We ended up at the little stretch of boutiques on Pelican Row that the tourists loved. Lana had stopped crying and was walking between us with her hands shoved in her pockets, quieter than usual, but I hoped she was better.
We went into the first boutique. I drifted toward the back where the sundresses were hanging in a row by color, lightest to darkest.
“This one,” Lana said from beside me, holding up a dress in pale green with thin straps and a low back. “You’d look incredible in this.”
I took it from her and held it up against myself. “It’s pretty.”
“It’s more than pretty,” she said. “Try it on.”
“I don’t need a new dress.”
She gave me a pointed look. “You might need another one. I’m seeing more dates in your future.”
I laughed and draped it over my arm. I kept moving along the rack and found a second one almost immediately. I pulled that one too.
Capri emerged from the dressing room in a yellow wrap dress that looked like it had been made specifically for her body. She spread her arms. “Well?”
“Buy it,” Lana and I said at the same time.
She turned back to the mirror with a satisfied nod. “Already decided.”
I tried on the dress and immediately pictured Colt’s face when he saw me in it. I was buying the sea glass dress.
We spilled back out onto the sidewalk with our paper bags. Capri looked at me with that smile that said she was up to no good and therefore I was going to be up to no good.
The shop was called something tasteful and vague, something about forbidden fruit. I’d been in there exactly twice in my life. I was a chicken and couldn’t imagine any of the locals telling my father I had gone in there.
But Capri was on a mission. Lana walked right in without hesitation, which surprised me. She picked up a hanger immediately and held up something black and delicate and shrugged at me like it was the most casual thing in the world. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just didn’t peg you for a regular.”
She grinned in response. I moved slowly, surveying the options. Everything in here was soft and beautiful and very much not the practical cotton I usually defaulted to.
I picked up something pale blue. Not unlike the dress. Soft satin with just a whisper of lace at the edges. Simple. Not trying too hard but definitely sexy.
I thought about Colt on the floor of my bedroom. I thought about the look on his face when I’d pulled my shirt off. And I made the decision to buy the little scraps of satin. I couldn’t wait to tease him. Or have him tease me. There would be lots of teasing.
CHAPTER 36
COLT
Ispent the better part of the afternoon at the kitchen table with my laptop and a cold bottle of water, working through the legal angle on the Front Street covenants. My attorneys in Texas had pulled the original documentation within an hour of me forwarding the details Gideon had given me. What they sent back was better than I’d hoped. The covenants were airtight. Old language, carefully written by people who had clearly anticipated exactly the kind of game a developer might attempt. Whoever had drafted those documents back in the nineties knew what they were doing. I made a mental note to send Gideon a very nice bottle of whiskey.
Judd’s lawyers were good. I knew that better than anyone because I’d used the same firm before. Finding a workaround was going to take time and money and public scrutiny that was only going to get louder the longer this dragged out. The video had done its work. My phone had been ringing steadily since noon. The calls I did take were from investors.
Judd hadn’t called. I imagined him sitting in a war room plotting against me. It almost made me laugh to think of him on his treadmill, sweating and grunting through one Zoom meeting after another.
I was deep in a document my attorney had flagged when a notification popped up on the corner of my screen. Facebook messenger. I almost ignored it. Then I saw the name.
Bodhi Callahan.
That was unexpected. Or maybe he was going to try to run me out of town so he could have Summer all to himself. If he thought we were going to have a dick measuring contest, he was going to lose. And after my night with Summer, I knew she was mine.
I clicked the message, prepared for a biting reply.
Saw your thing today. Took some guts. Bonfire tonight down at the south end. Old spot. Show up if you want. Could use less assholes in the world and you might be working your way off that list. 9pm. Don’t be weird about it.
I leaned back in my chair and laughed. I wasn’t sure what kind of invitation was considered friendly. But it was Bodhi. He’d annoyed the hell out of me over previous summers for reasons that had everything to do with the way he looked at Summer and nothing to do with any actual fault of his. I wasn’t ever going to be his buddy, but it was an olive branch.