McCarthys [10] Meant for Love Page 9

  Abby made a fist and playfully landed it against her boyfriend’s jaw.

  “You’ll pay for that,” he said meaningfully as the others groaned.

  Up on the stage, Evan picked up a banjo and gave it a quick tune.

  “He plays the banjo, too?” Jenny asked, incredulous.

  “He plays everything,” Grace replied, watching her fiancé with pride. “He’s so talented.”

  “Always has been,” Mac said. “He used to drive us crazy when he was learning how to play the guitar and the piano. He didn’t always sound as good as he does now.”

  “Haven’t played the banjo in a while, so here goes nothing,” Evan said into the microphone as he launched into the complicated banjo intro to “I Will Wait” by Mumford & Sons.

  “They haven’t played this before,” Mac said.

  “It’s new,” Laura said. “They’ve been working on it.”

  “They’re so good,” Maddie said.

  All eyes were fixed on Evan and Owen, which was how Jenny didn’t immediately notice when Alex walked into the bar. It took Grace calling out his name for Jenny to realize he’d come in with another guy who looked an awful lot like him.

  “Over here,” Grace said, gesturing for them to pull up chairs at their table. “You guys all know AM and PM, right?”

  “Can’t say I do,” Linc said.

  “Alex and Paul Martinez,” Grace said. “Evan’s friends from high school.”

  Alex Martinez. So he was at least a co-owner of the business… Jenny registered a pang of disappointment at losing the anonymity she’d shared with him and then just as quickly chastised herself for caring. She couldn’t deny he looked really good in a slightly rumpled white shirt that was rolled up over his tanned forearms along with olive green cargo shorts. His dark hair shone in the late-day sunshine, but his eyes bore signs of disquiet, which had her wondering if something was wrong. Of course, she instantly hated herself for caring.

  Linc stood to shake hands with the brothers. “Do you know Jenny?” he asked, gesturing to her.

  Jenny wanted to curl up in a ball and dive under the table. But she calmly met the intense gaze Alex directed her way and even managed to shake his hand when he said, “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

  She wanted to smack him when he gave her hand an extra squeeze, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “My brother, Paul.”

  “Hey, Jenny.” Paul leaned across Alex to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Same to you.” He was every bit as handsome as his brother but seemed to lack Alex’s rough edges.

  “We need some beverages,” Alex said. “Another round for the table?”

  “I won’t say no to that,” Mac said. “We’ve got a tab going. Buy yourself one on us.”

  “Thanks.”

  Was it her imagination, or was he staring right at her, and why did Linc choose that moment to put his arm around her? Alex directed his dark-eyed gaze at the hand that cupped her shoulder before continuing on to the bar, waving hello to Evan and Owen as he went by the stage.

  Her gaze riveted to him, she watched his every move as he approached the bar and exchanged greetings with the bartender, a young blonde who lit up at the sight of him and seemed to know him well. Of course she did. Jenny would bet most of the young, single women on the island had made his acquaintance. A guy like him probably got around.

  “How’s your mom doing, Paul?” Maddie asked with a kind, concerned smile.

  “Good days, bad days. Mostly bad days. Today was brutal, which is why we’re out drinking.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Maddie said. “If there’s ever anything I can do to help, I hope you won’t hesitate to call.”

  “I appreciate that. Everyone has been so great. We just had a promising interview with a potential nurse who we’re hoping to hire to help us out.”

  “I so hope that works out for you,” Grace said. “I don’t know how the two of you have managed this long without professional help.”

  “Thanks to the generosity of many, many friends and Dr. David, who has been a rock.”

  Jenny’s mind was spinning as she listened to the conversation while Evan and Owen played “Cool Change” by the Little River Band. What was wrong with his mother? Was that what he’d meant by female problems, but not the kind she thought? She startled when she realized Linc was talking to her.

  “Excuse me. What did you say?”

  “I was asking where you’d gone off to.”

  “Sorry, just daydreaming.”

  Alex sent the round of drinks to the table with one of the waitresses, but he remained at the bar, his back to it, as he stared at her across the crowded venue.

  Jenny felt his stare on her as intimately as she’d felt his fingers on her and in her the night before. She shifted in her seat, suddenly aware of a deep throb between her legs. How was that possible? How was he able to do that to her with merely a look, when a perfectly wonderful guy sat next to her, actually touching her, and she didn’t feel a damned thing?

  The worst part was the small, satisfied smile on his handsome face that told her he knew exactly what he was doing to her. So she decided to ignore him. She focused her attention on Evan and Owen, who were now playing “Ho Hey” by the Lumineers. As usual, their performance was full of energy and awesome music.

  Half an hour later, she was still focused intently on the stage as well as the friends at their table, but she desperately needed to use the restroom, which would mean walking past Alex’s post at the bar. Which was worse? Walking by him or wetting her pants? Right then, she couldn’t say.

  “I’m going to hit the restroom,” Jenny said to Linc, charmed when he rose to help her from her chair. “Be right back.”

  Focused on not actually wetting her pants, she made a beeline for the bathroom and was proud of herself for not so much as glancing in Alex’s direction as she went by him. She took care of business—with tremendous relief—and then gave herself a minute to calm down and get control of her ridiculous emotions.

  Why did she react so strongly to him? What was it about him that made him different from other guys? Why couldn’t she garner the same level of interest in Linc, who was a great guy?

  Laura, Sydney and Tiffany came into the bathroom, looking for her.

  “Okay, girlfriend, spill the beans!” Tiffany said. “Linc seems really into you! Are you into him?”

  “He’s a really nice guy,” Jenny said, frantically trying to offer the level of enthusiasm they were hoping for.

  Sydney took a closer look. “Oh no.”

  “What?” Grace asked, looking at Jenny for insight.

  “She doesn’t like him,” Syd said.

  “I never said that!”

  “You didn’t have to. I’ve seen you more excited to pick strawberries than you were when you called him a ‘nice guy.’”

  “I love strawberries,” Jenny said, crossing her arms in annoyance. “I only met him tonight. I’m not rendering any verdicts. Yet.”

  “Are there sparks?” Tiffany said. “You’ve either got sparks or you don’t. Take it from me—I’ve had both, and there’s no mistaking sparks and no sparks.”

  “Thank you for that sage wisdom, Obi-Wan, but the jury is still out on the sparks.”

  Tiffany shook her head. “This isn’t good at all.”

  “It’s just one guy,” Laura said, as if Jenny wasn’t standing right in front of her. “We’ll keep trying until we get it right.”

  “No,” Jenny said. The word came out more forcefully than she’d intended. “No more fix-ups. For now anyway. I’ll probably see Linc again, and my parents are talking about coming to visit. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for more.”

  “Fair enough,” Tiffany said, eyeing her shrewdly. “But we’re not giving up until you’re as happy as we are.”

  “You’ve been warned,” Laura said with mock menace.

  ***

  She’s ignoring me... As if
that’ll get me to stop staring at her.

  After sending the drinks, Alex had stayed at the bar, trying to give them both a bit of space after the shock of running into each other and realizing they had mutual friends. And she was here with a date. Awesome.

  She told you she’s been dating here and there.

  Nothing serious, she’d said. The blond dude in the pink shirt was awfully touchy-feely to say there was nothing serious going on between them. And how stupid did he look in a pink shirt anyway? What kind of self-respecting guy wore pink?

  And you’re jealous.

  I’m not jealous.

  Yes, you are.

  Caught in the middle of an argument with himself, he almost missed the conversation taking place two barstools from where he leaned against the bar.

  “She was bare-ass naked,” a female voice said, “and running around the yard screaming at her son like he was twelve or something. It was hilarious. The woman is batshit crazy.”

  Seeing red with rage, Alex pushed himself off the bar and took two steps to confront the woman, gasping when he realized it was Sharon, the manager of the retail store.

  Her face went slack with shock when she saw him standing there. He could only imagine how furious he looked. “Mr. Martinez… I didn’t see you there.”

  “Clearly.”

  “I…um…”

  “My mother is not ‘batshit crazy.’ She has dementia, which is a disease that affects her behavior and her memory.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Which is exactly why you should’ve kept your mouth shut.”

  Her mouth fell open and then closed just as quickly.

  Silence had fallen around them, and Alex was aware that everyone nearby was tuned in to what was going on. “Get your things and get out. Tonight. You’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me!”

  “I just did. Now get your stuff off our property tonight, or I’ll send my friend Chief Taylor over to help you along.” As the manager, she lived in an apartment behind the store.

  “You’re as crazy as she is! Who are you going to get at this point in the season to take my place?”

  “I don’t care if we have to shut down the store. I’m not giving you one more red cent of my money.”

  She grabbed her purse and, with her wide-eyed friend in tow, vacated the bar.

  As they walked away, Alex noticed that Jenny had witnessed the entire exchange when she’d emerged from the restroom. She stared at him with big doe eyes full of confusion and compassion. The last thing he wanted from her was compassion. He put his unfinished beer on the bar, dropped some cash to cover his beer, Sharon’s unpaid tab and a tip for his bartender friend, and walked out without another word to anyone.

  Paul chased after him. “Alex! What the hell just happened? What did you say to Sharon? Why did she tell me I’d better have a good lawyer?”

  Fueled by rage, Alex kept walking until Paul caught up to him, grabbed his arm and spun him around.

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “I heard her talking shit about Mom to her friend. She said she was bare-ass naked and batshit crazy, so I fired her.”

  “Oh God, you fired her.”

  “I fired her.”

  “Okay.” Paul combed all ten fingers through his hair repeatedly, a gesture that indicated his brain was racing.

  Alex could certainly relate. “I’m sorry, Paul. I know the hiring and firing decisions are yours, and this is the last fucking thing we need right now, but I refuse to pay someone who’s going to talk trash about our family in public.”

  “I’m with you, brother. Hundred and ten percent.”

  “But you’re freaking out.”

  “Little bit.” He dropped his hands from his hair, looking wearier than Alex had ever seen him. “We’ll figure something out. Let’s go home before she has a chance to screw things up on her way out.”

  Alex glanced back at the bar, wishing he had the balls to march in there and demand that Jenny come with him. But he didn’t have the balls or the right to ruin her date with a guy who probably came with a heck of a lot less emotional baggage than Alex was dragging around behind him.

  Fittingly, Evan and Owen were playing “Let Her Go” by Passenger. Jenny was a nice girl who had a nice guy interested in her. He would leave well enough alone, but damn, he wished he had the balls…

  ***

  After witnessing angry Alex, Jenny was more attracted than ever and devastated to learn his mother was suffering from dementia. With sons in their mid-thirties, Mrs. Martinez couldn’t be that old. Jenny’s grandmother had had dementia as an older woman, so she was familiar with how difficult it could be to manage and how devastating it was to family members.

  She was proud of him for standing up to his rude employee and firing her on the spot, even if Jenny had noticed the hint of panic in his eyes when he’d calmly told the woman off.

  As she rejoined Linc at the table, Jenny’s brain whirled with everything she’d learned about Alex during the brief confrontation with his employee. He was loyal—fiercely so—to his family, willing to stand up on their behalf, unwilling to tolerate anyone making fun of his mother’s infirmity and sexy as all hell when he was pissed.

  But the agonizing pain she’d sensed in him overrode all the other thoughts that filed through her busy mind.

  “Everything okay?” Linc asked.

  Jenny started to assure him that she was fine, but she wasn’t. Her skin was prickling with awareness and the need to do something, anything to ease the pain of a man she barely knew. “My stomach is a bit upset. Would you mind terribly if we called it a night?” She hated herself for lying to him, but she needed to get out of there. Immediately. Before she gave in to the urge to run after Alex.

  “Not at all.” Linc handed a twenty to Mac to cover their portion of the tab and stood.

  “See you all,” Jenny said.

  Tiffany winked and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Jenny rolled her eyes at her mischievous friend.

  Linc placed a proprietary hand on the small of her back that made Jenny feel uncomfortable. She didn’t belong to him and didn’t want anyone to think she did, especially a certain dark-eyed man who’d turned her whole life upside down in the span of two days.

  He was just outside the marina gates, talking intently to his brother, when Jenny and Linc walked past on the other side of the street.

  She glanced at him, and his gaze smacked into hers, nearly making her gasp with the yearning she felt coming from him. Like shards of metal drawn to a high-powered magnet, Jenny felt the pull from twenty feet away and had to fight her way through it when all she wanted was to run to him.

  “Are you okay?” Linc asked, thankfully oblivious to the sizzling connection with Alex that she finally broke when she looked away.

  “Yes, thank you.” No, she wasn’t okay. While on a date with one man, her mind was full of thoughts about another. That was certainly unprecedented. “Sorry to cut our evening short.”

  “It’s okay. I have PT at zero-six-thirty anyway.”

  After a silent ride through town, they arrived at the lighthouse. Jenny hadn’t locked the gate for the night yet, so Linc headed down the long, dark driveway. “It’s kind of creepy out here at night. Are you ever afraid?”

  “Not really. I usually lock the gate before sunset, so I have the place to myself.” Except, she thought, when men on motorcycles drove around the gate.

  “I had a really nice time tonight, Jenny. I’d like to see you again.”

  How to say this diplomatically? “I had a nice time, too.” That much was true. “Things are a bit…unsettled in my life right now.”

  “Is that a polite way of saying you don’t want to go out again?”

  Jenny winced, thankful for the cover of darkness. “That’s a polite way of saying my life is unsettled, and this isn’t the best time.”

  He pondered that for a minute. “All right, then. How about I call yo
u in a week or two to see if things have settled down?”

  “That’d be great,” she said with a sigh of relief that he wasn’t going to push her to commit to a second date.

  Leaning toward her, he spared her further embarrassment and awkwardness by kissing her cheek.

  “Thank you for dinner,” Jenny said.

  “Thank you for the pleasure of your company.”

  Jenny got out of the car and appreciated that he waited until she was inside before he drove off. She ran up the stairs to the kitchen as she tried to figure out what to do. Should she go to Alex? And do what, exactly? Push him to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about?

  In the drawer under the microwave, she found the phone book the previous lighthouse keeper had left behind and thumbed through it, looking for the address of Martinez Lawn & Garden. She found the address and even knew where it was. But how did she know if he lived there?

  Below the listing for the business, she found separate listings for George & Marion Martinez and Paul Martinez, all at the same address as the business. So they lived on the grounds.

  Jenny still didn’t know what she was going to do with this information when she went up one more level to her bedroom and changed into shorts and a tank top, tossing the dress she’d worn on her date across the foot of her bed. She slid her feet into comfortable flip-flops and went back downstairs, grabbing her purse and keys in the kitchen and running for the stairs to the mudroom.

  She threw open the door and screamed with fright at the sight of a large person standing in the dark outside her door.

  “It’s me,” Alex said. “I knocked.”

  “I…I was upstairs. I didn’t hear you.”

  “I hear keys. Going somewhere?”

  “I…um, I was going to find you.”

  “Were you now?” He took a step forward and then another.

  Out of self-preservation, Jenny backed away from him until her backside bumped against the far wall of the mudroom, right where one of their previous encounters had taken place. Her purse and keys dropped to the floor with a clatter.

  “What happened to pretty boy?”

  “Who?”