“We’re not doing anything.”
“Oh, yes we are. I told Manny we were doing something, and you’re not going to make a liar out of me.”
“He’ll never know.”
She tapped her chin. “Needs to be something we can do in the rain if the storm is moving in.”
“Rain or shine, we don’t have plans.” He looked ready to throttle her, but Sid pushed forward.
“Don’t even think about standing me up.”
Lucas threw his hands in the air and looked up as if seeking divine intervention. “What did I do to deserve this woman?”
“I don’t know,” Sid answered for whomever Lucas sought in the ceiling. “But it must have been damn good. Since you’re skittish, I better pick you up.”
“You are not picking me up.” Lucas pushed up his sleeves.
“You can drive then. Don’t get so hostile. I’m at the end of Tuttle’s Lane.” Sid moved past Lucas, then stopped at the door. “Be there at seven and don’t be late.”
Sid headed for the dining room without giving Lucas the chance to refuse. From the office his voice boomed, “Fine. But you better be ready.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
All right. Tell me what the heck’s going on.” Beth stomped to the counter, curls bouncing and eyes snapping. Will had never seen her usually even-tempered friend this worked up.
“Aren’t you supposed to be running the store?” Will asked, looking to the clock to see if she’d lost track of the afternoon.
“Don’t start with the clock crap again. I’ve been off all day thanks to that little stunt you pulled.” Beth threw a stirrer at Will. “Why did you get rid of me this morning? And don’t tell me that’s not what happened.”
Will knew when to come clean. She called out, “Brad, I’m going out to lower the umbrellas before the rain starts.” Stepping out from behind the counter, she said to Beth, “Come on. I’ll explain outside.”
The air had turned cool with the impending hurricane. Will rubbed her arms, turning to face Beth. “Sid wanted to talk about something, but didn’t feel comfortable doing so with you around.”
“Why? What did I do?”
“You slept with Lucas.” Not the best approach, but Will didn’t like being the go-between in this. “Now Sid is trying to sleep with him, and she thinks talking about that with you would be weird.”
Beth blinked. “I think I need to sit down.”
Will pulled out a chair at the nearest table and motioned for Beth to do the same. “For the record, I told her she shouldn’t keep you out of this.”
“Does Lucas know?” Beth asked.
“That you slept with him? Um … I’d think so.”
“Stop that. You know what I mean.”
Will answered honestly. “I don’t know. I mean, I know she offered him sex and he turned her down.”
“Whoa.” Beth held up a hand. “You’re going to have to start this from the beginning.”
“Right.” Will conveyed the details she knew about Sid and Lucas’s kiss on the beach, and the subsequent sex offer and refusal. How any man could turn Sid down was a mystery to her, but Lucas seemed to have a valid reason. Which Will couldn’t fault the man for.
“He does have a point about the casual thing,” Beth said, once the story was out. “Has Sid ever even been in a relationship?”
“She’s not a virgin, based on what little she’s told me. But she’s not exactly the queen of girl talk, you know.” Not that Will wanted to have slumber parties and discuss menstrual cycles, but Sid was more likely to talk head gaskets and crank bait.
“Did you know she reads romance novels?” Beth whispered, as if conveying national secrets.
“No shit. Really?” Sid didn’t look to have a romantic bone in her body. Even when she talked about kissing Lucas, there was nothing sappy or swoony about it. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t think anyone does,” Beth said. “In fact, she threatened that if I told the guys about it, she’d kill me. Only she phrased it in a more Sid-like way.”
Sid did have a creative way with violent description. “Good thing I’m not one of the guys.”
“That’s her problem. She’s been one of the guys for too long.” Beth leaned back in her chair. “I was amazed the first time I saw her. She was playing pool with a bunch of the islanders, and they were smacking her on the back and acting like there wasn’t a centerfold bending over the table. Men can be so clueless.”
“Lucas doesn’t strike me as the clueless type, but he’s definitely playing the gentleman.” Will had noticed how Lucas’s eyes followed Sid around the room, so she knew there was interest. Even when he’d been flirting with Will, his heart wasn’t in it.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with him. He’s pragmatic and the most ambitious man I’ve ever met, but what Joe and I did to him left a mark.” Beth looked off in the distance. “I wouldn’t change how things are now, but I wish he hadn’t been the one to get hurt. Even with that, he’s the one who sent Joe to get me.”
“You never told me that.” Will hadn’t been friends with Sid and Beth back when the whole fiancee exchange had happened. They’d met, as Will had been the one to serve them drinks the night the ladies got tanked on tequila, but their little threesome was more recent.
“I was leaving for Boston. I didn’t want to work in law anymore and even if I had, I never could have stayed at the firm. Seeing Lucas would have been like seeing Joe and not being able to talk to him, or touch him.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Lucas called Joe and told him I was leaving. Said to get his ass up to Richmond or he’d lose me forever.”
“Wow. That was big of him.”
Beth laughed. “That’s Lucas. There’s a suppressed superhero behind those Dockers and button-up shirts. Fighting for justice and setting the world aright.”
“So if he thinks having a fling with Sid, then leaving her a few weeks later would break her heart, he won’t do it.” Will hadn’t encountered many men of Lucas’s caliber. Shame there wasn’t a third brother for her.
She nearly slapped that thought out of her head. Will would never drop her guard for a man again. No matter how decent he appeared to be.
The women sat in silence for a long moment, then Beth asked, “What are we going to do?”
“Hell if I know,” Will said. She’d been pondering the situation all day, but kept coming to the same conclusion. “She wants him and is determined she can love him and leave him with no problem. Who are we to say she can’t?”
Beth caught Will’s eye. “Her friends. Don’t we owe it to her to protect her?”
Will knew better than anyone how little your friends could protect you. “Sometimes you have to let friends figure things out on their own. I think this is one of those times.”
Lucas pulled in behind Sid’s truck at 6:55, still with no idea what the hell he was doing there. Nearly twelve hours before, he’d told her they couldn’t start anything. And now he was picking her up for a date. The only place he could think to take her in the rain was the marina restaurant. Dinner at Dempsey’s was out of the question.
Too many people to whom he’d have to explain. Besides, they’d never hear each other over the noise. At the marina, they could have a nice meal, just two adults sitting down to eat, then he’d take her home and this farce of a date would be over.
He considered honking, but his mother’s voice in his ear saying
The rain had eased to a drizzle so he pulled the collar up on his sport jacket and made a break for the porch. The inside door was open so he knocked on the metal screen.
