Chapter Four
Dismissal Without Prejudice
The lounge singer near the band had had one too many drinks and was slurring now, and it was barely past ten o’clock. Why Dane felt obligated to come to these things, he’d never understand. It wasn’t as if any actual legal work was accomplished at these necktie-noose functions thrown by the so-called upper crust of Maddox, even if they did happen at LaBarge Mansion.
Not that he had anything better to do with his summer now that Dr. Dirtface had shot his plans to kingdom come forty-nine days ago, but who was counting?
Still, Tweed Law insisted he show, and bring a date.
With all this cigar smoke, the European tapestries in these swanky digs were going to be tar-stained in no time. Dane knew— his parents had been chain-smoking maniacs and he’d thought their white curtains were brown until he washed them after they bugged out to the state correctional facilities at Deerfield when he was twelve.
Good riddance.
“Dane!” Jeannie, this week’s placeholder, squealed at his elbow, back with another drink. “It’s just bursting with celebs tonight. I think I saw Zero Miro over there. He’s got an amazing art collection.” She bubbled on about it for a bit, but Dane wasn’t listening. He hadn’t listened to anything anyone had said during the past six weeks.
Keep your distance. Until I tell you otherwise. That was the last thing he’d heard.
“You want a stuffed mushroom, Jeannie?” The girl he regularly took to these was a sucker for hors d’oeuvres. “I saw a waiter with a tray of them go by. I think he was near Zero Miro.” That sent her off again, and left Dane with his wound. And the unclaimed ring from Appleton Jewelers in his pocket.
Jeannie reappeared too soon and draped herself over him for a moment before seeing someone more interesting. “Ooh, look. It’s Marshall Yamamoto. I think I made him a True Husky back in college.” Ah, another collegiate kissing ritual Dane didn’t care about but Jeannie loved. “It wasn’t serious. Not like I feel about you.”
She bounced off to gossip and name drop, while Dane wondered how Brooke would like these parties. Well, she wouldn’t, and that was that, but she’d look better than any of the other women here.
Dane glanced around. Over in the corner sat the Maddox County Treasurer, a guy whose hand had recently been caught in the till. Now it was caught in a bird’s nest of blonde hair while a woman sat on his lap. She could’ve passed for that skanky wife of one of the Tweed Law partners, Jackson. Poor Jackson.
Then Dane’s stomach clenched when the aging blonde looked over and winked at him. He looked away quickly, his skin crawling. Poor, poor Jackson.
He could wallow some more about losing Brooke to that Crosby jerk, but the truth was Dane had no one to blame but himself. With more than a decade to do something about his feelings for her, he’d delayed, telling himself the time wasn’t right, that he was walking around with a neon Rockwell sign flashing over his head, and Brooke couldn’t have that stigma— not until he cut the power to it by finally doing something right. Big and right— graduating from law school and passing the bar and getting a real job at a real law firm.
Yeah, the very instant he could reach the pull-chain to shut it off, he’d raced toward her— too late. Too slow. Too bad.
He took a stuffed mushroom for himself and shoved it all in his mouth in a single bite of self-loathing.
Well, an excuse surfaced, the first few years of knowing Brooke didn’t count. He’d been too young and dumb, and she’d been a gangly giraffe, not to mention Quirt’s kid-sister.
And then came the accident. The weighty stuff that changed everything for him and his mindset and his focus.
Whether or not Quirt still hadn’t talked about it— what did they call that? Survivor’s guilt? Just because Quirt had been the only Chadwick not in the car that tragic night— Brooke had lost their parents, too. She’d needed someone to talk to, and Quirt hadn’t been up for it. Their aunt who’d taken Brooke in had been busy mourning her brother. Nobody else had been there for Brooke.
So though Dane had never been much for talking about heavy stuff, and there’d been nothing to say, at least not from his end, he’d tossed her that baseball, over and over again— on the hospital lawn where she sat until she could walk without crutches, then down at Chadwick Field during the hot summer’s humidity like steam, and later on the packed sand of the beach.
Eventually she talked. Some. And he tossed the baseball. And he knew: Brooke could fill the emptiness. All the emptiness. He’d known her forever. Maybe he’d loved her all along.
Six weeks ago, he finally was ready to make his move, grad certificate and diamond ring in hand, so in spite of brotherly objections, Dane had kissed Brooke at church that day, the second that jolly-good-fellow of a pastor gave him such a clear opening. Not like Dane would pass up that golden ticket, and he’d been rewarded well, the way Brooke’s lips had been honey and cinnamon. Even better and more surprisingly, they’d returned his passion, mixing up his innards and renewing his faith, until—
The bombshell that she’d agreed to marry that Crosby drip, and now an echo of her reaction. You helped me commit social suicide, she’d said, the words a scalpel.
Six endlessly long weeks ago, and nothing had been the same since. She was gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Dane found a spot on the red and gold wallpaper to lean against. Maybe Jeannie would change her mind and leave with that Yamamoto yahoo.
Uh, no such luck.
“Oh, my stars and garters. You are not going to believe what just happened. Guess. No, wait. Kidding. I know you hate to guess.”
Indeed, he hated to guess.
“Never mind.” Jeannie’s words bounced on. “I was talking to Marshall, when up walked Tiana Gorbett, and she told Marshall that Charli LaBarge eloped.”
Jeannie coughed on the last word, expecting a reaction, but Dane didn’t give one. The words meant nothing to his hollow shell of a gossip-ignoring man.
“Of course Charli LaBarge is no everyday bride.” Jeannie pressed on. “You know. Sergeant Faro LaBarge’s only daughter.”
Oh, that Charli LaBarge. Every red-blooded American male on the whole Chesapeake seaboard knew about Charli LaBarge. Owner of her own designer clothing label, as well as Miss Virginia the year Brooke competed, she was a ten in both categories of the Crazy-Hot Matrix.
“Shocking.” Dane pulled a shrimp puff from a passing tray, and Jeannie grabbed two.
“There’s more. Guess who snaffled her.” She didn’t wait for his guess, thank heaven above. “That baseball-player doctor from…hey, that’s your hometown. Maddox. Ames Crosby.”
Dane went deaf to everything else in the room for a minute.
Ames Crosby. Couldn’t be.
“That’s not good info, Jeannie.” He patted the air in front of her face to signal her to lower her voice. Dane couldn’t have her spreading gossip, not about the man Brooke was marrying, hatred for Crosby burning with the fire of a thousand suns notwithstanding.
“The interwebs do not lie.” Jeannie flashed him an article on her phone. “Eloped to St. Thomas a few weeks ago, and they just barely went public.”
Dane’s lip curled. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” No man in his right mind would trade in the perfection of Brooke Chadwick for crazy, no matter how hot— not unless blackmailed. And medical students were unlikely blackmailing candidates.
“You might get the chance.” Jeannie’s voice sparkled with the salacious gossip. “This is her daddy’s house, after all, and tonight’s party could be a post-wedding couple-debut party. Remember when Charli LaBarge won Miss Virginia— despite that awful talent number?” She coiled her arms around his torso. “Never mind. I guess it’s what every smart girl’s doing now, snagging the Maddox boys.” She batted her ridiculously thick artificial eyelashes at him for a second and then looked away— and practically jumped out of her skin.
Jeannie pointed far too boldly across the room. “See? What’d I tell you? Georgie was right.”
In a dim corner of the room with a tall pub table a couple sat, clearly romantically involved.
Dane strained his eyes. There sat Crosby. Beside him was Charli LaBarge, all right. Long black hair, and legs from here to San Francisco. They were the stuff of legends, stemming out from beneath her short skirt at the cocktail table. A hot anger blurred Dane’s vision.
So, Dr. Jekyll proposed to Brooke, and then two seconds later went all Mr. Hyde and married Sarge LaBarge’s hot, possibly crazy daughter. Bad move, Bucko.
Well, somebody was going to point out his error to him.
Dane stalked toward them with laser-like focus.
Who does that? Who proposes to freaking Miss Chesapeake in front of her whole town and then dumps her the second someone better-connected comes along?
Dane’s blood went from boiling to pressurized steam.
“Uh, how close are you planning to get to them, Dane?” Jeannie laughed nervously. “Oh, duh— you probably know him. Same town and stuff.” She giggled. “Maybe we’ll make the society papers— two It Couples side by side.”
No universe existed where a paparazzo would ever snap a picture of a Rockwell. News reporters, yeah, on the front steps of courthouses all over Virginia, of convicted, sentenced Rockwells blinged out in handcuffs and shackles, but not for tabloid celebrity consumption.
“You’d better stay back, Jeannie.” He brushed her off his arm and pushed toward the corner, his fists both flexing and opening in rhythm with his steps.
However, before Dane could get within ten feet of the traitor, a burly man stepped in his path. “No approaching Faro LaBarge’s family.”
Oh, so that’s how it was. The words sounded thunderous in Dane’s ears, a confirmation that that human maggot really had gone and married into the power family, dissing Brooke in the process.
A rift opened up inside him for Brooke, filled with pain he’d never actually experienced for someone else’s distress. And with that he knew he loved her, truly loved her, whether or not that love ever came back to him in return.
Dr. Crosby needed a dose of doctor-becomes-patient, via Dane’s cracking knuckles, but to get there, he’d have to play it cool, even though he was a house afire inside.
So he shrugged a lazy shoulder at the security agent. “Just a Maddox guy. Dane Rockwell. Former baseballer.” On Matthew Chadwick’s little league team, sure, but still— not a pure lie. He extended his hand to shake, but it was ignored. “Just wanting to give my homeboy a gift. Nothing liquid, perishable, flammable, or whatnot. Just a gesture from all of us back home.” Dane was pretty sure he’d be speaking for the populace when he delivered his gift.
“ID, please.”
Dane gave proof of residency, and the brick wall of a man stepped aside. Adrenaline pulsed, icing his veins.
“Well, if it isn’t Doctor Mister Ames Crosby.” Jackwagon extraordinaire.
Ames looked up from his drink, distraught. Charli looked unhappy, too. Guess the honeymoon was over. Good. They deserved it.
Ames slid his chair back and stood, pulling a napkin off his lap. “I don’t believe we’ve—”
“Dane Rockwell. From Maddox. Just here to deliver feelings of the hearts of the people of my hometown.” He extended his right hand for a handshake.
“Well, that’s really nice of you.” Ames brushed off his suit jacket and reached for Dane’s outstretched hand.
However, when he took it, Dane gripped it hard, yanking Ames right up to him, meeting him chest to chest.
“I know what you did to Brooke Chadwick,” he hissed.
Ames looked sick.
But Dane was undeterred. “This is from all of us. For Brooke.” Clenching tightly his own fist in Crosby’s, Dane brought their joined hands up hard under the guy’s chin, jamming Crosby’s jaw up and knocking his head backward. Only then did Dane let go, just quickly enough to give Crosby’s shoulder a final shove to send him flailing backward to the floor, where he fell with a clatter of sliding chair legs and clinking silverware.
Dane turned on his heel and stalked off. “Congratulations from the people of Maddox,” he hollered at the ceiling just as he was caught by both shoulders and manhandled out of the ballroom by the goons running Charli’s protection detail.
He exhaled in satisfaction at the ache in his left knuckles.
The sight was worth every second of the ride in the back of the cop car.