Meant to Be (24 page)

“Elizabeth Marie Chandler, what the hell did you do last night? And please let it not have been with Joe.”

N
o man should be tested the way Joe had been the night before. The schizophrenic mood swings would have sent any man running, but the sex-kitten seduction in the bathroom fried several of his brain cells. Getting Beth undressed and into bed threatened to fry his body.

He couldn’t let her sleep in the dress after she’d tossed what looked to be an appetizer sampler over a large part of it. At least she’d passed out cold before they reached her bedroom. His luck she’d have tried to strip him while he got the dress off her, and that was a test he would not have passed.

After scrubbing flammable food chunks out of his sink, followed by an arctic shower, Joe spent the rest of the night trying not to think about his future sister-in-law. Thinking of her by that title was supposed to keep reality front and center.

Reality sucked.

They’d have to deal with what had happened, but he needed her sober and focused when they stared down whatever the hell was going on between them. Based on her condition the night before, Beth might be sober but definitely
not able to focus on anything this morning. Better to let her recover and face the issue with a clear head. To that end, Joe headed for the boat as soon as he heard she was up and about.

“Thought I’d find you here,” said a voice from the dock. Joe turned from the reel he was stringing to see Derek Paige looking uptight and out of place in his suit and tie. “Mind if I come aboard?”

Dozer gave a low growl. Joe considered doing the same, but curiosity won out.

“Hop on. But watch your step. Hate to see you ruin that suit.” Letting the guy talk didn’t mean Joe couldn’t be a smart-ass.

Paige strolled onto the boat like he’d been doing it all his life. “I’ve spent enough time on Mr. Wheeler’s yacht to handle your little fishing boat.”

If this was Paige’s selling approach, Wheeler would never get the island. “Why don’t we get to why you’re here,” Joe asked, turning his attention back to the line.

“I’m here to talk about Cassandra.”

“What about her?”

“She’s spoken for.”

Joe returned his attention to the man standing five feet away. If Paige was trying to look relaxed, he was doing a shitty job of it. “She’s spoken for?”

“That’s right.” Tough guy shifted from one foot to the other. “I saw you talking to her last night.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, leaning the rod against the cabin wall and turning in his chair. “We talked. Not sure what that has to do with you.”

“I just told you what that has to do with me.”

Joe chuckled. Maybe Paige’s tie was cutting off blood flow to his brain. “Are you claiming Cassie as your territory?”

“Her name is Cassandra, and, yes, I am.”

“Have you met Cassandra Wheeler? She’s not the type to be claimed. Especially not by one of her daddy’s ass kissers.”

Paige tensed, red crawling out of his collar and up his neck. “I don’t give a shit what you think of me, Dempsey. Just stay away from her.”

Joe leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “She didn’t mention you during our talk.” Though he had no intention of competing with Paige for Cassie’s affections, he couldn’t resist pissing him off. “In fact, talking was her idea. She’s been trying to get me alone for a week.”

Paige took a step forward but Dozer’s growl sent him back two. “You had your chance, Dempsey. You dropped the brass ring, and now you want it back.”

“Brass ring?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t after the money. Cassandra is Wheeler’s only child and the heir to the empire. Why else would you have tried for a woman so far out of your league?”

Joe tensed, fighting to keep his voice controlled. “Cassie isn’t a prize and she sure as hell isn’t a piece of property. Now get your ass off my boat before I let Dozer take a bite out of it.”

“I’m not afraid of you or your mutt.” Dozer moved forward, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Paige was back on the dock in one leap. “You’re right, she’s not a piece of property. But she is a prize. If you loved her like I do, you’d know that.”

Joe stared, not sure if he’d heard right. “Did you say you love her?”

Paige crossed his arms. “You heard me. Stay away from her, Dempsey. You hurt her once. I won’t let you do it again.”

Dozer barked as the weasel stomped back up the pier. How about that. The idiot was in love. Though he’d never like the prissy little shit, Joe couldn’t help but respect him in that moment. “Good luck, Paige. Hope she doesn’t rip your heart out and make you eat it.”

Beth needed answers, which led her to the evil person who’d loaded her up on tequila. She’d pounded on Sid’s front door for two minutes before running out of patience. The truck in the driveway meant the pint-size monster was still sleeping it off.

Not for long.

If there was any justice in the world, Sid would feel worse than Beth did. Since Beth felt like she’d been hit by a box of hammers, Sid better feel as if she’d taken a wrecking ball upside the head.

“Open the door, Sid. I need to talk to you.” Beth squeezed her head at the temples, holding down the pain caused by raising her voice. Still no answer. Contemplating her options, Beth closed the screen door softly—no need to antagonize the little men chiseling through her skull—and moved around the back of the house.

Sid’s bedroom window was easy to find. And open. “Sid,” she called through the opening, as loud as the pain in her head would permit. A snore came back in response. “Fine. I’m coming in.”

Crawling through headfirst, Beth caught her top half on the dresser below the window, sending a small box and two picture frames to the floor. The noise broke through the snoring.

Sid sat straight up in the bed. “What the…” Before the words were out, she was holding her head while squeezing her eyes tightly shut. As Beth hovered, half in and half out of the window, Sid opened her eyes, seemingly struggling to focus.

“Curly?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Right now I’m stuck in this window trying not to puke on your carpet. Get over here and help me.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, sliding her feet slowly to the floor. “God, this room is spinning like a son of a bitch.”

“Why are you still in your dress?” Beth asked. If she had to endure the mystery of waking up wearing almost nothing, Sid should at least be in the same state. “And you have mascara down to your chin.”

“I was sleeping, not getting ready for a freaking beauty contest.” Grabbing Beth under the arms, Sid pulled until they both hit the floor, moaning for several minutes.

“If I survive long enough to get off this floor, I’m kicking the shit out of you for waking me up.”

“I had to wake you up. I need to know what happened last night.” Beth rolled over, holding her head with one hand as she pushed herself into a sitting position with the other. Leaning against the foot of the bed, she checked the picture frames. “I don’t think they’re broken.”

One frame held a picture of Sid with a woman who had to be her mother. They looked more like sisters. “Is this your mom?” she asked.

Sid glanced over, still flat on her back. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“What was her name?” Beth slid a finger over the image, wishing she had a picture of her mother.

“Angelita Pilar Navarro. Beautiful, delicate, and graceful. Everything I’m not.”

The admission took Beth by surprise. In the short time she’d known her, Sid had never taken the self-deprecating route. “That’s crazy. The resemblance is unmistakable. She’d be proud to see what you’ve become.”

Sid sighed. “I didn’t drag your scrawny ass through that window to discuss my mother. What’s this shit about answers?”

“I can’t remember last night.”

Sid peeled herself off the floor, taking a seat next to Beth. “What do you mean you can’t remember?”

“The last thing I recall is you announcing we should do tequila shots. The rest is a blank.” Tamping down the panic, she added, “I don’t even know how I got home.”

“That’s easy, we…” Sid blinked. “There was…”

“What?” Beth asked, squeezing her knees to her chest. “We what?”

“Shit.”

“We shit?!”

“Give me a second, all right?”

Beth swallowed hard. “You don’t remember either.”

“It’ll come back to me. I just woke up. My brain is still foggy.”

“I’ve been up for over an hour and everything is still foggy.” Beth’s heart sunk. “This isn’t good.”

“So we partied a little too hard and don’t remember. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is—” Beth stopped before admitting the possibility she might have done something entirely inappropriate with Joe. “What if we did something stupid in that bar?”

“You mean besides the tequila?” Sid asked, massaging her temples. “My head feels like it was used for batting practice.”

“Welcome to my world. I thought I was dead until Dozer woke me up this morning.”

“Dozer woke you up?” Beth had Sid’s full attention. “You woke up at Joe’s?”

“Don’t be crazy.” Waking up mostly naked covered in Joe’s cologne was bad enough. She didn’t want to think about the implications of waking up in his bed. “I was at Tom and Patty’s. Dozer was visiting, I guess. Patty said Joe took Dozer with him to the dock while I was in the shower.”

“We didn’t have a charter this morning. What’s he doing at the dock?”

“I don’t know. Right now I don’t seem to know anything.” Unwilling to reveal her suspicions, Beth kept things vague. “But I have this nagging feeling I did something I shouldn’t have last night. If there’s something I need to fix, I’d like to know now so I can fix it.”

“No matter how drunk I got, I wouldn’t have let you do anything stupid.” Sid sounded almost protective. An interesting development. At some point in the last twenty-four
hours, the women had become friends. “If you were with me, you were fine.”

But what if I wasn’t with you?

Beth couldn’t ask the question, but still needed the answer. “Who could tell us what happened? Patty said Randy took you home. She assumes he took me home, too.” The unlikelihood of Randy getting Beth out of her dress made her doubt Patty’s assumption. “Should we ask him what happened?”

Sid shrugged. “I could call him, but he’s probably out on the water. Can’t reach him out there. Besides, he wasn’t with us in the bar. I don’t think. So he wouldn’t know anything.”

The idea of asking Joe made Beth’s stomach churn. Again. “There has to be someone else.” Tapping a finger against her knee, she tried to remember anyone else from the bar. “What about that bartender?”

“Will?”

“Was that her name?” Beth turned and folded her legs Indian style. “She was serving us the drinks, so she was there the whole time. We need to talk to her.”

“This is Sunday, right?” Sid asked, getting slowly to her feet.

“Yeah, why?”

“She works at Hava Java on Sundays. Which is good because I need coffee. Bad.” Sid moved to the closet and pulled out a pair of work boots.

“What are you doing?” Beth reached her feet, relieved her stomach remained calm.

“You said you wanted to talk to Will.”

Black streaks traced down Sid’s cheeks while her hair stuck out in all directions. Beth tried not to laugh. “No self-respecting fairy godmother would let her Cinderella go anywhere looking like that.”

Sid looked down then back up, throwing a hand into the tangled mess protruding from her head. “Did you just call me Cinderella?”

Beth shrugged. “Better than Greaserella. Bippity bop your butt into the shower so we can go. I’ll be on the couch trying to shut off these jackhammers in my head.”

Thirty minutes later, Beth and Sid walked into the Hava Java coffee shop in search of Will the bartender and a soothing hit of caffeine. Looking neither surprised nor put out by their request to talk, Will informed her coworker she was taking a break, and the three women took a seat on the deck, cups in hand.

“Surprised you two are upright,” said Will, sliding into a black wrought-iron chair. “You must feel like crap.”

Sid snorted. “Crap would be an improvement.” She nodded toward Beth. “Curly here has a bug up her ass because we can’t remember much of last night. We’re hoping you can let her know she didn’t do anything stupid.”

“You mean other than dancing on the bar and flashing the room?”

Beth pressed a hand to her stomach. “Oh my gosh.”

“Relax,” Will said, leaning back and swirling the liquid in her cup. “I’m kidding. You didn’t do anything. Not that I saw, anyway.”

What was with the women on this island? “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“It was a joke. You had a better sense of humor when you were tanked.”

Sid laughed then grabbed her head. Served her right. After taking a drink, she asked, “So Little Miss Nervous here didn’t rub up on a tourist or stick her tongue down anyone’s throat?”

The last part of the question put an image in Beth’s mind. An image that included Joe and a bathroom she didn’t recognize. Her imagination was not helping the situation.

“Like I said, not that I saw. But I don’t know what happened after your mountain of a brother took you both outside.” Will visibly tensed when she mentioned Randy, making Beth wonder if he’d blamed the bartender for getting them drunk.