Sea Glass Cottage (10 page)

“I have to go,” she said with enough frost in her voice to form a small iceberg.

Nonplussed at her change in attitude, Thane watched her pivot on her bum knee and all but bolt out the front door as fast as she could manage to walk.

A couple of minutes later the guys came back in to finish up their work for the day.

“What happened with Isabella?” Zach asked Thane.

“What do you mean? Why do you ask?”

“Because I just saw her storm out of here.”

“She did, didn’t she? Damned if I know why. We were having a normal conversation about the images to use as wall décor and when I asked her if she wanted to come over to the house to have dinner and a movie, she couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

“Hmm, I guess it isn’t just me then. She’s snobby like that to everyone.”

“Told you it wasn’t personal,” Troy tossed out as he went to pick up his drill to get back to installing shelving and cabinets.

“What are you guys talking about?” Thane wanted to know.

“Isabella. She’s been standoffish for months now, ever since she got here,” Zach grumbled.

“Ah, well, I didn’t know you two had a thing going on,” Thane stated.

“Not a thing at all, not with me anyway,” Zach said in denial. “I’ve tried to have a couple of conversations with her though. She’s always polite but…clearly reserved and not interested.”

“You called her snooty,” Troy corrected.

“Yeah, Zach took her attitude personally,” Ryder explained.

Zach skewed up his mouth. “I guess I did. But I’m taking Drea over to Santa Cruz tonight for dinner and a movie. I’m not interested in pursuing Isabella, although she is a looker.”

“No argument there,” Thane agreed.

Zach slapped Thane on the back. Then the door’s wide open for you, my friend.”

“I don’t think so. I have zero time in my life right now for a woman with an attitude, let alone a high-maintenance one.”

“High-maintenance? She doesn’t strike me like that,” Ryder said. “I’ve known women who were. But then, what do I know about the ways of the female mind? All I
do
know is that Julianne invited her to a barbeque on Memorial Day and she took a pass. There’ve been other functions where she did the same thing.”

“That day she rode her bike down the hill, stopped for two minutes to tell us she had somewhere else to be,” Zach added. “I guess she had other fish to fry.”

“We assumed she was headed over to Logan and Kinsey’s house at the time,” Troy offered. “Gotta be a logical reason she’s keeping to herself so much.”

“I’ve seen women act that same way after they’ve spent time in an abusive relationship,” Ryder proffered. “My mother’s a nurse, dragged me to one of those women’s shelters a couple times where she forced me to volunteer to put on a new roof at one.”

Thane started to disagree with that but then thought of yesterday at the doctor’s office. There had been something odd about Doc Prescott’s reaction to finding him there waiting when she came out of the exam room that seemed off. Doc’s attitude had bordered on chilly. At the time, he hadn’t thought much about it. But now it made him wonder, not just about Doc but about the woman with the sultry green eyes. Could that be it? Could Isabella have been physically abused? Maybe she wanted nothing to do with men.

“If that’s true, it’s a shame she’d put up with that,” Zach said. “Makes me want to find the bastard and give him the same type of payback.”

Troy nodded. “I could get on board with that.”

“Make it three,” Thane admitted. “With no problem whatsoever.”

“Well, if we find this guy he’d be surrounded and outgunned, that’s for sure,” Ryder noted. “No offense, Thane, but I don’t even think the three of us would need your muscle.”

“None taken, but you can’t leave me out entirely. Do you suppose it’s true? Or are we jumping to a conclusion where there’s no proof?”

Troy made a sound in his throat that had Thane eyeing him with open interest. “If you know something about her past now would be a good time to mention it.”

“Nothing definite, but I did overhear a conversation once when I stopped by Logan’s house. I was there to pick up a set of plans he’d done to redo my kitchen in the house I’m remodeling. When he left the living room to get them out of his study, I heard him talking to someone. It was Isabella’s voice talking about a guy by the name of Henry. It was obvious by the tone of their voices neither one of them cared for this guy too much. It was odd. As I stood there waiting, Kinsey walked through the door and called out that she was home. Right away, Isabella and Logan stopped talking and came out to the hallway, dropping the subject entirely.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” Thane pointed out. “Isabella often goes over there to babysit the kids.”

“I guess you had to be there. It was like the two of them had a secret they didn’t want Kinsey to hear. Not only that when they came out of the study, Logan had forgotten to bring the blueprints. He had to go back and get them.”

“Maybe Logan’s stepping out on Kinsey. Maybe they’re having an affair,” Zach volunteered.

“Whoa. I’m not prepared to go down that road,” Thane said. “That’s a huge leap.”

“Me either,” Ryder proclaimed. “First of all, I don’t think Logan would ever do that to Kinsey.”

“That’s not the kind of secret I meant,” Troy said, throwing a glare at Zach. “Don’t you dare go out of here repeating gossip like that, understand?”

Zach held up his hands. “Okay. Okay. Just thinking outside the box here, offering suggestions, reasons why she’d act like she does.”

“Well, don’t go down that path,” Thane warned. “I know how rumors get out of control enough to cause major damage, especially if it’s nothing more than speculation.”

“I’m not out to hurt anyone,” Zach said in his own defense. “I guess I decided last spring, Isabella might be gorgeous but she’s just too complicated for me to handle right now with everything else. That’s all I’m saying. I might’ve wanted to ask her out, but something always held me back. I’m glad now I didn’t.” Zach shrugged and added, “Sorry but I’m just being honest. I think I’ll knock off early, go get ready for my date with Drea. Hopefully my self-imposed abstinence has an end in sight.”

“Thanks for planting that image in my head,” Thane grumbled as he watched Zach pack up his tools and disappear out the doorway. “Is it just me or does Zach enjoy stirring things up?”

“It’s his specialty,” Troy clarified. “If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s about to become my brother-in-law in November, I might try and take him down a peg.”

“His attitude doesn’t cause rancor between the three of you?”

“Not really,” Ryder answered. “Troy and I are used to all the different personalities that come together on a construction job. But with Zach, it’s true you never quite know what will fall out of his mouth.”

A little nervous
about the night ahead with Zach Dennison, Drea did something she rarely did, even when business was slow—she closed up her flower shop three minutes early. After turning the closed sign around on the door, she made her way upstairs to shower and get ready.

The year she’d opened her business, to save every penny she could, she’d turned the industrial space directly above the store into an open, livable loft. What had started out as a cost-saving measure, ended up being the best decision she’d made since high school. She loved the fact that after a long day dealing with customers and filling orders, sometimes playing delivery driver, she could simply walk up a flight of stairs and into her own personal, sunny space.

Once she reached the landing, she opened the front door and crossed over the polished hardwood floor to the bank of windows. From her vantage point, she looked out on the grounds of The Plant Habitat, the garden center her aunt and uncle owned. The nursery supplied all of her inventory.

She’d grown up in a household where the exchange of bad, cruel words had been the norm. It had taken a traumatic event to change all that.

Her brother, Cooper, had reverted to his birth name, Richmond, officially changing it over the summer. She and her other brother, Caleb, had talked about doing the same. But it seemed a rude gesture to the people who had taken them in and given them a home. In Drea’s mind, taking in three kids that no one else had wanted at the time could only fall into two categories. It was either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish. However anyone chose to classify it, her mother’s brother, Landon, and his wife, Shelby, had done the impossible. They’d given three kids from a dysfunctional home the only stable environment they’d ever known. Going to court to ask for the Richmond name back made for an awkward situation she wanted to avoid if at all possible.

Not that she didn’t support Cooper’s decision to honor their father, she did. Caleb felt the same way. Layne Richmond deserved better than having a manipulative shrew for a wife and dying at the hands of said shrew. Eleanor Jennings Richmond had taken a .38 and aimed it at her husband’s heart. It wasn’t every florist that could say her mother had killed her father. Drea could. Several weeks back, Eleanor had even called collect from the Santa Cruz jail and wanted to talk. Drea had declined to take her mother’s call.

She was still chewing on the name change issue when she went into the bathroom to turn on the water for her shower. While the water got hot her mind shifted to Zach. They’d known each other forever, gone to school together. Which made her wonder why they had never gone out before now.

“Because he’s never seemed one bit interested in you,” she muttered aloud, answering her own query. Stripping off her jeans and shirt, she added, “That’s why you had to be the one to ask him out.”

But grousing wasn’t what had gotten her a date, audacity and brashness had.

Later, after spending an inordinate time on her hair, she decided she could only work with the attributes she’d been given at birth—wild hair that couldn’t be tamed unless she used something to take out the curl along with alabaster skin that didn’t bode well in the sun.

Dressed in her burgundy cocktail dress, she stood in front of the mirror and turned a circle. When the buzzer sounded downstairs she conceded that the outfit showed off her dark mane rather well and even managed to flatter her contrasting milky skin tone.

The thought of Zach Dennison waiting on the other side of the door gave her just enough incentive to take the steps two at a time. The man had always been a bit predictable, if not staid in his attitudes, even back in middle school. She wasn’t after altering that about him, mainly because she saw his hardworking veneer as a major plus. Her brothers were much the same in their work habits. But was it wrong to want to be the one to add a layer of whimsy to Zach Dennison’s life? To decorate that otherwise bland canvas he seemed to tote around with a splash of color? Like arranging white daisies in the same vase alongside an array of dazzling fall mums, a flash of red and gold might be just the ticket to chisel away his industrious veneer.

Making a mad dash to the door left her breathless. “You’re right on time,” she sang out.

“It was a light day. I was able to knock off early.”

“I’ll just get my wrap.”

“You look amazing, Drea.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you noticed.”

“Hard not to in that outfit.”

“You work entirely too hard.”

“I don’t have much of a choice. The pizza place has a start date. Thane’s counting on us to finish the work so it will open on time. Same with Ryder and Troy, they depend on me to carry my fair share of the load. I won’t disappoint them.”

“What’s on the agenda for tonight?”

“There’s a place in Santa Cruz that plays live music. I thought we could eat dinner first and drop in for a drink and a little dancing.”

“Why Zach, I do believe you’ve captured my interest,” she said with a laugh. “Remember that play we put on in sixth grade?”

Zach’s face broke out into a wide grin. “The one with the old-time square dancing? How could I ever forget that I never got the hang of swinging my partner around the old haystack? It made me feel like I had two left feet.”

As they walked to Zach’s truck, Drea leaned in and boldly kissed him on the mouth. “I thought I’d get that out of the way first thing.”

He pulled her into him—the biting and nipping escalating to a frothy steam. Caught up, the energy of the kiss pulled them into a maelstrom, one full of gusts and gale.