Trey DeMarcus, Commander, US Navy, Retired, ushered his client from his office to the reception area. As they walked, he reassured him one more time that all the paperwork was in order and he had nothing to worry about. Today, Lloyd Bridger had seemed more tiresome than usual. He was a nitpicker without equal, although Trey figured to amass so much wealth, he’d have had to be. But the man was now in his late eighties, retired and occupying himself with nitpicking changes to the dispersion of his estate. Trey chastised himself for being irritated, but this was so far from the law he’d practiced for twenty years—and the law he wanted to practice now—it wasn’t even on the same map.
You wanted the change.
No, I didn’t. Laura did.
Laura. Even thinking her name sent a shaft of pain right through his heart.
“Did you get Bridger all squared away?”
Trey looked up to see Art Finnergan, one of his partners, lounging in his office doorway. Art handled estate planning for the firm, but after he and Lloyd Bridger had a disagreement, Trey had taken Bridger on as a favor. He still chafed at the dryness of the subject. When he’d left the Navy for private practice, he’d really wanted to practice criminal law. After all, he brought a wealth of experience with him from JAG.
But Laura had—
He shut the mental door on that and focused on his conversation with Art.
“Yes, for the millionth time.” Trey forced a grin. “We need to find something for that man to do.”
“Someone does,” Art agreed. “That’s for sure.” He gave Trey a searching look. “How are you doing?”
Trey knew the man meant since the divorce. Yeah, the damn divorce. Nothing like coming home the day you leave the service, finding your wife out and a man standing there to serve you with divorce papers. At first, he thought he had landed in an alternate universe or the man had made a mistake, but then he found the note from Laura.
“I’m sorry. We just want different things. I’ve packed most of your belongings. They are in the garage. Tell me where to send the rest.”
After twenty-five years of being together, including two decades years of marriage, that was what he got? How had he missed all the signs?
And when Laura returned late that afternoon, she’d assured him—in a voice so composed it scared him—that, yes, she was divorcing him. And she’d appreciate it if he didn’t make a fuss.
A fuss!
For god’s sake! What was he supposed to do after twenty years of marriage?
But as he’d sat in a hotel room that night, getting quietly drunk, he realized the mistakes had been made a long time ago. He and Laura met in Newport, Rhode Island, when he was there for JAG training. Maybe she’d thought he would be spending his entire career there, although he was very honest with her. He had plans. Twenty years in the Navy JAG, then home to Montana to practice criminal law.
But Laura, it seemed, had other ideas. Newport was her home. It was where her friends were. Oh, yes, she liked the travel to exotic places. Until she didn’t. Until she wanted to rent a home in Newport, a place where she could spend at least part of the time, and where he’d have a home between assignments. She knew he wasn’t ready to buy yet, and that he still had Montana in the back of his mind. But, renting, he could handle.
Her travel with him became more and more infrequent. And whenever the subject of Montana came up, she changed it, begging him to make plans to stay in Newport after he retired from the Navy. She’d even gone into business with her friend Diana, an event planning service that was very successful. He wasn’t too happy with them living in different places, but she alternated between Newport and wherever he was assigned at the time. Anything to make her happy, and when he retired, they’d be together permanently.
Until she finally told him Montana would not be a good fit for her. After planning it for twenty years? Had he missed all the signs or just ignored them?
But he was determined to make the best effort he could because he loved his wife and he wanted them to be together. He could adapt. He extended the lease on the house and told her to begin looking for something permanent. He’d been approached by two men he spent time with between assignments who invited him to join their very prestigious law firm. He was doing everything he could to make this work after waiting so long for it.
But it seemed her mind was made up a long time ago. She was finished with him, with the marriage, with whatever they’d had, which at the moment he couldn’t quite define. The divorce papers sat on his desk at home, mocking him, but it soon became painfully clear that his marriage was over. He had made a gigantic mistake and now was paying for it. He was miserable, stuck in a city he didn’t particularly like, in a law practice not even close to what he wanted, and all for nothing.
Being accepted into JAG had been a life-altering moment for him, the fulfillment of a wish. And Laura had shared his excitement…or so he’d thought. Newport, Rhode Island, where he went to the Naval Justice School, was her home town. Her friends were here. The few members of her family he had met. She loved the city, the excitement of it, the people.
In twenty years, they’d moved around a lot, not just in the States but exciting assignments overseas wherever the United States had a base. He thrived on it and on the cases he handled. He’d thought she did, too. But while he had enjoyed the adventure of life in foreign lands and cultures, and loved the life of a JAG officer, Laura began to grow tired and irritable with it.
By the time he’d accepted his final foreign assignment, this one in Japan, she’d convinced him she’d really be a lot happier staying home and running the event business with Diane. He didn’t ask her about Montana. He had the feeling by then Montana wasn’t even on the table. How could you be married to someone for so long and not really know them at all? Was it him? Had he missed all the clues?
Time and again during the past year, he’d asked himself if he was the only one who had loved the Navy and the life of a JAG officer. He and Laura had made the decision together, but maybe it turned out not to be what she wanted. Couldn’t she have told him before twenty years had passed? She always told him how good he looked in his uniform, but it took more than a uniform to make someone happy. He was either the stupidest man alive or she’d covered her feelings for a long time.
He was well aware his partners were concerned about him, and about his commitment to the firm now that he no longer had a reason for staying in Newport. Discussing it, however, was still too painful. Besides, with the word out that Laura had been seen out on dates, what could he say that didn’t make him look like an idiot?
Now, he just looked at Art and shrugged. “Taking it one day at a time.”
“Have you thought about taking some time off? Maybe a little vacation somewhere?”
And do what, he wanted to ask. He was like a stranger in a strange land. He wasn’t into deep-sea fishing, which most of his partners were. He liked baseball, but none of his partners did. Of course, in Newport, Rhode Island, loyalties were split among the several professional teams in neighboring states. He liked to read, but he’d dreamed of a house with a patio where he and his wife could read in companionable silence, looking out over the broad Montana landscape. Or, in the winter, by the fireplace.
He couldn’t bring himself to date, no matter how many times the wives of his partners tried to fix him up. He was forty-eight, for god’s sake. Too old for blind dates. And the pain of the breakup of his marriage was still so fresh in his mind. How had he been so blind? How had he gotten it wrong for so many years? Had he just not paid attention or listened, or had she been good at hiding it? He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to trust a woman again.
“Trey?” Art’s voice cut into his reverie.
“What?” He gave himself a mental shake. “Oh, vacation. I don’t know. I can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm.”
“Well, give it some thought, okay? We’re just a little concerned for you.” He paused. “You know we’re all happy to take up the slack to give you whatever time you need.”
He ground his teeth. “Worried I’ll fall down on the job? Am I not pulling my weight?”
Art had the good grace to look a little embarrassed. “Not at all. You more than pull your share around here. Hell, just taking Bridger off everyone’s hands ought to earn you a bonus. But….” He paused.
“But you’re worried about my state of mind. Is it because Laura’s making no secret of the fact that she’s seeing someone while I’m not? Is that it?” He had deliberately not ventured out into places where he might run into her. Even after a year, seeing her with another man would be the pits.
“Trey, we all know this is a painful thing to go through. The partners all want you to know we’re here for you.”
Great. A bunch of late-forties men playing support group.
“Thanks. I appreciate it. And I will think of taking a break.”
But not just because of Laura. He was in a city where he’d settled because she had a business here, practicing the kind of law she had urged him to do, and his life was coming apart in little pieces. Of course, having your wife serve you with divorce papers the day you retired from the Navy wasn’t exactly guaranteed to send you on the road to happiness.
His partners meant well, but he felt guilty every day he went to work. He’d accepted their offer under a specific set of circumstances, secretly admitting he wanted to save his marriage by falling in with Laura’s plan. But she had hounded him until he at last signed the divorce papers, and his reason for building a life in Newport rather than Montana had changed. Now, he really wanted out, and he was pretty sure they knew it. The rumors that Laura had been seeing someone else even before he gave in and signed the papers didn’t help his state of mind, either.
He filled a mug with coffee from the carafe on his credenza and stood at his window that overlooked downtown Newport. And thought about how his life had taken an unexpected turn.
Perhaps if they’d had children, it might have made a difference, except Laura had never really wanted a family. She had wanted to be free to follow her own career path. All the travel as a JAG wife hadn’t exactly been what she had in mind, and, as time passed, she’d found the restrictions of the military stifling. Trey’s continued efforts to integrate her into life as the wife of a JAG officer frustrated and irritated both of them.
He figured once he retired from JAG, he could focus completely on Laura, and they could patch the holes in their marriage. Assuming, of course, he could figure out what they were. Still, he wondered how many men were served with divorce papers the day of their retirement. He was still dealing with the shock of it after more than a year.
Taking a last swallow of coffee, he set the mug aside, checked his computer for messages, and decided to leave the office early. He had no clients scheduled after Lloyd Bridger, and while he also had no plans, he needed to get out of the office. Suddenly, it felt as if the walls were closing in on him. Choking and strangling him.
He shrugged on his suit jacket and his coat, grabbed his laptop, and headed out.
“See you tomorrow,” he told Phyllis Andreeson, his assistant.
“Leaving early?” She grinned. “Good. You need to go someplace and let your hair down.”
He stopped at her desk, forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Are you trying to tell me I’m a pain in the ass?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. Just that you’re wound up so tight I keep waiting for the spring to pop.”
“I didn’t realize…” He stopped. Realize what?
“If I can just be honest for a moment, Mr. DeMarcus?”
“Phyllis, we’ve been working together for more than a year. I want you to feel free to say anything at all to me.” And he meant it. Since the day he accepted the partnership offer from this firm, he’d gone out of his way to make Phyllis feel comfortable with him. What had he been doing wrong?
“Good. Then, here it is. Since you became part of this firm, you’ve done an incredible job. Even managed to keep clients like Bridger happy. But that’s all you do. Work. You never go out, never socialize except for events the firm hosts or gets command invitations to. And forgive me, but you seem so sad all the time.”
Well, so much for using that military discipline to keep everything hidden.
“I’m not sad,” he insisted. “Just…” Just what?
“It’s really none of my business, but everyone is aware of the divorce and how it happened. The other partners would have had to know everything before making you the offer.”
Trey sighed. “I realize that. It’s not a big secret.”
She shook her head. “But it’s your personal business.” She paused, as if searching for the right words to continue.
He smiled, just a tiny lifting of one corner of his mouth. “Whatever it is, let’s have it. We’re on a roll now.”
“Okay. I think what your ex-wife did is despicable, and I hate it that you’re letting it destroy your life.”
Destroy his life? Hmmm. He hadn’t seen it that way, but of course he’d been walking around with blinders on.
“You should go out and have fun,” Phyllis went on. Then she chuckled. “Go to one of those upscale bars and find a nice upscale woman. Or any kind of woman.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why, Phyllis! Are you trying to tell me I should go out and get—”
“Happy,” she interrupted, cutting off his sentence. “Just…get happy.”
He was pretty damn sure she’d been about to tell him to get laid, but then that was probably beyond what she’d say. So, get happy. Okay, then. To really tie one on, he’d have to do it at home, where there was no chance his partners or any of their clients could see a man his age crying in his beer. But a drink or two surrounded by other people might take the edge off his year-long pity party.
“I might do just that,” he told her. “Thanks for the advice. See you in the morning.”
Her words echoed in his head all the way down in the elevator to the parking garage and while he was heading out into traffic. Maybe she was right. The pain from the bitter breakup didn’t lessen because he was forty-eight and not twenty-eight. Maybe it hurt even more, because he’d been so sure he was about to step into the next great phase of his life.
Instead of heading home to his high-rise condo, he decided to try a new bar he’d heard people raving about. It had a fireplace, which, today, would be a big plus for him. He could enjoy its warmth, have a drink, and lick his wounds, once and for all. Because, truth be told, it ate at him that Laura seemed to have her life under control and had moved on without so much as a ripple, while he beat himself up every day over what he could have done differently.
“Nothing,” Art Finnergan had told him. “Don’t get upset with me, but from what I hear, everyone’s surprised that it lasted as long as it did.”
Trey had stared at him. “But people are just getting to know me. I haven’t lived in Newport for almost twenty years.”
“True. But your ex-wife has been back a lot since you first lived here, and she took up residence nearly a year ago. She’s a partner in a business here that puts her in contact with half of Newport. People have had a chance to assess her and get to know her.”
Trey wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, and, truthfully, he didn’t want to know. He was just irritated with himself that he’d invested so much of himself emotionally in their marriage because, to him, it was a permanent commitment, but, apparently, to Laura, it wasn’t. Well, lesson learned. He sure wasn’t ready to test the dating waters, not at his age, regardless of what his partners kept telling him. One of them had just remarried at the age of fifty. Good luck to him.
He plugged the address for Hearthside into his GPS, followed the map and the directions. Twenty minutes later, he was seated at the end of a dark mahogany bar, the fireplace on his right casting its warmth, the muted conversation from the clusters of tables like soft background noise. He took a sip of one of his favorite drinks, a gold rush, made up of bourbon, lemon juice, and honey. It smoothed out the rough edges for him better than any other drink.
He was just beginning to let the drink do its work, let it sooth his raw nerves, when he heard the sound of a woman’s laugh and those same nerves caught on fire. He looked to his right and, sure enough, making their way from one of the tables farthest away from him, was his ex-wife, clinging to the arm of a man who had to be at least ten years younger than she was. Maybe more.
What the fuck? Had all of this been just a scam so she could trade him in for a younger model? Before he could turn back to the bar and pretend to ignore them, she’d spotted him, and her step faltered. They were about to pass within inches of where he sat. Then, without missing another beat, she pasted her professional smile on her face.
“Hello, Trey.” Her voice still had that warm, sultry flavor to it, only now it didn’t get quite the same reaction from him.
He gave one short, sharp nod of his head. “Laura.”
“This is Damien Frost. Damien, meet Trey DeMarcus.”
Trey knew the name. He was one of the young dot-com geniuses who had amassed quite a fortune before he was thirty. So. Youth and money. A double whammy.
Damien looked from one to the other, recognition lighting his eyes, then curved his lips in a smile with just enough arrogance to piss him off. But he checked his temper.
“Nice to meet you, DeMarcus.”
“Same here.”
Neither man offered to shake hands.
“Well,” Laura said in a bright tone. “We must be going. Nice running into you, Trey. Hope things are going well.”
He wanted to say, Yeah, I’ll bet you do, you bitch. But that wasn’t who he was, so he just nodded once more and turned back to his drink. Maybe he’d have another.
Right. Because there’s nothing more attractive than a man approaching middle age drunk off his ass in a crowded bar.
“Trey? Is that you?”
Now, who the hell did he have to confront?
He turned on his stool, ready to give someone the polite brushoff, only to be greeted by a familiar face.
“Zack? Zack Elliott? What the hell are you doing up here?”
He reached out and shook the hand of the man standing beside his barstool. Several of the firm’s clients used Elliott Air Service to pick them up and ferry them to winter homes in the South or to the high-end resorts they frequented. He knew Zack had moved his base of operations from Atlanta to Page Field in Fort Myers, Florida, when he had reunited with his college sweetheart, twenty-five years after they broke up, and married her.
“Picking up Davis and Trish McAuliffe and ferrying them down to Barefoot Bay. They want to leave early in the morning, so I came up the day before to be ready. I just did one gig, same day turnaround. I figured I’d do this and take a couple of days off.”
“Barefoot Bay?” Trey frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”
“You’d love it,” Zack told him. “Sun, sandy beaches, the Gulf. Got its own minor league baseball team. Lots of small-town events.”
“You know me,” Trey reminded him. “Do I look like the type to sit around doing nothing?”
Zack laughed. “Believe me, there’s plenty to do there to keep you occupied. Talk to your clients. Get their feedback.”
Trey snorted. “They’ll tell me it’s a great place for couples.”
“It’s a great place for everyone, couples or not.” He tapped Trey on the arm with his fist. “I don’t mean to pry, but your clients tell me you spend all your time working. Maybe a little R&R wouldn’t hurt.”
Trey frowned. “Is that the only thing my clients tell you?”
Zack laughed. “Hey, man. Guys our age need to make time for all the fun we can.”
Trey chuckled. “You don’t look like you’re slowing down any.”
“This is fun for me. I get to do what I love best and come home to the love of my life.”
Trey had to forcibly squelch a sharp stab of jealousy.
“Sounds good to me.”
“Listen.” He reached into the inside pocket of his lined flying jacket and pulled out a brochure. “I always carry a couple of these with me. You never know who you might run into who could use one.”
Trey had to laugh. “You mean like me?”
Zack shrugged. “Just sayin’. Look it over. If you can get away quick, I’ve got room for another passenger tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Trey didn’t consider himself that impulsive.
“I’ll give it some thought. Thanks.”
Zack took out a pen and wrote something on the brochure. “My cell. Call me if you decide to do it. I’ll call and get you a reservation. I might have more luck than you would. But we’re wheels-up at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, so I’d need to know by tonight.”
“I promise I’ll mull it over.”
He sat at the bar, nursing his drink, long after Zack had left. Thinking and unconsciously rubbing the stubble beard he’d cultivated. He’d waited for one of his partners to say something, but he got the idea they were all tiptoeing around him. Not quite sure what to say. Art was the first one to bring up the whole mess.
He was about to order another drink when he changed his mind and looked at the brochure Zack left with him. The Casa Blanca Resort and Spa looked like a rich man’s paradise, with its lush foliage, Moroccan architecture, and endless amenities. A picturesque town that had tourist stamped all over it and a baseball team, for crying out loud. Well, hell, he was a rich man now, wasn’t he? At least extremely well-off.
What the hell, DeMarcus. Do something besides feel sorry for yourself or eat yourself alive with anger.
The image of Laura with her man toy popped into his brain, making him gnash his teeth.
All right, damn it. Enough.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Zack Elliott’s number.
“That was fast.” Zack’s voice was tinged with amusement. “I haven’t even made it back to the hotel yet.”
“How hard is it to get reservations at this place? My clients tell me it’s usually booked.”
“Let me call,” Zack said. “We’ll see how much pull I actually have at the place.”
Trey fidgeted while he waited for Zack’s callback. When the phone rang, he snatched it up. “Well? Is it as go?”
I tried for a villa,” Zack told him, “but they said the last one was just taken. However, I can tell you the suites in the main building are not to be sneezed at.”
“I don’t need a whole villa. Whatever they’ve got will be fine. Just tell me where and what time you need me tomorrow, and I’ll be there.”
Next, he called Phyllis.
“I’m taking your advice,” he told her.
“You are? Well, good for you. Tomorrow, we can talk about some options, and I’ll check out reservations for you. I’m so glad you’re doing this.”
“I hope you’ll be just as happy when I tell you I’m saving you a lot of work. I have a destination, and I’m leaving tomorrow morning. Take me off the books for two weeks and shuffle my appointments around.”
There was complete silence on the other end of the call.
“Phyllis? You still there?”
“Uh, yes, I am. I didn’t think anything could shock me, but you win the prize.”
He frowned, wondering if he was presuming too much.
“Will this work okay? It won’t put too much of a burden on you or leave anyone in the lurch?”
“We’ll be fine. I’ll make it fine. You deserve this so just leave it all to me. I have your cell number if there’s an emergency, but there’d better not be one.”
He chuckled. “I like how you think. See you in a couple of weeks.”
Warm sunshine and no responsibilities for two weeks. That ought to put anyone in a good frame of mind. For the first time in months, he found himself smiling and actually looking forward to something.