Between Us Girls (34 page)

Keagan. Talk about wondering where to put someone inside her heart. She tried to keep him with the others, in the kitchen/family room. He kept slipping out to the back porch where the sun rose and warmed her and did its
whoosh
and
wham
thing.

She shook her head.

For the past three days, the others had basically taken care of her, much as they had that very first week she had been at the Casa. She didn't have one meal, run, or walk at the beach alone. Keagan asked at least twice a day if she needed anything. Most of the hours she spent working with Liv and Beau on Cottage Three. Scrubbing worked wonders for her frazzled emotions.

She should have let someone join her, in person, to meet Manda Smith. Keagan would have. Sam offered to take the day off from work. Liv and Inez offered, a duo backup team. Chad offered. Even Piper and Riley offered.

Jasmyn checked her watch. Fifteen minutes to go.

She could add up her travel expenses, or rather her going-nowhere expenses. Canceling and rebooking flights were not cheap choices. She hadn't even rebooked the return yet. How could she know what was next? Her future hinged on this meeting.

Sam told her that it shouldn't. Liv had concerns about all the energy she had wrapped up in the event.

Oh, well.

And then, suddenly, there she was. Jasmyn spotted her across the street, on the corner.

Manda Smith. There was no mistaking her.

Jasmyn's heart thumped in triple time, all but closing up her throat.

Except for the facts that the woman was not sitting at a table or wearing a purple V-neck sweater, Jasmyn was looking in a mirror.

The woman stepped off the curb and headed toward the coffee shop. She wore fitted jeans and a collared white shirt under a dark blue vest. Her hair was pulled back and up, ends fanning out on top of her head. Her stride was confident. Dangly silver earrings swung.

Understanding flashed through Jasmyn, a zigzag of light in her mind, a boom of thunder that rattled her from head to toe.

Her life would never, ever be the same again.

Waiting for her destiny to enter the shop and look around for her seemed a stupid plan. Jasmyn bolted from her seat and out the door.

Fifty-Eight

Keagan watched from inside a friend's barbershop, across the street and north of the coffee shop.

He needed a haircut anyway.

Even from half a block's distance he could tell that Jasmyn's friend Quinn had not exaggerated about the resemblance. If no one noticed that Manda Smith was about five foot four and not five two, she could use Jasmyn's ID and board a plane, no questions asked.

The women met on the sidewalk. They seemed to hesitate before speaking, before shaking hands. Then they went into the coffee shop, Manda Smith leading the way. He guessed she was the take-charge type. Assertive. A woman who drove big rigs up and down the coast would require a good dose of moxie.

He ran his hand down his face. Prejudging Manda Smith was uncalled for. He had done further research that indicated she was an upstanding citizen.

He knew the names of her high school and college, that her degree was in business. He knew her political persuasion, the church she married in, her husband's history, their kids' names and birth dates. He knew their address.

He knew the maiden name of Carlos Anibal's widow and that she was sixty-five, lived in a guest house on the Smiths' property, still helped with the business, and belonged to a Portuguese community club. He knew when the parents of Carlos Anibal had died.

He knew Anibal Cargo was a reputable firm. No one involved with it had a criminal record.

So what was his problem?

Jasmyn Albright.

He could have done without the hug at the airport, without the hours spent giving her a safe space to unravel. Being with her, up close, watching her go from discombobulated to calm to resolved had ratcheted up his attraction to her.

He hadn't even wanted to tell her goodbye, but it was obvious he was the one to escort her to the airport. One thing led to another. He responded. Despite what sweet, impassioned Inez insisted, Keagan was not a knight in shining armor, waiting in the wings to rescue damsels in distress.

Later, he and Liv researched Manda Smith. After that, he researched some more. Not to rescue Jasmyn, but simply because he liked to solve puzzles.

He rubbed his forehead.
Yeah, right.

But it was true. As a kid, he was obsessed with puzzles of all kinds: words, numbers, jigsaw, mechanical, why the neighbor grew strange plants in his basement. Even during his crazy teen years, he did not lose interest. His grandfather finally outfitted a corner in the garage where he could be up at all hours and not disturb his grandmother, a light sleeper.

As an adult, he submitted to officers who ensured he excelled at the whole business of puzzle solving: assess a situation and resolve it. As a DEA agent, his life and others' depended on that ability.

It wasn't something that left one's system like the flu.

He smirked to himself now. The phrase was Amy's, her response to his anger about his inability to slow his brain that ran too often in overdrive.

And what would she tell him in this situation? How would the woman he had loved so deeply—and who surprisingly had loved him so deeply in return—how would she explain his infatuation with Jasmyn?

With a start he realized that was an easy one.

Jasmyn is one of the good ones, caring and giving no matter how crazy her world gets. And you know what, Sean? That's perfectly all right. Six years is long enough to grieve.
She would huff and roll her eyes.
Get a life already.

The past faded from his mind. Through the coffee shop window he saw the indistinct figures of Jasmyn and the twin stranger.

Jasmyn Annabelle Albright.

He'd been unprepared for her. He'd been blindsided. Why her? Why now? What if this newfound family did nothing but propel her back to the Midwest? What if she bought that restaurant and got on with life?

What if… He locked his jaw, willing the questions to stop.

Heart puzzles were the worst.

Fifty-Nine

“Unbelievable.” Manda Smith shook her head.

“Yeah.” Jasmyn shook her head.

They had not said much beyond those two words since meeting out on the sidewalk. The woman—her sister, there was no doubt about it—had chuckled.
Well, we don't need name tags.
Jasmyn had smiled. They shook hands.

Which had felt odd to Jasmyn. Wouldn't sisters— She swallowed the lump in her throat. She was making too much of things.

Now, seated at the table, ignoring their coffee, they stared at each other.

“Wow.” Manda chuckled again, a quick humming sound from her throat, her mouth closed. Her voice was lower than Jasmyn's, almost raspy. “I seem to have lost my vocabulary.”

“Yeah.” Jasmyn smiled. “Me too.”

“You have dimples.”

“My mom's. You have brown eyes.”

Her smile was smaller too, a barely noticeable stretch of lips. “My dad's. Unfortunately, I look like him. I mean, he wasn't pretty. At least I don't have his shoulders. Is your mom still around?”

The lump rolled up again in Jasmyn's throat. Manda didn't have a clue.

Quinn had kept mum with Manda about the possibility that her father might have met Jasmyn's mother at the restaurant where she worked. Still, given the timing of his presence in Illinois, on the interstate that ran past Jasmyn's hometown, hadn't Manda begun to put two and two together?

Jasmyn said, “She died three years ago. I never knew my dad. Not even his name.”

“That's a tough one.”

“It was okay. Kids teased, though. You know how that goes. I survived. So, you grew up in San Diego?” Jasmyn backpedaled, away from the topic of parents. “It's totally amazing here.”

It was Manda's age. If she had appeared years younger than Jasmyn, then she might have introduced the subject. But she guessed they were around the same age, too close. Jasmyn lost her nerve. She simply could not say point-blank that Manda's father must have cheated on Manda's mother thirty-six years ago.

“I've seen a lot of the States, especially west of the Mississippi, but San Diego is still my favorite place. Actually, when I was a teenager, I hung out at Seaside Village beach. My husband and I used to come here before kids. That's why I knew Jitters. Is the ice-cream shop still around?”

“Nonna's Ice Cream Parlor. It's past the library.”

“That's it. Quinn said you're on vacation. How did you land in Seaside Village? It's kind of out of the way.”

Jasmyn dove into the details of how she had arrived. The verbal fire hydrant switched on. She covered her work, her mother's death, the tornado, car theft, and Casa de Vida. Her throat kept closing up. Her voice warbled, but she pressed on, wanting to avoid what was uppermost in her mind and yet wanting to know more.

Manda listened politely. Her eyes were spaced further apart than Jasmyn's. Her nose was slightly wider. Her teeth were the straight version produced only by braces. She gestured a lot when she talked, tapped her nails on the table and mug when not talking. Her nails were salon manicured, painted the color Piper had put on Inez's nails. What was it? Burnt sienna. The
in
shade for fall.

Overall, Manda seemed more…finished than Jasmyn. It showed in her appearance, but more in airy things like confidence and contentment. She would have handled a tornado better. She wouldn't have chosen a studio apartment. She wouldn't have run away.

Jasmyn asked Manda about her work and family. Manda talked about tuna fishing. About driving a semi. That she was an only child. About how her husband was better with business details and such a great Mr. Mom
with their two kids, a boy, six, and a girl, four. They had hired another driver so Mr. Mom could work in the office and be with the kids when Manda was out of town.

Jasmyn could not get enough. She was dying of thirst, and Manda offered only a trickle of water.

Manda checked her watch. “I have to deliver a load of office furniture in Las Vegas by six. I should go.” She moved her cup aside and folded her hands on top of the table. “Look, Jasmyn. You seem like a nice person. You're probably thinking my dad could be your dad because we look alike and he stopped in a restaurant twenty miles from your hometown X number of years ago, but I'm not going down that road. Sorry. Too many potholes.”

Jasmyn opened her mouth and closed it. She nodded. “I just…” Her voice croaked. Nothing else came out.

“I mean, maybe it's possible. But he's dead and this would kill my mother. How old are you?”

She cleared her throat. “Thirty-five. Thirty-six in January.”

“I'll be thirty-six next week. Which would mean— Well, you do the math. If he was cheating on Mom while she was pregnant—” She inhaled sharply. Her jaw set as if she gritted her teeth.

Jasmyn realized that Manda had indeed begun to put two and two together. And she had come up with four.

It was Jasmyn's last chance.

She swallowed the lump. “I'm sorry, Manda, but what he did is not my fault. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just wish I could fill in the blanks of my heritage.”

“And what would you do with that information?”

“Nothing except feel like I wasn't such a freak. I don't look like my mom except for the dimples and eye color. She was tall and blond. She worked in that truck stop you tried to find. My middle name is Annabelle.”

Manda stared, apparently speechless.

“My boss saw the name on your truck.”

She shut her eyes now.

“My mother claimed she did not know his name, but I think that was a lie. It was easier to pretend he was not a real person. She could simply move on. We all could.”

“Okay.” Her tone revealed nothing.

“What was his name?”

She gawked at her now. “You don't know his
name
?”

“No.”

“Any search engine would have taken you there with ‘Anibal Cargo.' ” She pronounced it
ah-na-ble
. “You didn't look online?”

“No. I didn't want to fill my head with things that might not be true.”

Manda's jaw slackened. She exhaled. “Carlos Anibal.”

Carlos Anibal. Carlos Anibal.
The sound was more exotic than Jasmyn had imagined. She always figured he would be a Joe or Bob or Dan, a Jones or Miller or Wilson. “And did you know his parents?”

“Yeah. They were around until after I got married. Joaquin and Lorena.”

Joaquin and Lorena.
Her grandparents!

“Joaquin's parents emigrated from Portugal, around 1918 I think. I don't remember exactly. Carlos and Roselo.”