated one? A single mom on top of that?"

"You're nuts." Claire turned and ran for the door, her sandal catching on the edge of a piece of wood. She slowed just enough that Ben grabbed her arm.

"You're going to leave before I get to tell you what you get out of it?" he asked, pulling her towards him. His mouth pressed against her ear while he gripped onto the base of her ponytail.  

"There's nothing I'd get out of being with you," Claire said, her eyes on the front door, jerking her arm free. Ben released his hold on her hair. She ran to the door, scooping her keys off the end table. Her hand was on the doorknob when Ben spoke again.

"Ella and Robby."

Claire turned to face Ben. "If you touch my children-"

"I won't hurt them if you smile for a few pictures with me." Ben took a step closer to Claire. "We'll play the engaged game, just until after the election. If you play
really
nice with me," Ben's hand was on Claire's neck, his finger trailing lower down her collarbone, "I won't hurt Eli either."

Claire blinked. "Why me?"

"We've gone over your electable qualities. More important than that, I have a friend at the state department who tells me Eli has become pretty talkative. Of course, he won't win, not with his," Ben's upper lip curled, "reputation. It's you because I want to teach him a lesson. Remind him who's in charge. Remind him there's no getting out."

Claire turned and grasped at the doorknob, but Ben threw her against the wall, pinning her. "Let go of me!"

Ben's mouth was on her lower neck, rough lips, then sinking into a bite. Claire screamed, and his erection grew against her. "You sick asshole!"

Ben's bite relaxed; then he inhaled against her hair. "Which lesson should we teach Eli?"

Claire bent her leg to knee Ben in the groin, but he pinned himself too close against her, and she could not reach. Keys still in hand, she laced them between her fingers, and pushed forward, finding his stomach. He cried out, grabbing the keyring from her, loosening his grip just long enough so she could knee him in the crotch.

She yanked open the door and ran. She could not outrun him - that she was sure of. But if she headed into the woods, she might lose him. Claire and her children took daily walks in these woods, and she knew a few places where she could easily hide from Ben.

She heard him clamor down the steps as she entered the forest. She sprinted along the trails, hoping she was quiet enough in each turn that he would not find her. Ben's crashing through bushes and over leaves came closer, then a moment later, further in the other direction.

After at least a minute of quiet, Claire sat, trembling behind a boulder. There were always sounds in the forest. Birds chirping. Squirrels sprinting across fallen leaves. Instead, the only sound was the small brook running over the rocks somewhere in the distance.

"There you are!" Ben appeared, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. She thrashed, kicking at him. She elbowed him in the face, and he let go for a second, stepping back and clutching his chin. "You bitch!"

Claire backed away but Ben moved towards her. If she turned her back to run, he would have the upper hand entirely. But, if she faced him, she might have a fighting chance.

She whispered a quick prayer and balled her fists at her sides. Ben stepped to her, and for a moment she could not understand what she was seeing. She was so braced for his brutal attack, and to fight for her life, that the scene in front of her did not make sense.

He seemed to float in slow motion, flying a few feet into the air. His face to the sky. She noticed the leaves stuck to the bottom of his wingtip shoes and realized, he slipped on the wet ground. She could not move. Then the moment frozen in time ended, Ben fell back to the earth.

There was a sickening crack as his head hit the mossy boulder.

"Ben?" Claire whispered, watching red flow from the side of Ben's head and travel between the rocks on the forest floor. A small blood stream moved downhill through the mud, finding its home in the brook below.