9

 

HURRICANE POINT, CALIFORNIA

Gwen made another call. She needed sunshine and celebration. Lucy Chen, bond salesperson, best friend since they’d met at age eight sitting on neighboring desks at middle school, answered with her usual prescience and the smooth jazz voice that beguiled a legion of brokers.

“Boudy! You got news?”

“And then some! Falcon want to invest! And they want to offer me a job. They say they need weather expertise and I have it, so would I come on board.”

“Awesome! Boudy! Well played. Please say you didn’t accept straight off.”

“Luce, I am not an idiot. I’ve brought their proposal home.”

“Right. I am ditching the date, coming over tonight. We need to talk strategy. Just do me a favor. Don’t cook. Let’s hit Carmel.”

“I could be insulted but I’m too happy. You’re on. My treat.”

*   *   *

Gwen found Lucy cruising the shops on Ocean Avenue. She’d already acquired three large, tony shopping bags.

“Candlesticks. Just gorgeous. And alpaca blankets,” said Lucy, holding them up like trophies. “I have a weakness.”

“You ’n’ me both,” said Gwen, giving her friend a giant hug. She grabbed two of the bags. “Here, let me lighten your load.”

Lucy rolled her shoulder. “Thanks.”

“You OK?”

“Shoulder’s playing up. Took a fall at the dojo the other day. Don’t bounce like a fourteen-year-old anymore.”

“Who does? But fourteen-year-olds can’t drink and we can. Follow me, there’s a great new bar by the water.”

“As long as the wine is excellent and chilled. We have a deal to celebrate!”

Gwen’s eyes shone. “And we shall!”

They walked in, snagged a corner table overlooking the beach.

“Let’s order first, then talk,” said Gwen. “I am ravenous.”

“When are you ever not? How you’re not the size of a horse, I don’t know.”

“I ever stop exercising, I probably will be.”

“Now that is what I call a view.”

Gwen, consulting her menu, did not look up. “Isn’t it great? I love this time of evening, sun going down, sea all golden.”

“All golden all right. And ripped.”

Gwen peered up. “The sea? Ripped?”

“Over there,” said Lucy, pointing with her chin. “The dude with the blue surfboard.”

“Hmm,” mused Gwen. The college boy with the seriously chilled surfing style.

“You know him?”

“Dropped in one of Jordie’s waves the other day. No etiquette.”

“Who needs etiquette when they look like that?”

Gwen watched him as, only partially shielded by his car’s open door, he dropped his trunks and pulled on shorts.

“You might have a point,” she said, grinning.

The surfer emerged from behind the door, pulled on a t-shirt and flip-flops. A friend called to him and together they made their way toward the café.

“Bottle of the Hawke’s Chardonnay, please,” Gwen asked the hovering waiter. “We’ll get round to food.”

The waiter, with the speed of the best of his tribe, glided away and back with the bottle, opened it, let Gwen sample and approve it, poured out two glasses, then intercepted the surfer and his friend, giving them a table on the other corner.

The surfer looked up, saw Gwen. His eyes narrowed, then he broke into a cocky smile.

“Oh no,” said Gwen. “He’s coming over.”

“What is your problem, girl?”

“He’s a surfer.”

“Boudy, this is crazy. When are you going to get over Brad?”

Gwen shrugged. “Brad is dead and buried far as I’m concerned. And there’s no law saying I have to like surfers.”

“No one with a pulse would not like that guy.”

The surfer stopped before their table, gave them a dazzling smile. Gwen took him in at a glance: jaw-length tousled brown hair, aware honey-colored eyes harboring some private joke, and curving, sensual lips. But he wasn’t a college boy, she noted. His eyes had deep grooves around them, cut by sun and surf and life. He must have been over thirty, but he had the body of a college-boy athlete still. Six-four, powerfully muscled, not in a showy gym way, but what looked like real, working muscles; a natural, unposed masculinity. Most working men didn’t have the time to nurture a physique like that. She wondered what he did.

“Evening, ladies,” he said in a low-slung voice with a hint of a rasp.

“Good evening,” hummed Lucy.

Gwen growled something inaudible.

“We meet again,” he said to Gwen.

“If you can call sharing the ocean meeting,” drawled Gwen, as if she were quite bored.

The surfer smiled off the barb. He nodded to Lucy. “I’m Dan Jacobsen.”

“I’m Lucy, and this is—”

“Boudy, if I heard right.”

Oh God, thought Gwen, he’d heard them.

“Gwen,” she said archly. “Boudy to my friends.”

Lucy gave him an apologetic look. “Don’t mind her. Low blood sugar.”

“How d’you get to Boudy from Gwen?”

“Boudicca,” said Gwen. “Lucy here gave it to me as a nickname when I was eight, ’cause I liked to fight. It kind of stuck.”

“Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni tribe, kicked the Romans’ asses in Britain, for a time anyway,” he noted wryly. “Yeah, I’ve heard of her.”

“And she looked like a warrior queen, did our Boudy,” added Lucy.

The surfer looked Gwen up and down. Slow, incendiary.

“Still does,” he said. “See you on the waves, Boudy.”

Gwen shook her head, watched the man walk away waving a farewell. He had just the slightest of swaggers, and, like most surfers, a tinge of arrogance. Gwen glowered at his retreating back and took a fortifying glug of wine.

“So, changing the subject before you kick my ass,” said Lucy. “Falcon Capital. Tell all.”

Now Gwen smiled. A dazzler. “Get this! They want to put ten million in, for a twenty percent stake. They want to employ me full time. Apparently my expertise will be ‘useful,’ to them. Salary of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year!”

“You happy with the equity, giving so much away?” asked Lucy levelly, unimpressed by the dollars.

“It’s for Ten. Million. Dollars. Luce! Ten Mill! No more posing in swimsuits. And Oracle gets all the funding it needs. And boy does it need it. Yeah. I’m happy. Plus, I get to keep Hurricane Point House. Do every last damn repair it needs. Get a power shower!”

“No.”

“What d’you mean no?”

“The Oracle money stays in Oracle. It ain’t fungible babe. Be real careful with compliance stuff. Separate bank accounts and all. You need a signing-on bonus. Do up your house with that.”

“Lucy, I don’t want to screw them,” said Gwen, twisting her jade and gold ring round and round in place.

Lucy reached out and grabbed Gwen’s hand. “Cut the ring-twiddling shtick, will you? Know it gets on my nerves.”

Gwen stuck out her tongue, felt about fourteen. “It’s my ring and I’ll twiddle it if I want to.”

Lucy gave an exasperated sigh and released her friend’s hand.

“Listen, Boudy, they’re freaking venture capitalists. They’ll be screwing you, and so well you’ll just sit there and say, more, and that’s kind of fine, up to a point, but please, please don’t ever hold back on screwing them when you get the chance.”

“So, I screw them back. OK. I get that.”

“They’ll respect you for it in the morning. I promise. The last thing you want to be is easy in their world. So, your golden hello…”

“Please don’t tell me that’s like a golden shower.”

Lucy burst out laughing. “Shower of cash, babe. Ask for $100k. And listen, if they want you, they’ll pay for you. $100k is peanuts to Gabriel Messenger, a few minutes work.”