“Laney?”
I considered arguing, but decided it wasn’t worth my time. After all, I’d already driven all over Las Vegas with these men, and while it hadn’t exactly been a harmless venture, neither of them had allowed anything to happen to me either.
Well, not anythingbad, I supposed.
Although maybe the jury was out on that, too.
Still, for the second time in a week, I followed Ronan Black into a strange car. The engine started with a rumble.
“Where’s home, sweetheart?” Ronan asked.
Oh. Hmm. “Just bring me however far north you’re going.”
Ronan shrugged. “My hotel, then. I’m staying at…” He looked up to Mac.
“The Hotel Ballard,” said the big man.
“The Hotel Ballard,” Ronan repeated with a saucy grin.
Oh, no. I knew what happened with Ronan Black, me, and hotels. And I wasn’t doing that again. “Absolutely not.”
Ronan sighed in defeat.“Fine. Then take us someplace where we can talk.”
Twenty-minutes later,the car pulled up into a broad parking lot typically reserved for boat trailers. A few people were parked here this time of night, but not so many that we would risk being overheard or seen while we spoke. And there were things to discuss, I thought. Especially given Megan’s request.
“So, it’s a beach? But it’s called Golden Gardens?” Ronan wondered as we stepped out of the car and were met by the briny scent of the Puget Sound lapping at the edge of the sand bordering this corner of the city in Northwest Seattle.
Golden Gardens wasn’t actually that far from where I lived, by Seattle standards. I could walk here in about an hour from my apartment or jog in closer to forty, which I did frequently. I liked the way the park was bordered by tall bluffs, so that when you came here, there was a true sense of escaping the city while. You could look out across the Sound, watch ferries and cargo ships, and on nice days, take in the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Olympics.
“It’s a beach,” I confirmed as I took off my shoes and wrapped the straps of my sandals around one hand.
“Should I go barefoot too?”
“No. I just can’t walk in the sand in heels, and my feet cannot take one more minute trapped in these things.”
Ronan, however, was already shucking his brogues and socks, then rolling up his suit pants until his ankles were bared. “Lead on.”
He followed me across the gravel path and onto the beach proper, a stretch of soft sand that gradually gave way to more unforgiving rocks, barnacles and seaweed closer to the water’s edge.
It was a nice night to walk, though difficult, as it always was, not to get mired in memories. There was the jungle gym I’d visited since I could walk. The copse of trees where Jacob Esveldt and I shared our first kiss together.
And there was the spot where Mom and Dad had informed me that her cancer wasn’t going to heal this time.
“So,” Ronan broke through my thoughts. “Now I want to hear about the asshole. I gave you compliments. You owe me a story.”
I snorted lightly. I knew those compliments were too good to be true. “Well, see that bench? That’s where he proposed three months after we started dating.”
“Tell me you turned him down. Threemonths?”
“As opposed to approximately three hours?”
He snorted. “Touché. Still, though.”
I chuckled. “I did turn him down. We were only eighteen, and we’d barely graduated high school. He didn’t take it well. Actually, I think it made him even more determined to win me over.” I looked up at Ronan. “Given our first interactions, it might surprise you to hear that I’m not usually a very impulsive person.”
Ronan ignored that comment. “So, how did you meet Mr. Wrong?”
I shrugged as we continued to walk. In the distance, a ferry horn blew long and low. “High school. He saw me sitting alone at the Sadie Hawkins dance, waiting for Megan and Kevin to stop making out so we could go home.”