Crazy for Love (5 page)

Stupid of her, but she'd set up a Google Alert for Chloe's name, and even though every hit drove her crazy, she couldn't stop looking at them. This one linked to a slang dictionary site. She knew what it would say. She knew it would throw her into pained fury, and still she looked.

“To pull a Chloe,” the dictionary entry said. Jenn's shoulders fell as she read the words that would forever define her best friend as the worst kind of lunatic bitch. “To become a Bridezilla so demented that the groom would rather jump from an airplane than jump into the marital bed. Based on Chloe Turner's disastrous engagement to Thomas DeLorn.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her aching head. The lying was killing her, but she could
do it. She had to do it. Because the whole world had turned against Chloe.

Some people—people like Anna—believed those stupid clichés about the truth setting you free. What she didn't know was that the truth sometimes beat you down and chewed you up and ruined your life.

Chloe didn't deserve that. She'd been through enough. And Jenn wasn't about to let the ugly truth ruin such an important friendship.

To be very sure that didn't happen, Jenn turned on Chloe's cell phone and checked the messages on that one, too. Sure enough, Anna had called and asked Chloe to call her back. Jenn deleted the message and blocked Anna's number, her heart burning as she did, then she went back outside to have one last beer. She might not make it to Funtown tonight, but maybe she'd at least get some sleep.

“W
HAT'S HE DOING
?”
Jenn asked as she brought her breakfast out to join Chloe on the porch.

Chloe watched Max Sullivan carefully, trying to puzzle him out, but also trying very hard to predict what each of the muscles of his chest would feel like beneath her fingers. “I think he's…digging a hole?”

When Chloe had come out, two small boys had been playing on the beach, digging furiously at the sand as if they'd been commissioned to break through to China. A half hour later, only their necks and heads had been visible, and that's when Max had jumped in to help them out.

What had his brother said?
He likes to be in the middle of everything.
Even digging a fort with two five-year-olds.

“Does he know them?” Jenn asked.

“I don't think so.”

“Well, I guess you shouldn't be too flattered that he's tagging along on our dive trip, huh?”

Chloe reached over and gave Jenn's shoulder a
halfhearted shove. “Meanie. So tell me about the other Sullivan brother. He's a little reserved.”

“He's sweet.”

“Really? I was going to guess stern.”

“No! He's serious, yes, but really nice.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Chloe nodded sagely. “Nice enough to get it on with? Because you were looking at him last night like he was a big old hunk of man candy, darlin'.”

Jenn's face blazed scarlet. “I was not! Oh, God, I was. He's so sexy that I can't even think when I'm looking at him.”

“You should— Wait.” Chloe tilted her head toward the open window behind her. “Is my phone ringing? I thought I'd turned it off.”

“Oh!” Jenn started to spring to her feet, but her plate was still on her lap and it tumbled down to the porch, misting her legs with powdered sugar.

“I got it.” Chloe stepped over her and walked inside. She didn't know why she was looking for the phone in the first place when it was as likely to be a reporter as anyone else. But answering the phone was a Pavlovian response, she supposed.

She found it on the coffee table and glanced at the number, which sent an immediate shock through her system. DeLorn Limited. It was Thomas's mother…or Thomas.

Stomach clenching into a ball of cement, Chloe pushed the button and croaked out a hello.

“Hello, Chloe,” the voice said. Though Mrs. DeLorn's deep voice was nearly the same timbre as her son's, her old-school Virginia accent immediately gave her away.

“Mrs. DeLorn,” she said a bit breathlessly. The woman ruled over her empire with an iron fist, but somehow Chloe had always liked her. And strangely enough, Mrs. DeLorn had liked Chloe. “You look a bit like my younger sister,” she'd said the first time they'd met. And because her sister had died as a teenager, Chloe had seemed to fill a place in the woman's heart. They'd been close. Or so Chloe had thought. “It's been a long time.”

“I'm sorry, my dear. This has all just been so tragic. You know I had to take to my bed when we first got the news about the crash and then…Well, my word. I don't know what to say. I honestly don't.”

Chloe could believe that. And she hadn't exactly reached out to Mrs. DeLorn, either. Her heart softened a little. “I know you must be feeling pretty low.”

“Oh, you can't imagine,” she said. “But how are you getting along, Chloe? I suppose the investigators have been hounding you day and night?”

“Um.” Was
investigator
some old-fashioned word
for paparazzi? “The press has been giving me a hard time, yes.”

“Oh, the press. Yes, they are awful, awful people. They scurry around outside our office building like cockroaches. I wish I could squash them all under my shoe and be done with them.”

“Yuck. Well, I'm sorry to hear they're bothering you, as well.”

Mrs. DeLorn abruptly changed the subject. “Do you remember that trip we took to the Cherry Blossom Festival this spring?”

“Oh, of course.”

“We had such a lovely time and the hotel suite was so nicely outfitted.”

“Yes.” Did she just want to stroll down memory lane? The trip had been nice, but not exactly the highlight of the year. Chloe had lobbied for returning to Richmond that night so she could sleep
with
her fiancé instead of in the bedroom next door to his.

“Well, I'm sure you remember…Thomas was going on and on about that all-terrain vehicle he wanted for this fall's quail season and I gave him a little extra to help him out.”

“Um. Okay.” Chloe made a face at a watercolor painting of seabirds that hung on the wall. What the hell? Maybe all the stress was proving too much for the old lady.

“You remember that?”

“I remember him talking about the ATV, yes.”

“And when you two dropped me off at my place?”

“Yes?” Chloe asked shortly, belatedly remembering that one of Mrs. DeLorn's pet peeves was one-word sentences.
We've lost all the elegance of our language,
she would complain. Which maybe had something to do with Thomas's strange tendency to speak in full sentences during sex.
Oh, yes, Chloe, I love how it feels when you do that.

She managed to choke back a laugh, but her amusement was made worse by Mrs. DeLorn's irritated huff. “Well, I was only calling to remind you of the money I loaned Thomas.”

Chloe couldn't hide the incredulous shock in her voice. “Mrs. DeLorn, I don't know anything about that. Are you trying to imply that I share part of the debt? Unfortunately, I'm kind of high and dry right now. I put a lot of money into the wedding. I'm sure you remember?”

She'd never been rude to the woman before, but she couldn't believe this was the conversation they were having after her son had turned Chloe's life upside down. When Mrs. DeLorn had left those messages, Chloe had expected some sort of plea for forgiveness on behalf of Thomas. What the hell was this?

There was a long enough pause that Chloe was
left wondering if Mrs. DeLorn had hung up, but then she finally made a little humming sound in her throat. “I'm so sorry about that, dear. You know, why don't you let me take care of those bills?”

Chloe pulled the phone away from her face to look at it in shock. When she pressed it back to her ear, Mrs. DeLorn was still talking. “—Always been generous with both of you when you needed help. I won't begrudge you a little cash any more than I've begrudged Thomas all the gifts I gave him.”

What in the world? She was tempted to just agree, but it felt a little like being bought off, so Chloe thanked her for the offer and told her she'd consider it once all the bills were sorted out. Thomas owed at least half of the deposits, after all, if not all of them.

Then she hung up the phone and stared at it for a little while longer.

“What was that all about?”

She spun to see Jenn standing in the doorway, legs still streaked with white. “I think Mrs. DeLorn is losing it.”

“That was Mrs. DeLorn?”

“Why do you look so freaked out? You don't even know how weird she was being.”

Jenn's shocked look quickly turned to nonchalance. “What did she say?”

“She was just talking about some money Thomas
owed her. It was strange as all hell. So what's Max doing?”

“Still digging.”

Chloe tossed her phone back on the table and went out to watch the show.

 

M
AX
S
ULLIVAN WAS HOT
on land, but on a boat…on a boat he approached nuclear levels of hotness. Chloe watched him with the complete freedom offered by her dark sunglasses as he spoke with the diving guide. He looked perfect out here, hair tossed by the sea wind, sun glinting off the golden hairs on his strong arms. His mouth widened with a laugh as he slapped their guide, Jacob, on the arm and shook his head.

A few words drifted to her ears, but she couldn't make sense of them. Names of dive sites or harbor towns, she assumed. The guide's eyes took on a starry look of admiration as he shot questions at Max.

Ten minutes of excited conversation later, with a couple of miles of sea behind them, Chloe half expected the guide to turn and ask if they'd be willing to skip their lesson so he could dive with Max Sullivan. Instead, he shook Max's hand and gestured generously toward the tanks lined up against the side of the boat.

Max knelt down and began picking up tanks and
shifting them around as if they weighed nothing. Chloe knew they were heavy. Just as she'd suspected: utter hotness.

His strong hands cradled the tanks, turned knobs and ran over every piece of equipment. Chloe watched, heavy-eyed, relaxing into the fantasy of him so thoroughly checking her over. The boat rocked. Chloe sighed.

He hadn't made a move last night, and she'd been surprised at that. At one point, she'd been sure he was about to kiss her and then…nothing. A couple of beers, some nice conversation and way too many marshmallows. On the one hand, he'd invited himself along on this trip. On the other, he looked far more interested in the diving equipment than in her. Not a good indication that they were headed toward a fling.

The guide shouted something that was snatched away by the wind. Max straightened and gave him a thumbs-up and a big grin as he shouted something back, but she caught the way his mouth twitched to a frown when he crouched down and tapped on one of the tank dials. Was something wrong?

Chloe glanced at the other two. Elliott wasn't paying any attention. He was watching Jenn from the corner of his eye, and Jenn was too busy staring out at the waves and pretending not to see Elliott.

The frown remained on Max's face. He peered
closer and eased a knob open in a slow circle. What if there was something wrong? What if there was a tragic accident and things went bad down there? Chloe pictured her face splashed all over cable. On every magazine cover and Web site. She'd die in the prime of the scandal, and no one would ever remember her for anything else. She'd be Chloe the Bridezilla for eternity.

She jumped up and rushed across the boat.

“Hey!” she said breathlessly. “Is everything okay?”

When Max raised his face, he was wearing a blinding smile. “Sure, everything's great!”

“Why were you frowning?”

“What?”

“You were frowning. At that tank.”

He stood and wiped his hands. “Just concentrating, I guess. The tanks look good.” He moved his hand toward a clipboard tucked into a pocket of the boat. “He keeps good records.” When he glanced down at the board, the frown flitted across his face again before he replaced it with a smile.

Chloe grabbed his wrist. “Listen. The lesson in the pool today was fun. And I wanted to have a tiny adventure out on the sea, but I don't want to go this way, okay? I don't want to be on the news and on the… Sorry, I don't mean to freak out. It's just…”

She took a deep breath and tried to channel Island
Chloe. This was Max's job. Something as easy as pie for him. It wouldn't be cool to hyperventilate and pass out in a puddle of urine or something. “Chloe—”

“Whew,” she said with a laugh. “Sorry. Being surrounded by all this water makes me feel insignificant. And fragile. But you know what you're doing, so just tell me that this guy is okay, all right? I'll be fine.”

He wrapped his free hand around the fingers clutching his wrist in a death grip. “Diving is inherently risky. Things can go wrong. But I talked to the guide about the dive this morning while you were finishing your lesson. We decided to do an easy dive—only thirty-five feet down. The wreck is wide open on the sea floor, so there aren't any spaces to get caught in. And I wouldn't let you near that water if the equipment wasn't safe. Okay?”

“Okay.” Her fingers didn't loosen, despite the warmth of his hand on top of hers.

“I don't recommend finding a dive guide at the grocery store, but you lucked out.”

“Okay,” she said again. Her hand didn't relax, but she purposefully flexed her fingers. No panic attack. Not this time. She'd only had one actually, but the idea of having another was enough on its own to spiral her close to an attack. Evil, vicious circle.

Max's hand let go of hers and rose up to cup her
chin. Warmth edged over her jaw and calmed her down. “Hey, we'll stick together, okay? I could do this in my sleep. But—” he said hastily as Chloe opened her mouth to protest “—I won't.”

“Ha.”

His hand slipped away, fingers trailing down her throat so briefly that she couldn't tell if it had been an accidental touch. His smile disappeared. “Or you could just change your mind.”

When the boat hit a wave and bounced beneath her, Chloe let go of Max and reached for the railing to catch herself. Max didn't even budge. He was like a pirate, accustomed to life on the high seas, impervious to waves and sea spray and unstable footing. She wished his faded blue tee was an open-collared shirt that could whip around in the wind and reveal his chest.

The roar of the motor dropped down to a low grumble and the boat slowed. “Almost there!” the guide shouted.

Chloe set her shoulders and forced a smile. “I'll be fine. Jenn's really excited. And so was I until that little freak-out. It'll be fun. It must be like a whole other planet down there.”

His eyes crinkled. “That's exactly what it is. Want some help getting your wet suit on?”

“Do you ask all the girls that?”

“It's my job.”

“Oh, really?”

He tipped his head in concession. “Almost.”

Chloe said, “I think I can handle it on my own,” as she sauntered off. Or as close to sauntering as she could manage as the motor died and the boat began to rock in the gentle waves. She gave up when her thigh slammed into the railing, and took the last two steps just hoping that Max wasn't watching.

He wasn't. Max Sullivan was too busy getting ready to dive. The first step appeared to be shucking his baggy swim trunks and T-shirt to get down to the tighter layer underneath.