Pier Lights (9 page)

“What in the hell happened out there?” Hayes
barreled in.

Cowboy said it looked like she hurt
something.

“I’m fine. It’s fine.” She spoke through
gritted teeth. “Just twisted my ankle. I’ll ice it tonight. It’s
fine.”

“Quit showboating out there and you won’t
hurt yourself.”

She looked up at Hayes. “You told me to take
it up a notch.”

“I
meant
sexy. Show more. Shake your ass
more. Shake your small tits more if you can. Take more off. I
didn’t say to jump around like a kangaroo.”

Kangaroo. If she had the strength, Lina
would grab something heavy to smash over the arrogant mushy
condescending face.

As he left, cowboy squatted in front of her.
“It looks like it hurts bad. Sure it’s okay?”

She shook her head and strangled the edges
of the chair to keep from yelling out.

“Need help getting home?”

She nearly said yes, but she didn’t want him
there. She didn’t want him to know where she lived.

She didn’t want him. She wanted Dio.

Something had to be wrong. That kiss he gave
her, the way he reacted to just the kiss, told her something was
wrong. And she didn’t know how to contact him to find out. If she
asked anyone at work, they would want to know why she asked. Lina
couldn’t do it to him. She’d promised. “Don’t suppose you’d want to
help me to a taxi?”

“I got a car. That way I can help you
inside, too.”

“No.”

“Wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I could help
you ice it. Help you forget about the pain. He ran a finger down
the middle of her chest.

She grabbed his hand and turned it back. An
old trick she’d learned long ago. “Forget it, cowboy. I’ll get
myself a taxi. Don’t touch me again.”

One of the girls came to him, said she’d
gladly take a ride if he was offering, and looked at Lina like she
was insane. She watched them walk away together, the girl’s hand on
his back, his on her ass. Putty and bluster. She was putty. He was
bluster. A perfect pair.

She had the taxi take her to the pier. Lina
knew she was insane, but maybe he would be there. Maybe he would
tell her what happened, if he needed help.

When she stepped out, she nearly fell. Her
foot wouldn’t hold her.

“You alright, Lady?”

Biting back tears, she shook her head. He
got out and came around. “Meeting someone?”

“I don’t know.” She tried again to put her
foot down. It wouldn’t happen. She’d never make it to the pier,
much less the beach. “No. I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to go home
instead.”

“Good idea, I’d say.” He helped her back in
and closed her door.

Lina bit her lip hard as she watched the
pier lights fade with distance. It was over. All of it.

It was degrading to have to crawl up the
apartment steps, but it was that or hop up them and she’d already
had to hop in from the taxi. The man was nice enough to help her to
the door so she had his arm as support as she made it to the front
door but she wouldn’t let him go farther. And he wouldn’t let her
pay him extra.

He asked if she had someone up there or
around the area who could help her until she healed.

“No, but I’m well used to caring for
myself.”

He shook his head in a wide arc. “A pretty
girl like you. Shame you don’t let someone stand with you. Lots of
you don’t. I get it. My wife, she tells me why it is, but it’s a
shame. Anyway, take care of yourself. Here.” He handed her a
business card. “Most drivers’d take advantage of your offer to pay
for a bit of help. Call me instead. And don’t worry, my wife would
whack me over the head with an iron skillet if I as much as thought
about looking at a woman wrong. It’s safe enough. Night.”

~14~

She hated her crutches. Lina hated them with
a passion, especially in sand. Hayes had yelled when she called off
for the night, although she gave him plenty of warning. She had to
wonder if he’d yelled at Dio like that. And she wondered if he’d be
there.

Lina nearly made herself go in just to see
if would be there, but her foot had to rest. She said she needed
two days to let her ankle heal. By the weekend when Dio was at
work, maybe she’d be able to face him knowing it was over and be
okay with it.

The rubber pads on the bottom of her
crutches sank too far into the sand. It was too hard, the sand too
soft. Instead, she made her way back up to the sidewalk and hobbled
onto the pier. She had to stop to rest now and then. Her arm
muscles were only somewhat still used to the things. She hadn’t
used them in ... four months. She wasn’t used to them enough, and
yet she was too used to them. She hated them. But if she was going
to get back to the club, to get that closing spot, Lina had to stay
off the foot for a couple of days or so. Completely off.

To make herself feel better, she would spend
the day at the beach, all day lying in the sun, after she made her
way down to the end of the pier to look out as far into the ocean
as she could. She had to stop four times on the way but she got to
the square-ceilinged wooden end covering picnic tables, to the
farthest point.

Would he be there later? Would he sword play
if he was there, or would he only be there to look for her, to tell
her he couldn’t stay, to give her a toe-curling, heart-racing,
mind-numbing kiss? If that was the only thing he was willing to
offer, Lina would take it as often as he offered it, or as much as
she could take it from him.

Her underarms ached from leaning against the
banana-like cushions of the wood crutches and she lowered to lean
against one of the posts, her good foot underneath her and her bad
one outstretched.

“Are you all right, Miss? Do you need a
hand?”

She looked at the man. The boy. He was no
more than a boy, about twenty-two she guessed. A kid who worked
there, she guessed. “No. What I need is a foot. You can’t help me
with that.”

“Sorry, I...”

“No. I’m sorry. Just a bad day. Thank you,
I’m fine.”

“Okay. Let me know if you do.” With a forced
grin, he left to talk to someone else. Definitely someone paid to
care if she was okay. Just as the horn dogs in the club paid to act
like she was worth attention. Paid to get a thrill off a
stranger.

But then it was no different than ballet.
They did the same. They only dressed better and stayed quieter
while they did.

With a sigh, Caroline pulled herself up to
her foot and the wooden sticks. She hobbled slowly back down the
pier, not sure whether to be grateful or annoyed that everyone
moved out of her way as though she couldn’t go around them. It was
Sunday. The pier was crowded. So was the beach. But she’d promised
herself a relaxing day of sun and sand.

By two, she decided it was time to eat. She
knew where she wanted to go but wasn’t sure she could get there and
if she got there, could she get up to the top deck where she liked
to be?

Caroline decided to give it a try. She had
all day. She could stop as she needed.

People swerved around her again. She
supposed they thought she was deformed since her foot wasn’t
wrapped and didn’t look bad unless you looked close to see the
swelling. Let them think so; what did it matter to her? In her long
shorts and baggy T-shirt, she didn’t get the looks she got in her
bikini and sarong, but the crutches more than made up for it.

It took her nearly forty minutes to get
inside Snapper Jack’s and she still had the stairs to reckon with.
Unless she stayed on the bottom level. But she wanted to be on top.
Looking over the Atlantic. Over the spot where Dio came to meet her
and where she hoped he would again.

Dio pounded on her door. He had to explain
why he wasn’t at work, or to at least tell her he was sorry that he
wasn’t. He had to see her. And he had only a few minutes.

“Come on, Lina, open your door.”

“She’s not home.”

He turned to the apartment across the hall.
The woman jumped when she saw him and closed her door. “Come on,
lady. Where is she?” He went to knock on her door. “It’s just a
costume. For work.” Except he wasn’t headed to work. “Please, can
you just give her a message?” No answer. She wasn’t about to open
the door.

Jogging back down to his truck, he shuffled
through the glove box in search of something to write on. He could
leave a note under the door. Nothing. Not even a pencil. He shoved
his hand under the seat in hopes of a receipt. And what would he
write on it, or how, with nothing to write with? Under the driver’s
seat, he found her bikini. He’d forgotten about it in all of the
mess with his mom. He could use it as a message.

Dio pushed the bottoms back under his seat
and hurried up to her door, tied a bow in the top string, and hung
it from the handle. She would at least know he was there, that he
wanted to see her.

Caroline sat at the top of the beach close
to the sidewalk and wished she had the energy to hobble down
through the sand to the water’s edge. If he did come, she’d never
get there in time for him to see her. But she was exhausted.
Frustrated. And he wouldn’t come.

She studied the long row of lights along the
pier and thought of her first night back in town, back on the
beach, when she’d done an arabesque at water’s edge. Only a couple
of weeks ago. It felt so much longer.

As dusk fell into dark, the row of lights
brightened, became the focal point of Folly Beach.

Folly Beach.

Maybe it was in the name. Maybe it wasn’t
the right place for her to make a new start.

Maybe she should move on.

She could let Dio and his sword haunt her
future, let it feel like a romance that could have been, let it
serve as a reminder of why she had decided not to try again.
Caroline could find a regular guy, a construction worker or store
manager and settle contentedly enough. She’d had her thrills. They
left her sunk and sore and defeated.

Not defeated. She didn’t believe in defeat.
She believed that when one course failed, you started anew and
tried again. Maybe she did. She used to. Before she’d been kicked
in the teeth too often.

Oh Dio. Why did I meet you just for you to
be another kick?

Before he kicked her even harder, she would
pull back.

Caroline pulled herself up from the sand,
using the crutch handle to do part of the work, keeping her foot
fully off the ground. No weight. She’d been told to put no weight
on it when it acted up, as they told her it would. Let it rest. As
long as it needed.

She considered calling a taxi, the friendly
taxi that had given her a card, but she wanted to walk. She wanted
to walk on her own two feet, feel the stride in her leg muscles,
the increased air in her lungs, the relaxation in her brain. If she
was going to have to use the stupid crutches for very long, they
would have to adapt, become part of her stride, not an
annoyance.

She could do this. She’d done so many things
she would never have thought herself capable of doing. She’d been
told too often she wasn’t capable. Some would have believed it, and
failed. Caroline was far too stubborn in her belief of herself. It
was all she had. That, she would keep. The hell with Dio. She could
write anyone off. Him, included.

No matter how much she adored his body, his
hands, his ... his sword. Damn he was talented with his sword. And
gentle. And sweet. He actually talked to her as he made love to her
that morning in her room. Sweet encouraging appreciative words,
next to her ear, soft, strong, beautiful. No one on earth had ever
made her feel that way, physically or mentally. Her Dio.

Lina had no right to think of him that way,
but she had, from the moment he pulled her into his boat, she
thought of him as hers. The way he touched her skin, admiringly,
lovingly, skillfully told her she was not just another lay. The way
he teased, the way he grinned, the way he kissed her told Lina it
meant something to him.

Unless he was always that way in bed. She
supposed he could be. She doubted it, but anything was
possible.

Shaking herself from the thought, since she
didn’t want to think of him with anyone else in the world, Lina
realized she was nearly a third of the way home. Her arms ached but
she’d covered ground well. Thank goodness for good street lights.
With a deep breath, she continued on. A couple stepped out of a
bar, arms around each other, laughing, pausing for a kiss, and
heading off together. She wanted that. She couldn’t just write men
off, because she wanted that.

Before she could let herself have that, she
had to have the Saturday night closer position. She needed it. No
one would distract her from it.

Lina needed to rest her
arms and hands so she could still use them in the morning, so she
went into the bar. The place was crowded and noisy. A local band
sounded decent enough. Lina made her way through twenty or
more
excuse
me’
s. People gave her a
leave-me-the-hell-alone look until they saw her crutches, then they
moved aside and helped push others aside, as well. She guessed
there was some benefit to the things. All in all, she’d rather push
through on her own, and she was well able to do it,
normally.

A guy talking to another guy who was on a
barstool at the end of the bar looked over at her, away, then back.
He glanced at her crutches, looked around at the stools and tables,
all occupied, and shoved his friend off, beckoning Lina over. She
hesitated.

He came to her. “My friend is saving the
chair for you. Looks like you wouldn’t mind being off your feet a
while.”

“Does it show that much?”

He grinned. “I’m afraid it does. Please.” He
held her crutches while she finagled her way up onto the tall bar
stool and he propped them where she could reach. She’d half
expected him to put them out of her reach.