Four Weddings and a Break Up (15 page)

Why was he here? What exactly did David want?

She drew a deep breath for courage and stepped out from behind Wes. “David?”

“Ms. Michaels.” David’s jaw clenched. “You need to tell the truth about what
really
happened last January.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know you caused Kyle to shoot you and that girl. You didn’t protect him!”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Don’t you apologize,” Wes said hotly. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

His arm went around her waist, supporting her, giving her more strength that she hadn’t known she had needed until now. Her whole body was vibrating with tenseness, the nerves drawn tightly back as an arrow in the bowstring. She could feel herself quiver, either about to launch like the metaphorical arrow and aim true, or misfire and stumble to the ground. Ginny straightened even more, her spine going ramrod straight, as if steel had been fused into each single vertebrae.

“I didn’t cause him to bring a gun into class. I’m sorry he was bullied, but I’m not to blame.”

David’s face went red with fury. “You fucking bitch,” he snarled. “You’re the only person to blame! My son is dead because of you! I lost my marriage and my job because of what you didn’t see!” He advanced toward her, his hands becoming ham-like fists. Before he could get into her face, Wes stepped in front of her, blocking her from view. David tried to side step him, swearing at her, threatening, “You’re paying for this, Ginny. You better stop before—”

“No.
You
better stop,” Wes said, his voice not rising but with a harsh, dangerous edge to it. He grabbed David’s arm and started to push David toward the door; David glared at Wes.

“Boy, you better get your hands off me before I hurt you.”

“I’d like to see you try.” Wes pushed David out, following quickly behind, with a quick shout to her, “Ginny, stay where you are.”

She didn’t listen, but she also wasn’t stupid. She ran to the window and heard Julie running out from the back.

“Oh my god, what’s going on?”

Ginny pointed outside. “I think Wes is taking care of it.”

W
es was not
a violent man by nature, but this asshole’s threats and intimidation tactics against Ginny had angered Wes so much that it was all he could do to not draw back his fist and punch David.

“You are to stay away from her.”

David snorted, his face mottled. “You can’t make me do anything.”

“Actually. Yes. I can. It’s called a restraining order.”

“Listen, boy”—David twisted out of Wes’ grasp and shoved him—“you’re new here. I’m going to be generous-like and give you the benefit out of the doubt. That bitch can’t be trusted. She’s a fucking liar.”

Wes didn’t back away from the threat. “Call her by a derogatory name again, and I’ll make you sorry for it.”

“You think that scares me?” David laughed, coldly. “Don’t threaten me when it comes out that weak. I’m just giving you the info around these parts. What everyone else already knows. That bit—woman—lied. My son died because of her!”

“That excuses him bringing in a gun and shooting her?” Wes’ fists tightened. The brief story he had heard just now had scared him shitless; he couldn’t even begin to imagine how frightening it had been for Ginny. “I believe her any day, any hour, any minute, any second, any millisecond over you or anyone else who says otherwise. I don’t care who the hell you are. You’re worse than an overgrown bully.”

“She needs to—”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She doesn’t need to do anything.” Wes grabbed David by his shirt and shoved him against the car. “If I hear that you’ve approached her in any manner . . . if I even see you looking at her, I will make you pay. Stay away from her, or you’re going to have to answer to me.”

“You use threats and violence to get what you want,” David said. “You’re no better than me.”

Disgusted, Wes loosened his hold and stepped away. The breath was rushing in and out of him. His blood had run cold at that thought and it took him a long moment to recover. He was nothing like this asshole. Wes stared down at his hands, then back at David.

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“It’s a small town, Mr. Dalton,” David said, in an off-hand manner. “Things can get around. People can get hurt.”

“If anyone I care about—”

David chortled. “Settle down, boy. I’m not threatening you. I’m being a good citizen and letting you know there’s a line. You’re either on one side or on the other.”

He couldn’t believe this lunatic, or that David used to be the Chief of Police. “Don’t you dare hurt Ginny. If you do—”

“I know, I know.” David smiled thinly as he got into his car. “I would never dare do anything.”

Wes wasn’t stupid. He didn’t believe one word coming out of that lying bastard’s mouth. When he reentered the bakery, Ginny was almost unnaturally pale; her sister’s arm was draped around Ginny’s shoulder.

“Come on, Ginny. Let me take you home.”

S
urprisingly enough
, Wes had remained quiet on the way home. But when he drove past the street to turn off into her apartment complex, Ginny asked about it.

“Just hold on a sec. I want to show you something.”

So Ginny decided to not protest. It wasn’t as if she wanted to be alone right now anyway. What David had said frightened her, and how he’d looked . . . . There had been a thin veneer to violence about him, as if someone peeled away a layer and he’d be given the go ahead to charge at her.

When she’d watched Wes outside with David, her heart thumped painfully. There hadn’t been any blows, thank God. The anger between the two men had been palpable. She hadn’t been able to overhear the words exchanged, but she could assume what had been “discussed.”

Her.

She hadn’t been able to believe her eyes when Wes had slammed David against the car; it had sent a dangerous thrill through her body. She had also wanted to run out there, to pull Wes back before the confrontation escalated further. It had only been Julie’s staying hand at her elbow that had kept her rooted inside. Plus, she had been scared that David would turn his anger toward her, again.

Wes turned his SUV down a street filled with tall homes that had been built one next to the other. She knew this street and where it led. As they traveled down the road, the houses started getting more acreage between the other. Eventually, they came to the end of the street. The run-down dusky blue house was in shambles, the property having been condemned years ago.

She didn’t remember the whole story—she was sure her mom would know the exact history. But Ginny remembered the one-time loveliness of the house, before the paint had rusted, when the shades had hung in perfect alignment, and the man-made pond in the back hadn’t been filled with algae.

He pulled into the driveway and turned off his car. He kept one hand on the steering wheel as he faced her. “This is the new property my brothers and I are working on. Want to take a look around?”

“Sure.”

They both got out of the car; Wes held the pastry boxes. The yellow bricked path was uneven.

“From what I hear,” Wes said, as he helped steady her after her flip flop got caught on the edge of one brick, “the former owners were fans of
The Wizard of Oz
. They wanted to create their own yellow brick road.”

“That’s kind of sweet.”

He pointed to the porch. “See the door?”

“Yeah.” She was surprised it was still hanging; it barely looked like it was attached to its hinges, and the screen slammed back and forth in the mild breeze. “What about it?”

“Look above it.”

She walked closer to the porch, placed her hands around the railing, and squinted against the glare of the sun. Etched into the wood about the door were five distinctive arcs that went from one corner of the door to the other. It looked like . . . “A rainbow?”

“My brothers and I have been calling it ‘Kansas.’ You know, because of the whole yellow brick road, the rainbow. The house even kind of looks like it’s been sucked up into a twister and landed in a faraway place.”

“It used to be pretty,” Ginny said. “Then the family moved away. No one bought it, and it just fell apart.”

Kind of like her. She fell silent at that thought.

Wes looked at her for a moment, before saying, “Come on, let’s go to the back.”

She followed him. The grass had been recently mowed, and the siding of the house had been stripped to its skeleton. “I’m surprised the structure is sturdy—that you didn’t need a complete overhaul.”

“Things look stronger than they appear.” Wes motioned her closer to the house. “All it really needs is some new siding and fixing up, some modernization inside so it’s more contemporary. With a fresh coat of paint, it’ll be as good as new.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. When I first started my company, I was right out of college. When I came to Cape Hope, which wasn’t that often, I always worked with Dad and my brothers. In Las Vegas, as I was growing up, I always did odd jobs around the house, and one of my mom’s friend’s husbands owned a real estate company, and I ended up learning a lot from him. With the start of D&A, I did a lot of remodelings—flip and switch—buying some properties and turning them over for profit. I had goals—some unreasonable, some not—but I was determined to make them happen as much as I could. Those goals—”

“What were they?” She could picture him as a young kid, hammer in hand, looking as devilish as ever. She could see him in his early twenties, determined to succeed and doing it.

“I wanted to be the Trump of Nevada . . . without the weird hair, of course.”

She smiled. “Of course.”

He turned to her. “I had this idea in my head of how things should be. Of how they should go. For the most part, things fell into place like puzzle pieces coming together. I was so focused on my business that I got lost.”

She didn’t have to ask him what he meant. She knew it; had in fact experienced it herself. But her awakening that being a teacher wasn’t for her came with a single bullet.

They started walking again, headed around the corner of the house, to the back. There was an attached patio that was still in surprisingly good shape. She followed him down the small hill, where wildflowers shot up like skyscrapers off the grass, to the pond below.

It wasn’t a huge pond, about the size of an aboveground pool. There were a couple of leaves floating on the water that probably came from the huge birch trees, which gave shade to the area. The pond was no longer covered in algae or muck; the water was clean. Clean for a pond anyway, and she could see flashes of color in the dark depths. Orange, silver, red fish, and somewhere in the grass, she could hear a frog ribbit.

Wes bent down, picked up a smooth polished stone, tossing it in the air and catching it. “Have you ever skipped rocks?”

“Skipped rocks?” She shook her head, trying to catch up to him. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” His smile widened, teasing her. “If you don’t think so, chances are you probably haven’t.”

“I was probably too busy playing with my Barbie dolls.” She didn’t tell him that she’d played softball in the summers and had been okay at it. “But when I played, the stories were always soap operaish. Ken cheated on Barbie with Skipper. Barbie’s redheaded friend was the villainess. Barbie was clueless, too stupid to live, and she died in each scenario only to be living the next time I played.”

“Barbie and Zombies. Be careful. That could be a movie.”

She shuddered. “I never liked zombies.”

He smiled, and she felt herself smiling in return.

“Now, about skipping stones.” Wes stepped closer to her and pressed the smooth black stone he’d found in her hand. He bent down and found another, this one a round white stone. He tossed the stone in his right hand. “You want to get a good feel for it.”

She mimicked him, using her left hand.

His eyebrows rose. “Leftie?”

“Yup. My dad was, too.”

The oceanic breeze broke up the silence. Wes studied her, and Ginny shifted her feet, wondering what he saw exactly.

“I have an idea,” Wes said.

That brought her head up, and her brows furrowed. “An idea?”

“Don’t sound so skeptical.” Wes tossed the stone from one hand to the other. “I say, just for today, we forget everything. We don’t think about the past or talk about it. Starting right now, it’s a brand new day—”

“At four o’clock?”

“It’s daytime in Australia, I bet. I’m not sure though. I was never quite good with figuring out when other countries were having their sunsets and sunrises.” Wes stopped tossing the stone. “Anyway, I think we both need to have some fun.”

“Fun?” She couldn’t help the disbelieving tone to her voice. “Aren’t we a little old to play?”

He snorted. “Why would we be? Don’t you think that playing makes you feel better? That laughing and fooling around can just break up the monotony, obligations, and duties of doing what is expected of you.”

“You don’t seem the type that does the expected thing.” He didn’t. He seemed like a pioneer, one who would traverse new paths, cutting a fresh swath for others to follow. But then she thought about how he’d given up his life in Las Vegas to come here for the summer to help out his brothers and dad. However, she expected that hadn’t solely been done because of duty.

“I play nice every now and then,” he said with a gleam in his eye and waggled his eyebrows in a parody of a cartoon villain. “You know, when it suits my purposes.”

She laughed, glad that he’d brought their conversation back to a more lighthearted feel. “So no talking about heavy stuff?”

“Nah. We’ll just enjoy ourselves.” He glanced at the pond, then back at her, sizing her up. “But what harm is there in a friendly little competition?”

She kept her voice uninterested, even as her heart kicked in response. “A competition of what sort?”

“Stones and how many skips we can get.”

“What’s the prize?”

His gaze fastened on her mouth. The air grew heavy and heated. Ginny wanted to fan herself but refrained from doing so, afraid the telling motion would make him preen his feathers like a peacock.

“The prize.” He looked away, staring back at the pond again. “If I win, you have to play baseball.”

“Play baseball. As in what?”

“My brothers are on this local team. I got on it because the catcher has to help out his wife, who’s on bed rest. Anyway, another guy apparently dropped out for some reason or another. I didn’t get the full story. We need another player.”

“And you want me?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Well, A) I’m a girl and B) it’s not like I’m extremely athletic.” Sure she had played softball, but it hadn’t been like she was the star player. She’d been stuck in the outfield and had always batted near the end of the roster. She’d never won the game or saved it. She’d just been reliable in the field. Decent. Good, but not good enough.

He rolled his eyes. “A) girls can play baseball. And B) who cares? It’s just for fun, and it’s not like any of those guys take it seriously.”

Somehow she doubted that. Men and sports often were synonymous with yelling, deep-rooted passion, and face and chest painting. Not to mention the chanting or the trash talk.

“Besides, Liam, the guy’s who the captain of the team, told Seth to find anyone.” Wes looked her up and down, clearly sizing her up. “You’ll do just fine.”

“What if
I
win?”

“If
you
win?”

“Yes, if I win.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Don’t give me that look, Wes. I have a strong arm. I could win at skipping stones.”

“If you win, sugar, you can have whatever you want.” He smiled, a little smugly. “But you won’t. The odds are in my favor.”

“Screw the odds.”

O
f all the stupid
, ridiculous things Ginny had done, the worst was agreeing to that friendly little competition with Wes. First of all there was no “little” about it; second, there was nothing friendly; and third, she had lost.

And now, a few days later, she was making the way to the baseball field. Her sister had decided to join for support. Or, rather, for purposes of making fun of Ginny while she laughed like a hyena.

“Oh, I cannot wait for this,” Julie said again as they parked the car and got out. It was an ideal day to play—the sky was clear and sunny. No chance of rain, damn it. “You playing baseball.”

Her sister erupted into laughter again.

“Hey. I played softball. I was decent—”

“Are you revising history now?” Julie shook her head. “Ginny, I hate to break it to you, but you sucked.”

“I wasn’t the one who, after hitting the ball, ran to
third
base instead of first.”

“I was six years old. People were pointing. I got confused.”

“And I didn’t suck. I did well.”

Julie snorted. “Ha! I cannot wait. This is going to be gold. I should have brought a video camera. I should have brought Mom.”

“I so wish I’d never told you,” Ginny moaned.

Julie threw her arm around Ginny’s shoulders. “Pfft. What good is it if you don’t have someone to mock you?”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Wes is over there”—she pointed to where he stood, by the bleachers—“and you better not say anything about how I played softball.”

Julie mimed zipping her lips, locking them, and throwing away a key. “Not a word. Since ‘played softball’ is a highly debatable thing.”

Wes greeted them. “So, do you need me to show you how to hold the bat or anything?”

Julie started giggling and headed to the bleachers.

Ginny decided to play dumb. “Oh, yes, would you be so good to do that? I just don’t want to embarrass myself.”

“You know how to hold a bat, don’t you?”

She placed a hand to her heart and batted her lashes. “Me?”

“Okay, okay, give it up.”

“I can hold a bat.” She walked with him to the dugout, but before they headed there, Wes touched her elbow, turning her toward the bleachers.

They stepped past the fence and up to the dirt area before the seats. Julie was in the third row, smack-dab in the middle, talking to another woman.

“Dad,” Wes called out. He waved to an older man, with silver-shot dark hair, who was sitting toward the top. “Come down here for a minute.”

His dad got up, walked down the steps, and looked her over. He had the same color eyes as Wes. His dad had a much thinner face, a leaner athletic build, and was a couple inches shorter than Wes.

“Dad, this is Ginny. Ginny, this is my dad, Nick.”

“So you’re the girl Wes keeps talking about.” His dad stepped closer to them, holding out his hand, and took in how she blushed. They briefly shook. “You let this boy walk all over you?”

“No, of course not.”

“So you got him wrapped around your little pinky?”

“Is there any other way?” she asked innocently.

His dad hooted with laughter. “You’re a funny one.”

“That’s what my mom says, too.” Ginny gave an exaggerated sigh. “I’m hopeless.”

“You work at that bakery, right?”

“Yup.”

“You can cook?”