added, thinking of the long, silky black strands hanging down Carly’s slender back. Yowza.
“Short hair?” Arlen let out a derisive laugh. “Are you sure it was a female? Hell, boy, you’re so stupid, you wouldn’t know the difference. Half-queer, as it is.”
James didn’t bother to respond to this familiar charge; his mind went carefully blank. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, to replay his conversation with Carly, to fantasize about what might have been and what could never be. He’d keep every detail about her private. Cherish it, maybe. God knew he had precious little else to hold close to the vest: his dad controlled every shitty moment of James’ fucked-up life.
James sighed, wishing he were somewhere else. Someone else.
“Did you get me that bottle?”
“Yessir.” He pulled the pint from his jacket pocket, relieved to have moved on to topics mundane. He stepped forward in the gloom, handing it in the direction of the winking cigarette and hoping for a quick getaway.
“Not so fast.” A strong hand clamped on to his shoulder, forcing him down on the couch next to the recliner. “Take a load off.”
He heard the familiar sounds of his father un-screwing the cap, the unmistakable
“Drink?”
It wasn’t really open for debate, so James took the bottle and brought it to his lips, pretending to take a healthy swig. His dad always got drunk faster, and passed out quicker, when he had a little company to help him along.
CHAPTER 5
Ben wouldn’t have forced the issue, but Carly insisted on going to school the next morning. It was the last day before Christmas vacation and she had finals. If nothing else, Carly was a conscientious student, and Ben never had to remind her to study or complete her homework.
When he was her age, he dropped out of school, much to his parents’ dismay. After he brought home more earnings the following year than his dad, a well-respected (and well-paid) judge, they’d stopped complaining.
Or he’d stopped listening. By the time he turned seventeen, he’d owned a pricey bachelor pad in Pacific Beach, a swank upper-floor condo where there were no rules, no curfews, and the party never ended.
Finances aside, Ben counted it as a mistake. In those formative years, he’d had too much money, too much success, and too many greedy people telling him he was God’s gift to surfing. He’d thought he was indestructible, and on the water, he was. It was on land, with those earthly delights, that he’d run into trouble.
In his mid-twenties, after he’d cleaned up his act, he’d gotten a GED and gone on to college. By then, he was no longer a drunk, but he was still an obnoxious ass, overdue for a rude awakening. His professors didn’t give a shit about surfing and weren’t impressed by the size of his bank account. Sure, he could make money, but did he have any idea how to calculate his quarterly interest?
As it turned out, spending all your free time partying and sleeping around didn’t make you a genius. Who’d have thought?
Ben drove Carly to school in silence, wondering if it was his faulty wiring and addictive genes that made her who she was. It was easy, but not particularly productive, to blame himself for her problems.
“I’m picking you up, too,” he said as she stepped out at La Jolla Shores High School. Ben guessed it wasn’t fashionable to wear a backpack anymore, because Carly always carried a small stack of books and a tiny, outrageously expensive designer handbag.
“Lisette’s staying over tonight,” she reminded him, tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear.
“Hell, no, she isn’t.”
“Dad. Her parents are going to Big Bear. I asked you a month ago.”
He swore sulkily, remembering that Lisette’s mom had called and made the plans herself because Lisette couldn’t be trusted home alone. She was even more of a wild child than Carly. The last time the Bruebakers had left her in charge, she’d thrown a ten-keg rager on the west lawn. “Fine,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his tired face. “But you’re still grounded, so you two aren’t going anywhere. And no pot!”
Carly rolled her eyes as she slammed the door, a good sign she was feeling more like herself. Any other morning, Ben would have spent several hours in the ocean already. Carly was so self-reliant that she usually made breakfast, got ready, and went to school under her own steam. He thought he was being cool, letting her have her independence. Now he could see that he’d given her freedom when what she’d really needed was his attention.
He stretched his neck, trying to relieve the ache brought on by several nights of too much stress and too little sleep. On impulse, he took out his cell phone and dialed the number for Scripps Hospital as he drove away.
A crisp-voiced operator asked how she could direct his call.
“I’m trying to solve a mystery,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, trying to lay on the charm. It sounded pretty rusty. “A woman saved my daughter from drowning the other night and I’d like to thank her.”
The operator made a mew of sympathy.
“In the chaos, I didn’t catch her full name,” he continued, “and I’d like to send her a token of my appreciation. Is there any way you can take a peek at the emergency report and see if it lists her address?”
“Oh, sir, I’d love to give you that information, but-”
“Ben,” he interrupted helpfully, keeping his fingers crossed. “My name is Ben Fortune.”
She hesitated. “Ben…Fortune?”
“Yes.”
Clearing her throat, she said, “Well, I think we can make an exception, just this once…”
Sonny was getting out of the shower when a loud, warbled sound alerted her. She wrapped a towel around herself and listened for a few seconds before she realized that the strange, off-key melody was her front doorbell.
Curious, she peered through the peephole. Ben Fortune’s image was distorted by the warped glass. Interesting. How had he found out where she was staying?
When a shiver of awareness traveled down her spine, she didn’t lie to herself and call it unease. Having a suspect invade her turf should have made her feel apprehensive, not excited, but she’d always been a little twisted.
He raised his hand to depress the buzzer again, so she opened the door. “Don’t do it. I can’t tolerate that particular combination of sounds this early in the morning.” She smiled, pleased with her pre-caffeine wit.
He didn’t smile back. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” she said, studying his face. He was a damned fine-looking man, even with bloodshot eyes and a hard, tense mouth.
She stepped aside, inclining her hand in invitation.
Her apartment had come furnished with thrift-store rejects and bargain buys. The brown wool couch, with its scratchy cushions and sharp, rectangular shape, looked like a throwback from the seventies. It was so uncomfortable people must have been avoiding it for decades, because it was still in good condition.
A lacquered oak coffee table and green vinyl armchair, also genuinely retro, and undeniably ugly, were the only other points of interest.
“Like what I’ve done with the place?”
“No,” he said, not bothering with diplomacy.
She frowned. “Do you want to sit down?”
“Not really.” His eyes moved from her breasts to the tops of her thighs, lingering everywhere skin met terry cloth.
Discomfited by his perusal, she did a slow sweep of his body, proving that two could play at ogling the opposite sex. He was wearing a sky blue T-shirt that clung to the muscles of his chest and faded jeans that hung loosely on his hips. Instead of shoes, he had on a pair of ancient brown flip-flops, the kind only men with good-looking feet could pull off, and only then if they were near a beach. His were long, narrow, and tanned, like his hands.
He couldn’t have appeared more casual, but she could tell by his rigid stance, his fists clenched at his sides,
