“I’ll try,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll have some free time, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Part of him just wanted to go inside, store away these good memories for later, and let it all go. Realistically, he knew it was the most he could hope for.Chet was here in town to have a good time and make the most of being away from his family and their pressures. In a week, he was going to return to New York, and that would be it. He turned away and was about to go inside but stopped. “I can probably trade a shift at The Pub with one of the other servers. Viv’s got a teenage daughter, and her birthday is coming up, so she wanted an extra shift. So maybe Wednesday?”
It was the best he could do. But Chet’s smile told him it had been the right answer.
“Excellent. Let me know for sure, and I’ll bring things and make dinner. Then maybe we can drive along the coast, if the weather is good.” He flashed another winning grin, and Darren nodded, waiting for Chet to drive away and taillights of the convertible to disappear before going inside. He needed to change for work and walk the quick distance to The Pub in the next hour, which was totally doable as long as he could keep his head out of the clouds. But that was proving more and more difficult with Chet and that damned smile of his, which seemed to have taken root in his brain.
ChapterFour
Chet spentthe next two days bumming around the area and getting the property information his father asked for just to get the task finished and off his plate. He was sometimes surprised at the things he learned about himself, and one of them was that he didn’t really like spending a lot of time alone.
He wandered through the botanical gardens in Fort Bragg and then took the historically restored Skunk Train into the redwoods, only to be disappointed that it didn’t go all that far or that fast. In his opinion, the thing was aptly named because it stank and wasn’t much fun. Mostly, the ride involved sitting in his seat and watching the trees go by at a pace where he could have gotten out and walked faster. The trees at the end of the line, where the train tunnel had collapsed years ago, were stunning, and he spent time following them up into the sky. But other than that, it was kind of lame. Still, it was something to do.
Killing time, that was all he was doing, and the truth was, he didn’t do it well. At heart, he was relatively impatient, and yet on Tuesday, the clouds rolled in and settled thick, the damp cold penetrating everything. Rather than go outside, he loaded up his iPad with books, got comfortable on the bed, and spent the day reading, ordering room service, and sighing to himself at his growing boredom.
Thankfully, Wednesday morning seemed brighter and less drizzly, so he messaged Darren and walked through town to get the things he wanted for dinner. At the grocery store, he and Darren shared a smile and a few words as he bought the meat hewanted to cook. “Do you want me to keep it here and bring it to the house with me?” Darren asked after checking behind him.
“That would be great,” Chet agreed, after taking a slip so he could pay for the steaks. “Thank you. I don’t have much refrigerator space at the hotel.”
“Darren, are the chickens almost done?” the big man behind him asked gruffly. Chet cleared his throat and met his gaze with a stare he had perfected from his father years ago. He was the customer, after all, and Darren was helping him. “Well, when you’re finished here….”
Darren smiled and took the beef, wrapped in white paper, back with him. Chet waved as he left to do the rest of the shopping.
Once the shopping was done, he filled the tiny refrigerator in his room and wandered thought the rest of town, spending a few hours in a coffee shop and a couple of the art galleries. Nothing in particular caught his fancy, but he liked to look. Then, at a little after five, he put everything for dinner in the car and headed over to Darren’s little house by the edge of the ocean.
He parked and got out, listening to the wind and the waves crashing along the rocks below the bluff. The ocean was stirred up, and in the distance, the water crashed and leapt into the air to get over the rocks in its way.
“I think you better go!” Darren said from inside the house.
Chet grabbed the bags and went up the walk, the voices growing louder.
“I grew up here, and I think I have a right to see the place,” a female voice said.
Chet knocked, and Darren yanked open the door, his eyes huge. He sighed. “Come in,” he said softly. “This is my Aunt Regina, and she was just leaving.” He stepped back, and a woman in a classic Chanel outfit puckered her lips at Darren like she was sucking a lemon.
“Why my mother left you anything…,” she said, down her nose. Chet instantly recognized the self-entitled tone of someone who felt as though the entire world should go their way. Hell, his family lived in that world and had long ago perfected that attitude.
“Do you need me to walk you to your car?” Chet asked.
“At least someone’s knows how to behave,” Regina said with a slight sneer aimed at Darren.
“No. Actually, I just want you to leave,” Chet told her, letting his tony, upper-east-side manner come through. “So, excuse us. Darren and I have plans.” He turned toward the door, and Regina heaved a sigh and finally left.
Darren closed the door and locked it. “God, I hate that woman. She always thought she was better than everyone else.” He shook his head. “Maybe she is. After all, she went to college, married a medical student, and rode his ass into the grave, but not before he made a ton of money… and left it all to her.” Darren heaved a deep breath. “I swear my uncle died just to get the hell away from her.”
“So, she’s your dad’s sister?” Chet asked, trying to remember the family details Darren had told him.
“Yes, and she was pissed as hell that Gramma left the house to me. Regina is as greedy and self-serving as they come. She doesn’t need the house. She has a place in Laguna Hills. That place cost millions, but she shows up every now and then to try to make my life miserable. Gramma was very clear in her will that I got the house. Aunt Regina tried to argue that that meant that she got what was inside and actually hired a truck and some men to try to take everything.”
“Why?”
“Because in her mind, since she’s her daughter, she and my father should get everything by default, even though what they were to get was specified. Basically, they got a few small things,and everything else was left to me. It was hard holding her off, but the lawyer told her that if she took anything, that would be stealing, and I could press charges.”
Chet chuckled. “I could just see her in an orange Chanel jumpsuit.”
Darren’s lips curled upward. “I’d give just about anything for a picture of that. Why she even bothers is beyond me. She tried challenging the will, but didn’t get anywhere, so now I think she’s just being a pain in the ass.”
“Well, my world is full of self-entitled people, and I can tell you that they just feel the world revolves around them. But I can also tell you a few other things. The dress your aunt was wearing is old. It’s not new or particularly current. Her car is in need of work, and if I were willing to guess, I’d say that she may be living in her fancy house, but I bet when your uncle died, she found out that she didn’t have as much as she thought there was.”
Darren grinned like a cat who ate the canary. “So, she was hoping for this house so she could sell it and get herself a payday?”
