Beach Town (44 page)

*   *   *

She puttered around the room, finding a plate to heat up the pizza, bringing plastic cups and the corkscrew she'd bought at the liquor store where she'd gotten the wine. He sat back in the same chair CeeJay had used earlier, watching her.

“This is kind of weird, being in your room like this,” Eb said, trying to make conversation. “Seeing as it's where we first met.”

Greer laughed. “Yeah, no wonder we've had such a rocky time. I really made a great first impression, didn't I?”

She opened the wine and poured him a cup.

“You weren't so bad. And I loved your outfit that morning.”

“My outfit?” That's when she remembered she'd run out of the room in an oversize T-shirt and not much more, screaming at him to get the cockroach.

“Oh.” Her face went pink. The microwave dinged and she was glad to have an excuse to switch into hostess mode. She slid the pizza onto a paper plate. He took a bite, chewed, stood up, and unceremoniously dumped the entire plate into the trash.

“I should speak to the chief about shutting that joint down. Cite them for impersonating an Italian or something. The frozen Tombstone pizzas I sell at the market are better than that crap,” Eb said, taking a gulp of wine to wash away the taste.

“Pretty sure that crap
is
frozen,” Greer said. She hoisted her cup in a toast of agreement and drank. “I walk by there on the way to the office all the time, and it just struck me today that I've never seen anybody in there touching anything that looks remotely like pizza dough.”

“We'll look into it,” Eb said gravely.

“I'm really kind of surprised there aren't more decent restaurants in town,” Greer said. “The Inn does a great business, and Tony's is always crowded, so it's not like the demographic couldn't support another good place.”

“That's another one of our challenges,” Eb admitted. “Bringing in new businesses. In the past couple months I've shown a young couple from Orlando half a dozen downtown spaces that would be great for a restaurant they want to open. They're both professionally trained chefs, and they've got a good concept—healthy Southern seafood. But the problem is, they can't afford what the landlord wants to charge.”

“Who's the landlord?” Greer asked.

“Littrell Limited,” Eb said, with a sigh. “Vanessa owns or controls nearly two blocks of prime commercial property on Pine Street. She won't fix up the properties, and the price she's demanding for rents are prohibitive. Tenants come in, open a business, make whatever improvements they can afford, but none of them can sustain themselves paying those kinds of exorbitant rents. They stay six months and then it's ‘Peace out.'”

“You'd think it would be in her own best interest to do whatever it takes to keep her properties rented,” Greer said, sipping her wine.

“You'd think that, but you'd be wrong,” Eb said. “Vanessa's a bottom-feeder, pure and simple. The churn works in her favor. Businesses are paid up on their rent, lots of them make improvements with plumbing, electrical, whatever, then they close up shop. She gets to keep the rent—and the improvements. And she can show a loss on her taxes. She's got no incentive to do business any other way.”

“Except this is her hometown, and she's part of this community,” Greer said. She poured herself some more wine.

He frowned and shook his head. “Not really. And that's the problem. Vanessa was picked on as a kid, so her parents sent her away to boarding school, and then she went out of state to college. I don't believe she really feels any connection to Cypress Key. Except as a revenue stream.”

“She told me that, after she had a nose job, the girls all hated her for being cute, and the boys loved her, so the girls had all that much more to hate her for,” Greer volunteered.

“Vanessa told you that?”

“Female bonding,” Greer admitted. “When I first arrived at Cypress Key and we both thought we could help each other out. We were united in our contempt for Eb Thibadeaux.”

“Me?” He laughed and did a mock bow. “I'm not worthy.”

“I got the feeling she had a crush on you and it was not reciprocated,” Greer said. “Which could explain why she now wants to squash you under her heel. Like a bug.”

“Like a cockroach?” Eb took his glasses off and polished them on the hem of his shirt.

“Don't do that,” Greer said sharply.

“What?” Eb looked down at his glasses, then put them on again. He peered over at her. “I can't clean off my glasses? Is this some fetish you have, like the bug thing?”

“No.” She sat up straight on the bed, feeling just the slightest bit tipsy.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “It's nothing. Stupid. Forget I said anything.”

Eb set his cup of wine down on the nightstand. He moved over to the bed and sat down, only inches away from her. She took another sip of wine. He took the cup from her hand and carefully placed it on the nightstand. She looked at him, shook her head helplessly.

He leaned his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes. “Tell me you don't want me,” he whispered. “Tell me to go home and forget about you.”

His breath was warm on her cheek. He stroked her cheek, kissed her ear. She'd had just enough wine to tell the truth. She opened her eyes and stared into his pale gray ones. “I can't,” she said, shaking her head nervously. “God help me, I don't want you to go.”

 

52

Eb went to the door, locked it, and fastened the dead bolt. He switched off the overhead light.

“What are you doing?” Greer asked. She turned on the lamp on the nightstand and took another gulp of wine. He sat down beside her on the bed and put his arms around her.

He kissed her and nudged her backwards until she was flat on the bed. He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled down at her. “If we're really doing this, I don't want you running out on me in the middle of the night.” He traced the outline of her cheek with his fingertip. She caught his hand in hers and kissed it.

“No second thoughts this time?” he asked.

Greer took a deep breath. “None. But what about you?” Before he could answer, she pulled him down and kissed him. He worked his knee between her legs, and tugged her T-shirt upwards. She slid her hands up under his shirt and rested the palm of her hand lightly on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart. He reached around her back, fumbling with her bra.

“Um…” Greer stopped.

“What?”

She giggled nervously. “It's just that we're not at your place. Remember? I don't keep a stash of condoms here. Or cookies.”

Eb rolled over on his left hip and took his billfold from the pocket of his jeans. “Not a problem.” He shook a foil-wrapped square onto the bedspread.

“For me?” Greer pulled him toward her. “That's so sweet.”

“After the last time, I put one in there. You know, just in case.” He chuckled. “I think that's the first time I've carried a condom around in my billfold since I was fifteen years old.”

She kissed his ear. “And did you ever get to use it?”

“Not that one. Unlike my brother, I was sort of a late bloomer. I think it disintegrated from old age by the time I finally got around to needing one.”

“Let's hope this one doesn't suffer the same fate,” Greer said solemnly. She reached past him and turned off the lamp.

*   *   *

They kissed and touched and got tangled in the sheets. Finally, Eb rolled away from her, and she heard the rip of foil.

She sat up in bed and ran a finger down his spine. She kissed the back of his neck and he leaned against her. “I just thought of something.”

“I'm not going for ice cream,” he said, his voice husky.

“If you've been carrying that condom around with you, that means you thought there'd be a next time.”

He turned and gently pushed her onto her back. “I was hoping.” He kissed her collarbone. “Counting on it.” He cupped her breast and ran his tongue across the nipple.

“I thought you hated me. You basically told me you did,” Greer said, running her hands down his smooth back.

He parted her legs with his knee and slid into her. “I lied.”

*   *   *

They both dozed off, wedged in together on the lumpy double bed. Sometime around one they heard a door open and close down the corridor. Eb jumped out of bed and ran to the window, peeking out through the venetian blind slats.

Greer sat up. “That wasn't Jared, was it?”

He turned and crawled back into bed. “No. I was afraid of the same thing, but it was just the woman in number twelve, with a puppy on a leash.”

“I didn't know you allow pets,” Greer said.

“We don't, but that puppy is probably a whole lot less trouble than my brother.”

Eb sighed and rolled onto his back, and Greer rested her head on his chest.

“What are you going to do about Jared?” she asked, knowing it was on his mind.

“Not sure, but we're going to have to do something. He can't stay here much longer. Not after tonight.”

Greer sighed. “I wasn't going to tell you this, but earlier this evening Jared was hitting on CeeJay, to the point it made her really uncomfortable. She actually came in here to hide out, because she didn't want him knowing which room was hers.”

“Dammit. I'm glad you told me, though. We can't have him harassing our guests. Ginny was afraid something like this would happen.”

“I'm sorry,” Greer said. “CeeJay said she was swimming laps and she got that creepy feeling that she was being watched. She finally saw him sitting on a chair under that big clump of palm trees. She said he was drinking one beer after another, then pitching the empty bottles into the shrubbery.”

Eb stroked her hair for a while.

“I was so pissed at him tonight, when he was hollering and carrying on out there, I came this close to choking him out. Maybe I should have.”

She turned to look at him. “You wouldn't have done that. He's your brother.”

“He's a career fuckup,” Eb said bluntly.

“He's only been out of prison a week,” she pointed out. “He's probably just cutting loose. Maybe he'll change after all this.”

“Never. This is who Jared is.”

Greer was silent. With her head on his warm chest, she could feel his heart beating. But once again she couldn't really understand how he could love Allie so deeply and at the same time hate his own brother so thoroughly.

“I get that he messed up,” she said finally. “But he went to prison. He must have done something right there, to earn early release. And don't forget, he did give you and Ginny custody of Allie.”

Eb's voice was low but hard edged. “Jared may have paid his debt to the state but he'll never repay my parents. They paid for his lawyers, for the appeals, the private investigators, all of it. It broke them, financially and emotionally.”

“I didn't know,” Greer said.

“He was headed over to our folks' old house tonight, when the golf cart's battery died,” Eb said. “He was drunk and couldn't even find his way to the house we lived in for thirty years. The ironic thing is, if it hadn't been for Jared, my parents might still be living there.”

“What do you mean?”

“They owned the house free and clear, but after Jared's arrest Dad mortgaged it. Plus they spent nearly every dime in Dad's retirement account. I managed to sell the house for them, but they owed more than it was worth.”

“So sad,” Greer said. “For all of you.”

“That's why they're living in a crappy one bedroom ‘villa' hours away from their lifelong home and their only grandchild. That, and the fact that my mother couldn't hold up her head in Cypress Key when it was all said and done. She was so ashamed of Jared.”

“Surely people here wouldn't judge them by what happened with Jared,” Greer said. “Didn't you say he was arrested clear across the state?”

“Doesn't matter,” Eb said. “At the trial, his teachers, our neighbors, my parents' minister, his football coach, they all showed up to be character witnesses. And they were all set to tell the judge what a good, solid citizen Jared Thibadeaux was. But then they sat in that courtroom and watched the video. They saw their hometown boy stuffing twenty dollar bills in his pockets like any other two-bit hustler. They were sitting there when Jared pled out. He stood up in court, stared at his shoes, and admitted to everything he'd already sworn he didn't do.”

They heard a door open and close down the hallway again.

Eb sat up abruptly. He went to the window and looked out into the corridor one more time, his shoulders tense.

“Just the lady with the puppy again,” he said. “And that's another reason Jared's got to go. I'm sure Gin isn't getting any sleep tonight, either, wondering what he'll do next.”

He went into the bathroom and came back a moment later with two cups of water. “Thanks,” Greer said, sipping hers.

“You know,” she said, pulling him back down beside her, “everybody else's family issues always look so uncomplicated, compared to mine. I should know better by now.”

Eb slipped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck.

“Before she died,” Greer said, “my mother insisted I should contact my dad. She was ready to forgive and move on. She
had
moved on. Clint told me this week she'd been planning a trip out here to see him, before she got sick.”

Greer thought back to one of the last conversations she'd had with Lise about Clint. The hospice nurses had set up the apartment with a hospital bed and all the other depressing equipment needed to keep the dying woman comfortable, including a morphine pump that her mother could activate when necessary.

A couple nights before the end, Greer had been dozing in a chair beside the bed. She'd assumed Lise was sleeping, too, but that night her mother was restless.