Quiet Nights (4 page)

“I think y’all have drunk enough,” Annalise stated. “Let’s go into the living room and I can tell you about the nude beach Emmett and I went to.”

“Where’s the rest of the vodka?” Mia asked her brother.

I
SERIOUSLY
could hear the grass growing, and even with a baseball cap on and my dark-lensed aviators, too much light was still getting to my eyes. When I staggered in through the back door of Blue Days, a bed and breakfast toward the end of the beachfront property, one of the two owners was in the kitchen.

“Oh,” Dwyer Knolls said softly, scrutinizing me. “Are you all right?”

He was a nice guy; he and his partner had been some of my first customers, the first people to put faith in me and back it up with money, so I always made certain their property looked fantastic. Dwyer’s partner, Hiroyuki Takeo, did most of the watering, and he’d had the idea to take out the fence on the north side of the property and put in bamboo as a barrier. I hadn’t been sold on the idea, but it had turned out gorgeous, and now with how thick and lush the bamboo was, no one could see through it to the back patio. That had been Takeo’s whole plan: he wanted that area for him and his husband alone.

“Kelly?”

I lifted my head so I could see him without opening my eyes any wider. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because you’re actually
gray
.”

I staggered over to the kitchen table and sat down.

“Dwyer, do you—oh,” Takeo said as he breezed into the room. “Kelly-san, good morning.”

“He’s hungover,” Dwyer explained, reaching for Takeo, who moved quickly to his side and pressed in close. They were just gorgeous together, and seeing the love wafting around them normally put a smile on my face. But I had nothing in my stomach, my head was pounding because the Tylenol also hadn’t stayed down, and I knew I was dehydrated.

And all Takeo and Dwyer were doing at present was reminding me that I had no one to take care of me but a surly policeman who was as hungover as me.

“I see,” Takeo said, smiling kindly at me. “I will make you some ginger tea, and Dwyer will make you some eggs.”

“I’m making eggs now?”

“Yes,” Takeo answered him dryly.

“Why am I doing this?”

“Obviously, he needs the protein.”

I made a retching sound. “I can’t eat any eggs.”

“You can,” Takeo replied cheerfully. “You’ll see.”

I wasn’t convinced, but I did as I was directed, and the ginger tea, with some honey in it, did actually kill the nausea. He put a few drops of peppermint oil on a cool washcloth and pressed that to my forehead as he gave me a banana to eat. The fluffy eggs and plain toast—no meat, no grease—filled my stomach, and the water after that hydrated me. On my way out, Takeo gave me a fruit punch Gatorade and what I thought was a painkiller but turned out to be a B12 vitamin.

“Hydrate,” Takeo ordered as he retreated into the house.

“I actually came over here to check on the yard,” I told Dwyer as we stood together on the front porch.

“It’s okay,” he said affably. “I can promise you that he enjoyed that more than talking about the flowers.”

“He’s a natural caretaker, huh?”

“He is, yes. But you should go before he remembers that he wants to grill you about the new lawyer in town.”

I coughed, which hurt. “Why would he think I would know anything about him?”

“Because he’s the new partner of your best friend’s sister,” Dwyer explained slowly, likely in deference to my depleted state.

“Oh yeah.” I groaned. Takeo truly enjoyed playing matchmaker, and so far in Mangrove, he had two successful marriages under his belt: one straight and one gay. “So what, he’s gonna find the new guy a mate?”

He shrugged. “You never know.”

“Ask him to find a guy for Coz; he needs the help more.” The look I got was odd, like I was talking out of my ass or something. “What’s with—”

“The officer is not on Takeo’s radar at all. His latest vic—project,” he corrected himself, chuckling, “is Hutch Crowley.”

“I think Takeo should hook him up with Coz,” I said to make conversation, because truly, the idea of my beautiful friend with the sexy grocer made my stomach flip over with anxiety and it was finally feeling a little better. The only one Coz belonged with was… me. But since that wasn’t in the cards, it was useless for me to worry about it.

We were friends, brothers almost. To throw that away because I wanted him, however desperately, was the worst idea ever. He was so beautiful, tall and dark, and he haunted my dreams. Always it was us, together, in bed, and he was insistent, demanding, and I was gentle like I never was, and giving and…. but what was the point of that? In dreaming? In wanting? Because in the daylight hours, I longed to be closer to him, and if that desire turned to anger and eventually bitterness, it would become this wall between us. I feared that more than anything. It was better for me to pretend to be happy for him, to urge him to date, because if I actually saw him happy, I could be happy for him. I loved him more than myself, so I was almost certain I wouldn’t come unglued at his wedding and make the scene of the century. Mostly sure.

Dwyer scoffed. “No, the grocer has no designs on
your
policeman.”

“What?”

He turned to me. “Were you even listening? What did I say?”

“Yeah, I heard… but, you know he’s not my—”

“Of course he is,” he said dismissively. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I—”

“So apparently Hutch has confided in Takeo, now that they’re friends,” he barreled on, ignoring my protests, “that he’s tired of fucking anything in a tight pair of jeans and is ready to settle down.”

God, what was it with all the honesty about sex in the last twenty-four hours? “When,” I began after clearing my throat, “weren’t Takeo and Hutch friends?”

“When Takeo thought Hutch was interested in me.”

It made sense. Anyone in their right mind would be interested in Dwyer Knolls. He was tall, golden god perfection, but how in the hell anyone would ever extricate him from his even more breathtaking partner was beyond me. “And when was that?”

“When we first came here.”

“Which was right before me,” I said, smiling—but I stopped because it hurt.

“Yes.”

I had to know. “So Takeo is interested in the new lawyer for Hutch Crowley?”

“That’s my theory, yes, but this
is
Takeo we’re talking about. I could be completely misreading him. He said something about Mike Rojas the other day, too, but I wasn’t listening.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“No, nothing.”

He studied me a moment before he smiled. “Try to stay somewhat in the shade today, and please, remember to hydrate.”

I thanked him again before I headed for my ancient rolltop Jeep. I was about to start my girl up when I heard the blare of a siren behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I was surprised to find Chief of Police Farley Porter parked behind me. Waiting as he got out and walked over to me, I twisted around in my seat to face him.

“Chief.”

His smile was warm as he stopped in front of me. “I need a favor.”

This was new. “Name it.”

“I need you to stop pissing off my officer and telling him to quit!” he barked, his demeanor changing instantly.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

He crossed his arms. “You and I both know that this town is not as sleepy and tiny as people tend to think. I need Renaldi because he’s military-trained and people respect him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And I need Hadjian because he’s loyal and approachable. I need my men to complement each other, and they do now, but not if you keep screwing with my monolith.”

I sighed heavily. “He can’t get shot. Think of his mother.”

“I can’t promise he won’t, but he’s safer with me and Arad than he’d be anywhere else.”

That was true.

“But when you say something to him, he takes it to heart like he doesn’t with anyone else.”

“Oh, that’s such crap,” I groused.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “You have no idea.”

I leaned back in the seat. “I don’t want him to get hurt—I can’t live through him being hurt again.”

Coz had been lying in the shell of an exploded humvee bleeding to death, and I’d crawled through what I figured hell looked like to reach him. I hadn’t thought of the others as I did it, didn’t visualize the remains of men as being friends of mine at the time. Only later, in the hospital, holding his hand, barfing and hyperventilating in rapid succession, had my mind made that connection. Only then had I realized that the blood on me was not only Coz’s and mine.

“He needs to be good, do you understand me?” I rasped, my voice gravelly and low, the memories thick around me. I had visited each of the homes of my fallen friends before I returned to Coz’s side in Mangrove. First, before anything, when I got back to the world, I had paid my respects to their families. Small tokens that I had from all of them—knickknacks, insignificant things, a bookmark, a keychain, whatever it was—had been joyously, graciously received.

“Kelly?”

“Do you get it?” I pressed, because it wasn’t only important, it was
vital
that he understood.

“I do, son.”

“Oh, don’t fuckin’
son
me,” I growled. “Just—make sure. Have Arad be sure. Both of you—our family doesn’t work without Coz.”

He nodded like he was actually hearing me.

It was hard to explain, but I felt it whenever I was around Coz and Mia and their mother. I had never met Mr. Renaldi, but Agosto had been there long enough and had loved hard enough that they all carried him with them and their hearts were bigger because of it. But if they lost Coz, if Mia and her mother faced going on without him… I wasn’t sure they could.

“Or you.”

“What?”

He sighed. “The family doesn’t work without you either.”

“No, you––”

“Coz always says how important you are to all of them, especially him. You should give yourself more credit for what you did. You saved his life in more ways than just the one,” the chief insisted. “Coz never forgets to tell people that.”

“Well, he shouldn’t. He was the one who was—”

“He should,” the chief asserted. “He says, without you he was screwed over there. You had his back the whole time, and all he had to do was look at you and he’d know everything would be all right.”

“That’s a crock of shit.”

He shrugged. “What does it matter, as long as he believed it?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“And it’s the same way now, which is why your opinion is the most important. What you think about what he does has the most weight. Do you understand?”

“I guess.”

“So can you lay off my officer?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll take that.”

If you went in for ruggedly handsome men who, at first, you missed were hot but who, upon second and third meeting, you noticed had great veins in their forearms, crooked smiles, and hard, heavy muscle covering their bodies, then the chief was the man for you.

I’d missed really seeing him the first few times we’d met, but now the swagger, the golden red hair that always looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, and the ever-present stubble made me smile. He looked like a cowboy; the only things missing were the hat and spurs. All the rest, the jeans, the boots—wait.

“Why don’t you have your uniform on?”

“’It’s my day off. I’m taking my daughters fishing.”

“Of course.”

“You think I would stalk you while I’m working?”

“No, of course not,” I said sarcastically. “So are you supposed to be driving around the Crown Vic, then?”

“I can do whatever I want. I’m the chief of police.”

I rolled my eyes as he gave me a wicked shit-eating grin before heading back to his car. I caught the wave, heard the horn he blew at me, and watched him drive away.

Sitting there in the Jeep, both hands on the wheel, I wondered if anything he’d just said about Coz was true. Of course, I knew that during our time in the Army that I’d been my best friend’s touchstone, but still? Now? It was easy to understand why he was the grounding force in my life—before him, there was nothing and nobody. He was the rock I clung to; he was earth beneath my feet; he was the lifeline, the shelter in the storm. I thought of Coz and he
was
home. But not once, not ever, had I thought he’d believed the same of me beyond what we’d been when it was just us.

As I drove toward Gaia’s Garden, the tree nursery and greenhouse on Euclid, I realized I was putting too much store in what the chief had said. I was important when we were in a foreign country fighting a war; it was not the same at home. He’d needed me there; he didn’t need me at home. He had his family now, and soon, because it would happen any day now, he’d spot the man for him. It was only a question of when.

I
WAS
looking for bird of paradise for a client’s backyard, walking up and down the outdoor aisles, when I turned a corner and plowed into Mia. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Don’t yell at me,” she snapped even though I had certainly not raised my voice. It would crack my head in half.

I couldn’t help my grin, which caused her to smile back.

“I need a plant for a housewarming gift.”

“Get an orchid,” I told her.

“Yeah?”

“Come on,” I said, taking hold of her hand.

People turned to look at us, and I got why. There I was in my work boots, jeans, untucked T-shirt with the name of my company on it: Seaton Landscaping—terrifyingly original—and Coz’s worn White Sox ballcap. In contrast, Mia was clad in a tan Chanel suit and matching heels, a long strand of pearls hanging down the front, and carried a Dior handbag that she never let either Coz or I even move off a chair.

We passed the orchid aisle and walked around the side of the building to the greenhouse. Tugging her after me, I went inside and was surprised to find Olivia Lassiter there with two older couples and… of course… finally… Britton.