Barefoot at Sunset (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 1) (32 page)

“You know what I always ask myself when I’m afraid of something?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Emma guessed, and got a massive eye roll in reply.

“That’s a loser, quitter, slacker mentality. I ask myself, ‘What’s the
best
that could happen?’ And that makes me want to kick fear in the nuts. So, what’s the best that could happen with this slow-hand widower named Mark?”

She thought about it, sinking into the idea like it was a puffy white cloud of comfort. The best that could happen? Forever. Soul mates. Partners. Laughter. Fun. Adventure. Tears. Sex. Together. Emma and Mark. “Everything I ever wanted.”

The waitress tipped her head to the side and gave a smug smile as she headed back to the bar, calling over her shoulder, “Let me know if you want another one.”

Another drink…or another chance?

The question echoed in her head for an hour as Emma sipped her beer, checked her phone—her silent phone—and replayed every minute of the past week. What had she learned from Mark Solomon, if not to fight her fears?

Hadn’t she also learned that men couldn’t be trusted? That they’re just selling the same thing everyone else is—sex?

“You need anything else?” a man asked, pulling her from her sad reverie. It was the bartender, holding a check. So much for the beer being on Joelle. Maybe she’d lied, too.

“No, I’m good.” She grabbed her wallet and took out some money, then another ten-dollar bill. “Can you do me a favor and give this to Joelle?”

He frowned. “Who?”

“My waitress, Joelle.”

Still frowning, he turned and looked over his shoulder, then back at her. “We don’t have a waitress named Joelle. You mean Julia?”

Julia
. She felt a little blood drain at the name. “Is that her…real name? The woman who waited on me?”

“I don’t know who waited on you. My shift just started five minutes ago, and Julia called in sick today.”

There had to be an explanation. “Then who…”

Or not.

She gave him all the money anyway. “Thanks. Keep the change. I have a plane to catch.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Law Monroe put both elbows on the table and scowled at Mark. “So, let me get this straight. You just
met
her this week?”

Next to him, Ken leaned in closer. “And you told everyone you were engaged?”

“Including your former father-in-law?” Law added, lifting a glass of club soda to cover the fact that he was about to crack up in laughter.

“Don’t forget the dance.” Ken elbowed Law. “Now he’s going to have to put on his Don Johnson jacket and dance alone.”

The two men shared a look and laughter won out over any sympathy from his newfound friends.

Mark set his rocks glass hard on the table, looking away at the huge crowd mingling on the beach for the cocktail party and dinner that kicked off the evening’s festivities. “I’m not going to dance. I’ll forfeit.”

“What?” Now Law looked appalled, but Ken shook his head, and his attention drifted across the reunion crowd, too.

“Seriously, what are you going to do?” Ken asked.

“About the dance?”

“About Emma,” he replied.

“Yeah,” Law added. “Why didn’t you go after her for the big movie moment in the airport? Could have broken through security, gotten on one knee in front of the crowd, and made the rest of us schmucky bastards look bad.”

He’d considered it.

“Hey, A-Team of Planning Committee Men.” Libby Chesterfield came up from behind Mark, slipping into the empty chair next to Law. “Not a single one of you showed up at the baseball game yesterday. The bleachers were a sorry place without you.”

“Hey, Chesty.” Law lit up a little at the arrival of a pretty woman, and Mark silently thanked her for the distraction.

“It’s Libby to you, Monroe. What’s your sad excuse?”

“I was working on the menu for tonight and made two hundred pork tenderloin crostini. That’s my excuse.”

“You made the tenderloin crostini?” She smacked her lips. “Little orgasms for the mouth, I say.”

“I don’t know what that means, a ‘little’ orgasm,” Law joked. “I only give big ones.”

She rolled her eyes and leaned closer to Mark. “What’s your excuse for missing the day at the ballpark? You and Emma have a meeting with the destination wedding planners, by any chance?”

He glanced down at his drink, hating that he’d made the decision to tell everyone the truth. Everyone. Even those he’d rather not deal with.

“Mark was busy, too,” Ken said quickly, filling the gap of silence.

Mark gave him a quick look of thanks for the assist, but then shook his head. He was done lying. That decision had cost him enough.

“I wasn’t busy, actually.” He met Libby’s gaze. “Emma left. She was never my fiancée. It was just a ruse to ward off people asking me about my late wife.” And to ward off women hitting on him, but he didn’t need to add that.

Her jaw dropped so hard it was a wonder it didn’t hit her double D’s. “A ruse?”

Law leaned closer. “Do you know what that means?”

She gave him a playful tap on the arm. “Shut up. I still haven’t forgiven you for standing me up junior year.”

“I didn’t stand you up, Chesty.”

“Then what happened?”

“My best guess? Booze. Weed. My usual high school distractions of choice. I’m sorry if you weren’t on the list of people I asked to forgive me, but I thought I covered that step in AA.”

“I could forgive you. It was twenty-eight years, two ex-husbands, and one lifetime ago.” She leaned closer, her deep cleavage inches from his face. “But I think forgiveness is highly overrated.”

She turned back to Mark. “Did you really think that was necessary? Why not just tell us you’d rather not talk about her?”

Hell if he could even remember now. Emma had made him realize just how stupid that whole avoidance business was. “I don’t know,” Mark said. “It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision, and she was all in, and next thing we knew…”
We were falling in love.
“She left.”

“What?” Libby’s voice rose in outrage.

“Mark screwed her,” Law added.

“Not literally.” Yes, literally. “We had a…” Misunderstanding? “I wasn’t completely…”
Honest with her.

She leaned in. “Did you behave in a dicklike manner?” she asked sweetly.

Ken snorted, and Law threw his head back and barked a laugh. But Mark looked right at Libby and nodded. “Guilty as charged.”

“Oof.” She threw up her hands. “Burst my bubble, why don’t you? Here I thought you were perfect.”

“Far from it,” he assured her.

“So far,” Law added, sharing knuckles with Ken.

“Perfect is in another ZIP code,” Ken agreed.

“But what about the dance?” Libby asked. “You and Emma are partners!”

“He’s forfeiting,” Ken said.

“Speaking of dicklike behavior,” Law added.

“That’s preposterous!” She pushed her chair back as if the news propelled her into action. “You know the steps, right?”

“No, no, Libby,” Mark said. “I’m not going to dance…” With anyone except Emma. Ever, he thought glumly.

“Of course you are.”

“I can’t teach it to you now. The dance competition starts as soon as we wrap up dinner and go into the banquet room.”

“The eighties can’t lose, Mark!” She was dead serious. “We are the best decade, right?” She looked at Law.

“If you say so.”

“Hey, the nineties weren’t bad,” Ken added. “And I don’t think he wants to dance with anyone.”

Mark threw him a grateful glance, but Libby tapped the table. “He won’t dance with anyone. He’ll dance with
everyone
. There’s strength in numbers, I say.”

All three men looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Stay here, enjoy your dinner, relax. I’ve got this.” She stood up and peered down at Law. “For the record, Law Monroe, I was going to do you so hard that night. You should have picked me over whatever demon won the evening.”

All humor left his face. “I know that now, Lib.”

When she left, the three men were quiet for a moment, and Law picked up his club soda in a mock toast. “To all the women I lost because of booze.”

“Hey,” Mark said. “You’re a new man now.”

“Wait, if you don’t drink,” Ken interjected, “why are you trying to buy a bar?”

“You heard the lady. Demons. I try to keep those devils close and under control.”

“Speaking of women lost…” Both men looked at Ken, whose gaze moved into the crowd. Then he picked up his beer and shifted his attention away, disgusted.

“Beth?” Mark spotted the attractive blonde in a red halter and a short white skirt that showed off legs from here to tomorrow. After a beat, she turned her head slightly and zeroed right in on Ken like she was locked on a target. “You sure you lost her?” Mark asked.

Ken looked, and she instantly turned away. “The Titanic hit a smaller iceberg,” he said quietly.

“So melt her,” Law said. “Come on, let’s hit the buffet. It’s a thing of beauty, if I say so myself.”

An hour later, sated with dinner and listening to someone at the podium list a string of accomplishments and memories, Mark realized that all he’d done all night—for more than twenty-four hours, to be honest—was hope that Emma would come back.

But as the evening moved toward the dance competition, that hope grew from a warm ember to a cold chunk of stone residing in his heart. That feeling he’d been most familiar with for a decade and a half.

Loss. Loneliness. An ache that felt like a black hole that had been filled by laughter and love—oh man. He
still
sounded like her.

“Whoa.
Whoa
.” Law sat up straight and stared over Mark’s shoulder. “Brace yourself.”

Emma?

He whipped around and disappointment kicked at the sight of seven women, including Libby, walking arm in arm toward their table, some faces familiar, some not. They moved in unison like dancers or…cheerleaders. Instantly, Mark recognized a few, like Margot the dancer who’d offered to be his partner, and realized he’d seen many of these ladies’ teenage faces in a trophy case the other day.

Everyone looked…right at Mark.

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding, dude.” Law laughed. “You’re like catnip.”

Allison Breyer was on the right, a glimmer in her eyes as she tossed back her sassy streak of white hair. “Solomon,” she said.

He swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Scorps don’t forfeit.”

A few of them laughed, along with Mark and his friends. “Is that so?”

“Scorps sting!” The whole line crouched down a little, dropping their joined hands so they could shoot the right one over their heads, shouting, “Sting ’em, Scorps!” in perfect unison.

A cheer went up from the entire crowd, including Law and Ken. Another table yelled the same thing, and soon the Mimosa High Scorpion battle cry was being shouted all over the sands of Barefoot Bay. Which was probably what was supposed to happen at this event.

“You’re the cheerleading squad,” Mark said as he realized who and what they were.

“From 1980 through 1989,” one of them called out.

“And eighties ladies don’t mess around,” Libby added. “We got the playlist, and we know these songs.”

“
Know
them?” one of them called out. “Some of us have
Flashdance
tattoos.”

Mark just dropped back in his chair and started laughing. “I give up.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Allison grabbed one hand, and Libby took the other, pulling him out of the chair. “We’ve already talked to the committee chair. We’re doing this. Let’s go, big guy. Dance competitors are behind the curtain in the banquet room.”

“Haul that sexy ass,” Libby added with a yank.

The next thing he knew he was flanked by the very women he’d hoped to avoid all week. All smiling, laughing, teasing, and, God, cheering. Each one was beautiful in her own way, and not one of them mentioned Julia or threw herself at him.

What the hell had he been so worried about?

They dragged him into the back of the resort, and for the briefest moment, he forgot his sadness while they took him behind the curtain that blocked off a large stage at one end of the large ballroom. A number of other couples were back there, donning “costumes” and practicing moves. Enough booze had been imbibed that no one cared that Team Eighties had seven women; they weren’t going to win, but with this crew? They sure as hell weren’t going to forfeit.

Libby ran the show, and Mark could have kicked himself for the wrong assumption he’d made about her when they’d first met earlier in the week. She was no pampered socialite or, if she was, she was bright and funny and clearly a woman who knew how to get stuff done.

In moments, Libby had assigned each woman a song, taking
Endless Love
for herself
.

“No fancy steps,” she said. “Whatever you learned at that studio, you can forget, Mark. We’re all just going to dance the way we did at Mimosa High at every Spring Fling.”