Meant to Be (17 page)

“So are we doing this or what?” Sid asked, snapping Beth back to the present.

She’d been staring out a window and hadn’t heard Sid come up behind her. “Oh, sure.” Beth nodded to the other side of the booth. “Have a seat.” Best to find out what Sid expected from this little makeover.

“Fine.” Sounding like a rebellious teen arriving in the principal’s office, Sid plopped down and crossed her arms over a T-shirt that read, “Life’s a bitch and so am I.” That would have to go.

“Joe says you’re interested in a man?”

“You sound surprised. Let me guess. You thought I was a lesbian.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to her, but Beth could see how the assumption might be made. “No, I didn’t. But we need to get something out of the way right now.”

“What? Are
you
a lesbian?”

Beth could only hope that the man upon whom Sid had set her sights was profoundly patient. And liked his women rough around the edges. “Joe asked me to do you this favor and, for some unknown reason, I agreed. But this won’t work if you waste both our time insulting me and acting like an adolescent who’s been grounded from her cell phone.”

Sid loosened her posture and rested her arms on the table. “I might have an attitude problem now and then.” At Beth’s raised eyebrow, she conceded, “Okay, more now than then. I’ll work on it.”

That was more than Beth expected. “Good. Then we’re on the right track.”

“But I want to know something from you.”

Beth waited for the question but nothing followed. “What’s that?”

Sid crossed her arms. “Why did you agree to help me?”

An immediate answer didn’t come to mind. There was the lure of a seemingly impossible challenge, but she doubted Sid would appreciate the “seemingly impossible” part. Nor would she be happy to know Beth was aware of her feelings for Lucas.

“As much as you don’t like me, I have no reason not to like you. If you were brave enough to ask for help, I can be brave enough to give it.” Seeing the skepticism on Sid’s face, she gave one more reason. “Or maybe I think you’re hot.”

Sid’s eyes went wide and she looked ready to bolt. Then Beth smiled and her opponent caught the joke. “Nice one, Curly. You’re not so bad for a prissy city lawyer.”

Not the greatest compliment, but it was a start.

Joe paced outside the Anchor Island library struggling to focus on the meeting at hand. He should have been thinking about the speech he’d be delivering in five minutes, but couldn’t get the image of Beth’s heated expression out of his brain.

If he’d known she was the one on the other side of the door, Joe never would have answered wearing nothing but jeans and wet hair. His own physical attraction was bad enough, but when he opened his door to find Beth gaping back at him like a woman about to dive into a hot-fudge sundae, all systems kicked into overdrive. He’d expected his father, not his brother’s sexy fiancée wearing a skintight skirt, heels, and a blouse with one too many buttons undone.

With the mass of brown curls pulled into a loose clip on the back of her head, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses would have finished off the hot-librarian-looking-for-a-good-time fantasy. His body longed for a roll in the stacks, while his brain reminded his dick for the umpteenth time that Beth belonged to Lucas. Why the fuck couldn’t Lucas be here to drive that fact home?

“Are you jerking off out here or what?” Sid asked, joining him outside the library entrance. “They’re waiting for you to get this thing started.”

Even if Beth put Sid in the hot librarian outfit, she’d never turn the heathen into a girl. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on your feminine side?”

“I’m saving her for the big debut tomorrow.” Sid’s eyes dropped to the floor and for the first time Joe saw the hesitation. This wasn’t just about getting information out of Beth. Sid actually wanted to be a girl.

The look she shot him when she realized he was staring at her said “pissed-off woman” way more than “sweet-natured girl.” Since he knew Sid hadn’t been on a date since before he met Cassie, he could only assume her feminine wiles were rusty.

“You aren’t going to let me win that twenty-five bucks, are you?” Joe asked, knowing Sid could never back down from a challenge.

“Make sure you hit the ATM tomorrow, asshole. I expect payment immediately.” Sid stormed into the library, the fire back in her eyes. For the first time Joe wondered if the tough act was just that. An act. Then he remembered the punch she’d thrown at Phil Mohler the prior Fourth of July for grabbing her ass after six shots of tequila.

Definitely not an act.

Joe passed through the door before Sid could slam it in his face, and the first person he spotted in the crowd was Beth. Standing in the back corner with Lola by her side, she glanced his way as if she’d been watching for him. After a brief word to the older woman, she headed toward him, walking with purpose. The heels did incredible things to her hips, and Joe wondered what it would be like to watch the skirt slide to the floor.

“We have a problem,” she said, standing close enough for him to catch the scent of honeysuckle in her hair. He had a problem all right. “Lola says Derek Paige came to see her again today. They’ve doubled the offer.”

“What?” His brain was drowning in the flowery fog. “Who doubled what?”

Beth bit out her answer. “Wheeler offered Lola double what he’d put on the table last week. Word has it he’s increased his offer to several others.”

That statement brought his brain around and sent his dick back to dormant mode. Mostly. “The timing is interesting. They must know about our meeting last night.”

“We should have done it somewhere other than Dempsey’s. Did you see Cassandra or Derek at the restaurant?”

“No,” Joe said, shaking his head. He’d had Annie keep an eye out for the enemy and she’d assured him they never came in. “Someone must have told them.”

Beth looked around the room. “Who would do that? We didn’t begin the phone calls until this morning.”

Before Joe could answer, the door opened behind him and Phil Mohler stumbled into him.

“Jesus, Dempsey, get the hell out of the way.”

Joe’s hands balled into fists in his pockets. Of course. “You haven’t been to a meeting in months, Mohler. Why the sudden interest?”

“I’m a merchant, same as everybody else here. I can come to one of these things any time I want.” The weasel puffed out his chest and tried to look taller but was still several inches shorter than Joe.

“You’re right, Mohler. Have a seat.”

Suspicion clouded Mohler’s eyes. He looked as if he wanted to continue the argument, then thought better of it. Instead he slunk away, taking a chair off to the side.

Proving she was as quick as he, Beth said, “Do you think—”

“I don’t think, I know. That explains his lunch with Cassie.”

“What a jerk.” Beth crossed her arms and shot a look at Mohler that could scare a great white.

“He’s a jerk, but he’s also not the brightest bulb in the lighthouse, if you know what I mean. Cassie’s good at finding the weak ones.” Too late he realized what he’d said and saw the question in Beth’s eyes. “I’d better get up front so we can get this thing started.”

An hour later, Beth sat in the back corner of the room crossing and uncrossing her legs, wanting nothing more than to scratch Phil Mohler’s eyes out. The man had attempted to lobby for the Wheeler deal, cutting Joe off every chance he could. Not that his arguments were effective. As Joe pointed out, Phil had one of the few businesses that would benefit from Wheeler bringing in a higher clientele.

The comeback that Joe’s business was the same fell flat when Joe reminded the room at large he also had a stake in Dempsey’s Restaurant, which would be leveled to make way for Wheeler’s resort.

But if the only dissenting voice had been Mohler’s, Beth would still be confident that Wheeler didn’t stand a chance. Unfortunately, there were at least five others who were considering the developer’s offer. Three were rental property owners struggling to keep the cabins fully occupied. Every week or weekend a property sat vacant, the owners lost money.

Though Beth’s future tourism predictors showed growth over the next few years, that growth was slow and couldn’t
be guaranteed. The economy was anything but predictable, and though Anchor was less expensive as vacation destinations went, it was still remote and relatively unknown. A fact Beth knew well since she’d never heard of it before meeting Lucas.

“Are you sure you should be here?” Lola asked for the fourth time since Beth arrived with the Dempseys. “I don’t like the idea that you could lose your job over this.”

Beth appreciated her new friend’s concern. “No one outside the initial group knows I put that document together. And no one but you knows my law firm represents Wheeler’s interests. So long as it stays that way, I won’t lose my job.”

“But you could.” Lola pinched her lips, enhancing the wrinkles surrounding them. “What if you do?”

The question took her by surprise. What if she did? She imagined hearing the words “We’re letting you go” and waited for the feelings to come. The disappointment. The loss. The anger.

She got nothing. Which seemed odd, since Beth had worked her butt off to gain a position with such a prestigious firm.

Unprepared or maybe unwilling to consider her future, she focused on allaying Lola’s fears. “I’m not going to lose my job, and you people are not going to lose this island. Everything will work out the way it should. I’m sure of it.”

The woman didn’t look convinced, but then her eyes moved past Beth, and Lola smiled.

“What is it?” Beth asked, turning to see Joe talking to a group that included Randy Navarro and two men she didn’t know.

Lola took Beth’s hand in hers and patted the back as if soothing a lost child. “You’re right. Everything is going to work out just like it should.”

Beth glanced back to the group. Joe seemed engrossed in whatever Randy was saying. Turning her attention back to Lola, she asked, “What about that conversation has you suddenly convinced?”

Instead of answering, the older woman excused herself with another pat on Beth’s hand and moved off to talk with Helga Stepanovich.

What a confusing woman. Beth looked for Joe again, thinking maybe one of the two strangers with whom he’d been speaking was someone who could help them fend off Wheeler. But he wasn’t where she’d last seen him, forcing her to scan the room to find him again. Their earlier conversation came back to her.

Cassie’s good at finding the weak ones.

The offhand remark gave away more than he’d probably intended.

She’d never have guessed it based on their encounters so far, but Joe was carrying around more baggage than a skycap at JFK. In the last twenty-four hours she’d learned two surprising facts about Joe Dempsey. One, he felt guilty, which meant he also felt responsible for putting Anchor Island in the crosshairs of Tad Wheeler. Second, he considered himself weak for falling for the Wheeler spawn.

Granted, the last made her question his taste level and maybe his sanity, but from everything she’d witnessed, Joe was anything but weak. Stubborn, obstinate, and uncomfortably (for her) sexy, but never weak.

“You can stop your searching, darling. What you’re looking for is right here.” The words were accompanied by the smell of sweat and fish, forcing Beth to cover her nose. Turning to locate the source, she found it several inches below her chin.

“Excuse me?”

A small man grinned up at her, one missing tooth creating the hole through which the foul odor assailed her. A receding hairline fronted greasy, slicked-back, dirty-blond hair that practically advertised the man didn’t believe showering before a professional meeting was necessary.

“The name’s Buddy Wilson. How about we get out of here and get to know each other over a few beers?” The cretin winked, and Beth’s stomach turned.

“Thanks, but I’ll have to pass.” Desperate to put distance between herself and the stench, Beth took a step away. A calloused hand clamped around her wrist.

“Come on, honey. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Beth would have inhaled to fortify her patience, but breathing deep in this idiot’s airspace was not a good idea. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson, but I’m not interested in your offer.” Unwilling to make a scene in front of the entire town, she kept her voice calm. “Now if you’d kindly release my arm.”

“No need to run away so fast,” he said, maintaining his grip on her. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

Patience gone, Beth opened her mouth to reply but a menacing voice cut her off.

“She said let her go, Wilson. I suggest you do it. Now.” Though the threat wasn’t spoken, it was there all the same.

Her admirer’s eyes grew wide and he quickly dropped her wrist. “I was just talking to her. You need to mind your own business, Dempsey.”

“She is my business. I told you once already, she’s off-limits.”

His words reminded her of the first thing Randy Navarro had said to her, about Joe warning him she was off-limits. As if she couldn’t be trusted to make her status clear.

Joe took a step forward, forcing Wilson to take a step back. When did she become the damsel in distress? And more important, when did being rescued by a white knight in flannel sporting a five o’clock shadow become such a turn-on?