Beholden: A Small-Town Standalone Romance (Carmel Cove Book 1) Read online

  My tongue slipped out and moistened my own, craving an amnesiac taste.

  The rapid flutter of my heart in my chest adorned how my body burned for a whole different reason—a reason I couldn’t understand.

  But this… this was an everyday sight for me: the hard, sculpted jawlines… eyes that could strip you in a blink… hair perpetually sex-tossed… I’d seen so many handsome men I didn’t see them anymore… like living in Paris, at some point even the Eiffel Tower becomes blasé.

  But not him. I’d never been so affected by this kind of ordinary perfection before.

  His eyes raked over me, their pulsing warmth stripped me of something other than my clothes. Something that allowed him to see far more.

  Maybe into my soul.

  Maybe past the walls I’d put up around my heart.

  I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “Y-Yeah. I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

  His body tensed against my hands. He didn’t believe me. And his expression didn’t bother to hide it.

  His stare enveloped me like a blanket on a cold winter night: comforting and protective, some place safe to let go of my troubles and let down my guard.

  My attraction to the mysterious model confirmed he was different. But this… this man’s ordinary perfection was dangerous.

  I murmured another apology before he could say what was on the tip of his tongue and pulled completely out of his grasp.

  I had to escape his warm embrace.

  I had to escape those ember eyes.

  Bolting into the women’s restroom just a few feet away, I immediately splashed cold water on my face, though it did nothing to hide the heat in my cheeks.

  My father had married an Irish girl, and one would think the pale, red-haired genes would’ve lost the battle against the dark Italian ones, but they hadn’t. My hair was a duller version of my mother’s vibrant red and my freckles easier to conceal as long as I stayed out of the sun. I didn’t even get the coffee-roasted brown eyes from the Ocean side of the family—more along the lines of a French Roast than a breakfast blend. Dark. Strong. Bittersweet. Instead, those genes were lost to the rich blue color of the sea.

  The mirror was just one more reminder of familial things lost to me.

  I washed my hands and spun right into my cousin when I went to reach for a paper towel.

  “Oh!” My hand smacked against my chest before rising to pinch the bridge of my nose. “Jules. Hi. I-I didn’t see you there.” I gaped at the woman who’d been my best friend—a woman I hadn’t spoken to in over a decade.

  I hadn’t seen Jules since her parents sent her to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the private Catholic high school just on the edge of town… since she’d left and hadn’t returned my calls.

  “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled and ducked her head. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you alright?”

  My eyes narrowed as they quickly scanned her, filling in all the holes a decade created in my memory. I always thought she’d been the prettiest out of both of us; now, she looked like she was trying to appear anything but.

  Her dark brown hair was pulled back tight into a bun. Combined with the formless black dress that covered every inch of her and lack of makeup, she was halfway to passing for a nun—a chic one—only lacking the veil and head-covering.

  But it was more than that. She appeared a shadow compared to the sunshine personality that I’d known. Jules had been the kind of person who’d greet you with a smile on her face even at a funeral. But things happen. People change.

  Maybe because this was a funeral, Laurel.

  Her expression… her emotions… she looked how I should. Tears streaking her face. Her skin pallid with pained sadness.

  “It’s okay.” I sighed and shook my head. “I’m… I’m fine.”

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she murmured in a daze.

  He chose to leave, I wanted to scream, the anger and confusion rising inside me again. Why did he want to leave? I bit my tongue before the acerbic words leaked out.

  The bathroom suddenly felt a lot smaller and about a thousand degrees hotter than the crowded room had. Sweltering, really.

  I had to get out of here.

  I put my hand to my clammy forehead and groaned, “I’m sorry, Jules.”

  Leaning in hastily, I hugged her for no real reason other than it seemed like the right thing to do. Other than all my senses seemed to be failing. Her entire body tensed in response, far from the welcoming warmth of how we used to embrace. “I-I have to go. If anyone asks, just tell them…” Any further explanation I planned on offering was lost.

  “I’ll let them know,” she said with this soft, eerie calm, as though the thought of escaping was the only luxury her well-off life couldn’t afford.

  I nodded and fled, holding my breath and praying that the hard, handsome, and completely off-putting obstacle I ran into on the way in was gone. And only partly hoping for one more glance at his un-ordinary perfection as I fled…

  Laurel

  I didn’t release my breath until I pushed outside, audibly gulping down fresh funeral-free air, exchanging the suffocating sadness in my lungs for cool Northern California oxygen.

  None of this was right.

  The thought was like a soundtrack in my mind, repeating louder and louder the longer I stayed. I needed to get out before it made my head explode.

  I couldn’t go back there.

  The thought willed my feet forward while my emotions floundered. The crunch of the sandy gravel grating on asphalt alerted me that I’d reached where the side street intersected with the coastal highway.

  I glanced back at the elaborate Victorian building, grateful to see no one had followed me. Because I’d ridden over with Diane, in order to leave, I’d have to go the good old-fashioned way: on my own two feet.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to the wind, a blanket apology while continuing to walk away from all the people the apology was for.

  For Diane, for leaving the funeral.

  For Jules, for brushing her off the first time I’d seen her in a decade.

  For everyone I’d let down by leaving.

  For my pap… for everything.

  Grief was a great irony. In the same way the body was made of ninety-six percent water, yet a few well-placed cups could kill you, grieving was both the thing I needed to do to survive yet felt as though one more breath of it would drown me.

  There was no way Poor Little Laurel was going back inside to ask someone for a ride.

  The ornate funeral home stood a few blocks up from Ocean Avenue, the main drag which ran straight through Carmel to the beach and cove. I shoved away the many memories of countless tourists who met my grandfather and asked if the street was named after him. He’d always deny it—the road did lead right down to the Pacific after all.

  But I knew better.

  The Oceans had been here for five generations—back before the streets were paved and the streams were sifted for gold. And this was just one more example of how my family was woven into the very fabric of this town, like the roots of a multi-generational tree, twisting and wrapping around everything it came into contact with.

  I tugged my blazer tighter over my chest, ignoring the fine grains of sand in my flats as I walked toward town—and the nearest bar.

  I wasn’t much of a drinker. Aside from the work-related martinis I shared with my boss once every few weeks and the glasses of wine I consumed on even sparser disappointing dates, my Life-Alcohol-Content was zero-point-zero percent. But it was the only idea I had: to get my grief just drunk enough to stumble out of me so we could get this over with.

  I stumbled and slowed about a quarter mile up the road as an extra-large white Ford pickup pulled off to the side of the road in front of me. I stopped warily and coughed as a wave of dust kicked up. As the debris settled, I saw the maroon emblem, Madison Construction & Masonry, on the side of the truck first before my eyes squinted to look at the driver as he rolled down the passenger win
dow.

  At least he wasn’t a tourist.

  “Good evenin’. Y’all right there, miss?” The distinct Southern drawl was impossible to ignore. Just like the kind smile and benevolent hazel eyes it belonged to.

  What was it about Southern accents that were instinctively trustworthy?

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I said, still staying a safe distance from the passenger door.

  “Well, this here is a pretty busy road drivin’ right along Big Sur with tourist season and all. Any chance your walk got a destination in mind?” he asked and, as if to prove his point, a red convertible flew up behind him, horn blaring as it blew by him.

  “In town.” I looked down at my once-black shoes that were now a sooty gray.

  He checked both directions down the road with worry. “Well, I’d be much obliged if you’d let me give you a lift, otherwise I’m goin’ to have to drive alongside you until we get into town. Can’t let you be walkin’ the whole way without some sorta protection.”

  I didn’t move at first, taking everything about him in. “Are you from around here?” He didn’t look or sound like it.

  “Moved up here about a year ago from Texas.” His kind grin faded. “Was just leavin’ a viewing for a good friend…” He gave my all-black outfit a once-over before continuing, “And I live right in town, so I can take you wherever you need.”

  Good friend. Funeral.

  My breath faltered.

  My grandfather knew I’d needed to leave all those years ago, and now, standing on the side of the road, I wondered if he somehow knew I needed to leave the funeral… leave the focal point of my past… and had sent this friendly Texan to make sure I went safely.

  “I would appreciate that.” With a grateful smile, I opened the passenger door and climbed up into the giant Ford, realizing why such a large vehicle was necessary beyond its owner’s occupation when I saw the friendly Southern driver was also a giant.

  Okay, not really. But he filled every inch of that seat and tested the limits of the seams in his clothes. Objectively, I could say that he was handsome in the fresh-off-the-ranch way, but my appreciation was tainted by the vivid memory of ember eyes and ebony hair and the tingle which lingered on my arms from where the perfect stranger had held me.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, buckling in and giving the cabin a once-over.

  It was clean inside, the fresh evergreen scent hitting me as I noticed the air-freshener attached to the vents. But it was the open can of La Croix in one of the cup-holders that convinced me I was safe.

  Serial killers didn’t drink water that sparkled.

  Noticing my stare, the friendly giant grinned and said, “My younger sister got me on this darn kick.” He chuckled and picked up the can of ’Tangerine’ water. “I don’t want to like it, but for some reason, I can’t stop drinking it.”

  This time I laughed with him in a way that was almost not completely forced.

  “Name’s Mick. Mick Madison,” he said with a lopsided smile as he extended me a hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss…”

  “Laurel,” I said hesitantly. “Laurel Ocean.”

  His eyebrows rose as darker clouds shadowed his previously sunny demeanor. “Oh, damn. You’re Larry’s granddaughter?”

  I nodded. No point in lying now, I’d already come this far.

  “And you’re leavin’ the viewing?”

  I swallowed hard, searching for any whisper of judgment in his tone but came up empty. “I can’t be there anymore.”

  His lips pursed as he gave a slow nod, like he was processing what I’d said and what he wanted to say next.

  “Your pap was a good man,” he finally murmured with a remorseful nod. “A real good man.”

  For the first time all day, the knot of trapped emotion in my stomach loosened, ebbing a little closer to escape.

  He didn’t offer me the requisite ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ and I could’ve kissed him for it. I didn’t want to hear that right now. It reminded me that loss was my life. Loss after loss after loss. And right now, this loss wasn’t real. But ‘a good man’… now that was something I could agree to—something I could process. Something I could feel in the very fabric of my soul.

  “You were friends with him?” I prompted as he turned onto Ocean Avenue, preferring to turn the conversation to the fact he’d admitted to a few minutes ago.

  It was his turn to nod. “Of course. I don’t think anyone lives here without getting to know Larry Ocean—and I don’t mean just because he brews the best coffee on this coast,” he chuckled. “My brother, Miles, and me moved from Texas ‘bout a year ago. Larry introduced us to Eli and, well, that was the beginning of our construction business.”

  There was this Eli again… along with the inexplicable shiver up my spine.

  “We woulda been back to Texas with our tails between our legs if Larry hadn’t put the word out for us. I owe that man… well, I owe that man more than I can ever repay,” he finished quietly.

  I ducked my head, turning to look out the window as we drove past the shops on the main street. Crap. I hadn’t given him a destination.

  “Thanks, Mick,” I said hollowly, hardly recognizing half the businesses on the street anymore. “Right here is fine. You can just—”

  “I owe your grandfather a lot, Miss Laurel,” he interjected with a pinched smile. “And I’m going to start by takin’ you to the best watering hole in town and buying each of us a shot for him.” He grimaced. “I think we could both use one today.”

  A weak laugh escaped my chest. Maybe I really was going crazy with grief—letting a stranger pick me up on the side of the road. Letting him take me to a bar to buy me a drink.

  But it made no sense why my pap had died.

  It made no sense why he left everything—and left me.

  And that meant I didn’t have to make sense right now either.

  “Another, please,” I said with a polite smile to the bartender I’d met earlier this afternoon; he was one of the plumber’s boys.

  This was the musky and pervasive essence of a small-town—being unable to escape those who knew you and your story.

  Poor little Laurel.

  Concerned eyes gave me a hard once over, assessing if another drink was going to be one too many, before looking to Mr. Friendly Giant sitting to my left as though Mick had the final say. I may have had a few drinks, but I did not have a keeper.

  I chewed on the empty toothpick, my head resting on one hand, my elbow propped on the rich wood bar as I slumped over the edge. My black jacket was shoved haphazardly up my arms, and the stain decorating the front of my blouse was a battle scar from where an olive had tried to escape my last drink.

  I was quickly approaching a carrot-topped mess, so it was only out of guilt and grief that Mick grunted, “One more, Benny.”

  Benny.

  A heavy sigh escaped. At least one of the plumber’s three boys had a name I would now remember.

  With a nod that made a stray curl fall in front of his face, Benny-the-Bartender poured me another dirty martini. My fourth. An easy number to remember.

  Four.

  For the number of funerals this town has cost me.

  “Maybe after this one it’s time to call it a night,” Mr. Friendly Giant—Mick—suggested gently.

  My body revolted in a way that had me grabbing my new martini and gulping down a large sip. I didn’t want to call it a night. Doing that meant I had to go to bed. And going to bed involved finding a place to sleep—a situation that only gave me very limited and equally unwanted options.

  One, going back to Diane’s and subjecting myself to the tears and pity for a loss I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to face.

  Or two, returning to my grandfather’s house and sleeping with ghosts. All of them.

  Option one was completely out of the question. And as for option two… well, I was going to spend as much of the night with the Goose—the Grey Goose—before I moved on to ghosts.

  Mick
looked at his watch again. He’d done that every time I ordered another drink. Maybe I turned into a pumpkin on the fourth one or at midnight, whichever came first.

  “You don’t have to stay with me,” I said slowly so I wouldn’t slur. “My friend can pick me up and take me home.”

  His disbelief arched one of his eyebrows. Alcohol made me an even worse liar.

  “I’ll stay for a little longer, Miss Laurel.” His determined smile practically blared the announcement that he wasn’t leaving me alone until someone else came to be responsible for what happened when the drinking stopped.

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Friendly Giant, but really, I’m fine,” I insisted, this time letting his nickname slip from my lips.

  I squinted at the clock on the far wall. Good Lord, how long had I been here? The hands on the clock seemed to sway and shrug like even they didn’t know the answer. I probably should call a cab soon…ish.

  “It’s more than bein’ friendly, Miss Laurel.” His Southern drawl was even more pronounced—whether from his alcohol or mine—as it rolled up and over his laugh. “Larry would have my hide, even from the other side of the pearly gates, if I left his granddaughter alone—and sloshed—in a bar. Even Benny’s bar.”

  I shuddered. I was not sloshed.

  “I’m just gonna go make a phone call real quick. I’ll be right back.” Mick stood from the stool that squeaked in relief with his weight removed. I caught how he nodded to Benny-the-Bartender to keep an eye on me and swallowing my smile of annoyance burned more than the alcohol that washed it down.

  I didn’t care if I was the Pope’s granddaughter, couldn’t a girl just get piss drunk in peace? Couldn’t I just be left to my own devices to find a way to grieve?

  I groaned.

  Whoever said grief was the price of love was a liar.

  Grief was the interest. The tax. The additional, invisible cost added to love that was only collected in death.

  It was everything you never expected to pay and more than you ever thought you could owe.

  And I was afraid the cost might be too much for my heart this time around.

  Shuddering, I lazily scanned the rest of the bar from the corner where I sat. TVs crowned the top of the wooden shelves of liquor behind the bar. The shelves… actually the whole bar… if I could focus on it for long enough… was a rich mahogany, weaving around in a giant L to easily accommodate twenty-five people seated around it. The wood of the shelves had carvings at the edges—the kind of handmade design work that made me think of Viking ships.