The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
“Kim’s helping?” Jake asked on raised brows, the three men sitting at that table with him being the only men, outside Coert’s brother and father, who knew all that Kim had pulled.
“So far she’s been great,” Coert told him.
“Hope that doesn’t end,” Mickey said.
“You and me both,” Coert replied.
“That boy needs to get his head out of his ass,” Alyssa proclaimed loudly.
Elijah.
Coert was suddenly glad the poor guy hadn’t been roped in to be there with them and he hoped Kath and all of them made it through the rest of their visit without visiting him to extract, what they thought was his head out of his ass.
“Probably good whatever’s goin’ on with Cady’s renter is goin’ on or they’d be pecking over your carcass,” Jake noted.
Coert watched the waiter move around the women taking drink orders and returned, “No doubt they’ll get to that.”
“And this eighteen years Alyssa’s been on about?” Junior prompted.
Coert glanced at his menu, made his decision, closed it and looked at Junior.
The last week had been busy with Janie, New Year’s, the madness that caused at work and Cady’s family. But he’d found time to take Janie over to see Con before he went back to school. And when he did, Jake and Josie had gotten the full story while Con, his girlfriend (incidentally, also Alyssa and Junior’s daughter) Sofie, Amber and Ethan had looked after Janie.
Now it was clear from Junior’s question and the feel of Mick’s eyes on him that Jake hadn’t shared.
He had to wait to answer while the men gave their drink orders.
When the waiter left, he launched in.
“Eighteen, now nearly nineteen years ago, the high school friends Cady was beginning to realize were people she didn’t want in her life were people she seriously didn’t want in her life, because they were getting involved with a crew that sold dope. She didn’t know that part. She was just coming to the understanding they were bad news. I was undercover to bring this crew down. This was a bad situation significantly exacerbated by me gathering evidence that proved her best friend murdered her boyfriend, another friend Cady’d had for years, as a show of loyalty to the ringleader. She didn’t know any of that either and I was under orders not to tell her. And as you could probably guess, things did not go well when the truth was outed.”
“Holy fuck,” Mick muttered.
“Yeah,” Coert agreed. “Neither me or Cady handled any of that well. She was young, I wasn’t much older, the situation was a mess and ugly got uglier. We were together for a while as my undercover work was happening. It was intense, we both knew it was forever, but in the end it was too much and we couldn’t deal. We both perpetrated fuckups of massive proportions. Cue those eighteen years.”
Coert stopped speaking and when he said no more, Junior stated, “And now she’s back.”
Coert looked to him. “As soon as we think Janie can handle it, she’s moving in, we’re getting married and we’re getting pregnant. Though considering our ages, I’m not sure those last two will be in that order.”
Junior, a huge man with a bald head who looked more like a mafia enforcer than the devoted family man he actually was, smiled huge. “So she’s back.”
“She was the one then and nothing changed in the time in between,” Coert told him.
“Happy for you, man,” Mickey said.
“Thanks,” Coert murmured.
“Oh my God, Coert, it’s like a romance novel!” Alyssa cried.
Coert looked to her, to Cady at her side, who was grinning even if she was rolling her eyes, and felt his lips twitch.
“Now they’re peckin’ over you,” Junior said under his breath.
“There are worse things,” Coert replied, and Lord knew there absolutely were. He glanced at Junior then at Mickey before he looked to Jake. “We need to talk about something else.”
“What’s that?” Jake asked.
“Did you know Boston Stone was behind the rezoning of the land around the lighthouse?” Coert queried.
He felt the tension of the men and it wasn’t just because they all knew Stone was pure dick. It was because Stone had made a play for Josie that turned very ugly and he’d also made a play for Amelia that hadn’t turned as ugly, but Stone had tried.
So they really weren’t big fans.
“No. Is there an issue?” Jake asked.
“Terry Baginski got in touch with Cady last Sunday. Told her Stone wants to buy the lighthouse because he wants to build a resort there,” Coert explained.
“He can want whatever he wants,” Mick said, and Coert looked at him to see him finish a shrug. “If she owns it, and she owns it, he can’t do dick.”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Coert told him. “But I looked into it and there’s an application submitted by Baginski on behalf of some corporations I’ve never heard of, but I probably wouldn’t have to look too hard to find that they’re cover for Stone in partnership with others, to have the parkland around the lighthouse stripped of its protections in order for it to be allocated as commercial.”
“Are you shitting me?” Jake demanded.
Coert shook his head. “When I uncovered that, I made a few more calls and found that Stone and these others have already contracted with an architecture firm to have plans drawn up for a hotel, some shops and restaurants.”
“That would change the entire face of Magdalene,” Junior pointed out.
“Considering Stone and two of his four partners are on the board that governs that unincorporated land, unless there’s a move to stop it, it will change the face of Magdalene,” Coert shared.
“It’s a conflict of interest for them to approve something like that,” Jake put in.
“Not sure they mind stepping down but I am sure some of their buddies with membership at the Magdalene Club will step right in to push approval of all of this through without anyone in Magdalene having a say about it,” Coert told them.
Jake’s eyes were on him. “And you really can’t have a say about it.”
Coert shook his head but said, “I’m a human so I can have an opinion and I’m a citizen so I can vote, but in my capacity as sheriff I can’t make any moves, especially in regards to this, considering the owner of the property that’s going to be most affected if they build is my future wife.”
Jake nodded. “I’ll talk to Weaver.”
“Arnold Weaver? The attorney?” Junior asked.
Jake lifted his chin to Junior in verification.
This was a good call. Coert knew Arnie Weaver. Born and bred and built his family in Magdalene, he’d also lost his wife there not long ago and he used to be a city council member who was dogged in preserving the town as it was. It probably wouldn’t take much to talk him into spearheading an attack on whatever legal obstacles they faced in stalling anything happening to that parkland before they could get a new referendum on the ballot to recall the old one.
“You might ask him to get in touch with Jackie at the Historical Society,” Coert suggested. “Cady explained the call she got from Terry and Jackie lost her mind. There are some heavy hitters in Magdalene who sit on the Historical Society’s board, and if you corral them and Weaver gets Magdalene’s City Council interested, you might be able to stonewall them long enough to get another referendum on the ballot for the election in November.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow,” Jake returned.
“Mickey,” Alyssa cooed. “I thought Coert was going to be my most favorite man of the night, notwithstanding you, my beautiful bruiser,” she said to her husband before blowing him an exaggerated kiss and looking back at Mick. “But you’re giving him a run for his money!”
“Now they’re pecking over you,” Coert informed Mickey unnecessarily.
Mick just lifted an arm and draped it across the back of Amelia’s chair.
Amelia turned her eyes to her man and gave him much the same look Cady had given Coer
Yeah, she was pretty.
And from the way Mick’s face got soft when he caught her look, Coert had confirmation that things weren’t good for his friend, they were awesome.
Coert liked that.
Mickey’s ex-wife was a decent woman but she was also an alcoholic who was relatively functioning out in the world, if you didn’t count the times Coert’s deputies had pulled her over for driving intoxicated. And she was able to function because Mick smoothed so much over for her, especially with their kids.
But when the kids got older and Mick was finding it harder and harder to smooth things over, he’d given her an ultimatum. When he did, she’d chosen the bottle over her husband and family and Mickey had to call it done.
It was a bad situation and it had been shit, watching Mick deal with the decision of having to tear his family apart in an effort to make them stronger by giving his kids healthy for the part time he had them and dealing with the fallout after they came back from her.
He didn’t know what was happening with Mick’s ex now.
He just knew Mick wasn’t a man to put his children through that with their mother only to find another woman that might bring anything into their lives other than the soft that came about Mickey when he took in her smile.
The waiter approached with a colleague, both bearing trays covered in glasses.
Coert looked to Cady, who was being served and receiving her wineglass with a smile, and he didn’t look forward to telling her what he hadn’t yet told her. This being what he’d just shared with the men about Boston Stone.
She was going to lose her mind.
She reached to her glass and lifted it, considering Pam was making a toast that the men weren’t involved in, and Coert allowed the happy contentment in her face to settle in his gut.
That woman wearing that dress was in his life. Her dog was in his life. Her family was in his life. And all of that was a part of his daughter’s life.
He did not want to be dealing with Boston Stone.
More, he did not want her to have to deal with Boston Stone.
But if they could get through what they’d gone through and she’d end that sitting at a table (far from him, but she was still there), with her family and his friends, wearing that dress with that look on her face, they’d get through whatever a dick like Boston Stone had planned.
No sweat.
So when Coert’s beer was served, he grabbed it and took a drink.
And when the waiter came around to him, he ordered his meal and slipped him his credit card in order to share his quarter of the bill.
The waiter was walking away as Kath exclaimed, “No! The cloak room? My God!”
Mickey got tense at his side and did not relax after Alyssa declared, “Junior, after appetizers, we’re checking this out. Mickey and Amy can’t hog all the best make-out spots.”
Mick muttered, “We got one. One fuckin’ make-out spot.”
It was then Coert took in the huge smile Cady shot his way and Coert settled in to enjoy an excellent dinner at The Eaves with his friends.
Even though Cady, in that dress, was too fucking far away.
“What?” Cady fairly shrieked.
Midnight woofed.
Coert sighed as he took this as indication he was going to have to wait even longer to get Cady out of her dress.
He’d shared Stone’s plans on the way to his place after dropping the women off at the lighthouse and picking up Midnight.
Now they were in his kitchen and Cady hadn’t even taken her coat off before she lost her mind.
“Cady, I told you he was pure dick.”
She tossed her purse on his island and started to unbutton her coat as she returned, “Yes, you told me that he was pure dick. What you didn’t share was that he’s Magdalene’s version of the antichrist. I mean, do you know what he did to Josie?”
“Jake filled me in,” Coert murmured. “And I was kinda involved seeing as I arrested that asshole of an uncle of hers that Stone dug up to harass her.”
She shrugged off her coat. “Her grandmother had just died.”
“Cady—”
“And he tried to get funding cut at the firehouse just because Amy didn’t return his phone calls,” she snapped.
Midnight woofed again, like the good dog she was, sharing in Cady’s irritation even if she had no dog clue what it was about.
Coert put his own coat on the hook by the door in the laundry room, where he still was, and moved to her.
“Jake’s going to talk to an attorney in town. We’ll get Jackie in touch with him. And you and Jackie can talk to the council to get rolling whatever ball they’ve got to get rolling.”
He took her coat from her and moved back to the hooks to hang it up so it was to his back when she replied, “This rezoning might have passed for a reason, Coert. Building like that creates jobs. A hotel can accommodate more tourists and this town exists mostly on tourist trade. More tourists, more people, more money. It might not be that people will want to recall that referendum. And if there’s no support to fight it, all will be lost.”
Coert walked back to her and put his hands on her neck.
“First, they’d have a helluva job to get support because the referendum barely passed the first time it was up for a vote, and people didn’t know then precisely why it was up for that vote. Now, they will. And this town has tourist trade because it’s like stepping back in time two hundred years. It’s also because, from anywhere you look, you have unadulterated views of that lighthouse. There might be some who don’t see that this is the attraction and if it isn’t maintained, like every other town that overdeveloped in order to milk that kind of cash cow to the point it died, that cash cow will just plain die when Magdalene gets full of fast food joints and crap fish and chips stands and loses the charm that’s the draw in the first place. But I think most realize the people who will profit in the short run, before they cut and run, are the ones who will push this through and then be retired to their beach houses in Florida while everyone else deals with the fallout of their greed. So I think if it’s brought to people’s attention what the plans are, they’ll recall the rezoning of that land.”
“Greed breeds greed,” she returned.
“No one had any idea why the referendum for that land to be rezoned was put on the ballot and it doesn’t really have anything to do with them until something like this comes up. Now that it’s come up, something that didn’t matter will matter.”
“People think in immediates, Coert. They think about what’s going to put food on their tables. Not how their world is going to change when men from North Carolina stop coming up here to see the lighthouse in springtime because the view isn’t what it used to be,” she returned.
“People hate change, Cady. It’s one thing to vote or abstain on that vote because you don’t care because you don’t think anything’s going to change, and it’s something else to have the understanding of why that was brought to a vote in the first place and be able to make an informed decision. We just need to put a stop to anything happening in the now so that people can be informed and then make a decision.”
He knew she had no argument to that when she snapped, “Why hasn’t this man been run out of town on a rail?”
He grinned. “Because it’s not against the law to be a dick but it is against the law to run someone out of town on a rail.”
“I don’t find this funny, Coert. Not only is this very concerning, I’ve never even met this man and he’s ruining a good night. Dinner was utterly delicious. The company was even better. And the unknown Boston Stone has cast a pall over all of that.”
Coert ran a finger across the top of her bare shoulder, his gaze not leaving hers, and he murmured, “Then how about we stop talking about him and get back to having a good night.”
He wasn’t being vague but he knew she got him when he watched her eyes heat.
He got closer and his voice went low. “Did I tell
“In words, no,” she replied. “The look you gave me when you walked into the lighthouse and the kiss you gave me before we walked out said it all, though.”
He dipped his face to hers. “Pleased that message was conveyed, baby.”
“I’m not sure I told you how much I like you in this suit,” she shared.
“I’m pretty sure I like you in that dress more than you like me in my suit,” he parried, his voice coming rough.
With the slight widening of her eyes and the sway of her body he knew he’d made his point.
“Are we going to go slow? I’m in the mood to go slow,” she told him, trying to sound bossy like Kath, and failing because it came out breathy. “It’s been a whole week and I’m thinking you can’t go slow after it’s been a whole week.”
Now she was challenging him.
“We’re totally going to go slow,” he promised, running his finger back up and continuing on that journey along the side of her neck.
“You keep saying that and we go fast,” she returned.
Coert dropped his mouth to hers but he didn’t kiss her or release her gaze.
“It’s you being tied to the bed this time, honey. So we’re absolutely going to go slow.”
He felt her breath come faster against his lips.
“All we have is wool scarves. You can tie a man up with wool scarves. When it’s the woman, it has to be something else,” she informed him in barely a whisper.
“You think after what we did and I knew I’d get my turn I didn’t hit that place on the jetty that sells women’s clothes, you’d think wrong.”
“You bought scarves?” she breathed, leaning into him, but Coert inched back just to tease.