Nearly Wild Read online

  The money didn’t matter, not really. It was the achievement—or the lack thereof—that rankled him.

  What had Will done, really, that would make his mark? What had he done to help anyone, or enlighten anyone, to change something that needed changing? Chris had done something that mattered. It was just an app, but that app—a dating site with an innovative method of pairing its lonely members—had resulted in marriages, long-term relationships, babies born, families created. That was something.

  And Will?

  He looked at birds.

  He pulled his car up outside the guest house where he lived. The cottage was a miniature version of the main house, with a gabled roof, a wrap-around porch, and gingerbread details in red and blue. He was pulling his equipment out of the trunk when he heard a text message ping his phone, which he carried in his back pocket.

  He shifted his stuff to one arm and checked the phone. It was Chris:

  Coming March 20 to 26, bringing one guest—a woman! ;) Can you have things ready?

  Will texted back with one thumb:

  Sure. Someone special?

  The reply came:

  Time will tell.

  Despite being the matchmaker for thousands of couples, Chris had yet to find his own match. But he was trying.

  At least he had a date, which was more than Will could say for himself.

  The snowy plovers were reasonably good company, but they didn’t do much for his sex life.

  Rose poured two-ounce portions of a fruity chardonnay for a disgustingly cute couple at De-Vine, the wine tasting shop where she worked. They were young—probably no older than midtwenties—and they were smiling with the glow of young love.

  Part of her found it reassuring that couples like this still existed, and another part of her wanted to smack them over their damned heads with a wine bottle.

  The two of them sipped the chardonnay and used snooty wine phrases like “oaky bouquet” and “clean finish.” They didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, but it wasn’t Rose’s job to tell them that.

  “Special occasion?” Rose asked, leaning against the counter.

  The petite, dark-haired woman giggled—she actually giggled. “You could say that.” She looked lovingly at the guy, a sandy-haired preppy type in a Lacoste polo shirt. “It’s our one month anniversary.”

  “Wedding?” Rose inquired.

  “Dating,” the guy said with a proud look on his face.

  Oh, that’s just perfect.

  “Wow. That’s cause for celebration, then,” Rose said, adding another splash of wine to each of their glasses. She felt the burn of bitterness in her stomach. That wasn’t this couple’s fault, though. Oh, no. Clueless bastards.

  “It is, right?” The woman practically bubbled, all fresh-faced and dewy. She clung to her date’s arm.

  “You bet.” Rose tried to keep her voice neutral. “One month—yeah, that’s a great time. Everything’s all new, and fresh. You’re so full of optimism and hope, and love.”

  The woman nodded, pink-cheeked and glowing with happiness.

  “And the sex.” Rose nodded knowingly. “The sex is awesome when the relationship is new. God. You barely want to do anything else, am I right?”

  The woman looked a little uncomfortable, and the man blushed slightly. That was cute.

  “Ah. Well, I—” the guy started.

  “Of course,” Rose interrupted, “that’s when it’s new. Before he lets on that, yes, he told you that you were perfect, he told you that he loved everything about you, but that was before he realized that he hates your hair color, and he doesn’t actually like tattoos, and he really wishes you didn’t wear such skanky clothes.” She raised an eyebrow, and the woman looked down self-consciously at her own plunging neckline.

  “So then he hints that hey, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal for you to change this one little thing about yourself, and you’d do it if you really cared about him. And then that one little thing becomes five little things, and you do some of them because the sex is okay, and you don’t want to go back to binge-watching Netflix on Saturday nights. But you don’t do others, because, you know, he should like you the way you are, or what’s the point? And just when you think it’s going pretty well, you’re feeling proud of yourself because you drew the line—‘This is who I am,’ you told him—he dumps you at the Sandpiper over a basket of fried clams.”

  The woman scowled at her date, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “I don’t even eat clams,” the guy said.

  “That’s why I’m done with men,” Rose declared. She grabbed a wineglass from behind the counter, splashed some pinot grigio into it, and then swallowed it down in one gulp. “Totally. Done.”

  “Rosemary? May I see you for a moment?” Patricia Howard, De-Vine’s owner, was standing behind Rose, looking at her with scorn.

  “Sure, Patricia. Let me just finish up with this tasting.”

  “Uh … I think we’re … We’ll just … ” The guy in the polo shirt got up from his barstool and whispered something to his date.

  “You’ve got four selections left!” Rose declared as the guy tugged at his girlfriend’s arm. The two had a short, whispered disagreement, and then the woman gathered up her purse and the two headed for the door.

  “That’s just like a man,” Rose called after them as they left. “You promise her things! ‘We’ll have a good time,’ you tell her! And then you run like hell at the first sign of trouble!”

  “Rosemary,” Patricia said.

  “They were … I was just … Oh, God,” Rose said.

  Getting lectured would have been one thing. That would have been fine. But when Patricia led Rose into the back room of the store and looked at her with kindness, with sympathy, well, that was worse. Rose felt tears burning her eyes as the older woman patted her shoulder and cooed at her. Rose was horrified that she needed to be cooed at.

  “Honey, do you need to take the day off?” Patricia asked.

  “No, no.” Rose swiped at her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  Rose was sitting in an office chair at the battered oak desk Patricia used for bookkeeping, phone calls, and the random business of running the shop. Patricia, a woman in her midsixties wearing pale pastel separates that had never seen a wrinkle, her hair coaxed into an immovable grey helmet, pursed her lipsticked mouth and made a tsking noise.

  “I knew the first time that man came into the shop that he was wrong for you,” she said, continuing the shoulder patting. “Someone like that could never appreciate you.” Pat pat.

  “Someone like what?” Rose sniffled and took a tissue from the box on the desk.

  “He bought the chocolate wine, for goodness sake,” Patricia said, uttering the phrase chocolate wine as though it were an obscenity.

  “Well, there’s that,” Rose agreed. “You’re right. That was a red flag.”

  “I have a nephew … ” Patricia began.

  “Oh, no. No way. I mean … thanks, but I’m done.”

  Patricia shook her head, her lips pursed. “Rosemary, you’re twenty-eight. You’re not done.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Rose said.

  “Hmm.” Patricia peered at Rose through the little oval glasses that perched on her nose. “I suppose we will, at that.”

  Chapter Three

  Being finished with men was especially problematic when one of your best friends was immersed in wedding plans. Rose tried to be supportive, helpful, and enthusiastic as she, Kate, and Lacy sat around a table at Jitters, the coffee bar where Lacy worked as a barista, listening to Gen go on about cake flavors and centerpieces.

  “The good thing about this cake design is it’s got four tiers, and then the smaller cakes surrounding the base, so we can get eight flavors in there. Something for everybody,” Gen said, showing them a photo on her iPad.

  “Isn’t it a little busy?” Lacy inquired.

  “Maybe.” Gen peered at the cake on her screen. “But, eight fla
vors!”

  “And it’s buttercream instead of fondant,” Kate put in. “Nobody likes fondant. I mean, it’s pretty, but have you ever tasted it?” She grimaced.

  “Rose? What do you think?” Gen said.

  Ah, God. She’d been hoping Gen wouldn’t ask. But now that she had asked, Rose had to be chipper. She wasn’t sure if she could pull off chipper.

  “Huh. … Flavors are good,” Rose managed. She propped her chin on her hand on tried not to sigh.

  “Or we could just break out a bag of Oreos,” Gen said.

  “Really?” Rose said.

  “No, not really.” Gen snatched up one of the bridal magazines she had stacked on the table and smacked Rose on the top of the head with it. “I need to pick a cake! I need to pick the perfect cake! Show some enthusiasm!”

  “Sorry,” Rose said glumly.

  Gen put down the iPad. “I kind of suck, right? Making you think about wedding plans when you’ve just had a breakup? I’m a crappy friend.”

  “You’re not a crappy friend,” Rose assured her. “It’s just … the whole ‘I’m done with men’ thing is hard to sustain while you’re talking about tiers and fondant and … and … God. Cake toppers.”

  “I thought you didn’t even like Jeremy that much,” Lacy said.

  “I … kind of lied about that.”

  “Oh.”

  The dread in that one word, that oh, told Rose what her friends were thinking. That Jeremy wasn’t worth the brooding, the sadness, the moping. The guy was an asshole. But Rose wasn’t the first woman to have fallen for an asshole, and she surely would not be the last.

  “It’s not just Jeremy,” Rose said.

  “Then what else is it?” Lacy leaned forward, her face full of concern.

  “It’s the cumulative effect of … what? … some twelve-odd years of dating and breakups and recovery from the breakups, and then having to find someone new to date. And Gen is done! Kate, too. You guys are done, and I … God. I’m pathetic.”

  “I’m not done,” Lacy said. “We can suffer together.”

  “No.” Rose shook her head. “No, because I’m done, too. No more men. I’m finished. Because men suck. I’ll have books, and wine, and long walks, and … and … I’ll probably have to get a cat, because that’s what women do when they’re done with men. It’ll just be me and the cat. And you guys can visit.”

  “Oh, honey. Men don’t suck,” Kate said, her eyes brimming with sympathy.

  “Your man doesn’t suck. And, okay, Ryan. But the rest of them do.”

  “I think there might be a few others who are okay,” Lacy said.

  “Well, I’m crap at finding them.”

  “Me too,” Lacy admitted.

  “Hey, hey, hey.” Gen waved her arms in the air in front of her. “We’re picking out my wedding cake! We cannot simultaneously bash men while feeling the level of happy optimism that’s required for picking out a really kick-ass wedding cake! So if we could just, you know … stick a pin in the angst. Just for right now.”

  “You’re right.” Rose nodded, determined to try for Gen’s sake. “I’m sorry. Let me see those magazines.”

  “Thank you. Really.” Gen shoved Brides and Martha Stewart Weddings in front of Rose. “And, honey, you’re not done.”

  “Oh, I’m done,” Rose assured her. She flipped through the top magazine. “Jeez, you gotta love Martha Stewart. How do they get icing to do that?”

  Will just about had everything ready for Chris’s arrival. He’d arranged for Cooper House to be cleaned; the pool guy had come and the water was a sparkling blue; the landscaping looked perfect, the hedges crisply trimmed and the flowers dewy and fresh; and the kitchen was stocked with groceries, including Chris’s favorite craft beer and the brand of bottled water his new girlfriend wanted. Everything was so perfect, in fact, that Will couldn’t think of any further excuse to avoid the snowy plover.

  He was just about to get out there again—he was packing his field notes and his equipment into the back of his car—when his phone pinged with a text message from his ex-girlfriend.

  I need to talk to you.

  Will looked grimly at the phone and wondered how long he could simply ignore the message without being an ass.

  On the other hand, this might be an excellent way to put off his research. He decided to yank off the Band-Aid and answer her.

  What about?

  Call me, she wrote.

  Will was standing in the driveway, his car trunk open. He shoved the phone into his back pocket, then paced on the gravel driveway for a while, his sneakers crunching with each step. He looked at the blindingly blue sky, then took a deep breath, ran both hands through his sandy blond hair, and reached for the phone again.

  “Melinda?” he said when she answered.

  “Hi, Will.”

  “What did you need?” He sounded angry, sounded stiff and short with her, and he didn’t mean to. But an ex was an ex for a reason.

  Melinda let out a puff of air. “I wanted to let you know that I’ve started seeing someone.”

  Will propped one hand on his hip while the other held the phone to his ear. He paced some more because it gave him something to do other than thinking about Melinda.

  “Well … that’s great, Melinda, but why are you telling me? Why is it any of my business?”

  “Because the man I’m seeing … It’s Christopher. I’m dating Christopher.”

  “Oh.” He massaged his forehead with one hand. “But … he’s coming out to Cambria this weekend, and he said he’s bringing someone.”

  “Yes. He’s bringing me. I wanted to let you know, instead of just showing up there and surprising you.”

  Will suddenly felt very heavy, and he sat down hard on the back bumper of his car.

  “Ah … I see.”

  “I hope this won’t be too awkward,” Melinda said.

  “Well, I feel pretty safe saying it will be.” It would have been awkward seeing Melinda again under any circumstances. But when you added the fact that she was dating his friend, and added to that the fact that she’d be staying on the property where Will lived, you had a triple layer cake of awkwardness. “Chris didn’t tell me it was you.”

  “He doesn’t know you and I dated. I didn’t tell him. And I don’t see any reason to tell him now.”

  Well, that added a new layer to the cake.

  “Ah, God. Melinda—”

  “Look.” Her voice was firm. “You and I dated, and then we broke up, and then I met Christopher. I didn’t tell him that I knew you because, at first, it just didn’t seem necessary. Then, by the time it was necessary, it was too late to do it without seeming like I was hiding something.”

  “You are hiding something.”

  “But nothing important.”

  Ouch.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she added. “I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant.” He rubbed at his eyes, hard, with one hand.

  “Can we just not tell him?” Melinda said. “Can we just … not ?”

  Will sighed. The sky was so bright he had to squint against its brilliance. “You’re going to have to tell him if you two get serious.”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  By then, it’s going to be a pretty shaky bridge.

  Will was just about to get out there and face the snowy plover when Chris texted him one last thing that he wanted Will to get ready for him before his arrival. Melinda liked a particular Central Coast sparkling wine, and Chris wanted Will to buy a few bottles and put them in the wine cellar.

  On one hand, the amount of crap Chris wanted Will to do for him before a typical visit bordered on the absurd. Why couldn’t the guy buy his own wine? On the other hand, Will was asked to do very little during the periods between visits—and those periods could stretch for months. In the mean time, he had free living quarters most people would kill for.

  So, he sucked it up and thought about where he could get the
wine.

  The winery that made it was more than an hour’s drive from Cooper House, so Will got on the phone with some of the local wine shops to see who might carry it closer to home. On his third call, he found out that De-Vine had a few bottles. Grateful to put off his bird-watching, he got into his car—a 2002 Volvo that was starting to show a little rust due to the constant exposure to ocean air—and drove into town.

  Will knew Rose Watkins a little. She was Kate and Gen’s friend, and Kate and Gen were involved with Will’s friends, so they showed up at the same get-togethers now and then. Of course, beyond that, he’d seen her around. She was hard to miss, with her brightly colored plumage. But they’d never really talked, other than superficial pleasantries. He was a little scared of her, to be honest.

  She was on duty at De-Vine when he walked into the store late on a Thursday morning, the day before Chris and Melinda were scheduled to arrive at Cooper House. Her hair, which changed colors a lot, he’d noticed, was a fascinating blend of hot pink, blue, and purple. She had a little silver barbell piercing her left eyebrow, and a delicate silver hoop, so thin that it was barely noticeable, adorned her right nostril. Her makeup was bold—all dark eyeliner, thick mascara, and dark red lipstick—and her skirt was so short that for a moment after he walked into the shop, he forgot why he’d come.

  “Hey, Will.” She greeted him from where she was straightening a selection of wineglasses, corkscrews, bottle stoppers, and other random items on sale for the tourists. “The Laetitia Brut Cuvée, right? I set aside some bottles for you.”

  “Ah … thanks.”

  “Why don’t you have a seat at the bar while I go into the back and get them?” She sounded friendly, but there was something underneath the friendliness, something darker. He wondered what it was.

  He perched on a barstool and settled in while she went to get the wine. The store was empty, not surprising at this time of day. Sun streamed in through the big windows that faced onto the street. Every surface was crowded with a dazzling array of wine bottles, wine-related signs (WINE—HOW CLASSY PEOPLE GET WASTED), little jars of gourmet food items, decanters, picnic baskets, De-Vine T-shirts, and other items so numerous and varied Will couldn’t even name the purpose of them all.