Barefoot Bay: Hold On To Forever (Kindle Worlds Novella) (5 page)

* * *

Jack walked into the bridal shop and about a dozen women turned to stare in horror. He put his hands up in the air making the universal sign of surrender. “Not the groom. I promise.”

The women all breathed a sigh of relief and went back to whatever they were doing before he walked in. He worked his way through the aisles of fluffy looking white stuff and found his mother and grandmother discussing where to go for lunch.

“What are you doing here?” his mom asked. “Where’s your father?”

“He and Mitch are across the street at the Mexican place. We’re already on our second pitcher of beer and our third round of nachos. What’s taking so long?”

“It’s Felicity. She can’t find a dress,” Nicki explained.

“I just heard her say she’s going to take the last dress I handed her,” said Gussie, the wedding planner. “I’m going to work out some details with the salesgirl here at the shop. You all go on to lunch without me. We’ll figure out the head piece and hairstyles tomorrow morning.”

Jack glanced around the shop. “Where’s Felicity?”

“She’s still in the changing room. She said to go on to the restaurant without her, but I think we should wait,” Mom said.

“I am going to faint if I do not eat soon,” Abuela said dramatically.

Mom looked concerned. “Is it your blood sugar, Lola?”

“Yes. My blood sugar must be high,” said Abuela, looking and sounding remarkably healthy for someone on the verge of passing out.

“You mean low, right?” Nicki said.

“Low. High. It is whichever one will get me in front of food the fastest,” she answered.

Mom rolled her eyes.

“You all go to the restaurant,” Jack said. “Felicity and I will catch up with you in a few minutes.”

He waited till they’d left the shop then walked to the back of the store to the changing area. This actually worked out pretty good. It would give him a private moment to talk to Felicity and see if she was making any headway with Nicki.

There was only one dressing room with the curtain closed. “Felicity?”

“What are
you
doing here?” she whispered, like she was trying not to draw attention to herself.

“Waiting for you.” He glanced around but there was no one nearby. “Are you decent?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You mean, am I dressed? Yes, but—”

He drew back the curtain and stepped into the small dressing area, then closed it shut before anyone might notice him.

“You can’t come in here!” she shrieked.

“Calm down. You said you were dressed. How did things go with—” His mouth suddenly went dry. “What are you wearing?”

“It’s supposed to be my maid of honor dress, but I don’t think it’s right.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“You don’t think it’s too…much?”

Yeah, but too much in this case equaled just right. He’d seen women wear tighter, slinkier clothes. The dress covered everything up that was supposed to be covered, but it also left nothing to the imagination. The green silk clung to every curve and plane of that tight little body of hers. The women he knew would be smirking at his reaction, but he could see from the uncertain look in her eyes that she was clueless.

“I can’t be sure until I see it from all sides. Turn around.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you should send in Gussie.”

“Gussie’s busy. Look, never mind about the dress. It looks fine.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes. Now, did you get a chance to talk to Nicki?”

Her face lit up making her brown eyes go wide. The harsh overhead light in the dressing room revealed a smattering of freckles across the tip of her nose that he hadn’t noticed before. He’d never thought of freckles as sexy. Until now.

“Yep. And I think she’s totally on board with law school. How about Mitch?”

“What? Just like that?”

“My sister happens to be a very intelligent woman. It didn’t take but a few words to change her mind. I bet it’s Mitch who’s behind this whole lets delay law school thing. What did he say when you talked to him?”

Jack wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. “I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to him alone. There’s nothing planned after lunch so I figured I’d convince him to check out the town with me.”

“Which means we could have this whole thing resolved by tonight.”

“That we could,” he agreed.

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him. “I don’t get it. I mean, I know you love your brother and all, but why is his going to law school so important to you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be important to me?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Play your lawyer mind tricks. If you don’t want to answer my question, then just tell me it’s none of my business.”

“Okay, it’s none of your business.”

“Fine. I’m hungry, let’s go get lunch.” When he didn’t move, she waved her hand at him. “Shoo! Get out of here so I can change.”

He laughed and did as instructed, but the instant he was outside the dressing room, his smile faded. Last night he’d admitted his attraction to her. And today, the entire time he’d been in the men’s store he’d been thinking about her. Mostly because he was wondering if she was getting anywhere with Nicki, but there was more to it than that. He’d been thinking about
her
.

What would Felicity think about his plans for the future? He hadn’t shared them with anyone. Certainly not his parents. And the women he’d dated in the past would think he was crazy. Maybe she would think so too. Or maybe not. He shook his head. It didn’t matter what she thought. It only mattered that she helped him get to where he needed to be.

Chapter Five

After lunch, his baby brother ditched him for a private snorkeling trip with his bride-to-be. Not that Jack blamed him, but he’d tried numerous times during the day to get him alone and it was almost as if Mitch was trying to avoid him. Which made no sense, unless Nicki had already told Mitch about her talk with Felicity and he was afraid that Jack was also going to try to talk him out of this great year of discovery plan of theirs. The good part about being in such close quarters on the resort was that Mitch couldn’t avoid him forever.

Jack wandered down the sidewalks of downtown Mimosa Key, checking out the local flavor. Mimosa Key was about as different from his area of urban Miami as you could get. Located on Florida’s west coast, the little town resided on a small barrier island off the larger, more affluent city of Naples. This was “old” Florida. Colorful, quirky, and short on tourists this time of year. Only native Floridians, or those retirees who’d given up their homes up north permanently, stayed for the blistering heat of late summer. Come winter, however, this place would probably be packed.

An abandoned storefront office near the sheriff’s department on Center Street caught his attention. He peered through the windows into the darkened space. Not a bad location for a law office. If someone were inclined to set up practice here. Maybe one day, if things worked out with Mitch at the firm, he’d get a chance to do just that.

The rest of the businesses in town seemed quietly active. Not booming, but again, this was the off season. He spotted a convenience store at the intersection. A cold bottle of water sounded pretty good about now.

He was about to head that way when he saw Mitch standing outside a souvenir shop. His hands were stuffed inside the pockets of his shorts and he appeared to be engrossed in whatever was going on inside the store. Jack walked up and playfully punched his brother on the shoulder. “Hey.”

Mitch turned around, wild eyed. “What are you doing here?” If Jack didn’t know better, he’d say Mitch looked more guilty than surprised.

“Checking out the town. How about you? I thought you and Nicki were going snorkeling.”

“Oh, yeah, we are. She just needed some,
um
, she wanted to get a T-shirt.”

Jack looked up at the banner above the shop.
Sunshine Emporium
. Sale signs for T-shirts, flip-flops, and sunscreen were taped over the glass panes. Outside the shop, bins filled with sand buckets and boogie boards took up most of the sidewalk area in front, along with about a dozen canvas watercolors propped along the bottom of the wall.

Jack studied a few of the paintings. They were actually pretty good. Local beach scenes, he guessed. One of the paintings looked similar to a framed print that Abuela had in her living room back home in Miami. She’d bought it because she said the picture had reminded her of a beach near Havana, where she’d swum as a young girl.

The shop looked empty, except for Nicki and a woman standing behind a counter.

This probably wasn’t the place to have his talk with Mitch, but what the hell. Now that Felicity had already talked to Nicki, maybe Jack should go ahead and talk to both of them. Big brother to younger brother and his wife-to-be. It couldn’t hurt, and he needed to get things settled once and for all. It wasn’t just their future on the line. It was his future too.

“You think Nicki will be in there for long?”

“Probably not,” Mitch said. “But, maybe.” He sounded nervous. Up until now Mitch had been the epitome of cool and collected. It was about time his baby brother realized that in just a few days he’d be a married man.

“Getting some wedding jitters?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess.”

Jack glanced inside the shop. “I should get some souvenirs for the office staff. C’mon, let’s go inside.”

Mitch seemed reluctant, but he followed Jack inside the store. Nicki and the woman behind the counter were engaged in a lively conversation, but it broke up once they spied the two men. The woman appeared to be in her mid-fifties with chin-length blonde hair and light colored eyes. She wore long dangling earrings, and her T-shirt was splattered with paint. He immediately pegged her as the artist behind the watercolors displayed outside.

“Jack!” Nicki startled. “What are you doing here?”

It looked like Mitch wasn’t the only one with a sudden case of pre-wedding nerves.

“Checking out Mimosa Key, then I saw your fiancé skulking by the door and decided to come inside.” He smiled at the woman behind the counter. “Is this your shop?”

“It is.” She turned to Nicki. “This must be your future brother-in-law.”

“Um, yes, as a matter of fact.”

The woman stretched her hand out to him. “Beth Henderson. And you’re Jack Martinez. I’d recognize you anywhere.”

He shook her hand. “From the billboards?”

“And the commercials. It’s not often we get a celebrity in my shop.”

He tried not to wince. The billboards he was able to block from his mind. They were everywhere and after a while they almost became part of the scenery. The commercials, however, were especially cringe-worthy. He wondered how Felicity’s firm would handle those.

“So, how do you two know one another?” he said to Nicki.

“We just met,” Nicki said quickly. “I was walking by and admiring the paintings and one thing led to another…”

Beth stared at Nicki for a moment, then turned to them. “Nicki tells me she’s here to get married.” She smiled at Mitch. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Mitch said. He’d been so quiet that Jack had almost forgotten about him. It wasn’t like his baby brother to be so invisible. Normally, he and Nicki were joined at the hip like a couple of chatty magpies.

“Are those local landscapes outside?” Jack asked Beth.

“Mostly. A couple I painted from old photos. Do you like them? They’re for sale. I could give you a good price.”

“Maybe.” He glanced around the little shop. There were more framed watercolors hung on the walls, but the majority of the merchandise was the typical tourist stuff. “Looks like business is slow.”

“We get a good amount of local tourists through the Fourth of July holiday, but now everyone’s gearing back up for school. The snowbirds will be back in November, then things will pick up again.” She sighed heavily. “If I’m still around, that is.”

Nicki bit her bottom lip. “The landlord is giving…Beth a hard time about the shop.”

“What kind of problem are you having?” Jack asked, mainly to be polite, but Nicki seemed genuinely troubled and anything that concerned his future sister-in-law, concerned him too.

Beth frowned. “Are you sure you really want to know?” Translation: Why would a hotshot like you care about someone like me? He’d seen it before in people’s eyes. Martinez and Martinez didn’t represent the big companies, but they also didn’t bother with a case that wouldn’t pull in a minimum five figure fee. He was not, however, at present, a representative of the firm. He was just himself. Jack Martinez, Esq.

“Yeah, I’d really like to know.”

Beth glanced back at Nicki, who nodded to her as if to verify he was a good guy. After a few seconds of mulling it over, Beth pulled a letter from an envelope and handed it to him. “I’ve been renting this place for a couple of years now and I’ve never been late on the rent, but the toilet in the back leaks and the air conditioner is always on the fritz. I’ve asked the landlord to make repairs but he keeps putting me off. I can’t afford another place in town, but it’s getting ridiculous. I can’t keep this place open without air-conditioning.”

Now that she mentioned it, the place did seem overly warm.

“Have you put all this in writing?”

She snorted. “At least half a dozen times.”

Jack studied the letter from the rental company. It was basically a bunch of bullshit stalling tactics. Nothing a simple letter with his firm’s logo on top couldn’t put a stop to. Of course, Martinez and Martinez didn’t handle simple landlord disputes.

A muscle in the back of his neck twitched. This was the kind of stuff he had to look forward to if he followed through with his plan to leave the firm.
Watching out for The Little Man
. It was one of the reasons he’d become a lawyer to begin with. Only at Martinez and Martinez, there had never been anything “little.”

“If you like, I can write a letter to the landlord on your behalf,” Jack said.

Beth’s jaw dropped. It took her a few seconds to compose herself. “Are you serious?”

“I’ll have to see a copy of your lease to make sure I have proper grounds to stand on, but, yeah. I’ll do it.”

“I can’t pay you,” she said.

He thought about it a minute. “How about that painting in the front? The last one on the left. I’ll take that for payment.”

“Like a barter? Really? You’d do that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“You have yourself a deal.” Beth grinned and even Nicki and Mitch both seemed happy by the arrangement. “Looks like I have myself a
very
fancy lawyer.”

* * *

Felicity dialed the office and waited as the phone rang and rang. She was almost ready to hang up when Aubrey answered. “Reed and Associates. This is Aubrey Adams. How may I help you?”

“Where’s Kelly?” Felicity asked, referring to the firm’s receptionist and office manager.

“How’s paradise?” Aubrey countered. “Have you gotten a chance to work on your tan? And better yet, how’s that delicious Jack Martinez?”

“Paradise is lovely. Been too busy to work on my tan, and as for Jack Martinez…”
Delicious didn’t begin to describe him
. Today at the bridal shop, when he’d snuck into her dressing room, something had happened between them that had made last night’s kiss seem almost tame. He hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t even really said too much of anything. But good lord, the way he’d
looked
at her. She shuddered. She could never pass by one of those billboards and think of his eyes as cold ever again. “Jack and I are getting along.”

“I bet.” There was a moment’s silence. “Kelly quit this morning.”

“Quit? But why? And with no notice?”

“We lost the Mr. Smiles account. I didn’t want to tell you till you got back from vacation, but there’s really no way to keep it under wraps.”

Mr. Smiles was the moniker Dad had given to an account belonging to a large dental practice. It was the last account he’d brought into the firm before he died. The account was huge. Their bread and butter, so to speak. Without it the firm could only stay above water a few months, tops. And now it was gone.

“Felicity? Are you still there?”

“Still here,” she said trying not to sound as dejected as she felt. “What happened? Did they say why they were leaving us?”

“They’ve decided to take their brand in another direction. Which is total crap, of course.”

Not so much crap, as code for ‘Another firm can do a better job.’

“How’s the rest of the firm taking it?” The rest of the firm being just Aubrey.

“The rest of the firm is okay.”

Felicity had known her friend for too long to take that answer at face value. “Look, if… I wouldn’t blame you if you want to look for another job.”

“It would be pretty shitty of me to leave you, especially now. We’ll survive. Besides, Kelly was always taking too many breaks. I can handle her job easily.”

“On top of all the stuff you already have going on?”

“There’s really not that much going on,” Aubrey said. “You know, Felicity, I’ve been thinking, in a way, maybe losing Mr. Smiles is good thing.”

How on earth could losing their last big account be a good thing
? “Aubrey, are you on drugs?”

“I’m too broke to do drugs. Listen, all the accounts we’ve been servicing belonged to your father. I know we’ve tried to go after other accounts, but I don’t think we’re trying for the right ones.”

Felicity mulled this over a few seconds. Aubrey could always see the side that Felicity couldn’t. And vice-versa. It’s what made them a good working team. “I’m listening.”

“You and I are the same. We’re idea people. We’re not salespeople, and most especially we’re
not
closers. The accounts we’ve been trying to get are just too big for us. We came up with “Small but Smart” but we haven’t really been living up to the spirit of the tagline, you know? I say we go after the small accounts. Stuff your dad wouldn’t have handled. That’s our niche.”

Felicity sighed. “Maybe you’re right. On the other hand, I do have some good news. Jack is ready to give the firm some business. But I asked to present to all the partners. I want to get this job fair and square, but I have a feeling it will come down to just one decision.”

“Oh, so you and Jack
have
been getting along. Fair and square, my ass. You and that man need to bow-chicka-wow-wow.” Aubrey laughed at her own joke.

“Yeah, not happening.”

“Okay, so as
horrible
as it would be,
I
will sacrifice myself and sleep with him if it means getting the account. Because if we don’t turn things around here fast, we’re basically out of business.”