On Sunset Beach (34 page)

“I like looking at your face, too, but we have work to do.”

“Right.” He patted his pockets. “No pen.”

In spite of herself, Carly laughed. “How ’bout I write up what I’d like you to say about the exhibit, and the paintings, and you can incorporate it into your article.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t. It might be better. That way I can coordinate what goes into the paper with the press release I’ll be sending out. I’d like both pieces to go out at the same time.”

“You have this all planned.”

“Right down to popping the champagne at the opening.”

Her cell phone rang, and she jumped. She grabbed it off the counter, and looked at the caller ID.

“Oh my God. Tony.” Carly stared at Ford. “I totally forgot about Tony coming today to start putting in the security system.”

She answered the call and promised Tony she’d be at the carriage house in fifteen minutes.

“Take your time,” he told her. “I think I’m going to run back to that coffee shop I saw up on the main street and grab myself a cup.”

She glanced at the wall clock anxiously. If she hadn’t been running late, she’d have made coffee, but as it was, she had just enough time to jump into the shower and get dressed.

“Go ahead. Do what you have to do,” Ford told her. “I’ll clean up here and lock up before I leave.”

“Are you sure …?”

“Positive. Tell Tony I’ll stop over tomorrow to say hey.”

“Don’t forget, you’re meeting Lola …,” she reminded him before she bolted from the room.

“Right. Now go.”

She went. Straight to the shower, then into her bedroom to dress, ignoring the rumpled bed and last night’s clothes that were kicked here and there. She picked up her underwear and shirt and tossed them into the hamper. She’d look for her skirt later. It had to be there somewhere.

She went into the kitchen and tried to pretend it was the most natural thing in the world for her to have an adorable man washing her dishes, singing along to the playlist on his phone, which was on the table.

“Bruno Mars,” she said, recognizing the song and the singer. “I like him, too.”

She leaned up to kiss him good-bye, and he turned just enough to catch her mouth full-on.

“Thank you again for cleaning up here.” She smiled. “You could be my houseman.”

“Houseman? Is that the colloquial for sex slave?”

“In some circles, yes.” She tossed her phone into her bag and went out the door, the song he was singing
still in her head.
“You’re amazing, just the way you are …”

It stayed in her head for most of the morning, even when she and Tony discussed how he would wire and connect each of the paintings to a central motherboard so that removing one from the wall would trigger an alarm.

“We’ll get everything else set up,” he told her. “Then a few days before you open, I’ll come back and I will personally wire each frame. It will be tight to get it all done, but we’ll make it work.”

“Thank you so much, Tony.” Carly sighed and felt one more weight being lifted from her.

She spent several hours meeting at the mansion with residents who brought their favorite works of art for her consideration. She made a list of what she had, and counted how many spaces she still had to fill in the great hall. Most of the works were … well, dismal, but their artists were proud of them and she wasn’t one to squelch talent or enthusiasm, so she took almost everything that was brought to her. She thought maybe she might find one bright light among them, and when Steffie MacGregor showed up with a portfolio of her mother’s work, she knew she’d found that gem she’d been hoping for.

“Your mother did these?” Carly thumbed through the matted watercolors. “They’re gorgeous. I can’t choose just one of these. Does she have a favorite?”

“Probably, but she doesn’t know I brought them. I just thought that they were good and I wanted you to see them, to see what you thought.”

“I think she’s incredibly talented. She could have
her own showing just about anywhere she wanted.” Carly made her way from the beginning to the end a second time, marveling in the beauty of the scenes that were obviously painted in St. Dennis. “Tell her I will hang whichever painting she wants me to hang. Any one of these would be an asset to the opening.”

“Can I have her call you?”

“Absolutely. Let me give you my cell number.” Carly wrote it down on a card and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” Steffie breathed a sigh of relief. “She didn’t want to bring anything for you to look at because she doesn’t think she’s very good and she said she didn’t want to waste your time. She might kill me, but I’ll make sure she follows up.”

That was a pleasant surprise, Carly was thinking as she went back to the worktable she had in the old kitchen of Curtis Enright’s onetime home. It was quiet here, and cool in spite of the fact that there was no central air-conditioning. She worked on the press release she’d be sending out to everyone on the art beat. She prayed it would generate the kind of interest she was hoping for.

She called Enrico, and went over a few addresses that she wasn’t sure of, and reminded him that he was, in fact, invited to the opening.

“Oh, Gawd, I can hardly wait. I’m going to have to send my navy blazer to the cleaners so I can have that whole nautical thing goin’ on,” he told her happily.

She hung up, shaking her head, but loving the guy who kept her biggest and most important gallery running. A promotion and a raise would be in his future.

Before she knew it, the alarm she’d set on her phone
went off, and she folded up her work and hurried over to the carriage house, making a mental note to tell Ed Lassiter that he’d need to arrange for the mansion to be cleaned before the dedication. One more thing to remember …

Tony was packed up and ready to go by the time she arrived next door. He assured her he’d be back in the morning, and to ignore the wires hanging out of the walls and from the ceiling. She locked up and decided to leave, too. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, and found herself wishing she’d walked from home that morning.

She pulled into the driveway and, though she knew Ford would have left, felt a little stab of disappointment when she saw that his car was gone. She dragged her tired self into the house, dropped her keys and bag on the kitchen table, and looked around. Ford had washed, dried, and put away everything that hadn’t been cleaned last night. The counters were shiny and the flowers now sat in the middle of the table. There was a note standing in front of the tureen, and she picked it up to read it.

Carly—wasn’t sure where you kept things, so I made it up as I went along. Good luck finding everything. F
.

She smiled and, leaving the note on the table, went into the living room and crashed on the sofa.

The sound of a lawn mower somewhere nearby woke her. She checked the time—she’d slept for almost three hours. Disoriented, she stood up and looked out the window. There were cars going by, and a few kids on bikes, but no one was out mowing their grass. Still sleepy, she stumbled to the back door and looked out.

She blinked several times.

Ford, dressed in shorts, no shirt, was making his way back and forth across the backyard with a power mower that he’d gotten from … where? At one point, he stopped and walked over to the fence, and called to someone on the other side before resuming cutting the grass. She stood and watched through the glass for several minutes, enjoying the sight of his shirtless self.

Ellie’s advice had been right on. She needed to go with her gut. Well, she’d done that last night, and with any luck, she’d go with it again tonight, and for however many nights they’d have together.

She opened the back door and waved when he saw her. He followed the mower as far as the patio, then turned it off.

“You didn’t have to do this. And where’d you get the mower?”

“Oh, Linc’s parents still live next door. I saw his dad out back while I was standing at the sink this morning. So I went out and we talked for a while, and I asked him if he had a lawn mower I could use, and he did.” With his right arm, he brushed sweat from his forehead. “Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” He turned to admire his work.

“It looks great. But what about Lola …?”

“Oh, I met with her at the inn. Mom called and said that she was coming by to have lunch, so I should join them. Which I did.” He paused. “You owe me dinner again tonight. And tomorrow night, and the night after … how many nights did we bet? A full week?”

“She didn’t.” Carly cringed.

Ford shrugged. “What can I tell you? Grace knows all. She said to tell you that she’d love for the chef to try some of your recipes.”

“She didn’t know that, too.” Carly had heard whispers—none of which she’d repeat to Ford—that Grace had some woo-woo abilities.

“Not until I told her. I described the meal in detail, and I can tell you, Gracie was impressed big-time.”

“She’s welcome to the recipes,” Carly told him, “but as far as tonight is concerned … does takeout count?”

He nodded. “Takeout is fine.”

“Well, then, why don’t you return the neighbor’s lawn mower, then come back and take a shower, and we’ll try to think of a way I can thank you for the yard work.”

He wheeled the mower toward the fence. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something …”

Carly awoke around three, the bed shaking just enough to rouse her. In his sleep, Ford was agitated, his head moving from side to side, uttering words she couldn’t understand, except for one: Anna. Her first inclination was to wake him, but she’d read somewhere that if someone was having a nightmare, it was best to let them sleep through it. But after it had gone on for several more minutes, she touched his shoulder lightly, and he jumped. Startled and obviously unsure of where he was, she spoke softly.

“Ford, you’re here with me. Carly. You were having a bad dream.”

“What …?” He appeared momentarily confused.

“You were having a nightmare. Do you want me to turn on the light?”

He nodded, and she snapped on the lamp on the bedside table.

He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“It’s okay.” She wrapped the sheet around her and sat up. “Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

“I always have the same dream.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “I’m used to it. I’m just sorry that I disturbed you.”

“Who’s Anna?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

He leaned against the headboard, his shoulder touching hers. For a while, she thought he wasn’t going to respond.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I shouldn’t have …”

“Anna was the first woman I ever fell in love with for real.”

Her heart sank. She should have figured there’d be a woman. A man like Ford had to have a woman in his life.

“She was with the Peacekeeping operation in Sudan when I first arrived in Africa, my first assignment with that team. She was a pretty, blond Swiss, very idealistic, so out of place in the brush in that world, and I fell like a ton of bricks.” He smiled, thinking, no doubt, of nights he spent with Anna. “So did she. For a while, anyway.” He cleared his throat. “We were together for about eight months, and I started thinking about quitting the military and bringing her back to the States with me.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, the first thing that happened was Stephano.”

“Stephano?”

“Italian guy who joined her group. She took one look at him and it was bye-bye Ford. Within two months, she and Stephano were married.”

“You’re kidding. She dumped you and moved on to this other guy just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

“Just like that.” He snapped his. “But seeing them together, I knew that what they had was the real thing. What she and I had … I guess that was more of a fling to her.”

“But not to you?”

He shook his head. “I was in love with her. I wasn’t happy when she cut me loose, but after a while I realized that it was okay. I still loved her, but it was in a different way. Stephano was quite a guy. I respected him, actually grew to like him. And they were happy together, anyone could see that, so it was a situation I had to accept and adjust to.”

“You said ‘the first thing.’ What else happened?”

“They were both shot and killed, along with two guys from my unit.”

Carly’s jaw dropped. “How …?”

“The area we were in was in the midst of civil war, I think I might have mentioned that. It got to the point where you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. Both sides raided the villages, both sides recruited the boys who were old enough to carry a gun—‘recruited’ being a polite term for kidnapped. Both sides burned the villages to the ground, raped, pillaged—didn’t matter, rebel or government forces, they were all the same.” He paused. “Still are. Very little has changed.”

She’d read about such things, about the horrors
that were going on still in certain countries where the political situation was volatile and things changed from day to day. She’d never met anyone who’d been in those countries, who’d been caught up in the madness, whose life had been changed by it.

“So Anna and Stephano had found a way to ‘liberate’ a band of nine- and ten-year-olds who’d been abducted by one of the rebel forces. They were leading them to what was thought to be a safe area, where the boys could be put on a plane and taken someplace where they’d be protected till the fighting was over. The kids’ families were gone—killed—their homes gone …

“Anyway, our assignment was to ensure safe passage for the band of boy soldiers and their UN protectors. Anna and Stephano and the two others went on ahead, and the rest of us had dropped back a bit because the boys were tired and were slowing down, so we stopped to give them a few minutes’ rest. Then, without warning, we heard automatic weapons firing for what seemed to be a lifetime. We got the boys to the ground, but we couldn’t return the fire for fear that the kids would be found. So after the firing stopped, three of us went through the brush to the edge of the clearing. Anna, Stephano, and the others lay on the ground, shot to pieces, surrounded by thirty or forty rebel soldiers.”